Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Ambient mix - Road trip radio (Ken Kesey's insomnia mix)

Not much more that needs to be said except what the music has to say. This mix was the result of collecting tracks for about 6 months and trying to decide how to fit them together. Two themes stuck out: voices and sleep. To make the first fit it seemed best to go with a changing radio station approach, especially as many tracks where already cut up and splice-like. The second set of tracks come from a pool of albums and thereabouts based around sleep including Jeff Bridges' "Sleeping Tapes", Dasha Rush's exceptional "Sleep Step" album and Frank Rothkamm's "Wiener process" album on Baskaru that doesn't feature sadly as its 24 one hour CDs are a bit beyond my budget. In any case, I always find it interesting the subtle subthemes that seem to come to the surface in music. Synchronicity perhaps?

Maybe as well given the northern heat wave and my difficulty sleeping lately, being somewhere in-between sleep and awake at times it is easy to join the dots and make some conceptual link between unrelated tracks and form a narrative of sorts. The structure is intentionally up and down to near silence to simulate that falling away (expressed as well in such a lovely way by the beautiful Lucy track that did not fit in in full sadly). There is also the intentional repetition of small elements like dreams that repeat or that cut back in when least expected as if exerting their own consciousness.

As always, it was made with Adobe Audition with some cut and paste of tracks to make crude collage re-mixes where necessary. One track is actually one of my own field recordings made from the bedroom window of my good friend Frank Cadorna's house in Harlesden, london in 2003 (recorded on mini disc). It features a rather mythical and crude conversation between two locals early one Sunday morning. Thankfully my machine was ready at the time and I only had to hang the mic out the window to catch them mid row. Frightening and funny. It was also a pleasure to pit Flying Saucer Attack (and their wnderful return) with Jeff Mills, probably the first time ever in a mix I imagine, as well as realise that AMP, another Bristol (or ex-Bristol) group are still in business with new music soon.



Enjoy and above all get some good, clean, healthy sleep.



Number
Artist
Track
Label
Year
1
To Rococo Rot & I-Sound
A number of things
City Slang
2001
2
Anna Caragnano & Donato Dozzy
Introduzione
Spectrum Spools
2015
3
Felix K
Tragedy of the Commons
Blackest Ever Black
2015
4
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Supertramp
Creation
1998
5
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Black
Creation
1998
6
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Fizzy
Creation
1998
7
Ilitch
Voyage (Limit Speed Desintegration)
Oxygene / Fractal
1978 / 2000
8
Monolake
Inwards
Monolake / Imbalance Computer Music
2014
9
Lydia Lunch, Zahra Mani, Mia Zabelka
Bloodlust and oblivion
Monotype Records
2013
10
Biosphere
The Third planet (sample only)
Volume / Biophon
1994 / 2014
11
Pole
Lachen
Kiff SM
1998
12
Stephanie Sykes
Hypo
Fullpanda Records
2014
13
Loscil
Luna
Not On Label (Loscil Self-released)
2015
14
Jeff Bridges
Sleep. Dream. Wakeup
Not On Label (Jeff Bridges Self-released)
2015
15
Dasha Rush
Lumiere Avant Midi
Raster Noton
2015
16
恢复
2814
Dream Catalogue™
2015
17
Hexagon
Illuminated Atoms
Transcendent
2013
18
Light Sleepers
Side of the road flashback
Shimmering Moods
2015
19
Lucy
Falling (sample only)
Stroboscopic Artefcts
2014
20
Campbell Irvine
Terms Of Propaganda
Infrastructure New York
2015
21
Cabeza de Vaca
Field recording: Harlesden , London 2003 (Go to sleep crack head)
Dullsville Records
2003 / 2015
22
Flying Saucer Attack
Instrumental #6
Domino
2015
23
Jeff Mills
Us and them
Axis
2014
24
Anthony Child
Over Napoli
Downwards
2014
25
Lydia Lunch, Zahra Mani, Mia Zabelka
Medusa´s ghost
Monotype Records
2013
26
Leyland Kirby
Eventually, It Eats Your Lungs
History Always Favours The Winners
2011
27
Echo Grid
Damage
Shimmering Moods
2015
28
AMP
Sense
Ampbase.Net
2011
29
Yui Onodera
Sigure
Arctic Tone
2015
30
Biosphere
Cloudwalker II
Origo Sound / Biophon
1991 / 2015
31
Ilitch
Voyage (Limit Speed Desintegration)
Oxygene / Fractal
1978 / 2000
32
David Shea
#6
Room 40
2015