Who remembers what a big thing tribal ambient was for awhile back in the 90s? The first time I heard "Fearless" from the album Strata by Steve Roach & Robert Rich I was hooked. There were many Roach albums from that time period that drew on the tribal ambient sound - World's Edge, On This Planet, Soma, Australia: Sound of the Earth, Forgotten Gods, Cavern of Sirens, Earth Island, Well of Souls, The Serpent's Lair, - oh heck there's too many to keep track of! I loved that sound. But as so often happens I grew tired of it. Part of that was just me overdosing on that style and part of it was as the style proliferated we ended up with crappy new age versions of tribal ambient. So I stayed away for a long time while still revisiting the classic Roach recordings occasionally. Earlier this year I discovered the music of Al Gromer Khan, thanks to Paul Asbury Seaman. I was listening to a few cuts from Lexus and I enjoyed the tribal sound and realized that I hadn't listened that style very much lately. But those tracks got me going and the next thing you know, I'm collecting tacks for a mix. The tracks in this mix are a good sampling of new cuts, older cuts from the tribal heyday and a few really old cuts from the early 80s. The tracks are also a mix instrumentation from drum sounds to gamelan to marimba. I love how this turned out and hope you do too. Cheers!
As I said a few posts back, I am a huge space science dork. My top 5 favorite NASA probes are: 1. Voyager 2. Cassini 3. Viking 4. Galileo 5. Spirit and Opportunity Number two on that list disintegrated in the atmosphere of Saturn today. Cassini was in orbit around Saturn for 7 years and made some of the most fantastic encounters of any planetary mission. The most amazing discovery concerns a little moon called Enceladus. Through Cassini, scientists have determined that Enceladus has a global subsurface saltwater ocean that might host hydrothermal vents. It's probably our best bet for finding life in our solar system. But Cassini was running out of fuel and rather than risk crashing into a moon and contaminating it, the folks at NASA decided to plunge the spacecraft into Saturn. Cassini will dive into the planet's atmosphere, sending science data for
as long as its small thrusters can keep the spacecraft's antenna
pointed at Earth. Soon after, Cassini will burn up and disintegrate like
a meteor.
This mix is a Requiem for Cassini. Rather than an electronic, space music feel I went with all neo-classical and soundtrack cuts. The track titles tell the story.
