Sound Contours

For the first time ever, a special guest selector takes over the Sound Contours decks: Fresh off the release of Logo Dubs , Spencer Owen’s album of original music for Sight Lines Visual, the LA-based composer-producer has concocted an entrancing set of influential tracks and selected inspirations for the Sound Contours feed. From Spencer: “Some of the tracks were chosen for their musical or...

Big ’70s sounds for getting swept away — Whether by love or lust, joy or jealousy, or even just the sounds themselves. Tracklist: Supertramp – Lady, Wings – Arrow Through Me, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles, Lion – You’ve Got A Woman, Charles Stepney – Daddy’s Diddies, Gal Costa – Relance, Dr. John &#8...

Soak in a smooth 21st century comfort blend aligning voices from indie, pop, R&B and electronica, all vibing on the Sade/Enya/Prefab Sprout/”fourth world” edges of the sonic multi-sided die. Tracklist: Body-San – Koko Chats Online, Nite Jewel – Real High, Toro Y Moi – No Show, Kendrick Lamar & Zacari – LOVE., Caroline Polachek – Door, Kelly Lee Owe...

As advertised: A cosmic blend for the epic cool off so desperately needed between our ears, now and always. Sit within a vast interior and take in the rich atmosphere. Tracklist: Pan-American – The Cloud Room, Triosk & Jan Jelinek – Neckless, Isotope 217 – Le Jeteé, Bennie Maupin – Ensenada, Pharoah Sanders – Astral Traveling, Brokeback – Another Routine Day...

Enjoy deep grooves and progressive rock riddims selected from ’70s and ’80s art rock artists across the UK, Japan, America, Brazil, and Italy. The smooth lilt, driving pulse and spacey production touches of dub reggae, the sublime syncopation of funk, the soft timbres of mallet instruments and synths — All can be heard infecting these slick, undeniable jams by some of the brainie...

Your curt shots / Sarcastic remarks come so often / They’re never sincere / Darker amusement sets in / That’s the problem / You’re saying something and my eyes open wider / There’s someone identical / Far away from here / Our love settles down into soft sweet sounds / You’re that one I lost and you found / I lost and you found / Enter and rejoice this pedestal where the rai...

Stretch out and lose your sense of time with a mix blending beat-making and the avant-garde. The bounce dial turns until a near-dissolution of rhythm, before returning to earth with hot drumming and sublime ambience until the finish. Keep bouncing. Tracklist: Califone – Outro, Dabrye – How Many Times [With This], Lukid – Veto, Dilla – Dillatronic 01-02, Herbert – Back...

Sounds of rebirth and renewal in a cool register, from artists and labels associated with Chicago, LA and far beyond, made during my first Spring in the windy city after moving from LA. A cumbia mix would have been equally appropriate to Pilsen, but in an ode to the sensations given by Chicago’s seasonality, this offers a chill palette of jazz and rock sounds, and even features a handful Pil...

And so we return and begin again. Tracklist: Kraftwerk – Endless Endless, The New Year – The End’s Not Near, It’s Here, Chicago Underground Quartet – Total Recovery, Thom Yorke – Atoms For Peace – Four Tet Remix, James Blake, Bon Iver – I Need A Forest Fire, A Grape Dope – Rats It’s Up – Laetitia Sadier Remix, Björk – Virus, H...

The lounge chair’s in the right place. Most of the umbrella’s still standing. It’s everything else that’s gone. Bid farewell to civilization with this dramatic mix of post-nuclear lounge tunes — a fantasia of slunk grooves, dramatic orchestral arrangements and exotic percussion. Join me for our last few sips of wine cooler ever, at the last party anyone will attend, h...

The only way out is through. Wild Gems III will get you there. Tracklist: Roger Roger and Nino Nardini – Strange Motion (Nature Nocturne), Los Amaya – Bailen Mi Rumbita, Indian Rope – Purple Mania, Ike Mathews – African Feeling, Erkin Koray – Karli Daglar, Goat – Try My Robe, Wadih Essafi – Aandak Baharia Ya Rayess, The African Brothers International Band...

Mind Train aka Wild Gems II picks up where the first Wild Gems left off, taking us further down the stoney path through a vibrant and concerted wilderness of psych, exotica and eclectic international rock records. Tracklist: Budapest Radio Orchestra – The Lights of Hong Kong, Yoko Ono – Mindtrain, Erkin Koray – Sir, Bharat Karki and Party – Calcutta Calcutta, Fred Weinberg...

Enjoy a mix of vintage Luk Thang 45s, ripped from a stack of singles brought over from Thailand by our cousin and good friend Matthew Baker. Here’s the best hour of material — I try to provide an authentic rendering of each disc, while avoiding the harsher surface noise, clicks, and scratches from the vinyl. Information about some of these Luk Thang picks is available online, but many...

House music for the nest: These selections of micro, minimal, lo-fi, glitch, ambient and deep house hang together like insulating drapes — subtle head music heaving and pulsing in the stillness of a calm room, with steady, four-on-the-floor background beats and tightly knit bass lines that like to lead the groove. Synth pads and vocal samples line the space like wallpaper. Zone out and enjoy...

Euphoric vibes, sculpted tones and melodic (at times challenging) beats converge for a brisk tour through the industrial cyberpark of tomorrow. The hoverboard has its soundtrack. Tracklist: Yasuaki Shimizu – Tachikawa, Radiohead – I Am Citizen Insane, Rival Consoles – Morning Vox, Ada – You and Me, Rabit – Glass Harp Interlude, Aphex Twin – Milk Man, Iller &#821...

It’s the sound of momentum: Hand drums, mallet instruments and mesmeric beats cut an exotic path through the worlds of global electronica and avant-garde techno. Tracklist: You’re Me – Walled Garden, Mestre Geraldo E Su Bateria – Mistura #2, Don’t DJ – Evolve, Black Merlin – Reef Play, Tyondai Braxton – Greencrop, Clap! Clap! – Sahkii’s E...

The second of two mixes compiling excellent 2016 instrumental music, fashioned for wet weather and a cool state of mind. This one’s got (somewhat) more of a rock bent. Enjoy. Tracklist: So Percussion – Drumkit Quartet No. 51 (Chicago Realization), Thor Harris – 12 Ate, Anna Meredith – Blackfriars, Christopher Tignor – The Will And The Waiting, F.S. Blumm and Nils Frah...

The first of two mixes compiling excellent 2016 instrumental music, fashioned for wet weather and a cool state of mind. Tracklist: Mica Levi and Oliver Coates – Mob of Waters, Olof Melander – Travelers, Body-San – Voices 1, Foodman – Waterfall, Barnaby Carter – Cold Weather Warm Soul, You’re Me – Applet W, Don’t DJ – The Grey Shrine, Autechre &...

My mood at the end of an era. This Best Of 2016 mix offers neither the very best songs nor representation for the very best albums of 2016. Instead it condenses some of the year’s very best tracks from some of the year’s best albums into a cloud of sentiment–a Top 40 mix defined by its vintage, covering the songwriters and producers I like most (plus a few one-offs). Enjoy. Track...

It’s 35 swag beats from 34 of my favorite producers this year. All 2016 everything. Shitty year; awesome sounds. Reap the harvest. Tracklist: Parks Burton – dlab1, Four Tet – Evening Side (Oneohtrix Point Never edit), Nicola Cruz – Invocacion, GOALS – Sugar Crush, Brother Mynor – david duchovny hides in the broom closet, Ccolo – Exoticaspeakerjam, GUNDAM &...

Lose yourself in an atmosphere of allied electronic artistry, from collaborators in turn-of-the-millennium Japan. Cocoon (“Maju” in Japanese) features work by artists who played in Audio Sports, Maju, Neina, Hosomi, Kangaroo Paw and Synapse — with particular focus on musicians Aki Onda and Sakana Hosomi. Their overlap outlines a scene that paralleled Nobukazu Takemura and the Chi...

Keigo Oyamada’s vibrant Trattoria Records, a Polystar-owned imprint that lasted from 1991 to 2002, stood out among the core labels of Tokyo’s Shibuya-kei scene. It also provided a home to Oyamada’s brilliant Cornelius project, in which counterpoint, syncopation and sampling invaded — nay, parasitized — the sunny alt-rock sound of the ‘90s. If Cornelius could encapsulate Shibuya-kei’s eclectic, hyp...

A small label run by Nobukazu Takemura in Kyoto from 1994 to 2007, Childisc was subtly groundbreaking. Takemura was at the cutting edge: beyond just granular synthesis, his output randomizers affected melody, his glitches (the sounds of ordered processes going awry) became pleasant listening, MIDI noise was incorporated into music, and the voices of robots — hidden like kodama in a personal...

On this global bass mix, energy is central: Rhythms of the Afro-latin world are brought together in a transatlantic call-and-response between Africa, Europe, South and Central America — a swirl of synthetic and acoustic beats, a weaving of sampled and recorded voices, a synthesis of roots and branches — joined by producers from nearly every continent. The second Global Electronic episo...

Holographic sounds for a Schwinn Beach Cruiser. Make the bike path glow. Tracklist: Bop – Fragments, Weval – You Made It (Part I), Al Dobson Jr. – Vibration, Armadillo – Aves del Valle, Don’t DJ – Southern Shore, The Invisibles – Wing, John Wizards – Leuk, Seiho – DO NOT LEAVE WET, Jose Larralde – Quimey Neuquen (Chancha Via Circuito Remi...