What a great way to start off the new year! Jumping right in with this excellent mix from friend of the show, Andy McNeill. Andy records as Maple Mountain Sunburst and he released a wonderful album last year - https://maplemountainsunburst.bandcamp.com/album/ecstatic  He also did a guest mix for us last year which you can find here - Mixcloud  &  Low Light Mixes Blog.

My favorite discovery in this mix is the third track, "My Dog's Eyes" by Zammuto. I am blown away each time I hear it. One of my favorite track of 2024 is also included in the mix - Andy's own "Pop-a-matic." So good! The rest of the mix a great as well. 

Here's what Andy says about his latest creation:

"Cycles, patterns and joy in repetition. I’ll paraphrase redditer Waves_of_awesome who said strongly repetitive music has the ability to transport the listener to a meditative state. “… repeating passages echo like a mantra, almost hypnotizing you”. It’s a fundamental yet unpremeditated element in my musical endeavours.

A lot of different genres represented here — not really intentionally, I just wanted to include some favourites and influential tracks. But wait where’s O Superman? It’s Gonna Rain? I guess we’ll have to do a part two. I hope you all enjoy the journey."  -  Andy

>>>Links to all the music used in this mix<<<

Thanks Andy, for creating this most excellent mix.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

This year, like last year, I listened to more jazz than I have in a long time. It should come as no surprise that a lot of my listening tends towards atmospheric jazz. My favorite jazz record of the year, Nala Sinephro - Endlessness, definitely falls into that ambient jazz category. Or as a Pitchfork reviewer called in - Jazz, Not Jazz.

Here are my favorite jazz albums of 2024:

Not every album made into the mix plus I added a couple of tracks not on my album list. I hope you enjoy the jazz vibes. I'd love to know if listeners had any jazz favs from 2024. Leave a comment with some of you favorites.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

I like making these favorites mixes because it reminds me of why I liked certain albums in the first place. The perfect example is Abandoned Spaces by OdNu & Ümlaut. It's so good and I'm glad I can share with folks via these mixes.

This mix, Part 2, has a little different vibe than Part 1. More sequencer driven tracks, some percussion here and there, generally a bit more active than the first mix. At least the first half is more active, then we slow down & space out. I hope you enjoy this one as much I do.

You can find the full list of favorite ambient albums of 2024, and links to each album, in the post with Part 1 - https://lowlightmixes.blogspot.com/2024/12/2024-favorite-ambient-albums-part-1.html

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

Another year, another ton of releases to sift through. I could keep adding and subtracting albums for weeks and still not be entirely satisfied with the final list. But here it is - my Favorite Ambient Albums of 2024.

As I was creating this part 1 mix, I kept questioning my choices. And then, when the mix was done and I listened to it, I was like "Wow, this turned out really well." I really like how the mix evolves with the first half being a bit more electronic and noisy and the second half leaning more orchestral.

Here's the list of my favorite ambient albums of 2024, in alphabetical order:

2fel - stranger flow 

And here are links to each album:

Stranger Flow | 2fel

Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal | Adam Wiltzie

Dreamwalker | Akmuo | Space Of Variants

Ultraviolet | Altus

Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol. 5 | Noton

Sunder | Benoît Pioulard & Offthesky | laaps

Faint Structures | Circa Alto | Whitelabrecs

Brödföda | Civilistjävel!

Streams Of Consciousness Compiled | Dirk Serries | Projekt Records

LIVE 2 | Eli Keszler

Perihelion | Extraworld | Exosphere

The One Who Runs Away Is the Ghost Soundtrack | Hainbach

Atmospheres & Soundscapes | Heavenchord | Cold Tear Records

Here In, Absence | The Humble Bee & Offthesky | IIKKI

Contemplate | Innesti

Live at Home | Jogging House

Mirror Phase | Jonas Munk | Azure Vista

if all will be lost | Maps and Diagrams | quiet details

Islands | Maps & Diagrams | Handstitched

Lander Modules | Martin Stürtzer

Passage | mastroKristo | Lost Tribe Sound

In A Landscape | Max Richter | Decca

Mirror Music | Michael A. Muller | Deutsche Grammophon

Abandoned Spaces | OdNu + Ümlaut | Audiobulb

Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road | Pan American & Kramer

Quiet Rooms | Polaroid Notes | Whitelabrecs

Dive 1: Refraction | Sumner James, Robert Chamberlain, Volcano Lazerbeam, & Saroon | Bathysphere Records

Floes: Volumes I-IV | Tewksbury

Horizons | The Green Kingdom | The Slow Music Movement Label

VIII | v e n n

It Means A Lot | Ulla & Ultrafog | Motion Ward

Adhesion | William Ryan Fritch | Lost Tribe Sound

I hope you enjoy part 1. Part two is coming soon. Followed by a mix of jazz favorites from 2024.

What are some of your favorite ambient albums from the past year?

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

I have hosted more guest mixes than ever this year, which I love because it exposes me to new artists and new mix concepts. Many of these mixes have come through the fine folks at Nettwerk Music Group. It's appropriate then that this final guest mix of the year comes from one of their artists - Hollie Kenniff. I absolutely love the way this mix ebbs and flows, the tracks blend together perfectly.

Hollie just released her fourth album, For Forever, which is a lush, melodic ambient record that uses electronic and acoustic instrumentation to create an emotional, ethereal listening experience. 

At the beginning of September when I posted my "Sequencer City" mix, I said I'd been on a berlin school bender. Well, now three months later I'm still on that sequencer synth kick. At the end of October the analog synth itch was scratched by a stellar guest mix from Erwin Broers called "Capturing The Voice Of A Galaxy." It featured tracks from the Klaus Schulz label, "Innovative Communications.

Now we have have a follow up mix from Erwin called "Back to the Roots of Berlin School." Oh man, this is some good stuff! Erwin tells me that "there's a whole sub-category of "Berlin School" out there called "Retro Berlin School". In the mid 1990's "Berlin School" was revived by nostalgic electronic artists who benefited from technological innovations to make the iconic analog synths such as the Mellotron, the ARP 2600 and the big Moog Modular more playable. The result was a huge resurgence of mid 1970's style Berlin School EM which was dubbed "retro" to mark the difference with the classics such as Tangerine Dream's Stratosfear, Klaus Schulze's Timewind and Ashra's New Age Of Earth."

I hope my current obsession with this genre continues because I am loving every minute of it. Thanks for another great mix, Erwin.

Cheers!

T R A C K L S I S T :

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Just hanging out all day with family, eating and drinking. Perfect.

The songs in this mix were all chosen for the titles, which all fit the Thanksgiving theme. Besides the obvious titles with the word "thanks" my favorite track titles are "my dad's famous potatoes", "Give me cornbread when I'm hungry", and "An Awkward Conversation at a Family Gathering."

Play this in the background as you eat way too much food and hopefully not way too much beer.

Cheers & Happy Thanksgiving!

T R A C K L I S T :

Links to all the music used in this mix:

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

Thanks goodness election season is almost over. Election night can be a stressful time so here's a mix of new ambient tunes to help us all get through the night.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00   Logic Moon - Lifelines (Lifelines 2024)

Here's what Erwin says about this fantastic mix:

"I was in my teens when I got in touch with Electronic Music by means of well-known artists such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk and Vangelis. Searching for more similar music in the local library, I came across an LP with on its sleeve just a mysterious picture of a huge radio telescope. The album was Robert Schroeder's "Galaxie Cygnus-A" ! Liner notes on the back of the sleeve explained that the music was commissioned by the Austrian Broadcasting Service (ÖRF) and performed live at the 1982 ARS Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria. The idea behind the project consisted of capturing sound waves coming from the Cygnus-A galaxy with the help of the Effelsberg 100 meter radio telescope, the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world at that time. Schroeder used those sound waves as basis and inspiration, and created a magical soundtrack for stargazing and floating in outer space. Needless to say, I was blown away by this album, and from then on I fanatically sought out other releases on the Innovative Communication label, which - by the way - was founded in 1978 by the late Klaus Schulze, one of the godfathers of Electronic Music.

To honour my memory of that exciting period, I chose to start this label retrospective with the first two tracks of this special album - including some of the white noise straight from space ! The mix is rather heterogeneous and gives a good impression of the kind of EM that was published on IC in its heydays, ie. the 80s. From the early 90s the label quickly became more commercial edging towards mellow new age and average electro-acoustic instrumental fusion (aka NAM)."

Thanks, Erwin, for this trip back in time.

Cheers!

T R A C K L I S T :

• 00:00   Robert Schroeder - Galaxie Cygnus-A Part 1 & 2 (Galaxie Cygnus-A, 1982)