SOUNDWAVE : 119 : COMPLEX HOLIDAY

Today’s guest deejay is Robert Farrugia, co-founder of Complex Holiday, an itinerant label for inside-out ambient and sound art tomfoolery.

Robert was our guest deejay last fall, and he returns to Soundwave sharing another lustrous mix.

For me, Robert’s mix captures the essence of ambient music, as explained by Brian Eno, who compared ambient music to a painting. You can enjoy a painting on two levels. On one level, you engage with the painting, looking at it, studying it, and reacting to it. But on another level, the same painting is on the periphery of your consciousness. But it’s still there, subtly affecting you.

I’d find myself immersed in Robert’s mix and then be distracted by an email or text message, lost in thought, and slowly becoming aware that Robert had shifted the territory in his sonic landscape. And then the cycle began again.

 

Robert Farrugia, Photograph by Chris Vella / Storbju
Robert Farrugia, Photograph by Chris Vella / Storbju

Robert has included a few releases from Complex Holiday on today’s show. Ben Mifsud Joslin album, New Life (Robert was involved in the recording process and performed additional instrumentation on Ben’s album), and Daniel Vujcic’s album, Palinopsia, will be released later this year. Robert himself makes an appearance with “Iota.”

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Riz Maslen.

See you then.

  1. Warmth “Guiding Light”
  2. Robert Farrugia “Iota”
  3. Tone Color “Half-Remembered, Half-Forgotten”
  4. Ben Mifsud Joslin “New Life”
  5. Taylor Deupree “Twirl”
  6. Robert Farrugia “Digital Droplets”
  7. Daniel Vujcic “Quiblis Ark”
  8. Andrew Tasselmyer “Our Own Private Libraries”
  9. Daniel Vujcic “Volovod”
  10. David Allred “Potato”

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Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

SOUNDWAVE : 79 : LINE SPECTRUM

Today’s guest deejay is Oleg Puzan of Line Spectrum.

Oleg, AKA Dronny Darko, was our guest deejay over a year ago. Dronny mix was drenched in atmospherics and utterly enchanting. It was like looking through the glass darkly. It was a no-brainer to ask Oleg to return to Soundwave with yet another mix, this time as Line Spectrum.

Line Spectrum is a sound art project that expands sonic boundaries through sound manipulations often in a form of severe minimalism using a vast palette of microscopic sounds. Line Spectrum blends deep ambiences, musique concrète, avant-garde elements and silence. It is recommended that you listen to Line Spectrum with high quality headphones.

Yeah, about that…

Last week I took my dog for her evening walk. I find that’s the best time to listen to music and so I played Oleg’s mix. Ordinarily, Oleg’s Line Spectrum mix would have been a relaxing experience, but I used the transparent mode on my Apple AirPods Pro, which lets outside sound in. I use it when I walk my dog because I like to be aware of my surroundings. In this case in induced a state of anxiety because I couldn’t tell what I was hearing was from the Line Spectrum mic or from the outside world. Were the crickets I heard part of Oleg’s mix or my environment? Was that a jet flying overhead or what I was hearing over my AirPods? Were the chatter of people talking coming from a nearby house or from the mix I was listing to?

It was an unsettling experience. I couldn’t trust what I was hearing. It was what I imagine having auditory hallucinations would feel like.

Don’t let my experience detract from your enjoyment of Oleg’s mix. It’s truly wonderful. But please be wary if you should listen to the mix with Transparency mode on.

 

Oleg Puzan, AKA Line Spectrum
Oleg Puzan, AKA Line Spectrum

Before I get out of Dodge, if you want to hear more music from Oleg, head over to Bandcmap and purchase his new album, Bruma, available through the Shimmering Moods Records.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Lecu.

See you then!

  1. France Jobin “D orbital”
  2. Line Spectrum “Other People’s Thoughts”
  3. Eleh + Richard Chartier “LINELEH II”
  4. Francisco López “Untitled #372”
  5. Simon Whetham “Part First (An Uncertain Distance)”
  6. Line Spectrum “A Set of Events at the Shore”
  7. Yann Novak “San Marino”

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Logo by Rik Oostenbroek