I discovered Lecu a few months ago when Soundwave guest deejay Ishmael Cormack asked folks on Twitter for musical recommendations. Lecu suggested Sebastian Mullaert and Erland Cooper. Those were both great recommendations. Who was this Lecu? I checked out how Twitter profile, which led me to his Bandcamp page and listened to his albums. I extend an invitation to join us on Soundwave, and here we are today.
It was a breath of fresh air after last week’s mix from Line Spectrum. Don’t get me wrong, last week’s show was great, but listening to it on my AIrPod Pro with transparency mode felt more like an auditory hallucination than a mix. Lecu’s mix feels whimsical by comparison but no less fantastic than Line Spectrum’s mix.
If you’d like to hear more music from Lecu, check out show on 1020 Radio, every first Thursday of every month from 10 PM – 11 PM Pacific.
Lecu has some brief words about his mix below.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Inner Travels.
Leo, AKA Lecu
I’m happy to share my mix with you today. Lots of nice textures, both abstract and familiar, with some lush tracks along the way — one of which is a new one from me, which feels like the start of a new record and a new direction for me as an artist.
It was really fun to make, and I’m so honoured to be in very good company with your other guests
Much love from Plymouth, England, and wishing you all the very best.
A couple of months ago, Soundwave guest deejay Ishmael Cormack (listen to his mix here) asked for musical recommendations from his followers on Twitter.
Ismael got a lot of responses, and I listened to every suggestion on Spotify. If I heard something I liked, I’d invite the musician to guest deejay on Soundwave. Anthéne, for example, appeared on the show back in August. And today’s show, of course, features Triplicate Records.
Triplicate Records
I remember back in the 80’s listening to the soundtrack to Birdy by Peter Gabriel and wishing some musicians would record music for imaginary soundtracks. Such music existed, but I wasn’t aware of it until the following year when I was turned on to Brian Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land and Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Finding Eno, and musicians like him, was everything I hoped for and more.
Over the decades, I’ve seen more and more record labels dedicated to ambient, modern classical, experimental and instrumental music. 12k comes to mind, as does n5MD and Ultimae Records.
Music from Triplicate Records was already popping up on my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist and music I was discovering on Bandcamp. When Triplicate Records was recommended to Ishmael on Twitter, it felt like the universe was telling me to invite them on the show.
Triplicate Records is a boutique record label working primarily with instrumental electronic music. They are 100% artist-run, by producers Michael Southard (Time Rival), Bryan Kraft (BVSMV), and George Ernst (Suncastle). Despite the pandemic, they have gained a following with their unique musical tastes, striking artwork, and consistent output.
You’re going to love today’s mix. If you want to hear more from Triplicate Records, listen to their Spotify playlist here.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Oleg Puzan of Line Spectrum.
Today’s guest deejay is Robert Farrugia, co-founder of Complex Holiday, an itinerant label for inside-out ambient and sound art tomfoolery.
I’m usually fastidious about tracking how I come to know guest deejays on Soundwave. Unfortunately, my initial conversation with Robert began on Facebook Messenger and that chat is lost to the ether. Well, really, Facebook has that conversation stored somewhere. But it’s as good as gone for me.
Whatever lead me to Robert, I’m glad I invited him to join us.
What you may or may not know is that I get the mixes you hear months in advance. I usually enjoy it for a week or two before I move on to listen to the next guest deejay’s mix. I’ll also re-listen to the mix a few weeks before their show is released. I listen to the mixes a lot.
Robert Farrugia, Photograph by Chris Vella / Storbju
Robert’s mix was a welcome companion for the last week. Nationally, the U.S. is caught between wildfires and hurricanes. Internationally, the U.S. has left Afghanistan. And on a personal note, the was my kid’s first week at high school. While our area is 75% vaccinated, I’m still anxious about how this will work out. Within the first week there’s already been a report of a student with COVID-19. Robert’s mix felt like an echo of how I’ve been feeling about all of it.
There’s a tension that builds up early in Robert’s mix that unravels nearly halfway through before exploring different sonic territory. The mix ends hauntingly and somberly.
I discovered Yann’s label through Mike Lazarev’s music blog, Headphone Commute (if you enjoy Soundwave, you’re going to love Headphone Commute).
Yann curates a heady offer of music through Dragon’s Eye Recordings featuring notable artists such as Pinkcourtesyphone (Richard Chartier), Genrietta, and Lawrence English. Some of the label’s releases are whimsical, some challenging, and some so ephemeral that you might imagine you dreamt of hearing it. But all the releases on his label are lovingly selected and demands to be listened to just as Yann’s mix demands to be heard.
Yann Novak Photo Credit: Robert Crouch
A few highlights.
The hairs went up on the back of my neck when I instantly recognized Geinō Yamashirogumi’s score for the cyberpunk classic, Akira. Back in the 80s, the movie was considered as imponderable as 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Akira has influenced culture to such a degree that it seems straightforward by our current standards. Incidentally, you can purchase Kaneda’s jacket, who is the film’s protagonist.
Yann’s inclusion of Billie Eilish & ROSALÍA’s was an unexpected delight. Eilish is kind of cyberpunk herself, having sung about our anthropogenic doom and interviewed by an AI bot.
The Future Sound Of London make yet another appearance on Soundwave via Yann’s mix. So much of the electronic music that was fasionalble in the late 80s seems dated but The Future Sound of London still feel timeless.
Lloop was also a surprise. I first heard Lloop when I showcasedThe Agriculture label on solipsistic NATION (mumbles) 15 years ago.
I know it isn’t true but I can’t help but feel that Yann made this mix specifically for me. It’s uncanny.
Yann modestly didn’t include his own music in his mix but I wanted to mention that Friday he released his new album, Lifeblood of Light and Rapture., available through Room40 (streaming starts July 2). Yann is really proud of this album and he can’t wait for everyone to experience it! He hopes it’s just the kind of lightness… or darkness you need right now.
Frank Riggio’s Empreinte Musicale 3 LP
Before I wrap this up, there are two things I need to mention.
Frank Riggio just released the third and last installment of his new trilogy, Empreinte Musicale 3. It’s just as weird and wonderful as his previous two albums. Go listen to it, and then buy it, and afterwards, listen to Frank’s Soundwave mix.
Lastly, I believe I’ll wrap up Soundwave sometime in 2022. I launched Soundwave to cope with the stress and isolation of the pandemic. I told myself that once COVID-19 is no longer the threat that grinds nations to a halt that the show willhave served it’s purpose and that I’d bring it to an end. Unless the pandemic spirals out of control again or unless I change my mind, I will release all the remaining mixes our generous guest deejays have provided for us.
And on that note, please join us next week when our guest deejay will be Corey Parlamento.
Fitz Gitler introduced me to Nate after I asked him who would be interested in doing a mix for Soundwave (listen to Fitz’s mix here). If Fitz recommends anything then I’m going to listen because that guy has excellent taste in music, so invited Nate to guest deejay on Soundwave without hesitation.
Nate did not disappoint. I’ve listened to his mix many times, usually with a cup of coffee while I’m starting my workday. Despite each listen, Nate’s mix sounds fresh even as it’s burnished with another lacquer of familiarity.
Nature said that today’s mix inspired him to dust off his Ableton and begin composing again. I look forward to whatever he decides to share.
Nate is a medical geographer who uses maps to support health programs around the world. When I asked him if there was anything I should mention on today’s show notes, he said he wanted to promote efforts such as 80,000 Hours (a London-based organization that conducts research on which careers have the most significant positive social impact and provides career advice based on that research), GiveWell (an American non-profit charity assessment and effective altruism-focused organization, focusing primarily on the cost-effectiveness of the organizations that it evaluates, rather than traditional metrics such as the percentage of the organization’s budget that is spent on overhead), and Animal Charity Evaluators (a US-based non-profit charity evaluator and effective altruism-focused organization that finds and promotes the most effective ways to help animals).
Nate was some words about his mix below.
As of Monday, I am fully vaccinated. Outwardly, you’d never know that being vaccinated has changed my life. I still wear my mask when I go out into the world. I still keep my distance from people. I don’t want to pass on the virus even though I may be immune to it, and I certainly don’t want to risk catching one of the variants. Inwardly, I feel like a weight has been lifted. I feel a little bit invincible.
Before the pandemic, I purchased tickets to see Swans perform in Los Angeles. The concert was rescheduled, rescheduled again, and finally canceled. I’m hoping that once enough people have been vaccinated that I’ll finally get to see them.
This week I’ve been putting my CDs in storage. While packing, I came across fantastic music by C – Schulz, Coil, Zoviet France, Techno Animal, Z’EV , and others that I plan to share on a future mix.
Okay, that’s it for me.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Jon Solo, AKA Naneum.
See you then!
Nate Heard Photo Credit: Miles Heard
Like many mixes that appear on Soundwave, this one captures a specific moment, even though these selections come together from a span of about 50 years. I received Joseph’s kind invitation to be a guest deejay the day after seditious white supremacists stormed the Capitol building. I was a mess. I happen to live in Washington, D.C., and have spent some time in those office buildings. Terre Thaemlitz’s “D.C. D.O.A.” (1997) came to mind and ended up anchoring this mix.
“I got a phone call. He wants us to join him.”
“In Washington.”
“Some kind of big demonstration.”
“They think they’ve finally got a shot.”
“I can’t go to Washington. I can’t even get out of bed!”
Julianna Barwick goes straight for catharsis with “Inspirit” (2020). It’s a purification. Listening to it feels like participating in a rite. Like “Inspirit,” Haruomi Hosono and Bill Laswell’s “Unfinished Screams” (1996) washes over you, but in alternating waves of drum & bass and ambient synth & insect passages. The outro forms a bridge to the musique concrète and collage pieces that compose the mix’s core.
The one electronic music class I’ve taken focused primarily on tape processing and the studio techniques Delia Derbyshire used, such as cutting and splicing magnetic tape with a razor. This excerpt of “Circle of Light” (1969) is a nod to Derbyshire’s brilliance with this medium and, like other excerpts in the mix, encourages seeking out the complete pieces.
“Espace/Escape” (1989) is one of the most tonally rich pieces of musique concrète I know and endlessly rewarding on repeated listening. Holger Czukay’s “Träum Mal Wieder” (1984), roughly “dream again,” is also built from ethereal, dreamlike sources but is held together by driving percussion and has much more structure than its name suggests.
The album “Pan De Sonic – Iso,” which includes the track “Evening Night fall – Fire, cricket, wine glass etc” (2021), will be available by the time this mix appears on Soundwave. Ai Yamamoto composed it entirely of “domestic field recordings” from the artist’s COVID lockdown in Melbourne. It promises to be an extraordinary release.
Chris Burke’s “Everything I Need” (1995) is at once jagged and tender, much like Joe Cocker’s source vocals. To my ear, Burke captures the essence of Cocker’s song with only variations on a four-second sample.
“Avril 14th” (Aphex Twin) is recognizable from the opening bar of loscil’s remix of Wagner and Murcof’s cover (2017). But unlike the original or the cover, the melody doesn’t hit until 2:03, which for me, was one of the biggest payoffs in music I’d heard in a long time. It’s patient and brilliantly arranged.
The opening track on Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster & Panaiotis‘s “Deep Listening” is “Lear” (1993) which, the more I thought about it, evoked the 45th president. The greed. The king’s solicitation of flattery. King Lear does not want the responsibility of power. Only the benefits. Shakespeare’s tragedies typically end with a restoration of order after chaos. Maybe less so with Lear.
I’d wanted to end this mix on an up note but settled for something absurd. Negativland’s “Time Zones” fit the moment and make for a clear bookend to Thaemlitz. The madness of Lear and the brain worms of conservative political talk radio. Some kind of big demonstration? “It’s not even funny.” Eleven tracks. “It’s ridiculous.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Today’s guest deejay is Ivan Somov, AKA Notnotice.
While I stream music like everyone else, I’m also old fashioned and still purchase songs and albums. Bandcamp is my preferred vendor because they give the music labels and artists a generous share of the money generated from Bandcamp sales.
I spend an hour at least an hour a week exploring Bandcamp and listened to great music. If I came across someone I thought would be a good fit for SOUNDWAVE, I’d invite them to be a guest deejay. It’s a no-brainer, really, and we’ve heard great mixed from folks such as Tim Six, who runs ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ Records with his wife, Mila, and Ishmael Cormack . Next week’s show will feature Out of Hell, and in the weeks to come our guest deejays will be Less Bells, Emil Zapffe, and Rhucle.
Ivan is yet another talented musician I discovered after searching Bandcamp for ambient, classical, experimental, and instrumental music to listen to. These are difficult genres. It’s easy to record music in those genres that are awful, hard to do mediocre, hard still to record something great, and a challenge to create something great. When I find something great, as I said, I am compelled to reach out to the artist and invite them to be a guest deejay on SOUNDWAVE. And that brings us to today’s show, which I’m listening to as I write this.
Ivan’s mix is going to take you on a journey. To me, that is the point of art. It’s not enough to craft a pretty or catching sound. Evoking emotion is one thing, but if the music can transport you to somewhere else and spur your imagination, that’s magic. And Ivan’s mix is magic and will be your soundscape for today’s sonic safari. The mix is the map. Your destination will be your own for you to discover.
Quick note: Ivan begins today’s mix with a track from Symphocat, a Russian musician and label owner. Tim Six also featured Symphocat on last week’s show. I’m taking that as a sign that I need to extend an invitation to guest deejay on the show.
Ivan has some words about Notice that he’d like to share with you below.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Out of Hell.
See you then!
Ivan Somov, AKA Notnotice
Notnotice – a project created to implement the ambient and not only the mood of the author. Originally was written only dark ambient, but later decided not limited by the rigid framework, but at the same time, the music has not lost the original dark and cold, Notnotice tries to embody in their tracks the idea of loneliness and alienation.
Frank Riggio’s Empreinte Initiale EP
