Explore the outer depths of inner space in this psybient mix full of hypnotic beats,driving bass and ethereal soundscapes. A nomadic journey into the world behind closed eyelids. Plenty on offer in this mix from the surreal rhythms of Bluetech to the deep psybient twistiness of Looney Grandpas. A modern tale of triplicious sonic exploration.
I hope you enjoy the mix and find something new to your ears to follow up on. The majority of these tunes can be found on Bandcamp so if you have time please check them out and show you love for these incredible artists.
Tracklist used for this mix :
00:00:00 Reflected Within - Gumi feat Kaya Project
It has been quite a while since I've mixed up some deep bass music so here is one for all you lovers of subterranean frequencies. This is a follow up to episode 73 - the initial Bass, Beats and Beyond episode.
There are a lots of tracks in this one, and time is short this week, so I'll have to pop back later and fill in all the details. For now, turn it up to 11 and let your bones reverberate.
Track / Artist
01. Ot Du Shi (Whitebear VIP Remix) - Quixotic and The Human Experience
02. Pixel palace - EurythmY and Schtang
03. Devi Garden - Antandra
04. Yatha - Martins Garden
05. Bardo (Ecometric Rebirth) - Whitebear
06. Subatomic - Anchor Hill
07. Soul Purpose - Subconscious
08. Dubnotic - Hammam
09. Subterranea - Simbioosi
10. Live Inside Every Breath - Icaro
11. Call of the Cacti - Grains of Sound
12. Wings of Waves (Liquid Stranger Remix) - Desert Dwellers
13. Ritual (EurythmY Remix) - The Human Experience
14. One God Dub (Dubsahara's Instrumental Remix) - Kaya Project
This week we have a mix of deep globalbass, glitchy beats, ethno whomp and thing that go wub. You'll hear plenty of goodies it this one ( 20 in fact ! ) so let's get started.
We begin with Macedonian duo Yudhisthira ( Goran Bugarinovski and Ognen Zafirovski ) with a sumptuous, spatial dubby ethno beat adventure from Vertigo Records "Peace And Love 3" compilation mastered by good ol' Colin OOOD - seems everything that passes his mixing desk turns into gold ! What a belter of a tune ! These guys have been around for near on two decades and this, ashamedly, is the first I have heard of them. It certainly won't be the last as I'll be watching these guys closely from now on.
One of the best EPs from last year, Master Minded's "The Source Of Life" is home to the next track "Leopard's Prophecy". This track combines a dark spiritual atmosphere with trippy cut up beats to create a kind of fractalized fissure of global bass beauty . Master minded ( Eyal Ytshar ) just released his epic new full length album on the superb Maia Brasil records label. Titled "Elements", much like the series released by Avatar Records it explores the mysteries of the four elements earth, air, water and fire. It's a little more relaxed than I expected but still a super album and is this weeks "album of the week" so check it out for pure ethno ambient bliss.
Brujo's Bowl ( Saxon Higgs ) is always good value for quality beats and bass driven psychedelic shenanigans. Our next tune is a remix of his tune "Submininal Message" by Smoke Sign. This version is pretty funky with some nicely crafted slapped bass sounds and slugging bass kicks. Wicked dimensions for sure. Another version of this track by Expedizion also featured on mix 53 so check that out if you dig this one. Saxon also releases music under the Beatroots alias. Beatroots kind of explores more minimal dub and hiphop sounds. Personally I prefer the old Brujo's Bowl stuff. He released a new Brujo's Bowl EP earlier this year however it was more of an uptempo dancefloor affair. You can catch him playing both BB and Beatroots at Canada's Luminosity Festival this July.
Some captivating bass heavy tunes have been tickling my fancy of late. Here is a mix of psychedelic tunes with a bass focus. This one starts of in a pretty laid back fashion with a couple of tracks from Anchor Hill and AtYya.
Anchor Hill ( Richard Hartley ) has crafted a fine album with his latest "Medicine Grove" release. Check it out on his Bandcamp page. AtYya ( Tyler Clark ), like Richard, is another bass lover from Canada and also has his latest work up on Soundcloud.
Some great stuff coming out Canada these days. Once upon a time there was pretty much just the Interchill label but now there are lots of new producers emerging.
After the those guys we have yet another Canadian - Daega Sound, one of my favorites when it comes to to deep bass laden electronic music. You can pick up this tune, Terra, along with many superb others on the Bloom Series Vol 1 release.
We then move into a champion bit of psydub with a unique vibe from Soulacybin ( John LaBoone ). This track, Shine Out, comes from Mycelium Music Compilation Vol. 3. For more of his excellent music have a listen to his latest full length release - Gratitude on the brilliant Australian label Merkaba Music.]
Psystep is a term I'm not exactly comfortable with but I guess it is the easiest way to describe what is going on in today's mix. This mix is a collection of psystep, psydub, glitchhop and, generally speaking, beats and bass psychedelic downtempo. In this mix you can here sounds from a number of present day artists who are exploring new areas in bass driven sounds. It's a heady ride into the vibrations of the universes.
We start with a deeply meditative intro via the spoken words of Darpan and the spatial bass frequencies of Itom Lab. Darpan has a great album of spoken word meditations mixed with ambient soundscapes called "LoveLight" that you can hear online at this link. Itom Lab released a a wonderful EP earlier this year so if you haven't had a chance to hear it year then drop over to the Itom Lab page at bandcamp to hear some tracks from the Brahmin EP.
After Itom we get into an artist you will hear all over this mix - Bird Of Prey. Bird Of Prey ( Torin Goodnight ) is the world's foremost psystep artist I think. His work with Tyler Gibson as the duo "Birds Of Paradise" is also making huge sonic waves at the moment since the release of their new album "Flight Patterns" - one of the best albums of 2013.
This track is a remix of the Bird Of Prey track "First Step" by another artist full of psystep and psybient whomp - Kaminanda. You can find it on the 4 track EP "Bird Of Prey - Reconfigured". The long anticipated Birds Of Paradise album Flight Patterns proved to be an instant hit climbing to number one on the Beatport Breaks charts. They have recently toured with Kalya Scintilla as part of The Divine Alignment tour so check in with their facebook page to see what they are up to and where to see them live.
Following that we have the duo Akasha ( Shane Harris and Babak Rezvani ) with their track "Out Back" from the album "Into The Web" released early this year. This is one of my favorite albums of 2013. Remarkable production with loads of psydub, glitchy tribal wobbly sounds full of deep basslines and delicate, sophisticated melodies that mix together in a sublime display of musical genius.
Akasha will be featured as part of the psychedelic arts and music event "The Boogie Returns" in London on November 16th so you guys in the UK should check it out if you get the chance. Good news for people down-under too as the boys will be showcasing their latest tunes during an Australia tour early next year.
After some nice feedback on the psystep mix from last year I thought it might be about time to do another mix of psychedelic beats and bass. Today I have 20 top tracks full of squelchy stuttering funk'n groove that are sure resonate with your bones.
The mix kicks of with Brujo's Bowl ( Saxon Higgs ) who was also featured on the original mix so be sure to check it out if you are fan of BB's tunes. His music covers a range of styles from psystep to techfunk and progressive trance, all of which he handles with ease.
Following on are two artists, Whitebear and Landswitcher who may not be so familiar to psybient/psychill listeners here at the blog. Whitebear is Australian producer Arthur Song. He releases tunes through the Enig'matik Record label, one of Australia's newest and most exciting labels. You are going to be hearing a lot more about Whitebear in the future I suspect - a real exciting new comer.
Landswitcher is a French duo who are having a big year after signing on with French label Free-Spirit Records. Another act who are definitely set for big things so keep an eye on them too.
We then move on to some ethno psystep sounds thanks to to a number of top American producers in Jef Stott, Soulacybin and Birds Of Paradise. I highly recommend you check out these three acts if you even slightly interesting in quality psystep sounds. These three guys are at the top of their game. It really doesn't get much better at the moment when it comes to mixing psychedelic riffs, funky bass and stuttering syncopated percussion.
I've been listening to quite a bit of psybreak ( psychedelic breakbeat ) music of late so I thought it might be fun to make a mix of psybreaks for you all. I listened to psybreaks back in 1996-98 when psybreaks were kind of a new thing I guess and the genre experienced a brief period of popularity. It seems to be coming back again but with a harder, twistier sound that I'm also quite enjoying. So here is a mix that incorporates some of the newer sounds I've been listening to over the last few years.
This mix isn't purely breaks however - it starts out with some nice psybient tunes for the first 30 minutes or so. It gradually builds up into a stomping breaks set for the last hour. I'm not sure if I'll do too many breaks mixes as it might be a bit too loud and energetic for the music I usually post here. Still, it was a fun diversion and I think some of you guys might get a a kick out it.
We kick things off today with a track from long time psy and world music producer Adham Shaikh. Adham is well known to fans of psychedelic ambient music and has also enjoyed great success in the world music stage including a 2006 Juno award nomination for his album Fusion.
TV and movie soundtracks, stage audio and production work are just some of the areas where Adham finds an outlet for his endless musical talents. This opening track comes from the remix project CD "Refractions" which is now available for purchase through Adham's website.
Today we have a psystep / dubstep mix for you all that you might want to turn up your speakers for. Dubstep was born out a mix of dub, breaks, drum and bass and 2-step and is characterized by its now all too familiar wobbly basslines. It took over the world in the early half of last decade and was quickly followed by the inevitable cashing in by commercial enterprises. That resulted in a lot of good dubstep being drowned in a sea of god awful music.
As a welcome offshoot of the dubstep sound, psystep makes use of the dubstep basslines and infuses it with psychedelic melodies and percussion that is often heard in psytrance or psychedelic ambient music.
While there is now a plethora of dubstep artists out there, psystep producers remain relatively few. An occasional tune pops up on regular dubstep compilations now and again. There have also been a number of psystep tunes released on dubstep downloads on offer at free web label sites and archives such as ektoplazm.com.
Some of the leading best psychedelic dubstep / psystep artists include Bird Of Prey ( my personal favorite ), Liquid Stranger, Brujo's Bowl, Heyoka, Phutureprimitive, Ott, Nanda and Kaminanda. Having never mixed anything as 'heavy' as this before I found it quite a challenge. Certainly a lot more difficult than mixing the ambient tunes I usually upload here. Anyway, if you like your music a with a little more bite you might get a kick out of this psystep/dubstep mix.
My usual file hosting site is having problems this weekend so I've uploaded this to Soundcloud for now. Soundcloud has a download limit I think ( I'm using the free version ). Hopefully my regular host site will be sorted out by the time we get to the download limit. To download the mix simply select the download button at the top right of the player below. Cheers ...
