low light mixes

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 m...

On my list of the greatest recordings ever made you'll find the 1978 ECM records release of Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians. It blew me away when I heard it for the first time.  I've been a fan of minimal classical music ever since. I have a ton of Steve Reich and Philip Glass music in my collection.  Recently I discovered a 2010 recording of Philip Glass music by the Delta Saxophone Quartet...

The latest in the Sunday morning series features a gorgeous remix of a  Silver Lake Chorus  tune from their forthcoming remix album out on June 24th. https://thesilverlakechorus.bandcamp.com/ The mix opens & closes with Easy To Die by  Silver Lake Chorus  remixed by  Hammock . The closing tune is an instrumental version. The rest of the mix is the typical Sunday morning mix of instrumentals, jazz...

I love me some ambient dub.  I also love ambient tunes that remind me of the sea.  Over the years I've made 7 dub style mixes & 6 sea themed mixes.  This new mix combines those two obsessions. There's now much else to say about all the music here.  other than I think all the tunes flow nicely & work well within this theme. Enjoy T R A C K L I S T : 00:00    Brother Blue - Summoning UFOs 05:55    S...

As with so many mixes this one started because of a great tune. In this mix that great tune is  Existence in the Unfurling by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith  from her spectacular new album Ears. The track is a wonderful mixture of analog electronics, fluttering woodwinds and ethereal vocals. It's my favorite song of the year so far and I just had to share it in a mix.  The other tracks are a combination of...

I had not planned on doing another piano mix so soon after the last one in November 2015.  Then Piano Day happened.  On March 28th of this year a group founded by Nils Frahm celebrated the piano and everything around it. This was the second year for the event. In addition to music released for Piano Day and live events, the Piano Day website,  pianoday.org , has this awesome random note generator....

I believe I have professed my love for ambient guitar in previous posts here.  So a mix like this is no surprise.  Just as many of the artists collected in this mix are no surprise. Dirk Serries, Scott Solter, David Tagg, Windy & Carl, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Fripp & Eno - these are all artists that have appeared in many of my mixes over the years. The music here is fairly straightforward - ambient tunes...

As with so many of these mixes this one grew out of one particular recording.  In this case it was The Revenant soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto with Alva Noto.  It's an absolutely gorgeous film score and I knew I needed to build a mix around it. This mix, as the title suggests, is fairly atmospheric in feel and sound.  The tracks used are a combo of newer recordings & old ones too, with The Revenan...

I've done many "sea" mixes over the years and I keep coming back to them because ambient music perfectly captures the impression of an undulating a sea or ocean. Enjoy T R A C K L I S T : 00:00   Rafael Anton Irisarri - Displacement 03:52   Loscil - Angel of List 10:00   Kane Ikin - Slow Waves 13:30   Budd & Eno - An Echo of Night 15:20   Diatonis - Moving in Silence 19:54   Wave Temples - Under t...

This collection isn't necessarily a "best of 2015" , it's just some of my favorite jazz tunes from the past year. It begins with one of my favorite albums of the year in any genre - The Thompson fields by The Maria Schneider Orchestra. The title track is remarkable.  The Jaga Jazzist album was a big surprise for me.  I've listen to them on and off for years but had lost interest for some reason.  ...

These year end lists are always difficult.  But at least the top 3 spots this year were easy selections -  Alva Noto - Xerrox, Vol. 3 Max Richter - Sleep Chris Walla - Tape Loops It doesn't really matter which one grabbed the top spot, I listened to these three over and over in 2015.  Noto is known for his electronic minimalism but Vol. 3 is beautiful and lush. Max Richter's Sleep is a recording o...

As with all mixes this one had a specific starting point or inspiration - the incredible new album from Max Richter - Sleep.  It's 8 hours long!  8 hours!  Here's a link to purchase the full version... http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/us/cat/4795267 I'm a sucker for high concept projects so I was interested from the start.  Add that to the fact that I am a fan of Richter's music and I knew I'd pr...

After the attacks in Paris on November 13th, NPR music did a show about music for healing.  You can find it here...  http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2015/11/17/456343231/music-for-healing Two cuts on their playlist are from two of my favorite albums this year, Goldmund - Sometimes and Nils Frahm - Solo. As I listened to those two tracks over & over I started to think about the piano as a heal...

A slowly developing amalgamation of mixed-genre madness, fusing ambient, experimental & jazz soundscapes into a mixture of quiet deconstruction. "Slow Decay" is a collaborative mix from Low Light Mixes & Ambient Landscape.  We've each done mixes for each other but we thought it would be cool make a mix in which we both contributed alternating sections.  Gene(ambient landscape) came up with the tit...

My good friend, Gene over at  Ambient Landscape , asked me to do a guest mix for him and this mix is the result.  Ambient Landscape is a great source of ambient info and mixes. What got me started on this mix was an interesting video I found on YouTube by Wouter van Veldhoven called "two sad tape recorders."  It's basically two portable reel to reel tape machines each playing their loops at the sa...

I use ambient mixes for sleeping almost every night. A long time ago a friend once mentioned that the best ambient tunes for sleeping are the ones that mimic the rhythm of breathing. Over the years I've found that to be very true. So this mix, like the other 'breathing' mixes before it, is a collection of tunes that ebb and flow, quietly mirroring your sleepy breathing patterns. Enjoy T R A C K L...

I was planning on making a rain mix sometime this fall & I was planning on making a dub mix as well.  Then I realized that those two theme as perfect for each other.  So here is the appropriately titled mix "dubby & rainy." I love how a lot of ambient dub tunes already sound sort of "rainy."  They make liberal use of white noise which is great for conjuring a rainy atmosphere.  So many of these tr...

As usual with these mixes there is one song in particular that gets the ball rolling and in this case it's the title track from the album  The Thompson Fields by the Maria Schneider Orchestra .  The whole album is wonderful collection open, airy jazz tracks and the title song is just stunning.  Definitely one of the most beautiful songs released this year, second only to Sufjan Stevens - Carrie &...

The pic above is of the hammock in my backyard.  My kids got it for me for Father's Day and I love it.  I can't figure out why I didn't have one before.  On many nights this summer I grab my kindle and a beer and lay contentedly under our big birch tree. Of course as a true music obsessive I have speakers out on the deck that I control remotely.  So whenever I head out to the hammock to read or ju...

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 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:...

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://lowlightmix...

Here's the latest Sunday Morning Music installment. The mix starts with cuts from two of my fav albums of 2015 by Aero Flynn & Sufjan Stevens.  Aero Flynn is fronted by Josh Scott, a product of the same Eau Claire, Wisconsin music scene that gave us Justin Vernon(Bon Iver).  Scott was in a band called Amateur Love that shared a couple of members with a band that Vernon was in, DeYarmond Edison.  A...

I have a confession to make.  Back in the 80s & early 90s I used to listen to a lot of New Age music.  Stuff like Enya, Andreas Vollenweider, anything on Windham Hill, etc.  Even though much of the general public thinks of ambient music as new age music, real ambient fans know the difference.  It can be difficult to articulate that difference.  I use a "I know it when I hear it" approach.  I guess...

This is a guest mix from Mike G of the fabulous Ambient Music Guide -  http://www.ambientmusicguide.com/   https://www.mixcloud.com/mikeg68/    Mike & I agreed to do guest mixes for each other with each mix starting with just a title.  We gave each other a title to build a mix on.  In this case I gave Mike "Lapse into Reverie" and he took it from there.   In this mix Mike includes some fav artists...

Benoît Pioulard has two new albums out & they are both wonderful.  It was after hearing "Sonnet" that I decided to make a mix that featured the same sort of dusty, slightly noisy ambient tunes. You can find his album "Sonnet" on Amazon here... SONNET And his latest, "Stanza" here... https://pioulard.bandcamp.com/album/stanza Stanza is a companion piece to Sonnet.  I didn't even know about it until...