Low Light Mixes: Train Six-56 by Paul Asbury Seaman

Sunday, August 07, 2022

Train Six-56 by Paul Asbury Seaman

Yes, another train mix. They are just too intriguing and cinematic to pass up. This one come from friend of the blog, Paul Asbury Seaman. Paul has given us some excellent train mixes in the past and this one continues that tradition. This one clocks in at just a bit under 100 minutes! So much great music in one mix.

Here's what Paul says about this set:

“A special summertime extended-play mix… nearly 100 minutes of long-distance bliss. This is my sixth train-themed production for Low Light Mixes. (The #‘56’ is just for alliteration.) The Zen concept of “stillness within motion” has long been one of my guiding principles and it struck me recently that train travel is a great illustration of this: You can sit quietly while the world literally rushes by.

Trains are a central part of modern history and continue to be woven into the cultural landscape, whether in the movement of consumer goods or the daily commute of suburban workers to desperate families displaced by war. There are many kinds of associations with trains—all vivid, some very dark—and now with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, trains have become not just a symbol of nostalgia, romance and travel, but literally instruments of salvation for millions of people. I have no such pretensions here, but as always, I hope it will sooth and refresh. Once again, sequencers dominate this mix, with their obvious match with the fast clickity-clack of train tracks.”

Thanks again to Paul for this wonderful trip.

Here are links to all the albums used in this mix in the order in which they appear:

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 SiJ - Inkerman - Sevastopol #1 (From Inkerman To Sevastopol)
00:46 Trevor Jones - Runaway Train (Runaway Train 1985)
03:00 Paul Speer - Tornado Warning (Ax Inferno 2013)
07:30 Gert Emmens - At the end of the track (On the Edge of Nowhere 2022)
12:50 David Parsons - Perhatian (Atmanaut 2018)
19:38 Mercan Dede - Kapadokya
26:25 Manuel Göttsching - And Sovereignty (E2-E4 1984)
29:12 Andrew Lahiff - Scalar Fields (Outward Currents 2021)
37:05 SiJ - Inkerman - Sevastopol #2 (From Inkerman To Sevastopol)
37:50 Solar Fields - Mountain King (Ourdom 2018)
46:25 Shamans Dream - The Way Through (Prana Pulse 2012)
52:40 Redshift - Vampyre (Life to Come 2015)
58:00 Tangerine Dream - Dreaming In A Kyoto Train (Summer In Nagasaki 2007)
60:45 Johan Tronestam - Deep Field (Space Collection 2017)
67:20 Erik Wøllo - Viewpoint (North Star 2021)
73:00 Thom Brennan - Eventide Pt.3 (Eventide 2022)
77:50 Lars Leonhard - Physical Objects (GRAVITY 2022)
83:50 LAD - Spectral Lines (Quasar 2022)
88:20 Cheryl B. Engelhardt - The Zephyr Remembers (The Passenger 2022)
91:15 Divine Matrix - Journey's End (Journeys 2022)
97:18 end

1 comment:

The Interstellar Radio Station said...: The blog as a whole has now left behind, in the 1980s, some incredibly realistic train synthetic syntheses of steam trains, on long journeys, quite fulfilling this genre, and purposely composed as such. I've name these in earlier train mix reviews. Now we are just content with a the blander Ukrainian electro-diesel as our train mix buffer, and use it only twice in 90+ minutes.

If a train mix is a mix having perpetual motion, then Seaman has achieved his objective. However, I am not convinced that a "train track" ( a track emulating a train) is merely defined by a Moto Perpetua characteristic. A "train track" is something more - it involves the musical equivalent of the train's hardware clattering, rubbing, clipping, or banging in a rhythmic motif amidst the sea of Moto Perpetua, or having some sense of rhythmic pattern that can be produced by a train. In this regard, a good portion of these tracks do not give us the feeling of being on a train.

The title theme is best exemplified in the Emmes through the Dede, a well assembled "Dance/Trance" combination with train-like attributes (for the most part). But when we get to the Gottsching, things do indeed go off the rails, until we get a reprieve in some of the latter tracks where we get some more "train-like" emulation. But not decidedly - does the Leonhard really sound like a train? Does an operatic soprano work (Engelhardt) that stops the beat altogether keep us on track? As sufficient selections drift away from producing train-like rhythmic motifs, I just assume Seaman name this mix "Moto Perpetua 56".; May 20, 2023 9:02 PM