Not long ago, Muttley’s “Isolate” mix was published on Ambientblog as a guest mix.
Muttley’s own Subversion weblog hosts a lot of his mixes, as well as the 15 Minutes of Fame series.
The SubVersion 15 Minutes of Fame format dictates that any mix should contain no more than 10 tracks and last no longer than 40 minutes. That’s an average of 4 minutes per track.
So, when asked to do a guest mix for this weblog, I had to change my usual approach.
In the ‘collage’ mix format I mostly use, 4 minutes is about the maximum time any included sample gets played – usually far more tracks overlay at any single instance.
So I had to restrict myself in that matter, to create a ‘mixtape’ mix format for this particular issue.
In the Subversion mix, I tried to create a balance between the electronic and the organic.
Between voice, machines and nature.
But also between the sounds of infinite space (as recorded by the NASA Voyager in the 90’s) and the intimate sounds of raindrops (on the Monolake track).
‘Tension’ versus ‘Release’…: the dynamics of everyday life.
I truly hope this mix may help to prove that ambient music is not just meant to be ‘easy on the ears’.
Thanks to Muttley / SubVersion for asking me to do this mix!
TRACKLISTING
00:00 Ian Hawgood – A Film bij Chihei Hatakeyama
(Slow Films in Low Light, 2010)
04:48 Yannick Frank – Beaurieux
(Favourite Places 2, 2009)
07:56 NASA Voyager Recordings – Symphonies of the Planets 2
(NASA Voyager Recordings vol. 1, 1992)
13:00 Monolake – Watching Clouds
(Silence, 2009)
17:00 Jim Cole & Spectral Voices – Passion
(Sky – Overtone Singing in a Water Tower, 2007)
21:35 Yann Novak – Shortwaves to Longwaves
(Flowers, Dragon’s Eye Fourth Anniversary, 2010)
26:54 Helios – The Jaguar Sun
(Unreleased, vol. 1)
29:35 Kim Cascone – Spectral Space
(The Astrum Argentum, 2007)
31:58 David Kristian & Ryosuke Aoike – Kenzobutsu
(Ghost Storeys, 2006)
34:17 Jóhann Jóhannsson – Escape
(And in the Endless Pause there came the sound of Bees, 2009)
ben 2x keer in slaap gevallen onderweg met de Voyager, 3e keer de hele mix bewust meegekregen 🙂 Zo wordt een slapeloos uurtje midden in de nacht genieten…
Peter de Subversion mix is prachtig. Ben nu halverwege de reis…
Hi Alexander.
Thanks for providing this CUE sheet.
I’ve edited the comment above, because the code did not format well. The file can now be downloaded to use with the mix.
I was aware of the cue sheet use, but had not thought of providing these with the mixes.
In fact, it only ‘works’ for this particular Subversion mix, because you only hear one track at a time. For the other mixes (e.g. Miserere) the tracks overlay in a more complex way and the time given only indicates the ‘fade in time’. Because of this the cue sheet may be confusing: it cannot tell what you hear since you may hear 2 or 3 tracks simultaneously.
Also, with a cue sheet it’s easy to skip forward, which of course I would like to avoid 🙂
But for this Subversion mix, it works well in showing track titles etc.
Thanks again for providing it!
PvC
Hello Peter, thank you for this wonderful mix! Listening to it right now.
I have a suggestion, as you provide a nice tracklist with start times here: are you familiar with so called “cuesheets” and their functionality? I created a cuesheet from scratch for your mix so that I can see which track is actually playing in my media player of choice (foobar2000, supports cuesheets very nicely). It would be awesome if you’d provide cuesheets for future mixes. 🙂
[Edit PvC:]
If you want to download the CUE sheet Alexander provided, you can download it here:
https://www.ambientblog.net/tracks/subversion_mix.cue
(After downloading, rename it so it has exactly the same name as the corresponding MP3 file)