joshcast: summer of frogs
Music: Genuine (Chris Zippel): Nu Ambient Grooves (2007)
Those who know me well will acknowledge I have a voracious appetite for music. More than any other media, I consume and enjoy hour upon hour of music when traveling, working, cleaning the house, blogging, and so on. For example, whenever I sit down at the computer I open iTunes and hit play on "random" mode. If the song that plays suits the mood, I then type the album title into the field box and that is what I listen to for the next hour or so (if you’ve ever wondered how I select the music that appears on my blog, now you know).
Some weeks ago a friend stumbled on one of my Pandora "radio stations" (it was set to Marconi Union) and remarked that the music helped her to write. Then, recently another friend emailed to ask what music I listen to when I am writing and researching. These questions inspired me to mix-up the work of a number of my favorite artists, artists that I write and research to.
When writing and researching, I find that lyrics and certain voices are distracting (screaming, for example). I cannot listen to "rock" or anything designed to implore listening or dancing. I know some people have the ability to write through the soundtrack of two freight trains crashing, but I'm usually so attentive to sound that I have to reach for something more sedate. "Classical music" doesn't work for me either, and this is precisely because classical music is designed to invite attention and close listening. Classical classic music is complex, intricate, and my tastes tend toward rupture (Wagner, Mahler, Beethoven).
What I learned to listen to and enjoy many years ago as an undergraduate during work is "ambient music," a genre pioneered by Brian Eno, Harold Budd (even Philip Glass), expanded by Alex Patterson (the Orb) and various "new age" artists like Ray Lynch, and explored by experimental artists like Coil and Current 93. Owing to my interest in "dark" musical idioms, I tend to like the more melancholy of ambient tunes, although I admit I do worship at the altar of the Orb's "Blue Room" (simply the most outstanding psychedelic ambient tune ever recorded). Today, I'm particularly drawn to "drone ambient," which sounds just like the label.
For today's joshcast I've uploaded a mix I'm calling "Summer of Dead Frogs," which collects a number of artists that I listened to a lot this summer. I got the title from working out outdoors this week: recent rains brought out a lot of frogs, which were subsequently squashed by car tires. Their little flat, sun-baked bodies are all over the place on the streets. This has nothing to do with ambient music, of course. Anyhoot, you can download the joshcast as an MP3 file here. You can download the CD-art insert here as a PDF file. Here's the track listing:
- Raymond Cass: Remarks on EVP from old LP recording.
- Scanner: "Without End"
- All: "Sag Alles Ab"
- Tear Ceremony: "Brill Building, 4:00 a.m."
- Tobias Lilja: "Gas of Forgiveness"
- Lusine icl: "520 at 8:30"
- Between Interval: "Expanding Area"
- All India Radio: "Tropic of Unicorn"
- Jon Hopkins: "Contact Note"
- Burial: "Etched Headplate"
- Thomas Fehlam: "Camilla"
- NIN: "Lights in the Sky/Corona Radiata"
- Marconi Union: "A Temporary Life"
- Shearwater: "Lost Boys"
- Coil: "mu-ur"
Of course, it goes without saying these tracks are for personal, preview purposes only. If you like an artist, please purchase and download their MP3s or CDs. Enjoy!