I saw the film Annihilation on opening weekend and really liked it. It was directed by the same guy that directed Ex Machina and has the same crew doing the score. While I didn't like it quite as much as my favorite sci-fi film of the last few years, Arrival, I did like it quite a bit. And I especially loved the score. It goes seamlessly from acoustic guitar to synthetic noises to creepy choral sounds. It's great.

So of course I had to make my own interpretation of the soundtrack, just like I did for Blade Runner 2049. I liked how that one turned out so much that I knew immediately after seeing Annihilation that I'd soon be making a mix.

I started collecting a few tunes for the mix but it wasn't until I found "Elemental Shimmer" by Robert Davies that the project really took off.  The music from Davies' album is perfect for setting the scene and it's even more appropriate because it's got the word "Shimmer" in the title.  The Shimmer is the anomaly enveloping "area x" that the scientists enter to try and figure what the heck is going on.

ROBERT DAVIES - ELEMENTAL SHIMMER

Making these alternative soundtracks is a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll be doing more in the future. I hope you like this one.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Robert Davies - Honeysuckle Vapour

I wanted to get a snow themed mix in before winter starts to wane. So here it is.  

 Most of the tracks have the word snow in the title.  Anytime I can use a tune from Yagya's "Rhythm of Snow" I'll gladly take it.

 Looking forward to a new guest mix in the coming weeks and a mix featuring delicate micro-sounds from 10 years ago.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Blamstrain - Tundra V

Johann Johannsson died on Friday, February 9, 2018.

Devastating. 

I absolutely adored his compositions.

I am at a complete loss for what to say about his music. So rather than try I made this mix.

Because I cross post all these mixes over on Mixcloud I am not able to make a mix with nothing but Johannsson music. Mixcloud has a policy of only 4 tracks from a single artist per mix. So I used 4 Johannsson cuts, some of my favs, and music from other artists that I have always grouped together with Johann.

I hope you will listen to this mix and also go seek out Johannsson's awesome library of music that is keeping his memory alive in this world.

Johann Johannsson Complete on Spotify

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Johann Johannsson - The Sun's Gone Dim and The Sky's Turned Black

• 00:00    James Osland - Just Fell Me Dear Human

• 00:00    Alan Hawkshaw - Probe 2

I am starting the year off right with another fantastic mix from my friend Paul Asbury Seaman.  You may remember his previous collections posted here - The Memory of Trains, Floating Through Moonlight, and Icelight.

This mix does a wonderful job of creating a mystical vibe, like the title says, but without being too new agey.  I love the nice long track from Louigi Verona in the middle of the mix.  Here's what Paul has to say about it...

“From the beginning, ambient-electronic music has been almost synonymous with “space music” as well as inward journeys. Whether through post-tribal rhythms or the meditative drones of long-form compositions, this is music designed to facilitate an altered consciousness, or maybe something much less talked about: a sense of reverence. Featuring three of the genre’s “tribal elders,” as well as some more recent masters, this is a mix for gentle meanderings into a space of grounded bliss."

I hope you enjoy Paul's excellent collection of Mystical Ambience."

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    John Serrie - Valley of the Nacoochee(Spirit Keepers 1998)

This mix is less of a best jazz recordings of 2017 and more of a mix of jazz that I enjoyed in 2017.  I don't listen to nearly as much jazz as I do ambient and indie music. But I liked enough releases to come up with an end of the year jazz mix. So here it is.

The year was anchored by two spectacular recordings - Aytche by Joseph Shabason and All This I Do For Glory by Colin Stetson.  I saw Stetson at a small club and was blown away by his sound and technique.  If you get the chance to see him up close definitely go.

There are two albums that I discovered while compiling tracks for my mix, Rhythm of the Rails. Those two are Eternal Stories by Michel Portal & Quator Ebene and Simultonality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society. Both excellent recordings.

Another highlight of 2017 was ECM records putting their entire catalog up on Spotify. I listened to nothing by ECM for a few weeks this fall.

This will probably be my last mix for 2017. I've already started on a guest mix for liftedicons.com that will be fun to put together.  Music definitely helped me get through a messed up 2017. Here's to a great 2018.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Joseph Shabason - Aytche(Aytche)

It's that time of the year again - end of the year Best Of list time!  It's always a difficult task to pick albums for one of these lists.  But it's also fun because I get to sort through a bunch of music and it's definitely cool to have a look at other lists and discover a ton of things I missed.

There is no way these lists are close to being definitive.  A lot of ambient releases can tend to blur from one into the next and the difference between making the list and not making it can boil down to what mood I was in when I first heard the album.  There's so much excellent music being released on a weekly basis it's impossible to keep up so this list and mix is just a bunch of stuff that I liked this past year.

Here are a few other good year in review lists:

http://www.astrangelyisolatedplace.com/blog/2017/12/5/asip-reflection-on-2017

https://irregularcrates.com/2017/12/12/end-of-2017-a-list-and-mix-by-harry-towell/

http://ambientmusicguide.com/best-of-year/best-albums-of-2017/

https://www.popmatters.com/best-ambient-instrumental-albums-2017-2513144740.html?page=2

My best of list is more of a best instrumental music list than just straight ambient.  The mix is mostly ambient but the list contains jazz, instrumental & ambient.  According to my Spotify data I played a lot of 36 last year so it's appropriate that he's got two albums in the top ten. I guess I'm too lazy to write up comments about all the music except to say that there's a lot of good stuff there. So take some time and hunt down these releases, you won't be disappointed. 

BEST INSTRUMENTAL ALBUMS 2017:

1. 36 - Tomorrow’s Explorers

2. Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society - Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society

3. Colin Stetson - All This I Do For Glory

4. Bing and Ruth - No Home of the Mind

5. Joseph Shabason - Aytche

6. Ruven Nunez - Altar of Sunlight

7. Benoit Pioulard - Lingnin Poise and Slow Spark, Soft Spoke

8. Chuck Johnson - Balsams

9. 36 - Black Soma

10. Bibio - Phantom Brickworks

11. Dungen - Haxan(versions by Prins Thomas)

12. Vijay Iyer Sextet - Far From Over

13. Penguin Cafe - The Imperfect Sea

14. Arovane & Hior Chronic - Into My Own

15. Christopher Willits - The Art of Listening

16. Vermont - II

17. High Plains - Cinderland

18. Roedelius and Arnold Kaspar - Einfluss

19. Tonepoet - N/E/W/S

20. Halftribe - Daydreams in Low Fidelity

21. Taylor Dupree - Somi

22. Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference

23. Loess - Pocosin

24. Hior Chronic - Our of the Dust

25. Tale of Use - Endless

26. Saltland - A Common Truth

27. Quatuor Ebene - Eternal Stories

28. Aware - The Book of Wind

29. Grails - Chalace Hymnal

30. The Prairie Lines - Eyes Down Slowdown

If you have a list of your own feel free to leave it in the comments. Or if you just have a favorite or two that you want to recommend please let us know in the comments.

Here's to a, musically, great 2017 & a better 2018.  Cheers!

• 00:00    36 - Poekhali(Tomorrow's Explorers)

Being a science fiction & electronic music geek, it's no surprise that I'm a big fan of the soundtrack for the original Blade Runner film.  When I heard that they'd tabbed Johann Johannsson to do the score for the 2049 film I was very excited.  But then he was pulled from the project & replaced with Hans Zimmer.  While I've actually liked a few of Zimmer's recent scores, I wasn't overly impressed with his music for 2049.  It wasn't that I disliked it.  I think I was just disappointed that it wasn't Johannsson.

My son, however, liked the soundtrack much more than I did.  So much in fact that he went home after seeing the film, created his own track in the 2049 style and sent it to me the next day.  I was impressed with the track and immediately made plans for a Blade Runner mix.

The music here is a collection of tunes that sounds like it fit perfectly in Blade Runner 2049.  In searching for music I was happy to have rediscovered Xerrox, Vol. 2 by Alva Noto, such a great album.  I was also excited to find music and artists I'd not heard before like Ital Tek, Floating Machine & Island People.

Here's a link to my son's track which appears in the mix as track #3 - "Blade Running" by just a human.

https://soundcloud.com/axxmusic/blade-running-master/s-recEt 

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Alva Noto - Xerrox Moonphaser 2