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Ambient music mixes for a chaotic world
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Saturday Apr 02, 2011
Saturday Apr 02, 2011
I love soundtracks. And if you look at the tracklist for this mix, you'll see that I have a few favorite composers.
At the top of that list are Clint Mansell & Cliff Martinez. They are responsible for two of my favorite soundtracks, The Fountain & Solaris.
Jon Hopkins, a new composer on the soundtrack scene, could soon join those two as a favorite. His soundtrack for the movie Monsters, got a lot of play here. I ended up using three tracks from that album in this mix, I just couldn't resist.
Actually I doubled up a few artists in this mix, Martinez, Hopkins, Sigur Ros, Nick & Warren Ellis, Underworld. Normally I don't like to do that but it just sort of happened that way. This is a relatively short mix but I think it works. Sometimes I don't make it to the end of some mixes, this way hopefully listeners are still in to it & focused at the end.
Enjoy this "undiscovered soundtrack".
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Clint Mansell - Winter Ghosts of a Future (Requiem for a Dream)
- 01:45 Jon Hopkins - Candles (Monsters)
- 03:35 Cliff Martinez - And We're Here to Listen (Traffic)
- 05:15 Thomas Newman - Still Dead (American Beauty)
- 07:55 Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Road (The Road)
- 11:30 Underworld & John Murphy - Searle Finds the Crew of Icarus (Sunshine)
- 12:20 Explosions in the Sky - An Ugly Fact of Life (Friday Nigh Lights)
- 14:10 Sigur Ros - síðasta ferð (hlemmur)
- 16:33 Craig Armstrong - Main Theme (The Clearing)
- 17:40 Ennio Morricone - Tema di Ali (The Battle of Algiers)
- 21:32 John Zorn - Family Found(cello) (Family Found(Filmworks XII))
- 23:50 Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Micro Sucker (White Lunar)
- 24:25 Underworld - Capa's Last Transmission Home (Sunshine)
- 26:10 Sigur Ros - fyrsta ferð (hlemmur)
- 28:25 Hilmar Hilmarsson - I Flew (Angels of the Universe)
- 30:25 Cliff Martinez - First Drive Home (First Snow)
- 30:50 Jon Hopkins - Water (Monsters)
- 31:55 James Newton Howard - I'm Sorry (I am Legend)
- 33:50 Jon Hopkins - Campfire (Monsters)
- 36:11 end
Friday Mar 11, 2011
Friday Mar 11, 2011
I am very excited to present this next mix. It's a guest mix by longtime listener/downloader, Ron Sylvester.
Ron was the inspiration for a couple of my mixes that used old 78rpm recordings as a basis for the mixes "Sustain & Decay" and "Revenants of the Past". Ron sent me some mix cd's which I really enjoyed & I told him he really should do a proper mix someday.
Well I am delighted that Ron has allowed me to present his first mix here for everyone to enjoy. I'll let Ron describe the mix...
"A week or so ago I stumbled upon the album Salicornie Areavirus by Enrico Coniglio; his website says the album is meant to be a sort of ‘collection of "sound tales" dedicated to Venice’. I thought I recognized his name from somewhere, and back-tracked it to a Lost Children netlabel release featuring Italian artists entitled Underwater Noises, which had been curated by Coniglio. Two other Lost Children Releases featuring Italian artists, Con Fuoco d'Occhi un Nostalgico Lupo volumes I and II, gave me most of what I needed to complete the mix. I finished it off with work by Ulises Conti, Lodovico Einaudi, Paolo Fresu, a Sub Rosa compilation of ritual music entitled Illuminated, and a handful of ambience from Soundtransit and the storehouse of opera 78s at archive.org.
Anyhow, for me this mix is simply entitled Venice, though the musicians are not necessarily from Venice, nor are the field recordings strictly from Venice. Apart from Nguen Le, who is playing with Paolo Fresu (who is Sardinian), I think all the artists or field recording locales are at least Italian. Actually, now that I think of it, the recordings from Illuminated are not necessarily Italian. Catholic, though; that’s something. At any rate, and as usual, the mix is more about a sort of Venetian feeling: canals, Carnevale, the Grand Lagoon, a certain slow sinking. I’ve never been to Venice, though, so what do I know about it?
I was really taken by Enrico Coniglio’s album and it sort of got this mix started. Here’s his website, but as in all things ambient, you are probably way ahead of me on this:
http://www.enricoconiglio.com/
Here are the links for the Lost Children compilations:
http://www.archive.org/details/Lc-eph01UnderwaterNoises
http://www.archive.org/details/TheSilentBallet-ItalianCompilation-ConFuocoDocchiUnNostalgico
http://www.archive.org/details/TheSilentBallet-ItalianCompilation-ConFuocoDocchiUnNostalgico_90
Ron says "The track list is as follows; some editing of tracks has been done in the mix, and I processed the bejeezus out of La Traviata. There’s a lot of overlap in this mix."
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 venice canal - derek holzer [soundtransit]
- 00:12 salicornie - enrico coniglio
- 03:10 bells in Fiesole - thomas andre [soundtransit]
- 03.13 chioma - obsil
- 03:57 excerpt from la traviata - lucrezia bori
- 04: 02 tocco libero - tiziano milani
- 07:14 alpen tower - enrico coniglio
- 12:35 pagetos - francesco giannico / luca mauri / matteo uggeri
- 19:15 hopeless - passo uno
- 26:15 medio evo tecnologico - folk cinema [soundtransit]
- 26:45 restless - ornitology
- 26:47 in prinicipio - unknown from illuminated
- 27:12 gloria - unknown from illuminated
- 32:18 girl from murania - enrico coniglio
- 37:00 half water - allessio ballerini
- 40:20 el dolor implicito de la belleza - ulises conti
- 43:15 palermo without hands - folk cinema [soundtransit]
- 44:00 fish market ambience - palix [soundtransit]
- 44: 05 andare - lodovico einaudi
- 50:50 salicornie (reprise) - enrico coniglio
- 54:50 hydrocoma - un vortice di bassa pressione
- 55:45 lacrima christi - paolo fresu and nguen le
- 56:10 night sea - marco caorle
- 58:45 venice canal (reprise) - derek holzer
Friday Dec 31, 2010
Friday Dec 31, 2010
This last mix of 2010 is a mix that I did for Headphone Commute about 3 months ago. They were kind enough to ask for a mix & I was honored to add it to their great collection of mixes they post at their own site & at their Mixcloud site.
I realized that if I was going to post this piano mix I'd better do it now because the title is "pno 2010" so I need to squeeze it into 2010 before it's gone.
This mix starts with John Cage – “On a Landscape”, which is appropriate, because that tune is the reason I did this piano mix. I’d never heard “In a Landscape” when a friend linked to it on youtube. What a great piece of music. So I decided to build a piano mix with that as the jumping off point.
The other unusual piece in this mix is Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou – “Golgotha” by an Ethiopian nun living in Jerusalem. Her music is unique, it filters the traditional Ethiopian pentatonic scale through classical technique– in the end sounding like impressionistic jazz. Wonderful music.
T R A C K L I S T :
- [00:00] John Cage – In a Landscape
- [04:15] Kyo Ichinose – Engine #5
- [05:20] Worrytrain – Hospitalized
- [06:45] Max Richter – Infra #6
- [09:35] Nest – The Twelve
- [14:00] Tanner Menard – Laws of Attraction
- [19:50] Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou – Golgotha
- [24:27] Craig Armstrong – Gentle Piece
- [27:10] Ben Woods – Stare Out in Silence
- [32:25] Gavin Bryars – My First Homage
- [38:10] Kyo Ichinose – Lontano #0
- [40:00] Chris Abrams – Christmas Island
- [44:45] Arovane – Tokyo Ghost Stories
- [49:50] Christian Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto – Kokoro
- [53:15] Andrey Kiritchenko – Agravic Illusion
Friday Jul 23, 2010
Friday Jul 23, 2010
I ran into the track "The Last Message" by John Murphy on a mix at A Strangely Isolated Place, and it got me thingking about doing another classical-ish mix.
The Murphy track is in there, along with new tunes(Maya Beiser, Max Richter, Nils Frahm, etc) and old tunes(Steve Reich, Peter Gabriel, Gavin Bryars, etc).
There's really not much more to say except that I hope you enjoy this collection of ambient, soundtrack, minimal & neo-classical tunes.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 David Byrne - The Lodger
- 04:15 Maya Beiser - Memories
- 08:45 Max Richter - The Haunted Ocean 2
- 09:05 Nils Frahm & Anne Müller - Reminds to Teeth
- 13:15 Olan Mill - Country
- 16:30 John Murphy - The Last Message
- 18:00 Chihei Hatakeyama - Light Drizzle
- 20:30 Hummingbird - Starfish Seastar
- 22:30 Tarwater - Clock
- 23:30 Terry Riley - is in c in f (r. luke dubois remix)
- 25:30 Steve Reich - Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices & organ
- 34:50 Sufjan Stevens - Movement III - Linear Tableau With Intersecting Surprise
- 39:15 Max Richter - Infra 2
- 40:50 Kyle Bobby Dunn - The Tributary (for voices lost)
- 46:20 P Jorgensen - Palimpsest II
- 48:15 Gavin Bryars - Epilogue from Wonder Lawn
- 52:20 Peter Gabriel - The Nest that Sailed the Sky
- 54:55 end
Sunday May 30, 2010
Sunday May 30, 2010
Modern-classical, neo-classical, acousmatic, electro-acoustic, ...whatever you want to call the genre, I think this mix fits.
You'll hear lots of strings, some piano, some beats and more strings. It has a vague sort of chamber music feel to it. The mix takes a detour about halfway through with the Pjusk track. It's a good tune but doesn't necessarily fit the modern classical theme of the mix. But I think it flows well with the other tracks around it.
A lot of music I have been listening to sort of falls into this neo-classical/acoustic category so this was just a chance to get some of it out there in a mix.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Panoptique Electrical - Framed by Clouds
- 07:23 Bersarin Quartet - Was uns Bleibt
- 10:45 Murcof - Rios
- 18:40 Olan Mill - Flume
- 21:00 Talvihorros - Thoughts of Violence
- 24:45 M. Ostermeier - Competing Memories, Both Correct
- 30:00 Part Timer - Orchard (scrumped)
- 31:00 Pjusk - Sus
- 35:25 M. Ostermeier - September Again
- 39:20 Danny Norbury - Speak, Memory
- 44:00 Panoptique Electrical - The Free Form
- 50:40 Loscil - Endless Falls
- 58:06 end
Thursday Mar 25, 2010
Thursday Mar 25, 2010
a canticle unfolds
I love all the mixes being posted on Mixcloud by Fluid Radio. They have a ton of neo-classical, Ambient, Modern Classical, Experimental Acoustic mixes on their Mixcloud page. So I set out to make my own "neo-classical" mix. And as I have said here before, sometimes mixes take you in directions that you weren't anticipating.
With "a canticle unfolds", I discovered some vocal music as I was searching for tracks with a modern classical feel. Some of the tunes appear as recorded, others have been altered or remixed a bit. In the end, I ended up with 10 vocal cuts.
This mix started out fairly straight forward, turned into an experiment and ended up as a nice listening experience. I hope you like it.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 The Hilliard Ensemble & Ivan Moody - Canticum Canticorum Remixed
- 03:40 Misound - sonno
- 05:30 Satie - Gnossienne Remixed
- 08:00 Nest - Marefjellet
- 12:00 Ambrose Field - La Dolce Vita
- 14:30 Gavin Byars Remixed
- 17:30 Morton Feldman - Rothko Chapel 5
- 21:00 Akira Rabelais - 1382_wyclif_gen._ii._7
- 24:30 Panoptique Electrical - the free form
- 29:40 Chorovaya Akademia - Nine Sili Nebesniye 1
- 32:40 Gavin Byars - Epilogue from Wonder Lawn
- 39:10 Bach Remixed
- 39:35 Roedelius - Lustwandel
- 43:15 Andrei Machado - ecce homo
- 47:30 Arvo Part - O Adonai
- 49:50 Annelies Monsere - 7
- 52:20 Debussy - des pas sur la neise
- 57:00 John Tavener - Mother & Child
- 60:12 end
Sunday Apr 19, 2009
Sunday Apr 19, 2009
I got the idea for this mix over at the Hypnos records forum. In the "Now Playing" thread, someone posted several entries in a row about listening to various soundtracks. Some favorites of mine, Cliff Martinez's "Traffic" & "Narc" and Clint Mansell's "The Fountain", were on the list. It got me thinking & listening to soundtracks for a week or two and this new mix, "Cinematica", is the result. There are 25 tracks in this mix, so it keeps moving pretty well I think. I realized after I was done that a few of the tracks appear in other low light mixes. Oh well, that's bound to happen with so many mixes and fewer and fewer brain cells. I would say my favorite soundtracks from the past 10 - 15 years would have to be "Solaris" from Cliff Martinez & "The Fountain" by Clint Mansell. I purposely used a lesser known Martinez cut from "Wicker Park" but one that had the same "Solaris" feel to it. Then of course I discovered that I'd already used the same cut in an earlier mix. Duh! This mix was easy & fun to put together so I'm sure I'll be doing another one in the future. Any suggestions for essential soundtracks that I should check out? T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Proposition #2 (The Proposition) 02:00 Graeme Revell - Cue 34 (Until the End of the World) 04:10 Thomas Newman - Drive Away(End Title) (Lemony Snicket) 06:50 Cliff Martinez - What Shoe Size (Wicker Park) 08:05 Andrey Dergatchev - Port (The Return) 10:05 Max Richter - Shadow Journal (Valse Avec Bachir) 12:15 John Murphy/Chrales Gounod - Taxi(Ave Maria) (28 Days Later) 14:07 Mogwai - 7-25 (Zidane, a 21st Century Portait) 18:20 Clint Mansell - Death is a Disease (The Fountain) 20:40 Explosions in the Sky - From West Texas (Friday Night Lights) 22:26 Brian Eno - Always Returning (Apollo) 25:35 Corker/Conboy - First Crossing (3 Degrees Colder) 27:05 David Byrne - Canal Life (Lead Us Not Into Temptation) 29:20 Peter Gabriel - A Sense of Home (Long Walk Home) 30:50 Sigur Ros - #3 untitled (Hlemmur) 33:05 Andrey Dergatchev - Georgians (The Return) 35:13 Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson - Ars Moriendi (Children of Nature) 37:20 Philip Glass - Organic (Koyaanisqatsi) 42:10 Gabriel Yared & Underworld - Mending Things (Breaking & Entering) 44:20 Cliff Martinez - Helicopter (Traffic) 46:05 John Murphy - Red Dresses (28 Days Later) 46:43 Devotchka - The Winner Is (Little Miss Sunshine) 49:35 David Byrne - Dirty Hair (Lead Us Not Into Temptation) 52:06 Peter Gabriel - Passion Extras #4 (Passion) 53:55 James Newton Howard - I'm Listening (I am Legend) 55:45 Brian Eno - an ending(ascent) (Apollo, 28 Days Later, Clean, Traffic) 59:50 end
Tuesday Aug 26, 2008
Tuesday Aug 26, 2008
I made this latest mix for our annual trip to northern Wisconsin. I usually try to make one stargazing mix & one morning mix. The stargazing mix will be posted soon. This is the morning mix, to be listened to while drinking Intelligentsia coffee & reading the morning paper.
At our northern cabin we didn't have daily newspapers so I made due with coffee, crossword puzzles & science fiction. To go with the morning coffee & sunlight reflecting off the calm lake waters, this music is suitably light. The majority of the tunes are new, most are from 2008. Some old favorites with new music make the mix, including Max Ritcher, Yellow 6, Milieu & Goldmund. New discoveries include Shirk, bvdub & Segue.
So grab a cup, put your feet up & enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
Tuesday Oct 16, 2007
Tuesday Oct 16, 2007
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 :