Low Light Mixes: instrumental

Showing posts with label instrumental. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 07, 2026

Favorite Instrumental Rock Albums of 2025

One of my favorite genre rabbit holes that I went down in 2025 was instrumental rock music. That title covers a lot of styles from post-rock to stoner rock to prog rock to cosmic country to fusion to psych rock etc. I've always listened to music that falls into this category whether it's Khruangbin or Causa Sui or Oren Ambarchi but this year my interest in this genre exploded.

So I thought I would create a mix of some of my favorite instrumental rock albums from 2025. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the heavy stuff. This mix has a nice blend of a few heavy tunes with some Khruangbin-like tracks, a couple kraut rock style tracks, a jam band cut, a prog tune, even a dub track, and a bunch of other difficult to categorize music.

>>>LINKS TO ALL THE MUSIC USED IN THIS MIX<<<

01 - https://actiontensionspace.bandcamp.com/album/new-dimensions

02 - https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/yawning-man-pavement-ends

03 - https://ambarchiberthlingwerliin.bandcamp.com/album/ghosted-iii

04 - https://elparaisorecords.com/product/causa-sui-in-flux/

05 - https://piotrkurek.bandcamp.com/album/songs-and-bodies

06 - https://elparaisorecords.com/product/edena-gardens-dispossessed/

07- https://barrywalker.bandcamp.com/album/barry-walker-unit-at-the-13th-moon-gravity-well

08 - https://jeffthebrotherhood.bandcamp.com/album/magick-songs

09 - https://kungensman.bandcamp.com/album/resande-i-rockmusik

10 - https://markusreuter.bandcamp.com/album/truce-3

11 - https://re-stoned.bandcamp.com/album/the-loom-maxi-single

12 - https://townportal.bandcamp.com/album/grindwork

13 - https://holmisanisland.bandcamp.com/album/behind-curtains

14 - https://yuuf.bandcamp.com/album/alma-s-cove

15 - https://eliwinter.bandcamp.com/album/a-trick-of-the-light

I know this isn't the usual LLM ambient fare but it is still somehow trance inducing. I hope you enjoy this deviation from ambient bliss.

Cheers!

[ s t r e a m ] [ d o w n l o a d ] [ a p p l e _ p o d c a s t s ]

T R A C K L I S T :

01) 00:00 Action & Tension & Space - Folkemusikk fra Kvala (New Dimensions 2025)
02) 04:47 Yawning Man - Bomba Negra (Pavement Ends 2025)
03) 09:45 Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werliin - Chahar (Ghosted III 2025)
04) 15:49 Causa Sui - The Circus is Back (In Flux 2025)
05) 17:32 Piotr Kurek - Nothing Holds Still (Songs And Bodies 2025)
06) 22:26 Edena Gardens - Fills The Well (Dispossessed 2025)
07) 27:50 Barry Walker Unit - High in the Hummocks (At the 13th Moon Gravity Well 2025)
08) 32:51 Jeff The Brotherhood - Many Moons Dub (Magick Songs in Dub 2025)
09) 37:27 Kungens Män - Resande i rockmusik (Resande i rockmusik 2025)
10) 42:40 Markus Reuter - We Have Your Back (Truce <3 2025)
11) 47:20 The Re-Stoned - The Loom (The Loom 2025)
12) 52:24 Town Portal - Gold-Plated (Grindwork 2025)
13) 56:18 Holm - Behind Curtains (Behind Curtains 2025)
14) 60:08 Yuuf - Alma’s Cove (Alma's Cove 2025)
15) 63:37 Eli Winter - A Trick of the Light (A Trick of the Light 2025)
67:16 end

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Winter Songs

This is the perfect time for a winter mix because we finally got a substantial snowfall today. I was worried that my snowblower wouldn't get a workout this year. I had already planned on a winter mix and then bang - 8" of snow.

This past fall I made a mix for autumn that alternated between instrumental & vocal tunes and I really like the way it turned out. So this mix follows the same guidelines but with a winter theme.

All the tracks have winter or snow or cold in the title and, like the autumn mix, they mostly alternate instrumental/vocal. Though there a few deviations from that rhythm.

Cheers!

[ s t r e a m ] [ d o w n l o a d ] [ a p p l e _ p o d c a s t s ]

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00 Library Tapes - It Was A Cold Day In February And We Walked Across The Lake
(Feelings For Something Lost 2006)
01:19 Kate Bush - Snowflake (50 Words For Snow 2011)
10:45 Hiroshi Yoshimura - Urban Snow (Music for Nine Post Cards 1982)
15:18 Jan Bang - Winter Sings (Reading the Air 2024)
19:00 Fuzzy Lights - Snowstorm In A Snow Globe (That Fuzzy Feeling 2007)
21:43 Adrianne Lenker - Snow Song (Hours Were the Birds 2014)
25:35 Saint Etienne - Snowbound on the South Bank (A Glimpse of Stocking 2010)
27:08 Vashti Bunyan - Winter is Blue (Just Another Diamond Day 2001)
28:54 Ben McElroy - Store Away For A Winters Day (How I Learnt To Disengage From The Pack 2021)
31:55 Ray LaMontagne - Winter Birds (Gossip in the Grain 2008)
37:51 Sailcloth - Winter Walks (Close Keeping 2018)
39:55 The Rural Alberta Advantage - Coldest Days (Departing 2011)
42:45 Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes 2008)
45:10 Jody Mosher - Snow(vocal and bazz flute) (Snow 2025)
49:30 Christopher Hanlon - Dreams of Summer in Winter (Dreaming of Summer in Winter 2022)
51:42 Doug Ashdown - Winter in America (No Cheap Grace 1995)
55:41 Kika Sprangers - Winter ( (In)finity 2024)
58:14 Voces8 - Arnalds: For Now I Am Winter (Winter 2016)
62:57 end

Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Gifts at Dinner - an Ambient Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Just hanging out all day with family, eating and drinking. Perfect.

The songs in this mix were all chosen for the titles, which all fit the Thanksgiving theme. Besides the obvious titles with the word "thanks" my favorite track titles are "my dad's famous potatoes", "Give me cornbread when I'm hungry", and "An Awkward Conversation at a Family Gathering."

Play this in the background as you eat way too much food and hopefully not way too much beer.

Cheers & Happy Thanksgiving!

[ s t r e a m ] [ d o w n l o a d ] [ a p p l e _ p o d c a s t s ]

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00 Grouper - Thanksgiving Song
02:42 Ólafur Arnalds - Family Stroll
04:30 Massive Attack - Everybody's Got a Family
05:55 Matt Morton - A Special Thank You
08:00 anderegg - thanksgiving
10:14 lawrence - falling down a dam of mashed potatoes
13:33 Lullatone - An Awkward Dinner Conversation at a Family Gathering(piano version)
14:55 TSU! - Dear Stanley, Thank You
17:29 Richard Thompson - Family(guitar version)
20:13 Bill Frisell - Thankful
25:15 Carlos Niño & Friends - Togetherness feat. Jamael Dean & Devin Daniels
28:42 The Circular Ruins & Off The Sky - Giving to You
30:48 Tiny Isles - With Thanks, Petal
34:53 Cliff Martinez - my dad's famous potatoes
37:06 John Fahey - Give me cornbread when I'm hungry
40:13 Loren Connors - Why We Came
41:45 Peter Gregson - Gifts at Dinner
45:42 Hildur Guðnadóttir - Many Secrets in this Family
48:00 Endless Melancholy - Moments We Spent Together
51:51 Sven Laux - Thank You, Goodbye
54:44 Pat Metheny - Last Train Home
59:18 end

Sunday, November 20, 2022

A Little Louder

I was going to say - "...and now for something completely different" because this mix is louder than normal. But having recently posted a Robert Fripp mix I guess this isn't "completely different." However, this mix is, as the title says, a little louder than a normal Low Light ambient mix.

As per usual the mix started with one album in particular - Mox by Mox from 1998. I absolutely loved it when it came out in '98. I stumbled upon it a couple weeks back and decided to build a mix around non-ambient instrumentals. Some of the tunes have a kraut rock vibe, some are jazzy, some have a retro feel, and others are just cool. More than half the tracks are from 2022 with one of the old ones going all the way back to 1973.

Links to albums used in this mix in the order in which they appear:

I hope you enjoy this diversion. We'll be back to ambient soon. Oof, I just realized that I should start thinking about best of the year lists. Any suggestions?

Cheers!

[ s t r e a m ] [ d o w n l o a d ] [ a p p l e _ p o d c a s t s ]

T R A CK L I S T :

00:00 MOX - Wig (MOX 1998)
04:40 Project Gemini - Scorpios Waltz (The Children Of Scorpio 2022)
07:52 Surprise Chef - New Ferrari (Daylight Savings 2022)
12:05 Ghost Power - Asteroid Witch (Ghost Power 2022)
15:33 Pneumatic Tubes - Saw Teeth (A Letter from TreeTops 2022)
19:25 Cathode Ray Tube - Invisibility (The Burning Century 2022)
24:50 Oren Ambarchi & Johan Berthling & Andreas Werliin - I (Ghosted 2022)
32:32 The Comet Is Coming Lucid Dreamer (Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam 2022)
35:57 Passengers - One Minute Warning (Original Soundtracks 1 1995)
39:10 Dungen - Trollkarlen och fageldrakten version 2 (Haxan Versions 2017)
44:20 Can - Spray (Future Days 1973)
49:23 AI Lover - Stereoscopic View (Cosmic Joke 2022)
54:10 Polyoctopus - Ill Patience (Central Standards, A Strange Melodic Shape 2004)
57:43 Rain Tree Crow - Big Wheels In Shanty Town (Rain Tree Crow 1991)
63:59 end

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Best of 2013 - Instrumental version

It is strange that for someone who runs an ambient mix blog, I've been listening to less and less ambient music over the last two years. I still love ambient but I no longer feel the need to accumulate huge amounts of it. Maybe because I have so much already that it all starts to blend together and I don't feel I need another 70 minute drone album.

This year's "Best of" list is mostly ambient but contains some other instrumental albums as well. Some of my favorite albums of the year in any genre were albums from artists like Esmerine, Arve Henriksen, Moritz von Oswald & Nils Petter Molvaer and Jon Hopkins. There are other odd non-ambient albums, like Paris DJs Soundsystem & Calibro 35, which just stuck with me for some reason & got a lot of play this year.

Of course there was some straight forward ambient which was in heavy rotation all year. Albums like The Seaman and The Tattered Sail - Light Folds, Nobuto Suda - Transitoriness, infinite_coil - transmit, and Spheruleus - The Possibility Of Loss really hit the spot for a beautiful ambient listening experience.

I listened to a lot of ambient dub this year. Only three actually made it to the list - Coppice Halifax, Deepchord and Optical Frameworks but there were many more dub recordings in this year's regular rotation. A few other favs not on the list include

Lars Leonhard - Stella Nova Adam Michalak - Returning To Essence Vytis - Deepchord Avenue
VA - Mountain-Stream
Nikosf. - Silence Speaks When The Words End
krill.minima - Sekundenschlaf
Miktek - elsewhere
Blamstrain - Sunday Dub

Two great albums from 2013 both combine electronics with trumpet. Moritz von Oswald & Nils Petter Molvaer - 1/1 and Saffronkeira + Mario Massa - Cause and Effect are wonderful collaborations that gave a jolt to end of the year releases.

Here's my list of 2013 favs. What are some of your favorites from 2013?

Best of 2013:

Happy New Year!

Saturday, April 07, 2012

Sunday Morning Music Vol.2

On Sundays I don't do anything useful until noon. I read the paper, listen to music, read a book, sort & catalog my mp3's, sit out on the deck, etc.

This mix is a soundtrack for Sunday mornings. Some instrumental tunes, some vocal tracks. All of it mellow & laid back. Perfect for a lazy Sunday morning.

When I did my first Sunday morning mix I wasn't really sure if I even liked it. Then it turned out to be the most listened to mix I've ever had at Mixcloud. Go figure.

Vol. 2 starts with one of my favorite songs of all time, John Martyn's "Small Hours". I think that was the tune that got me into John Martyn in the first place. There are several covers in the mix. The most unusual being Evan Chapman's percussion cover of Bon Iver's Holocene. Evan has a bunch of videos up on his youtube channel that are worth watching. One of my favorites is "Opening" by Philip Glass. I'll definitely have to work some more Evan's covers into other mixes.

Speaking of Bon Iver, there's another cover in the mix with Peter Gabriel doing "Flume" and then Gabriel gets covered by Twin Shadows doing "Here Comes the Flood." And we have another Bon Iver tune, this time done live by Justin Vernon & Sean Carey for 4AD sessions.

There are two other tracks also taken from live sessions, Daughter - In The Shallows from a Daytrotter session and Iron & Wine - Tree by the River from a 4AD session. All three live tunes are cool because they are so organic & intimate.

Enjoy volume 2 in the Sunday morning music series.

[ 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 Martyn - Small Hours
08:25 Brian Eno - and then so clear
13:55 Evan Chapman - Holocene (Bon Iver cover)
17:40 Iron & Wine - Tree by the River (4AD session)
21:05 Bill Frisell - Arkansas (part 1)
22:52 Sun Ra - Yesterdays
26:48 Twin Shadows - Here Comes the Flood (Peter Gabriel cover)
30:36 Vieo Abiungo - Drowsy Salted Mornings (Tokyo Bloodworm Remix)
34:33 Daughter - In The Shallows (Daytotter session)
40:10 JBM - Sunset Rocks
42:00 David Holmes - The Ballad of Sarah & Jack
46:18 Peter Gabriel - Flume (Bon Iver cover)
49:05 Nils Frahm - For
52:35 Bon Iver - Hinnom, TX(4AD/Jagjaguwar session)
55:35 Vijay Iyer Trio - The Village of Virgins
1:00:44 end

Sunday morning music vol. 2 by Lowlight on Mixcloud

Saturday, February 04, 2012

sunday morning music

I absolutely love NPR music. The host of their All Songs Considered podcast is Bob Boilen. I've heard him describe music as "Sunday morning music." I'm not exactly sure what that is but I think I know when I hear it.

I'd been thinking about doing a Sunday mix for some time and then I heard Wilco's song "One Sunday Morning" & immediately loved it & had to start a mix so I could use that tune in it.

This mix is a collection of both vocal & instrumental tunes, that hopefully will work well with sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee & reading the paper. Sunday mornings always make me think of jazz so I included a couple of jazz tracks in the mix.

Time to go brew another pot.

[ 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 Chandanam - Silk
02:00 Bon Iver - Perth (the Polish Ambassador remix)
08:23 Wilco - One Sunday Morning
16:53 Daniel Lanois & the MDH Band - The First Time(reprise)
18:55 Nick Drake - From the Morning
21:17 Keith Jarrett & Jack DeJonette - Pastel Morning
23:12 Charlie Haden & Hank Jones - Going Home
27:12 Gem Club - Twins
31:20 Harmonia 76 - When Shade was Born
32:35 Harold Budd & Clive Wright - Sunday After the War
36:15 Marsen Jules - Lazy Sunday Funerals #3
38:12 Dizzy Gillespie - Come Sunday
41:00 Leonard Cohen - Going Home
44:10 S. Carey - Move
46:52 Seu Jorge - Life on Mars(Bowie Cover)
50:12 Charlie Haden & Hank Jones - Come Sunday
53:43 end

Sunday morning music by Lowlight on Mixcloud

Friday, April 01, 2011

undiscovered soundtrack

I love soundtracks. And if you look at the tracklist for this mix, you'll see that I have a few favorite composers.

At the top of that list are Clint Mansell & Cliff Martinez. They are responsible for two of my favorite soundtracks, The Fountain & Solaris.

Jon Hopkins, a new composer on the soundtrack scene, could soon join those two as a favorite. His soundtrack for the movie Monsters, got a lot of play here. I ended up using three tracks from that album in this mix, I just couldn't resist.

Actually I doubled up a few artists in this mix, Martinez, Hopkins, Sigur Ros, Nick & Warren Ellis, Underworld. Normally I don't like to do that but it just sort of happened that way. This is a relatively short mix but I think it works. Sometimes I don't make it to the end of some mixes, this way hopefully listeners are still in to it & focused at the end.

Enjoy this "undiscovered soundtrack".

[ 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 Clint Mansell - Winter Ghosts of a Future (Requiem for a Dream)
01:45 Jon Hopkins - Candles (Monsters)
03:35 Cliff Martinez - And We're Here to Listen (Traffic)
05:15 Thomas Newman - Still Dead (American Beauty)
07:55 Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - The Road (The Road)
11:30 Underworld & John Murphy - Searle Finds the Crew of Icarus (Sunshine)
12:20 Explosions in the Sky - An Ugly Fact of Life (Friday Nigh Lights)
14:10 Sigur Ros - síðasta ferð (hlemmur)
16:33 Craig Armstrong - Main Theme (The Clearing)
17:40 Ennio Morricone - Tema di Ali (The Battle of Algiers)
21:32 John Zorn - Family Found(cello) (Family Found(Filmworks XII))
23:50 Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Micro Sucker (White Lunar)
24:25 Underworld - Capa's Last Transmission Home (Sunshine)
26:10 Sigur Ros - fyrsta ferð (hlemmur)
28:25 Hilmar Hilmarsson - I Flew (Angels of the Universe)
30:25 Cliff Martinez - First Drive Home (First Snow)
30:50 Jon Hopkins - Water (Monsters)
31:55 James Newton Howard - I'm Sorry (I am Legend)
33:50 Jon Hopkins - Campfire (Monsters)
36:11 end

Undiscovered Soundtrack by Lowlight on Mixcloud