Tag: bristol

Posted on

SOUNDWAVE : 148 : JOLANDA MOLETTA

SOUNDWAVE : 148 : JOLANDA MOLETTA

Today’s guest deejay is Jolanda Moletta.

I was first introduced to Jolanda through her captivating work in Peter van Cooten’s mix for Soundwave (listen here), and I’ve been hooked ever since. I invited Jolanda to share a mix with us.

Jolanda’s mix features artists whose works are marked by their unique approach to sound and a profound sense of introspection. It is a haunting and deeply introspective exploration of the mystical power of sound.

Hailing from Italy, Jolanda has been making waves with her unique blend of organic and electronic soundscapes, drawing inspiration from her love of nature and the cosmos. Her album, Full Moon Session, was just released earlier this month, which includes live performances of songs from her Nine Spells album.

Jolanda also led the folk band She Owl, delivering two full-length albums and performing more than 300 concerts across Europe and the US. But in the past two years of isolation, Jolanda focused on a deeply personal project, one that connects her to her ancestral roots and promotes healing.

Jolanda has some words about her mix below.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Sanderson Dear.

See you then.

 

Jolanda Moletta
Jolanda Moletta

When I started working on my debut solo album Nine Spells, I wasn’t aware of other artists doing ambient/neoclassical/experimental music except for a few names. I didn’t know how my album would fit into these genres. I just had a vision of wanting to create something with only vocals and I imagined something meditative that was like a prayer, or an invocation. In months following the release of the first singles, it became clear that there was actually a community, and a scene, of these genres. My mix aims to put a spotlight on the many incredible women who are also creating beautiful music within this community. I am happy to now call some of these artists my friends, and others I would love to meet one day and maybe even collaborate with. So I truly do hope that you’ll warm to this mix and come to love their music as much as I have.

  1. Karen Vogt “cloud thirty-seven”
  2. Francesca Heart “Stella Rugiada”
  3. Patricia Wolf “A Conversation With My Innocence”
  4. Julia Kent “Drops”
  5. Jolanda Moletta “Spell VIII”
  6. Sarah Davachi “Canyon Walls”
  7. Mary Lattimore “Your Glossy Camry”
  8. Francesca Guccione “Utopia III”
  9. Nailah Hunter “Talk Show Host”
  10. lucy gooch “Ash and Orange”
  11. marine eyes + IKSRE “San Francisquito Moonrise”
  12. Anna Phoebe “Beyond Horizons”
  13. Vargkvint “Stormen Kommer”

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

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

Posted on

SOUNDWAVE : 143 : ENRICO CONIGLIO

SOUNDWAVE : 143 : ENRICO CONIGLIO

Today’s guest deejay is Enrico Coniglio.

I had the pleasure of meeting Enrico through Giulio Aldinucci, who also guest deejayed on Soundwave (listen to Giulio’s mix here). Enrico’s work combines beautiful and challenging sounds, and I’m excited to have him on the show today to share his unique perspective on music.

Enrico’s mix takes us on a journey through a diverse array of experimental and ambient music. It’s a beautiful mix that evokes different emotions and landscapes and is a lovely way to start the new year.

Enrico is an environmental sound recordist and sound artist from Italy. His work has been featured by some of the most respected labels in the genre, such as Crónica, Gruen Rekorder, taâlem , and many more. He also runs the digital label Galaverna, with Leandro Pisano, Nicola Di Croce, and Vernalis, in collaborate with Krisis Publishing.

Enrico has some words about his mix below.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Petter Lindhagen.

See you then.

 

Enrico Coniglio
Enrico Coniglio

Here is a mix I made some time ago on a CD-R that has yet to be released on the internet anywhere. A selection of post-folk & ambient songs coming from the past, with a strong, wintery, and intimate vibe and some evanescent vocals here and there.

Hope you will like it.

  1. Grouper “Made of Metal”
  2. Sleepingdog “Horse Lullaby”
  3. Helios “Halving the Compass”
  4. Plinth “Bracken”
  5. Anois “Throw Out The Light”
  6. akira kosemura + haruka nakamura “Garden”
  7. My Home, Sinking “Truna”
  8. Orla Wren “Book of Frost”
  9. Songs Of Green Pheasant “Fires PGR”
  10. Xela “Through Crimson Clouds”
  11. Rooms Delayed ”Some Ambience For Winter (Part2)”
  12. Violeta Päivänkakkara “Sandy”
  13. Warmth Terminal “See in Slow Motion”
  14. Bonus Track: “Never too early for Xmas decorations (part2)”

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

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

Posted on

SOUNDWAVE : 138 : GLYN BUSH

SOUNDWAVE : 138 : GLYN BUSH

Today’s guest deejay is Glyn Bush.

Last month I shared a retrospective mix from the Ambient Dub compilation series. It was a fantastic experience revisiting those albums, which also served as a touchstone to some beautiful times. Inspired, I reached out to as many of the musicians on the compilation album as possible, leading me to Glyn, whom I’ve always known as one-half of Original Rockers.

Glyn’s mix re-introduced me to gems from Durutti Column and Faust and introduced me to new favorites such as Chassol and Khotin. And Glyn’s mix is chock full of his music projects, such as Biggabush.

Glyn has some words about his mix below.

Join us next weekend when our guest deejay will be Rubén Tamayo.

See you then.

 

Glyn Bush
Glyn Bush

It was really nice to be asked to do an ambient mix as it’s a genre I always enjoy even if I don’t normally listen to it that much.

With Original Rockers/Rockers Hi-Fi, we were asked to do an “ambient dub” track by Mike Barnet from Beyond Records around 1992. We just went with our gut and very quickly produced “Sexy Selector.” I suppose we defined ambient dub as being quite lush, with deep chords, lots of space, sequences, and odd bits of vocal. At the time I was listening to The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld and going to a club called Oscillate in Birmingham and hearing quite a bit of what you might call ambient electronica, seeing people like Autechre play live, Alex Paterson on the decks and of course the Higher Intelligence Agency who ran the night.

So I’ve delved back into that era a bit in my mix and checked out some more contemporary stuff with tips from my daughter, re:ni, plus an ambient track we made together a couple of years ago using the sounds of glaciers crumbling, rainfall, and suchlike.

The opener by Richie Hawtin alias F.U.S.E. is one of my all-time fave tracks, just a slowly unfurling 303 looping over and over in its inimitable way.

I dropped a couple of bits from Chassol who makes really beautiful music, not necessarily defined as “ambient” but lush and interesting and full of surprises. He does incredible stuff with recordings of voices where he literally turns all the inflections of speech into musical notes. Check out his Barack Obama track too.

I included a track from my Sunken Foal Stories album, possibly my favourite release and unlike anything I’ve done before or since, with lots of random juxtapositions and happy accidents.

re:ni recommended a lovely track by MLO called ”Sleeper”, which didn’t make the cut, but I used a nice Wagon Christ remix of one of his tracks which I’d not heard before. I’m always happy to crowbar a Luke Vibert track into any mix.

Ghost Power is a collab between Tim Gane of Stereolab and Jeremy Novak of Dymaxion who do some really interesting stuff, mostly nothing like the track I used but all good.

Neotropic is Riz Maslen, who made lovely stuff in the early 90s. This was a fave on cassette back in the day.

Beak> is a Geoff Barrow from Portishead side project, doing a mix of krautrock-ish, motorik beats, plus some excellent synth work, quite soundtrack-y vibes.

Durutti Column was making ambient guitar stuff in the early 80s, of which this is a fine example and always makes me think of sunshine.

PLO Man and C3D-E are on the coveted Acting Press label, which I’d not heard of before re:ni gave me a tip, but it’s high-quality stuff. Likewise, Khotin – is a Canadian producer doing some lovely things on Bandcamp.

Faust was a bunch of crazy German guys who lived in their studio, recorded shedloads of improvisations, and wrote some beautiful songs. The two Faust tracks are from the The Faust Tapes, another all-time fave album of mine compiled from their unreleased tapes from the early 70s.

A couple of Bigga Bush tracks, one called “The Bells,” written in the mid-90s, and the collab mentioned above with re:ni, which was written for a DJs for Climate Action campaign using natural found sounds.

We close with the last ambient dub track recorded by Rockers Hi-Fi for the Ambient Dub Volume 3 (Aqua) album on Beyond, named ”Mecca of Space” after a FireballXL5 comic strip.

Cheers,

Glyn

  1. F.U.S.E. “Theychx (extract)”
  2. Chassol “I lôôôôve usometimes (extract)”
  3. Glyn Bigga Bush “Now There’s Pain”
  4. MLO “Spike (Wagon Christ Mix)”
  5. Edgar Broughton Band “The Dawn Crept Away (extract)”
  6. Ghost Power “Astral Melancholy Suite (extract)”
  7. Neotropic “Neotropic”
  8. Durutti Column “Conduct (edit)”
  9. PLO Man & C3D-E “100 Pt. II – Pt. III”
  10. Faust “Untitled (Arnulf on Drums 2)”
  11. Chassol “Les Oursses”
  12. Khotin “Dialogue 6”
  13. Faust “Rudolf der Pianist”
  14. BiggaBush “The Bells”
  15. BiggaBush & re:ni “Dub Plate Tectonics”
  16. Original Rockers “Mecca of Space”

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

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

Posted on

SOUNDWAVE : 69 : FROM OVERSEAS

This week’s deejay is Kévin Séry, AKA From Overseas. Kévin is also the label manager for Past Inside the Present, a label, and resource for the ambient listener.

From Overseas is Kévin’s ambient project. Using his guitar as his tool of expression and looping techniques, he creates a multiplicity of layers, intense drones, and mesmerizing soundscapes both in the studio and in live performances.

Originally from the tiny French Overseas Department and Region, Reunion Island, he routinely bounces between his home island, a small port town on the east coast of the US, and continental Europe, picking up fresh ideas and inspiration along the way.

Kévin’s mix is very familiar, even though I’m unfamiliar with every song and musician featured in his mix. There’s something about Kévin’s mix that evokes the sound and feel of 4AD, a label that was known for alternative rock, post-punk, gothic rock, and dream pop albums. But if I had to narrow it down, I’d say that Kévin captures the spirit of 4AD’s This Mortal Coil. There’s something haunted in the selection of his songs but still quietly triumphant.

Kévin has some words below about his mix.

Join us next week when our guest deejays will be brothers Sebastian and Daniel Selke of CEEYS.

 

Kévin Séry, AKA From Overseas
Kévin Séry, AKA From Overseas

It’s an honor to be part of the Soundwave series. I love doing mixes like this. It’s a great way to go on a unique journey and to immerse yourself in the work of amazing and influential artists. This mix was made on February 23rd, 2021, when winter was slowly giving space to spring. Hopefully, people feel what I feel and can discover a few gems.

  1. 36 & awakened souls “Guide Me Home (awakened souls – Shoegaze Version) ”
  2. Lucy Gooch “Ash and Orange”
  3. Emily A. Sprague “Woven”
  4. Chuck Johnson “Raz-de-Marée”
  5. Illuvia Iridescence”
  6. Ilyas Ahmed & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma “Ocean Blue”
  7. From Overseas “Rêve”
  8. Christina Giannone “Untitled111”
  9. Alex Somers “Sooner”
  10. Mogwai “Dry Fantasy”

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

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

Posted on

SOUNDWAVE : 58 : COSMIC CHAMBO

SOUNDWAVE : 58 : DANIEL CHAMBERLIN

Today’s guest deejay is Daniel Chamberlin.

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.

You can find Daniel on Instagram, Mixcloud, Twitter, YouTube, Bandcamp and his blog, Into the Green.

Before I wrap up today’s show notes, there a couple of things I want to mention.

 

My second Moderna vaccination.
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
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
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
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.

  1. Wife Signs “Void Contemplation Tactic”
  2. With Great Care “Bloodflow”
  3. Anna von Hausswolff “Dolore di Orsini”
  4. David Hykes and the Harmonic Choir “Solstice Kyrie”
  5. itta “Moonlight”
  6. Kevin Richard Martin “Back to where i belong”
  7. Divide and Dissolve “We Are Really Worried About You”
  8. DEAFKIDS & PETBRICK “O Antropoceno”
  9. Azu Tiwaline “Terremer”
  10. KMRU “behind there”
  11. Ancestral Duo “Trajesty”
  12. Dedekind Cut “The Crossing Guard”
  13. Jamire Williams “God’s Morning Invitation (featuring Chassol & Carlos Niño)”
  14. Path of the Sun “Aquatic Sun”

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

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

Posted on

SOUNDWAVE : 38 : HARROLD ROELAND

SOUNDWAVE : 38 : HARROLD ROELAND

Today’s guest deejay is Harrold Roeland. Harrold is a trained composer, a poet, sound designer and performing musician, specializing in the use of environmental sounds and long attention spans. His works try to invoke the timelessness of the world and its landscapes. He sings medieval and renaissance music with Ensemble Vlechtwerk, and hosts the radio show Sensenta, a musical serial, at the Concertzender every Sunday evening that explores many of these themes.

From the beginning, whenever I’ve had a guest deejay on SOUNDWAVE I’ve asked them who they know personally that they think would be interested in participating in the show with a mix of their own. I do this for several reasons. For one, I like the intimacy of the invitation. While I have no problem contacting people I don't know to be on SOUNDWAVE I prefer this more personal touch. It’s a network built up of likeminded people who actually know each other. Secondly, having guest deejay’s on the show introduces me to wider scope of music. I’d like to think my knowledge of music is fairly deep but I know its really shallow. The guest deejays on SOUNDWAVE open me up to having so much more music in my life. And so many surprises! Today’s show features both Yusef Lateef and John Coltrane.

Harrold’s mix has been my soundtrack to many a late night and I'm thrilled to share it with you. Harrold’s will take you by the hand down darkened paths. It’s the kind of mix I love that seamlessly blends each song into the next and takes me on an emotional journey. I recently had the opportunity to listen to Harrold’s mix while driving through a sun-blasted Arizona highway and all it did was make the shadows cast from Harrold’s mix longer

Special thanks to Kirk Markarian of Neuro… No Neuro who introduced us to Harrold (listen to Kirk’s mix for SOUNDWAVE here). I’m curious to know who Harrold will introduce us to.

Harrold has some word about his mix which you can read below. But first, a few items I wanted to discuss.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, I launched SOUNDWAVE to help me cope with the stress and isolation of being stuck in my house due to the stay at home orders brought about by COVID-19. It was a very lonely time in my life: my wife was away at work and our kids were with their dad’s. It was just me, my dog and my music. Here we are in the second wave of the virus and once my wife has been sent out of town and yesterday I dropped off the kids to be with their dad. The difference this time is that instead of waiting months to be with my wife I’m going to see her today's and work remotely for the next few days. As a bonus, I’m going to spend the eight or so hours in my car listening to mixes for upcoming editions of SOUNDWAVE.

Pauline Anne Strom
Pauline Anne Strom

Finally, last week we lost Harold Budd and this week we lost pioneering blind composer and synthesist Pauline Anne Strom. Pauline released music in the 1980s under the name Trans-Mellenia Consort and explored the ambient and new age. Pauline’s last album, Angel Tears in Sunlight, is her first new album in 30 years and is scheduled to be released in January 2021.

Join me next week when our guest deejay will be Applefish.

See you then!

Harrold Roeland
Harrold Roeland

This mix starts with jazz, an album by Yusuf Lateef which has a nicely worn out sound. Biosphere’s wonderful impression of breaking ice quickly enters the scene. As far as worn out and slightly off key sounds go, Denmark’s Øjerum is an expert on that. His works are often soothing and slightly disturbing at the same time, as are Roly Porter’s, entering the mix around the 7 minute mark. We take a step back then for the second third of the mix, combining IA’s “Mater Lacrimosa” with, again, the percussive side of Biosphere. The last third of the mix is a piling of works, as often happens in my radioshow Sensenta on the Dutch Concertzender. IA meets John Coltrane meets Markus Guentner meets the genius of Kaija Saariaho. And finally, since it’s polite to introduce oneself, the last notes of “Glacier Looming,” is an impression of the weight of the Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand, a work using birdsong and semi-modular synthesis.

  1. Yusef Lateef “Purple Flower”
  2. Biosphere “Skålbrekka”
  3. Øjerum “The Forest Is Sleeping With The Trees, Part 1”
  4. Roly Porter “Inflation Field”
  5. IA “Mater Lacrimosa”
  6. Biosphere “Bergsbotn III”
  7. John Coltrane “The Drum Thing”
  8. Markus Guentner “Magnetar”
  9. Kaija Saariaho “Six Japanese Gardens IV”
  10. Harrold Roeland “Glacier Looming”

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

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

Posted on

SOUNDWAVE : 30 : JOSEPH ALEO

As I write this we’re driving to Arizona to pick up our daughter who we haven’t seen her in over seven months.

Before the self-quarantine in California began we took our kids to stay with their bio-dad and his partner. We didn't know how the virus was going to play out and my wife was certain she was going to be summoned for duty and I was going to work from home. Having them with their dad and his girlfriend was our best option.

We picked up our boy from Arizona a few months ago and by the end of the day all our family will finally be under the same roof again.

So here we are in the car and we’re listening to today’s mix. That’s my wife's idea, which is very flattering. Ambient and experimental music isn’t her thing.

This mix is very special to me.

I launched SOUNDWAVE to help cope with the stress and isolation of being under self-quarantine due to COVID-19.

We’ve been living with the Corona virus for over half a year now so it’s easy to forget that the during the early days of the self-quarantine we were all white knuckling it. We were all asking ourselves how long this would go on, what can we do to protect ourselves, and will we or our family members or friends die from the virus?

I don’t know about you but during that time I found it difficult to focus on anything outside of work, and work was a blessed distraction. My television could barely hold my attention and I’d turn it off in frustration. I found myself unable to read books and would read the same paragraphs over and over again. And I discovered that music no longer spoke to the truth of my new reality. Love songs in particular seemed inane. The only music I could listen to was ambient, classical, experimental and instrumental where there were no lyrics and I could infer or impart my own meeting. And if that was the only music that gave me solace then surely others needed it to, so why not share it?

Shortly after launching SOUNDWAVE I invited folks I knew to guest deejay on the show. I was overwhelmed by the responses so I sat on today’s mix until the right time.

So here we are. Finally.

The first track on today’s mix comes from Dronny Darko’s latest album, Origin. The entire album is fantastic and I was so impressed that I invited Dronny to be a guest deejay on SOUNDWAVE. Dronny Darko is on the roster of artist on the Cryo Chamber label, as is our next artist, Sabled Sun, which is Simon Heath, the founder Cryo Chamber. And from Sabled Sun we segue into Multicast Dynamics. Samuel van Dijk is the man behind Multicast Dynamics and today’s track comes form his fifth album, Lost World.

All of these songs seamlessly blend into each other until we fade into Ecker & Meulyzer, who I discovered n the Bandcamp Daily blog. Wonderful, spooky stuff full of powerful rhythms and raw swaths of sounds.

From there we hear a piece by West Dylan Thorsdon from the Split soundtrack. That man can do a lot with just a bow and a cello that’ll raise the hair on the back of your neck.

Our next song is from the Devs soundtrack by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow. If you haven’t watched Devs, please do so. It’s written and directed by Alex Garland and I think it’s Alex working in peak form. And Ben and Geoff’s music elevate Devs into sublimity. Oh, and Geoff is also a member of Portishead and you should definitely listen to his bandmate, Adrian Utley, mix for SOUNDWAVE.

We end today’s show with a piece by Those Who Walk Away from composer Matthew Patton’s album, The Infected Mass. It’s a mournful song for a mournful show. Patton’s piece is accompanied By some words by Peter Wessel Zapffe from his book, The Last Messiah. Prior to the pandemic I was knee deep in the nihilism of Thomas Ligotti and Emil Ciordan and Zapffe’s name kept popping up so naturally I had to read his stuff. Being steeped in nihilism isn’t the healthiest frame of mind to be in during the self-quarantine so I exorcised it with today’s mix.

I love this mix and I’m happy to finally share it with you after listening it to it weekly for the six months. It’s also something of a relief because today’s mix is also a touchstone to very unhappy time in my life and I’m glad to finally let go of it.

Join us again next week when our guest deejay will be E & S from one of my favorite labels, Other Forms of Consecrated Life.

See you then!

  1. Dronny Darko “Bioelectric Dive”
  2. Sabled Sun “Silo”
  3. Multicast Dynamics “Observation Deck”
  4. Ecker & Meulyzer “Carbon Cycles”
  5. West Dylan Thordson “Opening”
  6. Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow “Suffocation”
  7. Those Who Walk Away “First Degraded Hymn”
  8. Peter Wessel Zapffe “The Last Messiah, Excerpt”

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

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

Posted on

SOUNDWAVE : 5 : VINCE MILLETT

SOUNDWAVE : 5

I’m writing the show notes you’re reading from my backyard. Vince Millett’s mix, today’s guest deejay, plays in the background. The sun is out, the sky is blue, birds are chirping and my dog is smelling a flower. It is an idyllic day. Except that it’s week seven of California’s safe at home. COVID-19 has completely disrupted civilization and we’ll feel the aftershocks for years, if not decades, to come. So, yeah except for that, I’m having a fantastic day.

Today’s mix, by the way, is spectacular.

Opening the show to guest deejays has been a great idea because it’s really exposed me to so many musicians I’ve never heard before. I was counting on Vince to turn me on to some great stuff and his mix does not disappoint. It is exactly why he was one of the first people I asked to guest deejay on SOUNDWAVE.

I met Vince eight years ago on Twitter. I was impressed with his netlabel, Broken Drum Records, and his podcast, Secret Archives of the Vatican, and invited him to be a guest deejay for solipsistic NATION, my electronic music podcast. You’ll want to listen to that episode as soon as you’re done with today’s show. Vince’s taste in music leans towards the Asian and Middle Eastern and that is reflected in today’s mix. Each song is a gem. Dhafer Youssef’s “Dawn Prayer,” for example, is gut wrenchingly beautiful

Vince will talk about his musical selections below but before I go, I want to thank everyone who has sent the mixes you will hear in the upcoming months.

In just a few short weeks I’ve received a lot of mixes for SOUNDWAVE from some amazing guest deejays. It’s humbling how everyone were so quick to respond to my requests and their generosity of their time.

Last week’s show featured a gorgeous mix by Steven Howard. Next week’s guest deejay is James Curcio and his mix was inspired by the three years he spent writing and researching for his book, MASKS: Bowie & Artists of Artifice, and is a meditation on mortality, futility, transience, being lost in the simulacra and isolation during the coronavirus.

See you then.

 

Vince Millett
Vince Millett

We open with “Kemancheh” by Moving Ninja. Some years back when I was first discovering dubstep, the folk music of my hometown Croydon, I was surprised to find tracks like this that were far away from the dancefloor and had some middle eastern influences. Genre labels can be so limiting and misleading.

We then move into one of my own, “Outremer” by Thousand Yard Prayer. This is built upon a simple Viola Da Gamba line playing an Arabian musical scale with some medieval frame drums, a Persian ney flute and some subtle Croydon post-dubstep bass wobble adding to the low end.

Tunisian born oud player and vocalist Dhafer Youssef then leads us into the exquisite “Dawn Prayer.” His music gets marketed as jazz but I’m not convinced. It is unique. Listen to that voice!

Next we head towards the world of film soundtracks with “Eastern Path” by Vangelis from the film Alexander. The duduk is one of the most expressive and melancholy instruments on the planet.

We continue to head east with “Battle Remembered” by Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. I’m not a huge fan of western classical music but I love to hear musicians from that world working with highly skilled musicians from other traditions.

Bassist Jonas Hellborg recorded “Suriya” live in Aleppo in 1996. The whole album, Aram of the Two Rivers, is beautiful and is another example of superb musicians from disparate traditions creating something transcendent.

I finish this mix with my favourite piece of medieval music, “Palästinalied,” here played by Kalenda Maya from their album Pilegrimreiser. I have a Spotify playlist with 42 versions of this tune, all sounding different. This is a particularly chilled rendition.

  1. Moving Ninja “Kemancheh”
  2. Thousand Yard Prayer “Outremer”
  3. Dhafer Youssef “Dawn Prayer”
  4. Vangelis “Eastern Path”
  5. Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble “Battle Remembered”
  6. Jonas Hellborg “Suriya”
  7. Kalenda Maya “Palästinalied”

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

Logo by Rik Oostenbroek