SOUNDWAVE : 131 : AMBIENT DUB

Today’s show features a retrospective mix of the Ambient Dub compilation albums from the ’90s.

A couple of months ago, I realized I had an open slot in the Soundwave schedule. I could have quickly filled that slot, but since I rarely get to deejay on my own show, I save those available slots for myself. As it happens, I had just finished a mix featuring music from the Ambient Dub compilation albums.

If you’re unfamiliar with Ambient Dub, they were a series of compilation albums released through the Beyond label. Electronic music was mutating at a furious pace, and it was only a matter of time before ambient and dub would intertwine and become its own genre.

As I recall, I first came across the Ambient Dub Volume 3: Aqua album while digging through the racks at Newbury Comics in Harvard Square. The album cover caught my imagination. It was a minimalist take on the techno/rave flyer album covers at the time.

I was already a devotee of dub since the ‘80s when I discovered ROIR’s 21st Century Dub, a release of Pecker Power’s cosmic dubs. Beyond captured that alchemical synthesis of ambient and dub, turning me on to musicians like Banco De Gaia, Higher Intelligence Agency and Space Time Continuum.

For the next few years, I worked my way backward through the series, finding Ambient Dub Volume 2: Earthjuice and Ambient Dub Volume 1: The Big Chill and finally catching up with Ambient Dub Volume 4: Jellyfish.

I’ve had these albums on rotation for decades. I’ve included songs from these cherished albums when I was a deejay at WMFO, often winding down 5 am set with Insanity Sect’s “Choctaw Ridge.” This mix came together from muscle memory. It was effortless. It was so much fun that whenever a slot opens up in the next few months, I’ll showcase retrospective mixes featuring music from the Excursions in Ambience and From Here to Tranquility compilation series.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be returning guest deejay Pierre Laplace.

See you then.

Original Rockers “Sexy Selector”

Groove Corporation “Roots Controller”

Sandoz “White Darkness [Electronic Eye Remix]”

Sounds from the Ground “Triangle”

Banco De Gaia “Sheesha”

Gol “No Bounds”

Digital Jesus “Menali Encounter”

21st Century Aura “Disorientation”

Deep Space Network “Callacop”

Space Time Continuum “Oracle”

Higher Intelligence Agency “Delta”

A.P.L. “Hypnosystem”

Mimoid “Strawberry”

Alphanex “Planet Hoskins”

Insanity Sect “Choctaw Ridge”

Coldcut “Sign”

Starseeds “Regina from the Future”

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