Beyond this window

Generally I like autumn. I don't mind the colder temps, colors are great, don't have to mow the lawn anymore, etc. But this year the weather has been nasty, too cold too soon & lots of rain.

So I set out to do a bleak, cold October mix. But as usually happens with mixes, they take on a life of their own and lead you in different directions. I realized, as I was collecting tunes, that I didn't want the mix to turn into some dark, Halloween-ish affair.

Ultimately I turned to all new music as source material. While most of it is not all bleak & depressing, neither is it all sunny & bright. I'm glad to have worked some currents favs into the mix, such as Leyland Kirby, Sufjan Stevens, Loren Dent & Volcano Choir.

Even though today was a beautiful, sunny fall day, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities for a hot cup of coffee, listening to this mix & gazing beyond this, or any, window.


D o w n l o a d : (right click/save as) 81mb, 59:22
Beyond this window

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 wind
  
• 00:30 Solo Andata - Beyond this Window (from the album Solo Andata)
  
• 04:00 David Tagg - Wind Blown Guitar (from the album Wind Blown Guitar)
• 07:50 Aidan Baker - Explosions (from the album Dry)
• 11:30 Segue - October (from the album Grey)
• 16:00 Ian Hawgood - Shore Peotry (from the album Snow Roads)
• 16:30 Isnaj Dui - That which was lost (from the album unstable equlibrium)
• 22:00 Leyland Kirby - Memories live longer than dreams (from the album sadly the future is no longer what it was)
• 27:20 Sufjan Stevens - Postlude - Critical Mass (from the album The BQE)
• 29:30 Talvihorros - Handwriting Pt. 1 (from the album Some Ambulance)
• 34:20 Loren Dent - Ecstasy of Morning (from the album Anthropology extras)
• 40:50 Ave Maria stretched
• 42:50 Billy Gomberg - Verse (from the album Days)
• 47:50 Volcano Choir - Husks & Shells (from the album unmap)
• 51:00 Chihei Hatakeyama - Landscape on a Hill (from the album Saunter)
• 59:22 end
  

a ghost in the phase

I was having a tough time coming up with an idea for a new mix. The shortwave mix, a drift on the signal, is one of my favorite mixes so I decided to do a sequel.

And thus, through ionospheric transit, comes...a ghost in the phase. The formula is pretty much the same as before, a nice mixture of real shortwave radio recordings & ambient music with shortwave elements. Most of the shortwave stuff comes from the Shortwavemusic blog. That's the same source I used for the last shortwave mix. It's run by Myke Weiskopf. Here are a couple of his other sites...Myke Weiskopf & Myke's Live Journal

Lots of cool sounds at all three sites.

After the last shortwave mix a listener said it reminded him of Tetsu Inoue's World Receiver. How could I have forgotten that disc?! This time I made sure to include it. It's such a fantastic recording. You can buy it from Infraction records . Another excellent release that made it into the mix is the new one from Steven Mathieu called Radioland. Check it out.

The Entia Non & krill.minima & Unproduct cuts are all available for free download.

Download(right click/save as):
a ghost in the phase
The times in this tracklist are just approximations. Sometimes there are several cuts playing at once, things fading in & out, etc.

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 - Pulse Wave FX & JBO Tokyo Radio
• 00:16 - Entia Non - Cultural Plagiarism
• 01:28 - Fennesz - A Year in a Minute
• 04:33 - Myke Weiskopf - Shortwave Condensation
• 05:55 - Djivan Gasparyan - dle yaman
• 06:56 - Cairo Radio
• 07:45 - Punkt - Speechless
• 08:24 - Cairo Radio
• 09:13 - Rod Modell - Aloeswood
• 12:38 - Tetsu Inoue - Elevator Drops
• 19:05 - Stephen Mathieu - Auf der Gasse
• 22:45 - Fennesz & Sakamoto - Aware
• 26:37 - Radio RASD
• 26:54 - My Fun - Signal Drift
• 29:06 - Felicia Atkinson with Sylvain Chauveau - Aberdeen
• 34:11 - Chris Bissonnette - Traveling Light
• 40:00 - WEWN
• 40:46 - Post-Soviet Melancholia Pt. V: "Мой Рок и Ролл" via Russian International Radio
• 42:40 - krill.minima - Projektor
• 45:34 - Myke Weiskopf - The Grotesque
• 46:23 - Unproduct - Radio Canvas 3
• 46:52 - numbers
• 47:40 - pulse transmission
• 50:30 - Rameses III - Origins IV May 25, 2007
• 53:20 - Stephen Mathieu - Radioland
• 02:30 - Pulse Wave FX

Suspended in Air

Last year I discovered British drone master Paul Bradley. This year it's the beautiful drones of David Tagg. I have two of his recordings now, "Expanding Electronic Diversity" & "Waist Deep Seas Of Milk". Two excellent albums.
So because I've been listening to more drones than usual I've decided to do a drone mix. Nothing extraordinary here, just one drone slowly slipping into the next.
Most of the music here is fairly new. Almost all of it released this year or last, except of course for the Aloof Proof, which almost counts as new because of the reissue last year. This was fairly easy to put together but it flows nicely. Should be excellent for sleeping.

Download(right click/save as)
s u s p e n d e d i n a i r

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Paul Bradley - Irenic
• 05:45 Stars of the Lid - Virgina
• 09:00 Andrew Chalk - Suspended in Air
• 14:00 David Tagg - Waist Deep in Seas of Milk #6
• 20:30 Emeralds - arbol del tule
• 28:05 Belong - Vowel
• 35:00 Nelson Foltz & Tom Lynn - still life interlude
• 43:00? David Tagg - The 25th Door
• 49:30 Aloof Proof - The Last Leaf
• 59:30 Paul Bradley - Chroma #1
• 02:30 The Beautiful Schizophonic - cantiques la gloire du soleil

Satellite

This new mix is something different. It is a guest mix courtesy of a listener/downloader in Ireland.

Jason is an electronic music producer who discovered new artists such as Tim Hecker, Fennesz & Murcof through some Low Light mixes. He said “Stunning artists, I never knew music could sound so minimal yet full.”

It is an excellent mix. Jason has put together an hour-long mix of “some of my favorite trax from a few of the artists I’ve grown to love over the past year.”

It starts out nice & dreamy then gets a bit noisey, but in a good Tim Hecker way. It smooths out again then brings back some Hecker & Murcof noise before ending quietly with Fennesz & Sakamoto. A fine mix from start to finish.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Download(right click/save as) :

Satellite

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00.00 "amb" Rafael Toral
• 1.20 "the Mouthchew" Stars of the Lid
• 4.28 "Reciting the Airships" Eluvium
• 8.00 "Crossing Signals" Manual
• 9.23 "Faces (Where Are You Now)" Stendeck
• 12.47 "Going Dark" EchaSkech
• 13.24 "Fractales Pt.2" Apparat
• 14.48 "Blood Rainbow" Tim Hecker
• 17.32 "Remove the Inside" Belong
• 22.56 "Junitaki" Manual
• 24.50 "Dizzy Sun" Manual
• 27.57 "I'm too Sleepy, shall we swim?" Belong
• 32.05 "Even (out) +" Stars of the Lid
• 35.00 "Chimeras" Tim Hecker
• 36.50 "Pillowcase" Dntel
• 39.00 "The Point of it all" Fennesz
• 42.33 "Radio Spiricom" Tim Hecker
• 44.45 "Cosmos II" Murcof
• 53.30 "Kuni" Christian Fennesz & Ryuichi Sakamoto

Best of 2007

There were some excellent releases in 2007, so I thought I'd feature some in a new mix.

My favorite ambient recording of the year was Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline. I know there are quite a few people who didn't care for the cd, but I love it. I like the more orchestral feel. I like that SOTL relies less & less on synths. A beautiful record.

My favorite vocal record was PG Six - Slightly Sorry. Snips from the Boomkat review..."a collection of quite unashamedly gorgeous 'proper' songs...'Slightly Sorry' is an album without tricks...'The Dance', the second track on the record - there's nothing necessarily modern about the song itself, it could have come out any time since 1969 and nobody would have batted an eyelid, but it's great music, pure and simple." I played this probably more than any other record this year.

As far as this mix is concerned, I pretty much stayed away from vocal tunes, with one exception in the middle of the mix. The mix opens with four drone tracks, including Paul Bradley, a new discovery thanks to the folks at the Hypnos forum. Some of his stuff gets a bit dark & dissonant for my taste, but his 2007 release "Chroma" features gorgeous, wide open drones. Th drones gradually giveway to piano based tunes which morph into electronics with a little beat then back to ambient to finish it off.

My full best of 2007 list follows the tracklisting for the mix. What were your favorite releases this year? Please leave some comments, I'd love to hear what you think.

Here's the mix...

Best of 2007

T R A C K L I S T :

1. 00:00 - 04:30 Stars of the Lid - Even(out)
2. 04:30 - 07:30 Paul Bradley - untitled #1
3. 07:30 - 09:40 Adam Pacione - Warming Trend
4. 09:40 - 15:30 Emeralds - arbole del tule
5. 15:30 - 20:30 Alio Die & Luciano Daini - Crucibulum
6. 20:30 - 24:24 Fennesz & Sakamoto - Aware
7. 24:24 - 25:45 Library Tapes - Snowleaf
8. 25:45 - 31:54 Dakota Suite - Because our lie breathes differently
9. 31:54 - 35:20 Wes Willenbring - While my lungs fill with water
10. 35:20 - 41:20 Sonmi 451 - Outer Shell
11. 41:20 - 46:05 Kiln - Flycatcher
12. 46:05 - 50:45 Rameses III - Theme 5
13. 50:45 - 54:20 Meursault - Ivy
14. 54:20 - 58:50 Alio Die & Zeit - Raag Drone Theory
15. 58:50 - 06:20 Taylor Deupree - Landing
16. 06:20 - 10:45 Tim Hecker - Norberg
17. 10:45 - 14:30 Northern - Cinema
18. 14:30 - 19:53 Stars of the Lid - Even if you're never awake

B E S T O F 2 0 0 7

• Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline (kranky)
• Alio Die & Luciano Daini - End of an Era (hic sunt leones)
• Alio Die & Zeit - Raag Drone Theory(hic sunt leones)
• Tetsu Inoue - Inland (fax)
• Taylor Deupree - Landing (room40)
• Adam Pacione - from stills to motion (infraction)
• Paul Bradley - Chroma (twenty hertz)
• Emeralds - Allegory Of Allergies (gods of tundra)
• Fennesz & Sakamoto - Cende (touch)
• Northern - Drawn (infraction)
• Tim Hecker - Norberg (room40)
• Rameses III - Honey Rose ( important)
• sonmi451 - probes & prisms (u-cover)
• Meursault - Sleeping Debris (students of decay)
• Wes Willenbring - Somewhere someone else (Aquarius Records)
• Library Tapes - Sketches (make mine music)
• Kiln - Dusker (Ghostly Int'l)
• Iron & Wine - The Sheperds Dog (sub pop)
• Trespassers William - noble house ep
• various - Box of Dub (soul jazz)
• Once - soundtrack (columbia)
• Canon Blue - Colonies (Rumraket)
• Dakota Suite - Waiting for the dawn to crawl through and take your life (glitterhouse)
• P.G. Six - Slightly Sorry (Drag City)