Ambientblog Mixes

On October 26, 1985, Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown arrives in his flying DeLorean time machine and persuades Marty McFly and his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, to come back to the future with him. They arrive on October 21, 2015 Only now we found out why they chose this date! --- originally published on Ambientblog --- To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ambientblog.net, this mix is a part of a very speci...

.... slowly evolving to a state of inert uniformity .... retracing information that was lost from the message ... searching for the uniformity in what seems to be randomly disordered ... --- originally published on Ambientblog --- Playlist start time sample length  Artist – Title Album Title, Release Year, Label details 00:00 2:54 Johnny Jewel - The Dead Zone Lost River OST, 2015, Italians do...

This mix is made to be published in the excellent series of mixes on the "Sounds of a Tired City", part of the larger website with the same name. Inspired by the site name, I decided I wanted to try to create a sonic 'walk' through a 'tired' city. A mix with a lot of scene changes... like walking through an unknown city on a (quiet sunday?) morning - finding hidden surprises and marvels around eve...

"Jam Karet" is Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language) meaning "Elastic Time" (or "Rubber Hours"). To me, this concept also applies to mixes that include ambient and drone fragments... where the listener gets immersed in sound in such a way that all notion of time is lost; where music could last for minutes, or for hours. --- originally published on Ambientblog --- Playlist: start time - sample len...

This mix is built around mysterious vocals. Vocals that may guide you, or lure you, into distances unknown. Often, but not exclusively, female, and some of them not even human - like the beautiful flute-playing by Jean-Christophe Bonnafous, or the mysterious singing sound of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that was recently discovered during the Rosetta space missions. With just a little fanta...

"Mental Health Hotline" is the second 'collaborative dialogue' created together with Christophe 'Klankschap' Ywaska. (The first was "Both Were Moving", 2012). Each selection a reaction to the previous addition means the story may have some unexpected turns and views... especially with over 50 samples crammed into this adventurous hour of sound! Be prepared for a dazzling - and possibly somewhat di...

For this mix I aimed to create a dreamlike and timeless atmosphere - dark (but not too dark). It is calm, yet there are many shifting scenes, many passing landscapes and some conflicting emotions... When it ends, (I hope) it feels as if it was much longer than it actually was ... --- originally published on Ambientblog --- Playlist [start] [length] [Artist] - [Title] [Album], [Year], [Label#] 00:0...

If one of the criteria for 'ambient' music is that you can comfortably fall asleep to it, I guess you'd better skip this particular mix. Although it starts quiet and reassuring with soothing vocal chords from Silvestrov's "The Lord's Prayer", the mood disintegrates and sometimes can become rather unsettling - depending on your own personal 'incidental memories', of course. --- originally published...

"Autumn is here. Darkness slowly creeps up just a little bit earlier. Clouds get grayer and swell up with rain. Trees shed their colors and tighten their belts. And people begin to prepare for winter. But among all the shadows there’s a small ray of light. And with that glow comes the music… For today’s exclusive podcast, Peter van Cooten weaves in layers of haunting soundscapes spanning the gray-...

"I'm not formed by things that are of myself alone" This is the key quote (taken from Stoker) for this mix, which is also 'not formed by things of itself alone'. Every detail, every short sample, has its origin in another context, another musical composition, from which it is taken to find a new place in a completely different context. "My ears hear what others cannot hear." "Parallax" is the visu...

The title of this mix is taken from the beautiful soundtrack it heavily leans on: Alexandre Desplat's "Rust and Bone" ("De Rouille et D'Os"). "Rust" usually refers to 'decay', but in dutch "Rust" simply also means 'rest', ('tranquil - or 'repos' in french). But - as we say in Holland: "Rust Roest" - or: "Too much rest will make you rusty..." In other words: don't expect just 'tranquil' sounds in t...

The sheer volume of the Headphone Commute’s '…And Darkness Came' compilation – issued as a charity fundraising for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and boasting 87 tracks (over 6 hours) of music – was also a kind of invitation to create a mix from it. --- originally published on Ambientblog --- Presenting a wide range of music from well (and lesser) known artists – covering most of the ambient...

If you have ever watched Stanley Kubrick's "2001 - Space Odyssey", you will definitely remember the impressive scene in which the memory modules are slowly taken away from HAL, the ship's main computer, because it started to disfunction and became a threat to the astronauts and their mission. Just before his memory fades completely, HAL remembers being programmed to sing"Daisy", one of his ea...

When Christophe Ywaska, creator of the weekly Klankschap radio shows on VillaBota webradio suggested working on a mix together, I knew we were in for a sonic treat.  Klankschap mixes are never "just" ambient - or "just" any other genre for that matter. Their tracklistings are a display of a deep knowledge of all kinds of experimental music, both new ánd old. Due to their nature, they dó requi...

This must be one of the darkest mixes I have created until now. I recommend headphone listening for this mix, but also recommend to avoid late night listening - unless, of course, you know what to expect. The atmosphere is immediately set with the first notes, with a threatening (Boduf Songs) howl , and may even get downright frightening in the end climax. Yet, not all is dark and gloomy. In...

"We were playing Hide and Seek on a Cemetery Hill... ...quiet hiding in the flowers...among the Flowers and Bones..." Atmospheric drones slowly unfold into childhood memories ... Peaceful melancholic romanticism, but gradually overshadowed by fear of something out of control?  Remember: all is well that ends well.... --- originally published on Ambientblog --- Playlist: start time - sample le...

Andrej Tarkovsky's 1972 movie "Solaris" inspired this mix-collage. This mix includes many different sources. Some parts of the originals Artemyev soundtrack are linked to fragments of the beautiful game soundtrack from Skyrim, by Jeremy Soule. The cinematic parts are alternated with various electronic soundscape fragments - familiar and less familiar. Together with many tiny fragments from your ow...

This mix obviously found its name from the lovely intro (and outtro) track by Nest. Inbetween, there are many moments of 'stillness', too... Moments you may slowly drift off into the drones, letting your mind wander ... to be pulled back again by some of the post-classical 'anchors' in this mix. Maybe it's a small opportunity to retreat from current society's turmoil, and to find some time to...

In the Northern Hemisphere, the November month is the month of Autumn: the month that summer is definitely over, when cold and darkness slowly creeps in.  (In the Southern Hemisphere, November is a month of Spring - which means this mix will probably not fit your "November Thoughts" at all).  (Northern) November can be rough and harsh, but it's also very beautiful to watch nature prepare...

"Teloorgang" is a beautiful dutch word that can be best translated with "Loss" or "Decay". Some say there is beauty in decay....This may be true, but in fact only when watched from a safe distance - the 'decay' not regarding ourselves or our own environment.. It is, of course, tempting to relate the theme of this mix to the current state of our (western) society. But that may just be coincidence:...

The main theme for this mix (as well as the title "Discouraging Intruders" ) came from the spoken word track by the Dwindlers: "What the Wolves Said": "No two of us on the same note, we sound bigger...our harmony discouraging intruders..." Although generally not sounding like a pack of howling wolves, sometimes the purpose of 'ambient' music also is also is to 'discourage intruders' (such as unwan...

Although it was created in March, this mix shows little signs of "Spring". There was no intentional relation, but inevitably the devastating Japan Earthquake, and the frightening nuclear disaster following it, somehow found its way into this mix. The result: a rather dark overall atmosphere, which seems to leave little room for hope. But at the same time, in Euro...

When I started working on this 'single artist mix' featuring music and sounds from Arno Peeters, I did not realise that creating a mix-collage based on soundscapes would be more difficult than one based on single tracks. A soundscape is a collage in itself - and using fragments from soundscapes to build another soundscape is like ripping up a collage and presenting the fragmented details out of th...

When I read that a new Fovea Hex album will be released in the "Very-Imminent-Future", this revived fond memories of their 2007 box set called "Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent". Two quotes may introduce this fascinating collection: Brian Eno thought these were "Some of the Most Extraordinary  Songs I've heard in Years", and The WIRE aptly summarized it this way: "If Emily Dicki...

What exactly happens at the moment night changes back into day again, when darkness slowly retreats and light comes back in?  Are we aware of what happens outside, at that time of day most of us are still sleeping?  What sort of animals or creatures are hiding from the light, and what sort finally dare to come out again?  Would we discover “Dawn Secrets” when we’d leave our own safe...