As we are getting closer to the end of the year I figured it was time for some quiet indie tunes from 2022. This collection goes from the slow pop of Monica Martin to the ambient vocals of Brian Eno to the simple folk sound of Phosphorescent to a Joni Mitchel cover. My favorite track is "This Is How It Works" by Angel Olsen. It will probably be in my top three songs of the year. Enjoy these vocal tunes, I'll get back to ambient soon. Cheers! T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 David Byrne And Yo La Tengo ...
Oct 25, 2022•56 min•Ep. 236
A few months ago a friend and I were talking about King Crimson & Robert Fripp. He is not as familiar with Fripp's work as I am so I started a playlist of not just Crimson tracks but also other excellent Fripp guitar work with other artists such as Brian Eno, David Bowie, David Sylvian, Hall & Oates(yes, Hall & Oates!) & others. This week I decided to finally make a mix of some of the tracks. I wasn't sure if or when I'd post it online. Then this morning I see that today, Oct. 19...
Oct 19, 2022•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 235
s o l a c e g a t h e r s t h e s i l e n c e o f t h e s e a Anyone who has followed this mix blog for more than a minute knows I like sea themed mixes. I like the ebb & flow, the washes of synth sounds and especially echoing sounds, like a bell or buoy pinging in the distance or underwater echolocation. So this mix continues that vibe. Lots of new music and lots of echolocation. Here are links to all the music used in this mix in the order in which it appears: https://audio.submersion.info...
Oct 11, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 234
Certain instruments seem suited for particular settings or seasons. I've always thought that piano works well as a winter accompaniment. Twangy guitar goes well with hot weather. And trumpet feels right at home during autumn. Which brings us to the latest collection from Paul Asbury Seaman - Autumn Trumpet. The mix sets the mood perfectly. Here's what Paul has to say about it: “No Scandinavian angst this time, just mellow trumpet and, hopefully, some pleasant surprises. Mostly very languid night...
Oct 02, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 233
On September 7, NPR dropped an episode of All Songs Considered about an enormous new compilation album called "For The Birds: The Birdsong Project." It's a massive collection of original songs and poems about birds and inspired by birdsong. Artists range from Alice Coltrane, Nick Cave, Laurie Anderson, and The Flaming Lips to Sam Prekop, Devendra Banhart, Yo Yo Ma, and of course Andrew Bird & Jeff Tweedy. Here's a link to the episode - https://www.npr.org/2022/09/06/1121237661/this-episode-i...
Sep 25, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 232
Two water themed mixes in a row is a coincidence but one I'm glad has happened. The different styles of the two most recent mixes show that a similar theme can be approached in distinct ways. Paul does a great job of mixing various genres into one coherent mix. Here's what Paul has to say about Mystical Waterwheel: “The image I have for this mix is children running along a babbling brook, climbing over rocks to follow the stream downhill through a forest, then discovering a stone millhouse power...
Sep 18, 2022•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 231
I love the strange exotic sounds of artists such as Jon Hassell, Andrew Pekler, and William Selman. Their music can take you on an audio journey to imaginary places halfway around the globe. My first 4th World Excursion mix was 4 years ago and I've only done one follow up, which is weird considering how much I enjoy this style. Here are the first two in this series: https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/folding-water-fourth-world-excursions/ https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/strange-beauty-4th-world...
Sep 11, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 230
The Handpan, or Hang, is a percussion instrument related to the Caribbean steelpan instrument. It is like a convex version of a steel drum with the two halves attached together. The instrument has been used in a lot of new age music and faux new-age eastern mysticism. Like a lot of new age music instrumentation there is a fine line between enjoyable, relaxing ambient and new age schlock. Unfortunately, many time use of the handpan falls into the latter category. That being said, I do occasionall...
Aug 28, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 229
I have been making stargazing and space themed mixes for a long time. But I realized that I haven't posted a straightforward stargazing mix for almost two years. So this mix fixes that. All the tracks are fairly new, with half of them being from this year. Some tracks are from low light mixes regulars like Loscil, Loneward and Hipnotic Earth alongside new discoveries like RIKAAR, Tone Color and Audio Obscura. Here are links to all the albums used in this mix in the order in which they appear: ht...
Aug 21, 2022•58 min•Ep. 228
Here's a new mix in the "Simply Ambient" series. There is no theme, no story, no big concept - just straightforward ambient music. All the tracks are from 2022 and all the tracks are...Undeniably Ambient. Cheers! T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Innesti - A Collection of Ideas (Folding, A Study 2022) 04:50 Andarctica - Basalt (Basal 2022) 09:00 Gylden - Into The Night (Island Friend 2022) 13:15 Jogging House - Low (Fiber 2022) 20:22 S. van der Toorn - vervlogenheid v (vervlogenheden i-xi 2022) 22:30 ha...
Aug 14, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 227
Yes, another train mix. They are just too intriguing and cinematic to pass up. This one come from friend of the blog, Paul Asbury Seaman. Paul has given us some excellent train mixes in the past and this one continues that tradition. This one clocks in at just a bit under 100 minutes! So much great music in one mix. Here's what Paul says about this set: “A special summertime extended-play mix… almost 100 minutes of long-distance bliss. This is my sixth train-themed production for Low Light Mixes...
Aug 07, 2022•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 226
About a month ago I presented a guest mix of sleep music from Brian Bieniowski, whom I knew from the heyday of the Hypnos Records forum in the mid 2000s. "That Beautiful Land of Nod" is indeed a beautiful sleep mix. Thankfully, back in 2007 Brian created two Land of Nod mixes. So here is volume 2 for your listening and sleeping pleasure. Here is what Brian said about the Land of Nod mixes back in 2007: "It wasn't until the early nineties when I discovered real ambient music suited for the purpos...
Jul 31, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 225
Peter van Cooten runs the excellent Ambientblog website which has great reviews and, of course, wonderful mixes. Anytime Peter reaches out with a mix idea or a a set he'd like to cross-post on both of our platforms, I will always jump at the chance. As I said on Peter's last guest mix, his sets are different from mine in that they are more intricate. He does not use full tracks, instead opting for excerpts and samples piled on each other, sometimes 2, 3, or 4 tracks play simultaneously, to creat...
Jul 24, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 224
It was a little more than ten years ago that I posted my first Sunday Morning Music mix. I had not intended on making it a regular series but the mix did very well on Mixcloud and is partially responsible for starting the explosion of followers the Low Light Mixes feed got in the following years. So I've been creating roughly two per years for 10 years. Yikes! It's kind of crazy to think about how long I've been making these mixes. This one follows the same formula - some ambient cuts, some jazz...
Jul 10, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 223
Set the wayback machine to 2007. I started creating ambient mixes back in the mid-2000s. Those were the days before social media had taken over our lives, before Bandcamp was such a great resource for ambient music. Back then I spent a lot of time on the Hypnos Records forum. There, a bunch of like-mined music nerds shared comments about new recordings, gear, movies, books, tv, music trends, etc. We also shared mixes. That was one of the first places I tried to promote my mixes online. Back in 2...
Jul 03, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 222
I made the first Guitarissimo mix 5 years ago. I followed it up a year or so later. But then for some reason it took me 4 years to get to volume 3. This version is similar to the others the vibe is a bit spaghetti western and dusty, moody, twangy with a little Latin feel. But of course much of it has an ambient vibe. One of my favorite discoveries while making this mix was Hermanos Gutiérrez. As the name implies the band is brothers - Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez. They create beautiful Latin ...
Jun 26, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 221
I've been a fan of the Deutsche Grammophon label for a long time, ever since I got this Steve Reich box set back in the early 80s in college. I've collected quite a few DG recordings over the years. Over the last 5 years or so I've noticed them branching out and releasing music by a wider variety of artists and music that isn't strictly classical. From Moby to Christian Löffler to Olafur Arnalds to Brian Eno to Clark, the music is surprising for DG but also seems to fit well. After a lot of lis...
Jun 19, 2022•59 min•Ep. 220
I am always pleased to present a new mix from Paul Asbury Seaman and this one is no exception. It's a great collection of sequencer tracks that hits the ideal vibe. Coming on the heels of my Stranger Synths mix, I was still in a electronic, sequencer mood and this mix kept me in that zone perfectly. Here's what Paul says about this mix: “For a lot of people, the term ‘electronic music’ still brings to mind the chaotic synthesizer experiments of its early years, highly abstract and moody ‘space m...
Jun 12, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 219
For a while now I've been planning on a drum/percussion mix similar to A Distant Pulse - https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/a-distant-pulse/ and A Rhythmic Passage - https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/a-rhythmic-passage/ In my search for tracks I came across a track by Vidna Obmana called "The Transcending Quest." It made me nostalgic for the heyday of tribal ambient in the 1990s with artists like Vidna Obana, Steve Roach, O Yuki Conjugate and Thom Brennan. So I decided to make this whole mix a tr...
Jun 05, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 218
It's been three years since the last season of Netflix's Stranger Things. Now with the 4th season upon us it must be time for a new mix - Stranger Synths 2022. Similar to previous version of Stranger Synths, this takes the retro vibe of the show's soundtrack and collects tracks that sound like they would fit perfectly in the TV series. I wasn't planning on doing a mix this time around until I stumbled on the opening track Cybernaut by Jonny Fallout. The track can be found on a compilation from T...
May 29, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 217
We lost Klaus a few weeks ago and now Vangelis. I'm getting tired of doing these tribute mixes. His music was my electronic soundtrack to the 80s. I played the daylights out of Antarctica and Soil Festivities back then. And then of course there is Blade Runner. I am still in awe of that soundtrack today. I don't know what else to say other than I loved his music. Godspeed Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou. T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 Vangelis - Theme from Antarctica (Antarctica 1983) 07:23 Vangeli...
May 20, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 216
Seven years ago I did a mix called "Space Rock" that is unique in the Low Light Mixes catalog. It's a collection of instrumental tunes that are guitar driven and are a bit spacey, a little prog rock, and with some post-rock tossed in as well. You can find to original mix here: http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2015/04/space-rock.html I've always wanted to do a follow-up mix but never got around to until now. So here is "Fractal Panorama - Guitar Space Rock". It's a set of new and old instrumenta...
May 15, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 215
A new album from Tapes and Topographies dropped last week and as expected it is very good. Tapes & Topographies is one of my favorite ambient artists so I asked if they would do a guest mix. And I am happy to present "A Faint Resemblance". I'm stealing this background info from friend of the blog, Harry Towell over at Whitelabrecs. "Tapes and Topographies is US based artist Todd Gautreau, who has had music releases on labels such as Past Inside the Present, Dronarivm, Shimmering Moods and hi...
May 08, 2022•57 min•Ep. 214
Klaus Schulze 1947 - 2022 Klaus Schulze, considered to be a godfather figure in electronic music, died this week. I'd say he was one of the big four of early electronic music pioneers which in addition to Schulze would include Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream. I've always enjoyed his music but I was a bigger fan of the other three artists in that group. That being said, somehow I still ended up accumulating around 20 of his albums. He released more than 60 during his life. This ...
May 01, 2022•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 213
Here's the latest in a series of simple, straightforward ambient mixes. It started with Simply Ambient then we also had Always Ambient, Purely Ambient, and Absolutely Ambient. This is a mix with no theme or story or concept. Just excellent ambient tracks. All the cuts used here are from 2022. Here are links to the music used in this mix in the order in which they appear: https://krysalisound.bandcamp.com/album/our-own-unknown https://jogginghouse.bandcamp.com/album/weight https://ambientologist....
Apr 24, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 212
I love doing these alternative soundtrack mixes. I believe this is the fifth one I made. Sometimes I have the mix take the soundtrack in a different direction and sometimes I simply follow the vibe of the original with all new tracks. This mix takes the later approach. For anyone not familiar with it, Severance is a series on AppleTV+, an eerie dystopia where people can sever their work life from their home life with a brain implant. Variations on the main theme are used throughout the show. It'...
Apr 17, 2022•57 min•Ep. 211
"Listening in the Dark" is such a great title for an ambient mix. I've listened to a lot of these mixes in the dark - sitting on the deck at night, in bed before sleep, stargazing, etc. I wonder how many folks purposely listen to ambient & electronic music in the dark. I remember playing the Conet Project recordings in the dark and a friend said it was a little too freaky. This mix is definitely not freaky. This is the latest installment in Paul Asbury Seaman's "Mystical Ambience" series. An...
Apr 03, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 210
International Piano day takes place on the 88th day of the year, in honor of the number of keys on a piano keyboard. In 2022 that day is March 29th. So, as in years past, I have put together a mix of piano tracks to celebrate Piano Dat 2022. This set starts off a bit different from those I've done before. Most are solo piano type mixes but this one starts off with 5 tracks that have more of an electronic vibe. After that we return to my normal nebulous, random note type of piano stuff. Then fini...
Mar 27, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 209
This mix is perfect for spring. Here the rain is the main attraction. It dominates the sound. I purposely mixed the audio from the music fairly low so that it sounds like it's playing in the background somewhere. I did a similar mix back in August of 2020 - https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/rainfall-meditation/ and this one is the same idea. Enjoy this mix as winter snow turns to spring rain. Cheers! T R A C K L I S T : 00:00 rain(duh) 00:40 Brian Eno - Hannah (Sisters 2017) 06:30 Austin Rockman...
Mar 20, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 208
The spoken word in music is a tricky thing. A lot of people really dislike it. And I totally get that. Most of the time I think it's distracting or annoying or cheesy. But obviously someone like Laurie Anderson is able to pull it off successfully. If I use a track with spoken word in an ambient mix it can ruin the mood so I decided to make an entire mix featuring tracks with spoken word. What got me going on this mix was discovering an Eno EP from 2011. I was already familiar with his album, Dru...
Mar 13, 2022•59 min•Ep. 207
