Juno Spacecraft - Mission to Jupiter

I'm a space science dork.  I have NASA t-shirts, a large print of the moon in my office, read sci-fi and I make space/science themed music mixes.  Here are links to a few that I've done in the past:

http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-god-particle.html
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2011/11/launch-of-curiosity.html
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2012/08/music-for-mars-landing-curiosity-edl.html
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2013/12/deep-sky-time-music-for-stargazing-2013.html
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2008/09/sea-of-stars.html
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-stars-my-destination.html
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2006/03/
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2017/01/sci-fi-soundtracks.html
http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2015/08/music-for-perseid-meteor-shower.html

Yikes, that was more than I thought and I may have missed a few.

This new mix fits right in with my love of all things NASA and my love of electronic music.  What sets this one apart is the sequencing of the tracks.  The titles of the tracks take you on the Juno mission from start to finish.  Going from "We Launch Tonight" to "Arrival" to "Ganymede" to "Cloud Shaping" to "The Last Message."

The Juno Spacecraft was launched in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in 2016.  It's been taking amazing pics and gathering data while in orbit.

After completing over a years worth of orbits and close fly bys, Juno will plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere and burn up, sending data back for as long as possible.

This mix attempts to tell the story of Juno on it's mission to Jupiter and it's moons.

Cheers!

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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Saul Stokes - We Launch Tonight
• 01:20    Tycho - Ascension
• 05:20    Lunar Testing Lab - Inertia
• 06:30    Robert Scott Thompson - Trajectory
• 08:10    Tangerine Dream - Astral Voyager
• 14:00    Johann Johannsson - Arrival
• 16:15    Erstlaub - Jupiter
• 19:35    36 - Drift Orbit
• 23:45    Lights Out in Asia - All these worlds are yours
• 26:04    Lights Out in Asia - Except Europa
• 30:00    Lights Out in Asia - Attempt no landings there
• 36:00    Amon Tobin - Encounter On Io
• 38:08    Harold Budd & Clive Wright - Procession of Moons
• 39:40    Boc Scadet - Ganymede
• 42:10    Wally Jericho - Callisto 1.0
• 44:45    Sufjan Stevens, James McAlister, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly - Tides
• 45:30    Saul Stokes - Cloud Shaping
• 49:45    Lunar Testing Lab - Ocean of Storms
• 51:10    Unknown - The Great Red Spot
• 51:55    David Wenngren & Christopher Bissonnette - Burn Like a Meteor and Leave No Dust
• 53:36    Echolab - Secrets of Jupiter
• 54:15    John Murphy - The Last Message
• 55:47    end

Pale Blue Dot - Earth Day 2017

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives."

     - Carl Sagan

I have always loved Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" essay. It's even better hearing his voice reading it.  In the Cosmos reboot from a couple of years ago, when they played a clip of Carl I actually cried.  Yes, I am a huge dork.  So needless to say, Sagan reading about the pale blue dot gets me every time. 

There are a ton of videos on youtube combining his quotes with music & images. Some are quite good, some use horrible cheesy music or hokey stock photos.  I thought, heck I'm a video editor, I'll make my own video. But then I realized how sometimes the images can detract from the prose.

So I decided to combine Sagan's Pale Blue Dot with one of my all-time favorite pieces of music - Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight."  The next step was to use that mashup to lead off a mix dedicated to Earth Day 2017 & the coinciding March for Science.  If you look at the track titles the theme is obvious.

I eventually did make a video to go with the mashup.  But it's just one image.  It's a pic taken by the Cassini spacecraft from just beyond Saturn.  It's Pale Blue Dot 2.0 if you will.  The  video is just one long slow pull from earth out to the full image.

Take a look here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LedVlmajeoA

Enjoy the mix, Earth Day and remember - Science, not Silence.

Cheers!

[ 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    Carl Sagan & Max Richter - Pale Blue Dot & On the Nature of Daylight
• 05:05    Jim Cole & Spectral Voices - Hear Earth
• 08:00    Steve Roach - On This Planet
• 15:20    Map & Diagrams - Particles of Earth
• 18:10    A Small Good Thing - Scorched Earth
• 23:15    Adam Pacione - Warming Trend
• 25:27    Shuttle358 - Melt
• 30:10    Jeff Greinke - Changing Skies
• 32:50    Brian Eno - Climate Study
• 35:30    J. Ralph - The Glaciers Are Telling
• 37:20    Michael Brook - Earth Alone
• 39:20    Mathias Grassow - Planetary Consciousness
• 43:45    Lav & Purl - Earthship
• 49:50    Robert Scott Thompson - Pale Blue Dot
• 65:00    end

The Color of Space - guest mix by Mike G of Ambient Music Guide

I've done a lot of mixes over the last ten years.  Obviously I try to have a theme or mood for each mix.  It can get difficult come up with new motifs.  That's why I love the idea that Mike G of Ambient Music Guide had last year.  We decided to trade guest mixes and he suggested we each send each other a few mix titles and that we select one and build the mix off of that title.  It really gets me thinking differently and can help get me out of a rut when looking for mix inspiration.

This mix is the second guest mix from Mike.  I love getting these mixes because so often there are artists or genres I normally don't use but that I love listening to.  This mix exemplifies that perfectly.  I don't listen to as much "space" music as I used to and as I lost myself in this mix I realized that I really need to revisit this style of ambient more often.  I am looking forward to using this as a stargazing soundtrack when I vacation in northern Wisconsin later this summer.

This is what Mike had to say about The Color of Space...

"Space is a theme with multiple meanings and is woven throughout much 
modern ambient and downtempo instrumental music. My mix The Color Space 
is a soundtrack of the cosmos.  All the music has a cosmic feel, whether 
it be one of inner space, outer space or the indefinable regions between."

Thanks Mike!

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T R A C K L I S T :

Music for the Perseid Meteor Shower

The title of this one pretty much says it all.

So download the mix, grab some bourbon, a blanket and head outside to witness the 2015 version of the Perseid meteor shower.

Enjoy

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T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00         Moesko - Stargazer
• 03:55  Marconi Union - Still
• 07:35  36 - Sky Fire
• 11:11  Alio Die - nuvole di palissandro
• 12:25  Alva Noto - Solphaer
• 17:55  Julio Di Benedetto - Original Light
• 26:26  Robert Davies - Nightshade
• 35:20  Klowknfe - Gamma
• 42:30  Horizon Fire - Earthlight
• 44:55  Moesko - Cloudgazer
• 47:55  Donnacha Costello - You Are Not Here
• 51:05  Marconi Union - Fading
• 57:15  end

Music for the Perseid Meteor Shower by Low Light Mixes on Mixcloud

Ghosts of the Future

At the end of May I posted an excellent mix from Mike G of the Ambient Music Guide.  We agreed to do guest mixes for each other and that the starting point would be a title that each of us would give the other.  We sent each other a few title ideas, we each chose one and got to work.

Mike chose "Lapse into Reverie" and the result was his beautiful mix that you can find here...

http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2015/05/lapse-into-reverie-complied-mixed-by.html

And here...

https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/lapse-into-reverie-compiled-mixed-by-mike-g-of-ambient-music-guide/

Mike gave me about 4 or 5 title ideas and my attention was immediately drawn to one in particular... "Ghosts of the Future."

The first thing that comes to mind is the film "Interstellar", which I had just re-watched right before this project.  With its time dilation and Murph's "ghost" communicating from the future, the soundtrack is the perfect launching point for this mix.  I like soundtracks but Hans Zimmer usually isn't a favorite.  However with this film he strikes a perfect balance.  At times the music has a Philip Glass feel to it.

I also thought of snippets of voices as ghosts and so I worked in some spoken word excerpts here & there, as well as using tracks that had voices or vocoder. Overall I hope the mix conveys a strange, otherworldly feel to it.

Thanks again to Mike G for doing the mix swap with me and thanks for a great mix title.

Enjoy


[ 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    Ian William Craig - Before Meaning Comes
• 00:35    Hans Zimmer - Where We're Going(Interstellar OST)
• 05:52    Eskmo - Spvce
• 07:55    Robert Rich - Premonition of Circular Clouds
• 13:15    Intrusion - Static Waves & Shuttle358 - Fissure(played simultaneously)
• 16:30    Echospace - Viola's Ghost Hamonix, Beyond Gravity, Astral Dreaming,        Beyond The Drone(played simultaneously along with Static Waves)
• 19:10    Disasterpeace - Formations
• 20:55    Shuttle358 - Warm
• 25:10    Kraftwerk - Endlos Endlos
• 25:50    Chris Dooks - Antifoni
• 26:45    Bon Iver - Woods(remixed)
• 28:40    Hans Zimmer - s.t.a.y.(Interstellar OST)
• 33:45    Adlib - Hoffnung
• 34:25    Steve Roach - It's All Connected
• 39:50    Vangelis - Tears in the Rain
• 42:36    Cliff Martinez - We Don't Have To Think Like That Anymore
• 45:15    Transcient - My Last Goodbye
• 48:39    Simon Bainton - Range
• 50:43    Public Broadcasting Service - Tomorrow
• 55:55    end

Ghosts of the Future 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.


[ 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    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

alien architecture

The music in this mix has a strange, sort of alien feel to it.  The pieces are a bit darker, but not creepy or annoying.  But they do all have a weird other-worldly sense to them.

This started with the first track, "We Swallowed the Night" by Anduin.  It just sounded vaguely alien and a bit threatening.  So from there I decided to construct a mix around that feeling.

When I make mixes I collect tracks over time & toss them into a folder to sort through later.  Sometimes I'll bring the folder of music to work with me & make the mix there(shhhh, don't tell anyone).  The problem with doing that is I have to convert the mp3's to wav or aiff files and in the process the tracks can lose the artist identifier.  So I only know the track title but not the artist.  That's how I ended up with 4 tracks from Robert Rich & Ian Boddy in one mix.  I usually don't like to have that much from album or artist.  That's also how the mix ended up with two Pjusk cuts back to back.  Oh well, Guess I'll just have to be more careful next time.

I didn't want to go the Lustmord "where black stars hang" route and have the mix be scary alien.  I just wanted unearthly alien.  Hopefully I hit that tone pretty well.



[ 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    Anduin - We Swallowed the Night
• 01:56    Harold Budd - Dark Star
• 04:16    Hecq - aback
• 06:23    Pjusk - Kram
• 11:44    Robert Rich & Ian Boddy - Threshold
• 12:28    nebulo & druc drac - rive nord - rive sud
• 14:30    EU - 60 Planets
• 16:37    Monolake - phenomenon
• 19:10    Robert Rich & Ian Boddy - Methane
• 22:10    Anduin - The Voyeurs Wall of Glass
• 25:25    Lights Out Asia - All These Worlds Are Yours
• 27:15    Jon Hopkins - Cold Out There
• 30:16    Pjusk - Granitt
• 33:33    Pjusk - Flint
• 37:15    Loscil - Pressure
• 39:55    Roly Porter - Arrakis
• 42:05    Loren Connors - Red Mars
• 43:15    Robert Rich & Ian Boddy - Ice Fields
• 48:05    Saul Stokes - We Resolve
• 53:10    Robert Rich & Ian Boddy - Last Outpost
• 55:04    end

Alien architecture by Lowlight on Mixcloud

1969 - trans lunar injection

I've been on kind of a moon binge lately.  It started with watching HBO's excellent series, "From the Earth to the Moon."  Then I read "We Reach the Moon," a book written in 1969 by John Noble Wilford, the NYT science reporter.

Next I moved on to the wonderful film, "For All Mankind."  It's the story of the men who went to the moon, told in their own words.  Beautiful images and of course Eno's remarkable soundtrack, "Apollo : Atmospheres & Soundtracks".

So my head has been stuck on the moon in 1969.  And that is the genesis of this mix, 1969.  All the music used in this mix is either from 1969, related to the moon or both.

I know it may a bit of a cliche to start with Kennedy's moon speech at Rice University but I love that speech & that part still gives me chills.  11 of the tunes are actually from 1969 :

1.        Bowie - Space Oddity
2.       King Crimson - Moonchild
3.       Miles Davis - Sanctuary
4.       Pink Floyd - Sysyphus
5.       Terry Riley - Poppy Noggod
6.       Genesis - In the Beginning
7.       Soft Machine - Spaced
8.       Don Cherry - Man on the Moon
9.       Philip Glass - Music in Contrary Motion
10.       Mort Garson - Walking in Space
11.       Beatles - Across the Universe (covered by Phosphorescent)

It's interesting how many of them had moon or space themes.  I guess that is where everyone's mind was at the time.

 I just had to include a couple of cuts from Eno's "Apollo:Atmospheres & Soundtracks" and from the new Air release, "Le Voyage Dans La Lune."  It's a soundtrack Georges Méliès’ short classic, "A Trip to the Moon."  It was originally released in 1902 & has been restored in color with Air's new soundtrack.

Also included in the mix are three tunes from a netlabel album by Re-Drum called "1969".  All the tracks on the album were made by using sampled music from the year 1969.  These are the cuts that I used & the source material used to make those cuts...

1.  Time :
    King Crimson - Moonchild Including The Dream And The Illusion
     Herbie Hancock - The Prisoner (Alternate Take)
     Sly & The Family Stone - You Can Make It If You Try
     Quincy Jones & Bill Cosby - Hikky-Burr
     Frank Zappa - The Gumbo Variation
     Booker T & The MG's - Michelle
     Zephyr - Hard Chargin' Woman
     Lou Donaldson - Donkey Walk
     John MacLaughlin - Pete The Poet
     Herbie Hancock - The Prisoner
     The Doors - The Soft Parade
 
2. The Last Breath :
    The Moody Blues - Eyes Of A Child, Part 1
     Zephyr - Somebody Listen
     Isaac Hayes - By The Time I Get To Phoenix
     (voice) Internet Anticipation 1969
 
3. Armstrong :
    Lonnie Smith - Eleanor Rigby
     Kool And The Gang - Give It Up
     Pink Floyd - The Narrow Way (Part 3)
     The Rolling Stones - Live With Me
     Voice: First Moon Landing


This was another fun mix to put together, I hope it's a fun listen as well.

[ 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 Kennedy - "We choose to go to the moon" speech
• 00:00    Apollo 11 l- anding on the moon
• 00:58    Boards of Canada - 1969
• 04:47    David Bowie - Space Oddity (Sébastien Bédé Remix)
• 07:20    David Bowie - Space Oddity continues (demo version)
• 09:50    King Crimson - Moonchild
• 13:25    Miles Davis - Sanctuary
• 18:00    Air - Moon fever
• 21:12    Pink Floyd - Sysyphus part 4
• 23:20    Terry Riley - Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band
• 28:25    Genesis - In The Beginning
• 31:55    Soft Machine - Spaced Seven
• 33:10    Re-Drum - Time
• 36:45    Don Cherry - Man on the Moon
•  39:10    Air - Seven Stars
• 42:50    Re-Drum - The Last Breath
• 46:15    Philip Glass - Music in Contrary Motion
• 48:10    Mort Garson - Walking in Space
• 50:10    Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois - Silver Morning
• 52:26    Phosphorescent - Across the Universe(Beatles cover)
• 57:21    Re-Drum - Armstrong
• 1:00:03    Eno - Always Returning
• 1:03:46    end

1969 - trans lunar injection by Lowlight on Mixcloud

 

starry starry night

"I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon and stars."

               - Hildegard von Bingen

Electronic & ambient music seems perfectly suited for stargazing.  So you really could use just about any ambient mix for night sky viewing and it will work just fine.  But sometimes it's nice to do a mix specifically geared towards astronomical awe.

It's always interesting to see how the song titles match the theme of the mix.  Sometimes I pick tunes precisely because the titles match but most of the time it's accidental.  In this mix we have titles like "Alpha Centauri", "Polaris", "After Midnight", "One Starry Starry Night" and "Encounter in an unexplored nebula."

As usual the music is a mix of old & new, with most tunes being from the last couple years.  I was happy to sneak in an old track from Jean-Michel Jarre.  Different from his normal berlin-school stuff, this one is a nice long ambient cut from 1990.

As with a lot of stargazing mixes, this one works well as a sleep mix too.  I can testify to it's effectiveness.

On a side note...thanks to anyone who voted for Low Light Mixes in the Mixcloud best of 2011 poll.  We came in 78th.  Doesn't sound like much but considering they have thousands of "cloudcasters", coming 78th was great.  Thanks for all your support last year & over the last 6 years.

[ 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    Lunar Testing Lab - Paaliaq (I, Absentee)
• 01:35    Sonmi451 - Alpha Centauri (Time Released Sound)
• 04:40    Digitonal - Polaris (Leaves)
• 07:20    Diatonis - One Starry Starry Night (Diatonis)
• 12:15    The Winterhouse - Clearing (DataObscura)
• 18:00    Frederico Durand - El Mundo Secreto De La Montana (Spekk)
• 21:30    A Produce & Loren Nerell - Intangible (Hypnos)
• 28:20    Maps & Diagrams - The Infinite Delay (Handstitched Recordings)
• 30:45    Thom Brennan - Pulse
• 31:55    Aglaia - After Midnight (Hic Sunt Leones)
• 37:30    Sonmi451 - Blue (U cover)
• 43:05    Biosphere - Warmed by the Drift (Touch)
• 48:20    Jean Michel Jarre - En Attendant Cousteau (Disques Dreyfus)
• 55:10    The Civilized Electrons - Encounter, In an Unexplored Nebula (Databloem)

Starry starry night by Lowlight on Mixcloud