Hello all and welcome to the latest mix of my ambient blog. This time around I have created another minimal ambient mix for all you lovers of beat-less ambiance and relaxing sleep music. Contained within you'll find a variety of styles but I tried to maintain a very chilled out ambient trance experience so I hope you all enjoy it. If you are a first time visitor here and you are wondering "what is ambient music ?" then why not download the mix, listen and decide for yourself.
First up we have "Proton Kinoun" [Kasper Wensgaard] with his track "Skyward Dreams" from the album "Apeiron". Some of you might know of Kasper's earlier work under the "Psylent Buddhi" alias. Aperion is great listen and is now available as a free,high quality format download from the brilliant web-label "Ektoplazm" via their sublabel "Omnitropic". For more free stuff check out this free ambient music post.
Next is ambient, dub superstars "The Orb" with the track "OOPA" from "Baghdad Batteries (Orbsessions Volume III)" of 2009. The Orb has been entertaining me with their mix of dubby psychedelic ambient trance for the best past of the last 20 years. These days the group has been whittled down to a solo, forming member "Alex Patersen" and collaborator "Thomas Fehlmann". I like this lineup. Fehlmann's Berlin stylings lend a hint of minimal tech-house that prevent Alex's imagination from going to far out beyond the point of no return. The album was created as a soundtrack to Werner Boote's documentary "Plastic Planet". There’s a very special atmosphere to this album: two men bouncing ideas and exploring in classic Orb style to make a classic Orb album, hitting the magic place Alex always strives for, but this time with a lustful vengeance tempered with new gentleness and a movie in their heads.Following The Orb is "Digital Samsara" with the track "Olhon" from the album "Blue Beryll". Digital Samsara is a mutli talented group of world-fusion inspired artists. The band comprises of four main members but expands out further on live outings. Currently they have 3 great studio albums and last I heard were working on a fourth. However, given that their label "Cosmic Event" seem to have disappeared without trance , that might not come to fruition. They are still around doing festival and live performance shows. Let's hope we can listen to more great tunes from these guys in the not too distant future.
Next up is "Stress Assassin" [ a.k.a Henrik Jonsson ]. This tune is from his his second CD "Carriertrack". I've featured a few Stress Assassin tracks in past mixes so for more info hit up the PsyAmb search options. I would like to mention however that although Stress Assassin seems to be finished as a project for Henrik you can still find him doing other great work these days through his "Porn,Sword Tobacco" moniker as well as various masterings on labels such as "Labrador". Oh, one more tidbit - his first classic ambient dub CD "Within The Office Of Eye And Ear" is now available as a very affordable download over at "Dubmission Records".
The next tunes comes from "Babaji" with his track "Smiling Buddha" from the compilation "Chilled Trance - Blissed Out Beats / Mind Cooling Meltdowns" - a massive 4CD offering from Rumour Records back in 2000. Babji is none other than ambient wizard "Matt Hillier" of ISHQ fame. It's almost a full-time job trying to keep up with all the monikers Matt has used over the past. The Babaji one was only used on this single track which I've noticed he has done quite a bit of in the past. Anyway , some good news is that Matt announced that an all new ISHQ CD is due for release soon ! More sublime subaquatic sonic sojourns ! Yeah !
After that is "Aznyte Falls" by "Tom Middleton". A classically trained pianist and cellist, Middleton worked in the early 1990s with "Richard D. James" [Aphex Twin ], co-producing "En-Trance To Exit" on the "Analogue Bubblebath" EP for Exeter's influential "Mighty Force Records". This was followed by his first solo outing, "My Splendid Idea", under the name Schizophrenia for the same label.Soon after, he teamed up with Mark Pritchard. The pair recorded under a host of pseudonyms, including the popular "Reload" , "Global Communication" , and "Jedi Knights" (electro funk and house music), plus lesser-known aliases Chameleon and Link & E621. Global Communication's 1994 ambient album 76:14 is widely considered to be a classic in the ambient electronic scence.
Aside from Schizophrenia, Tom's solo projects include The Modwheel (experimental house music), Cosmos (progressive house music) and AMBA (ambient/classical). In Summer of 2007, Middleton abandoned the AMBA moniker, while still focusing on the ambient genre fusing classical traditions with electronica, featuring orchestral, choral and electro acoustic arrangements.
Predominantly using the Cosmos and Modwheel monikers (and his own name) Middleton has remixed numerous artists including Kerri Chandler, Orbital, Kylie Minogue, Coldplay, Underworld, Fluke, Super Collider, Prince, Spiller, Model 500, The Beloved, Rob Dougan, Pulp, Leftfield, Ian Pooley, Dubtribe Sound System, All Saints, Goldfrapp, Lamb, Röyksopp, Gotan Project, Amp Fiddler, Mighty Dub Katz, Bebel Gilberto and Orbital.
Next we have a tune from Kiwi "Paddy Free". Paddy Free began fooling around with a Roland SH-101 in 1985, three months after leaving school and starting his first real job. The purchase of a delay pedal followed soon after and he discovered the joys of repeating a three-note sequence while moving the knobs in time to the music. However this was New Zealand, not Detroit and so the underground sound of North Shore techno never quite made it into the public consciousness. Having had lessons in the use of all ten fingers some years earlier, it wasn't too long before he was playing keyboards in pub bands all over the North Shore.Packing in his day job in 1989 he was let loose for three years on children's live-to-air television (TV3's The Earlybird Show and Ya Hoo) which would later lead to a lucrative career writing musical satire for several NZ comedy series - some of them quite funny. (That Comedy Show, Comedy Central, Pulp Comedy)
This lighthearted buffoonery was to end in 1994 when Paddy was employed as programmer on an album Killing Joke were recording in NZ - "Pandemonium" produced by dance music guru Youth. Six weeks of impossibly loud guitars and an unwitting introduction to the lysergic universe changed everything. Paddy immediately began to get serious about music and work as a programmer/engineer/producer with many of the big names of the New Zealand music industry such as Crowded House, Neil Finn, Supergroove, Emma Paki, Stellar*, Oceania, and Salmonella Dub. Paddy was nominated for Best Producer at the NZ Music Awards for his work on Salmonella Dub's "Inside the Dub Plates" and was awarded Best Engineer.
In 1996 Paddy was a founding member of Mesh, a "live organic techno" band combining dancefloor technology with traditional Pacific instruments. Firm favourites in Auckland's emerging dance scene, Mesh impressed punters with their high energy live gigs and innovative sound. The band was to break up after two intense years but Paddy's love of the energy and rhythms of Pacific music continues in his solo project. Oh and let's not forget he is also one half of "Pitch Black" - the all conquering NZ techno dub trance legends who put on the best live shows you are ever likely to groove to.The next track is from "Enuui" and also features input from "Greg Hunter" and "Mauxuam" of "Cloudcycle" project fame. As in keeping with the Cloudcycle free music/donation policy , this track and many others can be downloaded from the downloads page of the Cloudcycle website.
After Ennui is The Godfather Brian of ambient music, "Brian Eno", with a tune from an old compilation series I picked up 10 years ago or so titled "OHM: The Early Gurus Of Electronic Music". It has an odd assortment of tunes spread over 3 CDs and some of them are real gems.
"Stellardrone" is a pseudonym of amateur composer Edgaras from Lithuania,who started creating music in 2007. Using only computer software (Reason, Ableton) and virtual synthesizers. He is mostly interested in ambient/electronic/space music. Such as can be found on labels like Ultimae. Edgaras releases all his music for free too so check his links [here] and [here] to get your hands on some rather excellent free music.
Following on is "Makyo" [ Giovanni Fazio ] based in Tokyo. This tune comes from his 1999 debut CD titled "Rasa Bhava" . A truly epic album full of eastern mysticism and tribal trance inducing rhythms.Once of my all time favorite CDs to be sure. Makyo has been fairly quiet lately on the music production side of things but he has been busy putting on gigs around Japan as well as playing out at some of the major international festivals.
"Elysium" is the work of Kristian Andersen, a veteran in the international electronic music scene. He has many releases on legendary labels such as R&S Records sub label Labyrinth [1994-1995] and as Elysium on Nova Zembla [1995-1998)] and has travelled the world playing as an artist and DJ at many legendary clubs and festivals. While working as a freelance A&R for Polygram, Kris started out as a professional DJ in London in 1990 in the acid house scene and when he returned to Copenhagen it was the beginning of a long international music career into tribal trance, electronica and techno. A career that once again took him back to London where he lived from 1996-98 while playing all over the world and producing and remixing at the legendary Butterfly Studio in London.
After a break from 2002 - 2005 Kris went back to the house scene and is currently busy with his projects under his own name, his techno project Rymdfunk and deep house/tech project Andersen & Borelli with longtime friend and producer Jean Borelli. This tune comes from a re-release of his CD called "Regenerated" from 2009 with the original recording released in 2002. This also comes from one of the many fine free CDs on offer at Ektoplazm music.
Next is "Hybrid Leisureland" with the track "Exit Unreality" from the CD "Scroll Side". Hybrid Leisureland [Hidetoshi Koizumi] , is a Japanese artist based in Tokyo who began his musical career in 1995. "I picture the original world, investigate my own, and express it as delicate whispers...". notes Hidetoshi. His music is incredibly light and fragile, an ambient electronica fused with environmental sounds-capes and contrasted atmospheres.Finally we close out this set with a my favorite tune from "Biosphere". Biosphere is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen, a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalogue of ambient electronic music. He is well known for his ambient techno and arctic ambient styles, his use of music loops, and peculiar samples from sci-fi sources. His track "Novelty Waves" was used for the 1995 campaign of Levi's. His 1997 album "Substrata" [on which this track appears] was voted by "Hyperreal" as one of the all time classic ambient albums. His latest release is "Wireless: Live at the Arnolfini", his first live album, containing new tracks such as "Pneuma I & II".
Jenssen has also scored a number of films, including Eternal Stars [1993] and Insomnia [1997]. He collaborated with German ambient composer Pete Namlook on Fires of Ork, and has also worked with Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart and with Bobby Bird of Higher Intelligence Agency. Jenssen is also an active climber and mountaineer. This hobby is an inspiration on his work, as well as a source of natural sound samples. His highest feat was in 2001, climbing the Cho Oyu (Himalaya, 8201 meters) without oxygen; in 2006, he thus released Cho Oyu 8201m – Field Recordings From Tibet [as Geir Jenssen].
And that's it for this mix. A nice long chilled ambient journey that can be used for as relaxing sleep music, chilling out background sounds, music for studying or anything else you can image. Cheerio 8)
Artist - Track
http://psy-amb.blogspot.com
- 01. Proton Kinoun - Skyward Dreams
- 02. The Orb - Oopa
- 03. Digital Samsara - Olhon
- 04. Stress Assassin - Raumwelt Signal
- 05. Smiling Buddah - Babaji
- 06. Tom Middleton - Aznyte Falls
- 07. Paddy Free - Roimata Toroa
- 08. Enuui - Chimbre (feat. Mauxuam & Greg Hunter)
- 09. Brian Eno - Unfamiliar Winds (Leeks Hills)
- 10. Stellardrone - On A Beam Of Light
- 11. Makyo - A Piece Of Forgotten Song / Drifting Across The Water
- 12. Elysium - Utterances From The North
- 13. Hybrid Leisureland - Exist Unreality
- 14. Biosphere - Hyperborea
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