low light mixes

The transition from spring to summer brings two new mixes from Low Light Mixes central command. We've had a fair amount of rain lately so both mixes are "rain" mixes. Rain evokes so many memories & emotions, it's a great theme for mixes. Using field recordings really helps hold the mix together. I try not to over do it with the rain sounds, hopefully it works well. This first mix is a vocal mix, well mostly vocal, there are three instrumentals hiding in there. All the tunes have the word "rain" in the title. It was fun discovering tunes I did not know very well, like The Decemberists track & the cut from Susanna & The Magical Orchestra. The second rain mix is an instrumental mix and it will be posted over at the Subversion blog. Mick will be posting it there soon. And I will be posting a drone mix from Mick here at Low Light Mixes soon as well. I've also got a "sleep" mix in the works. DOWNLOAD : 77mb 40:00min I Love the Rain T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Susanna & The Magical Orchestra - It's Raining Today 04:40 The (real) Tuesday Weld - I Love the Rain 08:37 Asche & Spencer - A Walk in the Rain 09:49 The Handsome Family - Famous Blue Raincoat 14:40 Daniel Lanois - Rain Weather 18:20 The Decemberists - Raincoat Song 20:40 Joe Purdy - I Love the Rain the Most 25:00 Oblong - Rain Over the Deverils 28:54 REM - I'll Take the Rain 34:15 Rivulets - Rain All Winter Long 40:00 end

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

I was inspired by my daughter's mix cd's to do my own vocal mix. She does great mixes that I listen to in the car and I thought I'd do a similar one of my own. Of course the finished product is not as uptempo as hers. This being an ambient mix blog, most of the tunes are fairly quiet. There is no unifying theme here, other than I like these tunes. The Martin Grech tunes are from "March of the Lonely" which made it on my best of 2008 list. I could have put in a ton of David Sylvian tracks but ended up with just two. Hmmm, maybe I should do an all Sylvian mix someday. There are two new songs in there, "Another World" by Antony & the Johnsons and "Foreground" from the new Grizzly Bear. The rest are a mix of old & fairly new cuts. I did cheat a little bit by sneaking in one instrumental track. It's "Bell Toll by Daniel Lanois from his fantastic Omni series box. Somehow it just fit right. I also cheated on the graphic. I took an album cover by Dan Deacon and wiped out his title & put my own in. The pic just worked so perfectly with the title of the mix. I called the mix "Refuge" because I think of music as a refuge and this mix as an escape from from other crappy music...from work...from laundry...from the economy...from normal, crazy life. I hope this mix can be a refuge for you too. TRACKLIST: 00:00 Canyon Country - Dead or Dreaming 03:50 David Sylvian - Maria 06:15 Martin Grech - Kingdom 09:30 Sufjan Stevens - Holland 12:50 Grizzly Bear - Foreground 15:54 Antony & the Johnsons - Another World 19:35 Peter Gabriel - Father, Son 24:20 Roxy Music - Spin Me Round 28:50 REM - Star Me Kitten 31:45 Daniel Lanois - Bell Toll 33:00 David Bridie - Sad 36:30 David Sylvian - When Poets Dreamed of Angels 41:00 Martin Grech - Ashes Over Embers 46:30 P.G. Six - Lily of the West 51:35 Trespassers William - Love is Blindness 58:31 end

This is another new kind of mix for the blog. This is an all Eno mix. I came across the Eno tune "Spider & I " in a recently downloaded mix & I was reminded of how much I like Eno's voice. So I thought why not collect some favorite vocal tunes together in one place. For the first half of the mix I alternate between vocal tunes & instrumentals. I thought this might be nice to break things up a bit. About half way through I realized I'd run out of time so I went to all vocals. I love singing along with his songs & it is nice to have some favorites all together. The title comes from Genesis' "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" album, where Eno is credited with "enosification." Which he described this way..."I would take existing instruments and feed them through various devices to 'weird them up'." I hope you enjoy this Eno mix..... T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 By This River (Before & After Science) 02:51 Music for Glitterbug - track 10 (music for glitterbug) 05:37 Everything Merges with the Night (Another Green World) 09:20 Marine Radio (Spinner) 14:05 And Then So Clear (Another Day) 19:25 Summer Ride (Curiosities vol.2) 23:21 Spider & I (Before & After Science) 26:55 Dunwich Beach, Autumn 1960 (On Land) 28:55 Taking Tiger Mountain (Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy) 34:00 Zawinul Lava (Another Green World) 25:36 Julie With (Before & After Science) 41:00 Golden Hours (Anoter Green World) 44:44 This (Another Day) 48:04 On Some Faraway Beach (Here Come the Warm Jets) 52:25 No Orders w/ J. Peter Schwalm (Musikain) 56:23 Bottomliners (Another Day) 1:00:00 end

The inspiration for this mix came from the new Jon Hassell album. If you haven't picked it up yet, do so. It's called "Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street". It's already in my best of 2009 folder. It's very moody, very ambient, just a little jazzy. Very much like the wonderful release from Arve Henriksen last year. I wanted this mix to have a moody, melancholy, late-night jazz feel. Although I have used some of these artists in other mixes this is the first jazz mix for Low Light mIxes. I wasn't sure what to expect when I began but it turned out fairly well. It didn't take long to put together because it's not a sound collage like the last mix. But I think the tunes flow nicely together. Sometimes sitting around with a good scotch, you need soemthing with a jazzy flavor & I hope this works for that while remaining true to the Low Light feel. Next up...an all Eno mix. T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Arve Henriksen - Migration 05:21 The Necks - Black 10:35 Mort d'un Pourri - Valerie 13:50 Slowhill - Nikos Dream 17:59 boren & der club of gore - Midnight Walker 24:45 Jon Hassell - Courtais 29:40 Miles Davis - In a Silent Way 33:35 Nick B. Ronin - Modul 42 39:30 Duke Ellington - Melancholia 42:25 Arve Henriksen - Recording Angel 48:20 Jon Hassell - Last Night the Moon Came 58:17 Mort d'un Pourri - tout est tranquille 1:00:00 end

I have been wanting to do another field mix almost since the moment I finished the last one. So here it is, a new mix entitled "in_transit". I like field recordings but not as much nature recordings. I'm not wild about birds chirping & water flowing. I like mechanical sounds or crowd noise or as you'll hear in this mix, trains. I used train sounds in the last mix & they play a prominent role here too. I had planned on doing more of my own field recording but I just never seemed to find the time. I did manage to sneak two of my recordings in, one occurs at about 8:50 in the mix. It's a recording of the humming sound of telephone pole at the end of my driveway. The pole hums when it gets windy, so I just went out stuck the mic right up to the pole & froze my arse off. I then fattened up the sound a bit. The other recording is of my daughter playing piano, but you'd never guess that's what you're hearing. It happens at about the 19:10 mark. I had her play about 40 seconds of chopin or schubert. Then I used a simple little program to stretch that 40 seconds into 12 minutes & 40 seconds. The result sounds nothing like classical piano. You can find the program here...Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch. Give it a try. Works great on piano & classical music. It makes the human voice sound very creepy. Most of the other sound used in the mix are a combination of field recordings from all over the web, music & music that already has field recordings built in, like the last cut by RF. There is new music from sleepy town manufacture & unit 21, elegi, Loren Chasse & terje isungset. Two tracks used in the mix are from a cd that I got from Rick over at Hydrogen Cafe. Years ago he burned some ambient background sounds from Blade Runner. At the 6:20 mark we get ambience from the Tyrell Coporation & at about 23:50 we hear sounds from Blade Runner Chinatown. I'll definitely be using more of these in future field mixes. Well I guess that's enough for now. I'm not making a tracklist as the cuts are playing all over each other, many times 2 or 3 at the same time. If you are curious about certain sounds or tracks just email or comment with the time in question & I'll do my best to get info back to you. Enjoy the trip!

The original name for this mix was "noisy, droney, scratchy". Very catchy title. That's a pretty good description of how I wanted this mix to sound. I don't like too much noise, however. Most of the tunes have some grit, some distortion, some white noise, some scratches but not too much. I still wanted the mix to be very ambient, not annoying or distracting. I guess the Fripp & Eno cut isn't very noisy or scratchy but could be considered droney. I'm just happy to have squeezed into a mix. I hadn't listened to it in years & had forgotten how much I loved that track. Of course now that I just posted the mix, Tim Hecker comes out with something new that would have fit perfectly. And the next Infraction release from Sleepy Town Manufacture sounds like it would be a good fit too. Oh well, I guess I'll have to save those for volume 2. T R A C K L I S T I N G : 00:00 Jasper, TX - home 04:15 Chris Bissonnette - orffyreus wheel 12:15 Rain Cloud - keeping a low profile 17:40 Belong - same places (slow version) 27:40 Eluder - the most beautiful blue 33:25 Fripp & Eno - heavenly music corp. 41:00 Rameses III - origins IV 49:20 Forestflies - processed vocals & strings 52:35 Erstlaub - sinking together 58:40 Milieu - burnt rust 1:00:13 end

I cross familiar territory here with another piano mix. I think this is the third I've done. There's no particular reason for doing a piano mix other than I happened to run into a few nice piano tunes & figured I'd slap together a short mix. As usual this is fairly quiet music, good for reading the paper on a Sunday morning.(when newspapers disappear I'll really miss doing that) I'll be sending this one to Mick & his "15 Minutes of Fame" mix series which you can find here...15 minutes. Enjoy. TRACKLIST: 00:00 Milieu - antique sunlight 05:00 Ryuichi Sakamoto - ropa 10:00 Taylor Deupree & Kenneth Kirschner - may 15:11 Library Tapes - fragment VIII 18:30 Con Cetta - ker 22:46 Jeanne Moreau - un entretien avec 24:14 NIN - ghosts 11 27:20 Kosik - lastly empty 30:40 Goldmund - Threnody 35:00 United Bible Studies - sea of rains 35:46 end

The mixes keep coming fast & furious. Last year I downloaded a very cool holiday compilation. It's called "That Fuzzy Feeling". It looks like they still have downloads available but are sold out of the cd's. You can have find it here... http://lorecordings.greedbag.com/buy/that-fuzzy-feeling-0/?tab=description That release was the starting point for this mix. There are three cuts from the compilation in the mix....Brave the Cold by Vincent Oliver and Isan...Family, Giving by Peter Broderick...Snowstorm in a Snow Globe by Fuzzy Lights. From there I just looked for other tunes that fit the theme. So grab some hot coco & trim the tree with some ambient goodness playing in the background. Happy Holidays from all of us(actually just me) here at Low Light Mixes. T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Vincent Oliver and Isan - Brave the Cold 02:35 Freescha - Holiday Frost 07:25 Takahiro Kido - Christmas Song 12:50 Chris Abrhams - Christmas Island 19:10 Stuart Busby - Snowfall 22:13 Peter Broderick - Family, Giving 25:30 Dakota Suite - December 8, 1980 27:40 Maps of the Heart - Skating Away 31:40 July Skies - Holidays to Wales 33:00 Fuzzy Lights - Snowstorm in a Snow Globe 35:50 Northern - December 39:57 end

I thought I'd try something a bit different...a mix that is beat driven. Of course it's not going to be some house music mix or techno dance trax. The mix is sort of in the same vein as the ones done by Alan, of Great Axescapes fame. He has a fantastic mix called "nowthatswhaticallmnmlambidubtechno! vol.1" that you can find here...vol. 1. This mix is similar in that dubby, ambient way. Only one artist, Quantec, in common though. I wasn't sure how the mix would work but I like the results very much. I'm listenbing to it as I type this, nice & loud so the low dubby bass lines reverberate around the house. Excellent. The other different thing about this mix is it is shorter than the others. An online friend, Mick, is running The "15 Minutes Of Fame’ Mix Series" & he asked me to do some mixes. The only requirements are up to 40 minutes in length & no more than 10 tracks. That should help with some experimentation, may be an idea will work in a 30 minute mix but not for the usual hour-long mix. When I get a link to the mix series I'll post it here. I should be able to crank out 3 more mixes by the end of the year. Next up...a piano mix, a noisy-droney-scratchy mix and a best of the year mix. t r a c k l i s t : 00:00 Plastikman - consumed 04:44 Marconi Union - buildings without people 08:05 Trentemoller - miss you 11:50 Yagya - rhythm of snow #5 17:55 Underworld - pizza for eggs 20:20 Quantec - unusual signals 25:25 Ontayso - procesamiento 2.05 28:45 Tiki Obmar - ankeney, iowa 39:30 end