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
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.
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.
Jonathan guest deejayed on the show last October. Jonathan’s mix was so moving that I invited him back to Soundwave. Today’s mix is equally remarkable. I had the unique opportunity to listen to it while driving from San Diego to Sacramento to visit my wife this weekend. It’s wildfire season in California (it’s always wildfire season), and Jonathan’s mix provided the soundtrack to my apocalyptic drive. The skies were tinted dirty brown from the ashes from the wildfires, but somehow the sun managed to blast the landscape with glaring light: grass and trees parched from California’s megadrought. Every 20 miles or so, I’d pass an abandoned car to the side of the highway. And yet, Jonathan’s mix somehow lent some beauty to such desolate scenery.
Jonathan has some words about his mix below.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be anthéne.
See you then!
Jonathan Ammons
I think that my past year has looked like many people’s lives during the middle of one of the largest global pandemics in history. A lot of isolation, a lot of finding ways to busy yourself or occupy your mind. In the past, as someone who worked from home, I had enjoyed drone, ambient, and all of those experimental genres for the way they occupied a space without dominating it. If ambient music was created to generate music that did not evoke strong and tumultuous emotions — as Brian Eno claims— that was exactly what I wanted droning on in the background of my house while I pecked away at a keyboard for work. As a journalist, it provided this stoic, emotionless wallpaper for the background of my daily existence.
Covid changed a lot of that. They daily monotony left me just craving a change of emotion. But I didn’t want words; I didn’t want lyrics that would remind me of how things were when we were able to go places, meet people, kiss strangers at a bar… I wanted the same stability that the drone I’d come to love gave me, but I wanted something a little more expressive.
I also noticed that the more I used any streaming platform, the more the algorithm would eventually whittle things down to the same handful of artists. I wanted new things. I wanted variety in a locked-down life with no chance of spontaneity. So I decided to cut all algorithmic music out of my life. I stopped listening to Spotify or Pandora or any of those generated playlists and dialed back in to the radio.
I have to give a giant shoutout to Noods Radio out of Bristol, England, because they have been a major lifesaver. A station dedicated to the wild and weird sounds of Bristol. You never know what you’ll find, but the rich spread of creativity has introduced me to a slew of new artists. Props to BBC6’s great ambient show, as well.
Northern England’s A Beautiful Burning World make’s gorgeous sounds using very simple gear and tape loops. They even have a subscription system for $15 a year, and you can get their entire discography for cheaper than that! Much of this mix comes from artists discovered through the radio or combing around Bandcamp.
Seamstress makes delightful chill-out beats. Scanner gorgeously blends drone and ambient with deep arrangements that are so subtle, but meaningful. And I don’t know why it took me till now to notice Garth Stevenson’s incredible compositions. We really are in a golden age for the reinvention of modern classical music. Just look no further than Tristan Perich’s fantastic work.
I also have to give a shoutout to Kimathi Moore. Kima is an incredibly talented sound artist here in Asheville. His style’s shift between ambient, drone, and Edgard Varèse-like tone poems. I got the chance to work with him on a music video he shot for my latest album, and got to see just what a meticulous worker he is.No wonder his sounds are so precise and pristine.
Of course, I had to include some Harold Budd. I included a selection off of his album the Serpent (In Quicksilver) because I remember hearing an interview with him in which he claimed that it was his favorite record that he’d made. A major loss for the ambient music world, losing one of the original masters to this damned virus.
And lastly, the original tracks are two previously unreleased compositions. I started messing around with more tape loops in my studio this winter, and really decided to dive into it, which is how “The Same River” originated. The closing track is actually from a much larger piece I have coming out in the Fall. “A Certain Kind of Light” is a 40-minute piece in five movements. It was an experiment to see just how far I could go using only a single chord. The incredibly talented Olivia Springer performed all of the string parts for that piece. I’ve included the final movement of that piece to close out this mix as its debut.
Endless thanks to Joseph for having me back for another Soundwave mix. It’s been a pleasure to follow along and hear what everyone is listening to these days!
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.
I discovered Pierre while listening to his 2019 album, You Disappeared, recorded under the monicker Beyond the Ghost. You Disappeared felt like a soundtrack to a China Miéville novel. In fact, Miéville’s definition of weird fiction perfectly describes Pierre’s music; it “evokes a sense of the numinous.” His follow-up albums, Eternal Drift and his recently released The Last Resort continue to induce feelings of mystery and awe.
Inviting Pierre to be a guest deejay on Soundwave was a no-brainer. I was surprised, however, to hear his selections for today’s show.
When I extend invitations for guest deejays to participate in the show, I allow them latitude to explore the format of ambient, classical, experimental and instrumental music. Some of the guest deejays will play tracks of their own music, and that’s perfectly fine, but what I’m hoping for is a mix of songs from other musicians they love.
Pierre Laplace
I expected Pierre’s mix to feature songs that are much like his own in feeling and tone. I was delighted to find his mix explored a different sonic landscape.
To begin with, he opens his mix with a track from Deru. I knew immediately that Pierre had something unusual in store for us. I’ve been a fan of Deru for over a decade (hear my interview with Deru and his live set for solipsistic NATION), so I was eager to go whatever journey Pierre was going to take me on.
There are many twists and turns.
Pierre’s inclusion of Morphine caught me by surprise but in context completely makes sense. Brian Eno and David Byrne’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is one of my favorite albums, and I was thrilled to hear a track from it included in Pierre’s mix. The appearance of Ennio Morricone was also a welcome surprise. I’m also a fan of The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and The Mount Fuji Doommjazz Corporation and have wondered when someone would play them on Soundwave. The Cinematic Orchestra makes perfect sense within Pierre’s mix, and David Bowie pops up once again on Soundwave, making him the show’s perhaps most featured artist.
Stock up on provisions because Pierre is about to take you on a dark vision quest.
Join us again next week when our guest deejay will be Sean Hocking.
I met Brian on Twitter, but I’m not sure how. I’m sure it had something to do with our mutual love for guitars, ambient music, and horror. I recall listening to and enjoying his music but other than that, I don’t know much about Brian, which is why I’m going to interview him briefly on Instagram today. If that goes well, you can expect to watch more interviews with guest deejays on Soundwave on Instagram.
You’re going to dig Brian’s mix. It’s of the caliber you’ve come to expect from Soundwave. There are some surprises, like a track from the Pat Metheny Group, and a track from guest deejay Roedelius’s Cluster project with Brian Eno (listen to Roedelius’s Soundwave mix here). You’re in good hands.
If you want to hear more music from Brian, he has a new song that is included in a charity album available on June 21, 2021, on Bandcamp from Audionautic Records. The label will donate all proceeds to Project Hope, which sends relief to South Asia and people worldwide. Several of the artists in today’s mix will also be on the compilation.
Brian has some words below about today’s music.
Before I leave you, I have a few things I want to mention.
Frank Riggio’s Empreinte Musicale 2 album
Firstly, Frank Riggio recently released Empreinte Musicale 2, which is part of his ongoing trilogy. I’ve been listening to Frank’s music for years, and listening to his evolution as a musician has been a delight. I’m listening to Empreinte as I write today’s show notes, and I’m enjoying the sonic territory he’s trailblazing. Be sure to also listen to Frank’s mix for Soundwave here.
Secondly, Friday, my wife and I took our 11-year-old cousin to see Cruella. I had low expectations for Cruella, but the movie was surprisingly good and a whole lot of fun. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered if it was trash; I was just excited to go to a movie theater for the first time in over a year.
Okay, it’s time for me to head out.
Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Pierre Laplace.
See you then!
Brian Sangmeister
For me, music has always been about a journey. It transports you through time and space like nothing else can. Listening to music is like listening to your life story. It is full of peaks and valleys, personal moments and reflections. And above all else, emotions. I created this mix as a soundtrack to that journey. The best part is that you, the listener, will embark on your own unique voyage. A voyage that will take you through your imagination, and your soul. Each individual will experience something different. So I hope you enjoy these pieces of music, that when tied together, tell a bigger story. Your story.
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
