Janek Schaefer – Asleep at the Wheel…

Janek Schaefer’s website presents an impressive list of site-location projects that are very interesting to investigate, because they demonstrate Schaefer’s perfect balance of concept, visual and sound.
(A few of them, Unfolding and Extended Play, were presented on Ambientblog earlier).

As the Artist in Residence for the 2010 Milton Keynes International Festival, Schaefer presented Asleep at the Wheel…’: a location project for which he completely transformed the deserted Sainsbury’s supermarket into a three-lane highway at night, a ‘ghost road of cars’, where the audio is played from the in-car sound systems. From the car seats, visitors could listen to presentations and interviews thematically dealing with sustainability and the future of the earth, and how we can be able to improve that future. 

“The exhibition is a thought provoking and immersive sound installation for multiple car radios, that contemplates our future. Exhibited in a vast disused supermarket, three-lanes of cars dissect the darkened interior, as the multiple hazard lights illuminate the space, revealing the finite road of our consumer driven daydream.”

Sonic Acts XIII – The Poetics of Space


SAXIII

If you’re in or maybe even anywhere near Holland (Amsterdam) between february 25 and 28, you definitely should not miss Sonic Acts  XII – “Spatial Explorations in Art, Science, Music and Technology.

This bi-annual festival must be one of Holland’s most important event in experimental electronic music. But not ‘just’ music: the multimedia event also presents expositions, installations, conferences, sound walks, and of course a lot of other immersive aural experiences.

Charles Spearin – The Happiness Project


http://www.happiness-project.ca/about.php

It’s not ambient, and it’s only remotely electronic.
Still, when I discovered this album last week (it was released in march this year), it left me completely speechless and utterly fascinated.  
 
The Happiness Project is a concept created by Charles Spearin from Toronto, known by some for his contributions to Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene.

For this project he has been interviewing some of his neighbours in downtown Toronto, and used their recorded voice to create the musical track.
In these sample-laden times that in itself  does not sound very spectacular, but Spearin focussed on the melody of the voice and doubled it with a musical instrument fitting the voice. The pitch of the voice is never changed, but rhythmic and melodic patterns are created by repeating some of the phrases. Thus resulting in a sparkling and engaging kind of experimental jazz music.

Hibernate Sampler, Vol. 1

A nice present from the Hibernate Recordings label to help you through the dark winter days: The Hibernate Sampler, volume 1 sampler collection.

Hibernate Recordings is a new independent label, focussing on ambient and electro-acoustic music. And, judging by the artists released in their first half year of exisence and by the works on this sampler, I guess their name will be mentioned on this weblog on a regular basis.

"Friederich Remixed" by Banabila


radiolines

In december 2008, dutch musicians Frans Friederich and Michel Banabila met each other performing on the ‘RadioLines’ performance, organised by the (now almost deceased) radio programs Folio and Supplement.

Three musicians performing simultaneously, while live-mixed by one of the radio-makers. The musicians had no influence on the resulting mix in any way (there even was a possibility they were playing their parts without it being heard at all).
(The musicians brave enough to take this risk were Michel Banabila, Frans Friederich and Floris van Bergeijk – the resulting music can be found and downloaded [here].)

For edition “P” of Frans Friederich‘s Recyclopedia, a series of 26 multi-styled CD’s (one for every single letter of the alphabet), Michel Banabila created a beautiful remix, inviting dutch trumpet player Eric Vloeimans to play the additional trumpet part.
This track is unclassifiable: it’s jazz, pop, electronic, fourth world and maybe even more.
It is also a perfect example of what can happen when open-minded musicians work together for the sake of music, not caring about whatever expectations there may be!

Lowlightmixes

Today, Lowlightmixes posted a kind recommendation to Ambientblog. 
Thanks, Dave, for these kind words.

I’m especially honoured, since I’m a regular visitor of Lowlightmixes myself.
I believe we share a vision in our approach to creating our mixes of ambient music.
Lowlightmixes has a vast collection of mixes to listen and download: at this time, you’ll find over 40 different titles, with a wealth of interesting music to discover!!

So, if you’re not a regular visitor yet: be sure to check out the mixes on Lowlightmixes too. It’s definitely worth your time!!

Finally: Podcast Possibilities!

In the past, I’ve been looking for a good platform for the ambient mixes I have created. Though the oldest these mixes are  nine year sold, I think they still deserve to be heard.

Since the Folio radio show I co-compiled will be terminated in november 2009, it became obvious that public local radio is not the best place to promote ambient music.
So I finally started working on something I had in mind for a long time: a podcast featuring the ambient collages/mixes/montages I created in the past, and to host the mixes I will create in the future!

This means this weblog will proudly present ambient mixes to listen, or to download to your computer/portable player for later listening.
Apart from listening or downloading from this weblog, you can also subscribe to the podcast in your favorite player, such as iTunes.
You’ll never miss another mix, and you’ll be able to listen to it in high quality, on a time that fits you… No need to stay up late to record the radio show 🙂

More info and instructions below.

Name Change

You may have noticed the name of this weblog has changed from ‘DreamScenes’ to ‘AmbientBlog.Net’.

Nothing else has changed, all other links/locations/entries remain as they were.

The new name is, of course, the same as the starting URL: https://www.ambientblog.net.
You may want to bookmark that link if you’re interested.

Why this change?