Characterised by space, abandonment and dormancy, ‘Tegelbacken Nightlights’ takes its cues from urban decay. Crafted around a shifting scene of emptiness and dereliction, light and dark are intertwined, shifting between night and day; letting the darkness seep and the light carve through.
It’s a slow, languorous metamorphosis that revels in eerie sensibilities created by creaks and groans, ominous echoed footsteps and an unmistakeable sense of isolation. But it’s one that’s built on exploration and an acceptance of being engulfed by the unknown; of going deeper into a place that only serves to pull you further away from the familiar.
Within it all, there’s also unintentional beauty, the sort that can only be unwittingly appreciated or uncovered and it makes ‘Tegelbacken Nightlights’ a foreboding ode to the everyday. Inspired by the prospect of regeneration and recovery, even in the greyest wastelands, there’s hope. This is a tribute to finding salvation in the forgotten. (Words by Reef Younis).
isolatedmix 27 – DF Tram & Rich-Ears: Earth Apogee
It’s been an extended period since the last isolatedmix from Loscil, mainly because i’ve been focused on getting the Places Series off to go a good start. But also, as with all isolatedmixes, they don’t come around too often and I make a conscious effort to reserve the series for producers, DJ’s or artists that have a profound influence on me, be it recently or many moons ago.
Rich-Ears, with his many mixes, tribute sets and mind-bending journeys (half of which have featured on ASIP over the years), definitely falls into this category. His curations are reminders of just how expansive ambient, chill and electronica can be. They are packed full of crate-diggers gems and nostalgic samples. There isn’t a set that goes by without new music to my ears, classics re-emerging or favourites re-imagined.
And like all good journeys, it’s better experienced with a good friend. Rich-Ears’ parallel mind from across the ocean, DF Tram, joins him on this one, to rekindle a very special partnership which was evidently brilliant through their last masterpiece, Lunar Fizz.
This mix, titled Earth Apogee, is another dive into a vivid spectrum of ambient, chill, downtempo and samples that co-exist between two die-hard music fans. Their collections are expansive, their taste immaculate and this mix is a testament to their extensive music libraries and skills in curating a all-immersing musical journey.
Tracklist:
01. David Axelrod – The Warnings Part 1
02. David Axelrod – The human abstract
03. Carlos Niño -Rabbit Island Featuring Jesse Petersen
04. DF Tram & Future BC -Sonic Breakfast
05. Brian Eno & David Byrne – America is waiting (DF Tram edit)
06. Donovan – Barabajagal
07. Air – Modular mix
08. Ursula Rucker – 7 (feat. M.A.D.)
09. Carlos Ciño and Miguel Atwood Ferguson – Fall In Love
10. Mort Garson – Symphony for a Spider Plant
11. Wild Rumpus feat. Cosmo and Gary Lucas – Tikkety boo
12. Animat – Gogo’s dub (DF Tram & Future BC remix)
13. The Doors – Riders of the storm (DF Tram’s Dirty Windows edit)
14. Sense – Praise
15. Linah Rocio / Gigi Masin – Love Letter
16. Gigi Masin / Charles Hayward – Clouds
17. Daphne Oram – Lego Builds It
18. Kid Koala – Emperors Main Course In Cantonese
19. Abel – Skipping Puddles
20. Small Black – Intro
21. Schubotter – No Healing Through Pharma
22. XNTR – Bell Mountain
23. DF Tram & Future BC – Rue De Musique
24. Unknown – Nude Interlude #1 (Kinky Ladies of Bourbon Street)
25. Lush – Stray (Hole In The Sky Mix)
26. Amorphous Androgynous – Another Fairy Tale Ending
27. Barbarix – With Every Waterfall Comes A Rainbow
28. Dave Greening & Owsey – Purgatory (Owsey cover)
29. Scanner – Sounds Of Love
30. Kid Koala – Vacation Island
31. Eprom – If
32. Loop Guru – Katmandu…Crab People…
33. Ajanta – Perception of Time
34. The Normalites – The Sun Rising (Afterlife Remix)
35. Maps & Diagrams – Jupiter Incidental
36. Pharaoh Sanders – Astral Travelling (Boozoo Bajou Remix)
37. Saturn Never Sleeps – DRK
38. ActivePhaze – Soaring (Deep Haki Remix Pt2)
39. Maurizio Miceli – The Hope
40. The Orb – Pluto Calling (Twinkle)
41. The Beatles – A Day In The Life (Terminus/JFK Edit)
42. The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band – Yellow Submarine
Rich Ears Soundcloud | Twitter | Facebook
DF Tram Soundcloud | Twitter | Facebook
Artwork photo courtesy of Hikaru Funnell http://capturecollect.co.uk/
Helios - Moeity
Released last week to everyone who had signed-up to the website/newsletter and now available to all, Moiety is a new (free) album from Helios, containing eight full length beauties. This isn’t just a free track download, or an album full of one-minute shorts, this is full-on brilliance from Keith which you’d normally pay good money for, and just take a look at that artwork from Rob Simonson.
If you’re familiar with Keith’s work as Helios, then as an introduction i’d say Moiety is definitely more ambient focused than previous albums such as Unleft or Eingya, but then you could draw similarities with tracks such as ‘Halving The Compass’ or ‘Every Hair On Your Head’ – absolutely fine by me I hear you say; these are two of my favourite tracks!
I would encourage everyone to sign-up to the Unseen Music website or follow Helios on Facebook, as Keith is always giving work away – from advert scores to full albums and work under his other monikers, Goldmund and Mint Julep.
Download here (in both MP3 and FLAC).
Listen to Helios’ isolatedmix.
ASIP – 1.00.00
Do you have an hour? This is where we are going. Some place different.
The ambient music has gone for this one. The closest you’re getting is the first two tracks, but this quickly changes. I started this mix with the intention of producing a journey full of repetitive, melodic electronic music. That was the brief to myself: repetitive and melodic. But as always, given it was closing in on 3am and I had a few beers by my side, this quickly changed and turned into a set that i’d play, or at least want to hear if I was stood surrounded by hundreds of people in the desert with the sun slowly descending behind the dusty mountains [insert your moment of escapism here].
I dag into quite a few old records and looking back at the track listing, quite a few of them are big inspirations of mine (and for many others i’m sure), and especially influential in not only getting me into ‘techno’ (or more club orientated music), but served as introductions to a completely different musical world. If it wasn’t for this early Paul Kalkbrenner remix, I would never have stumbled across SInce 77 – one of my favourite tech-ambient tracks of all time. If it wasn’t for Donnacha Costello’s Colour Series (of which Grape features), I would never have discovered his earlier ambient (and more recent) productions. Same with Jesse Somfay, his 2005 album, ‘Between Heartbeats‘ is still some of his best work yet in my opinion, and without this, there would’ve been no introduction to Borealis (or one of his many other guises of today).
Anyway, you get what i’m saying… there’s an underlying inspiration to this mix, be it in my eyes only, but I hope you can find it and enjoy it with me.
Tracklist:
01. Jon Hopkins – Amphora (Unreleased)
02. Âme – Doldrums (2008)
03. Ellen Allien & Apparat – Jet (Paul Kalkbrenner Remix) (2006)
04. Donnacha Costello – Grape (2004)
05. Kollektiv Turmstrasse – Heimat (Robag Wruhme’s Turmkolle Rekksmow) (2011)
06. The Field – Everday (2009)
07. Pantha Du Prince – Saturn Strobe (2007)
08. Andre Lodemann – Where Are You Now? (2009)
09. Roland Klinkenberg – Mexico Can Wait (2007)
10. Jesse Somfay – Walking Through Rain On Cloudless Days (2005)
11. Fuck Buttons – Space Mountain (2009)
ASIP002 enh - Roke
Living in an old B&B in a tiny village on the Pacific Coast of Japan sounds pretty idyllic; the perfect place to create music to a backdrop of natural coastal beauty and the nostalgic romanticism of a building with a million stories. But as ‘Roke’ displays, it’s an existence that’s balanced with the regular threat of something wild, uncontrollable and destructive.
Born from finding a semblance of beauty in terror, it’s the literal calm following the typhoon after which it is named. Combining a live recording of the house’s, creaking, defiant resistance, the droning ambience and the windswept elements create a track that’s both beautiful and unsettling. The structure’s stresses and moans add the familiarity of feeling safe as nature rages outside but here, there’s only ominous comfort.
Wracked with an unobtrusive power, ‘Roke’ is the wide-eyed contrast between the vexing aftermath and the trepidation that the worst is yet to come. Gripping to the end, it’s the tense triumph of potentially losing everything but the relief of finding shelter when you need it most. (Words by Reef Younis).