26 Shades of Darkness (Mix)

The sheer volume of the Headphone Commute’s ‘…And Darkness Came’ compilation – issued as a charity fundraising for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and boasting 87 tracks (over 6 hours) of music – was also a kind of invitation to create a mix from it.
Presenting a wide range of music from well (and lesser) known artists – covering most of the ambient/electronic/post-classical/improv spectre, the compilation is an overview and ‘who’s who’ of what’s happening at this very moment.
Its diversity of sounds and musical ideas will appeal to everyone with open ears.

Those of you that know some of my ambientblog.net mixes will know that most of my mixes have a cinematic ‘tension/release’ structure, including drones as well as melodic themes…
‘…And Darkness Came‘ offers a lot of both.
But when I thought about creating a mix from this material, I realized that there already were quite a few great mixes around. Mixes that perfectly represented the wide array of music featured on this compilation. I did not feel I had anything to add to those.

So I decided to find another angle for this mix. I chose to leave out the melodic stuff, the beautiful (often piano) instrumentals, the post-classical (or ‘contemporary melancholic’) compositions – the ones that seem to have the widest audience appeal. And just focus on the, maybe somewhat less obvious, darkest of drones… (Don’t jump to conclusions and think that I don’t like ‘contemporary melancholism’- because I really do – I play them all the time!)

So here’s some of the ‘darkest of the darkness’. It’s not representative at all of the complete compilation (which is good, since I strongly urge you to download the full compilation for the ridiculous price it is offered for, and in the meantime help fund the cause it was created for). I also offer my sincere apologies to all artists included for using only fragments of their tracks. That’s just another reason to buy the full compilation!

Thanks to Headphone Commute for making this happen. Whatever the state of the musical ‘industry’ may be in, the musical ‘community’ feels more alive now than ever before.

Playlist

• 00:00 Marcus Fischer – Rising Landfall
• 03:15 Monolyth & Cobalt + Évo Lüthi – Dust Of
• 07:08 Machinefabriek – Waterspiegel
• 08:36 Pinkcourtesyphone – Pixels Came and Broke Your Heart
• 11:06 Somatic Responses – Fear Chasing Hope (Zombie Subway HC Edit)
• 13:35 Netherworld – Skotos
• 14:27 David Wenngren – Short Composition #2
• 15:33 Infinite Scale – Never Let Go
• 18:04 Sun Hammer – Incantations (For Sandy)
• 18:54 Max Richter – Non-Eternal
• 22:24 Autistici – A Concise Model of Power Outage
• 23:47 Gen Ken Montgomery – Sandy Drain
• 25:34 Takahiro Kido – Sweet Silence
• 28:42 Kane Ikin – Slipping Away
• 30:10 Roel Funcken – Trideo Vaperz
• 31:44 Pleq feat Strië – Our Words Are Frozen
• 32:09 Peter Prautszch – Überwintern
• 34:26 Aria Rostami – Delta
• 36:22 Valgeir Sigurdsson – Big Reveal
• 37:42 Julien Neto – Los Cien Enamorados
• 41:42 Riverrun – Maallinen Kuu
• 44:43 Hummingbird – Above the Ruins
• 48:01 WDNFRM – Gleneden Beach
• 50:05 James Murray – Still Waters Rise
• 51:19 Jase Rex – With Sword and Salt
• 53:55 Ian Hawgood – King of Light and Shadows

Download 26 Shades Of Darkness Now 145Mb (60:48 min.)
[Alternative download from Archive.org]