P618c Devotional Withering

 

Ambient music with rhythm, yet it never distracts from being background filler. Joe Westerlund is the drummer from Megafaun and session musician for North Carolina’s folk-experimental scene, and here this takes a bit more of a free-jazz style creating a lot of space in this opening track. Jon Hassell the trumpeter creating some sublime and otherworldly transcendent music. Some more familiar names from the previous mixes showing a bit more of some loops or almost rhythms here. That leads us to Forrest Fang, a employment law defense litigator and ambient composer, talk about a double life! Noveller’s guitar based ambience is cinematic in feel and this track is from an album based around sleep paralysis, which you can definitely feel. Then we have Oval, where last mix I featured Microstoria, this is more straight forward glitch based. Asfandyar Khan is an artist from Pakistan and has several “name your price” albums up on bandcamp if this is your style of music. I ended it with a favorite from Harold Budd, piano and pads, a track I use for short meditations during the day.


01 Joe Westerlund – The Circle
02 Jon Hassell – Aurora
03 Labradford – Recorded and Mixed at Sound of Music, Richmond, VA.
04 Christina Vantzou – The Library
05 Oneohtrix Point Never – Grief and Repetition
06 Kevin Richard Martin – Loveless
07 Biosphere – Ancient Campfire
08 Andrew Liles – Together Alone
09 Forrest Fang – Night Procession
10 Noveller – The Fright
11 Oval – Momentan VR
12 Loscil – Halcyon
13 Motion Sickness of Time Travel – Auto Suggestion
14 Asfandyar Khan – Anomie
15 Harold Budd – As Long As I Can Hold My Breath

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P618b Middling Stature Despite the Grand Vista

 

This next mix moves from the peaceful calm of the previous and bridges the gap towards the darker end to this series. I’ll skip around more in my write ups as not to repeat myself. I find that I do like most artists on Kranky, and have enjoyed researching each new name I came across on some early compilations they released. Loscil being one of them that grabbed my attention, as each album is written under a theme, and the music is very evocative of that intent. Microstoria being the group composed of Markus Popp (Oval) and Jan St Werner (Mouse on Mars), is actually more than the sum of its parts. What you expect but then much more, especially on this remix album. Philip Jeck’s turntablist work is surprising to me as I always associated that term with Q-Bert, Shadow, Kid Koala, etc. His approach is much more nuanced and has a different type of control. Andrew Liles using the longest named place in the English-speaking world for a track title, and I think this is more of his wry humor he throws into the monsoon of releases he has put out. Each one of those goes in unexpected directions and can be rewarding and difficult at the same time.

Robert Haigh has gone all over the map with his projects, from Truth Club, Fote, Sema, Omni Trio, and his solo works. I’m glad he’s back to some ambient and piano works as I think that shows his raw talent the most. Another Kranky shout out to Labradford, I’m so glad I bought “Prazision” in the early 90s on a whim, I’ve loved every release since then. I was introduced or had my attention focused on the guitar playing of Andreas Martin through the Brainwashed Eye video, where his style and humble nature let the music really shine. Here with his brother Christoph Heemann they make some wonderfully beautiful music, that isn’t too far off from HNAS later years’ sound which they both were involved in. Old Saw is one I captured for my Ambient Americana mixes, and they do fit well here as a bridge into Asunta’s clarinet and harmonium and Rapoon using similar instruments to a darker vibe ending this mix on an unsettled and uneasy place.


01 Christina Vantzou – CV
02 Loscil – Endless Falls
03 Microstoria – C-Schulz & Hajsch / Microstoria Remix
04 Richard Skelton – For Either Deadened or Undeadened
05 William Basinski – dlp 4.2
06 Lawrence English & Stephen Vitiello – with Chris
07 Philip Jeck – Wipe
08 Andrew Liles - Taumatawhakatangitangihangakoauautamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahullanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch - Part 3
09 Stars of the Lid – F*cked Up (3:57am)
10 Grouper – A-D (excerpt)(from ’10’, Room-40)
11 Tony Wakeford et L’Orchestre Noir – The Widow II
12 Robert Haigh – Berlin Kino
13 Harold Budd & Brian Eno with Daniel Lanois – Late October
14 Tim Hecker – Black Refraction
15 Andrew Liles – Soft Focus
16 Labradford – P
17 Andreas Martin & Christoph Heemann – Untitled
18 Old Saw – Lacustrina
19 Asunta – Landscape VI / Krajobraz VI
20 Rapoon – Last Twilight

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P618a Peaceful

 

I’d made these next four mixes for music while I was studying for some technical certifications. I’ll stagger them over the coming week. First up is the most mellow and drone centered of them, long tones with soft edges. I’ve just recently started to explore the vast discography of Motion Sickness of Time Travel, solo work of Rachel Evans. She’s married to Grant Evans, and they’ve got several projects together. I’m really fond of her style, lots of processed vocals, or are they synth pads? Guess that is part of the charm. Biosphere needs no introduction, nor does Pete Namlook and Tetsu Inoue for this genre. Christina Vantzou who is half of Dead Texan (The other half being Adam Wiltzie of Stars of the Lid), quickly gained my attention when I came across her work. Each album is followed by an excellent remix album, something I really enjoy with artists do that. I found Tor Lundvall through his collaboration with Tony Wakeford, and have really enjoyed his solo work as it can be quite dynamic for ambient work. His music sounds very much like what his paintings should sound like.

Kevin Richard Martin might seem out of place here at first, however his work under his own name (instead of The Bug, Techno Animal or King Midas Sound) show a completely different side. “Sleep Circle” is represented here as I keep returning to this as an album to fill an evening with peaceful music. Oneohtrix Point Never keeps calling to me, yet I feel overwhelmed by their discography as I have barely scratched the surface. Laraaji and Brian Eno, yeah this is a classic and great meditation music.

Included the full Harold Budd track here as its just so magical. Then Peter Andersson is another surprise, not for ambient music, but because this is not his typical dark ambient style from Raison D’Etre. Stars of the Lid then Basinski’s Disintegration Loops excerpt are more modern classics of how this style keeps evolving and experimenting. Finally ending things with Richard Skelton and Bass Communion which helps me not feel guilty that almost two hours passed while this mix played.


01 Motion Sickness of Time Travel – Closer
02 Biosphere – Dover Ferryport
03 Pete Namlook and Tetsu Inoue – Orion Transfer 6
04 Christina Vantzou – 11 11
05 The Dead Texan – A Chronicle of Early Failures Pt Two
06 Tor Lundvall – Despair
07 Kevin Richard Martin – Worthlessness
08 Max Richter, Grace Davidson – Path 3 / Whose Name is Written on Water (Pt 2)
09 Tim Hecker – Live Room Out
10 Oneohtrix Point Never – Months
11 Laraaji – Meditation #2
12 Mark Isham – Tibet Part II
13 Harold Budd – Bismillahi ‘Rrahamani ‘Rrahim
14 Peter Andersson – Piano Movements VIII
15 Alio Die & Sylvi Alli – The Inner Sea (Silver Sea)
16 Stars of the Lid – The Better Angels of our Nation
17 William Basinski – dlp 1.2.2
18 Richard Skelton – The Viscid Substance
19 Bass Communion – A Grapefruit in the World of Park

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P617 MBM Rarities X2

No surprise I wanted to continue sharing more from Jack Dangers and crew. My fanaticism ebbs and flows over the years yet I always come back and catch up on everything they’ve released. Here are two more mixes to supplement what I’ve already shared, this time focusing on some compilation, side project, and rare appearances.


01 Re-animator (Test Pressing Version)
02 Jack Dangers - A Strange Case of Instrumentation (Brainwaves)
03 Psyche Out (Version 2)
04 Now (Remix) (Promo 12”)
05 Drop (Remix) (Volume 04)
06 I’m In Paradise Now (Promo 12”)
07 Love Mad (93 version) (Nuclear Bomb EP)
08 Fire Escape – Wasabi
09 Fire Escape – Goodbye Archetype
10 She’s Unreal (Alternate Mix 3) (Plastic Compilation Volume 1)
11 Future Worlds (Alternate Version) (Volume 16)
12 Re-Animated (self-released)
13 We Done It Again (In Defense of Animals 2)
14 I Control (Audio Collage #2) (Offbeat – A Red Hot Sound Trip)
15 I Control (Audio Collage #3) (Skylab remix) (Offbeat – Red Hot Remixes)
16 Simularca part 1 (Trance Atlantic vol 1)
17 Simularca part 2 (Survival 2000)

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01 Source of Uncertainty (XLR8R – Convergence: Where Live Meets Electronic)
02 Electric People (Jack Dangers Remix) (FMCD June 1996)
03 Anon (Earth Dance)
04 The JDs – Heterodyne
05 Jack Dangers – Holy Ghost on the Nod Over the Body of Bliss (Allen Ginsberg’s The Fall of America)
06 The Most Music (Igloo Trax Vol 2 The Most Music)
07 Apathetic Sympathetic (Brainwaves 2008)
08 Structures (Version) (Brain in the Wire)
09 Unavailable Memory (Moog)
10 The Unprintable Word (Metropolis: Rebirth 1.0)
11 Martenot Waves (The Animatrix)
12 Parts 1-4 (Better Living Through Circuitry)
13 Mind over Matter (Destroy All Humans!)
14 Sig Sally (Igloo Trax Vol 2 The Most Music)
15 We Shall Destroy You (Destroy All Humans!)
16 Jack Dangers - Ancient Krell Music (Forbidden Planet Explored)
17 Brain Wrong (Cold Waves VII)

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P615 Ambient Country

 

Prior to my hiatus, I had alluded that there were more of these mixes in the hopper. Here are two more with some new artists in the mix as well as additional tracks from artists featured previously. I suppose this would’ve worked better when I made it back in early summer as I think they capture that feeling of hot desert days and cool star filled nights. As I was researching this, I was surprised, then not surprised at how much AI generated music was on youtube that fit this style. As such, I decided AI generated images would be used instead of my usually random finds.


01 Piero Piccioni – Arizona Dreaming
02 World Standard – Loving Spoonful
03 Field Works, Stuart Hyatt, Julien Marchal, Youmna Saba, Fadi Tabbal, Danny Paul Grody, Bob Hoffnar, Tomas Lozano, Dena El Saffar – The Morning Bends Down
04 Joe Harvey-White & Geir Sundstol – Ribbles
05 Ikue Mori with Robert Quine & Marc Ribot – Painted Desert
06 Scenic, Bruce Licher, James Brenner, Brock Wirtz – Hole in the Wall
07 Steve Kilbey – Hypnogogue
08 Date Palms – Yuba Source Part I
09 Scenic, Bruce Licher, James Brenner, Brock Wirtz – The Mid Hills
10 Pan American – Ord-Lhr
11 Loscil – Emma
12 Bruce Kaphan – Outpost
13 Susumu Yokota & Rothko – Distant Sounds of Summer
14 Chuck Johnson – Moonstone
15 Hammock – I Can Almost See You (Raising Your Voice… Trying to Stop an Echo)


01 Rex – A Good Time to Die
02 Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, Sam Wilkes – Arpy
03 Godspeed You Black Emperor – The Cowboy…
04 Death Ambient – Ways Out
05 Scenic, Bruce Licher, James Brenner, Brock Wirtz – Down Black Canyon Road
06 Joe Harvey-Whyte & Bobby Lee – Plainsong
07 Earth – Miami Morning Coming Down II (Shine)
08 Four Tet & William Tyler – Secret City
09 Date Palms – Yuba Reprise
10 Labradford – G
11 Myles Cochran – The Deepest Sea
12 Old Saw – Tilt of the Lamp
13 Brian Eno – Last Step from the Surface
14 Joe Harvey-Whyte & Geir Sundstol – Otra Mantra
15 Chuck Johnson – Superior Mirage

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P614 The Remix According to Mogwai

Can’t say I was ever the biggest fan of Mogwai. They’re quite good at what they do. I felt that when they came out there was a flood of similar sounding bands and I really couldn’t tell many of them apart. Their remix album “Kicking a Dead Pig” is pretty good, though inconsistent. It was when I heard their Neu! remix that I realized they had some serious chops as remixers, and dug out several other tracks I had in the archives from them. I suppose this all does sound very much like them, but not all in the expected post-rock vein.

01 Link – Arcadian
02 Neu! – Super
03 Bloc Party – Plans
04 Clark – Shut You Down
05 Cloth – Felt
06 F*ck Buttons – Colours Move
07 Grandbrothers – Organism
08 JamesHeatherSounds – In Your Spirit
09 Kid606 – Done with the Scene (444mix)
10 Max Richter – Path 5 (official remix)
11 Mint Julep – Aviary
12 Pluramon – Hintergrund
13 Thurston Moore - <untitled>
14 Transatlantic Alliance – Saint Wulfstan
15 Boom Bip – The Use of Unacceptable Colors in Nature
16 The Paradise Motel – Drive
17 Mogwai – Fear Satan
18 Earth – Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine

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P613 The Remix according to EY3

Crazy, over the top and manic creativity abounds here. You know what to expect and this delivers.

01 Yellow Magic Orchestra – Cosmic Surfin’ (Merry-Go-Round Mix)
02 Tortoise – High Class Slim Came Floatin’ (Eyeremix)
03 Neu! – Fur Immer (Eye/Boredoms Remix)
04 Gong – remixed by Yamataka Eye
05 Dachambo, EYE, Sinkichi – Conga La Gotta (Key2 – Nah4 Mix)
06 Boredoms – 7+ (EYE remix)
07 Lindstrom – The Contemporary Fix (EYE remix)
08 Wrench – Cosmic Hierarchy (EYE remix)
09 Black Dice – Endless Happiness (EYE remix)
10 OOIOO – Asozan (EYE remix)
11 Zeebra, EYE – Smokin at the Lobby (Your Turn)(Magic Mushroom mix)
12 Makoto Kawamoto – Gimmie Shelter (EYE remix)
13 Walrus – Moth (Remixed by EYE)
14 Battles – Sundome (EYE remix)
15 Yo La Tengo – Stupid Things (remix by EYE)
16 Atami – Nightingale (X-mas mix)
17 Boredoms – ◌ (♡ Remix)

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P612 Electric Driving to a Secret Horizon

About a third of these tracks come from the now deleted “Drive Baby Drive” Motorik mixes on https://groovylibrary.blogspot.com/. The Talking Heads track really kicked me off on this tangent, the extended outro of Psycho Killer goes into some great Krautrock/Motorik territory and is probably my favorite version of this track. Hallogallo 2010 is Michael Rother with Steve Shelley and Aaron Mullan, and this is what I wanted for the 4th Neu! Album, not that 1986/#4 stuff – ugh! I often return to the first Sonic Youth album as it sounds unique, yet also foundational for everything they’ve done since. The Orb track shows how I’m not sticking with only Motorik beats here, yet it still fits well with the flow. Not much to say really on the rest, I wanted some good hypnotic driving music, and this is what I got. I have a long road trip coming up, so this will certainly help pass some time.


01 Talking Heads – Psycho Killer (Old Grey Whistle Test)
02 Viddjur – Planet 3
03 Hallogallo 2010 – Drone Schlager
04 Sonic Youth – She is Not Alone
05 Can – Moonshake
06 Zatua – Silver Horizon
07 The Orb – Secrets (I Love a Woman in Uniform mix)
08 The Follakzoid & J Spaceman – Electric
09 Mladi Gorani – Nano
10 BEAK> - Lulsgate
11 Silver Apples – Oscillations
12 Kikagaku Moyo – Green Sugar
13 Fly Pan Am - éfférant/afférant
14 Trees Speak – Soul Machine
15 BEAK> - Liar
16 Panama Fleets – Elecktromotorik Diesels
17 Trigona – Von Graf

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P611 Late Night Dub Eclipse

Has that kind of vibe, possibly because I’m finishing this one up while watching the lunar eclipse tonight (Aug 27th).  Not much to say other than I'm happy that I finally got to use this track from Ida in a mix somewhere.


01 Human Mesh Dance – Wet Moon
02 Richard H Kirk – Worldwar Three
03 Journeyman – 50CC (Part 1)
04 Muslimgauze (AP Reworks) – Citadel in Nightlight II
05 Sub Dub – Liquid Calling (Adham Shaikh Remix)
06 Drome – Hinterland, Kassler Kessel
07 Another Fine Day – Life Before Land
08 Electronic Eye – Counter Insurgent
09 The Disciples – Two Minds
10 Bandulu – Run Run
11 Skylab – Next
12 Ida – Shotgun (Brown Rice in a Magic Shop Dub)
13 Angelo Badalamenti – Dub Driving
14 Systemwide – Reclame-Montreal Winter Dub Remix (Deadbeat Remix)
15 Pole – Uberfahrt
16 Woodleigh Research Facility – Salacia

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P610 Been Through Some Stuff

I recently came across World Standard and was surprised I hadn’t found them sooner, especially considering how much time I’ve spent digging around for ambient country. I like that there seems to be a different approach with each release, which is why they show up twice on this mix. Slick Sixty has a bit of a Sublime vibe going on, at least to my ears, and the Boards of Canada track fits suspiciously well next to it. I also finally tracked down the Cedell Davis remix, which meant ripping it from YouTube. I’d been trying to fill in some of the gaps in my cLOUDDEAD collection, so this one had been on the list for a while.

Maria Marquez and Frank Harris come next with a track from the enjoyably bizarre Ralph Records compilation Potatoes. From there, Ghost Power brings us into the world of Tim Gane and Jeremy Novak. The Drome track was actually a happy accident. I had been looking for Graham Lewis’ project Dome when I came across Burnt Friedman’s Drome instead. I’ll take that kind of mistake any day. It leads nicely into the dance-punk of Holy F*ck, the grimy hauntology of Project Gemini, and the psyche-kraut groove of Cave. Things then take a turn toward some classic post-rock with The Mercury Program and Isotope 217, before Nathan’s recommendation of The Invisible Pair of Hands and Spaceways.

The final two tracks come from Random and Bass Kittens, both aliases of Jon Drukman. I had been looking into his work after learning that Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto had a side project called the JDs with them. That sent me down another one of those little research rabbit holes, which is generally how these things go. By the time I got to the end of this mix, I had picked up a few things I was actively looking for and quite a few more that I wasn’t. That’s usually a pretty good sign.

01 World Standard – Good Red Road
02 Slick Sixty – Someone Else’s Square
03 Boards of Canada – In A Beautiful Place Out in the Country
04 Cedell Davis – Been Through Some Stuff (cLOUDDEAD remix)
05 World Standard, Moose Hill – Desert Blue
06 Maria Marquez and Frank Harris – Canto Del Pilon
07 Ghost Power – Opsimath
08 Fujiya & Miyagi – Hundreds & Thousands
09 Drome – H-Fanatic
10 Holy F*ck – Red Lights
11 Project Gemini – The Last Midnight
12 Cave – Shikaakwa
13 The Mercury Program – The Sea is in Here
14 Isotope 217 – New Beyond
15 The Invisible Pair of Hands – Inbetween Times
16 Spaceways – Tyner
17 Random – The End
18 Bass Kittens – Another Rainy Day

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P609 Properly Disorienting

This is music that is more of a stretch, and probably more enjoyable when I am alone. I’ve been trying to use my downtime to my advantage, catching up on a lot of music I had acquired over the last year but never really had the time to sit with. A few of these tracks sent me down rabbit holes looking for other new artists, and several of those discoveries brought a pretty big smile to my face. That is always one of the best parts of digging through music: you start with one track and suddenly you have five more things you need to hear.

It starts out in outright weirdness with A Mouse Orchestra and Un-Kommuniti, then wanders into the more ambient touchstones like Mike Cooper the British lap-steel guitarist who went from folk-blues scene to experimental & exotica. That sits alongside Soul Whirling Somewhere and the hushed modern-classical world of A Winged Victory for the Sullen. The Trigg & Gusset track appears seemingly everywhere David Lynch is tagged on Bandcamp. There is a nice stretch of hypnotic and experimental stuff here before things start getting a little more restless. Imitation Electric Piano brings some movement, followed by Jackie-O MF’er, and from there the playlist starts taking some pretty unexpected turns.

The second half is where things really get fun. Kevin Richard Martin’s dubby dark downtempo leads into Julianna Barwick’s choir-loop style fractured via the Prince Rama remix, followed by the genuinely unexpectedly wonderful combination of Venetian Snares and Daniel Lanois, which I learned was recorded in a former Buddhist Temple in Toronto. Then it keeps moving, with Lara Sarkissian and Valentina Magaletti who I had spent a lot of time chasing down all the projects she’d worked with. I kept the vibe going with Yu Su, Tolouse Low Trax, Tomaga (another Valentina project), which all would fit neatly with some Shackleton. Solar Lodge slows it back down a bit before Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy’s track which lovingly reminds me of Bryn Jones. Ending with another Lara Sarkissian track with Locust because I will blindly dive into any Mark Van Hoen project. There isn't really a comfortable place to settle in here, which is kind of the point.


01 A Mouse Orchestra – A Lump in Your Throat Pt 1
02 Un-Kommuniti – (Heavy) Sh!t at the Station 1
03 Five or Six – Aroma
04 Mike Cooper – A Pattern of Islands
05 Soul Whirling Somewhere – Opening the Ten-End
06 A Winged Victory for the Sullen – The Haunted Victorian Pencil
07 Trigg & Gusset – Krakau
08 Imitation Electric Piano – Progressive Rock
09 Jackie-O Motherf*ck3r – Skylight (Recorded Live at Cargo, London, UK)
10 Kevin Richard Martin – One Hundred Deaths
11 Julianna Barwick – Prizewinning (Prince Rama remix)
12 Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois – Best P54
13 Lara Sarkissian – Our Dead Can’t Rest (Old Jugha Flute Dance)
14 Valentina Magaletti – A Queer Anthology of Drums
15 Yu Su – Futuro
16 Tolouse Low Trax – Milk in Water
17 Tomaga – Tuscan Metalwork
18 Solar Lodge – Our Dead Steed
19 Carl Gari & Abdullah Miniawy
20 Lara Sarkissian, Locust – DBM

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