low light mixes

Every mix has it's own unique starting point.  And this mix definitely started in a unique place - my dishwasher. One day my dishwasher was making some weird noises, it kind of sounded like an alien playing a didgeridoo was trapped inside.  So I recorded a little bit of the sound and then processed it using Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch.  And whaddya know - it actually sounds pretty good.  Dishwash...

  This mix was inspired by a playlist that i stumbled across on Spotify.  It's called ENtro to Deep Space Rock.  You can find it here... https://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/7J19mbbwlbsxeWxSeBqTb1 I really enjoyed a lot of the instrumental cuts in the playlist. I've been a prog rock fan since the 70s but I rarely listen to anything that would be considered current prog rock.  I've...

  I have been planning on doing a stargazing mix for a long time and then a new EP by 36 came out and I knew I had to get cracking on a new mix. The new EP is called Sine Dust and it's excellent.  All the tracks have a similar feel to them and that is by design.  36 artist, Dennis Huddleston, says "I wanted to make an EP that had a strictly defined sound and theme, which continued from beginning t...

Earlier this year I quickly threw together some tunes for a walk in Madison, WI.  I liked the way it sounded so much that I made a few changes and made a proper mix out of it. Most of the music is fairly new, half are from last year, with the oldest cut being the Mojave 3 track from 2000.  As usual, most of the tracks are laid back.  Even a loud cut like JM by Strand of Oaks is slow. This is a mix...

This mix was started because of one new tune - "Witch Season" from the new Infraction release by Offthesky and Pleq.  I love that track and what better way to tell people about it than a new mix. With that song as a starting point things fell into place very nicely.  All the music in the mix is fairly recent.  Most is from 2014 or 2015 with the exception of the cut from The New Honey Shade which i...

Here's the latest in the Sunday Morning Music series.  And as usual it follows a similar path to its predecessors - little bit of quiet vocals, little bit of jazz, little bit of classical, little bit of everything. The first track in the mix is from DeYarmond Edison, which is Justin Vernon's first band from 2005.  Vernon is the man behind Bon Iver.  He's a fellow Wisconsonite that hit the big time...

A couple of posts ago I mentioned a favorite new ambient blog -  Ambient Landscape .  I visit quite often, usually finding new music, interesting links and good mixes. I reached out to Gene, who runs the blog and asked if he would do a guest mix for Low Light and I'm happy to say that he agreed.  The result is this Robert Fripp themed mix - "fripp_2015." I love listening to well done mixes where I...

http://bloknayrb.deviantart.com/ a beginning an expedition is launched springs into being the journey begins This is a follow up to an earlier mix Leaving the Station, which had a train theme.  I had several people ask if I was planning on a follow up and, well, here it is. My favorite track in this mix is  El Divisadero by Chris Watson  from his wonderful field recording album, El Tren Fantasma....

http://instagram.com/jnsilva This mix started with two discoveries.  First I found a great ambient blog called  Ambient Landscape .  I have found lots of music through the site, most notably the fantastic album by Dylan Howe,  New Designs on Bowie's Berlin , which made it on to my year end lists. The second discovery that inspired this mix was a series from  Aural Films  called Fog Music.  I belie...

I've mentioned many times that a mix often starts with a single track that interests me and takes off from there.  In the case of this classical mix, the track is "In Spe" by Arvo Part. I first heard the piece via YouTube & loved it right from the start.  As far as I can tell it has not been recorded for official release so the version in this mix is the performance I heard on YouTube.  You can fi...

I am very excited about this mix.  It comes from Josh Furey, the man the excellent indie label Nocturne Records . The mix consists of ambient and slower vintage 8-bit video game music.  It starts off with a cut from Disasterpeace from the album FEZ .  I had just recently bought the album and was thinking about doing an 8-bit type of mix myself when Josh sent me his Cartridge mix.  Wow, am I glad I...

I love the music of Loscil. I have been listening to Loscil for ten years and I look forward to new releases more than ever.  Loscil made it into my mix of favorite ambient artists and my mix of favorite ambient albums of all time.  I consider Loscil music to be perfect ambient/electronic music. Scott Morgan is the man behind Loscil & he has just released a new album - "Sea Island".  I knew I was...

Here's another entry in the Sunday Morning Music series.  This follows the template fo earlier mixes - mostly instrumental, some vocals, some jazz, some old some new.  I called it Fall Back because it was intended to be posted last weekend when daylight saving came to an end but stuff always seems to get in the way. My favorite cut in the mix is "Art Decade" by Dylan Howe from his excellent album,...

This mix grew out of a collection of vacation songs.  I wanted to put some tunes together for relaxing on the pier or around the fire.  Once I started finding songs I decided to make all of them vocal acoustic tunes and the rest just fell into place.  The whole mix is nice and slow and quiet.  And of course acoustic. There are a few great covers here, like the Sarah Jarosz & Phosphoerscent covers....

Back in July I featured a guest mix from halftribe.  It was an excellent mix & a nice break for me.  Well, Ryan Bissett(halftribe) has kindly offered another mix and I jumped at the chance to post it. This mix is absolutely pure ambient bliss.  A beautiful collection perfect for any time of year or any time of day.  I've been listening to it at work and have used it as sleep material as well.  Giv...

cinemagraph by Julien Douvier - http://juliendouvier.tumblr.com/ Sometimes I go through phases of music listening.  I'll listen to a bunch of old prog rock for two weeks then move on.  I pull out some old Cantebury Scene stuff from the 70s for awhile.  Then I'll go on an early 80s new wave binge.  Then Americana.  Then ECM jazz. This mix came out one such binge.  I've been listening to a lot of Je...

You're driving, and it's dark and it's raining, and you're on the edge of the city and you've been driving all night. And you took a turn back there but you're not sure it was the right turn. But you took the turn anyway, just kept going in that direction. And somehow it looks sort of familiar, so you just keep driving. Hello. Excuse me. Can you tell me where I am? You've been on this road before....

This is one of those mixes where the title pretty much says it all...Summer Sleeps.  I found that if I keep titles fairly straight forward and clear that plays on Mixcloud go up a bit. I listen to music every night when I go to bed.  And lately I was getting bored with old sleep mixes so of course the solution is to make a new one.  There's not much else to say about this mix, just lay back and zz...

The timing on this could be better.  I've been very busy lately and haven't been able to do a mix.  So it's the perfect time for a guest mix. This mix comes to us from Ryan Bissett who produces ambient music as Halftribe.  What I love about guest mixes is that I'm usually unfamiliar with many of the tracks.  And this mix does exactly that.  Only two artists were known to me before I heard this mix...

I know this blog is supposed to be about ambient music but over the years I've posted some outliers - "Quintessential Jazz" "Footsteps" "Psalms and Lullabies" "Sunday Morning Music" "Vox Electronix" and some other odd balls.  It gets a little boring just mixing nothing but floating ambient so it's nice to branch out every now and then. This mix, "Always & Forever," is definitely on a different bra...

I've already done a "Favorite Ambient Albums" mix and a "Favorite Ambient Artists" mix so it makes sense that there would eventually be a "Favorite Ambient Tracks" mix.  And here it is. Ambient music is definitely not a song based genre.  I like to remember works as a whole or an artist's work as a whole.  There are artists that I absolutely love but can't name more than a handful of specific tune...

Grab a cup of coffee and the paper with this mix as your Sunday soundtrack. This iteration of the Sunday morning series uses mostly new music including a couple of great Bob Dylan covers from Sarah Jarosz and Phosphorescent.  I couldn't resist starting the mix with the wonderful "Morning" from Beck's new release. From there we move on to a beautiful, jazzy track from Philémon Chante that I have be...

Most regular visitors to this blog are aware that I also post these mixes over at Mixcloud.  I love Mixcloud.  I got in very early on and so have developed quite a few followers.  It's been fun watching it grow.   One thing that has helped in growing that following is being one of the featured cloudcasts in the Ambient/Chillout category.  Well, apparently now Low Light Mixes is also one of the fea...

One of the benefits of making & posting mixes for all these years is getting to know some like-minded folks from around the world.  One of those is my good friend, Jason O'Gorman, from the city of Cork in Ireland. Jason did a guest mix for me way back in 2008.  Wow, typing that just made me realize that Low Light Mixes has been around for a long time - 8 years this month, an eternity in internet y...

stirring up the dust ghosts from the past whisper in grooves of forever There's a first for this blog - vinyl haiku.  I was looking for ways to describe this mix and as I collected expressive words, the list started to take on it's own poetic quality.   So I thought, what the heck, I'll just formalize it into an actual haiku.  It was fun, I haven't written any sort of silly haiku in years. Anyway,...