Thursday, April 26, 2007

a drift on the signal

A few years ago I became fascinated by the release of The Conet Project, recordings of the famous short-wave "numbers" stations, rumored to be operated by various covert intelligence operations. These stations transmit in different languages, employing male and female voices repeating strings of numbers or phonetic letters day and night, all year round. The recordings a very spooky.

I've used these recordings in a few mixes & was always interested in exploring other shortwave recordings. Then a few weeks ago I came across the SHORTWAVEMUSIC blog. Run by Myke Weiskopf, the blog is dedicated to music and/or musical noise intercepted via shortwave radio. These musical recordings feature a bit of noise, hum, drift & interference. But that's exactly what makes them so haunting. The washes of static mix wonderfully with a Sudanese oud player or Qu'ran chants or post-Soviet melancholia.

I highly recommend heading over to Myke's blog and taking some time to browse through his amazing collection of 'shortwave music'. Two of my favorite posts are "the Dream"(6th from the bottom) and Post-Soviet Melancholia, Part IV(about halfway down, July 29th 2005).

Myke also has a CD available that I just bought. It is an interesting collection of tunes, quite a wide variety of styles & sounds. He, of course, uses shortwave in some of the tracks. I used two cuts from the cd in this new mix. You can find info about the album here. Myke's myspace page is here.

I used quite a few clips from the Shortwavemusic blog in this new mix. The rest of the music is just some stuff I came across that I thought would work well with the shortwave feel. I just had to use Basinski's "The River" as it was constructed from shortwave recordings. I figured this mix was probably my only chance to use The Bulgarian Women's Choir singing one of my favorite choral pieces. I think it fits perfectly. I really wanted to get something in there from William Fields' cd, "Timbre". It's a good ambient, glitchy work on the Gears of Sand label. I was also happy to squeeze in some Bexar Bexar form the excellent new release, "Tropism".

Around 19 minutes into the mix is some music from My Fun. You can download the latest EP, idyll, at the net label Test Tube. My two favorite Ukrainian shortwaves occur at around 15:10 - 17:21 and 48:00 - 50:27.

The start & stop times for the tracks may be a little confusing. That's because of the fluid nature of this mix. Multiple tracks fading in & out at various times. I like the mix & hope you do too. Thanks again to Myke Weiskopf for all the great shortwave recordings.

- - - - Download it here - - - -
a drift on the signal


T R A C K L I S T :
00:00 - 00:30 interval signal
00:21 - 02:43 Alva Noto - haliod xerrox copy 4
02:03 - 02:54 E3 Lincolnshire Poacher
02:47 - 04:21 Myke Weiskopf - interlude 18
04:00 - 08:14 Radio Cairo
04:35 - 08:31 Chronomad - se
07:54 - 09:52 Talvin Singh - kalpataru
08:37 - 10:28 Jordan
09:26 - 12:08 Sheila Chandra - ABoneChroneDone #1
11:13 - 12:25 Radio Bulgaria
11:54 - 15:28 Bulgarin Women's Choir - Polegnala e Toudora
15:10 - 17:21 Radio Ukraine International
17:07 - 19:19 Myke Weiskopf - interlude #2 : faders
18:51 - 22:33 My Fun - Black Sky
22:21 - 25:18 tu m' - talking walking
24:30 - 26:40 China Radio International - Guqin Music
26:18 - 31:41 Bexar Bexar - unsettled & unable
30:30 - 32:49 Family Radio Int'l
31:30 - 37:32 William Basinski - The River(exerpt)
36:32 - 37:06 Yankee Bravo
38:04 - 38:44 Conet Project - Russian Lady
36:58 - 41:34 O Yuki Conjugate - In Dreams, Perhaps
38:52 - 40:03 Qu'ran chants via BSKSA (Riyadh)
40:56 - 41:39 Conet Project - Czech Lady
41:14 - 44:52 Electric Birds - vox canon
43:49 - 44:20 Conet Project - tcp d1 16 attencion 3 finds irdial
44:05 - 48:02 Andrew Pekler - sleepless
47:53 - 48:13 4931 0925 May 10 03
48:00 - 50:27 Ukraine
50:11 - 54:19 William Fields - indra
52:15 - 53:54 Ney Performer from Azerbaijan
53:14 - 58:45 M. Bentley - Time (fabricated)
58:10 - 1:02:30 Tim Hecker - Pluie 2

21 comments:

shortwavemusic said...

Gorgeous work, my friend. You are a true master. I love the synchronization of Chronomad to the Radio Cairo track and your Bulgarian subset in particular.

Anonymous said...

I'm listening to this right now and I must say this is very, very beautiful!
Haunting!!
I also like that this takes a different approach from the classic drone mix. This is cinematic material. Thanks for sharing,

Peter

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for including my track! It's a beautiful mix!

Unknown said...

Lovely stuff, greetings as always from London, England.

Keep up the good work Dave.

Nick

Low Light Mixes said...

Thanks to everyone for your comments.

Justin, I've been enjoying many of the sites on your links page.

Thanks again,
Dave

Anonymous said...

Just discovered your site - really enjoying this mix and look forward to listening to the others. Beautifully produced. Cheers!

dave said...

I hope you don't mind me getting in touch with you like this,but i was wondering if you had heard anything from Nvunet from Hydrogen Cafe.

He told me in March that he had a new mix ready and it would be posted in a week or so,and since then,nothing.

Just hoping he is ok.

Unknown said...

Dave,

I know that my friend at the Hydrogen Cafe has two mixes that are nearly finished. They should be ready sometime this month. I believe the two mixes will have similar themes, with one being instrumental & one featuring vocal tunes. They are going to be fantastic.

dave said...

As long as he is well and still mixing,that's all that matters

nrvnet said...

24-36-55-62-9….mysterious….12-9-33-12-9-33….ethereal….88-62-88-12-2-3….ghostly….66-22-38-54-99-12-4….drifting….24-36-55-62-9….voices….12-9-33-12-9-33….scanned….88-62-88-12-2-3….through….66-22-38-54-99-12-4….quiet….24-36-55-62-9….sound….12-9-33-12-9-33….reverberating….88-62-88-12-2-3….in….66-22-38-54-99-12-4….transient….24-36-55-62-9….beauty….12-9-33-12-9-33

andrew said...

this mix is absolutely wonderful. thank you.

ger leonard said...

really good work dave..inspirational stuff..
love to hear you mix some svarte greiner, nils okland, elegi, esmerine, amiina, swod, huaschka, avre henriksen, Splint, Deathprod.. etc
Mix of styles there could prove very dramatic and satisfying

Anonymous said...

Found this mix via the bigchill forums and found this page via the last.fm description of your mix! Wonderful place the interwebs!

Love this mix, really nice music. I'm going to subscribe to the blog now :-)

shortwavemusic said...

Hi Dave. Just a follow-up ... Shortwavemusic is back online with new material starting 1 October. Visit it at its new home at www.myke.me. Thanks!

LillOne said...

Hi Dave
I discovered this EXCELLENT blog some time ago and started downloading and listening to your mixes from the oldest onwards.
Needless to say, they are all wonderful and perfectly done.

Unfortunately the link to this one seems to be NOT working anymore.

Can you help?

Regards

Marco (from Rome, Italy)

Myke said...

Marco - It's also available here.

http://www.eilo.org/index.php?downloadfile=1734&c=&stag=UuLMTIg0vEY%3D&go=yes

Low Light Mixes said...

Marco,

Thanks for finding the broken link, it's now fixed. I hope you like the mix, it's one of favorites.

Myke - thanks for posting the alternate download source. You gave a Marco an answer quicker than I did!

LillOne said...

Hi Myke and Dave
Many grateful thanks to both for your very fast help!

It's now time to listen to this mix you kindly made availble again.

Regards

Marco

Unknown said...

Dave, I am listening to your mixes almost two years now, and somehow I missed to thank you for that particular mix. I am a proud Bulgarian and I am proud that Bulgarian music have found place in one of your wonderful mixes. Bulgaria's Women Choir and Mystery of Bulgarian Voices are our "business card" in terms of folklore music and culture. I hope to find more of Bulgaria in your future mixes. Still - with or without Bulgarian music accent - your work is more than great and I am expecting every mix of yours with excitement. Keep up with the good work!

Low Light Mixes said...

Quazar,

Thanks for your support. I'm so glad you liked this mix & especially the inclusion of the Bulgarian Women's Choir. That piece has to be one of my favorite pieces of recorded music of all time.

Do you have any suggestions for further exploration of other Bulgarian music?

Thanks again for listening/downloading.

Chris said...

That piece by the Bulgarian Women's Choir is one of my favorites of theirs as well! This mix is haunting, creepy, very evocative and intense. Great job! It also got me doing a little more reading up on numbers stations. It sounds like something out of spy movies, only it's for real!