{"id":4090,"date":"2021-08-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-22T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephaleo.com\/blog\/?p=4090"},"modified":"2021-08-22T22:07:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T05:07:28","slug":"soundwave-73-jonathan-ammons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephaleo.com\/blog\/soundwave-73-jonathan-ammons\/","title":{"rendered":"SOUNDWAVE : 73 : JONATHAN AMMONS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s guest deejay is Jonathan Ammons<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Jonathan guest deejayed on the show<\/a> last October. Jonathan\u2019s mix was so moving that I invited him back to Soundwave. Today\u2019s 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\u2019s wildfire season<\/a> in California (it\u2019s always wildfire season), and Jonathan\u2019s 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\u2019s megadrought<\/a>. Every 20 miles or so, I\u2019d pass an abandoned car to the side of the highway. And yet, Jonathan\u2019s mix somehow lent some beauty to such desolate scenery.<\/p>\n\n

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

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be anth\u00e9ne<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

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

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

I think that my past year has looked like many people\u2019s 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 \u2014 as Brian Eno claims\u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n

Covid changed a lot of that. They daily monotony left me just craving a change of emotion. But I didn\u2019t want words; I didn\u2019t want lyrics that would remind me of how things were when we were able to go places, meet people, kiss strangers at a bar\u2026 I wanted the same stability that the drone I\u2019d come to love gave me, but I wanted something a little more expressive.<\/p>\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n

I have to give a giant shoutout to Noods Radio<\/a> 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\u2019ll find, but the rich spread of creativity has introduced me to a slew of new artists. Props to BBC6<\/a>\u2019s great ambient show, as well.<\/p>\n\n

Northern England\u2019s\u00a0A Beautiful Burning World<\/a>\u00a0make\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n

Seamstress<\/a> makes delightful chill-out beats. Scanner<\/a> gorgeously blends drone and ambient with deep arrangements that are so subtle, but meaningful. And I don\u2019t know why it took me till now to notice Garth Stevenson<\/a>\u2019s incredible compositions. We really are in a golden age for the reinvention of modern classical music. Just look no further than Tristan Perich<\/a>\u2019s fantastic work.<\/p>\n\n

I also have to give a shoutout to Kimathi Moore<\/a>. Kima is an incredibly talented sound artist here in Asheville. His style\u2019s shift between ambient, drone, and Edgard Var\u00e8se<\/a>-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.<\/p>\n\n

Of course, I had to include some\u00a0Harold Budd<\/a>. I included a selection off of his album the\u00a0Serpent (In Quicksilver)<\/a><\/em>\u00a0because I remember hearing an interview with him in which he claimed that it was his favorite record that he\u2019d made. A major loss for the ambient music world, losing one of the original masters to this damned virus.<\/p>\n\n

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 \u201cThe Same River\u201d originated. The closing track is actually from a much larger piece I have coming out in the Fall. \u201cA Certain Kind of Light\u201d 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\u2019ve included the final movement of that piece to close out this mix as its debut.<\/p>\n\n

Endless thanks to Joseph for having me back for another Soundwave mix. It\u2019s been a pleasure to follow along and hear what everyone is listening to these days!<\/p>\n\n