Oleg Puzan of Line Spectrum, AKA Dronny Darko (listen to Dronny’s mix here and his Line Spectrum mix here), recommended his partner guest deejay on the show last year, and Sasha’s mix was beautiful and sublime. I invited Sasha back on Soundwave, and she’s delivered another fantastic mix.
Sasha, AKA protoU
While Sasha’s first mix for Soundwave was elemental and cosmic, today’s mix feels cozy and intimate. I’m listening to it as I write today’s show notes, and I wish San Diego would not be so characteristically warm and sunny, and a chilly and overcast day seems more appropriate for Sasha’s mix.
I’ve also been listening to Sasha’s mix while I work at the office. It has been an interesting experience because I launched Soundwave to cope with the stress and isolation of the early days of the pandemic. I’ve been working remotely and listening to Soundwave mixes for nearly two years, and it feels unsettling to listen to the mixes at my office. I’m sure I’ll adjust, but presently it feels out of context.
Where do you listen to Soundwave?
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be José Sobranes.
Today’s guest deejay is Kellen Perry, AKA Wife Signs.
Daniel Chamberlin turned me on to Wife Signs with his Cosmic Chambo mix for Soundwave. As is my want, I asked Daniel who he know that would want to share a mix on Soundwave and he suggested Kellen. Daniel was spot on, because Kellen’s mix is a delight.
Kellen Perry, AKA Wife Signs
I mentioned last month how Line Spectrum’s mix blended so seamlesslessly with the sounds of my environment that caused me no small amount of anxiety. Kellen’s mix also merged with the sounds around me, but it was so ephemeral that it was a soothing experience. It made the sound of clanking flatware musical. Some of the mixes heard on Soundwave are sublime, and some, like Kellen’s, make the mundane seem magical.
While you can stream Kellen’s new album, Beneath the Weight of Care, on Spotify, I encourage you to pushase his album on Bandcamp. You can also follow Kellen on Twitter.
I hope you have a Happy Halloween. I know I will, because I’m taking my grandkid on his first trick or treating he’ll remember. Talk about magical!
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be protoU.
Today’s guest deejay is Steve Targo, AKA Inner Travels.
I met Steve when Soundwave guest deejay Rhucle (listen to his mix here) who he knew who he knew would share a mix with us. He suggested Steve. After listening to today’s show, you’ll hear why.
It’s a lovely mix, and by coincidence, it paired well with the rare rainy weather we’ve been having in San Diego for the last week. There were times when I wasn’t sure if what I was hearing was the rain outdoors or Steve’s music indoors. It was a magical experience.
If you’d like to hear more music from Steve, be sure to check out his project, Nimbudala. His debut album, Universal Compassion will be released on October 22, and you can pre-order it on Bandcamp as well as listen to a few preview tracks.
Steve says while the album still fits in the New Age ambient realm, it also has more acoustic sounds and influences from kosmiche, rock, jazz, and world music. I’m playing the album as I write this, and it’s wonderful.
Steve has some words about today’s show below.
Before I leave you, I wanted to tell you about a project that I’m launching on January 1, 2022, called Genius and Soul. The show will feature a series of mixes from guest deejays from Jazz and Black Classical Music to today’s scene’s many styles and branches. Our show’s efforts will also include fundraising for the Jazz Foundation of America. Follow us on Twitter for more updates.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be PCM.
See you then!
Steve Targo, AKA Inner Travels
Here is, I believe, an excellent primer for those interested in exploring the music of Inner Travels—four songs from four albums released between 2016 and 2019. From trance-inducing synthesizer work to an improvisation led by electric piano and singing bowls, the common theme in this mix is rain. I say “mix,” but really, this feels to me like its own album.
Thanks for listening, and Joseph, thanks for asking me to do this!
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.
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
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.
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.
Michał is based in Warsaw, Poland, and is an ambient electroacoustic artist that explores multimedia, sound art, and ambient genre through guitar soundscapes, field recordings, and samples. He is a conceptual leader of MM3, who creates 360° concepts of composing music, sound design, audio production, visual arts, and live performances. Michał is also a member of NUDA, a polish modern jazz/avantgarde band. Michał is currently working on different multimedia concepts and audio-visual works connecting the language of music and social commitment.
Michał is yet another musician I discovered on one of my deep dives on Bandcamp. I don’t have anything else to say about Bandcamp that I haven’t said here already. If you haven’t used Bandcamp’s service, please do. They do great work, and they make sure that the artists and music labels receive a high percentage of the money they make through selling music. You can buy the music you love and know that the musicians are fairly compensated for their work.
Michał’s mix for today’s show is a surprise. I suppose all the mixes on SOUNDWAVE are surprised. What I mean is that I invite people I respect to guest deejay on the show and give them the parameters that their mix focus on ambient, classical, experimental, and instrumental music. How they choose to interpret that is up to the guest deejay.
Therein lies what I think the charm of the show is. What music do these talented musicians love and want to share with us? It would be a mistake to believe that the guest deejays would select tracks like their own music, yet I make this mistake again and again.
Take Michał’s opening track, “When the World Ended.” It’s a beautiful piece of poetry that serves as a kind of a mission statement for today’s mix. At least, that how it seemed to me. There’s nothing in Michał’s own music that prepared me for it. Nor did I expect Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to make an appearance Michał’s mix, yet here we are. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised by Yorke’s appearance after hearing him on Robin Rimbaud’s mix from a few weeks ago. You’ll hear more from Yorke on upcoming mixes on SOUNDWAVE as well.
I know you will take as much delight in Michał’s mix as I did.
Before I get out of Dodge, I want to briefly share my experience of getting my first shot of the Moderna vaccine. I’ll get my second dose the first weekend of May, but I already feel invincible. I still have to take the same precautions of social distancing and wearing a mask, but the background anxiety of going out into the world has melted away. It’s remarkable how much my outlook has changed. I’ve gone from learning how to live with the pandemic on a day-to-day basis to the feeling we have this virus on the ropes and that we can soon go back to our lives.
That raises an important question: how much of our old lives do we want to go back to? The pandemic has been harrowing, but in some ways, it’s made changes in my life for the better and opened me up to possibilities. How has your life changed under the pandemic?
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Innesti.
Frank Riggio’s Empreinte Initiale EP
