Today is a special occasional here at the PsyAmb blog as it marks the 50th mix in the PsyAmb psychedelic ambient music series. So with that in mind I decided to do an especially long ( over 2 hours ) mix full of psychedelic chillout gems. Before I begin giving you the details of this mix I would like to thank all you listeners, downloaders, sharers, likers and hikers who have given great feedback and spread the tunes in this series worldwide for all to enjoy. Long may it be so !
So this week we kick of with "Aligning Minds" ( Daniel Merrill and Michael Folk ) with the track "Satsand Orchard". This can be found through the "Adapted Records" bandcamp website ( and Soundcloud ) were I picked it up as a free download as part of the compilation "Acquiring Influence Volume 1". This is fantastic tune with lots of great new sounds on offer from a group that is getting better and better with every track they produce. Their tunes have a spicy mix of genres like dubstep, breakbeat, downtempo, idm/glitch, and techno. Check out their 2011 release "Universal Automation" for a real enjoyable psychedelic music experience. The guys have a number of upcoming gigs which U.S listeners might be interested in. On November 10th you can catch them at Dosha Bar Club in Savannha, Georgia and then at Pour House Music Hall in Raleigh, North Carolina on November 30th.
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| Trollwood |
Up next is the little known "Trollwood" ( Denis Bogachev ), a solo artist from Russia. Denis is known on the Russian trance circuit where he can please a crowd with his warm and spacious progressive trance tunes. However he is yet to crack it internationally but I have no doubt he will get there soon. This is one of his first downtempo oriented tunes and it sure is a beauty. Hope we can hear more of his chillout tunes in the near future.This comes from the compilation "The Martian Chronicles". Denis has an 2 track EP as well titled "Tears Of An Angel" which was released on Trimurti records last year.
"Vonoom" ( Michael Sundo ) has impressed of late with his stylish psychill production techniques and a number of excellent psybient tunes. He has featured on some of the best chillout compilation albums of the past few years and has recently started collaborating with Lague and Baba Gnohm on a number of tracks. What I really love about Vonoom's sound is it's close association with psytrance. You can hear the influence that producing psytrance in his early years has had on his current music which is full of squelcy and trippy psy synths and gated effects along with warm and funky basslines. Excellent stuff.
Another outstanding tune that you can pick up as a free download is the track "Follow The Shaman" by U.S producers "Digital Folk". From the Bay Area of the West Coast, Digital Folk ( Dan Alvidrez and Daniel Lesser ) are long time friends who have worked on separate solo projects and together to create some of the best bass driven sounds to emerge from the Bay Area's respected dubstep and glichhop breeding ground. Some of you may be familiar with Alivdrez's solo project known as "Builder". As Builder he has done some top notch work including a number of superb remixes - most notably a dubstepish remix of Shpongle's "Star Shpongled Banner".
"All Species" is another downtempo duo, this time hailing from Athens, Greece. The track in this mix is called "Jaipur Drive" which was released earlier last year as part of a 5 track EP "Magic Roundabout". The EP was touted as being reflective of mid-90's early chillout sounds. I'm not quite sure what they would mean by that as chillout music in the mid 90s was pretty diverse and hard to pin down and besides I think this tune sounds just as fresh as anything released in the last 12 months so why not celebrate the present. You can make your own mind up if you like by checking out more of their work at the Kraak Records website.
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| Swen Stroop |
Someone who is definitely not able to be put under any label or genre of music is our next artist - the delightfully inventive "Swen (Dzoncy) Stroop". I think I got the name right ? Swen's music is wildly psychedelic and unlike anything you are likely to have heard before. If you enjoy your music a bit further out on the edge then his album "Forest In Peace" might be just what you are looking for. More Swen !
"Tajmahal and Chilled C'Qequence" combine to create a perfect blend of funky basslines, beats and psychedelic synths all cooked with a dash of well selected vocal samples. The resulting track is highly recommend to those of you who like longer tunes with a slow moving toker bassline. Superb stuff. This can be found on Tajmahal's album "Star Circus" which was released back in 2007 on "Electrik Dream" records which is managed by Tajmahal himself. If you get a chance, check out the E.D website as they have released some great albums in the past including work from Kliment, Master Margherita and the Cosmik Chill series. The Cosmik Chills series is well worth picking up. They contain a lot of Ultimae records artists such as Solar Fields and Aes Dana. This is probably due to the close relationship Tajmahal and Ultimae share ( Taj is a label DJ for Ultimae ).
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| Wolfen Technologies |
Following on next is "Wolfen Technologies" ( Tom Chant ) with the track Caveman. Tom's music covers a wide range of electronic styles from house to glitch. I think his best work is definitely in the downtempo, ethno ambient genre as this track demonstrates. Grab this track from the free compilation "Three Drops To Evolution" which is available at Ektoplazm and also features a number of tasty tracks from Brujo' Bowl.
It was a full moon last night so perhaps it is appropriate that "Lunar Vegetarian" should find his way into this mix. I really love this tune as apart from being a superbly crafted piece of music, it reminds me of old school Infected Mushroom is a way. Something to do with all those twisted squelchy sythns and time signature changes no doubt. Lunar Vegetarian is the work of Matt Moon, a solo psychedelic music producer who has released a number of tremendous chillout tunes over the years and is no slouch when it comes to creating fine psytrance music too.
If you crave for long psychedelic chillout music like what was popular back in the mid to late 90's then this next track might satisfy. At over 10 minutes in length, "Temple Gong" by "Hoogshagenii" is an awesome psychedelic journey that you can get really wrapped up in. And my goodness - the sound of those beats in the later half ! What a phenomenal tune. You might be wondering what the hell does Hoogshagenii mean anyway ? Well I wondered that too and a quick Wikipedia check revealed that it is the name of a species of psychedelic mushroom which has a particular preference for growing in the red soils of coffee plantations. Nice one ! Hoogshagenii ( the trance act ) was created by sound engineer Marcel Kung who has been playing in various bands for the past 20 years. He doesn't have a lot of psychill tunes available as his main focus has been on psytrance and progressive trance releases.
The man behind the “Erot” project is Tore Mortensen, born and raised in the Danish town Aalborg. His passion for electronic music came from Kraftwerk, which his father introduced to him at an early age. This evolved into an appreciation of several different genres of electronic music, and in 2006 he was introduced to chill-out, which he immediately took a liking to. He then started to produce himself, and has now been playing at several parties and festivals in Denmark. His focus lies on the ambient atmospheres in his tracks, which he tries to keep as dark and mysterious as possible. Tore has been faithful to his unique style, but always pushing new boundaries and experimenting with new sounds. The result is the wide spectrum of styles from pure chill out, to more ambient tunes, from psychill passing through chillgressive to even progressive trance music. You can find this tune as a bonus track on the "Eclipse Remixes" EP which is a collection of chillout and chillgressive remixes of Erot's original tune "Eclipse".
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| Space Funghi Project |
"Space Funghi Project" produces an interesting blend of jazz, psychedelia, dub and immaterial sounds resulting in a psychedelic soup of oozy goodness. S.F.P has just the one album to date - the 2006 release "Elektrik Psylocibe Experience" which was put out by Japanese label Sirius C Records. The album was the brainchild of Dr. Panic from Mexico, who is well known from the seminal trance act 'The Melovskys.' In this release from Dr P and his band showcases the different styles of music that this talented guitar player and programmer is capable of. I heard they were to create a follow up album a few years back but I don't recall anything more happening about it. If anyone knows anything about it please let us know !
2012 has been another great year for Russian producers including "Aquascape" ( Andrey Kostomarov and Anton Salikov ) who released their debut CD "Underwater Stranger" on the esteemed Altar Recrords label. I'm a big fan of this project and expect to see great things from them in the future so keep an eye on these guys as they continue to show the world what Russian psybient artists are all about.
Next up is another artist who has had an enormous past 12 months - "Kaminanda". This guy really took off in a big way with his latest album, promoting a catchy blend of dubstep , ethnic tribal beats and psychedelic dub. It hit a chord with a lot of US listeners and the he was subsequently in high demand across his native US visiting a number of festivals and clubs. Having shared his creations at electronic music festivals such as Entheos, Shambhala, Basscoast, Diversity, Beloved, LIB, Burning Man and Earthdance, Kaminanda's ever evolving sound is a kaleidoscope of warm melodies and twisting ,winding compositions. His recent music history includes live guitar sets with Ganga Giri, Adham Shaikh, Rara Avis, Shimshai, remixing Desert Dwellers, Akara, Dehli 2 Dublin, and opening for Bluetech, Gaudi, Tipper, Bird of Prey and Kalya Scintilla. For a quick peek at his sounds I recommend checking out Kaminanda's soundcloud page ( fast approaching 4000 followers ! ) where you can listen to tons of great music and live sets. The song I chose for this set is a remix of the Desert Dwellers track "Trial Of Nomads" which has a decidedly Shpongle feel to it so if you dig Shpongle I think you'll enjoy both Kaminanda and Desert Dwellers.
"Shantifax" is a downtempo/psychill project created by Klaus Balzarek as a chillout side-project from his regular trance work. This tune can be found on his free netlabel release "Delete Automation" which is available here. It's a top release full of nothing but solid tunes. It has received many positive reviews upward of 90% on the Ektoplazm ranker with over 10,000 downloads since release ! And good news in this week is that Klaus is steadily at work on a new album too.
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| Scopes |
Dutch downtempo producer "Scopes" (Marcel Hartholt) produced one of the best freely available EPs this year in "Digilog", a 5 track album of dowmtempo /psychill / psydub styles. Any of the tracks would have been suitable for this mix. In fact it was quite a challenge choosing a favorite - they are all so good ! Grab it now from Ektoplazm - you won't be disappointed.
After scopes we have "Off The Grid" by "Lunecell". Lunecell is the work of producer Tom Howe from the USA. Tim is a multi talented artist who is skilled at both the audio and visual side of the psychedelic experience. His vimeo channel is a excellent showcase of his vibrant trippy visuals that accompany his tunes. As far as his music goes, Tim has dabbled in a number of genres including progressive, dark psytrance, psystep and downtempo beats. All of which is accomplished with equal aplomb. He has a number of excellent albums and compilation appearances under his belt. I particular liked his debut release called "Cosmic Dreams" which has a number of great psystep tunes on it. This tune is available on "Dub Warriors Vol 1" from "Triple Drop Records".
"Infinity Loop" follows on next with the track "Andromeda" taken from the album "Only Time Will Tell". I think this guy deserves far more exposure as his tunes are extremely well crafted with an acute attention to sound levels on every aspect of audio in his recordings. I've been following him for quite some time and I can definitely see an evolution in production values over the last year or so. So do you yourself a favor and jump on over to his Soundcloud page where he has a ton of music available as free downloads. Right on ! This guy is also head of Infinity Loop Records which is home to a number of excellent psytrance and psybient producers from around the world and has been actively releasing quality tunes since 2005.
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| Dreamstalker |
We finish up this mix with the track "Dialek" by "Dreamstalker" ( Nikita Efimov ) from the free to download album "Eclectronica". I picked this one up as a result of seeing what legendary audio technician and producer Tim Sculdt had been up to of late. Tim was producer on this album and is as busy as ever with a truck load of production work on psytrance, techno and psychill albums this year. "Eclectronica" is, as the name suggests, an eclectic mix of genres which spans trance, techno, idm, ambient, dub and world music. Pick it up at Dreamstalker's website Sundoz.net.
Well that's it for mix number 50. Once thanks for taking time to download the mixes and provide feedback. I'm always open to suggestions for making the site and the mixes a better experience for everyone so feel free to add a comment and share the mixes around. Cheers ...
Track / Artist
01. Satsang Orchard - Aligning Minds
02. Song of a Dream - Trollwood
03. Aboard The Earthship - Vonoom
04. Follow The Shaman - DigitalFolk
05. Jaipur Drive - All Species
06. Forest In Peace - Swen (Dzoncy) Stroop
07. Do I Care (Antariksha mix) - Tajmahal and Chilled C'Qequence
08. Caveman - Wolfen Technologies
09. Commands From The Invalid Perception - Lunar Vegetarian
10. Temple Gong - Hoogshagenii
11. Atmos (Meridiem Mix) - Erot
12. Cosmonaut - Space Funghi Project
13. Marooned - Aquascape
14. Trail Of Nomads (Kaminanda Remix) - Desert Dwellers
15. Formatio Reticularis - Shantifax
16. Old Fashioned Air - Scopes
17. Off The Grid - Lunecell
18. Andromeda - Infinityloop
19. Dialekt - Dream Stalker
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