low light mixes

Recently I was messaging with LLM guest mixer, Roquen Lómë, about Type records - an experimental record label that was active from 2003 to 2013. Founded by John Twells & Stefan Lewandowski in the U.K., Type released some creative music in those ten years ranging from delicate piano to sculptured noise to glitchy electronica to ambient to psych folk.

I thought it would be fun to create a mix of music from Type records catalog - then I looked at that catalog and, wow they sure did release a ton of music. There's no way to make an exhaustive review of their releases so I decided to go chronologically through some of my favorites. That still only scratched the surface, I think I have more than 40 Type records in my collection. 

It was nice listening to some of the recordings for the first time in years and I hope you too enjoy this little trip into the past.

Cheers!

 

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00   Mokira - Untitled #3 (Album 2003)

04:25   Deaf Center - Walk (Neon City 2004)

07:21   Golden - Door of Our Home (Corduroy Road 2005)

10:37   Julien Neto - I(one) (Le Fumeur de Ciel 2005)

13:35   North Sea & Rameses III - Night Blossom Written in Sanskrit (Night of the Ankou 2005)

19:19   Xela - Bobble Hats In Summer (For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights 2007)

25:08   The Alps - Trem Fanstasma (iii 2008)

31:14   Richard Skelton - Grange (Marking Time 2008)

34:00   Koen Holtkamp - You Mean The World To Me (Field Rituals 2008)

36:20   Grouper - We've All Time To Sleep (Dragging a Dead Deer Up A Hill 2008)

39:12   Helios - Hope Valley Hill (Caesura 2008)

44:05   Black To Comm - Hotel Freund (Alphabet 1968 2009)

47:57   Jóhann Jóhannsson - Pods (And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees 2009)

50:55   Ezekiel Honig - Drafting Foresight (Folding In On Itself 2011)

54:35   Sylvain Chauveau - The Unbroken Line (Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) 2010)

57:41   end

Another train mix? Another Berlin-school mix? Yes and hell yes! I've been struggling to keep up with creating new mixes and then, like a train pulling into the station right on time, Paul comes to me with a new mix. Perfect timing!

This one has tunes that are all fairly recent so it was fun to hear new stuff or discover new artists. I'm always up for new Berlin-school music and this set from Paul does that with long, evolving tracks that suck you in and keep you going. Here's what Paul says about his latest collection:

"I expect that for people who commute to work by train, there’s not much novelty in it. But most of my train-themed mixes imagine a long-distance trip where the journey itself is the experience and the destination somewhere in your imagination. As I’ve said before, sequencer-based “Berlin School” synthesizer music is a natural fit to evoke the subtle, hypnotic rhythms of travel by train. The six artists in this set were all new to me this year—and what a joy it has been to discover them."

Thanks again, Paul, for this wonderful collection of train tracks.

Cheers!

 

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00   Jim Kirkwood - Tenebrae-The Moonbeam Road (Souls That Dance on the Edge of a Sword 2021)

09:27   L.V. Morris - Rings Around the Sun (Darkstar 2025)

18:25   Alba Ecstasy - Reverie One (Berlin School Reveries, Vol. 1 2025)

28:50   Grant Beasley - Observing Time (Dreams in Deep Space 2025)

37:47   DASK - Transitions (Transitions 2025)

55:00   DTime – In The Crystalline Light (Birth Of A Constellation 2024)

70:20   end

A little over a year ago I posted a mix of quiet fusion jazz tunes which I really enjoyed curating. So it was only a matter of time before I made another and here it is. This mix has some of the same artists as the first one - Mile Davis, Soft Machine, Gong, Jean-Luc Ponty, Brand X, along with new additions. Not surprisingly, most of the tracks are from the 1970s, a few from the 80s and one new track by Elephant9 released in 2024.

Here's the first quiet fusion mix - https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/quiet-fusion/

I still plan on doing a straightforward fusion mix but for now this quiet set will do nicely. It's perfect early morning coffee music.

Cheers!

 

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00   Hugh Hopper & Alan Gowen - Waltz For Nobby (Two Rainbows Daily 1980)

08:51   Weather Report - Morning Lake (Weather Report 1971)

13:08   Soft Machine - Snodland (Seven 1974)

14:40   Brand X - April (Product 1979)

16:05   Elephant9 - Chamber of Silence (Mythical River 2024)

18:36   Jean-Luc Ponty - Ethereal Mood (Cosmic Messenger 1978)

22:23   Frank Zappa - Zoot Allures (Zoot Allures 1976)

26:13   John Scofield - Gil B643 (Still Warm 1986)

32:40   Gong - Mireille (Gazeuse! 1976)

35:28   Miles Davis - Ascent (The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions 1969)

39:50   Sun Ra - Haverford Impromptu #1(Haverford College 1980 Solo Rhodes Piano 2019)

42:48   Quiet Sun - r.f.d. (Mainstream 1975)

46:00   Mahavishnu Orchestra - Nostalgia (Mahavishnu 1984)

51:45   Eberhard Weber - Quiet Departures (Fluid Rustle 1979)

57:57   Cinematic Orchestra - Flute (Every Day 2002)

64:28   end

I've been super busy lately so it's perfect timing for another wonderful guest mix from friend of the feed, Daniel Hawkins. Daniel has done 4 mixes for LLM, each of them a great ambient journey. You can find them here:

Amiably Ambient
The Silence Between
Dark Woods
Metallic Memories
 
"This one takes some thoughtful curating to come up with such a cohesive set. Here what Daniel has to say about the mix:
 

"Wabi Sabi conveys feelings of desolation and solitude. Within Mahayana Buddhism these can be considered positive traits, representing release from the material world and the possibility of transcendence to a simpler life. As Mahayana philosophy emphasizes direct experience over verbal explanation, Wabi Sabi may be best understood in a non-verbal, experiential way.

According to Richard Powell, "Wabi Sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect."

Many forms of Japanese art have been influenced by Zen and Mahayana philosophy over the past thousand years. The contemplation and acceptance of imperfection, as well as the awareness of constant flux and impermanence, have been particularly important to Japanese arts and culture.

Awareness of the transience of all things heightens appreciation of their beauty, and evokes a gentle sadness at their passing.

So I’d been working on this mix for months - adding metallophonic cuts that caught my fancy - as a follow up to last year’s Metallic Memories mix.  The mix got to over 3 hours - and I wasn’t sure Dave would be amused.  They were all good pieces of music - but I thought maybe a tighter focus would make a more cohesive mix.  As I trimmed it down the Wabi Sabi theme seemed to fit the mood and I think makes a nice set.  I hope you agree."

 

Thanks for another fantastic mix, Daniel.

 

Cheers!

 

[ s t r e a m ]    [ d o w n l o a d ]    [ a p p l e _ p o d c a s t s ]

 

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00   Anaamaly - I Am Inspired by Possibility (Urban Metta, Vol. 2 2017)

06:10   Masayoshi Fujita - As Dusk Falls(Feat. NATURE) (As Dusk Falls 2025)

09:45   Luis Miehlich & Marty Hicks - Upon the Winds of Change (Reflections Vol. 2)

14:15   Zheleznyak - Water Talk (Attenuated In Ambient)

18:42   CSillagkod - Kettoscsillag (Silent World 2014)

21:55   Jogging House - Fingers (The Ambient Zone: Collection 006 2020)

25:45   Steve Good - Infinite Rainbows (Arise, Decay, Sustain, Release 2024)

32:05   Robot Koch - Kassel(Foam and Sand rework) (The Next Billion Years - Foam and Sand reworks 2022)

36:00   Marsen Jules - Yara 4 (Yara 2009)

43:10   Tapes and Topographies - Holograms (Partial Holograms 2025)

47:50   Heavenchord - Field Recordings #19 (Field Recordings #4 2022)

56:05   Calm Whale - Flower of Transformation (Flower of Transformation 2025)

65:17   end

I am listening to this guest mix as I type this and I am loving this set. Curated by Roquen Lómë, this is a wonderful collection of tracks for slowing down, for introspection. You can find some of his stuff on Mixcloud - https://www.mixcloud.com/roguenlome/

Here's what he has to say about the mix:

"There's something magical about listening to music late at night. You can dim the lights or turn them off entirely and immerse yourself in the sound. Your perception shifts just enough to highlight subtle noises, making any voices feel intimately near, though sometimes they may not be real. At times, they exist, and other times, they arise from your imagination or the onset of sleep. Most of the used tracks feature some form of vocal or whisper-like quality, though they may not always be tied to a human voice. I still tend to include vocal-driven songs into my mixes to provide an engaging contrast to the predominantly ambient and electronic sounds, ensuring the listener remains alert throughout the journey."

Thanks for a lovely mix!

Cheers!

 

T R A C K L I S T :

00:00  Colin Stetson - Morning Of (The First 2018)

02:13  Anne Müller - Solo? Repeat! (Heliopause 2019)

07:50  Sjors Mans - Big Ballad (Noord 2019)

14:27  Malibu - Cheirosa '94 (Palaces of Pity 2022)

16:05  Mowg - The Way Home (Burning 2019)

19:04  Brombaer - Cosmo Pollen (Stars 2013)

21:40  Ben Lukas Boysen & Sebastian Plano - Winding And Unwinding (Everything 2017)

24:08  Sonmi451 - Brenta (Panta Rei 2017)

28:34  The Phonometrician - We're Burning (Mnemosyne 2019)

31:54  Ólafur Arnalds - Particles (Island Songs 2016)

35:39  Otto A. Totland - Pinô (Pinô 2014)

38:03  Glåsbird - Austfonna (Svalbarð 2019)

42:51  Marek Kamiński - Long Hands (Not Here 2019)

46:29  Rauelsson - Split (Vora 2013)

51:52  Sven Laux - Fisher (Schachmatt 2018)

56:00  Deaf Center - Yet To Come (Low Distance 2019)

58:22  Lana Del Rey - Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have - But I Have It (Norman Fucking Rockwell! 2019)