Tag: soundscapes

ambient music, MIXES, surround

Dawn Secrets (Mix)

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 and familiar surroundings?

To be honest, I did not start this mix with this theme in mind…it just ‘dawned’ on me when listening to it when it was almost finished…But from the start, I wanted this mix to have a strong ‘environmental’ feel (but not only include field recordings).

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Various Artists – "Hidden Landscapes"


Hidden Landscapes

The Audio Gourmet netlabel, run by Harry Towell – a.k.a.Spheruleus- quickly became one of the major netlabels on the ambient music scene.  At time of writing, their impressive catalogue presents about 30 releases, most of them E.P.’s, around 15 minutes long, and thus created to fit your daily coffee/tea break perfectly. 

Though Audio Gourmet have a clear policy about what they want and what they don’t want (no beats!), the musical horizon broadens with every release. For example, the forthcoming release by Paper Relics  (Harry and Stuart Towell), ‘Recovered Artefact’, would be better described as ‘improv folk guitar’ than ambient music.

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Various Artists – Underwater Noises

Apart from creating his own fascinating music (like the beautiful ‘Poor Henriette Marie’  EP, released on Hibernate), Nigel Samways also runs the Ephre Imprint label, releasing electro-acoustic drone, ambient and experimental music. 

“Underwater Noises“ is Ephre Imprint‘s latest compilation, a joint release with the Lost Children netlabel:

“The theme running through all tracks of this work is ‘water’ (and its numerous concerns risen around the globe). Each artist was prompted to submit a track inspired somehow by the notion of water, according to their individual angle. The upshot is a multilayered work, giving voice to the umpteen facets of a theme which has always created a particularly deep and serious attraction for musicians working in the drone/ambient scene.”

At the first glance on the tracklist of this compilation I knew that there was a complete new world for me to discover, since all of the artists included were unknown to me…!

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Mendel Kaelen – Remembering What Was Forgotten


Mendel Kaelen RWWF

The first minutes of Mendel Kaelen‘s “Remembering What Was Forgotten”  are perfectly in line with its cover image: building from silence, slowly out of nothing, but gradually becoming clearer, crescending into an immersive and overwhelming wave of sound… before fading back to eternal rest.

The near 70 minutes of this album seem to breathe an immersive calm, the sound of nature’s inevitability…maybe also the sound of ‘Satori‘, a Buddhist term for ” a flash of sudden awareness, or individual enlightenment”.

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Matthew Florianz – Koude Handen


Koude Handen

Along with two other (dutch!) musicians Machinefabriek and Michel Banabila, Matthew Florianz is one of the three “all time favourite artists” in my last.fm profile.
This obviously means I was eagerly awaiting the release of Matthew’s new album “Koude Handen” (“Cold Hands”), his follow up to 2008’s “Maalbeek“. 

“Koude Handen” is presented as a free download from Matthew’s website – available as high bitrate MP3 or even as 24 bit FLAC (which, mind you, is even a better bitrate than standard CD can provide!). The album page also offers the complete artwork, as well as some beautiful promo videos.
And, to celebrate the release of this new album, Matthew also offers his previous release “Maalbeek” as a free download!

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Solo Andata – Ritual

Although their debut “Fyris Swan” was released in 2006, Solo Andata gained the recognition they deserved with the release of the “Solo Andata” album on the 12k label in 2009.

The fact that their work was mastered by Taylor Deupree and Giuseppe Ielasi – household names in the world of ambient / electronic music – will probably have helped to attract the attention, but the music created by Kane Ikin and Paul Fiocco in itself was (is) impressing enough to immediately classify Solo Andata as ‘classic material’ of ambient soundscapes. 

Their new album, “Ritual” is the debut release of a brand new label: Desire Path Recordings.
And what a debut it is to start a new label with!

ambient music, other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Minamo & Lawrence English: A Path Less Travelled

Together with the recent release of Rafael Anton Irisarri  another recent Room40 release came to my attention: “A Path Less Travelled“ by Minamo and Lawrence English.

An album very well titled, since the five sonic electro-acoustic pieces on this album are indeed uncovering some musical ‘paths less travelled’

ambient music, MIXES

Fluid Radio Mix


fluid radio

If you check out the Fluid Radio Mixcloud playlist,you’ll find a lot of familiar names: it seems that almost all artists working in the contemporary electronic experimental music field have contributed one or more mixes themselves. Most of these have appeared somewhere in one of my earlier mixes.
These mixes (which are also broadcast on the  ) make Fluid Radio one of the most popular channels on Mixcloud. Fluid Radio Webchannel

Apart from that, Fluid Audio represents a label that has released some impressive music in equally impressive packages…!

The mix presented here was created specifically for Fluid Radio. It is no ‘head-tail’ mixtape, but a collage of fragments that are represented in a different context and, doing so, get a different musical meaning.
Like all of my other mixes, there are a lot of details presented in layers, creating new perspectives – ‘enhanced’ landscapes which sometimes may not be too comfortable but hopefully will be as fascinating to you as they are for me…

This particular mix was especially created for Fluid-Radio in march 2010. It was broadcast on Fluid Radio on May 20, 2010.