Canadian label Interchill Records has released their latest compilation album. Titled "Waypoint", the new album continues Interchill's tradition of expertly curated downtempo compilations. With close to 20 years of top notch releases, the label is one of the most respected in the business. When I recently compiled my list of best psybient compilation albums I wasn't surprised to see Interchill feature heavily.
Waypoint harks back to Interchill's "Earth Octave Lounge" series of downtempo/ambient compilations from about 10 years ago. Much like that series, Waypoint combines various styles that despite their differences do display a somewhat psychedelic jazzy/lounge feel to a good number of the tracks.
An exotic blend of freejazz, lounge grooves and tribal bass with chilled ambiance. Some of the artists featured on Waypoint are Interchill regulars such as Kaya Project and Adham Shaikh and a number of artists from the old Earth Octave Lounge series feature once again here. That's not to say this music is dated - quite the opposite actually - this compilation is as fresh and modern sounding as any compilation you will here in 2014 and quite possibly for the next decade too.
The album has just the right amount of variation on offer to avoid becoming a repetitive take on any one genre. It starts out with some sprinkles of stomp before gradually slipping into more sublime ambient territories. The tracks compliment each other so well that before you know it an hour has flown by as it sucks you in with sonic submission.
Following on from the recent best psybient albums post which you can check out here, today I present to you a list of top notch psybient compilation albums. Once again I've decided to be fairly liberal in my approach here and expand the list to include various genres that often get lumped in along side the psybient tag.
To make each album easier to track down I've also added their associated record label. For albums that make up part of a series I have simply listed the series name with a marker (s) behind the name to indicate it is a series.
Rather than list the albums in rank of popularity or my personal choice I've decided to go for a simple alphabetical sort so that you can find what you are looking for easily.
I hope you find this list of use and it points you to some new listening experiences. Of course, feel free to add your own favorites in the comments section. I've only added the albums I have actually purchased so if there is something amazing you think should be included then by all means let us know.
13th Moon - Interchill
6th Element - Altar Records
A Conversation Between Two Trees - Critical Beats
Air/Water/Earth/Fire (s) - Altar Records
Alchemy - Arcadia Productions
Amber : Gold Of The North - Zealotry Music
Ambi-Ant Beatz - Green Ant
Ambient Auras - Rumour Records
Ambient Meditations (s) - Return To The Source
Ambient Selections (s) - Cyan Music
Ambrosia - Ultimae Records
Ancestral Lullabies - Astronautic Records
Angelic Science - Surreal Audio
Anti Particle - Phantasm Records
Arcana - Interchill
Area 69 - Afrogalactic Recores
Backroom Beats (s) - Twisted Records
Beneath The Surface - Native State Records
Between Earth and Sky - Tempest Recordings
Bioluminescence - Native State Records
Bliminal - Interchill
Butterfly Dawn - Liquid Sound Design
Cafe Marrakesh - Avatar Spirit
Caribbean Eclipse - Flying Rhino
Chill Out (s) - Tua Records
Chilling Goddess - Peak Records
Chillosophy (s) - Digital Structures
Chillum - The Ultimate Tribal Ambient Journey (s) - Agito Records
Chilly Peppers Vol.1 - Beats and Pieces
Cornwall Eclipse - Flying Rhino
Cosmic Balance - Uxmal Records
Depth Charge - Interchill
Desert Phase Remixes - Interchill
Devil in the Detail - Interchill
Discovering Plexus Music - CosmicLeaf Records
Dissolving Clouds - Interchill
Down The Fractal Dimension - Liquid Seed Recordings
Dreams - Millenium Records
Dub Dimensions - Ajnavision Records
Dub Mates Meeting - Gliese 581C
Dub Warriors (s) - Triple Drop Productions
Earth Octave Lounge (s) - Interchill
Ease Division (s) - Spiral Trax
Eclipse 2012 Following The Eye Of God - Twisted Records
Eclipse: A Journey Of Permanence and Impermanence - Twisted Records
Electroriental Delight (s) - Ultra Vista Records
Elucidations - Liquid Sound Design
Emptinesses - Sentimony Records
Entheos Audio Archive (s) - Entheogenetic
Epistemology ( ambient side ) - Maia Brasil Records
Epistemology - Maia Brasil Records
Ethneomystica (s) - Mystic Sound Records
Everything Is Possible - Trimurti Records
Fahrenheit Project (s) - Ultimae Records
Fantazma - Sentimony Records
Fire/Water/Fire/Air/Ether (s) - Altar Records
Floatation - Interchill
Floating Point (s) - Iboga Records
Floating Spirals (s) - Altar Records
Flutter - Flow Records
Four A.D. (s) - Waveform Records
Future Memories - Interchill
Future Sound Theory (s) - Celestial Dragon Records
Global Slowdown - Tempest Recordings
Green Instant - Clima Records
Greenosophy - Ultimae Records
Grower - Lookinglook Records
Hadravision - A Chillout Exploration (s) - Hadra Records
Over the last 20 years or so, since the early to mid 90s, I have listened to my fair share of albums within the psybient genre of music. Some artists are still with us while others have shone brightly, delivering glimpse of magic before fading away into the deeps of space from whence they came. Over this time, like many of you, I have pondered my firm favorites when it comes to best psybient albums.
Artists such as Shpongle and Ott who helped form the psydub genre and psychill acts such as Carbon Based Lifeforms and Aes Dana feature heavily of course. However as popular as these artists are I think there is always room for some lesser known acts who have released equally fascinating albums.
The list below comprises of what I believe to be the greatest albums by artists within an all encompassing "psybient" tag i.e psychedelic ambient, psychedelic dub, spacey psychill and genres that flirt about on the edges of those. There are many absolute gems in this list so I highly recommend checking them all out some time. This is a fairly 'loose' list, the main purpose is to get a good big list of best psybient albums to share online.
I'll be updating this list over time so you will see changes over the coming years as worthy albums are released. If you are interested in a list of compilation albums then stay tuned as I'm currently compiling that one and it's looking pretty awesome too.
Finally, I would love to hear back from you - what albums are in your top 10 ? Or is there anything else you could recommend to psybient fans that you think is worth a shout ? Drop a comment below and let us know what you are thinking.
Rank - Artists - Album
Shpongle - Are You Shpongled ?
Ott - Mir
Carbon Based Lifeforms - World Of Sleepers
Aes Dana - Memory Shell
Hallucinogen - Hallucinogen in Dub
Abakus - That Much Closer To The Sun
ISHQ - Orchid
Ott - Blumenkraft
Shpongle - Ineffable Mysteries from Shpongleland
Drift - Drift
Entheogenic - Entheogenic
Deviant Electronics - Blunt Instruments
Aes Dana - Leylines
Shpongle - Tales of the Inexpressible
Ott - Skylon
Celtic Cross - Hicksville
Tripswitch - Circuit Breaker
Kuba - Through A Lense
Carbon Based Lifeforms - The Path
Alien Soap Opera - Second Wave
Shpongle - Nothing Lasts
Gus Till - Ghosts Of The Earth
Ashirvad - Ashirvad
ISHQ - The Invisible Landscape
Younger Brother - A Flock of Bleeps
Shulman - Soundscapes and Modern Tales
Cell - Hanging Masses
Ooze - Where The Fields Never End
Kuba - How the Future Sounded
The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
Younger Brother - Vaccine Electronic
Yggdrasil - Prose Edda
ISHQ - And Awake
Solar Fields - Blue Moon Station
Subsurfing - Frozen Ants
Bluetech - Elementary Particles / Prima Materia
Dub Trees - Nature Never Did Betray The Heart That Loved Her
Saafi Brothers - Mystic Cigarettes
Solar Fields - Movements
Bluetech - Dreaming Into Being
Hol Bauman - Human
KLF - Chill Out
Carbon Based Lifeforms - Twentythree
Anahata - The Unmade Sound
Desert Dwellers - DownTemple Dub Flames
Digital Mystery Tour - Digital Mystery Tour
Makyo - Purnima
Shulman - In Search of a Meaningful Moment
Don Peyote - Eternal Now
Entheogenic - Spontaneous Illumination
Eat Static - Back to Earth
Kalpatura Tree - Luminosophy
Scann Tec - Facial Memories
Phutureprimitive - Kinetik
Younger Brother - The Last Days Of Gravity
Greg Hunter - Metasurfing
Carbon Based Lifeforms - Interloper
ISHQ - Sama
Kick Bong - A Cup of Tea ?
Zymosis - Elements into Data
Bluetech - Rainforest Reverberation
Outersect - Caldera
Shakatura - Shakatura
23 degrees - 23 Degrees
Stress Assassin - Within The Office Of Eye And Ear
Today I present to you a nice mix of music for programmers. Programmers require distraction free music to help them concentrate. It is also important for the music to boost their imagination so that they may code innovative software. I grew up as a programmer and the music I listened to was predominately psychedelic ambient music or simply deep ambient background music.
For me this was the perfect fit. While some friends and co-workers coded to the sounds of death-metal, for me the hypnotic slow beats and swirling melodies of psybient or psydub brought out the best in my programming.
Here is a mix comprising of some great music for coders of all ages. I hope you find this mix of some use to aiding your creativity, no matter what base language you are coding in.
It begins with a blast of distant psychill from artists Astronaut Ape and Kyoto before delving into some ambient sounds and then finishing off with glitchy programming from the likes of Frederik Oehr and Hataken.
Cheers ...
Track / Artist
01. Sakura - Astronaut Ape
02. Sunrise - Kyoto
03. Combinations (On/Off Edit) - Solar Fields
04. Diagrams - H.U.V.A. Network
05. Submarine Poetry - Krill. Minima
06. Whales Street - Irukandji
07. Return - Frederik Oehr
08. Dark & Long (Most 'ospitable Mix) - Underworld
09. Trampoline Hotel - Hybrid Leisureland
10. Sun Cycles - S1gns Of L1fe
11. Naomeetayub (Paz Mix) - Hataken
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Listen to this music for programming mix on YouTube :
