Kyle Bobby Dunn and the Infinite Sadness

Just a quick note to give folks a heads up that the new Kyle Bobby Dunn album, "Kyle Bobby Dunn and the Infinite Sadness."

There's nobody that does minimal drones as beautifully as Kyle Bobby Dunn.  From the samples here...
K B D
...it sounds like this album will be a continuation of his excellent recent work.

Looks like advance orders for special vinyl edition start on March 1st with other formats on sale in late April/early May.

Can't wait for this release.

Ghosts in the score

stirring up the dust
ghosts from the past whisper in
grooves of forever


There's a first for this blog - vinyl haiku.  I was looking for ways to describe this mix and as I collected expressive words, the list started to take on it's own poetic quality.   So I thought, what the heck, I'll just formalize it into an actual haiku.  It was fun, I haven't written any sort of silly haiku in years.

Anyway, the haiku fits this mix because the music is all dusty and scratchy.  It all has a old vinyl feel to it.  It some cases it has that feel because the music really is old, like early 1900s old.  Two of the tracks are actually old Edison cylinder recordings.  I searched through old recordings at archive.org for music that would blend well with the other ambient & neo-classical tracks in this mix.

I've done two previous mixes in this style - Sustain & Decay and Revenants of the Past.  A lot of ambient music makes use of noise, distortion, scratches, glitches, hiss & pops so the actual old recordings fit in nicely.  There are six old recordings that appear in the final mix.  Most of the ambient cuts are of fairly recent vintage.

I like the title for this mix because the word "score" takes on a double meaning as in a musical soundtrack as well as trench, channel or groove in a vinyl record or cylinder.

Enjoy the pops & hisses.


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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    1956 RCA Victor Vinyl Records Educational Documentary
• 00:30    Arturo Toscanini - Romeo & Juliet Overture(Pt-1)1946
• 01:25    The Caretaker - Mental Caverns Without Sunshine
• 01:45    e and i - known things
• 03:50    Maps & Diagrams - Longitudinal Vibration
• 07:20    Billow Observatory - Helsinki Radio
• 08:50    Tim Hecker - Sketch 6
• 10:00    e and i - tiniest smile
• 11:11    Philip Jeck - chime again
• 14:05    Edison Bohemian Orchestra Lacinquantaine Cylinder Recording
• 15:15    Ten and Tracer - By Twirling the Quicksphere
• 18:00    Tape Loop Orchestra - The Word On My Lips Is Your Name
• 19:50    Philip Jeck - Wipe
• 23:15    Benoît Pioulard - Pidgin
• 24:25    Mozart 'Gavotte in G' from 'Idomeneo' (1912)
• 25:25    The Humble Bee - The Collecting Plate
• 26:25    Part Timer - Undead part 1
• 30:15    The Caretaker - Mental Caverns Without Sunshine
• 31:00    Semiramide Overture 1912
• 35:05    Maya Beiser - Time Loops
• 37:25    From The Mouth of The Sun - Color Loss
• 42:42    The Caretaker - A Last Glimpse Of The Land
• 45:15    Tape Loop Orchestra - The Word On My Lips Is Your Name
• 51:25    Albert Spalding - Thais(violin) Edison blue amberol cylinder 
• 52:30    The Humble Bee - Fin
• 54:07    end

Ghosts in the score by Low Light Mixes on Mixcloud

Reflecting the Hybrid - by Chris Fraley, a member of the Hypnos Recordings Forums

This mix is a rare treat.  It's a guest mix from Chris Fraley.  I know Chris through correspondence and postings at the Hypnos Forum.  

I've been a member of the forum for a long time and I really enjoy the community there.  In this time of social networks and twitter it's nice to see that a classic forum still survives and thrives, mainly because of a shared love of ambient music.  Activity there ebbs and flows but there's always interesting topics and people hanging out.

As I said, I know Chris through the forum and as the two of us have similar tastes, I offered him the opportunity to do a mix for the blog.  He was hesitant at first because he'd never done something like this before.  But he decided to give it a shot and I'm very glad he did.

Chris said he "ended up making a mix based on some of the recent (2012 or later) neo-classical music that embodies the spirit of ambient and experimental acoustics."  The result is perfect.

I hope this is just the first of more guest mixes we may see from Chris.

Enjoy


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T R A C K L I S T:

• 00:00   Field Rotation - The Repetition of History
• 05:15   Ekca Liena and Spheruleus - Scrambling Radiosonde
• 09:11   From the Mouth of the Sun - Sitting in a Roofless Room
• 12:00   Orla Wren - Five Acre Ladder (Reprise)
• 15:20   Antonymes - Misshapen Beauty [ii]
• 20:40   The Seaman and the Tattered Sail - Her Whispers
• 26:15   Christoph Berg - Coda
• 30:14   end

Reflecting the Hybrid - by Chris Fraley, a member of the Hypnos Recordings Forums by Low Light Mixes on Mixcloud

a frozen world

It is freakin' cold here in Wisconsin right now.  It's going to be -20f below zero tonight and the high temp on Monday didn't get much above -10f.  Frigid temps like that call for a mix.

It's perfect timing for a freezing mix because a recent purchase was the album arctic conditions by stormloop.  With song titles like "Ice Wind," "In The Frozen Morning Light" and "Arctic Conditions," it was a perfect starting point for this mix.

Make some hot cocoa, sit back and try to stay warm.  Of course for listeners like Charles Glaspole in Australia, it's summer.  I guess you'll have to use your imagination.

Enjoy.


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T R A C K L I S T:

• 00:00    Wind and walking in snow
• 00:30    Terje Isungset - Go North
• 01:36    stormloop - ice wind
• 05:45    Marcus Fischer - Arctic 1
• 10:10    Panoptique Electrical - Glacier Show I
• 16:35    Ulf Lohmann - On Frozen Fields
• 18:45    Blamstrain - Tundra V
• 24:05    offthesky - beneath the ice shelf
• 26:50    Harold Budd - Ice Floes in Eden
• 29:15    stormloop - arctic conditions
• 33:55    Good Weather For An Airstrike - Frozen In Thought
• 37:25    Kiln - The Ice Floes
• 38:40    Forrest Fang & Carl Weingarten - Freezing Days
• 41:10    David Tagg - Arctic Reflection
• 50:10    Brian Eno - Fields Of Ice
• 58:00    Segue - A View of the Frozen Lake
• 1:01:40   stormloop - in the frozen morning light
• 1:08:00    end

A frozen world by Low Light Mixes on Mixcloud

Late Night Encounters Vol. 1

The title of this mix pretty much says it all.  This is a collection of tunes that works well at night.

I didn't want the mix to be dark & depressing or dark and scary, just something that feels more at home at night.  It's sort of the opposite of the Sunday morning mixes.  Although a few tunes could go either way.

I didn't start out making a "night" mix, it just sort of happened on it's own after the first few cuts.  The mix opens with a fantastic remix of Bowie's Sound & Vision.  This cut isn't necessarily a "night" tune but I just had to use it.  The next three cuts are what took the mix in the nightside direction.

I labeled the mix "Vol. 1" because I'd like to turn this into a series just like the Sunday morning mixes.  So look for more in 2014.  But there's still one more mix on it's way in 2013.

Enjoy.


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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    David Bowie - Sound and Vision(Sonjay Prabhakar remix)
• 02:50    Arve Henriksen - Shelter From The Storm
• 06:00    Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle - By The Time That I Awoke
• 10:00    Moritz von Oswald & Nils Petter Molvaer - Step by Step
• 15:45    Justin Walter - The Way Of Five
• 20:10    A.A. Bondy - Mightiest Of Guns
• 23:22    Loren Connors - Shadows
• 26:30    Labradford - By Chris Johnston, Craig Markva, Jamie Evans
• 31:00    Public Service Broadcasting - Late Night Final
• 36:30    Jon Hassell - Amsterdam Blue
• 44:30    The National - Hard To Find
• 48:25    Jonathan Boulet - Cent Voix
• 52:55    Ghosting Season - Lie
• 56:00    Mirroring - Mirror Of Our Sleeping
• 59:30    Loren Connors - Night In Vain
• 1:01:45    Grace Cathedral Park - Hey Pretty, Could You Stay Awhile
• 1:11:28    end

Late Night Encounters Vol. 1 by Low Light Mixes on Mixcloud

Best of 2013

Another year, another best of list.

This is my list of my favorite "normal" music of the year.  Indie, alternative, rock, Americana, whatever you want to call it - this is not the ambient music which goes into most of my mixes.

Over the last 3 or 4 years I've been listening to more and more "normal" music.  It's hard to keep up with the pace of new releases, new bands, new artists.  One can develop a sort of obsessive disorder where you consume more and more music, ever worried that you'll miss something.

My Spotify playlist of 2013 music has nearly 3000 tracks and that doesn't really include much of  the ambient stuff I listen to.  That's a lot of music to wade through in a year.  Spotify and other streaming services are changing the way we consume music and the way we think about music.  It's difficult to say whether that change is for the better.  

I do know that I love having so much music available all the time.  I love sampling new stuff, testing it out to see if it will have the staying power to make to the end of the year.  I like having a friend send me recommendations, being able to listen to the entire album instantly and sending a reaction or new suggestion back the other way.

At this time of year, with all the best of lists, I have added about 20 albums to that Spotify playlist just in the last week or so.  Which of course just puts me further behind.  But I LOVE IT!

And now here they are, my favorite albums of 2013.  What are yours?

1. Blaudzun - Heavy Flowers



2. John Vanderslice- Dagger Beach 


3. Volcano Choir - Repave


4. Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City


5. Phosphorescent - Muchacho 


6. Kacey Musgraves - Same Trailer Different Park


7. The National - Trouble Will Find Me


8. John Vanderslice - Diamond Dogs
"A Better Whirlpool"

9. Mikal Cronin - MCII


10. Darkside - Psychic


11. Jon Hopkins - Immunity


12. Vic & Gab - Love of Mine


13. Elvis Costello & The Roots - Wise Up Ghost


14. Boards of Canada - tomorrow's harvest


15. The Flaming Lips - Peace Sword ep


16. Wavves - Afraid of Heights


17. Rhye - Woman


18. Daughter - If You Leave


19. Public Service Broadcasting - inform - educate - entertain


20. San Fermin - San Fermin

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:

1. The Seaman and The Tattered Sail - Light Folds
2. infinite_coil - transmit
3. Arve Henriksen - Places Of Worship
4. Esmerine - Dalmak
5. Moritz von Oswald & Nils Petter Molvaer - 1/1
6. Optical Frameworks - Little Piece Of Perseverance
7. Justin Walter - lullabies and nightmares
8. Jon Hopkins - Immunity
9. Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
10. Marsen Jules Trio - Présence Acousmatique
11. Saffronkeira + Mario Massa - Cause and Effect
12. The Green Kingdom - Dustloops - Memory Fragments 
13. Field Rotation - Fatalist: The Repetition of History
14. Roedelius - Stunden
15. Marconi Union & Jah Wobble - Anomic
16. Tessellate Recordings - Earthtones
17. Deepchord - Electrostatic Soundfields
18. Maps and Diagrams - Timbre
19. Coppice Halifax - Inland By Night
20. Spheruleus - The Possibility Of Loss
21. Paris DJs Soundsystem - Rise of the Troubadour Warriors - tropical grooves & afrofunk international vol.3
22. Nobuto Suda - Transitoriness
23. CALIBRO 35 - said
24. Hailu Mergia & His Classical Instrument: Shemonmuanaye
25. Icebreaker & BJ Cole - Apollo

Happy New Year!

A Winter's Dub

I love dubby ambient.  I think this is my third dub mix this year.  I'm sure I'll grow tired of this style of music but for now I'm soaking it in.  It was snowing while I made this mix & the music just seemed to fit the winter mood.  Hence the name "A Winter's Dub."

Many of the tracks in this mix came from Bandcamp.  As a matter of fact, all the links in the tracklist are to Bandcamp pages.  I love Bandcamp.  So easy & convenient.  And great for discovering new music.  I bought a bunch of stuff this year by following other folks & sampling we they buy.

Here is my Bandcamp collection for anyone that's interested.

Enjoy the dub!


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T R A C K L I S T

• 00:00    The Sight Below - Further Away
• 05:20    Optical Frameworks - Flicker Platform, Luses
• 09:40    Adam Michalak - Immersed in Dreams
• 16:35    Axs - Frozen Signpost
• 24:30    Blamstrain - Tundra I 
• 32:50    VidasM - Mire
• 37:20    Sen - Soul Rain
• 41:40    Vectrex - Silent
• 46:50    krill.minima - Surface from the Groundless Oceans
• 53:40    Seaman & The Tattered Sail - Matter & Light
• 1:00:50    Seas - Arctic
• 1:11:50    Optical Frameworks - One Semitone
• 1:18:00    Marco Madia - Music for Plants
• 1:20:25    Blamstrain - Sunday Dub 6pm
• 1:25:20    The Nautilus Project - The Enchanting Forest
• 1:41:20    end

A winter's dub by Low Light Mixes on Mixcloud

Deep Sky Time - music for stargazing 2013

I know this is not the best time of year for sitting out side and stargazing.  At least not here in Wisconsin.  But I haven't done a stargazing mix in a long time so i thought I'd throw this out there.

The piece that got me started on this mix isn't an actual song.  It's NASA's Voyager spacecraft recording the sound of interstellar space.  Voyager's plasma wave instrument detected the vibrations of dense interstellar plasma, or ionized gas, from October to November 2012 and April to May 2013.  You can find the recording here... Voyager. 

I couldn't resist using that sound as a launch pad for this mix.  The rest is pretty straight forward ambient/space music.  For some strange reason I felt compelled to make this mix nearly 2 hours long.  If you want to lay outside for two hours & gaze at the night sky in the middle of December, better bring some scotch & an electric blanket. ;)

Enjoy.


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T R A C K L I S T : 

• 00:00    NASA Voyager recording of interstellar space
• 00:40    Loscil - Second Narrows Specta Ciera Version
• 03:30    Ishq - Globular Cluster
• 07:30    Harmony & Decay - Hypnotic Sequence
• 12:40    Eluder - The Event Horizon
• 14:50    Marsen Jules - A Room Full of History
• 19:15    Marconi Union - Always Numb
• 23:40    Porzellan - Floating Reception
• 24:30    Sonmi451 - Omicron Ceti
• 29:30    Loscil - ss1.2 unit circle
• 32:50    Wouter Veldhuis - Blue Forest I
• 36:00    Variant - Thru the Cosmos(ison + spica)
• 43:33    Brian Eno - Surf Birds
• 46:10    Mark Rownd - Place of Grace
• 52:20    Kissy Suzuki - rubbish & Beauties part 1
• 56:30    Altus - Floating Free
• 1:00:40    Diatonis - Whiring Above Our Heads
• 1:04:15    A Produce - Inner Sanctum
• 1:12:00    Aglaia - Dust Across the Border
• 1:15:30    Christopher Short - Unknown Constellation #2
• 1:22:30    Fripp & Eno - Meissa
• 1:29:10    Ithaca Trio - Catching Monkeys
• 1:34:00    Steve Roach - Deep Sky Time
• 1:41:10    Sylken - Sleepless
• 1:50:10    Deepchord - Driftwood
• 1:51:10    Vidna Obmana - Night Blooming
• 1:57:49    end 

Deep Sky Time - music for stargazing 2013 by Low Light Mixes on Mixcloud

favorite ambient albums

About a year ago I did a mix of my favorite ambient artists of all time.  I have been meaning to do a mix of my favorite ambient albums ever since.  And now here it is.

I did not go back and look at my favorite artist list.  I sorted through my ambient collection and came up with my fav albums.  Then I compared the two lists and not surprisingly they are almost identical.  Basically I substituted Scott Solter for Alio Die when I made the fav album list.  At least I didn't repeat any tunes from one mix to the next.

Choosing a favorite album from some of these artists was difficult.  Steve Roach has some many recordings that it was tough to know where to start but I kept coming back to the one that gets the most play and that is "The Dream Circle."  I wonder how many other folks like this album as much as I do.  I'm not e really sure why I like it more than his other releases, it definitely sounds similar to a lot of his other output.  I guess over the years it's become like a comfy sweatshirt.

Stars of the Lid & Eno were both hard to choose a favorite as well.  With SOTL I ended up going with the album that I first discovered them with.  In choosing "On Land" from Eno I really could have just flipped a coin to choose between it and "Music for Airports," "Apollo" and "Music for Films."  

The one favorite that probably doesn't make a lot of lists is "One River" by Scott Solter.  Using mostly processed guitars this album ebbs & flows beautifully from one tracks to the next. You can find it HERE.  

Enjoy.


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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Scott Solter - Cypress Road from One River
• 04:38    Stars of the Lid - Dust Breeding from Avec Laudenum
• 11:45    Maps & Diagrams - Honeycomb Archipelago from Get Lost
• 14:45    Brian Eno - Unfamiliar Wind(leeks hills) from On Land
• 19:25    Loscil - Lucy Dub from First Narrows
• 25:25    Sonmi451 - Orange from Spectrum
• 31:00    Steve Roach - The Dream Circle from The Dream Circle
• 40:45    Kyle Bobby Dunn - Empty Gazing from A Young Person's Guide to
• 46:35    Harold Budd & Brian Eno - Against the Sky from The Pearl
• 50:00    William Basinski - 1.2 from The Disintegration Loops
• 1:01:00    end

Favorite ambient albums of all time by Low Light Mixes on Mixcloud