uncommon ambience

We’re back in the old movie house for a vintage alt-Valentines romcom. Arrive early for the trailers — what I would play at some alt-Valentines film festival. Plus, decades-old Valentines‑flavored messaging it's going to be grand. Look, my daughter asked if I was doing a special episode for the upcoming "holiday," and I was like, "What holiday?" "Valentines, did you get mom something." “I am now,”...

Bomb cyclone over North Carolina… Ambience. This week’s episode covers the major coastal storm as heard from the coastal plains Carolina (i.e., my twin’s house). Her recording (thank you!) captured wind, snow, and birds sheltering nearby. I also filled out the recording with added notes and sounds (I’m really into ambience with non-music motifs). And as everyone who has followed this podcast shoul...

Snow and perceptual drift is this week’s show. This episode includes the heaviest moments of precipitation (for us, early in the morning 1/25), which dumped white stuff all over my backyard and 56.1% of the contiguous United States . We wound up with about 10 inches. As I write this, I have just finished cursing about the school cancelling our last chance to push the kids out the door this week. I...

This week’s episode is based on the ⁠video game Dispatch⁠ ( ⁠ADHOC⁠ ) our first game homage at uncommon ambience. Before each episode (level) of the game Dispatch there is a mildly animated ambient perspective. For instance, episode two of Dispatch shows a lobby, a mostly static scene, and you have buttons for “Play,” “Settings,” “Extras,” and “Exit Game” at the bottom. The ambient experience for...

1990s Vermont college party ambience. So we have our first PG-13 episode — for mild/simulated drug and alcohol use. Nothing harder than flowers or bottles of malt liquor. Also no foul language, fisticuffs, or flirts.  Vermont makes for a comfy place to get crunk. It might be instructive if you think of our mildly lawless parties in the Green Mountain State as equal parts trap house and ski lodge....

Billerica, Massachusetts Hotel PTAC ambience. Enjoy hours of gushing hot air on a cold winter night in your Boston-area hotel room. The TV is off, so no local TV news to slog through.  I used to watch local news in this area. Mostly the NBC station, back in the aughts. Their promotions featured station characters referring to themselves as “ the neeeews station. ” I also worked nearly two decades...

A tambouras is running through the river… ambience.  I don’t have much this week. The magic of the holiday passed pretty quickly as the news kicked back on with the new thing to worry about. Only they don’t seem too worried about it, which really worries me. Honestly, just turn off the TV. **** them. Listen to this week’s episode, which is an earlier recording of Vermont’s Mad River and a buzzing...

We’re ending the year in a wonderfully bleak Vermont valley, already covered in snow and taking on more. Spend the night listening as the small flakes pile up around you and the winds howl over the peaks. The holidays are gone, we flip the calendar back to the beginning with a new number to reign over it all. January, 2026. Ensconced in winter’s tomb until mid-April. But it sure looks pretty. The...

White Castle steam-griddle station... ambience. The perspective of this week’s episode is near the burger steaming station (if you’re curious how that operation goes, let Double Dare’s Marc Summers walk you through it ). And not to worry — you can sleep at this steaming station; no one is worried about what you’re doing. And BTW, this isn’t sanctioned or intended to be an ad. I’m just a fan and wo...

Tonight we have a Christmas-themed triple feature of public-domain movies as heard from the projection booth: The Star of Bethlehem (1950), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948), and Scrooge (1935). We’ll also be running trailers from three really bad Christmas movies: Die Hard 2 , Santa Conquers the Martians , and Santa Claus (1985). Plus one trailer for a really good Christmas movie, Emmet Otter...

Zen Fidget Board… Ambience — As of late I’ve been hoping to create an audio space that has several things going on at once (that behave, hopefully). I see this space as a listener drifting into a Matrix-ish Construct room (load room), yet instead of rushing racks of rifles or Morpheus alongside a small-market TV executive’s desk, we drift inside the gelatinous mass of a lesser-defined composition...

A small New England college nestled in the Green Mountains during snowfall, ambience. It’s the holidays, 1968; the chorus of Norwich University and Vermont College readies for their performance of Winter Songs. And you are invited.  Well somewhat invited — obviously the 60’s are long gone, man. And the perspective for this performance will play outside of Plumley Armory pattering with falling snow...

Rainy thanksgiving drive ambience! Buckle up for a chilly November Eastern Seaboard Highway tour as we audibly make our way North. The only heat provided by an obscure cassette of 1970s dancehall music. We'll do the driving you just relax. Mic perspective from the backseat. Thanksgiving, the forced pilgrimage to see family. Cramped, perpetually seated and needing to pee — which… we can have wifi i...

Mostly Heaven ambience. Shepherdstown, West Virginia — a favorite recording place of mine. But this time, with a twist: we’re adding the “almost” to the “heaven” this week with the help of some pink noise, cymbals, and synth. Or the “heaven” to the “almost.” My daughter and I went to Handmade Christmas in Shepherdstown, WV, and she said to the festive hot-chocolate guy, “You look like you really l...

In this episode we say farewell to our summer friends as our unseasonably warm weather transitions into the blustery cold we expect from November. Spend some time with the remaining stragglers of summer’s chorus from Halloween into November 1st (recording was between ~10 PM – 3 AM). You’ll hear our dwindling insect friends making last-ditch pleas for love or defending their turf. Look, I’m not a b...

Morning thunderstorm recorded inside a Buick — this falls into our annual and hopefully distracting series for Election Days or any other news you’re trying to avoid. Checkout last year and the year before for more. And every year I also force the theme of “October Rain” — harkening to Use Your Illusion I , the yellow cover. In 1991 I asked Santa Claus for Use Your Illusion II, the blue cover. Whi...

"From the top of the world — fabulous 1340 KAB, Antonio Bay!" Hey, it’s Halloween, and we’re taking a whack at another ’80s horror favorite: John Carpenter’s “minor classic,” The Fog . Specifically, that moment after the radio station fire , the inspiration for this week’s episode. I really wanted to perpetually capture that long piano note, with the wind and fog horns. Oh those gloomy piano keys...

Early AM submarine breakfast prep ambience. I am obsessed with the minutia of submarine voyages and there’s no books out there that can slake my middle-aged hunger for non-Clancy submarine stories. I’m more interested in the banal, what is work like when you’re job puts you far underwater and beyond rescue. I’m positive I would feel the need to constantly ask shipmates how "we’re doing." I’m not e...

Autumnal Reverie… Ambeince — Fall winds, blowing leaves, bumbling brook. Look, I’m sorry this episode is late. I couldn’t figure out what to write in the episode description and while I’m positive no one reads any of this anyway; I still wanted to say something besides “Fall winds; blowing leaves.” Does writer’s block apply to ****** writers? That’s what I have. ****** writer’s block. That it’s ho...

Run to Greet the Child of Morning… Sailing Ambience — Sailing Odyssey ambience. I’ve been thinking of sailing lately, no reason — maybe I’m just missing the Vineyard (check out our MVY Harbor and Steamship ambience from this summer) or maybe it’s still on my mind from this week. The Mediterranean was mentioned in my Night of the Living Dead episode from last week as well — a movie that was pushed...

Night of the Living Dead from the projection booth, which includes lots of projector. One of my teachers threw Night of the Living Dead on in middle school, and the chatter around the class was that the teacher was too lazy to get into anything. Which was probably true, but we were happy not to tackle more of Odysseus’ dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. Call me Outis. Night of the Living...

Rainy Night/ Highway Motel — spend a mid-90s motel overnight perched above a highway during a thunderstorm.  So after graduating from military boarding school, I faced a nearly thousand-mile drive from deep in the Southeast to the Hudson Valley in New York. I believe we stopped to rest somewhere near Frackville, PA. It was late, and the skies were awash with rain and flashes of lightning. My fathe...

Missing the server room? Need someone to help with an offline printer? Spend eight hours among your favorite overly refrigerated colleagues. Have you ever noticed how IT folks walk around with waiter eyes when they're outside their domain? You know, waiter eyes, like when you need a refill on your Mountain Dew and the dude or lady catches you in their peripheral… but just keeps walking? And I get...

Rainy Road to Reflect or Ruminate… Ambience Sparse highway, light rain ambience. We are on the side of a small road just outside town. It’s night, and it’s raining. Imagine you’re a content Gene Kelly walking home after frolicking around main . Or Feel free to ruminate.  That’s the general vibe around here. There’s a movie theater nearby showing cat videos ( for a good cause ) and it’s practically...

Oh, My Neo Pleasant Purgatory… Ambience Digital Purgatory—Neo-noir-ish but chill purgatory ambience, I was thinking of a (techy) modern island of Purgatorio mashed with elements from the Heavenly Kid and “ Neo Bowser City ” from Mario Kart. Take a break on one of the rings as folks move about you, working out the flaws of their souls. I imagine mass transit and people movers nearby, working their...