illusions of autumn

I wanted to get this mix in while it is still autumn.  I originally did this mix last fall for the good folks over at Headphone Commute.  If you've not been there, head over to their great site for reviews, news, sound clips & of course mixes.

The music in the mix sort of has an autumnal feel to it at least I hope so considering the title is “Illusions of Autumn.”  Not sure what qualifies a tune as being autumnal, I guess it’s a case of “I know it, when I hear it.” 

I was glad to use the Arve Henriksen tune, I love his stuff but sometimes it doesn't fit in a straight ambient mix.  But it works well here, it really has a nice fall color feel to me.

Enjoy autumn while you can, winter is will be here soon.

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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Nils Frahm - Old Thought
• 04:00    Cliff Martinez - Rubber Head
• 06:25    Benoît Pioulard - Malick
• 08:45    Daniel Lanois - Matador
• 13:05    King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - First Watch
• 15:10    Harold Budd - Come Back to Me in Dreams
• 16:55    Arve Henriksen - Sorrow and It's Opposite
• 19:00    Steve Tibbetts - Nine Doors Breathing Space
• 20:55    Arve Henriksen - Sorrow and It's Opposite(continuation)
• 21:40    Andrey Kiritchenko - Agravic Illusion
• 26:50    Animal Hospital - Nostalgia
• 28:00    The Fun Years - Fucking Milwaukee's Been Hesher Forever
• 31:15    Bexar Bexar - n.r.o.t.
• 34:05    Daniel Lanois - Sketches
• 38:00    Antonymnes meets Slow Dancing Society - A Feeling of Being Closer
• 46:55    Maps & Diagrams - When the Night Came
• 50:15    Emanuele Errante - Counterclockwise
• 55:40    Cliff Martinez - Wrong Floor
• 57:05    end

Illusions of Autumn by Lowlight on Mixcloud

Favorite ambient artists

There is a new release from Loscil called "Sketches from New Brighton."  And of course it's excellent, everything from Loscil is excellent.  As I listened to it I figured that Loscil would have to be one of my favorite ambient artists of all time.

That got me thinking...what are my top ten ambient artists of all time?  The artists on the list are ones I come back to again and again.  And also ones that have a decent sized body of work.  Scott Solter did one of my favorite ambient albums of all time, "One River."  But that was pretty much it from him.  So to make the list it was important to have a fair number of releases.

Well, here's the list, in no particular order:

1. Stars of the Lid
2. Brian Eno
3. Steve Roach
4. Loscil
5. Harold Budd
6. Maps & Diagrams
7. Alio Die
8. Sonmi451
9. William Basinski
10. Kyle Bobby Dunn

This mix is a collection of tracks from each of those artists.  The cuts used in the mix are not necessarily my favorite track from that artist, just tunes that worked well within the mix.  I did want to use something new from Loscil but something old from Eno & Harold Budd.

Honorable mentions might be:

• Marconi Union
• Robert Rich
• Taylor Deupree
• Saul Stokes
• Gas
• Hammock
• Aglaia
• Marsen Jules
• Spheruleus
• Windy & Carl
• David Tagg
• A Produce
• 36

If any listeners would like to leave their lists in the comments that would be very cool.


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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Loscil - Prairie Trains
• 07:15    Steve Roach - Tranquility Base
• 13:55    Stars of the Lid - The Atomium, part 2
• 21:00    Harold Budd - Balthus Bemused by Color
• 25:25    Brian Eno - Slow Water
• 28:00    Maps & Diagrams - Secrets of the Shore
• 30:45    Kyle Bobby Dunn - The Tributary(for voices lost)
• 38:03    Alio Die - Ultima Latet
• 50:40    William Basinski - 92982.3
• 55:30    Sonmi451 - Ruis
• 1:03:33    end

Favorite Ambient Artists by Lowlight on Mixcloud

Daylight Fades download

This is the follow up to the earlier "Daylight Fades" post.  Now it is available to download here in the normal manner.

I'll re-post what I said about the mix to the folks at acloserlisten.com.

The mix is called “daylight fades” because as I was listening to “Olancha Farewell” by Harold Budd [off Lovely Thunder]  it made me think of sitting on the front porch watching the sky begin to darken as daylight fades.  Once I had that feeling in mind I just kept my ears open for a couple of weeks listening for tracks that would work well with that theme.  The cuts are mostly newer music with the exception of a couple Harold Budd tunes.  I’ve be digging through my collection of Harold Budd music & kind of re-discovering pieces that I haven’t heard for years.

I really like this mix and hope you all connect with it like I did.  I'm working on some new mixes, a piano mix, sustain & decay vol. 3 and one of ambient music from non-ambient artists.  Hopefully  those will come to fruition in the next month or so two.


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T R A C K L I S T :

·         00:00  Harold Budd - olancha farewell

·         02:04    *AR - Inception

·         03:45    Vieo Abiungo - Insincerity Peeked Through Cloudlessly (Upward Arrows Remix)

·         06:15    Wolfgang Voigt - Fresko 1

·         09:08    Willits + Sakamoto - Completion

·         13:30    d_rradio - Falling Light

·         16:30    Alessio Ballerini - Night in Day

·         19:10    Plinth - the sunken carillon

·         23:45    Harold Budd with Zeitgeist - I blink and she's gone

·         25:20    Marconi Union - part 4(from weightless)

·         32:00    Chihei Hatakeyama - Road After Rain

·         37:12    Willamette - images dune longueur de cheveux

·         43:40    Kyle Bobby Dunn - An Evening with Dusty

·         47:05    36 - Levitate

·         51:10    Christopher Willits - Olancha Hello

·         53:42    Brian Eno - For Real

·         1:00:24    end

Daylight Fades by Lowlight on Mixcloud

Daylight Fades

The good folks over at A Closer Listen, recently asked me to do a mix for them.  Of course I jumped at the chance as their site is full of great reviews, links, recommendations, mixes & overall great stuff.

The mix, called Daylight Fades, is posted at A Closer Listen & their Mixcloud page.  I really like this mix & have been playing it around the house for a couple of weeks now.  It may become one of my favorite Low Light mixes.

I will eventually post it here for download, but for now I want to give them the traffic & hits.  So stay tuned for the download link down the road.  For now enjoy the stream from Mixcloud.

Here are some of the websites of the cool folks from A Closer Listen:

www.acloserlisten.com
www.lostchildrennetlabel.com
www.soundlcloud.com/thenewobjective
http://thenewobjective.tumblr.com

Daylight Fades Mix by Lostchildrennetlabel on Mixcloud

Music for a Mars landing - Curiosity EDL

Back in November I did a mix for the launch of Curiosity, NASA's newest Mars rover.  Now 8 months later, Curiosity has arrived at Mars.  So this mix is music for landing on Mars, in honor of Curiosity's EDL or entry, descent and landing.

Obviously the landing went perfectly.  It's an incredible accomplishment.  I love seeing video of the cheering crew at JPL.

Here's one of the first color pix from Curiosity.  It shows Aeolis Mon, or Mount Sharp, in the background.  Looks klike Curiosity should have a fairly clear path to the 18,000 foot Martian mountain.  

I started off this mix just picking electronic tunes I liked for this theme then quickly realized that many of the titles fit perfectly.  Track titles such as "We Travel", "Bold Advances" "Flying (in crimson skies)" and "Arrival".  So I looked for a few more with appropriate names, kept a few that had titles that didn't matter and the mix was launched.

Enjoy.

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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Marconi Union - We Travel
• 06:55    Tycho - Adrift
• 14:40    Dub Trees - Dreamlab
• 17:35    Loops of Your Heart - End
• 22:50    Ricardo Donoso - conditional formatting descent
• 24:55    Lunar Testing Lab - Slinky Antenna
• 26:45    Bersarin Quartet - Der Mond, der Schnee und Du
• 30:47    Stendec - Descent
• 32:05    Helios - Bold Advances
• 34:15    Anenon - The Sea and The Stars
• 35:44    Clark - Skyward Bruise/Descent
• 37:15    Daft Punk - Arrival
• 38:56    Marconi Union - Flying (in crimson skies)
• 45:10    Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm - b1
• 52:15    Altus - The Awe and Wonder
• 58:40    Wixel - Surface Dust
• 1:00:18    Hecq - Red Sky

Music for a Mars landing by Lowlight on Mixcloud

The God Particle

Those of us who are science dorks were fascinated earlier this month when it was announced that the discovery of a new particle was very likely the elusive Higgs-Boson.  The particle has been the subject of a nearly 50 year hunt to explain why matter has mass.

This mix is a celebration of that discovery.  With titles like "Particle," "Sweet Collision," and "Magnetic Fields," all the track titles work very well with a Higgs-Boson, high energy physics theme.

Enjoy.


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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Miles Tilman - Particle
• 03:33    Saul Stokes - Vapor Trails
• 07:30    Mr. Projectile - Tiny Distances
• 08:30    Can - Quantum Physics
• 09:44    Baffo Banfi - Love Magnetic Research
• 14:23    Burial - Shell of Light
• 18:27    John Adams - Short Ride in a Fast Machine
• 23:05    Cliff Martinez - Hi Energy Proton Accelerator
• 25:05    Benjamin Dauer - Sweet Collision
• 30:20    Loren Dent - Sub-Atomic Love Song
• 32:45    Spheruleus - Suspended Particles
• 35:30    Martin Herterich - Silent Fields 2
• 42:25    Maps & Diagrams - Particles of Earth
• 44:44    Pale Sketcher - Tiny Universes
• 48:52    Dub Trees - Magnetica
• 52:21    Jean Michel Jarre - Magnetic Fields part 1
• 59:00    Vir Unis - They Call It The God Particle
• 1:04:11    end

 
 
 

The God Particle by Lowlight on Mixcloud

2 great new albums

Anyone that has followed this blog for some time will know that some of my favorite music comes from Marconi Union & Kyle Bobby Dunn.  Well they both have fantastic new albums just out.

Marconi Union - Different Colours (just music)
A little bit of ambient, dub, jazz, electronica combined together for another great Marconi Union album.  I love everything these guys do and this new release is no exception.

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Bring Me the Head of Kyle Bobby Dunn (low point)
You can't find more beautiful drones than those of Kyle Bobby Dunn.  His last two albums, A Young Person's Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn & Ways of Meaning are some of my favorite ambient recordings of the last ten years.  Bring Me the Head continues with the sounds of gorgeous, decaying drones.  Perfect ambient music.

An Evening With Dusty - Kyle Bobby Dunn from Joey Bania on Vimeo.


Both of the albums will be on my year-end best of list.

Every day is like Sunday - Sunday morning music vol. 3

Sunday mornings in summer...put on some coffee even though the temps are already climbing.

Sunday mornings in summer...are spent on the deck with the paper & the birds.

Sunday mornings in summer...slow motion start to a slow motion day.

This is the third in my unplanned Sunday morning music series.  I hadn't intended to more than one of these mixes but the first was so popular on Mixcloud that I couldn't resist doing more.  I was amazed at how many listens it got and to be honest, I liked that popularity, so I became a bit of a ratings whore & went back to that same well again.


As with the others in this series, this mix is a collection of instrumentals, acoustic tunes, jazz & other oddballs.  I am happy to have squeezed in the tune, The Farther Away I Am, from Daryl Hall.  Yes that's Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates.  It's from a 1980 solo album he did that was produced by Robert Fripp, thereby assuring it would be a commercial bomb.  The album was kind hit & miss but I've always loved that song.


Other favs in the mix are the ones by Sun Kil Moon & Keola Beamer and of course the Colin Meloy cover which I stole as the title for volume 3 in this series. I know the Beamer tune borders on new age.  But I think this cut doesn't go over the edge into new age crap.  It just has this nice breezy feel which perfect for sitting on the deck with the sun on your face.

Enjoy.


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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Daniel Lanois - Steamdog
• 02:00    Sun Kil Moon - Sunshine in Chicago
• 04:30    Keola Beamer - `Imi Au Io `Oe
• 07:27    Colin Meloy - Every day is  Like Sunday(Morrissey cover)
• 10:40    Brian Eno - Silver Morning
• 12:50    Foreign Fields - From the Lake to the Land
• 15:20    Daryl Hall - The Farther Away I Am
• 17:40    Sigur Ros - varðeldur
• 23:25    Bill Nelson - Your Morning Blessing
• 26:05    Wolfgang Voigt - Fresko 1
• 29:05    Nora Jones - Good Morning
• 32:10    Uakti - Japura River(philip glass cover)
• 36:41    Steve Tibbetts - kili-ki drok
• 37:45    Jeff Pearce - With the Morning Light
• 42:20    Jan Garbarek - Ov zarmanali
• 45:00    Chet Baker - Early Morning Mood
• 52:20    Steve Tibbetts - Drawing Down the Moon
• 57:05    Sufjan Stevens - The Lord God Bird(live on NPR)
• 1:00:37    end

Sunday morning music vol. 3 - Every day is like Sunday by Lowlight on Mixcloud

Transit of Venus

A mix in honor of the recent transit of Venus across the face of the sun. It won't happen again until 2117.

All the tracks have Venus, sun or transit in the title. 

Enjoy.

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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Casino Versus Japan - Names on Maps of Venus part 6
• 01:27    Laurie Anderson - Transitory Life
• 02:39    Ishq - Diving into Sun
• 8:33    Glen Velez - In Transit
• 10:50    Jon Hopkins - The Wider Sun
• 12:15    Steve Hauschildt - Overnight Venusian
• 16:15    Paul Ellis - Dialing in  the Sun
• 24:00   Ishq - The Sun Arcs a Smile
• 26:15    Jim Cole & Spectral Voices - Sun Shower
• 27:40    Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Late Day Sun Silhouettes
• 36:00    Stars of the Lid - Sun Drugs
• 45:40   Montauk - Setting Sun(fragment 1)
• 46:50    Steve Roach & Kevin Braheny - In the Heat of Venus
• 51:10    Casino Versus Japan - Names on Maps of Venus part 1
• 55:55    Biosphere - As the Sun Kissed the Horizon
• 57:24    end

Transit of Venus by Lowlight on Mixcloud

 

365 photo blog

Pic from my front yard of the solar eclipse on May 20th.

This post is just call your attention to a new blog I started here on blogger.  It's called 365 photobooth.

It's a 365 photo project in which I will post a pic a day.  I'm attempting this project with my daughter, Sydney & my nephew, Nate.  So theoretically there will be three pix posted each day.

Not sure how many folks will be interested in the pix, it's more of an exercise for the photographers that hopefully will make us think differently about taking photos.  And maybe force us into a wider variety of pix.  

We'll see how it goes.  I'm sure there will some days that I have no desire to take an interesting pic & will resort to snapping something on the go with my iPhone.  It will be a fun experiment.

The photo blog can be found here... 365 photobooth.