It
takes a singular vision to avoid the temptation of following the crowd.
To blaze your own path in your own style is a pursuit we can respect in
any artist. It's something that has always attracted me to the music of
Kukan Dub Lagan a.k.a Itay Berger.
Itay
has been creating his own take on dub music for the past 10 years. It's a journey that sees him mix up traditional old school dub
with more modern psychedelic sounds. Nothing new there I hear you cry.
And you are right - there is an entire ocean of it around to be sure.
However there
is something just that little bit peculiar, the little bit extra in his
music that really catches my attention with each new album.
It's like a
peanut butter sandwich with lettuce added. You know the lettuce
shouldn't be there but wha'dayaknow - it works ! And
so news of a new long player on the horizon was gleefully received by yours truly .
Titled "Sunshine Music For Smiling People" it is presented
with engaging cover art by Ronit Rozensal devoid of your typical dub cliches and sports 10 fresh new takes on the psychedelic
ambient dub genre. The
album contain a variety of styles from pure ambient dub to more experimental stuff and others
approaching BuddhBar like chillout. With mastering by none other than Ultimae Records head honcho Vincent Villuis ( Aes Dana ) you can be guaranteed of top notch sound quality too.
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
Play Now :
Direct Download. Right click then select 'Save link as ... '
Listen to this music for programming mix on YouTube :
Welcome to a new mix series here at the PsyAmb podcast. This week I would like to present to you a selection of long psychedelic ambient tunes. I never really mix long tunes into my regular mixes here. Well, nothing over 10 minutes in length anyway. That's all about to change as I think there is just too much good music in my collection to ignore. So here we have volume one is a series of mixes that will concentrate of awesome tunes that travel over the 10 minute mark.
We begin today with the track that put Ott on the map - "Jack's Cheese And Bread Snack" from his now classic debut album "Blumenkraft". Ott has of course gone on to bigger and better things but this track was absolutely mind blowing for me when I first heard it.
Next is a track from Saafi Brother's dubby debut "Mystic Cigarettes" which I sold my kidney to get a copy of back in 1998. Well, not exactly but I was so desperate to get it after hearing tracks from it that I remember driving hours across town to a mysterious record store that claimed to have a copy for sale. They did indeed and I was then in a Mystic Cigarettes listening binge for weeks on end. Subsequent albums never lived up to the promise of the debut unfortunately.
There are those artists for whom I will gladly hand over money without listening to a single preview online. Pre-ordering is like a satisfying injection of good-will and amplified anticipation. Carbon Based Lifeforms, ISHQ and OTT to name a few. Australian artist Gus Till is another.
Gus recently released his latest full length album titled "Ghosts Of The Earth" which has found a welcome home in one of my favorite labels - Interchill Records. The Interchill team were gobsmacked when they got their first opportunity to taste it and I think you, happy listeners, will be too.
Till has traveled the world time and again delivering a feverish blend of trance, dub and downtempo world music in a producer/dj career that has spanned some 20 plus years. From his early years in Australian bands that flirted with chart success through to his work in legendary trance duos Slinky Wizard and Zen Lemonade, he has now arrived at perhaps his finest musical offering thus far. This is a exceptional album from an artist at the top of his game that will capture your imagination from the moment it begins.
A new beatless ambient mix is on offer this week. We begin with a track from Sinepearl's 2012 album "Through Water She Spoke". Sinepearl is the work of Swedish producer Bjorn Ekegren. Bjorn has quickly established himself as a leading ambient artist. His latest album, "Cycles Within Cycles", was released through Interchill Records early this year and is one I highly recommend for anyone seeking a truly chilled-out experience.
After Sinepearl we have a wonderfully minimal ambient piece from 36 ( three-six ). This is my kind of thing ! Stripped down, hypnotic ambient music that fills every void and takes you over. 36 is Dennis Huddleston from the UK. This one comes from his album Lithea. He has tons of releases online you can check out and they are all quality including his new one "Dream Tempest".
We then have Peter Turcsoki, aka Garden State, who has produced a wonderful album in "Milam" with plenty of dreamlike ambient soundscapes. I first ran across Peter's work on Soundcloud so why not follow him there and keep up to date on his latest releases.
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.]
We have all seen psychedelic soap before. A quick glimpse of a soap bubble shows colorful waves of patterns. However to truly experience it you need to get close, real close.
Macro photography opens up a beautiful world of trippy hallucinogenic imagery when pointed at soap films.
Here is a collection of some of the best ones. To read more about this art form follow these links :
Summer holidays here and that means time to get some mixes done ! Today I'd like to kick of the summer break with a selection of top psychill songs for your listening pleasure. All of these tracks have a deep space vibe to them. Perfect for chilling out with a cold one to avoid the heat ( so hot here in Osaka !! ). And for you guys in the southern hemisphere - I hope the warm atmospheres in these hypnotic tunes can provide some warmth.
The first track in this mix comes to us via Swedish producer Jansson Amos from the new compilation "Paz 2" on Ovnimoon Records. Amos has had a handful of compilation appearances on labels such as Ultimae Records, Suntrip and Spiral Trax. His debut album came out last year, also on Ovnimoon Records.
Islamic design makes use of mathematics to create intricate, detailed geometric fractal like patterns. The history of Islamic design finds its roots in the art of Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Persian cultures.
Presented here is a collection of 20 fine examples of design element. Some complex and some more simplified. I find these patterns below to have a decidedly psychedelic retro art feel to them. This is probably because psychedelic art of the 60s borrowed heavily from these types of images as well as the Art Nouveau movement.
In Islam, the designs represent the infinite. That is to say, the complex patterns are a mirror of the nature of creation by Allah ( The Arabic word for 'God') . This is quite the opposite of what one sees in other religions that typically use religious iconography.
Read more about the background of geometric Islamic art :
With
the increasing acceptance of psychedelic research these
days, companies and organizations are looking for more and more
volunteers to assist in their tests and programs. Before you sign-up for
what you might imagine to be a free trip in the name of science it
would be wise to review exactly what these groups have on offer.
Here I have compiled a handful of some of the leading groups that offer the public a chance to get involved with psychedelic science as either volunteers for psychedelic drug testing or on the less trippy side of things - office work.
MAPS
The
most impressive organization in this field would have to be MAPS (
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies ). MAPS is an
independent organization that survives on being totally funded by public
donations - some of which can be as large as several hundred thousand
dollars.
A
totally professional and highly respected group, MAPS advertises for
volunteer positions at other organizations and hospitals as well as its
own in house psychedelic testing programs.
It
provides a wealth of information regarding the use of psychedelics for
overcoming issues related to addiction, stress, mental illness and more.
It is also a highly regarded resource for freely available, unbiased
information related to both the risks and benefits of the use of
psychedelic.
To read more about what research and volunteers opportunists are available through MAPS click the below link
The psychedelic experience is not always full of happy machine elves and rainbow unicorns. Some people prefer to dabble in the darker side of the other side.
So with that in mind here I present an interesting collection of some darker trippy psychedelic art from the minds of some talented artists as they try to explore the macabre, the Gothic, the bad trip. The areas where you might be too afraid to go into in case you never make it back out the same as when you went in.
We start of with this harrowing image from none other than psyart legend Alex Grey. Alex usually presents vividly colorful, complex images that reflect a oneness with the cosmic self. In this instance however he shows us that even experienced psychonauts such as Alex are also vulnerable to the negative thought patterns that present them selves in a bad trip.
