low light mixes

clouds in my coffee

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 :

• 00:00 Barsarin Quartet - nachtblind
• 03:50 Jacaszek - rytm to niesmiertelnosc
• 08:30 Jonathan Hughes - monoline
• 11:41 Shirk - stupid dick
• 12:50 Segue - a glass darkly
• 16:20 Max Ritcher - found song for P
• 18:20 Yellow 6 - kulterhuset
• 26:25 Goldmund - clement danes
• 30:20 Milieu - mirage
• 32:05 bvdub - different place different time
• 38:40 Planivaar - adrift
• 43:30 Barsarin Quartet - geschichten von interesse
• 48:05 Marconi Union - buildings without people
• 51:31 Koda - the tension was beautiful
• 55:18 Library Tapes - fragment V

a scattering of ashes

There is no clever theme to this new mix. I noticed a similar feel to much of the new music I was listening to so I decided to cobble some tunes together in a mix.

All of the music in this mix is new, either 2007 or 2008, except for the Andrew Deutsch cut which is from 2005(although it is new to me). The music in this mix has a sort of subdued, orchestral fell to it. I started thinking about this mix listening to the new Deaf Center release. Layers of strings create a beautiful, melancholy experience. That pretty much describes the rest of the music in this mix. T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Emanuele Errante - leaves 01:25 Deaf Center - Vintage Well 06:10 Bersarin Quartet - es kann nicht ewig winter sein 09:45 mwvm - context where 17:50 Andrew Deutsch - untilted #1(from cd "The Sun") 26:00 Svarte Greiner - kobbergruve.... 29:20 Jasper, TX - things could stay 37:30 Emanuele Errante - lucus 49:10 Deaf Center - ashes 50:30 Stars of the Lid - slight on the childproof 55:00 Bersarin Quartet - Inversion

retroact 1.0

I listen to music every night when I go to sleep. Most of the time I keep a small stack of recent cd's on the nightstand for nighttime listening. I was getting tired of the selections so I dug into the back catalog & pulled out Steve Roach's Structures from Silence. Wow, it was great to hear that recording again! That lead me to pull out a couple of other oldies, which then lead to this mix. All the music in this mix, retroact 1.0, is at least 10 years old. Structures from Silence is from 1984! The Aphex Twin cut is from 1994. I cheated with a couple of tracks, such as Tollefson & Vidna/Pearce, that are from 1999. It was wonderful to listen to albums I hadn't heard in years. I had forgotten just how great Saul Stokes Washed in Mercury is. I am very happy to have worked in Thom Brennan's The Path Not Taken, one of my all-time favorite ambient tracks. This mix is not supposed to represent a certain time period or demonstrate evolving styles. It's just a bunch of older cuts that I sort randomly pulled out & thought would work well together. I hope you enjoy this ambient trip down memory lane.
T R A C K L I S T I N G :

• 00:00 Brian Eno - Sparrowfall 1 [1978]
• 01:00 Aphex Twin - rhubarb [1994]
• 08:00 Steve Roach - Structures from Silence [1984]
• 17:20 Biosphere - Chukhung [1997]
• 23:55 Saul Stokes - Sweet Parafin [1997]
• 26:40 Brian Eno - Sparrowfall 2 [1978]
• 28:05 Vidna Obmana & Jeff Pearce - A Scattering Flock [1999]
• 31:35 David Tollefson - Maja [1999]
• 36:10 Paul Schutze - Sleep 2 [1995]
• 43:30 Thom Brennan - The Path Not Taken [1997]
• 55:40 Jeff Greinke - Glacial Returns [1988]
• 01:21 Brian Eno - Sparrowfall 3 [1978]

a ghost in the phase

I was having a tough time coming up with an idea for a new mix. The shortwave mix, a drift on the signal, is one of my favorite mixes so I decided to do a sequel. And thus, through ionospheric transit, comes...a ghost in the phase. The formula is pretty much the same as before, a nice mixture of real shortwave radio recordings & ambient music with shortwave elements. Most of the shortwave stuff comes from the Shortwavemusic blog. That's the same source I used for the last shortwave mix. It's run by Myke Weiskopf. Here are a couple of his other sites... Myke Weiskopf & Myke's Live Journal
Lots of cool sounds at all three sites. After the last shortwave mix a listener said it reminded him of Tetsu Inoue's World Receiver. How could I have forgotten that disc?! This time I made sure to include it. It's such a fantastic recording. You can buy it from Infraction records . Another excellent release that made it into the mix is the new one from Steven Mathieu called Radioland. Check it out. The Entia Non & krill.minima & Unproduct cuts are all available for free download. The times in this tracklist are just approximations. Sometimes there are several cuts playing at once, things fading in & out, etc. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 - Pulse Wave FX & JBO Tokyo Radio
• 00:16 - Entia Non - Cultural Plagiarism
• 01:28 - Fennesz - A Year in a Minute
• 04:33 - Myke Weiskopf - Shortwave Condensation
• 05:55 - Djivan - dle yaman
• 06:56 - Cairo Radio
• 07:45 - Punkt - Speechless
• 08:24 - Cairo Radio
• 09:13 - Rod Modell - Aloeswood
• 12:38 - Tetsu Inoue - Elevator Drops
• 19:05 - Steven Mathieu - Aufder Gasse
• 22:45 - Fennesz & Sakamoto - Aware
• 26:37 - Radio RASD
• 26:54 - My Fun - Signal Drift
• 29:06 - Felicia Atkinson with Sylvain Chauveau - Aberdeen
• 34:11 - Chris Bissonnette - Traveling Light
• 40:00 - WEWN
• 40:46 - Post-Soviet Melancholia Pt. V: "Мой Рок и Ролл" via Russian International Radio
• 42:40 - krill.minima - Projektor
• 45:34 - Myke Weiskopf - The Grotesque
• 46:23 - Unproduct - Radio Canvas 3
• 46:52 - numbers
• 47:40 - pulse transmission
• 50:30 - Rameses III - Origins IV May 25, 2007
• 53:20 - Steven Mathieu - Radioland
• 02:30 - Pulse Wave FX

Frogs

It rained all day yesterday & it seemed to really bring out the frogs tonight.  So I went to the pond across the street & recorded some frog vocalization.  Nothing spectacular here, it's just 2:45 of frog sounds.  But it's still cool.

Suspended in Air - a drone mix

Last year I discovered British drone master Paul Bradley. This year it's the beautiful drones of David Tagg. I have two of his recordings now, "Expanding Electronic Diversity" & "Waist Deep Seas Of Milk". Two excellent albums. So because I've been listening to more drones than usual I've decided to do a drone mix. Nothing extraordinary here, just one drone slowly slipping into the next. Most of the music here is fairly new. Almost all of it released this year or last, except of course for the Aloof Proof, which almost counts as new because of the reissue last year. This was fairly easy to put together but it flows nicely. Should be excellent for sleeping. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Paul Bradley - Irenic
• 05:45 Stars of the Lid - Virgina
• 09:00 Andrew Chalk - Suspended in Air
• 14:00 David Tagg - Waist Deep in Seas of Milk #6
• 20:30 Emeralds - arbol del tule
• 28:05 Belong - Vowel
• 35:00 Nelson Foltz & Tom Lynn - still life interlude
• 43:00? David Tagg - The 25th Door
• 49:30 Aloof Proof - The Last Leaf
• 59:30 Paul Bradley - Chroma #1
• 02:30 The Beautiful Schizophonic - cantiques la gloire du soleil

Moonlight Daydreams

I had already started this mix when our guest mixer, Jason, sent me his "Satellite" mix. I hadn't thought of satellite = moon until I saw his pic for the mix. So it's kind of funny that the next mix to be posted is a moon mix. I did this one the way I've done some mixes in the past, all the tunes have the word "moon" in the title. Came up with an interesting collections of tracks. It would have been fun to use more of the vocal cuts like Nick Drake - Pink Moon or Cowboy Junkies - Blue Moon, but I guess I wanted it to be mostly ambient. So only one vocal tune gets used & that's "Moon River" by Petra Haden And Bill Frisell to close out the mix. I think my favorite tune is the first one by Belbury Poly, it sounds like it could be used in some old sci-fi moon flick. Hope you enjoy the mix. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Belbury Poly - The Moonlawn
• 04:00 Robert Davies - Moon Chart
• 07:40 Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Our Way was Lit by Moonlight
• 13:00 Lisa Gerrard - Liquid Moon
• 16:00 Djivan Gasparyan - Moon Shines at Night
• 17:45 Rain Tree Crow - New Moon at Deer Wallow
• 19:36 Rumklang - Moonlight Walking
• 21:40 Maps & Diagrams - Man in the Moon
• 22:35 Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Moon
• 27:35 The Green Kingdom - Broken Moonbeams
• 32:40 Steve Roach - Moonshroud
• 40:10 Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Phases of the Moon
• 44:05 Susumu Yokota & Rothko - Floating Moon
• 46:15 Petra Haden And Bill Frisell - Moon River

Satellite

This new mix is something different. It is a guest mix courtesy of a listener/downloader in Ireland. Jason is an electronic music producer who discovered new artists such as Tim Hecker, Fennesz & Murcof through some Low Light mixes. He said "Stunning artists, I never knew music could sound so minimal yet full." It is an excellent mix. Jason has put together an hour-long mix of "some of my favorite trax from a few of the artists I've grown to love over the past year." It starts out nice & dreamy then gets a bit noisey, but in a good Tim Hecker way. It smooths out again then brings back some Hecker & Murcof noise before ending quietly with Fennesz & Sakamoto. A fine mix from start to finish. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. T R A C K L I S T :

• 00.00 "amb" Rafael Toral
• 1.20 "the Mouthchew" Stars of the Lid
• 4.28 "Reciting the Airships" Eluvium
• 8.00 "Crossing Signals" Manual
• 9.23 "Faces (Where Are You Now)" Stendeck
• 12.47 "Going Dark" EchaSkech
• 13.24 "Fractales Pt.2" Apparat
• 14.48 "Blood Rainbow" Tim Hecker
• 17.32 "Remove the Inside" Belong
• 22.56 "Junitaki" Manual
• 24.50 "Dizzy Sun" Manual
• 27.57 "I'm too Sleepy, shall we swim?" Belong
• 32.05 "Even (out) +" Stars of the Lid
• 35.00 "Chimeras" Tim Hecker
• 36.50 "Pillowcase" Dntel
• 39.00 "The Point of it all" Fennesz
• 42.33 "Radio Spiricom" Tim Hecker
• 44.45 "Cosmos II" Murcof
• 53.30 "Kuni" Christian Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto

Sequential Circuits

I don't really like berlin school music much anymore. I used to love that style. The first electronic music that I bought was Tangerine Dream & Jean Michel Jarre. I liked both of those artists for a long time. Eventually I think I just became bored with that style of electronic music. Recently, however, I've been listening to some berlin-type music. It started with the latest Steve Roach release, Arc of Passion. I was enjoying the album quite a bit so I dug up some other berlin school or nearly berlin tunes to throw into a mix. Of course there is a cut from Arc of Passion as well as another Roach tune, "Sundial", which I absolutely love. Add in some old T-Dream, Klaus Schulze, Richard Pinhas(3 tunes) and I'm good to go. The Tangerine Dream cuts are from an old cassette that I had of "Hyperborea" which I used to play constantly 10 to 15 years ago. I'm sure I'll pass out this phase soon. But for now the bouncing sequencers of berlin school are getting plenty of airtime at home & at work. t r a c k l i s t :

• 00:00    Arp - St. Tropez
• 05:00    Solvent - wig $1
• 07:15    Richard Pinhas - la ville sans nom
• 10:30    Steve Roach - Sundial
• 17:30    Klaus Schulze - Euro Caravan
• 25:15    Richard Pinhas - Melodic Simple Transition
• 28:20    Tangerine Dream - No Man's Land
• 33:20    Robert Rich & Ian Boddy - Chamber
• 37:30    Detroit Escalator Co. - city lights
• 41:00    Geometric Farms - The Chemist's Lullaby
• 45:15    Richard Pinhas - Home ''ruitor''
• 48:40    Steve Roach - Arc of Passion
• 59:30    Tangerine Dream - Hyperborea

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.