low light mixes

Migrations - an ambient field mix

I have been interested in doing a mix of field recordings ever since I did the shortwave mix last year. I've been collecting field recordings from various sources & even bought a digital recorder so I could do my own phonography.I haven't really had the time to seriously record anything but I did manage to squeeze a few of my own things into this new mix. There is very little proper music in this mix. It's mostly field recordings that I downloaded from sites like Quiet American and SoundTransit. Some of the recordings are from cd's that I own. Most of the music is music that already has field recordings built into the track. I used two tracks from a great cd by Emanuele Errante called "Migrations". a few other tracks came from Geir Jenssen 's "Field Recordings From Tibet". A couple of other cuts came from "Classifields - Trips 6" on Tripostal. One of the Tripostal tracks is "A Sunday Walk" by Nim is a Tree, which I already used in the Netlabel Mix. It's such a great cut that I had to use it again. I also sneaked some loops into the mix here & there. Some of my favorite field sounds are trains, so you'll hear various train sounds a few times. I also like empty train station reverb, so that fades in & out a couple times. The sounds range from a resonant pipe in a rain storm to foghorns to church bells to chanting to arrival anouncements to piano and an open window. I know that some field recordings may be interesting but really listenable, not musical enough. I think this mix works pretty well & is easy to listen to. Sorry there is no track list. It's nearly impossible to keep track of what's playing & when in this mix. Most of the time there several tracks playing at once. It was a lot of fun putting this together and hope you enjoy the trip.

Best of 2007

There were some excellent releases in 2007, so I thought I'd feature some in a new mix.

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My favorite ambient recording of the year was Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline. I know there are quite a few people who didn't care for the cd, but I love it. I like the more orchestral feel. I like that SOTL relies less & less on synths. A beautiful record.

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My favorite vocal record was PG Six - Slightly Sorry. Snips from the Boomkat review..."a collection of quite unashamedly gorgeous 'proper' songs...'Slightly Sorry' is an album without tricks...'The Dance', the second track on the record - there's nothing necessarily modern about the song itself, it could have come out any time since 1969 and nobody would have batted an eyelid, but it's great music, pure and simple." I played this probably more than any other record this year.

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As far as this mix is concerned, I pretty much stayed away from vocal tunes, with one exception in the middle of the mix. The mix opens with four drone tracks, including Paul Bradley, a new discovery thanks to the folks at the Hypnos forum. Some of his stuff gets a bit dark & dissonant for my taste, but his 2007 release "Chroma" features gorgeous, wide open drones. The drones gradually giveway to piano based tunes wich morph into electronics with a little beat then back to ambient to finish it off.

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My full best of 2007 list follows the tracklisting for the mix. What were your favorite releases this year? Please leave some comments, I'd love to hear what you think.

T R A C K L I S T :

1. 00:00 - 04:30 Stars of the Lid - Even(out)
2. 04:30 - 07:30 Paul Bradley - untitled #1
3. 07:30 - 09:40 Adam Pacione - Warming Trend
4. 09:40 - 15:30 Emeralds - arbole del tule
5. 15:30 - 20:30 Alio Die & Luciano Daini - Crucibulum
6. 20:30 - 24:24 Fennesz & Sakamoto - Aware
7. 24:24 - 25:45 Library Tapes - Snowleaf
8. 25:45 - 31:54 Dakota Suite - Because our lie breathes differently
9. 31:54 - 35:20 Wes Willenbring - While my lungs fill with water
10. 35:20 - 41:20 Sonmi 451 - Outer Shell
11. 41:20 - 46:05 Kiln - Flycatcher
12. 46:05 - 50:45 Rameses III - Theme 5
13. 50:45 - 54:20 Meursault - Ivy
14. 54:20 - 58:50 Alio Die & Zeit - Raag Drone Theory
15. 58:50 - 06:20 Taylor Deupree - Landing
16. 06:20 - 10:45 Tim Hecker - Norberg
17. 10:45 - 14:30 Northern - Cinema
18. 14:30 - 19:53 Stars of the Lid - Even if you're never awake

• B E S T O F 2 0 0 7

• Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline (kranky)
• Alio Die & Luciano Daini - End of an Era (hic sunt leones)
• Alio Die & Zeit - Raag Drone Theory(hic sunt leones)
• Tetsu Inoue - Inland (fax)
• Taylor Deupree - Landing (room40)
• Adam Pacione - from stills to motion (infraction)
• Paul Bradley - Chroma (twenty hertz)
• Emeralds - Allegory Of Allergies (gods of tundra)
• Fennesz & Sakamoto - Cende (touch)
• Northern - Drawn (infraction)
• Tim Hecker - Norberg (room40)
• Rameses III - Honey Rose ( important)
• sonmi451 - probes & prisms (u-cover)
• Meursault - Sleeping Debris (students of decay)
• Wes Willenbring - Somewhere someone else (Aquarius Records)
• Library Tapes - Sketches (make mine music)
• Kiln - Dusker (Ghostly Int'l)
• Iron & Wine - The Sheperds Dog (sub pop)
• Trespassers William - noble house ep
• various - Box of Dub (soul jazz)
• Once - soundtrack (columbia)
• Canon Blue - Colonies (Rumraket)
• Dakota Suite - Waiting for the dawn to crawl through and take your life (glitterhouse)
• P.G. Six - Slightly Sorry (Drag City)

I wish I could drown the world in reverberation

I am starting to repeat myself. I've done two piano mixes, two string theory mixes, two winter mixes and now a second guitar mix. I decided to do a new guitar mix because I seem to have come across a lot of good guitar music lately. All the tracks on this mix are new, from either 2006 or 2007. The music ranges from electric to acoustic. Originally I intended to do a feedback-filled guitarscape like a long Peter Wright song. But in the end the music in this mix is fairly straight forward. Some is ambient, some is pretty, some is droney(is that a word?). I hope you enjoy it. T R A C K L I S T :

1. 00:00 - 00:50 Peter Broderick - Balloon Bomb
2. 00:50 - 02:00 twinsistermoon - I wish I could drown the world in reverberation
3. 02:00 - 08:20 Robert Fripp - Tallinn
4. 08:20 - 20:30 Meursault - Sleeping Debris
5. 20:30 - 23:30 Origamibiro - Gathers in Puddles
6. 23:30 - 25:30 Wooden Spoon - Untitled #10
7. 25:30 - 30:20 Wixel - Nowhere
8. 30:20 - 33:40 Brian Grainger - wind calmly bends our hair
9. 33:40 - 36:20 Hisato Higuchi - Kizauto
10. 36:20 - 40:30 øjeRum - tonerum
11. 40:30 - 41:40 Area C - Daymarks
12. 41:40 - 45:10 Peter Wright - Folk Song for Contradiction
13. 45:10 - 49:20 Christopher Flores - Farewell Son
14. 49:20 - 53:30 Oren Armbachi - fever, a warm poison
15. 53:30 - 59:20 Meursault - Mirror
16. 59:20 - 02:20 Six Organs of Admittance - Goodnight
17. 02:20 - 04:30 Wooden Spoon - Untitled #1

Netlabel Mix

I've gone on another binge of downloading music from netlabels. You know how the net is...one link leads you to another and then another and another and the next thing you know, you've download 10 free releases. Free is obviously a huge attraction for most netlabel releases. With some of the recordings, it's a good thing they are free. It's not that they are bad, just that I probably won't come back to them again and again in the future. However, some releases are very good. Nest, released earlier this year on Serein is an excellent recording. Marsen Jules has two Autoplate releases, Yara & Lazy Sunday Funerals, which I highly recommend. I haven't really had time to digest all the new music yet, but I thought I'd put together a quick mix using all netlabel albums that I've downloaded in the last couple of weeks. Here's a list of some interesting netlabels...

1. Serein
2. Aerotone
3. Test Tube
4. 12rec
5. Tripostal
6. Miasmah
7. Rain Music
8. Ekonetlabel
9. Mendorla
10. Thinner
11. Autoplate

I just noticed a new Off The Sky release at Autoplate. That should be worth checking out. All of the labels listed here are worth browsing. TRACKLISTING:

• 00:00 - 03:30 nim is a tree - a sunday walk (tri postal)
• 03:30 - 06:30 krill.minima - sommerdellen (thinner)
• 06:30 - 09:50 Alexandre Navarro - la terre (mandorla)
• 09:50 - 12:40 Muhr - 'a gouache des temps (serein)
• 12:40 - 20:30 Klotzsch & Sudermann - corylus avellana (autoplate)
• 20:30 - 24:35 Bersarin Quartet - st. petersburg (aerotone)
• 24:35 - 28:35 Weigl & Hoffmann - country lane (autoplate)
• 28:35 - 35:15 Twile - spanish cruiser (autoplate)
• 35:15 - 38:00 Herzog - there are options (12rec)
• 38:00 - 42:33 Cantaloup - dawns & echos (aerotone)
• 42:33 - 46:00 Haruki - sometimes seeing through things helps (rain music)
• 46:00 - 49:33 Silencio - botaniska trdgrd (tri postal)
• 49:33 - 53:43 Bersarin Quartet - es kann nicht ewig (aerotone)
• 53:43 - 1:02:19 Childs - marysal(fax emix) (mandorla)

String Theory Vol. 2

The mix I did last year, called String Theory, was one of my favorites. This is the sequel, creatively titled String Theory Vol. 2. Originally posted at the Low Light Mixes site on blogspot, this mix features mostly orchestral style ambient. This one relies on new music more than the first mix did. I'm pretty happy with the way it flows from track to track. The goal is to never really be sure where one track ends & the next begins.

• T R A C K L I S T :

00:00 intro 00:30 Stars of the Lid - Hiberner Toujours 02:02 Andrey Dergatchev - The Return(excerpt) 04:28 Corker & Conboy - Frank's Lie 07:02 Clint Mansell - Stay With Me (The Fountain ost) 10:05 Mono & World's End Girlfriend - Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain #1 16:03 Yo Yo Ma(Ennio Morricone) - Gabriel's Oboe 18:57 Jeff Greinke - Gradual Motion 24:24 Stars of the Lid - December Hunting for Vegetarian 32:00 Andrey Dergatchev - The Return (excerpt) 34:09 Clint Mansell - Summer Tense(Requiem for a Dream ost) 34:46 Rachel's - Technology is Killing Music(excerpt) 36:00 Kyo Ichinose - Lontano 42:00 Donato Wharton - Puget Sound 43:33 Stars of the Lid - Articulate Silences Pt. 2 48:43 Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson - I Flew(angels of the universe ost) 50:52 Andrey Dergatchev - The Return(excerpt) 54:50 Balanesco Quartet - Lullaby 58:27 Clint Mansell - Death is a Disease(Fountain ost) 1:00:50 Andrey Dergatchev - The Return(excerpt) 1:03:08 end

Breathing Music

After a quick side trip we are back to a straight forward, ambient mix. I got the idea for this mix from my online friend, Brian and his an excellent podcast, The Quiet Sounds. At the beginning of the year he did a mix of sleep music and said this about it..."many of these tracks have a lullaby, 'breathing' quality...". The idea of "breathing" music caught my attention. I would come back to the concept again and again as I listened to music this year. So I finally decided to put together my own mix of "breathing" music. Most of the tracks have a common feel...in & out, back & forth, ebb & flow...a wash of sound that fades then the wash returns. Most of the cuts are fairly new, though I was happy to squeeze in some old Cluster & Eno. Like Brian's original mixes, this one works pretty well for sleeping as well. Enjoy T R A C K L I S T 00:00 - 05:30    Alp - tropen 05:30 - 10:30    Robert Henke - layer #3 10:30 - 14:00    Stars of the Lid - another ballad for heavy lids 14:00 - 18:30    Scott Solter - wave & sepia wire 18:30 - 22:30    Cluster & Eno - old land 22:30 - 27:30    Steve Roach - slow rapture 27:30 - 31:30    Jeff Pearce - life in the dusk air 31:30 - 34:20    Alio Die & Luciano Daini - la rocca's view 34:20 - 43:30    Marsen Jules - eilet en delta 43:30 - 48:00    Cluster & Eno - fur luise 48:00 - 50:40    Andrew Deutsch - loops over land 50:40 - 58:40    William Basinski - el camino real 58:40 - 03:26    Stars of the Lid - the evil that never arrived