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Ambient music mixes for a chaotic world
Episodes
Sunday Mar 23, 2014
Sunday Mar 23, 2014
Most regular visitors to this blog are aware that I also post these mixes over at Mixcloud. I love Mixcloud. I got in very early on and so have developed quite a few followers. It's been fun watching it grow.
One thing that has helped in growing that following is being one of the featured cloudcasts in the Ambient/Chillout category. Well, apparently now Low Light Mixes is also one of the featured cloudcasts in the Classical category. Some of my mixes my have some classical related tunes but I definitely wouldn't characterize these mixes as "classical." But, what the heck, I'll take the extra exposure.
Being featured in the classical category was the genesis for this new mix, "things left unsaid." It's an all classical mix. Maybe it would be better to call it an orchestral mix because about half of the tracks are from film soundtracks, so not classical in the purest sense.
Most of the music is fairly new. The oldest cut being the Jonnie Greenwood piece from 2007. There a few tracks from Caleb Burhans and David Lang that are from 2013 releases that didn't make it onto my year in review lists because I didn't find them until 2014. I found them on someone else's best of list. They are both excellent recordings. And of course I had to include some Johann Johannsson because I pretty much like everything he does.
I hope you enjoy this classical diversion.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Max Richter - Spring 0(Recomposed By Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons)
- 00:40 Johann Johannsson - By the River
- 01:10 Caleb Burhans - The Things Left Unsaid
- 05:00 Jonnie Greenwood - Open Spaces
- 08:38 Alexandre Desplat - L'hôpital
- 11:56 Jon Hopkins - How I Live Now
- 16:15 Johann Johannsson - The Jewish Cemetery on Moellegade
- 18:20 Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil - Prelude, The Atlas March
- 19:31 Maya Beiser - Spiegel im Spiegel
- 28:58 David Lang - no. 5. i am walking
- 33:10 Colin Stetson - All the Days I've Missed
- 34:10 Caleb Burhans - nunc dimittis
- 38:25 Alexandre Desplat - Skies
- 43:30 Max Richter - Winter 3(Recomposed By Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons)
- 47:33 Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil - The Cloud Atlas Sextet
- 51:26 Johann Johannsson - The Rocket Builder
- 57:39 Caleb Burhans - The Things Left Unsaid(end)
- 58:55 Alexandre Desplat - De rouille et d'os
- 1:00:51 end
Sunday Mar 09, 2014
Sunday Mar 09, 2014
One of the benefits of making & posting mixes for all these years is getting to know some like-minded folks from around the world. One of those is my good friend, Jason O'Gorman, from the city of Cork in Ireland.
Jason did a guest mix for me way back in 2008. Wow, typing that just made me realize that Low Light Mixes has been around for a long time - 8 years this month, an eternity in internet years.
Anyway, back to Jason. You can find his 2008 mix called Satellite here... Satellite. I really like that mix and have always wanted Jason to do another. And now, 6 years later, we have "Across the Water." Jason describes it this way - "There's a lot of contrast in this mix due to the theme, but it still flows. The mix is a 'journey' across an ambient ocean, to dark and beautiful places."
When I listen to my own mixes I always hear every transition which at times can distract from the music. But with Jason's mix I get lost in the flow as one tunes blends into the next. I love not knowing what's coming next. Jason's mix does is wonderful at transporting you from one place to another. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have. And hopefully Jason won't another 6 years to produce another gem.
Cheers
T R A C K L I S T:
- 00:00 King Creosote & John Hopkins: First watch
- 02:10 Mountains: Sand
- 05:20 Stephan Mathieu: Promenade
- 08:30 Ólafur Arnalds: Carry me anew
- 10:07 Ólafur Arnalds: We (too) shall rest
- 11:10 Apparat: K&F Thema (pizzicato)
- 13:45 Lustmord: Babel
- 17:45 Eluvium: Warm
- 22:00 Mer-A: Aeolis Mons
- 28:30 Mowgli: Canaan
- 29:20 Ólafur Arnalds: Sudden throw
- 32:35 White Moth Black Butterfly:Reluctance
- 33:40 The Fun Years: Re: We're again buried under
- 35:45 Goldmund: Downward to darkness on extend
- 38:30 Mulm: Mørke
- 41:50 Lustmord: Chorazin
- 46:10 Murcof: Oort 1
- 48:40 Bvdub & Loscil: Hespiredes
- 53:00 Mer-A: Quasi Stellar
- 56:10 Apparat: 44 (noise version)
- 57:55 Apparat: 44
- 60:55 Lustmord: Goetia
- 63:30 Mountains: Circular C
- 69:00 Jasper TX & Anduin: Walking in snow
Sunday Feb 02, 2014
Sunday Feb 02, 2014
stirring up the dust
ghosts from the past whisper in
grooves of forever
There's a first for this blog - vinyl haiku. I was looking for ways to describe this mix and as I collected expressive words, the list started to take on it's own poetic quality. So I thought, what the heck, I'll just formalize it into an actual haiku. It was fun, I haven't written any sort of silly haiku in years.
Anyway, the haiku fits this mix because the music is all dusty and scratchy. It all has a old vinyl feel to it. It some cases it has that feel because the music really is old, like early 1900s old. Two of the tracks are actually old Edison cylinder recordings. I searched through old recordings at archive.org for music that would blend well with the other ambient & neo-classical tracks in this mix.
I've done two previous mixes in this style - Sustain & Decay and Revenants of the Past. A lot of ambient music makes use of noise, distortion, scratches, glitches, hiss & pops so the actual old recordings fit in nicely. There are six old recordings that appear in the final mix. Most of the ambient cuts are of fairly recent vintage.
I like the title for this mix because the word "score" takes on a double meaning as in a musical soundtrack as well as trench, channel or groove in a vinyl record or cylinder.
Enjoy the pops & hisses.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 1956 RCA Victor Vinyl Records Educational Documentary
- 00:30 Arturo Toscanini - Romeo & Juliet Overture(Pt-1)1946
- 01:25 The Caretaker - Mental Caverns Without Sunshine
- 01:45 e and i - known things
- 03:50 Maps & Diagrams - Longitudinal Vibration
- 07:20 Billow Observatory - Helsinki Radio
- 08:50 Tim Hecker - Sketch 6
- 10:00 e and i - tiniest smile
- 11:11 Philip Jeck - chime again
- 14:05 Edison Bohemian Orchestra Lacinquantaine Cylinder Recording
- 15:15 Ten and Tracer - By Twirling the Quicksphere
- 18:00 Tape Loop Orchestra - The Word On My Lips Is Your Name
- 19:50 Philip Jeck - Wipe
- 23:15 Benoît Pioulard - Pidgin
- 24:25 Mozart 'Gavotte in G' from 'Idomeneo' (1912)
- 25:25 The Humble Bee - The Collecting Plate
- 26:25 Part Timer - Undead part 1
- 30:15 The Caretaker - Mental Caverns Without Sunshine
- 31:00 Semiramide Overture 1912
- 35:05 Maya Beiser - Time Loops
- 37:25 From The Mouth of The Sun - Color Loss
- 42:42 The Caretaker - A Last Glimpse Of The Land
- 45:15 Tape Loop Orchestra - The Word On My Lips Is Your Name
- 51:25 Albert Spalding - Thais(violin) Edison blue amberol cylinder
- 52:30 The Humble Bee - Fin
- 54:07 end
Friday Jan 17, 2014
Friday Jan 17, 2014
This mix is a rare treat. It's a guest mix from Chris Fraley. I know Chris through correspondence and postings at the Hypnos Forum.
I've been a member of the
forum for a long time and I really enjoy the community there. In this
time of social networks and twitter it's nice to see that a classic
forum still survives and thrives, mainly because of a shared love of
ambient music. Activity there ebbs and flows but there's always
interesting topics and people hanging out.
As I said, I know Chris
through the forum and as the two of us have similar tastes, I offered
him the opportunity to do a mix for the blog. He was hesitant at first
because he'd never done something like this before. But he decided to
give it a shot and I'm very glad he did.
Chris said he "ended up making a mix based on some of the recent (2012 or later) neo-classical
music that embodies the spirit of ambient and experimental acoustics." The result is perfect.
I hope this is just the first of more guest mixes we may see from Chris.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T:
- 00:00 Field Rotation - The Repetition of History
- 05:15 Ekca Liena and Spheruleus - Scrambling Radiosonde
- 09:11 From the Mouth of the Sun - Sitting in a Roofless Room
- 12:00 Orla Wren - Five Acre Ladder (Reprise)
- 15:20 Antonymes - Misshapen Beauty [ii]
- 20:40 The Seaman and the Tattered Sail - Her Whispers
- 26:15 Christoph Berg - Coda
- 30:14 end
Monday Jan 06, 2014
Monday Jan 06, 2014
It is freakin' cold here in Wisconsin right now. It's going to be -20f below zero tonight and the high temp on Monday didn't get much above -10f. Frigid temps like that call for a mix.
It's perfect timing for a freezing mix because a recent purchase was the album arctic conditions by stormloop. With
song titles like "Ice Wind," "In The Frozen Morning Light" and "Arctic
Conditions," it was a perfect starting point for this mix.
Make some hot cocoa, sit back
and try to stay warm. Of course for listeners like Charles Glaspole in
Australia, it's summer. I guess you'll have to use your imagination.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T:
- 00:00 Wind and walking in snow
- 00:30 Terje Isungset - Go North
- 01:36 stormloop - ice wind
- 05:45 Marcus Fischer - Arctic 1
- 10:10 Panoptique Electrical - Glacier Show I
- 16:35 Ulf Lohmann - On Frozen Fields
- 18:45 Blamstrain - Tundra V
- 24:05 offthesky - beneath the ice shelf
- 26:50 Harold Budd - Ice Floes in Eden
- 29:15 stormloop - arctic conditions
- 33:55 Good Weather For An Airstrike - Frozen In Thought
- 37:25 Kiln - The Ice Floes
- 38:40 Forrest Fang & Carl Weingarten - Freezing Days
- 41:10 David Tagg - Arctic Reflection
- 50:10 Brian Eno - Fields Of Ice
- 58:00 Segue - A View of the Frozen Lake
- 1:01:40 stormloop - in the frozen morning light
- 1:08:00 end
Friday Dec 27, 2013
Friday Dec 27, 2013
The title of this mix pretty much says it all. This is a collection of tunes that works well at night.
I didn't want the mix to be dark & depressing or dark and scary, just something that feels more at home at night. It's sort of the opposite of the Sunday morning mixes. Although a few tunes could go either way.
I didn't start out making a "night" mix, it just sort of happened on it's own after the first few cuts. The mix opens with a fantastic remix of Bowie's Sound & Vision. This cut isn't necessarily a "night" tune but I just had to use it. The next three cuts are what took the mix in the nightside direction.
I labeled the mix "Vol. 1" because I'd like to turn this into a series just like the Sunday morning mixes. So look for more in 2014. But there's still one more mix on it's way in 2013.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 David Bowie - Sound and Vision(Sonjay Prabhakar remix)
- 02:50 Arve Henriksen - Shelter From The Storm
- 06:00 Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle - By The Time That I Awoke
- 10:00 Moritz von Oswald & Nils Petter Molvaer - Step by Step
- 15:45 Justin Walter - The Way Of Five
- 20:10 A.A. Bondy - Mightiest Of Guns
- 23:22 Loren Connors - Shadows
- 26:30 Labradford - By Chris Johnston, Craig Markva, Jamie Evans
- 31:00 Public Service Broadcasting - Late Night Final
- 36:30 Jon Hassell - Amsterdam Blue
- 44:30 The National - Hard To Find
- 48:25 Jonathan Boulet - Cent Voix
- 52:55 Ghosting Season - Lie
- 56:00 Mirroring - Mirror Of Our Sleeping
- 59:30 Loren Connors - Night In Vain
- 1:01:45 Grace Cathedral Park - Hey Pretty, Could You Stay Awhile
- 1:11:28 end
Saturday Dec 14, 2013
Saturday Dec 14, 2013
I love dubby ambient. I think this is my third dub mix this year. I'm sure I'll grow tired of this style of music but for now I'm soaking it in. It was snowing while I made this mix & the music just seemed to fit the winter mood. Hence the name "A Winter's Dub."
Many of the tracks in this mix came from Bandcamp. As a matter of fact, all the links in the tracklist are to Bandcamp pages. I love Bandcamp. So easy & convenient. And great for discovering new music. I bought a bunch of stuff this year by following other folks & sampling we they buy.
Here is my Bandcamp collection for anyone that's interested.
Enjoy the dub!
T R A C K L I S T
- 00:00 The Sight Below - Further Away
- 05:20 Optical Frameworks - Flicker Platform, Luses
- 09:40 Adam Michalak - Immersed in Dreams
- 16:35 Axs - Frozen Signpost
- 24:30 Blamstrain - Tundra I
- 32:50 VidasM - Mire
- 37:20 Sen - Soul Rain
- 41:40 Vectrex - Silent
- 46:50 krill.minima - Surface from the Groundless Oceans
- 53:40 Seaman & The Tattered Sail - Matter & Light
- 1:00:50 Seas - Arctic
- 1:11:50 Optical Frameworks - One Semitone
- 1:18:00 Marco Madia - Music for Plants
- 1:20:25 Blamstrain - Sunday Dub 6pm
- 1:25:20 The Nautilus Project - The Enchanting Forest
- 1:41:20 end
Friday Dec 06, 2013
Friday Dec 06, 2013
I know this is not the best time of year for sitting out side and stargazing. At least not here in Wisconsin. But I haven't done a stargazing mix in a long time so i thought I'd throw this out there.
The piece that got me started on this mix isn't an actual song. It's NASA's Voyager spacecraft recording the sound of interstellar space. Voyager's plasma wave instrument detected the vibrations of dense interstellar plasma, or ionized gas, from October to November 2012 and April to May 2013. You can find the recording here... Voyager.
I couldn't resist using that sound as a launch pad for this mix. The rest is pretty straight forward ambient/space music. For some strange reason I felt compelled to make this mix nearly 2 hours long. If you want to lay outside for two hours & gaze at the night sky in the middle of December, better bring some scotch & an electric blanket. ;)
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 NASA Voyager recording of interstellar space
- 00:40 Loscil - Second Narrows Specta Ciera Version
- 03:30 Ishq - Globular Cluster
- 07:30 Harmony & Decay - Hypnotic Sequence
- 12:40 Eluder - The Event Horizon
- 14:50 Marsen Jules - A Room Full of History
- 19:15 Marconi Union - Always Numb
- 23:40 Porzellan - Floating Reception
- 24:30 Sonmi451 - Omicron Ceti
- 29:30 Loscil - ss1.2 unit circle
- 32:50 Wouter Veldhuis - Blue Forest I
- 36:00 Variant - Thru the Cosmos(ison + spica)
- 43:33 Brian Eno - Surf Birds
- 46:10 Mark Rownd - Place of Grace
- 52:20 Kissy Suzuki - rubbish & Beauties part 1
- 56:30 Altus - Floating Free
- 1:00:40 Diatonis - Whiring Above Our Heads
- 1:04:15 A Produce - Inner Sanctum
- 1:12:00 Aglaia - Dust Across the Border
- 1:15:30 Christopher Short - Unknown Constellation #2
- 1:22:30 Fripp & Eno - Meissa
- 1:29:10 Ithaca Trio - Catching Monkeys
- 1:34:00 Steve Roach - Deep Sky Time
- 1:41:10 Sylken - Sleepless
- 1:50:10 Deepchord - Driftwood
- 1:51:10 Vidna Obmana - Night Blooming
- 1:57:49 end
Friday Oct 25, 2013
Friday Oct 25, 2013
About a year ago I did a mix of my favorite ambient artists of all time. I have been meaning to do a mix of my favorite ambient albums of all time ever since. And now here it is.
I did not go back and look at my favorite artist list. I sorted through my ambient collection and came up with my fav albums. Then I compared the two lists and not surprisingly they are almost identical. Basically I substituted Scott Solter for Alio Die when I made the fav album list. At least I didn't repeat any tunes from one mix to the next.
Choosing a favorite album from some of these artists was difficult. Steve Roach has some many recordings that it was tough to know where to start but I kept coming back to the one that gets the most play and that is "The Dream Circle." I wonder how many other folks like this album as much as I do. I'm not e really sure why I like it more than his other releases, it definitely sounds similar to a lot of his other output. I guess over the years it's become like a comfy sweatshirt.
Stars of the Lid & Eno were both hard to choose a favorite as well. With SOTL I ended up going with the album that I first discovered them with. In choosing "On Land" from Eno I really could have just flipped a coin to choose between it and "Music for Airports," "Apollo" and "Music for Films."
The one favorite that probably doesn't make a lot of lists is "One River" by Scott Solter. Using mostly processed guitars this album ebbs & flows beautifully from one tracks to the next. I was happy to see that it's available on Bandcamp, although it's one long track instead of separate tracks like the original. You can find it HERE.
Enjoy.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Scott Solter - Cypress Road from One River
- 04:38 Stars of the Lid - Dust Breeding from Avec Laudenum
- 11:45 Maps & Diagrams - Honeycomb Archipelago from Get Lost
- 14:45 Brian Eno - Unfamiliar Wind(leeks hills) from On Land
- 19:25 Loscil - Lucy Dub from First Narrows
- 25:25 Sonmi451 - Orange from Spectrum
- 31:00 Steve Roach - The Dream Circle from The Dream Circle
- 40:45 Kyle Bobby Dunn - Empty Gazing from A Young Person's Guide to
- 46:35 Harold Budd & Brian Eno - Against the Sky from The Pearl
- 50:00 William Basinski - 1.2 from The Disintegration Loops
- 1:01:00 end
Thursday Oct 17, 2013
Thursday Oct 17, 2013
As I have said many times before on this blog, a new mix is very often born when a track or two inspires me to create something new. In this case it was the new album by Esmerine called "Dalmak."
The group recorded the new tracks in Instanbul and the whole album definitely has the texture and feel that one would associate with Turkish music. The Constellation Records website describes it perfectly...
"As a title for Esmerine's new album, "dalmak" refers in a literal sense to immersion in the culture and music of Istanbul but also appropriately evokes the range of music that emerged from this immersion: a collection of songs that shift between meditative pulsing and enveloping restraint to headlong flights into rhythm and groove."
With Esmerine as I starting point I went to some familiar sources. One being the wonderful recordings of Myke Dodge Weiskopf. I excerpted part of his Field Recordings & Global Ambience mix and also used a cut from his latest release - "The Muezzins of Mali."
I also worked in some Byrne & Eno early mixes from the "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" sessions. As well as some early mixes and extracts from Peter Gabriel's "Passion."
I enjoy these musical treks, I hope you do too.
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Esmerine - Lost River Blues I
- 07:30 Isnaj Dui - Quarter Wave
- 11:55 David Byrne & Brian Eno - Breathing Once a Minute
- 15:00 Myke Dodge Weiskopf - Field recordings & Global Ambience(excerpt)
- 15:25 Peter Gabriel - Passion extras #3
- 17:15 Saltland - But It Was All of Us
- 21:30 Penjaga Insaf - Keinsafan
- 24:20 The Guo Brothers & Shung Tıan - Soldiers of the Long March
- 26:15 Rapoon - Dream Dance
- 28:55 Huren - The Shroud
- 30:30 Chronomad - se
- 34:00 Bielka Nemirovski - Akh Ti Notchenka
- 39:00 The Rustavi Choir - Orovela(with Peter Gabriel mixed under)
- 43:55 Rapoon - Hey...Drifting
- 48:30 David Bryne & Brian Eno - Shaking With My Voice
- 50:50 Jon Hassel - Map of Dusk
- 52:30 Myke Dodge Weiskopf - The Muezzins of Mali - San - Adhan al-Fajr
- 55:25 Ry Cooder & Ronu Majumbar - Hollow Bamboo
- 1:00:20 Peter Gabriel - Unlocking the Door
- 1:02:22 end