Pale Blue Dot - Earth Day 2017

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives."

     - Carl Sagan

I have always loved Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" essay. It's even better hearing his voice reading it.  In the Cosmos reboot from a couple of years ago, when they played a clip of Carl I actually cried.  Yes, I am a huge dork.  So needless to say, Sagan reading about the pale blue dot gets me every time. 

There are a ton of videos on youtube combining his quotes with music & images. Some are quite good, some use horrible cheesy music or hokey stock photos.  I thought, heck I'm a video editor, I'll make my own video. But then I realized how sometimes the images can detract from the prose.

So I decided to combine Sagan's Pale Blue Dot with one of my all-time favorite pieces of music - Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight."  The next step was to use that mashup to lead off a mix dedicated to Earth Day 2017 & the coinciding March for Science.  If you look at the track titles the theme is obvious.

I eventually did make a video to go with the mashup.  But it's just one image.  It's a pic taken by the Cassini spacecraft from just beyond Saturn.  It's Pale Blue Dot 2.0 if you will.  The  video is just one long slow pull from earth out to the full image.

Take a look here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LedVlmajeoA

Enjoy the mix, Earth Day and remember - Science, not Silence.

Cheers!

[ 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    Carl Sagan & Max Richter - Pale Blue Dot & On the Nature of Daylight
• 05:05    Jim Cole & Spectral Voices - Hear Earth
• 08:00    Steve Roach - On This Planet
• 15:20    Map & Diagrams - Particles of Earth
• 18:10    A Small Good Thing - Scorched Earth
• 23:15    Adam Pacione - Warming Trend
• 25:27    Shuttle358 - Melt
• 30:10    Jeff Greinke - Changing Skies
• 32:50    Brian Eno - Climate Study
• 35:30    J. Ralph - The Glaciers Are Telling
• 37:20    Michael Brook - Earth Alone
• 39:20    Mathias Grassow - Planetary Consciousness
• 43:45    Lav & Purl - Earthship
• 49:50    Robert Scott Thompson - Pale Blue Dot
• 65:00    end

Guitarissimo

I love moody guitar music with a bit of dust and twang. In an earlier mix, Mysterioso, I included a cut by Dead Combo.  Their music was new to me.  I was interested to learn from a listener that they are from Portugal and have achieved cult status there. 

That listener directed me to a mix he'd done with a Dead Combo track.  I love the mix, you find it here...  https://www.mixcloud.com/jorgempaulino/here-it-begins/   His other mixes are excellent as well.

After hearing that mix I just knew I had to create a guitar based mix that was a bit spaghetti western and dusty, moody, twangy with a little Latin feel.  The result is this new mix - Guitarissimo.  I stole that title from an album by Roxy Music guitarist, Phil Manzanera, who also has a track in the mix.  I tried not to steal too much from the "Here It Begins" mix but I just had to use the Yo La Tengo song from that mix in this one too.

I really like how this turned out and I hope to do a follow up sometime.

Cheers!

[ 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    Dead Combo - Aquele Beijo Eterno
• 01:50    Ry Cooder - Paris, TX
• 04:15    Daniel Lanois - Satie
• 08:14    Yo La Tengo - Green Arrow
• 13:18    Ocelote Rojo - Untitled #1
• 15:55    Phil Manzanera - Criollo
• 20:42    Calexico - The news about William
• 23:10    TSU! - The Sun Club
• 26:10    David Sylvian - Silver Moon Over Sleeping Steeples
• 27:55    Matt Borghi - Truth and Being
• 32:20    The MDH Band - Bathtub
• 33:15    Eraldo Bernocchi and Prakash Sontakke - From Star to Star
• 38:15    Dead Combo - Quando a alma nao e pequena
• 40:50    Brian Eno - Weightless
• 45:00    Cyber Zen Sound Engine - No East, No West
• 50:30    Danial Lanois - Plains of Abraham
• 52:43    William Ryan Fritch - Siri Song
• 54:38    Peals - Blue Elvis
• 59:03    Calexico - Amor Adolescente
• 59:40    Dead Combo - Ana
• 61:55    TSU! - Dadebe
• 63:50    One Mile North - Parents Arrive
• 69:22    end

Sunday Morning Music vol. 14 - Early Bird

I haven't done a Sunday morning mix in quite a while so volume 14 solves that problem. 

This follows the usual Sunday morning mix template of a few vocal tunes, some ambient tunes and a bit of jazz.  I was happy to finally use Shenandoah in a mix.  More than a year ago I was at a local high school spring concert and fell in love with the concert band version of this tune.  I know it may sound out of place in a Low Light mix but I think it's beauty fits well with the Sunday morning series.

In addition to Shenandoah there is new music from Hite, Grails, The Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society, Clocolan and fairly new music from Radiohead & Olafur Arnalds.  And a nice old classic from Max Roach & Clifford Brown.

Cheers!


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

T R AC K L I S T :

• 00:00    Olafur Arnalds - Particles
• 03:48    Grails - Rebecca
• 07:10    Sarah Neufeld & Colin Stetson - And still they move
• 09:56    Frank Ticheli - Shenandoah
• 16:20    Dan Romer & Benh Zeitlin - Once there was a hushpuppy
• 22:48    Fripp & Eno - Evening Star(The Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society interpretation)
• 28:57    Clocolan - Obsolete Advancement
• 34:25    Orchestre National de Jazz - Révolution
• 43:20    Clifford Brown & Max Roach - Delilah
• 51:02    The Still - The Early Bird
• 58:42    Hite - Old Crow
• 62:15    Radiohead - True Love Waits
• 66:52    end

Off_Worlder

One of my favorite things about making these mixes for ten years is the people I've come in contact with.  I stay in touch with folks from Ireland, The Netherlands, Canada, Brazil or just down the road in Chicago. 

This mix comes from one these online friends, Josh Furey.  He did a previous guest mix for Low Light Mixes called Cartridge, which you can find here...

Cartridge - an 8-bit Adventure  He recently reached out about a new mix & I of course jumped at the chance to showcase another of his mixes. 

I'll let Josh tell you about it...

As a relative newcomer to ambient music in 2012, I was immensely lucky to stumble across Low Light Mixes. It can be pretty overwhelming when you start to explore a new genre of music and over the years Low Light Mixes  has supplied me with a wildly diverse mix of ambient music to enjoy while also serving as an amazing resource for the genre music that now dominates any playlist I put together.

If you are a frequent listener to Low Light you will recognize a lot of the artists I chose for this mix and hopefully there are some new names for you to check out as well. Off Worlder is my way of saying thank you to Dave for introducing me to so many amazing artists over the years and keeping Low Light going for over 10 years.

I hope you enjoy.


Thanks Josh!  Here's a few Josh links...
http://joshfurey.ca/
https://joshfurey.bandcamp.com/
https://www.mixcloud.com/josh-furey/

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

T R AC K L I S T :

• 00:00 - Exerpt from Blade Runner
• 00:19 - Vegyn - Unknown (https://soundcloud.com/Vegyn)
• 03:19 - Kyle Dixon + Michael Stein- In Pursuit (https://survive.bandcamp.com/)
• 04:30 - 36 - Shadow Play (http://3six.net/album/shadow-play)
• 08:23 - Goldmund - Turncoat (https://goldmund.bandcamp.com/track/turncoat)
• 11:29 - Suplington - Love (https://soundcloud.com/suplington)
• 15:27 - Julie London - Bouquet Of Blues (https://www.discogs.com/Julie-London-bout-The-Blues/release/1378929)
• 16:14 - Burial - Forgive (https://burial.bandcamp.com/track/forgive)
• 17:48 - Mark Pritchard - ? (https://markpritchard.bandcamp.com/)
• 22:15 - In Aeternam Vale - Drones (https://dement3d.bandcamp.com/track/drones)
• 24:17 - Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow - Ava (https://www.discogs.com/Ben-Salisbury-And-Geoff-Barrow-Ex_Machina-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack/release/7007937)
• 26:35 - Vangelis - Spiral (https://www.discogs.com/Vangelis-Spiral/release/1493684)
• 27:11 - Biosphere - Sphere Of No-Form https://biosphere.bandcamp.com/track/sphere-of-no-form)
• 29:29 - Thore Pfeiffer - Good Life (https://kompakt.bandcamp.com/album/pop-ambient-2017)
• 34:53 - Aphex Twin - Stone In Focus (https://boomkat.com/products/selected-ambient-works-volume-ii-limited-triple-vinyl-reissue)
• 36:55 - Corey Allen + Marcus Fischer - Two/Twenty-Two/Eighty-Two(https://twotwentytwo.bandcamp.com/album/two-twenty-two)
• 39:27 - Murcof - Una (https://murcofmusic.bandcamp.com/album/martes-utop-a)
  41:02 - Offthesky + Pleq - A Thousand Fields https://infraction.bandcamp.com/album/a-thousand-fields)
   
• 43:02 - 2814 - 新しい日の誕生 (https://dreamcatalogue.bandcamp.com/album/--18)
• 44:10 - Marsen Jules - Through Blood and Fire (https://marsenjules.bandcamp.com/track/through-blood-and-fire)
• 46:40 - The Beautiful Schizophonic - Prayers (https://dynamophone.bandcamp.com/album/belkiss)
• 48:22 - Nils Frahm - Says(https://nilsfrahm.bandcamp.com/album/spaces)
• 51:57 - Synkro - Overture (https://synkro.bandcamp.com/track/overture)