sounds swim all around drifting in the warm embrace of this strange beauty This my second 4th world mix and it's similar to the 2018 version. It still follows the Jon Hassell esthetic of "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques." Most of the tracks are new, 10 of the 17 tracks being from 2019 or 2020. I was almost done with the mix when an excellent new album from Halftribe dropped on the 24th. Listening to the first trac...
Sep 27, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 146
This mix came about because I wanted to find a vehicle for some of the great music coming out of Lost Tribe Sound and their Fearful Void series. The bundle of releases includes 15 albums to be released between June 2020 and June 2021. You can find more info here... https://losttribesound.bandcamp.com/album/fearful-void-series Like the website says Lost Tribe Sound "specializes in organic and exploratory music that transcends genre, technique, or trend." The music in this new series is both groun...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 145
Sometime in the last couple of weeks we got a good downpour here at Low Light headquarters. As I stood at the front door smelling the rain, listening to the cloudburst, I realized that I had some music playing softly in the background and it blended perfectly with the storm. I stood there for a good twenty minutes taking it all in. This mix is based on that experience. The main idea here is to mix the music below the rain and thunder. Sometimes it is very low so that it sounds like it's coming f...
Aug 23, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 144
This mix, like the title, is simple. It's straight forward ambient music. Nice and relaxing, beatless, drifting ambient music. All of the music is new - 9 of the 12 tracks are from 2020. Other than that there's not much else to say except I hope enjoy the tunes. Cheers! T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Andrew Chalk - Mikhail (One Long Year 2019) 09:00 Ylowknfe - Gamma (= 2014) 15:55 Innesti - Ideas Not Considered (Apperception 2020) 22:20 Carlo Giustini - Ascensione(a Tandura) (Custodi 2019) [Lontano S...
Aug 09, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 143
image by Thomas Park This mix was a lot of fun! Back in April, Peter van Cooten, of Ambientblog , created the awesome mix, Lockdown . After it posted we talked about doing a collaboration mix. As Peter is in Holland and I am in the States we would send files back and forth to each other adding more tracks with every pass. We had to decide on a theme and a format. In the end the format became the theme. It worked like this: We each take 5 minute turns and increase the sample count with each turn....
Jul 28, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 141
This mix came about from an idea by a listener, Kevin. He suggested a mix based on artists from Japan. I asked for track recommendations and Kevin came back with an entire list. That list fills out most of this mix. I added tracks by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Geskia!, Sawako and Akira Kosemura. Kevin also suggested the title - "Not seeing is a flower" which means that reality can't compete with imagination. The mix itself is a fairly straight forward mix of ambient tracks from Japan. Thanks to Kevin fo...
Jul 19, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 142
I have been planning on a new dubby mix for a while and I have been planning for a mix with a slow-ish train vibe. Somehow those two concepts merged and became this new mix - Dub Train Dub Station. There's not much else to say about this mix. It's pretty much what you'd expect - a collection of mostly dubby tracks that have a definite train feel, combining two of my favorite vibes in one mix. Cheers! T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Ryan James Ford - Eiliat Tirrayl (Stone Mountain Red 2016) 04:15 Yagya...
Jun 14, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 140
photo by Wil Stewart https://unsplash.com/s/photos/wil-stewart I've been working from home for a couple of months and you'd think I might have some extra time to work on some mixes with being locked down and all. But nope, I seem to have fallen farther behind with a lot of things. I wanted to get a mix up onto Mixcloud so that I don't go too long in between uploads. But I hadn't done anything new so I was looking through some old mixes that were posted here but never made it to Mixcloud. And I f...
May 31, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 139
I haven't posted a Sunday Morning mix since January and with how much things have changed since then I figured we could all use a mix with that Sunday morning vibe. So here it is #20 in the Sunday Morning Music series. It's mostly new music, with 13 tracks from 2019 & 2020. One of the oddball old cuts is from 1980, John Martyn's "Sweet Little Mystery." I've always liked the tune but I hadn't heard it in a long time until it made an unlikely appearance in the show DEVS. As soon as I heard it ...
May 10, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 138
I can always count on Paul for a good palate cleanser. After the bizzaro world of DEVS & the continuing covid crapola, I think everyone is in need of a little positivity. Paul and I have talked often about how a lot of ambient music has a melancholy vibe. I know I definitely gravitate toward that end of the spectrum. Paul figured we could use something hopeful in these strange days. Here's what he says about this mix: “I think authenticity is a precursor to authentic redemption. Thus, we hon...
May 03, 2020•59 min•Ep. 137
DEVS, a tv series on FX/Hulu, is easily one of the best things I've ever seen on tv. It's written, directed and produced by Alex Garland the man responsible for Ex Machina & Annihilation, two of my favorite films of the last ten years. The sound design and music in his films is always perfect. His musical collaborators are Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow and they are responsible for the music in DEVS as well. Garland lets scenes breathe, lets the music wash over you as the camera lingers. I...
Apr 19, 2020•58 min•Ep. 136
This mix started nearly two years ago when I created a playlist on Spotify called "Sax is Back." In there I collected tracks that used a saxophone as a main instrument and had an ambient vibe. I was careful to not let the tunes devolve into Kenny G on the beach schlock. But I still wasn't sure if an entire mix of sax tunes would work, but, I gotta say, this mix turned out really well. It's cohesive and a nice variation on straight forward ambient. One caveat - I'm not entirely sure that the inst...
Apr 12, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 135
I like to think that I put a lot of thought and effort into these mixes. Hopefully, the mix as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But what I do is nothing compared to the transformative touch that Peter Van Cooten brings to his mixes. Each mix is a unique work of art. Peter rarely lets a track play in its complete form. Instead, he uses smaller samples and deftly weaves the tracks in and out of each other. Sometimes 2,3, or 4 tracks play simultaneously, creating something new from dif...
Apr 05, 2020•59 min•Ep. 134
Today, March 28th, is International Piano Day. This is what the Piano Day website says about today: “Why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons. But mostly, because it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.” – Nils Frahm Piano Day, an annual worldwide event founded by a group of likeminded people, takes place on the 88th day of the year – in 2020 it’s the 28th March – because...
Mar 28, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 133
I have to come clean. I stole this idea. Dennis Huddleston, who records as 36, posted a Spotify playlist a couple of days ago and I thought it sounded like a good theme for a mix. Here's his playlist... https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4JYOGGauPlBZJ6fGliNC8l?si=WccLv7aASuSlzznfwpLKKA All the tracks in this mix have quarantine/isolation appropriate titles such as "Stay Home," "Return to Self" and "Being Alone Never Hurt Anybody." Working in tv news it was crazy watching email after email come in...
Mar 15, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 132
After the last mix, I was trying to decide what to do next - sea mix? orchestral? shortwave? train? Well, Paul beat me to it by sending a tracklist for another excellent train mix. Here's what Paul has to say about this mix: “The main qualification in selecting music for a train mix is that it has that distinctive rocking rhythm, like a cradle. Like a lullaby. Beyond that, there is the paradoxical elements of both wistfulness and anticipation—nostalgia and unknown adventures. This mix features a...
Mar 08, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 131
It's hard to believe there are still 9 months until the presidential election here in the US. It feels like the 2016 campaign never ended. Working in TV news I need to remind myself to step back, log off Twitter, turn off the tv, and listen to some ambient music, especially meditative music. I know most ambient music is good for meditation but for this mix, I was looking for formless music that's not dark, something that wouldn't be too out of place at a spa but also not too gooey new agey eithe...
Feb 27, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 130
This is a re-posting of sorts. I was going through old mixes trying to figure out which ones had not been posted to Mixcloud. I plan on posting some of those old mixes as-is to Mixcloud in the coming months. One of the mixes I dug up is Sequential Circuits, originally posted 12 years ago. Yikes! I've been doing this for a long time. I really like this mix but while listening to it I decided to give it one little tweak. I dropped two tracks by Detroit Escalator Co. & Geometric Farms and repla...
Feb 09, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 129
This mix doesn't need a lot of introduction or explanation. It's a collection of ambient guitar tunes. The kind with swells of sound and long, slow washes of beautiful ambient guitar. Some of the tracks came from ideas found in this thread on Mixcloud. Feel free to add any other tracks to the discussion. https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/posts/ambient-guitar/ Enjoy the ambient guitarscapes. Cheers! T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Wayne Robert Thomas - A Grey Morning, Later Lovely Sunshine (2019) 06:29...
Feb 02, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 128
I was digging through some old mixes that had never been uploaded to Mixcloud and I came across a couple of old field recording mixes. The plan was to combine the two into a new mix. Well, as usual, the mix changed and I ended up creating a new field recording mix from scratch. Sort of. I did use a couple of snippets from the original mixes. The first is from about 4:40 - 6:30, next one comes in around 27:35 - 28:35, and one more from about 29:10 - 33:45. I'm not going to provide a tracklist bec...
Jan 26, 2020•55 min•Ep. 127
This mix started with an interesting album I came across this past weekend, Ernest Hood - Neighborhoods. It was originally released in 1975 but was recently rediscovered and rereleased. It's a curious combination of field recordings and early ambient noodling. The result is captivating. https://freedomtospend.bandcamp.com/album/neighborhoods I picked the track "Saturday Morning Doze" as the starting point for a new Sunday morning mix. I noticed it had Fender Rhodes piano type of sound going on. ...
Jan 19, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 126
When Paul emailed a few weeks back with the idea of doing a bell themed mix I got all excited. I thought to myself - "Perfect, I have a whole folder of bell tunes I've been collecting." So I go to that folder and there are two tracks in it. That's it. I guess it's the thought that counts? If Paul hadn't come up with this mix I probably never would have gotten around to it. Maybe there's some sort of lesson for the new year here - Finish what you start. Whatever the lesson, Paul's mix is a perfec...
Jan 05, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 125
Ugh, this was difficult. I went through old end-of-the-year lists, checked Spotify playlists, looked up other folks' lists and dug up old mixes. There is just no easy way to sort through soooooo much music. But I finally ended up with something that is sort of coherent. I decided not to call this mix Best of the Decade as I have done with mixes for years. I've realized that the "Best" label is not accurate. I'm sure I missed a ton of albums and I feel bad leaving some out. So these are my favori...
Dec 29, 2019•3 hr 19 min•Ep. 124
Here's another impossible task - compiling a mix of the best film scores of the decade. Like any of my other year-end mixes, this is not really a "Best" mix. It's a collection of scores that I listened to a lot and fit within my ambient aesthetic. The tracks are laid out chronologically from when the films were released. Starting with Monsters in 2010 to Ex Machina in 2015 and finishing up with American Woman in 2019 There are scores from four TV series included in this mix - Halt and Catch Fire...
Dec 22, 2019•56 min•Ep. 123
As I said in the previous post, there was so much good music this year, every year really, that I couldn't fit it all into one mix. So here is volume 2. This one focuses on modern classical/electro-acoustic music. The first track in the mix is from William Ryan Fritch's massive album - Deceptive Cadence - Music For Film Vol I & II, easily the best release of the year. It was just one of several albums put out by Lost Tribe Sound that are all phenomenal. Anybody who likes beautiful packaging ...
Dec 15, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 122
It's an impossible task to narrow down the multitude of ambient recordings released every year into a definitive "Best of" list. There's so much music out there that I'll never hear it all and what I do hear is hard to give the proper attention to. So many factors can influence a record making the list - where did a first hear it, what mood was I in, what other music did I listen to around it, did I use it in a mix, etc. Suffice it to say, this list is not definitive and is highly subjective. I ...
Dec 08, 2019•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 121
I use a fair amount of film music in my mixes and have done mixes of all soundtrack tunes but I have never made a best of the year mix for film scores. Until now. There were no blow my mind scores, like Arrival or Solaris, this year but there was a lot of excellent music to choose from for this mix. As an ambient guy, I lean towards more atmospheric film scores. I'm not at all interested in the soundtrack for the new Star Wars film or Avengers Endgame. So in my list of 2019 favs there are the us...
Dec 01, 2019•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 120
I have a bunch of folders of music that I collect for mixes. I have one called "sea '19" for a sea-themed mix. One called "fog bound" for music that sounds like a foggy night. Other folders include PNO, stargazing, foreign lands, retro synths, dusty, 4th world and many more. The music for this mix is in a folder called "ambient just plain old ambient." So this mix is just that - a simple collection of ambient tunes. No theme, no temporal significance. Just good ambient music. Enjoy! PS - coming ...
Nov 24, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 119
Cover art created by and courtesy of Robert Rich, https://robertrich.com/graphic-art/ . As regular visitors to this blog have probably figured out, I don't really plan things out here. Sometimes it's a mix a week, sometimes it's a month between mixes. The last Blade Runner mix is the perfect example, I wasn't even thinking about that mix until we hit Nov. 2019 which is the month and year of Blade Runner. So I quickly threw that mix together and boom, there it was. So then other mix ideas get pus...
Nov 17, 2019•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 118
I wasn't planning on doing this mix. But then on Friday, someone on Twitter posted that we have caught up to the time when the film, Blade Runner supposedly takes place. I knew immediately that I had to make a mix. This collection is pretty straight forward - all the tracks sound like they fit into the Blade Runner soundtrack universe. Enjoy! T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Pye Corner Audio - Prismatic Gateway (2019) 01:22 Jean Michel Jarre - The Watchers (2018) 04:15 Tale Of Us - Alla Sera (2017) 08:...
Nov 03, 2019•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 117
