In honor of the third season of Stranger Things dropping today, Low Light Mixes presents Stranger Synths 2019. This a retro synth mix that falls right in line with the synth sounds of Netflix's Stranger Things series.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 Just A Human - Stranger Things Remix
  

One of my favorite discoveries over the past year has been Innesti. The last album, released in February, is called Formless and that describes perfectly the music of Innesti. The tunes have a hazy, meandering feel that I love in ambient music.

Today Innesti releases a new album - Between Worlds, which I am very excited about. To celebrate this new release we have a new mix from Innesti created for Low Light Mixes. The new mix is called Levitate and here is what the artist has to say about it:

"This mix is designed to showcase some recent ambient releases from 2019. The soundscapes are introspective, quiet, and restorative, and should be ideal for reading, sleeping, or meditating."   

Check out Innesti music here:

https://innesti.bandcamp.com/

I'm playing the new album for the first time as I type this and it's wonderful! 

Thanks for the great music and beautiful mix!

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00    Innesti - Oars Divide the Ocean (Between Worlds)

05:03    anthéne - Lost Channel (Lost Channel)

08:40    Bzaurie - Flight of Pollen (Floral Patterns)

13:50    Tabard - Garden Palace (Garden Palace)

17:45    扎克 - Radiance (扎克)

21:35    Eternell & endlesstrains - Elevation (Autumn Sky)

25.19    Kenji Kihara - Hayama Ambient 001 (Hayama Ambient 001)

30:00    end

I made a list of my favorite ambient albums of the first half of 2019 and noticed that there were 6 releases from the Whitelabrecs label on it. Harry Towell, who records as Spheruleus, runs Whitelabrecs and he has done a great job expanding the roster of artists and getting better and better every year.

So to celebrate all these excellent recordings I decided to make a mix using all 2019 Whitelabrecs releases. You can find Whitelabrecs on Bandcamp here...

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/music

Here are all the albums used in this mix...

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/odd

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/the-other-gold-side

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/suspended-in-silence

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/any-given-moment

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/asymmetry

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/vihne-2

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/gr-nland

https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/sleeplaboratory10

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    anthene - lucky(asymmetry 2019)

The 18th installment in the Sunday Morning Music series is here.  It starts with one of my favorite albums of the year - Spirit by Rhye. It's so beautiful and intimate. From there we get some more pretty tunes because that's what I want on Sunday morning - no dark ambient drones here, just pretty and calm.

All the tracks are fairly new - the oldest being from 2016, while most are from this year.

Sunday morning musings - the cover pic of a cup of coffee reminded me of something. I've noticed in a lot of the science fiction I read that coffee is very important to a lot of characters in sci-fi stories. Many times it's in a post-apocalyptic world and coffee has become rare, a character finds a stash of coffee and it's like striking gold. Or a character is in space and has been traveling for a long time and finally gets to a location that has coffee and again it's like they have found the holy grail. This type of thing happens more often than I would have expected. I wonder if it's because writers drink lots of coffee as they write and they know that coffee is the world's most wonderful liquid(right behind beer).

Grab some coffee, interstellar or not, and take a listen to this latest mix.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Rhye - Awake(Spirit 2019)

I am excited to bring you another beautifully curated mix from Paul Asbury Seaman. Anyone who has been to this blog in the last couple of years should be familiar with Paul's excellent mixes. The most recent of which was a train mix from a couple of months ago...

http://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2019/03/places-ive-never-beenode-to-high-speed.html

This collection of tunes is a tribute to one of Paul's favorite artists, Hollan Holmes.

https://hollanholmes.bandcamp.com/

Here's what Paul has to say about this mix:

“The Hearts of Space radio program wasn’t named after Hollan Holmes, but it could have been. His music is infused with both awe and a tenderness not often found in space music, which is all the more impressive given that he uses no acoustic instruments. This mix, in honor of Holmes’s soon-to-be-released seventh album, includes two tracks by Richard Burmer, a primary influence on Holmes, and two by fellow Spotted Peccary artist, Massergy. (Note: Cover artwork for this mix was created by and through the courtesy of Hollan Holmes, from his forthcoming album, MILESTONES.)”

Thanks Paul!

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Hollan Holmes - Darkness and Light(Prayer to the Energy 2017)

I love the film, Arrival, so I should have thought of this myself. But a listener commented on my Blade Runner alternative mix that I should do an alternative mix for Arrival. Yes!

So here it is - An Alternative Arrival Soundtrack. I absolutely love Johann Johannsson's original soundtrack, probably one of my top two or three soundtracks of all time. So this mix is not attempting to make something that I think is better than his score. It's sort of a supplement to the original, a collection of tracks that fit with the style of the original.

 All of the tunes are newer than the original soundtrack, which came out in 2016. All the tunes except On The Nature Of Daylight by Max Richter. That amazing track was used to open and close the film. Here I use it in an unusual way - it plays backward then forward at the end of the mix. The film messes with the concept of the passage of time and the Richter track bookends the film to bring events of the end back around to the beginning. So playing it backward then forward kind of does the same thing. And it's crazy how much the track still sounds the same while playing backward.

If you haven't seen the film, go see it. It is definitely one of my top three favorite films of all time. Here's a link to the Blade Runner alternative mix...

https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/alternative-blade-runner-2049-soundtrack/

Cheers!

PS - the tune @ 15:00 is from my son. He did an excellent track for the Blade Runner mix and so I went to him immediately for this mix as well.

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00    Tale Of Us - Alla Sera

04:00    Skamoto - Solari(Johannsson rework)

09:12    Nils Frahm - Kaleidoscope

10:08    Hibernis - The Grape Leaves

15:00    Just A Human - Heptapod(version 1)

17:12    Sakamoto - Disintegration(Alva Noto remodel)

22:10    Ocoeur - Embers

26:05    Ital Tek - Cipher

31:03    Caleb Burhans - Early Music (For a Saturday)

35:20    Vieo Abiungo - The Dregs

36:50    r beny - overgrowth

41:30    Sven Laux & Daniela Orvin - Friends

46:38    Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight(backward)

52:45    Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight(forward)

58:56    end

And now for something completely different. This latest mix is almost, dare I say, dance music. Yikes! Actually it's not like this is EDM/Dubstep with ridiculous drops and autotune vocals. But all the music in this mix definitely has 4/4 time signature.

One of my favorite discoveries over the last couple of years has been the music of Kiasmos, a minimal techno duo comprised of Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen. The music has the 4x4 beat but it's more gentle than full on techno or house music. It's great for keeping pace when out walking the dog.

A few of my other favorites appear in this mix such as Christian Löffler, Recondite and a fantastic cover of Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun."

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Christian Löffler - York

Nine years ago I did a mix of 70s & 80s library music as a soundtrack for underwater exploration. I've always liked the odd vibe of that mix and always wanted to do a follow up. Now it's finally here with Subaquatic Universe.

It's essentially the same formula and sound as the first one. Vibraphone, fender rhodes, flutes and bubbles play a large role in creating this underwater universe. 

While collecting tracks for this mix I came across a bunch of other library music which will make for a great retro 70s sci fi mix which I'll put together later this year.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    John Hyde - Heron

The mix changes gears for the last tune, using sax, acoustics instruments and vocals but Paul thought it would fit well because A) it's called Train and B) it has "the dead-tired but satisfied feeling you have when you get home to your own bed after a long trip."

Cheers and safe travels!

00:00    d'Voxx - Akalla Söder(2019 Télégraphe)

08:44    Rival Consoles - Persona(2018 Persona)

15:06    Stimulus Timbre - We Reached for the Sky(2017 A Place We Never Been)

21:40    Steve Roach - Core Meditation 1(2017 CORE - Legacy Edition)

30:05    Evan Marc & Steve Hillage - Alpha Phase(2008 Dreamtime Submersible)

37:45    Aepiel - Aves(2012 Painting The Sky)

46:20    Stimulus Timbre - Look at the Stars & Think of Us(2017 A Place We Never Been)

51:54    His Name Is Alive - Train(2002 Last Night)

59:10    end

This mix has been brewing in my head for the last couple of years. Basically I've been planning a follow up to the Luminouspaces mix since I posted it in 2016. I finally got going on the sequel a few weeks ago while listening to "Constellations" by Jane Antonia Cornish. It's an absolutely lovely album. If you like modern classical recordings you'll definitely enjoy it.

The mix begins and ends with a track from Constellations. In between you'll find a collection of modern classical favorites from the last year or two. Like a lot of my mixes, it's a beautiful compilation with a tinge of melancholy.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Jane Antonia Cornish - Beyond The Sky(Constellations 2018)