Tag: ambient

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SOUNDWAVE : 4 : STEVEN HOWARD

SOUNDWAVE : 4

I’ve expanded the scope of SOUNDWAVE by inviting musicians, deejays, podcasters, etc to contribute mixes to the show. I’ve been overwhelmed with their generosity and support.

Last Sunday’s show featured our first guest deejay, Sean Horton, who provided a gorgeous mix of music. All week long people have shared with me how much it meant to them. On today’s show we’ll hear another mix of music no less beautiful than Sean’s, this time from my old and dear friend, Steven Howard.

I met Steven last century one day while I was wrapping up my show at WMFO. He was their be trained by one of our staff but for whatever reasons that deejay failed to show up. I gave Steven a 15 minute crash course on how to operate our board, wished him well, and ran off to work.

Steven and I became fast friends and he introduced me to so much music. Over the decades I’ve watched Steven meet the girlfriend he would later marry, become a proud father of two boys, move from Boston to Asheville and help launch two radio stations. You can catch his show, Mental Notes, on AshevilleFM.

Steven was one of the first people I asked to participate in SOUNDWAVE. You will, of course, love his mix but what I think you will really enjoy is the field recordings he weaved into the music. It’s a reminder of the world that’s out there waiting for us when it’s safer to leave our homes.

Before I let Steven talk about today’s show I implore you to purchase any of the songs you hear on today’s mix or any mix you hear on SOUNDWAVE. The artists are pouring their hearts into each track. Your purchases of songs or albums not only helps them continue working on their craft but also puts food on their tables or pays for the roof over their heads.

See you next Sunday when our guest deejay is Vince Millett, the founder of Broken Drum Records and the host of the Secret Archives of the Vatican podcast.

 

Steven Howard
Steven Howard

It’s kind of silly to say this here:

I knew I had some field recordings on my phone. My intention was always to use them somehow. As I started going through files of artists in my digital library, I dropped tracks into a folder for your project. It was easy to pick the tracks I wanted. I only picked 9 between A-O in my experimental section of my digital library. I then sequenced those into an order roughly resembling a fantasy walk in nature.

Often when I would drive to work in South Boston at 4 am, I’d listen to ambient music like Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol II. I always loved how the city looked with the backdrop of dark ambient playing. When I moved to Western North Carolina I would take drives into the mountains or onto the parkway sometimes alone. Ambient worked well there, too.

Being in many different time slots on the radio has moved me further away from experimental sounds over the past handful of years. I have always felt that way about experimental radio. Sometimes I’ve felt like I’ve made all the segues I needed to make. Then you come along and ask me to do a short 30 minute project. I realize if I’m to make a piece, it has to include some original work.

In the layering of these pieces as I sequenced them, I imagined walking in some unknown place, as if superimposed on a green screen and looking down a crater at pulsing orb embedded in a forest. While it looked ominous there was no danger. I passed along wind whipped water of a mountain lake and looked up and saw the late morning sky and heard a plane’s echo of the mountainside. Behind some five miles back, that orb has flown off. I hear it and look.

My heart is exhilarated. I feel good. I’m nearer my goal with the others at camp. The stars are coming up and it’s been a long day. It’s time to feed.

  1. Steven Howard “Field Recording: crows in trees before sunrise (Three Lakes, Wisconsin – July 7, 2019)”
  2. Oren Ambarchi “This Evening So Soon”
  3. Biosphere “Antennaria”
  4. Annea Lockwood “floating world: Part 1”
  5. BJ Nilsen “Black Light”
  6. Sylvain Chauveau “A”
  7. Colleen “Your Heart Is So Loud”
  8. Pauline Oliveros & Miya Masaoka “Twilight – Bashou (Tolling Of A Bell)”
  9. Geir Jenssen “Cho Oyu Basecamp – Morning”
  10. Steven Howard “Field Recording: katydids from our backyard (Asheville, North Carolina – July 19, 2019)”

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SOUNDWAVE : 3 : SEAN HORTON

SOUNDWAVE : 3

Let me rehash some stuff with you before we got to today’s excellent show featuring a lustrous mix from Sean Horton.

I launched SOUNDWAVE because it was my way of coping with COVID-19. My wife is away for the next month with her unit and our kids our with their dad for the foreseeable future. It’s just me and my dog. Work keeps me busy during the day but at night it gets lonely. I found myself listening to a lot of ambient, classical, experimental and instrumental music and I decided to share it with my friends and created the show you’re listening to now.

My intention was to release a new show once a month. After the first show I decided I would release SOUNDWAVE weekly until the stay at home order ends. But then it occurred to me that pretty much everyone else on the planet is also stuck at home so I invited friends, deejays, musicians, producers, etc to participate on the show. And that brings us to our first guest deejay, Sean Horton.

I interviewed Sean Horton for solipsistic NATION to talk about Decibel Festival, an annual music and digital arts festival in Seattle that ran from 2004 to 2015. Decibel Festival was unique platform for exposing attendees to leading-edge multimedia art from around the globe. With a focus on live performance, interactive multimedia art, state-of-the-art sound and technology based education; Decibel solidified itself as one of the premier electronic music festivals and promotional organizations in the world. In 2014, Sean was named #43 on Rolling Stone’s “50 Most Important People in EDM.”

Sean also records under them name Nordic Soul where he distills his love for techno, house, hip hop, jazz, soul, industrial, ambient and dub. As Nordic Soul, Sean has shared the stage with an eclectic mix of musicians from Grimes to Moby to The Orb to Major Lazer to… well, the list goes on. Sean has also performed at several major festivals world-wide, including Dimensions (Croatia), MUTEK (Montreal) and Communikey (Boulder). Nordic Soul has released music on a wide variety of labels including K Records, Buttermilk Records, Peloton and basic_sounds.

Given all that, you understand Sean was one of the first people I invited to join me and SOUNDWAVE. Funny thing, Sean and I have struck up a friendship online which moved from talking about music to our favorite books, tv shows and movies and then to living under COVID-19. An unexpected and welcome development of the pandemic. I look forward to meeting Sean in Los Angeles after this dies down a bit and hoisting a pint with him. From a safe six feet, of course.

Sean has crafted a beautiful mix, but I expected no less from him. Prepare for an emotional journey and see where it takes you. I’ll let Sean introduce his mix below. I know you’re going to love it just as much as I do.

I’ll see you all next week when we are joined by our next guest deejay, my old and dear friend, Steven Howard.

 

Sean Horton
Sean Horton

During this time in isolation I’ve been rediscovering my love of ambient music. I first discovered ambient music working at Harmony House records in Detroit my junior year in high school in 1992. It was the early days of the Rave Movement and Detroit was a hot bed for warehouse parties and Techno Music at the time. This was also a remarkable time where nearly every Rave would have two rooms, a “Dance Room” and an “Ambient Room.” I was an “Ambient Room” individual largely in part because I fell in love the music.

Out of all of the ambient music albums I’ve encountered over the years, the two that I come back to the most are the first and second ambient albums I ever knowingly experienced, Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks and Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2. This mix features two of my favorite selections from each album.

Historically ambient music has predominantly been characterized as synthetic, but over the past fifteen years or so there has been growing movement of more organic forms of ambient music and film scores which are often referred to as neo classical (i.e. Nils Frahm, Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, Hauschka, Jóhann Jóhannsson , Hildur Guðnadóttir, Stars of the Lid, etc.). Where Ambient music fueled my teen-early 20’s love of electronic music; neo classical music fueled my love of melody and organic tone. I firmly believe that both ambient and neo classical music can and should co-exist.

This particular mix evolved out of a playlist I put together in late March 2020 featuring some of my favorite ambient and neo classical artists and songs. As common with a lot of ambient music, these selections are all void of rhythm and nearly void of all voice. That said, this is an ideal mix for reading, writing, sleeping, meditation, yoga, etc. My hope is this mix will instill a sense of calm and mental clarity with the listener.

  1. Cliff Martinez “Will She Come Back”
  2. John Foxx and Harold Budd “Subtext”
  3. Eluvium “Individuation”
  4. Aphex Twin “#20”
  5. Apparat “44”
  6. Hauschka “Destination Unknown”
  7. bvdub “Your Painted Armor Aches to Crack”
  8. Windy & Carl “Forest Trails”
  9. Tim Hecker “Radiance”
  10. Stars of the Lid “A Meaningful Moment Through a Meaning(less) Process”
  11. David August “MUSES AND ASHES”
  12. Brambles “To Speak of Solitude”
  13. Grouper “Parking Lot”
  14. Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm “20:17”
  15. Jon Hopkins “The Wider Sun”
  16. Jonsi & Alex Somers “Daníell In The Sea”
  17. Ben Lukas Boysen “Sleeper Beat Theme”
  18. Helios “Seeming”
  19. Ólafur Arnalds “Doria”
  20. Robert Fripp & Brian Eno “Wind on Wind”
  21. Brian Eno “An Ending (Ascent)”

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SOUNDWAVE : 2 : JOSEPH ALEO

SOUNDWAVE : 2

Last week I said that SOUNDWAVE would be a monthly show. I’ve changed my mind and decided to release the show on a weekly basis for as long as we are told to stay at home to flatten COVID-19’s curve. I’ve also invited friends, podcasters, musicians, deejays and record label owners to contribute mixes to SOUNDWAVE so expect to hear from them shortly.

Okay, today’s show…

We open with a track from Richard Moult’s Celestial King for a Year album. I came across Moult while listening to writer Warren Ellis’s excellent SPEKTRMODULE podcast. A casual Google search didn’t turn up much information but I did learn that Moult warrants an unofficial fan page on Facebook.

From there we segue into “Regnantem sempiterna” by Jan Garbarek and The Hilliard Ensemble. If you’ve been watching Alex Garland’s Devs you’ll recognize it immediately. I’ve been following Garland’s career since he wrote the screenplay for 28 Days Later but Devs is quite possibly the best thing he’s ever done, and he’s accomplished a lot, but he really gets to shine in a long-form tv series. The writing is great, the acting is great, the cinematography is great, etc. and the music department have been selecting absolute gems and “Regnantem sempiterna” gave me the chills and is the emotional cornerstone for this week’s show.

The next track is from the soundtrack from the horror film Hagazussa by MMMD. I’m not going to spoil the movie but I will say this, if you’re listening to “Hagazussa” over your speakers, and you really should to experience it fully, prepare for your windows to rattle and for plates and glasses to vibrate off your kitchen table.

Our penultimate track is Colin Stetson’s “Sorrow: II – Lento Largo—Tranquillissimo” from his SORROW – a reimagining of Górecki’s 3rd Symphony album. I’ve been listening to Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 for a couple decades now and it never fails to rend my heart. I’ve also been a fan of Colin Stetson for quite a few years. He’s played with everyone from Godspeed You! Black Emperor to Tom Waits to Bill Laswell and a gaggle of other stellar artists. When I learned he had released an album of his interpretation of Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 I purchased it without question and Stetson did not fail to deliver. It’s actually quite faithful to the original, but with Stetson’s own unique take, of course.

We close today’s show with Kazuya Nagaya’s “Thanatos” from his Dream Interpretation album. I discovered Nagaya on the Bandcamp Daily blog and fell in love with his music and this track in particular. When I released last week’s show I sent the episode to my mom knowing that she’d enjoy it. She did, mostly. She found the mix beautiful but Nine Inch Nails “The Cursed Clock” was a bit too solemn for her. I get it, especially during these days of COVID-19. I don’t think today’s show will agree with her but if you are listening, mom, I think you will find solace in Nagaya’s “Thanatos.”

If you enjoy SOUNDWAVE, please share it with someone you think will also appreciate it.

See you next week for more lustrous music.

  1. Richard Moult “Celestial King for a Year (Pt. 2)”
  2. Jan Garbarek, The Hilliard Ensemble “Regnantem sempiterna”
  3. MMMD “Hagazussa”
  4. Colin Stetson “Sorrow: II – Lento Largo—Tranquillissimo”
  5. Kazuya Nagaya “Thanatos”

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SOUNDWAVE : 1 : JOSEPH ALEO

SOUNDWAVE : 1

Today’s first edition of SOUNDWAVE comes courtesy of COVID-19.

Like most people, I’m staying at home and social distancing. I’m fortunate enough to work from home but left to my own devices in the evenings. Television fails to capture my interest, so I’m unable to Netflix and chill. I’ve only just found myself able to enjoy books again. Barely. But I have had the itch to deejay, hence today’s show.

So let me tell you what you can expect to hear on this mix.

We begin with “I” from Rocks & Waves Song Circle, which I discovered on one of the many music blogs I follow. It’s a blend of languid surf guitar accompanied by a Mexican choir and a Haitian solist. It’s precisely the kind of music to find solace.

“Bonny Boy” comes from the Arcadia soundtrack from Adrian Utley and Will Gregory. Adrian is a member of Portishead, and Willis a member of Goldfrapp. While that’s reason enough to listen to Arcadia, the real reason I got excited about this soundtrack was the stunning vocals of Anne Briggs. Who was this young, upcoming talent I had never heard of? A quick search on Wikipedia revealed the Anne is an English singer from the 1960s. How have I not known about her?

Writer Warren Ellis turned me on to to Mending, which is a project from Kate Adams and Joshua Dumas called We Gathered at Wakerobin Hollow, a four hour, forty song cycle, released in nine Chapters every two months from 2018-2019. That’s a lot of music, and “Julia Writes to Marsha” is my favorite track from that work.

“It’s a Rainy Day On The Cosmic Shore” is by ana Roxanne and I found her through a review of her on Bandcamp. This track comes from her album, ~~~. I don’t know how you would pronounce that. Tilda, Tilda, Tilda, maybe? No matter, I love this song and the feelings it evokes.

We wrap up today’s show with “The Cursed Clock,” which comes from Nine Inch Nails latest album, Ghosts VI: Locusts, and the cursed clock is how I feel about my COVID-19 days. Kind of a bummer way to end this, I know.

I hope today’s show provided you with some beauty and a welcome distraction. See you next month.

  1. Rocks & Waves Song Circle “I”
  2. Adrian Utley & Will Gregory “Bonny Boy (Anne Briggs)”
  3. Mending “Julia Writes to Marsha”
  4. ana roxanne “It’s a Rainy Day On The Cosmic Shore”
  5. Nine Inch Nails “The Cursed Clock”

Subscribe to SOUNDWAVE on iTunes, Overcast, Castro and Pocketcasts.

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Weekly Mix 28: July 16, 2017

A lot of new listeners tuned in to last week’s show and one of them was Jon Fine, who played with David Grubbs in the band Bitch Magnet. Jon was really excited to hear Loving Six on last week’s mix. He had heard about Loving Six and had been waiting to hear their music for almost 30 years. We got to talking and it turns out that Jon has also written a book called Your Band Sucks: What I Saw at Indie Rock’s Failed Revolution (But Can No Longer Hear), which has been described as a cult favorite musician’s memoir. Jon said his book touches on some of the things Chip and I talked about on last weeks show. You should go buy it because I’m going to read the Your Band Sucksand have Jon on the show in a couple of weeks to talk about his book.

On last week’s show I also played a song that was a collaboration between The Bug and Earth. I’ve known about Earth for at least 20 years but had never listened to their music before. I went on Twitter and asked what songs or albums I should listen to and I got a lot of excellent suggestions. Ben Burnham said I should start off with Earth’s album, Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method.Corey Brewer suggested I listen to their songs ”Ouroboros is Broken” or “Old Black” and Holly Carson said I should listen to their Pentastar: In the Style of Demons album. Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll be listening to Earth for the next few weeks and will play them on a future Weekly Mix.

Okay, let’s get to today’s show. See you next week!

  1. Dawg Yawp “I’ll Quit Tomorrow”
  2. Reddish Blu “When I Get Too Sad”
  3. L8LOOMER “Right Side (feat. Doja Cat)”
  4. Kevin Abstract “American Boyfriend”
  5. Devoted To God “Hidden Track”
  6. Kamasi Washington “Truth”
  7. Robert Turman “Veiling Reflections – excerpt”

Illustration: GDBee ©2017

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Weekly Mix 25: June 25, 2017

Before we get to today’s show I wanted to tell you about a game I just started playing called Vampire: The Masquerade. It’s a role playing game like Dungeons & Dragons but instead of warriors and wizards it’s based on vampires. And we’re playing the game with dice and paper and not on a laptop.

I confess, vampires aren’t really my thing but I’ve been having a blast. It’s been ages since I’ve been part of a role playing game and usually I’m the person running the game, so it’s fun to be a player character. I’m also tickled that my girlfriend is playing, too. When I tell her that she is my dream girl I don’t think she understands how much I mean that.

I won’t go into the game too much because I don’t know too much about it myself aside from what I’ve read on Wikipedia. But I’m really digging how the game incorporates the mythology of vampires and also how morality and humanity is also a very important part of the game. What I can tell you is that there are a bunch of clans of vampires and each clan has their strengths and weaknesses. There’s been a murder within the clans that could possibly throw everything into turmoil and me and my fellow players have been tasked to get to the bottom of things. Pretty dramatic, huh?

There are four of us. My girlfriend is playing a Nosferatu-like vampire who is also a hacker. Our friend Becky is playing a corporate-raider type on vampire and our friend Glenn is a biker vampire. Me? I’m playing an effete, club-footed vampire from the 19th century who is a cross between Oscar Wilde and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

I’ll tell you more about the game as we go along. And if you’re listening to today’s show and you also play role playing games I’d love to hear about your own experiences.

  1. Queen “Bohemian Rhapsody (Played by 100+ year old fairground organ)”
  2. Golden Vessel “Shoulders (ft. Elkkle & Mallrat)”
  3. Wolf Alice “Yuk Foo”
  4. Ex Eye “Opposition/Perihelion; the Coil”
  5. Be the Bear “Erupt”
  6. Terror Jr “Come First”
  7. Mary J. Blige “Strength Of A Woman”

Illustration: GDBee ©2017

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Weekly Mix 8: February 26, 2017

From time to time The Weekly Mix features interviews. In the past we’ve chatted with artist Geneva B, KAOS Radio Austin co-founder, Nick Dement and Bondfire Radio founder Keisha Dutes. On today’s show we’ll talk with the members of The Brevet, who I had the pleasure of chatting with before the performed at Lestat’s here in beautiful San Diego. There’s a bit of static that creeps into the interview here and there and I apologize for that. It’s the first time I’ve done an interview on live streaming video and I’m learning how to do it on the fly.

Today’s show has a lot of introductions. The most introductions ever, in fact. We’ll hear from Indian Handcrafts, All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors, Pulco, Ash Walker and Tangents.

Click the links below to download and purchase the songs you heard on today’s mix that you liked. Show the bands and musicians your love and support!

You can listen to The Weekly Mix every Sunday on KAOS Radio Austin at 6PM Central and every Friday on Bondfire Radio out of Brooklyn at 11:30 AM Eastern Standard Time.

Okay, I’m Audi 5000. See you next week!

  1. The Brevet “Moving Mountains”
  2. Interview with The Brevet
  3. Indian Handcrafts “Bruce Lee”
  4. All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors “Saturn Jig”
  5. Nisennenmondai “#1”
  6. Klara Lewis “Beaming”
  7. Pulco “Oxbow Lake (feat. Adam Leonard)”
  8. Ash Walker “Thunder (feat. Lord Saville)”
  9. Tangents “Oberon”

Illustration: GDBee ©2017

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Weekly Mix 6: February 12, 2017

So here’s how we play the game: everday I post a song to Twitter and Facebook (#songoftheday) that I think is so marvelous and so spectacular that I have to share them with you. At the end of the week I gather those songs into The Weekly Mix for your listening pleasure. When possible, I accompany each song with a brief intro by the featured band or musician.

For example, on today’s show we’re going to hear from Eightch and one of the members of Ersatz. Nice, right?

Speaking of Erstaz, we’re going to kick off today’s show with their song, “Regret,” from their album, Hints of… “Regret” comes from their fourth album, which feels like it was recorded in some snowy vale, and I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter listening to this song.

After “Regret” we’ll hear “Midnight” by Monster Rally. I’m not sure how to describe this song, but it’s what I imagine what would be played in someone’s Space-Age bachelor pad during some long midnight of the soul. “Midnight” comes from Monster Rally’s 2016 Pelicans album, available on Gold Robot Records.

From Islam Chipsy we’ll hear “Trinity 2” featuring EEK from Chipsy’s album, The Bullet. Special thanks to Sean Hockings from Metal Postcard Records for tuning me on to this gem.

Following Islam Chipsy we’ll hear “Acceptance, Side 1” from Eightch. James Watson is the man behind Eightch and when I invited him to join us on today’s show we ended up talking for nearly an hour about music, the industry, technology, and about intergity and life and art. Good guy and I’m looking forward to meeting James in person some day in the near future. Anyway, I first heard this track on a rainy drive to work and it was the perfect soundtrack for that morning’s commute.

From Deodato well hear his funky disco cover of Franz Listz’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Deodato’s a prolific guy and has produced or arranged music for more than 500 albums. That’s just crazy. “Also Sprach Zarathustra” comes from Deodato’s 1973 Prelude album on CTI Records.

We’ll also hear “My Hood” by Ray BLK. Ray is recognized as a new and exciting voice in grime and garage but you’d never know it from this soulful tune about her hood. I’m looking forward to hearing more songs from Ray’s 2016 album, Durt.

We’ll close today’ show with “Star Roving” by Slowdive. I was never really a fan of this band back in the 90s. I thought if you wanted to listen to shoegaze the only band worth listening to were My Bloody Valentine. Boy, was I wrong. I’ve spent the last couple months catching up on all the great shoegaze bands I missed. “Star Roving” comes from Slowdive’s forthcoming album, their first in over 20 years, in fact, which will be released later in 2017.

You can listen to The Weekly Mix every Sunday on KAOS Radio Austin at 6PM Central, and every Friday on Bondfire Radio at 11:30 AM Eastern.

You can find me online on Twitter @josephaleo.

See you next week!

  1. Ersatz “Regret”
  2. Monster Rally “Midnight”
  3. Islam Chipsy “Trinity (feat. Eek)”
  4. Eightch “Acceptance Side 1”
  5. Deodato “Also Sprach Zarathustra”
  6. RAY BLK “My Hood”
  7. Slowdive “Star Roving”

Illustration: GDBee ©2017

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Friends Mix

Welcome to 2017 and welcome to my podcast!

On today’s show we’re going to listen to a mix I put together with my friends two years ago. That’s a long time, I know, but there’s a reason for that and to explain myself I have to tell you a little bit about myself.

First off, I’ve been deejaying and producing shows for more than half my life. I’ve been on the air for hundreds of hours and I’ve spent hundreds of more hours producing shows. People often ask me where I find the time to work on so many shows. The answer was simple: I wasn’t married and I didn’t have kids.

When I began working on today’s show that was still true. But two years ago I met the love of my life. And the love of my life also has three kids. I was having too much fun and was too busy to spend time on anything that didn’t revolve around them. But the itch to deejay never goes away and now that things have settled down a bit in my life it’s time to get back into it. Kicking off 2017 seems the best way to do it.

So let me tell you about today’s show.

I got my start at WMFO, a college/community radio station in Boston. WMFO broadcasts under a freeform format so it wouldn’t sound incongrous to hear disco, jazz, opera and hip hop on one of my shows.

From time to time I would throw a deejay party at the station. They were a lot of fun and very intense because it was a test of our abilities as a deejay. While one deejay was spinning a song you had the length of that track to choose the next song and cue it up on the turntable or CD player. And not just any song, it had to be a song that would segue nicely out the track that was being played at the moment. The results were unpredictable but those shows always sounded fantastic, and that’s what I’m hoping to capture on today’s show.

I’ve invited my friends to particpate on today’s mix by having them select a song to play based solely on the track that preceeded their song. They had no idea of what was played any further than that. They could stay within the same genre or veer off into an entirely different direction as long as their selection made sense, if only just to them. I also asked each of my friends to record an introduction for the songs they chose.

On today’s show you’ll hear “Acid” by Stu Mitchell, which was chosen by Steve Howard, who I’ve know almost as long as I’ve been deejaying. We met at WMFO and Steve currently spins at Asheville FM.

We’ll also hear “Kolyskova” by DakhaBrakha. “Kolyskova” was selected by Darek Mazzone, who is also a WMFO alumn and currently hosts the wildly popular Wo’ Pop show on KEXP in Seattle.

From Kidkanevil we’ll hear the track “Butterfly / Satellite,” which was selected by Macedonia, who hosts the Both Sides of the Surface podcast. You can also find him spinning on Bondfire Radio out of New York City. In fact, as I write this I’m listening to his 50th broadcast on Bondfire!

Alan Ranta chose Tipper’s “Homage Sliders” for today’s show. Alan writes for the likes of Exclaim!, CBC Music and PopMatters so it was a no-brainer to include him on today’s show.

Ned Raggett selected Grouper’s “Living Room.” I connected with Ned through Steve Howard. Ned writes for Pitchfork, The Quietus, and many other fine publications. Go Google him!

Blank Realm’s “Cleaning Up My Mess” was chosen by Sean Hocking, who runs Metal Postcard Records. I met Sean when I featured his label on my show, solipsistic NATION, and I’ve been meaning to get him involved in one of my hairbrained schemes ever since, so I’m happy he joins us on today’s mix.

Anji Bee picked the Stwo Remix of JMSN’s “The One.” Anji Bee has been producing podcasts for just as long as I have and I urge you to listen to her show, The Chillcast.

Mikel OD is another podcaster who I’ve known for ages and he selected “Pressure” by My Brightest Diamond. I was a big fan of Mikel’s Most People are DJs podcast but these days he’s up to no good with his latest project, Digital Racket.

Another guest I had on solipsistic NATION was Strictly Kev (AKA DJ Food). I’ve been a fan of his music for a long time and I was thrilled when he added Heliocentrics & Melvin Van Peebles’ “The Cavern” to today’s mix.

Deejay Om picked “And I Love You” by The Darling Dears for his contribution to the Friends mix. I met Deejay Om through solipsistic NATION and had the pleasure of meeting him in person a few years agon in San Francisco. He’s a classy guy with exquisite taste in music.

My buddy Craig Ruiz chose Dr. John’s “Getaway.” Craig and I bonded over our love for Amon Tobin’s music and we’ve been friends ever since.

Mahiane d’Ultimate is yet another person I met through solipsistic NATION when I featured her label, Ultimae Records, on my show. Mahiane is one of the sweetest people I know so I was honored when she graced today’s mix with Apparat’s “Arcadia.”

Sativa Mariposa is the love of my life so she had to be on today’s show. Her taste in music is fantastic and it’s one of the very many things I love about her. And I also love that she selected James Browns’ “Please, Please, Please” for the mix your about to hear.

We’re going to wrap up today’s show with Jhené Aiko’s “Eternal Sunshine.”

See you next week when I launch my Weekly Mix series.

Happy New Year!

  1. Stu Mitchell “Acid”
    Selected by Steve Howard
  2. DakhaBrakha “Kolyskova”
    Selected by Darek Mazzone
  3. Kidkanevil “Butterfly / Satellite (feat. Cuushe & submerse)”
    Selected by Macedonia
  4. Tipper “Homage Sliders”
    Selected by Alan Ranta
  5. Grouper “Living Room”
    Selected by Ned Raggett
  6. Blank Realm “Cleaning Up My Mess”
    Selected by Sean Hocking
  7. JMSN “The One (Stwo Remix)”
    Selected by Anji Bee
  8. My Brightest Diamond “Pressure”
    Selected by Mikel OD
  9. Heliocentrics & Melvin Van Peebles “Chapter 05: The Cavern”
    Selected by Strictly Kev
  10. Darling Dears “And I Love You”
    Selected by Deejay Om
  11. Dr. John “Getaway”
    Selected by Craig Ruiz
  12. Apparat “Arcadia”
    Selected by Mahiane d’Ultimate
  13. James Brown “Please, Please, Please”
    Selected by Sativa Mariposa
  14. Jhené Aiko “Eternal Sunshine”
    Selected by Joseph Aleo

Posted on

solipsistic NATION No. 311: Head Cold

I’m keeping today’s show mellow. I’ve got a cold and I wanted to convey to you sonically what I’m feeling. I’m also not going to talk too much on today’s show because my throat is still alittle sore and I never know when I might cough and you don’t want to hear that.

You can find me on Twitter at @solipsistic or at @josephaleo.

Want to hear more great music? Go check out my brothers and sisters at futuremusic.fm!

Okay, time for me drink some syrzup. See you in two weeks with a show from the archives. Peace.

  1. Letherette “Blad”
  2. J Dilla “So Far to Go”
  3. Lemon Jelly “’68 aka Only Time”
  4. Shigeto “Pulse”
  5. Gold Panda “You”
  6. Onra “Ms. Ho”
  7. Flying Lotus “Zodiac Shit”
  8. Tycho “Coastal Break”
  9. Four Tet “Moma”
  10. Hidden Orchestra “Spoken”
  11. Lapalux “There Are Monsters In This Bed”
  12. Prefuse 73 “Storm Returns (A Prefuse/Tommy Guerrero Interlude)”
  13. Clams Casino “Treetop”
  14. Balam Acab “Motion”