low light mixes

distant transmissions

"Distant transmissions flicker and fade, there's a drift on the signal, a ghost in the phase."I've had that phrase on my blog profile for a long time. I've used different parts of it as titles for my series of 'shortwave' mixes(drift on the signal, ghost in the phase, flicker & fade).With this mix I've completely tapped out that slogan because the new mix is called "distant transmissions."I'm not really sure exactly how I came up with that line. I remember going through shortwave terms looking for a title for the first shortwave mix & I came across the phrase "drift on the signal". I liked the sound of that & used it for the first mix. Somewhere along the line I also read the term "ghost in the phase" & then just combined those two with other terms to come up with that short phrase which I liked because it's as close as I'm ever going to get to writing a lyric of any sort.This mix, like the others, makes use of the wonderful shortwave recordings of Myke Weiskopf. Check out his blog here... for lots of streaming audio & downloadable goodies. I've done 5 mixes featuring Myke's work & none of them would have been possible without his documentary series. Huge thanks to Myke for all his fine recordings. Check out the ShortWaveMusic Facebook page too.T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Ionoscatter_Unmodulated_Signal_And_Meteor_Whistles_6-2-58
• 00:30 Radio Bulgaria(stretched & normal)
• 01:33 Max Richter - Infra
• 04:30 Benoît Pioulard - Passenger
• 05:20 offthesky - frozen fountain
• 07:20 upward arrows - ^^^^
• 08:55 Family Radio International
• 09:30 ??? - Traveling Light
• 13:50 The Humble Bee - 07 jan 2010
• 16:30 Christian Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto - kuni
• 18:20 Freescha - baby Maker
• 19:50 Daizok - Shoreline VII
• 24:15 Radio Morocco
• 26:20 Area C - Map of circular thought
• 29:10 Juv - til
• 29:42 Max Richter - Journey 5
• 30:45 Inversz - Home End
• 35:10 Myke Weiskopf - You're Up, You're There, You're D
• 37:40 Christian Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Amorph
• 43:22 end

Quintessential Jazz

No pretense of ambience in this mix, just straight forward jazz.  I came across an interesting list here... Quintessential Jazz Songs. The Jazz 100 is a list compiled by listeners of jazz24.org & NPR Music.  It's kinda fun to read some of the comments because the listeners get very passionate about the list.  Much of the list is very recognizable & some of the tracks I'd never heard before, so it was great to dig in & discover music I probably should have known about for a long time. So this mix is just a quick compilation of just a few tracks from the list, with the exception of the Paul Desmond tune(it just worked perfectly following Take 5 with Take Ten). Even though this deviates from from the usual ambient I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Miles Davis - So What
• 09:20    Ahmad Jamal - Poinciana(the song of the tree)
• 13:33    Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - In a Sentmental Mood
• 17:40    Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder
• 27:44    Dave Brubeck - Take 5
• 32:57    Paul Desmond - Take Ten
• 36:00    Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - The Girl from Ipanema
• 41:05    Oliver Nelson - Stolen Moments
• 49:32    Wayne Shorter - Footprints
• 54:57    Bill Evans - Waltz for Debbie
• 01:53    end

television sky

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." >    _ William Gibson,  Neuromacer I love that line from "Neuromancer" & it's the jumping off point for this mix. Now if I was going to do a true Neuromancder mix I'd use stuff like Autechre & other noisy, abrasive electronica.  But this isn't really a Neuro mix, I'm not a big fan of later Autechre & music that gets so noisy as to be annoying. In addition to that line, some new music I discovered at the end of last year got me thinking about an electronica style mix.  The excellent music blog, A Strangely Isolated Place, posted their A - Z of 2010 list on December 27th.  I discovered some great electronica like Lights Out In Asia, Tropics, aKido, Com Truise, Horizon Fire and more.  I listened to enough of the new stuff to know that I wanted to do a related mix. The mix is fairly straight forward but takes a different turn when it hits the two soundtrack pieces, "Kanada's Death, pt. 2" & "Monsters Theme", from John Murphy & Jon Hopkins.  I absolutely love those two tracks & figured this was the best chance to incorporate them into a mix.  They actually fit pretty well. Enjoy. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Milieu - Ghosts In The Trees, Songs In The Breeze (Am-Boy Alternate Remix)
• 07:32    Horizon Fire - Passed out in a Datsun
• 11:40    aKido - Mrchf Thftr
• 13:10    Morgan Packard - Again
• 15:25    Jon Hopkins - Wire
• 19:50    Marconi Union - Stationary
• 26:20    Lights out in Asia - Attempt No Landings There
• 31:00    John Murphy - Kanada's Death, pt. 2 (adagio in d minor)
• 33:20    James Murray - Eleven(decades_mix)
• 40:10    Jon Hopkins - Monsters Theme
• 43:50    Parks - Perfect Silence
• 49:45    aKido - Carrousel
• 54:05    Tropics - Soft Vision
• 59:20    end

slow & sleepy

Yah! A new mix finally! I've been ridiculously busy lately(10 days at the Super Bowl) so haven't been able to do much mixing. Hopefully that will change. This is another mix where the title says it all...slow & sleepy. Pretty straight forward ambient with long, stretched out chords, slow motion sounds to suspend consciousness. Many of the tracks used here are new or fairly new. A lot of good music has been released in the last few months. I'll have to dive in & come up with some new mixes. I'm sort of planning a neo-classical mix, electronic beats, classic jazz, mellow prog rock, etc. For now I hope you enjoy slow & sleepy. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Kyle Bobby Dunn - Remnants
• 05:20 Wouter Veldhuis - Satumaa
• 09:30 Celer - A Lifetime of Wasted Breaths
• 14:30 Grasslung - When We Were Young
• 20:45 Wixel - Melsbroek
• 22:15 Simon Scott - Silenne
• 28:00 Gareth Hardwick - London 220109
• 34:45 Alio Die & Zeit - punto di fusione
• 41:45 Danny Saul - kinison (part 2)
• 43:00 Listening Mirror - Cast Off
• 48:30 Hakobune - a yearlong thought
• 52:00 Stephan Mathieu - Minuet
• 1:00:00 end

obscured by time

"The passage of time is flickering dimly upon the screen." I've called this mix "Obscured by Time" because it has that grainy, blurry feel to it, like looking through gauze. The once distinct events in our memories melt together like the washes of sound in this mix. This collection was inspired by the two 2010 releases by 36, "Memories in Widescreen" & "Hollow". A pair of great releases that are at times haunting & beautiful. As described at 3six.net, some of the tracks "use turbulent sheets of white noise, alongside classical instruments to create an eerie, almost ghost-like quality." All the tracks have that same noisy, grainy texture to them. Most are fairly new, with the Basinski & Jeck tracks probably being the oldest. I love going back to Basinski & wish I could have snuck in a track from Disintegration Loops. Guess that will have to be used in the sequel. "Several times, I've seen the evening slide away, Watching the signs taking over from the fading day." - Brian Eno, "Golden Hours" Enjoy. T R A C K L I S T :

• [00:00] Ous Mal - Marraskuu
• [03:15] The Fun Years - Makes Sense to Me
• [06:50] Maps & Diagrams - The Modern Century
• [08:48] 36 - Geiga
• [13:52] Erik De Cordier - Spadomur
• [14:35] Tim Hecker - Celestina
• [18:00] Ithaca Trio - Untitled #10
• [21:25] The Humble Bee - 26 jan 2010
• [24:00] Wixel - You're Inside Your Own Shadow
• [27:40] 36 - Equassa
• [31:00] Damian Valles - The Alphabet of Lines
• [34:06] Philip Jeck - Wipe
• [37:35] William Basinski - Melancholia II
• [42:38] d_rradio - Death of the Fair Green Veil
• [43:50] Tape Loop Orchestra - Tokyo Twilight
• [45:50] Philip Jeck - Soaked
• [48:12] 36 - Drifta
• [53:18] END

pno 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

subatomic dubscapes

The term "dubscapes" in the title of the mix pretty much says it all.  This is dub mix.  I've used dubby style songs in mixes before but never did a whole dub mix. Of course after setting out to do an all dub mix, I veered off course pretty quickly by including a cover of the Twin Peaks theme &  track from Vangelis.  I'd been looking for a way to work those two tunes into a mix & they seem to fit pretty well here. The Twin Peaks cover is by Talvihorros.  He has an excellent recording out on Hibernate called "Music in Four Movements".  After buying that album Ben Chatwin(Talvihorros) was kind enough to send me a copy of his cover of the Twin Peaks theme.  I liked this version immediately & knew I had to find a home for it in a mix. One track in the mix is from an album that will end up in my top ten list this year.  The album is Deepchord presents Echospace - Liumin/Liumin Reduced.  It's a double album with the first being great ambient dub/techno and the second an album of field recorded treatments made by Rod Modell in Tokyo.  An immersive record that I highly recommend. The dub used in this mix is fairly ambient, especially towards the end where the ambient drones & washes come in & the beats slow way down. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Fluxion - Field
• 03:25    Polmo Polpo - Rottura
• 08:55    Marconi Union - Temperature Drop
• 13:28    Talvihorros - Twin Peaks Theme
• 17:55    Deepchord presents Echospace - In Echospace
• 21:30    Vangelis - Antartica
• 26:30    The Orb - Slug Dub
• 31:25    Rod Modell - Mars Oil
• 36:16    Fluxion - Plain
• 38:50    Mokira - Lord, Am I Going Down
• 42:00    Wixel - You're Inside Your Own shadow
• 44:45    Sval - Valldal
• 51:20    end

in foreign lands

I have always loved the sound of Djivan Gasparyan's music. He plays the duduk, a double reed instrument related to the oboe. It's got a great melancholy, other-worldy feel to it. I took the "other-wordly" idea to make a mix of music that is vaguely foreign sounding, at least foreign to my American ears. The music is Middle Eastern, Asian, African, Eastern European and Indian. I go back to a familiar source for some of the sounds, the Shortwave Music blog of Myke Weiskopf. Whether it's the night call to prayer in Bulgaria or Qur’an recitation from BSKSA Saudi Arabia, Myke has great recordings that everyone should take the time to investigate. The times in the tracklist are rough.  Sometimes there are two or three tracks playing at once & not all are listed in the tracklist.  I also messed with a few tracks, adding stretched audio as a backing track or adding reverb. At various times haunting, beautiful, calming or hypnotic, the music in this mix will hopefully stir your imagination. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Djivan Gasparyan - You have to come back to me
• 02:22 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Michael Brook - Night Song
• 06:20 Hildegard Westerkamp - Gently Penetrating
• 07:00 Night call to prayer in Draginovo, Bulgaria
• 09:20 Peter Nooten & Michael Brook - Suddenly II
• 10:25 Maya Beiser - I was there
• 15:00 harmonic fx
• 15:50 Gamelan Madu Sari - thinly roundly
• 18:15 Ayub Ogada - Kothbiro
• 22:00 Jon Hassell - Frontiera
• 22:30 Hildegard Westerkamp - Into the labyrinth
• 22:55 Geir Jenssen - Camp 2, world music on the radio
• 23:30 Gamelan Madu Sari - Dreams he is a ball of fire or a hummingbird
• 26:30 Peter Gabriel - Wall of Breath
• 28:15 Galata Mevlevi - Nay Taksim
• 29:40 Hildegard Westerkamp - Soundscape of cities, Delhi
• 30:10 Forrest Fang - Garuda
• 31:15 Jon Hassell - Tramonto
• 33:00 Qur’an recitation from BSKSA Saudi Arabia
• 34:20 Lamp of the Universe - Heru, part 1
• 36:55 U Srinivas & Michael Brook - Think
• 41:30 Anouar Brahem - L'oiseau
• 45:45 Djivan Gasparyan - dle vaman
• 49:30 Peter Gabriel - A sense of home
• 51:14 end

positively ambient

As most readers of this blog probably know, I cross-post these mixes over at Mixcloud.  Recently I got a request from listener, TikTaalik.  This is part of his post, "I was wondering if you could compile a mix that is optimistic throughout. The sort of ambience that I tend only to hear once or twice in a set. Can you get a solid hour of calm ambient music with a euphoric undertone?" At Low Light Mixes we give the people what they want, so here it is...Positively Ambient.  I'm not sure if all of the music qualifies as "optimistic" or "euphoric" but it is all calm & beautiful.  I start things off with Eno's "An Ending(ascent)" because I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.  Although it may work better as "an ending" than as a beginning, I wanted it up front so everyone that plays the mix is guaranteed to hear it. I hope the rest of the mix doesn't get too sweet or too pretty sounding.  I don't want it to dissolve into new age crapola.  I dug into the archives for some of the tunes like James Johnson's "Entering Twilight" from 2000, Jim Cole from 2002, Diatonis from 2003, Fox & Budd from 2003, Jeff Pearce from 1999 and Stephen Bacchus from 1998. The feel of this mix is definitely soothing, no dissonant chords to be found.  It works well as sleep music, meditation music, , etc.  Just good 'ole traditional ambient music. T R A C K L I S T :

• • 00:00 Brian Eno - An Ending(ascent)
  • 04:00 Arc of Doves - Reverie
  • 09:00 James Johnson - Entering Twilight
  • 14:45 Diatonis - Winding Road
  • 18:00 Hammock - Maybe they will sing for us tomorrow
  • 23:10 Stephen Bacchus - The Returning
  • 30:25 John Foxx & Harold Budd - A Delicate Romance
  • 36:45 Jim Cole - Light Shines in Your Heart
  • 43:10 Jeff Pearce - Daylight Slowly
  • 44:45 Hammock - Three Sisters
  • 48:50 d_rradio - Into the Morning
  • 54:05 Quosp - Quosp
  • 57:30 end

far from home

Picture yourself floating in space.  Whether you like to think of it as drifting alone, in a spacesuit, looking out at the stars all around.  Or instead imagine yourself as Bowie said "Here am I floating round my tin can, far above the moon."  Either way, the music in this mix should make you feel "far from home". I like to envision a small craft in the middle of nowhere, drifting...waiting.  Waiting for rescue?  Waiting for contact?  Waiting for main power to come back online?  Hopefully the music will generate a feeling of weightlessness, of drifting in the vast expanse of space, without being too dark or dissonant. I did not pick the tunes based on titles.  I just did a quick sampling of some of my ambient collection to come up with possible tracks.  But it's interesting how many of the song titles fit right in with the "outer space" theme. Titles like Meissa, Deep Sky Time, 1st Lite & Asteroid Dawn work perfectly for this motif. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Lunar Testing Lab - Space Traffic Control
• 01:00 Brian Eno - Asteroid Dawn
• 04:40 A Produce - The Big Sleep
• 09:40 Harmonia - Weird Dream
• 11:10 Wouter Veldhuis - 1st Lite
• 18:30 Steve Roach - Deep sky Time
• 24:40 Austere - Lid
• 28:00 Mike Griffin & A Produce - Altara
• 31:45 Lunar Testing Lab - Paaliaq
• 33:05 Sonmi451 - Orange
• 38:45 Thomas Fehlman - in the wind
• 43:10 Spheruleus - Disintegrate
• 48:30 Fripp & Eno - Meissa
• 55:30 Sonmi451 - Blue
• 1:00:00 end