This last mix of 2010 is a mix that I did for Headphone Commute about 3 months ago. They were kind enough to ask for a mix & I was honored to add it to their great collection of mixes they post at their own site & at their Mixcloud site.
I realized that if I was going to post this piano mix I'd better do it now because the title is "pno 2010" so I need to squeeze it into 2010 before it's gone.
This mix starts with John Cage – “On a Landscape”, which is appropriate, because that tune is the reason I did this piano mix. I’d never heard “In a Landscape” when a friend linked to it on youtube. What a great piece of music. So I decided to build a piano mix with that as the jumping off point.
The other unusual piece in this mix is Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou – “Golgotha” by an Ethiopian nun living in Jerusalem. Her music is unique, it filters the traditional Ethiopian pentatonic scale through classical technique– in the end sounding like impressionistic jazz. Wonderful music.
[ 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 Cage – In a Landscape
- [04:15] Kyo Ichinose – Engine #5
- [05:20] Worrytrain – Hospitalized
- [06:45] Max Richter – Infra #6
- [09:35] Nest – The Twelve
- [14:00] Tanner Menard – Laws of Attraction
- [19:50] Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou – Golgotha
- [24:27] Craig Armstrong – Gentle Piece
- [27:10] Ben Woods – Stare Out in Silence
- [32:25] Gavin Bryars – My First Homage
- [38:10] Kyo Ichinose – Lontano #0
- [40:00] Chris Abrams – Christmas Island
- [44:45] Arovane – Tokyo Ghost Stories
- [49:50] Christian Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto – Kokoro
- [53:15] Andrey Kiritchenko – Agravic Illusion
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Here's a couple more year-end lists & thoughts.
My 5 favorite Low Light Mixes of 2010:- In Foreign Lands
- Footsteps
- Left in the Desert
- A Canticle Unfolds
- Beneath the Surface
Other fav mixes from around the web:
- :papercutz - Dream Scores - a Headphone Commute mix
- Subheim - Headphone Commute mix
- Invisible Ink - An Ambientblog mix
- Everything Old - a Quiet Sounds podcast
- echochorus - chiekurspace mix
- Marooned - a Harry Towell mix
Other favorites things in 2010 :- Tiny Desk Concerts - this is a series of very intimate concerts over at NPR Music. Whether it's Olaf Arnalds, The Tom Tom Club, Black Dub or The Red River, the concerts are always entertaining. There is video of each & the audio is downloadable.
- Slaapwel Records - a small label that specializes in music to fall asleep to. All their recordings are excellent. I eagerly await each new release.
- Filmography 2010 - one of my favorite online videos from the past year. The editor took clips from 270 films of 2010 & cut them to great music with great results. The first minute, where she remixes "Nostrand" by Ratatat with "Power" by Kanye West & audio from films clips, is brilliant!
- Wixel - 12 Records in 12 Months - Wixel is Wim Maesschalck, who also runs Slaapwell. He set out on a crazy project back in 2009, to release 12 records in 12 months. He does a nice job of keeping the quality high & changes things up enough to make all the releases interesting. Not really a best of 2010 entry, but I discovered it this year & wanted to draw attention to an outstanding project.
Yesterday I posted my favorites ambient releases of 2010. Today it's a few other year end lists.
I spend most of my time listening to ambient/electronic music but enough"normal" music sneaks in there that I thought I'd do a top ten list for pop albums. I'll also list a few recordings that don't fit into either ambient or pop.
First up, my top ten pop albums:- 1. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - the vs. ep
- 2. Efterklang - magic chairs
- 3. Vampire Weekend - Contra
- 4. Ra Ra Riot - Orchard
- 5. lost in the trees - all alone in an empty house
- 6. Neil Young - Le Noise
- 7. The Maple Mountain Sunburst Triolian Orchestra
- 8. Sun Kil Moon - admiral fell promises
- 9. Horse Feathers - thistled spring
- 10. Matt & Kim - sidewalks
- 11. Damien Jurado - saint bartlett
- 12. Black Dub - black dub
Some favorite single pop songs from 2010:- 1. Paul Simon - Getting Ready for Christmas Day
- 2. Kanye West - Power
- 3. Janelle Monáe - Tightrope
- 4. Vampire Weekend - Cousins
- 5. Damien Jurado - Cloudy Shoes
- 6. Matisyahu - One Day
- 7. New Pornographers - Crash Years
- 8. Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More & Winter Winds
- 9. Jon Hopkins - Monsters Theme
- 10. Peter Gabriel - Flume
- 11. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Life is Cinema
Some other favorites recordings that didn't fit into pop or ambient categories:- Steve Reich - double sextet 2x5 [Nonesuch]
- Michael Daugherty - metropolis symphony & deus ex machina [Naxos]
- Max Richter - infra [fat cat]
- Maya Beiser - provenance [innova]
- Dakota Suite -vallisa [glitterhouse]
- Steve Tibbetts - natural causes [ecm]
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Here is the obligatory top ten list for the end of the year. I might do a quick mix before the end of the year to highlight some of the releases on the list.
It was another good year for music, although nothing stood out as a new trend or a ground breaking recording. Alio Die put out a bunch of excellent recordings that I'm just trying to keep up with. Under the Spire & Low Point each had 3 recordings make the list, all of them are excellent. It was nice to see Hypnos back on the list with their wonderful release, Herion - Out & About.
Another label worth mentioning is Audio Gourmet, a new netlabel that produces a ton of quality releases. Label owner, Harry Towell, also made the list with his own release, Spheruleus - Frozen Quarters.
The ambient best of list is a bit long so I'm not going to make comments about each release, I'm getting lazy as I get older. Feel free to add your own lists in the comments.Top Ambient Releases of 2010:
The term "dubscapes" in the title of the mix pretty much says it all. This is dub mix. I've used dubby style songs in mixes before but never did a whole dub mix.
Of course after setting out to do an all dub mix, I veered off course pretty quickly by including a cover of the Twin Peaks theme & track from Vangelis. I'd been looking for a way to work those two tunes into a mix & they seem to fit pretty well here.
The Twin Peaks cover is by Talvihorros. He has an excellent recording out on Hibernate called "Music in Four Movements". After buying the albumBen Chatwin(Talvihorros) was kind enough to send me a copy of his version of the Twin Peaks theme. I liked this version immediately & knew I had to find a home for it in a mix.
One track in the mix is from an album that will end up in my top ten list this year. The album is Deepchord presents Echospace - Liumin/Liumin Reduced. It's a double album with the first being great ambient dub/techno and the second an album of field recorded treatments made by Rod Modell in Tokyo. An immersive record that I highly recommend.
The dub used in this mix is fairly ambient, especially towards the end where the ambient drones & washes come in & the beats slow way down.
Download (right click/save as) : 71mb, 51:20
subatomic dubscapes
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Fluxion - Field
- 03:25 Polmo Polpo - Rottura
- 08:55 Marconi Union - Temperature Drop
- 13:28 Talvihorros - Twin Peaks Theme
- 17:55 Deepchord presents Echospace - In Echospace
- 21:30 Vangelis - Antartica
- 26:30 The Orb - Slug Dub
- 31:25 Rod Modell - Mars Oil
- 36:16 Fluxion - Plain
- 38:50 Mokira - Lord, Am I Going Down
- 42:00 Wixel - You're Inside Your Own shadow
- 44:45 Sval - Valldal
- 51:20 end
I have always loved the sound of Djivan Gasparyan's music. He plays the duduk, a double reed instrument related to the oboe. It's got a great melancholy, other-worldy feel to it.
I took the "other-wordly" idea to make a mix of music that is vaguely foreign sounding, at least foreign to my American ears. The music is Middle Eastern, Asian, African, Eastern European and Indian.
I go back to a familiar source for some of the sounds, the Shortwave Music blog of Myke Weiskopf. Whether it's the night call to prayer in Bulgaria or Qur’an recitation from BSKSA Saudi Arabia, Myke has great recordings that everyone should take the time to investigate.
The times in the tracklist are rough. Sometimes there are two or three tracks playing at once & not all are listed in the tracklist. I also messed with a few tracks, adding stretched audio as a backing track or adding reverb.
At various times haunting, beautiful, calming or hypnotic, the music in this mix will hopefully stir your imagination.
Download (right click/save as) : 51:14, 74mb
in foreign lands
T R A C K L I S T :
- 00:00 Djivan Gasparyan - You have to come back to me
- 02:22 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Michael Brook - Night Song
- 06:20 Hildegard Westerkamp - Gently Penetrating
- 07:00 Night call to prayer in Draginovo, Bulgaria
- 09:20 Peter Nooten & Michael Brook - Suddenly II
- 10:25 Maya Beiser - I was there
- 15:00 harmonic fx
- 15:50 Gamelan Madu Sari - thinly roundly
- 18:15 Ayub Ogada - Kothbiro
- 22:00 Jon Hassell - Frontiera
- 22:30 Hildegard Westerkamp - Into the labyrinth
- 22:55 Geir Jenssen - Camp 2, world music on the radio
- 23:30 Gamelan Madu Sari - Dreams he is a ball of fire or a hummingbird
- 26:30 Peter Gabriel - Wall of Breath
- 28:15 Galata Mevlevi - Nay Taksim
- 29:40 Hildegard Westerkamp - Soundscape of cities, Delhi
- 30:10 Forrest Fang - Garuda
- 31:15 Jon Hassell - Tramonto
- 33:00 Qur’an recitation from BSKSA Saudi Arabia
- 34:20 Lamp of the Universe - Heru, part 1
- 36:55 U Srinivas & Michael Brook - Think
- 41:30 Anouar Brahem - L'oiseau
- 45:45 Djivan Gasparyan - dle vaman
- 49:30 Peter Gabriel - A sense of home
- 51:14 end
As most readers of this blog probably know, I cross-post these mixes over at Mixcloud. Recently I got a request from listener, TikTaalik. This is part of his post, "I was wondering if you could compile a mix that is optimistic throughout. The sort of ambience that I tend only to hear once or twice in a set. Can you get a solid hour of calm ambient music with a euphoric undertone?"
At Low Light Mixes we give the people what they want, so here it is...Positively Ambient. I'm not sure if all of the music qualifies as "optimistic" or "euphoric" but it is all calm & beautiful. I start things off with Eno's "An Ending(ascent)" because I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Although it may work better as "an ending" than as a beginning, I wanted it up front so everyone that plays the mix is guaranteed to hear it.
I hope the rest of the mix doesn't get too sweet or too pretty sounding. I don't want it to dissolve into new age crapola. I dug into the archives for some of the tunes like James Johnson's "Entering Twilight" from 2000, Jim Cole from 2002, Diatonis from 2003, Fox & Budd from 2003, Jeff Pearce from 1999 and Stephen Bacchus from 1998.
The feel of this mix is definitely soothing, no dissonant chords to be found. It works well as sleep music, meditation music, , etc. Just good 'ole traditional ambient music.
Download (right click/save as) : 83mb, 57:30
positively ambient
T R A C K L I S T :
00:00 Brian Eno - An Ending(ascent)
04:00 Arc of Doves - Reverie
09:00 James Johnson - Entering Twilight
14:45 Diatonis - Winding Road
18:00 Hammock - Maybe they will sing for us tomorrow
23:10 Stephen Bacchus - The Returning
30:25 John Foxx & Harold Budd - A Delicate Romance
36:45 Jim Cole - Light Shines in Your Heart
43:10 Jeff Pearce - Daylight Slowly
44:45 Hammock - Three Sisters
48:50 d_rradio - Into the Morning
54:05 Quosp - Quosp
57:30 end
Picture yourself floating in space. Whether you like to think of it as drifting alone, in a spacesuit, looking out at the stars all around. Or instead imagine yourself as Bowie said "Here am I floating round my tin can, far above the moon." Either way, the music in this mix should make you feel "far from home".
I like to envision a small craft in the middle of nowhere, drifting...waiting. Waiting for rescue? Waiting for contact? Waiting for main power to come back online? Hopefully the music will generate a feeling of weightlessness, of drifting in the vast expanse of space, without being too dark or dissonant.
I did not pick the tunes based on titles. I just did a quick sampling of some of my ambient collection to come up with possible tracks. But it's interesting how many of the song titles fit right in with the "outer space" theme. Titles like Meissa, Deep Sky Time, 1st Lite & Asteroid Dawn work perfectly for this motif.
Download (right click/save as) : 86mb, 60min.
far from home
T R A C K L I S T : - 00:00 Lunar Testing Lab - Space Traffic Control
- 01:00 Brian Eno - Asteroid Dawn
- 04:40 A Produce - The Big Sleep
- 09:40 Harmonia - Weird Dream
- 11:10 Wouter Veldhuis - 1st Lite
- 18:30 Steve Roach - Deep sky Time
- 24:40 Austere - Lid
- 28:00 Mike Griffin & A Produce - Altara
- 31:45 Lunar Testing Lab - Paaliaq
- 33:05 Sonmi451 - Orange
- 38:45 Thomas Fehlman - in the wind
- 43:10 Spheruleus - Disintegrate
- 48:30 Fripp & Eno - Meissa
- 55:30 Sonmi451 - Blue
- 1:00:00 end
I was playing some Boards of Canada recently & came across the song "In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country." I love the use of the vocoder in that tune. Being a sci-fi geek & an electronic music dork, it makes sense that I would like songs with vocoders. So I set out to find enough vocoder tunes for a mix. The result is "Vox Electronix".
The vocoder is is an analysis/synthesis system, developed in the 1930's, that dramatically reduces the amount of information needed to store speech, from a complete recording to a series of numbers. Because much info was lost in the encoding & decoding process, the voice ended up sounding "dehumanized" or robot-like. Eventually changes were made by people like Wendy Carlos & Robert Moog, that made the vocoder a musical device, used most prominently by artists like Kraftwerk.
The vocoder is used in many of the tracks in this mix, but I'm not exactly sure which ones are vocoder & which ones are auto-tune and which ones are just clever vocal manipulation. So don't everyone go crazy saying "hey that's not a flippin' vocoder!", I was just going for a certain sound, a certain feel.
It was cool discovering tunes I'd either never heard of or forgotten about. Thanks to Judd at the Hypnos forum for recommending the tune by Tonto's Expanding Head Band & for reminding me about the track from the U2/Eno collaboration, Passengers. Also thanks to Tobias(False Mirror) on the Hypnos forum for the heads up on the Robert Rich song. That's one of those that I think is some form of auto-tune versus a vocoder, but a great song. The mix opens with a cool bit of audio which was recorded at Bell Labs in 1936.
This was a fun mix to put together, discovering new tunes & revisiting old favorites(O Superman). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Download (right click/save as) : 86mb, 63min
vox electronix
T R A C K L I S T : - 00:00 Bell Labs 1936 - Voice of Power
- 00:23 Tonto's Expanding Head Band - Riversong
- 03:33 Brian Eno - And then so clear
- 08:15 Boards of Canada - In a beautiful place out in the country
- 12:30 Air - le soleil est pres de moi
- 16:30 Apples in Stereo - Vocoder ba ba
- 16:45 Bjork - Possible Maybe(Lucy mix)
- 19:30 Passengers - A different kind of blue
- 21:10 Robert Rich - Premonition of circular clouds
- 28:25 Laurie Anderson - O Superman
- 35:40 Ricardo Villalobos - Easy Lee
- 39:45 Trans Am - Futureworld
- 42:33 Air - Sexy Boy
- 47:30 Peter Baumann - This This Day
- 51:54 Apples in Stereo - Hello Lola
- 52:10 Black Moth Super Rainbow - Twins of Myself
- 55:15 Holger Czukay - Ode to Perfume
- 59:15 Brian Eno - Bottomliners
- 03:04 end
These are songs that conjure up images of wind blown landscapes, tumbleweeds, sunbleached rocks, dusty roads and heat waves rising off the ground. Of course most of the music in this mix has an ambient/atmospheric feel.
I remember the first time I heard Daniel Lanois' use of slide guitar on "Apollo - Atmospheres & Soundtracks", I hated it. I guess I thought of the slide guitar as too close to "country music" which I definitely hated.
Well over the years I've come around on the slide guitar, I love it now. I'm still not a big country music fan, though I do have a ton of Johnny Cash recordings. I've come to appreciate the lonely, melancholy feel that can be expressed through twangy, dusty western music.
Of course the ultimate in great ambient twang is Ry Cooder's "Paris, TX" soundtrack. That makes an appearance in this mix along with standbys like Lanois, Steve Roach & A Small Good Thing. I was happy to sneak in a piano tune, "Alice & twins" by Japancakes. It just sort of fit with the overall feel & then the slide guitar comes in to make it even more "dusty".
Whether it's the twang of an acoustic guitar, the wail of a harmonica or the ethereal sound of a slide guitar, this mix will drop you off on an abandoned rail line in the middle of nowhere.
Download (right click/save as) : 77mb, 41:45left in the desert
T R A C K L I S T : - 00:00 Earth - left in the desert
- 00:45 George Winston - Farewell
- 01:50 Ry Cooder - nothing out there
- 03:00 Chas Smith - an hour out of desert center
- 03:50 Bill Frisell - lonely man
- 04:52 p.g. six - 6 for wire, strung harp with slide, with Steve Roach buried underneath
- 06:15 A Small Good Thing - drowning light
- 09:00 Daniel Lanois - Asylum
- 11:30 Steve Roach & Roger King - rain & creosote
- 15:30 Six Organs of Admittance - oak path
- 18:50 Balmorhea - Palestrina
- 20:10 Steve Tibbetts - kili-ki drok
- 21:10 Balmorhea - on the weight of the night
- 25:00 Esmerine - There Were No Footprints In The Dust Behind Them
- 27:35 Badgerlore - goodnight, sweet rabbits
- 29:20 Chronomad - aksak
- 33:50 Ennio Morricone - man with a harmonica
- 34:10 Japancakes - Alice & twins
- 37:50 Steve Roach - new moon at forbidden mesa
- 38:20 Loren Mazzacane Connors - lullaby (the 1st)
- 40:10 July Skies - branch line summers fade
- 41:45 end
This last mix of 2010 is a mix that I did for Headphone Commute about 3 months ago. They were kind enough to ask for a mix & I was honored to add it to their great collection of mixes they post at their own site & at their Mixcloud site.
