Sunday, July 03, 2022

That Beautiful Land of Nod

 


Set the wayback machine to 2007.

I started creating ambient mixes back in the mid-2000s. Those were the days before social media had taken over our lives, before Bandcamp was such a great resource for ambient music.  Back then I spent a lot of time on the Hypnos Records forum. There, a bunch of like-mined music nerds shared comments about new recordings, gear, movies, books, tv, music trends, etc. 

We also shared mixes. That was one of the first places I tried to promote my mixes online. Back in 2007 fellow forum member, Brian Bieniowski, created a couple mixes under the Asphalt Eden moniker. These mixes, The Beautiful Land of Nod 1 & 2, are some of my all-time favorites and I've used them as sleep soundtracks for years.

With that as background, a few weeks ago a loyal listener reached out with this request - "Could you post some of the Asphalt Eden super-classics like The Beautiful Land of Nod I and II to your Mixcloud as guest mixes/classics in the field/inspirations to your mixes please? I think your fans would be overjoyed by this, and it would be sheer cultural maintenance."

I contacted Brian and he was kind enough to give the thumbs up to posting these classic mixes. He did not have the original tracklists but somehow was able to reconstruct them by listening to each set. Impressive! Thanks Brian for the mixes and for your memory. Here's a link to his website - https://www.handsometechnologies.com/

So kickback and remember a time before credit default swaps almost cratered the economy, before a reality show host became president, before a coronavirus swept around the globe, before....ugh...I'll stop now. Just sit back and drift away to The Beautiful Land of Nod 1.

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 :

  • Robert Rich -Seascape (Trances/Drones)
  • Koda - Where the Morning Light Exits (Movements)
  • Scott Solter - Wave and Sepia Wire (The Brief Light)
  • Thom Brennan - Raingardens (Mist)
  • Robert Fripp and Jeffrey Fayman - The Sky Below (A Temple in the Clouds)
  • MLO - Noodle #1 (Io)
  • Heavenly Music Corp - Ambient to Be Here (In a Garden of Eden)
  • Tetsu Inoue & Pete Namlook - Art of Dream (2350 Broadway 2)
  • Klaus Wiese - Soma 1 (Soma)
  • Rameses III - Queens Road Cemetery 28th March 2005 (Matanuska)
  • Brian Eno & Robert Fripp - Wind on Wind (Evening Star)
  • Jonn Serrie - Stratos (And the Stars Go With You)



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blessings and thank you from a loyal fan! It completes a circle from Brian to yourself and myself, then through all you have done, such incredible stuff over 15 years, now I inspire you to post the Nod mixes, so others can get the benefit, and onwards for years from here. It feels like a cycle fulfilled and a very positive feeling. I am a happy and humbled person tonight.

Low Light Mixes said...

Thanks for the great idea! I'm glad you felt a connection to the mix and that I could help complete the cycle. Cheers!

The Interstellar Radio Station said...

No disrespect to Mr. Bieniowski, but Dave your "Ocean Echoes" mix (May 2017) is the superior sleeper mix in that the tracks are very tightly related, but also arranged specifically from the very subtle themed to gradually panning out to the more variant and pronounced. Here these are great sleeper tracks, but in contrast, there is no apparent progression to their ordering as there is in your "Echoes".

It would have been nice to know where "Nod" came from. Perhaps from "nodding off"? Just speculating.