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 Neuromancer 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.


[ s t r e a m ] | [ d o w n l o a d ] | [ i t u n e s ]


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

Television Sky by Lowlight on Mixcloud

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.

[ s t r e a m ] | [ d o w n l o a d ] | [ i t u n e s ]

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

Slow & Sleepy by Lowlight on Mixcloud

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.

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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.


[ s t r e a m ] | [ d o w n l o a d ] | [ i t u n e s ]


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

.

More end of the year stuff

Here's a couple more year-end lists & thoughts.

My 5 favorite Low Light Mixes of 2010:

1. In Foreign Lands
2. Footsteps
3. Left in the Desert
4. A Canticle Unfolds
5. Beneath the Surface

Other fav mixes from around the web:

1. :papercutz - Dream Scores - a Headphone Commute mix
2. Subheim - Headphone Commute mix
3. Invisible Ink - An Ambientblog mix
4. Everything Old - a Quiet Sounds podcast
5. echochorus - chiekurspace mix
6. Marooned - a Harry Towell mix

Other favorites things in 2010 :

1. Tiny Desk Concerts - this is a series of very intimate concerts over at NPR Music. Whether it's Olaf Arnalds, The Tom Tom Club, Black Dub or The Red River, the concerts are always entertaining. There is video of each & the audio is downloadable.
2. Slaapwel Records - a small label that specializes in music to fall asleep to. All their recordings are excellent. I eagerly await each new release.
3. Filmography 2010 - one of my favorite online videos from the past year. The editor took clips from 270 films of 2010 & cut them to great music with great results. The first minute, where she remixes "Nostrand" by Ratatat with "Power" by Kanye West & audio from films clips, is brilliant!
4. Wixel - 12 Records in 12 Months - Wixel is Wim Maesschalck, who also runs Slaapwell. He set out on a crazy project back in 2009, to release 12 records in 12 months. He does a nice job of keeping the quality high & changes things up enough to make all the releases interesting. Not really a best of 2010 entry, but I discovered it this year & wanted to draw attention to an outstanding project.

Best of 2010 - part 2

Yesterday I posted my favorites ambient releases of 2010. Today it's a few other year end lists.

I spend most of my time listening to ambient/electronic music but enough"normal" music sneaks in there that I thought I'd do a top ten list for pop albums. I'll also list a few recordings that don't fit into either ambient or pop.

First up, my top ten pop albums:

• 1. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - the vs. ep
• 2. Efterklang - magic chairs
• 3. Vampire Weekend - Contra
• 4. Ra Ra Riot - Orchard
• 5. lost in the trees - all alone in an empty house
• 6. Neil Young - Le Noise
• 7. The Maple Mountain Sunburst Triolian Orchestra
• 8. Sun Kil Moon - admiral fell promises
• 9. Horse Feathers - thistled spring
• 10. Matt & Kim - sidewalks
• 11. Damien Jurado - saint bartlett
• 12. Black Dub - black dub

Some favorite single pop songs from 2010:

• 1. Paul Simon - Getting Ready for Christmas Day
• 2. Kanye West - Power
• 3. Janelle Monáe - Tightrope
• 4. Vampire Weekend - Cousins
• 5. Damien Jurado - Cloudy Shoes
• 6. Matisyahu - One Day
• 7. New Pornographers - Crash Years
• 8. Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More & Winter Winds
• 9. Jon Hopkins - Monsters Theme
• 10. Peter Gabriel - Flume
• 11. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Life is Cinema
  

Some other favorites recordings that didn't fit into pop or ambient categories:

• Steve Reich - double sextet 2x5 [Nonesuch]
• Michael Daugherty - metropolis symphony & deus ex machina [Naxos]
• Max Richter - infra [fat cat]
• Maya Beiser - provenance [innova]
• Dakota Suite -vallisa [glitterhouse]
• Steve Tibbetts - natural causes [ecm]

.

Best of 2010 - ambient

Here is the obligatory top ten list for the end of the year. I might do a quick mix before the end of the year to highlight some of the releases on the list.

It was another good year for music, although nothing stood out as a new trend or a ground breaking recording. Alio Die put out a bunch of excellent recordings that I'm just trying to keep up with. Under the Spire & Low Point each had 3 recordings make the list, all of them are excellent. It was nice to see Hypnos back on the list with their wonderful release, Herion - Out & About.

Another label worth mentioning is Audio Gourmet, a new netlabel that produces a ton of quality releases. Label owner, Harry Towell, also made the list with his own release, Spheruleus - Frozen Quarters.

The ambient best of list is a bit long so I'm not going to make comments about each release, I'm getting lazy as I get older. Feel free to add your own lists in the comments.

Top Ambient Releases of 2010:

• 36 - Hollow [3six recordings]
• 36 - Memories in Widescreen [3six recordings]
• Alio Die - horas tibi serenas [hic sunt leones]
• Alio Die - tripudium naturae [hic sunt leones]
• Alio Die & parallel worlds - circo divino [hic sunt leones]
• Brian Mcbride - the effective disconnect [kranky]
• Christopher Hipgrave - Slow With Pages Of Fluttering Interference [low point]
• Deepchord presents echospace - liumin/liumin reduced [modern love]
• Gareth Hardwick - of the sea and shore [low point]
• Herion - Out & About [hypnos]
• hummingbird - our fearful symmetry [fluid audio]
• Ithaca Trio - Tesla Verses The Night [under the spire]
• Jannick Schou - Night [under the spire]
• Kyle Bobby Dunn - A Young Person's Guide To [low point]
• Maps & Diagrams - cubiculo [fluid audio]
• Maps & Diagrams - Tintinnbulate [audio gourmet]
• Marcus Fischer - monocoastal [12k]
• Nest - Retold [serein]
• Pausal - lapses [barge]
• Scott Cortez - twin radiant flux [line]
• sonmi451 - spectrum [u-cover]
• Spheruleus - Frozen Quarters [under the spire]

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 the albumBen Chatwin(Talvihorros) was kind enough to send me a copy of his version 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.

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subatomic dubscapes


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.

Download (right click/save as) : 51:14, 74mb
in foreign lands


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.

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positively ambient


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