One of my favorite things about making these mixes for ten years is the people I've come in contact with.  I stay in touch with folks from Ireland, The Netherlands, Canada, Brazil or just down the road in Chicago. 

This mix comes from one these online friends, Josh Furey.  He did a previous guest mix for Low Light Mixes called Cartridge, which you can find here...

Cartridge - an 8-bit Adventure  He recently reached out about a new mix & I of course jumped at the chance to showcase another of his mixes. 

I'll let Josh tell you about it...

As a relative newcomer to ambient music in 2012, I was immensely lucky to stumble across Low Light Mixes. It can be pretty overwhelming when you start to explore a new genre of music and over the years Low Light Mixes  has supplied me with a wildly diverse mix of ambient music to enjoy while also serving as an amazing resource for the genre music that now dominates any playlist I put together.

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00 - Exerpt from Blade Runner

• 0:00    Arovane - A Secret

• 00:00    Tilman Robinson - Bathed in Her

The title of this mix pretty much says it all - this is a collection of excellent tracks from excellent science fiction films.  

This isn't meant to be definitive as in "The Best SciFi Soundtracks of All Time!"  It's just some of my favorite music from some of my favorite sci fi films.  I purposely stayed away from stuff like Star Wars, Star Trek, Close Encounters and 2001.  Those are a little too recognizable and most of the time don't fit with the ambient feel of this mix.

I just had to start the mix with what may be my all time favorite sci fi soundtrack - Solaris by Cliff Martinez.  I like the movie pretty well but the soundtrack is what really made that film for me.  Another soundtrack that I absolutely had to include is Arrival from Johann Johannsson.  Easily my favorite film of last year and the soundtrack made me love it even more.  A lot of the music in this mix is fairly new, released within the last ten years or so.  The exception being the tracks from Blade Runner and Dune.

Are there any sci fi soundtracks that I should check out for further mixes?  Any favorite sci fi film music that you have?  Let me know in the comments.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Cliff Martinez - First Sleep(Solaris)

I think the last time I posted a snow mix I said that when I think of music to go with snow I think of piano music.  Maybe it's from years of hearing Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts Christmas album or George Winston's December album.  Whatever the reason, I immediately go to the piano for snow music.

So that is again the dominant instrument in this mix.  Most of the music here is fairly new which includes the Roedelius tune from 2015 - "Gently Falling Snow."  Obviously I stole the title for this mix but I think this collection really does have a nice feeling of "gently falling snow."

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Sonmi451 - I Didn't Know That Cats Could Grin

Every year I make two lists of my favorites albums of the year.  One list is generally indie music and the other is ambient/instrumental.  Even though I have a difficult time deciding on the final group it is easier coming up with the indie list than it is for ambient.  Maybe it's because after a year of music they all tend to blur together and sound the same.  There are definitely some stand outs, like the two releases from Johann Johannsson this year.  But generally it's tough to make a list because there are a lot of quality recordings every year.

As hard as it is, it's still a lot of fun digging through a ton of releases to find my favorites and then out them together in a coherent mix.  The tracks don't appear in any particular order.  I just figured out what cuts sounded good together.  Not all the tracks from my best of list made into the mix because that's just the way mixes go sometimes.

Here's the list, I'd love to hear about your favorite albums of the year, tell me about them in the comments.

BEST AMBIENT/INSTRUMENTAL OF 2016:

• 1. Johann Johannsson - Orphee

• 00:00    The Green Kingdom - Haze Layers

I've been on a big Johann Johnnsson kick lately.  He released one of my favorite albums of the year "Orphee" a few months ago and now he has scored the excellent film "Arrival."  It is a wonderful soundtrack that really adds to an already fantastic film.

Johannsson tells the story of how he made the first track in this mix, "Heptpod B," at Song Exploder here...

https://soundcloud.com/hrishihirway/song-exploder-johann-johannsson-arrival-score

That new soundtrack is the jumping off point for this cinematic mix.  All the music used was released this year with the exception of tracks from "The Martian" & "The Revenant" which are 2015 recordings.  All these soundtracks are superb and I hope you will seek out the full albums.  I've included the name of the film in the tracklist.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

I'm not sure where this mix began.  Possibly late at night, glass of whiskey on the table, slow jazz playing in the background.  Arve Henriksen probably came up & got me thinking about dark, atmospheric jazz.  Which sends me to Spotify to investigate more jazz noir, which leads to the discovery of Shadowdream & Dead Combo, which leads to a new mix.

As you've probably guessed by now this is a late night, atmospheric jazz set.  I knew when I started this mix that I'd have to include something from the Twin Peaks soundtrack because that is the first thing I think of when contemplating noir jazz.  The Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch cut that I picked works nicely because also used it for the title of the mix.

I really like the mood and feel of this entire mix and I hope you do too.  Grab a scotch and give it a spin in the dark.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Angelo Badalamenti - Mysterioso 2

I've always been a fan of long form ambient.  It's goes all the way back to side-long cuts on Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting and Eno's Discreet Music.  And more recently to the many full album cuts from Steve Roach.  He's got a number of long form tracks and I'm not sure how many he has released.

For this mix I decided to feature a bunch of long tracks and to also let a large chunk of each to play.  Most cuts in the mix play for about 20 minutes or so.  Which is why this ends up easily being the longest mix I've ever done, clocking in at 6 hours and 15 minutes.  The version on Mixcloud is 5 1/2 hours because I needed to get the file size under 500mb.

This mix should work well as an all night sleep aid.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00    Alio Die - Ultima Latet

• 00:00     August Stars – Inland Rain