{"id":3483,"date":"2020-10-04T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2020-10-04T07:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephaleo.com\/blog\/?p=3483"},"modified":"2021-07-02T20:28:44","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T03:28:44","slug":"soundwave-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephaleo.com\/blog\/soundwave-27\/","title":{"rendered":"SOUNDWAVE : 27 : JONATHAN AMMONS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s guest deejay is Jonathan Ammons, a journalist, radio producer, and musician living in Asheville, North Carolina. You can find his music on\u00a0Bandcamp<\/a>\u00a0and listen to his radio show from WPVM<\/a> and Pacifica Radio Network<\/a> at the Dirty Spoon.<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Jonathan is yet another amazing person I was introduced to through my old friend, Steve Howard<\/a> (listen to Steven\u2019s SOUNDWAVE mix here<\/a>). Meeting Jonathan is one of the unexpected pleasures in the evolution of SOUNDWAVE.<\/p>\n\n

I launched SOUNDWAVE to help cope with the stress of the pandemic. In the first few months of COVID-19 it seemed that stepping outside your house might kill you. If that wasn\u2019t terrifying enough, my family was scattered about the country so for a long time it was just me and my dog. That took a toll on me and my usual distractions, music, reading and television, could not hold my interest at all. In fact, they annoyed me or angered me. The only thing that provided any comfort was ambient, classical, experimental and instrumental music. I reasoned that if that music was giving me solace it might help others as well so I launched SOUNDWAVE. Very soon afterwards I decided to invite the talented people I know who might enjoy or, more importantly, need to share a mix of their own. And that very quickly led to asking my friends who they knew personally who might want to participate in the show. That decision introduced me to such wonderful people as Adrian Utley<\/a>, Hannah Peel<\/a>, Charles Hazlewood<\/a> and Jonathan.<\/p>\n\n

I don\u2019t really know Jonathan, though. We\u2019ve just had a few email exchanges arranging today\u2019s show but through his mix I feel I know him more intimately than I might know him through a dozen conversations. That\u2019s all projection, of course, but that is the power of music. It bypasses the rational and hits on emotional truths, which is why I launched SOUNDWAVE in the first place.<\/p>\n\n

Jonathan has some words about today\u2019s mix below.<\/p>\n\n

Join us again next week when our guest deejay will be Axel Arturo Barcel\u00f3<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

See you then!<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\"Jonathan
Jonathan Ammons<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Back in 2016 there were a series of forest fires that broke out throughout Western North Carolina, surrounding my home in Asheville. The air was thick with smoke, and a perpetual haze fell over everything. It just so happened that it fell right on the heels of a devastating national election, and for a moment, it truly felt like the whole world was on fire.\u00a0
<\/p>\n\n

I had just started spending time with a very lovely lady, and I asked her one night if she\u2019d like to go watch the mountains burn.So I threw some camping chairs in the truck, grabbed a camera and a bottle of Champagne, and we headed out to the center of the fires.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

There\u2019s a strange feeling when you sit and watch your home burn to the ground. Halloween orange glowing from every hilltop, brick red clouds in the night sky. Knowing that everything would grow back eventually, but that the sights you grew up seeing would be permanently scarred. The world would be better, maybe even healthier than it was before, but it would take a lot of ash and rubble to get there.<\/p>\n\n

I started making my first ambient LP \u2014 First Sight<\/a><\/em> \u2014 during those fires. At the time, my office was on my screened in porch, and I could sit while I composed and watch ash fall from the sky. I like to think that much of my approach to the way I currently make music came from that experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

I remember calling a friend one day, and saying, \u201cyou know how I\u2019ve been complaining a lot about that knot in my stomach that wouldn\u2019t go away? I think I finally figured out what that is. I think it\u2019s despair. I just think it\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever felt it. Ithink I just didn\u2019t realize it because it doesn\u2019t feels as hopeless as I would have thought.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n

From that point on, I was able to see the fragile, delicate things that fall apart, and not feel the overwhelming sense of loss I had initially felt. Instead, I understood it to be a burning of the dross, a disposal of things that were unnecessary. When a fire burns, after all, it makes way for far better things than grew there before. Sometimes you just have to let it burn.
<\/p>\n\n

I like to think of this mix as songs from the fire. Pieces of music that are as devastating as they are restorative. A little hazy, a little bleary, but beautiful in their own right. There are three original compositions in the mix, the first and last are from an as of yet unreleased record (this is actually their debut). The other, \u201cOpen Eyes\u201d, is from my new album First Sight<\/em>. The rest of the mix runs a gamut between crumbling organic sounds and stark synthesis. Ian William Craig<\/a> actually wrote his new and beautiful record while also being surrounded by forest fires, Goldmund<\/a> delivers gorgeous ambient versions of old Civil War era songs, and Oliver Patrice Weder<\/a> delivers the most thoughtful, pensive piano performance\u2026 music to watch the world end. My favorite kind.<\/p>\n\n