When Daniel wrote that he had a new mix based around silence I knew it would be good. Then I saw the tracklist and I knew it would be great. He includes cuts from some of my favorite artists - Halftribe, Innesti, Sonmi451, Loscil, and A Produce. The A Produce track is one of my favorite ambienbt tracks of all time.

Here's what Daniel says about his new mix:

Claude Debussy once wrote: “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between them”, suggesting that music's emotional impact, beauty, and expression come from the pauses and spacing between sounds.  The first thing I think of is Eno’s classic Music for Airports - man did I fall in love with that album.  Roach’s Dream Circle comes to mind - low and slow - the music just seems to breathe.  Of course you have the steady state drone stuff from Grassow and friends, which I like - but there is no real structure - that’s the point I guess.  I tried to pick work for this mix that had at least a bit of melody, but plenty of silence to define the notes.  There is a sweet spot that when achieved sends me at least into a deep peaceful space.  I’m thinking we all need to spend some time in that space these days to recharge and nurture our sanity.  Hoping this mix might help with that my friends.

 Thanks, Daniel, for another excellent mix.

Cheers!

 T R A C K L I S T :

I bought a new mac mini recently and I have been transferring a ton of music to the new system. While cruising through the old files I discovered a folder called "NETLABELS." It's a fascinating collection of music the 2000s that was released on what were then known as "netlabels". I had a ball listening to some of it so I decided to make a mix. 

There was a lot of music to sort through so I decided to focus on two of my favorite labels - Thinner & Autoplate. Thinner, based in Frankfurt, Germany, released music from 2001 to 2009. They were one of the most consistent and successful netlabels. Thinner’s catalogue includes releases from artists such as Digitalverein, Marko Fürstenberg, Benfay, Pheek, krill.minima, Vladislav Delay, Christian Bloch and many others. As of September 2006, Thinner productions had accumulated over two million MP3 downloads. Thinner had a sublabel called Autoplate, focusing on experimental and ambient music. 

Thinner on Scene.org

Autplate on Archive.org

Autoplate on Scene.org

I hope you get a kick out of this trip back to the aughts. Cheers!

I haven't had much time or been motivated to create new mixes so far in the new year. But there's nothing like sub-zero temperatures and being cooped up indoors to get one in the mood for a good wintry mix. The temperature as I type this is -15 degrees with a wind chill of -40. 🥶

I've done these frigid temps themed mixes before and I'm always surprised at how well they come together. I start by simply searching for tracks with certain keywords - frozen, cold, frigid, ice, wind, winter, etc. and then try to use mostly tunes from 2025. This mix is a bit different than others because it turns toward warmth in the last few tracks - "Warmer Light," "Threads of Warmth," and "Warmth". I hope that by ending the mix on a warmer note that I may manifest higher temps.

Stay warm and cheers!

One of my favorite genre rabbit holes that I went down in 2025 was instrumental rock music. That title covers a lot of styles from post-rock to stoner rock to prog rock to cosmic country to fusion to psych rock etc. I've always listened to music that falls into this category whether it's Khruangbin or Causa Sui or Oren Ambarchi but this year my interest in this genre exploded. 

So I thought I would create a mix of some of my favorite instrumental rock albums from 2025. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the heavy stuff. This mix has a nice blend of a few heavy tunes with some Khruangbin-like tracks, a couple kraut rock style tracks, a jam band cut, a prog tune, even a dub track, and a bunch of other difficult to categorize music. 

>>>LINKS TO ALL THE MUSIC USED IN THIS MIX<<<

01 - https://actiontensionspace.bandcamp.com/album/new-dimensions

02 - https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/yawning-man-pavement-ends

03 - https://ambarchiberthlingwerliin.bandcamp.com/album/ghosted-iii

04 - https://elparaisorecords.com/product/causa-sui-in-flux/

05 - https://piotrkurek.bandcamp.com/album/songs-and-bodies

06 - https://elparaisorecords.com/product/edena-gardens-dispossessed/

07- https://barrywalker.bandcamp.com/album/barry-walker-unit-at-the-13th-moon-gravity-well

08 - https://jeffthebrotherhood.bandcamp.com/album/magick-songs

09 - https://kungensman.bandcamp.com/album/resande-i-rockmusik

10 - https://markusreuter.bandcamp.com/album/truce-3

11 - https://re-stoned.bandcamp.com/album/the-loom-maxi-single

12 - https://townportal.bandcamp.com/album/grindwork

13 - https://holmisanisland.bandcamp.com/album/behind-curtains

14 - https://yuuf.bandcamp.com/album/alma-s-cove

15 - https://eliwinter.bandcamp.com/album/a-trick-of-the-light

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

"Another smorgasbord of what the electronic music scene has to offer these days and another invitation for space travelling! It's an extra long mix given my incapacity to choose from the wide offer of sublime tracks and albums that were released in 2025.

The diversity in styles within this music category is remarkable; synth pop, retro, contemporary and progressive Berlin School, cosmic sound tapestries, contemplative/meditative/emotional (drone) ambient and a lengthy deep house track.

Special mention for two female electronic music artists Andrea Cichecki and Lisa Bella Donna. Unfortunately, women are rare in this line of music, but these ladies more than deserve their place in this mix with thrilling evocative compositions. Check it out & enjoy your trip!"

Happy New Year to everyone and here's to 2026 being another fantastic year of music.

Cheers!

Not much to say in this post other than here is part two of my favorite ambient albums of 2025. I'll also repost the full list here with links.

Alexander Knaifel - Chapter Eight

Almost An Island - Almost An Island

Andrew Heath - Signals and Codes

Anthéne & Simon McCorry - Wellspring

Bill Brennan and Andy McNeill - Dreaming In Gamelan

Byron Metcalf - Spiral Exchange

Clarice Jensen - In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness

Dictaphone - Unstable

Emily A. Sprague - Cloud Time

Erik M - Soft Wish

Florian TM Zeisig - A New Life

Lab's Cloud and Flavio Salvaje - Kalima

Loneward - Musings of a Painted Sky

M. Sage - Tender / Wading

Martin Stürtzer - Nexus-6

offthesky - form.radio

offthesky - Nocturnas

Peter Gregson - Peter Gregson

Rod Modell - Northern Michigan Snowstorms

Seabuckthorn - A Path Within A Path

Six Missing - Without Mind

Steve Roach - The Reverent Sky

Taylor Deupree & Zimoun - Wind Dynamic Organ, Deviations

Xu - Murmurs of the Machine

Yorkshire Modular Society + Peter Digby Lee - Beneath the Hanging Sky

zakè - Silentium

When end-of-the-year list season began I wasn't sure if I was going to do a favorite ambient albums list. I wasn't as locked into ambient as much this year as in the past. I spent most of my listening time in indie, jazz, and berlin-school. I had several ambient albums that would for sure make my list so I started with those and the next thing I knew - I had a list of 26 albums that are my 2025 favorites.

Here are my favorite ambient albums of 2025, in alphabetical order:

I made two mixes so it will be a little easier to digest. This post is for part one. I hope you enjoy this look back at 2025.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

This is a mix I originally created back in December of 2006, during my first year of posting mixes online. This one never made its way to Mixcloud so I figured, with all the cold and snow I'm getting in my neck of the woods, now would be a good time to resurrect this set. The original post here on the blog has a bad link to the mp3 so I wanted to post it her as well.

It's interesting to see the artists that I was listening to at the time. Such as Freescha, Svalastog, Yellow 6, Klimek, and the track by Clint Mansell from the soundtrack to The Fountain, which I was absolutely obsessed with for a few years.

Every tune has one of these words...snow, winter, cold, frozen, ice, or freezing, in the title. Btw, the pic is my mom, taken in the mid 1970s. :-) 

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00 Scott Solter - The Great Cold

http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2024/10/a-moon-full-of-stars-and-astral-cars-by.html

https://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2025/01/we-did-it-again-by-andy-mcneillmaple.html

Andy has a new album out, under his own name, that is a little different from his other recordings. That new album is the inspiration for this new mix which is really something special. I'll let Andy tell you about it:

Between Erwin Broers & Paul Asbury Seaman I have been exposed to a ton of excellent berlin-school music over the last couple years. Erwin continues his great string of mixes with this new one featuring the music of Wolfram Spyra. I was totally unfamiliar with this music before hearing this mix and now I'm thankful for the introduction.

Here's what Erwin says about this mix:

"In the mid-1990s, when interest for 'Kosmische Musik' (German)/'Cosmic Music' (English) regained, some Electronic Music artists chose to dig deeper into that first highly creative era, hence starting the 'Retro Berlin School' subgenre. Other artists merely borrowed certain elements (multi-facetted sequencing, layered soundscapes, space fx, Mellotron choirs,...) and then added their own spices to the sauce. 

One of the artists that managed to create his own style of contemporary "Berlin School Electronic Music" is the German Fine Arts student (then), and musician, inventor and sound designer (now, dixit his own website) Wolfram Spyra (Kassel, 1964), aka "Der Spyra" or simply "Spyra". His style is somewhere between floating, rhythmic, meditative, downtempo and groovy, yes almost danceable. A very interesting blend of old skool and modern electronic ingredients!

This mix is a chronological overview of 20 years of releases from 1997 till 2018."

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :