Daniel and I met on Twitter over our shared appreciation of Paleowolf (listen to the Paleowolf mix on Soundwave here). I learned he is the host of Inter-Dimensional Music, a syndicated weekly community radio broadcast of “heavy mellow, kosmische slop, and void contemplation tactics.” After enjoying a couple of his shows, I invited Daniel to guest deejay on Soundwave.
What I love about Daniel’s mix is that his segues are so seamless that I often am unaware that he’s transitioned into another track. Granted, the music featured on Soundwave lends itself to those kinds of segues, but Daniel is particularly deft at it.
The other remarkable thing about Daniel’s mix, for me at least, is that he selected songs that feel very familiar to me. Except that I’ve never heard them before. They feel intimate and worn in.
Finally, Daniel’s mix took me on a sonic and emotional journey. I’d get lost in his mix. When it ended, I was satisfied but would have been just as happy to have it continue indefinitely.
Before I wrap up today’s show notes, there a couple of things I want to mention.
My second Moderna vaccination.
Monday I got my second dose of the Moderna vaccination. I was prepared for the worst: a very sore arm, chills, fevers, body aches, etc. I experienced none of that. I did sleep for over 24 hours, though.
Hans-Joachim Roedelis
Michael Donaldson was inspired by mix from Krautrock legend Hans-Joachim Roedelius to write a post on Roedelius’s musical career on his blog. It’s a good overview of Roedelius, so please read it if you’d like to learn more about the man.
Back to Beyond and Cycle
Guest deejay protoU has released a new album, Back to Beyond with Alphaxone. Listen to protoU’s mix for Soundwave here. Rhucle, who has also guest deejayed on Soundwave, has released his new album, Cycle. Both albums are fantastic and unique to each artist.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Mauricio Sotelo, AKA Haiteku.
See you then!
Daniel Chamberlin
Here’s an hour of heavy mellow meditation.
Cosmic Chambo presents a heavy mellow ritual soundtrack for meditation, yoga, and other mindfulness practices in the service of transcending false binaries and dismantling white supremacy. Listen for hypnotic choral music, metal-informed jazz drone, heavyweight ambient dub, and organic industrial rhythms.
Last month Roedelius’s “Wenn Der Südwind Weht” appeared on my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist. On a lark, I sent Roedelius an email inviting him to guest deejay on Soundwave.
I didn’t expect a response.
I’ve been surprised how many people I’ve invited to guest deejay on Soundwave have declined because, despite the pandemic, they are very busy. And that was a good thing to hear in the early days of the pandemic when it felt like the world was grinding to a halt. These people were getting on with their lives, performing and recording music.
I follow all the guest deejays on Twitter (check my SOUNDWAVE list here), and the Hypnagogue Podcast kept turning up on Kirk Markarian’s Twitter feed. I trust Kirk’s taste in music, so I listened to a few episodes of Hypnagoge. I loved everything I heard and invited John to guest deejay on SOUNDWAVE.
John’s mix is everything you’d expect in a SOUNDWAVE mix, but what especially delighted mas his selected dub tracks.
I’ve been a fan of dub since last century.
I first became aware of dub when I read William Gibson’s cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer. In the novel, Case, our protagonist, finds himself in a Jamaican space colony called Zion.
Case gradually became aware of the music that pulsed constantly through the cluster. It was called dub, a sensuous mosaic cooked from vast libraries of digitalized pop; it was worship, Molly said, and a sense of community.
I was intrigued by that mysterious description. Shortly afterwards I came across the 21st Century Dub album on ROIR. I was hooked and became a dub devotee. I even adopted the persona of a character called King Dub. I’d speak with an Jamaican patois, and combined with some echo and pitch-shifting, I became a deejay from the deepest realm of dub spinning tracks from everyone from Ras Michael and The Sons of Negus to The Orb.
When I launched SOUNDWAVE I assumed there would be a lot of dub. The genre is a natural fit for the format of those show. I’ve been disappointed that dub has been a blind spot and I’m relieved that John is the first guest deejay to include dub tracks in the mix. Hopefully he won’t be the last.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Roedelius. Check out his livestream concert here.
John Shanahan
The Hypnagogue Podcast began over a decade ago as an offshoot of the Hypnagogue Reviews site, which I ran from 2003 until 2017, when I decided I didn’t have anything worth saying anymore. Now the music does the eclectic talking for me every two weeks, built from the amazing range of music sent my way.
I laid down this Soundwave mix as I do my own show—picking an interesting place to start and following a stream of semi-conscsiousness through my library to see what associations arise. So we kick off with haunting sound-sculptor Joe Frawley and move with the piano into the sparse, emotional spaces of Memory Bell. The Detroit76, a Matt Borghi side project, shifts us smoothly into beat-driven groove territory, segueing into tasty licks from Austin funk-dub duo Canartic, which melts neatly into into vintage Cyberchump. Forest Robots offer a bridge by way of plucked-string tones in a wash of electronica, and Corciolli & Emmanuele Baldini use it to escort us further intro electro-acoustic territory. That put me in mind of the modern chamber music of Domingues and Kane, after which we flick the switch to Tim Story’s brand of electronic chamber music. At the end, the ride finishes courtesy of the person who brought my show to Joseph’s attention in the first place, Neuro…No Neuro, aka Kirk Markarian.
When I listen to a song, there’s always a part of me thinking how that song would work in a mix. What song would go before it? What would go after it? What would be the shape of the mix?
I can’t turn that part of me off.
Today, on a whim, I listened to my Liked Songs playlists on Spotify while running errands. I dug what I was listening to (I did like the songs, after all). And as is my way, I heard songs in the playlist that just felt right together. It’d be a shame not to share it.
So here it is. I hope you like it.
Oh, and you can also find the playlist for today’s show here on Spotify.
Innesti’s mix concludes my deep dive of musicians I’ve discovered on Bandcamp and invited to deejay on SOUNDWAVE.
Innesti
When I found Innesti on Bandcamp, I immersed myself in their music. I think it was Brian Eno who described ambient music in a metaphor of a painting: you can either have the painting as something that’s part of your background and enjoy it on that level, or you can choose to shift your focus to the painting and experience it at that level. Innesti’s music definitely fulfills those categories but awards active listening.
I’m listening to some of Innesti’s music as I write this. It’s the golden hour, and the kitchen I am writing you from is magically lit, and Innesti is providing the soundtrack to this enchanting moment.
I’ll most definitely feature more artists on Bandcamp on the show in the future, but not at the same volume.
If you’re unfamiliar with Bandcamp, it’s a service that sells music and gives musician and music labels a fair percentage of money generated from sales on Bandcamp.
The pilgrimage to Amoeba Music
Speaking of buying music, yesterday we took our son to Amoeba Music in Los Angeles. He recently got into vinyl, so and I’m happy to indulge him. California has leveled off on COVID-19 infections enough that the state is opening business to the public. Even so, there was a long line to get in the building because they can only admit people in at lowered numbers for everyone’s safety.
As soon as you feel safe enough, I encourage you to head out to your local music store and pick up some albums for yourself or someone as a gift. You or they deserve it, and your local music store needs your support.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be John Shanahan, host of the Hypnagogue Podcast.
Michał is based in Warsaw, Poland, and is an ambient electroacoustic artist that explores multimedia, sound art, and ambient genre through guitar soundscapes, field recordings, and samples. He is a conceptual leader of MM3, who creates 360° concepts of composing music, sound design, audio production, visual arts, and live performances. Michał is also a member of NUDA, a polish modern jazz/avantgarde band. Michał is currently working on different multimedia concepts and audio-visual works connecting the language of music and social commitment.
Michał is yet another musician I discovered on one of my deep dives on Bandcamp. I don’t have anything else to say about Bandcamp that I haven’t said here already. If you haven’t used Bandcamp’s service, please do. They do great work, and they make sure that the artists and music labels receive a high percentage of the money they make through selling music. You can buy the music you love and know that the musicians are fairly compensated for their work.
Michał’s mix for today’s show is a surprise. I suppose all the mixes on SOUNDWAVE are surprised. What I mean is that I invite people I respect to guest deejay on the show and give them the parameters that their mix focus on ambient, classical, experimental, and instrumental music. How they choose to interpret that is up to the guest deejay.
Therein lies what I think the charm of the show is. What music do these talented musicians love and want to share with us? It would be a mistake to believe that the guest deejays would select tracks like their own music, yet I make this mistake again and again.
Take Michał’s opening track, “When the World Ended.” It’s a beautiful piece of poetry that serves as a kind of a mission statement for today’s mix. At least, that how it seemed to me. There’s nothing in Michał’s own music that prepared me for it. Nor did I expect Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to make an appearance Michał’s mix, yet here we are. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised by Yorke’s appearance after hearing him on Robin Rimbaud’s mix from a few weeks ago. You’ll hear more from Yorke on upcoming mixes on SOUNDWAVE as well.
I know you will take as much delight in Michał’s mix as I did.
Before I get out of Dodge, I want to briefly share my experience of getting my first shot of the Moderna vaccine. I’ll get my second dose the first weekend of May, but I already feel invincible. I still have to take the same precautions of social distancing and wearing a mask, but the background anxiety of going out into the world has melted away. It’s remarkable how much my outlook has changed. I’ve gone from learning how to live with the pandemic on a day-to-day basis to the feeling we have this virus on the ropes and that we can soon go back to our lives.
That raises an important question: how much of our old lives do we want to go back to? The pandemic has been harrowing, but in some ways, it’s made changes in my life for the better and opened me up to possibilities. How has your life changed under the pandemic?
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Innesti.
I ask each guest to deejay who they know who would be interested in participating in the show with a mix. Harrold Roeland, who was a guest deejay on Soundwave back in December, suggested Peter. I’ve known about Ambientblog for years and have listened to many of Peter’s mixes on Mixcloud. I’m thankful that Harrold made the introduction because Peter’s mix is exceptional.
Peter’s Soundwave mix.
Mix is not the word for what Peter does on today’s show.
It’s more accurate to say that Peter composed a concept album masterfully weaved from a multitude of sampled material. Take a look at the “playlist” below to get an idea of the scope of today’s show. It’s a work of art you get to immerse yourself in for the next hour.
Peter’s mix, like all of his Ambientblog shows, is an experience. Follow Ambientblog on Mixcloud to hear more of his work.
I’ve included an excerpt about today’s show from Peter’s website below.
Today’s show is special because it’s also Soundwave’s one-year anniversary.
I launched Soundwave to help me cope with the stress and isolation of COVID-19.
This close to what we all hope is the finish line of the pandemic its easy to forget that we were all white-knuckling it for the first couple of months. Every day was filled with existential dread. Would this trip to the grocery store kill me or someone I love? It’s exhausting to live that way.
During that time, I could not watch tv or movies or listen to music because they were not speaking to the truth of our new reality. I’d watch a tv show and fret how there was no social distancing and why the cast wasn’t wearing masks. Pop music was particularly difficult to listen to because it was so painfully vapid. How am I supposed to enjoy a love song when I might be a patient or a vector in this pandemic?
The only music that I could tolerate and gave me solace was ambient, classical, experimental, and instrumental music. It was the soundtrack for my stay-at-home lockdown. And if I found some relief with this music, why not share it with others? Any why not ask people I respect to share their mixes?
I’m humbled by everyone’s gift of generosity of time and effort. We’re all going through this together, each in our way. I’m grateful that during this pandemic that each guest deejay lovingly crafted mixes to share with us.
My first vaccination shot.
Today’s show is also special because today, I also got my first shot for the COVID-19 vaccination.
I was shopping for groceries when the Mercy Plaza Pharmacy called me and told me they had extra doses. Could I stop by for a vaccination? Most definitely.
My cilantro stymied the woman who was ringing up my items at the grocery store: were they regular cilantro or organic? She was about to do a price check when I explained that I needed to get the hell out of there to be vaccinated. I didn’t care about the cilantro’s cost; ring me up so I can leave! She understood.
The folks at Mercy Plaza Pharmacy couldn’t be nicer. They’re a family-owned business, and the owner checked up on me after my shot to see how I was feeling. We talked about San Diego, Sacramento, and our kids. This is going to sound weird, but I had such a great time that I can’t wait to go back.
So here we are a year later. We’re almost at the finish line. Hopefully, next year, this will be behind us, and we can all enjoy each other’s company. I’m looking forward to meeting some of you in person. Maybe I’ll even get to meet Peter.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Michał Milczarek.
See you then!
Ambientblog album art.
It’s my honour to open the second year of this series with my contribution. Of course, we can only hope that the series will continue for musical reasons, not because of the pandemic.
Clicking through the list of contributions, you’ll find that most of them are what I call mixtape-style compilations: a head-tail-mix of (full) tracks. Traditionally, my (Ambientblog) mixes are different (which does not mean necessarily ‘better’, by the way) in that they incorporate many sampled parts of tracks (a full-length track is either an exception or a very short track itself), mixed in a layered collage-style. I always try to shuffle the collage’s fragments so that they seem to melt together and thus start telling a different story.
Whether this is successful or not can only be determined by the listener.
This mix is simply named after the podcast Soundwave. It is a happy coincidence that it literally starts with waves—sonically manipulated by Jos Smolders—and ends with the same waves morphing into the sound of a cheering crowd.
Different kinds of soundwaves are all around us, every moment. Sometimes we’re aware; most of the time, we are not. This mix (hopefully) shows that it can be rewarding to take a moment’s rest to really listen and let the sounds affect you.
I discovered Robin last century on a compilation album. At the time, Robin was snatching phone conversations from the ether and incorporating them into his music. It was at once intimate and troubling because the very act of listening to Robin’s music made you complicit in his eavesdropping.
Those tracks, however, are just one area he explores in his music. If you delved into his work, you’d find that it is not incongruous to find him straddling minimalism, classical music, soundtracks and more.
When I showcased Robin’s music and featured one of his performances on solipsistic NATION I was as giddy as a fanboy. I had been listening to his releases since the ‘90s, and I was thrilled to have him on my show. It was only natural that I invited him to be a guest deejay on SOUNDWAVE, and I’m just excited about today’s show as when he was my guest on solipsistic NATION many years ago.
Robin has some words about his mix, which you can read below.
In pandemic news, California, like the rest of the U.S., has stepped up vaccinations. I know people who have been highly diligent regarding COVID-19 safety protocol and were still waylaid by the virus. I’m currently staying in Sacramento, and anecdotally, I can tell you that a lot of people here have stopped giving a fuck. I don’t want to catch the virus when we’re this close to the finish line, so I hope to be vaccinated within the next week or two.
Hopefully, this summer, I will be able to hug some of you who listen to SOUNDWAVE. Who knows, maybe I’ll throw a SOUNDWAVE festival. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
I always find it challenging to know how to begin to choose music from literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of music that I own. Music lives with me from the moment I wake up early in the morning until I go to bed at night (at a very reasonable time). So, I thought it might be of interest to simply make a collage of a few of the many pieces of music that have accompanied me in the last seven days. These are playing as I work on emails, administration, accounts, and so on through my day. A brief picture of a moment in a day for my ears.
Last night after my wife fell asleep, I watched the first three episodes of Invincible on Amazon Prime. She indulges my nerdy tendencies, but I don’t want to overwhelm her, either, so I’m judicious with the tv shows and movies I share with her.
I’ll talk about Invincible in a moment, but first I want to give you my bonafides.
I grew up reading comic books. I don’t remember when I first started reading them; I only know it was part of our family routine. When I was four years old, my dad and I would walk to the local restaurant and order some subs or a pizza. While we waited for our meal, we’d go to the corner store and pick up a bottle of soda and a comic book or two.
Comic books were my gateway to reading. My dad would sit down and read that week’s comic book with me. I’d memorize every word and later “read” the comic book to my friends. Very quickly, I learned how to read on my own, and I was on my way!
I’ve read comic books for over 30 years. But after all that I time, I grew tired of them. I was no longer surprised. I was familiar with all the tropes and clichés, and they no longer delighted me as they once had. I finished three decades of reading comic books in 2000 with Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. It was the last series that I felt was truly unique and that I was passionate about. It seemed an excellent way to wrap up my favorite pastime.
Since then, I’ve picked up the odd comic book here and there. I also listen to podcasts or read articles about comic books now and then, but I’m no longer a “reader”. Except for glancing through a couple of pages of Invincible, I’m largely ignorant about the series. While I no longer read comic books, I am a sucker for tv shows and movies based on comic book characters, so of course I was going to watch Invincible.
I loved it.
The animation is fantastic. It’s beautiful. And importantly, the animation hews closely to Cory Walker’s illustrations from the comic book series.
What Invincible gets rights is how superhero comic books feel. The tv show captures the awesomeness of superheroes as well as the epic battles. I felt the impact of every blow. Things felt like they had heft. I think that’s something many animated shows based on comic books get wrong because usually, things feel weightless.
Other animated shows also tend to fail at making their worlds feel like a place where people actually live. They often feel empty with a sprinkling of a population to suggest a town or metropolis. The only animated production that felt lived in was Akira, with its crowds of people and riots. It’s not fair to compare Akira with animated tv shows because that movie had a crazy budget for its time. Even so, Invincible’s world feels inhabited.
But a show like this can’t rest on gorgeous animation. It has to deliver on a great story with compelling characters, and once again, Invincible nails it. I’m not going to go into the plot because I don’t want to spoil your experience. Trust me when I tell you the story is fanatastic, and I wanted to know more about each character. And it doesn’t hurt that the voice talent is spectacular. With a cast that includes J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, and Steven Yeun you could animate the series with stick figures, and it’d still be gripping.
The last thing I wanted to talk about is that Invincible contains adult content. People curse, there’s sexuality (including a foursome with one character who can make duplicates of herself. Oh, sorry, spoiler alert!), and violence, another thing Invincible aces.
The violence is what you’d imagine if godlike beings faced off against each other. Bodies beat to a pulp. People decapitated, or their limbs ripped off. Vehicles thrown, buildings leveled, and satellites hurled from their orbit. While the violence is brutal, it never feels ghoulish, like say what you’d encounter in The Boys tv series. I’m not knocking The Boys; the ultra-violence is the point of the series. The point I’m trying to make is that the violence in Invincible gruesome; it felt believable. The shock value was earned.
I hope the animated series is as long as the comic book series because I’m in the bag for Invincible. I may have to make a trip to my local comic book store and pick up a few issues.
Frank Riggio’s Empreinte Initiale EP
