Space Music Mix - PsyAmb 56

A new space music ambient trance download with a psychill twist this week. A few listeners have asked for some more mixes with that Ultimae records like sound so here you are guys. I don't do too many spacey ambient trance mixes purely because I don't get a lot of that music in my mailbox. I would love to do more but there just aren't that many producers out there outside of the Ultimae and CosmicLeaf Records roster that produce that kind of psychill. Anyway here we have a nice mix of tunes that builds up from a rather slow dark ambient beginning into some pulsating ambient trance in the second half before a soft touch down.

We kick off with the suitably titled Take Off from Connect.Ohm. Connect.Ohm is a collaboration between composers Hidetoshi Koizumi (Hybrid Leisureland) and Alexandre Scheffer (Cell). Both are well-known to fans of Ultimae records and have graced a number of my past mixes in their solo projects. This track comes from their debut album, 9980, released last year and marks another triumphant collaboration from the labels established artists. You can grab a download of 9980 through Ultimae Records online shop.

Next up is another Ultimae team member. Mihalis Aikaterinis is the name behind project Miktek, an ambient music producer who gained a lot of recognition recently with his album Anisotropy on label Abstrakt Reflections. He is due to release a new album on Ultimae this year so keep an eye out for it - should be awesome. This track, Flying Dots, comes from the excellent compilation Greenosopy.

Lauge and Baba Gnohm are up next with their track Nostalgi from the Critical Beats 2012 charity release A Conversation Between Two Trees. Critical Beats works with indigenous communities in the Amazon to share their music and their stories with the world to raise awareness about the gifts of the culture, the needs of the people, and the critical state of the forest. Copenhagen based Lauge and Baba have released a couple of great recordings over the past few years and I recommend following them on Facebook where they often share info on their recent activity and provide links to great dj mixes that they find or are involved in. And believe me they find some good ones ! They have quite a few releases on Bandcamp too.

Lauge and Baba Gnohm

Altar Records artist Astropilot ( Dimitriy Redko ) is one of the most productive stars of the spacey psychill sound having released around 8 albums on Altar Records in the past 5 years ! He seems to have nothing better to do than pump out brilliant ambient music from his studio in Kyiv. One of the current leaders of the Russian psychill scene. You can hear this on Astropilot's album Solar Walk 2.

After a track by Cygna from the Fahrenheit Project 7 compilation we move on to another Russian producer, Cosmic Replicant, and his track Ultraviolet. This comes from the psytrance/psytech compilation Colors Of Sounds and is the only chilled track ( the last one ) on the album.

One of the best albums from 2012 would have to be Synch24's Comfortable Void. Full of instant classics like Nanities, Something Something and the track in this mix Oomph, a delicate and slowly galloping ambient trance track that is sure to make your ears smile and your eyes brighten.

Synch24

Dream Stalker follows on next with the track Dialekt which was also featured in this psychill mix and then we move into some nice psychill weirdness from Xamanist ( Sergio Riberio ). Sergio is mainly a full on and Goa psytrance producer however here in his track Earth he shows his musical depth of talent in a wondrous song with an awesome brooding bassline. You can find this on the compilation Solar System which was a free release by psytrance label Mind Experience Records.

After that we have a nice euphoric number, Orpheus and Eurydice, from the duo Koan off their latest album Argonautica. Be careful not to confuse these guys with the group Koan Sound which is a kind of glitch dubstep group from the UK. Nor all the other Koan bands one finds on Discogs. This Koan, Daniel Roeth and William Grey, have popped up on a few mixes here ( yes I do love their sound ) and it's good to see they are still releasing great music year after year. Daniel also has a two solo album/EPs out called Wanderer, Bamboo Grove, and Domination. They are a mix of dub, world, dubstep, trance and psybient styles and fit nicely along side the Koan catalog. Grab the album trough the Sections Records homepage.

Next is another act that has really impressed me from day one is Zero Cult ( what an excellent name ). Today's track comes from his latest release Vacuum which is a slow burner without the immediate attention grabbing tracks of his Dreams In Stereo album. It's a much more mature release that marks a return to form after the previous album Where Rivers Have No Name which I thought was a little, well, flat.

Zero Cult

Access to Arasaka ( Rob Lioy ) is a brilliant American producer who has carved out a style of music that must be every java programmer's wet dream. His music seems to speak the language of programming as if your computer's circuits are taking a break from processing tedious tasks like displaying you the latest Harlem Shake video and decided to collaborate on binary audio art instead. Stunning stuff. This track, AUG, comes from the compilation Special Places released by Sentimony Records.

Altitudes were a short-lived psychill supergroup consisting of Gabriel Masurel ( Blue Planet Corp ), Yannis Kamarinos ( Jaïa ) and Johannes Regnier ( Silicon Sound ). Shame they didn't do anymore than a few tracks as with that much talent on board they should have become the next psybient superstars. Ce la vie I guess.

Cosmic Leaf Records artist Stefan Torto ( Stefanos Tortopoglou ) from Athens follows on with his track Night Whisper from the album Ambion. Stefan, a multi instrumentalist, was first introduced to me through the CosmicLeaf Records website as part of the group Zen Garden. A huge talent that I hope we see more and more of in the future.

Stefan Torto

Special Mind's EP, The Missing Particle, is host to our next tune, the UCP remix of Soul Language. The Missing Particle which was a pleasant surprise last year and continues Sentimony Records excellent reputation for quality electronic music in all it's forms. I've been closely following the label since their debut Fantazma compilation which educated me in the amazing works being crafted by Russian producers at the time.

Speaking of more Russian electronic music ( quite a bit today huh ! ) up next is Mungusid, the solo project of Ukranian Alexander Saloid, and his track from the 2006 compilation Cosmic Chill - Red. Alexander also producers tech-house tunes as part of his SoloID project. The Cosmic Chill series is an excellent collection to get hold of if you still can. Plenty of top tunes on those discs.

One of the best ambient trance records of the last 5 years would have to be Will-O'-The-Wisp's ‎ album Long Sleep Plain from 2008. While producer Vasilis Miamis might not be too good at choosing artists names ( thank you Larry Tesler for cut and paste ! ) he certainly knows his way around a keyboard and computer and how to manipulate them with his fingers in such a way as to blow your mind. This track, Fall Out, comes from one of CosmicLeaf's earliest compilations - Fragile Life released in 2005 which still sounds pretty fresh. Vasilis is the brother of another well-known artist, Nick Miamis a.k.a Side Liner. I wonder if they will ever team up and form a "brothers" group. How about Miami Brothers ? See what I did there ? Erm, yeah I suck at this name thing too.

Will-O'-The-Wisp

Up next is Siebzehn's tune Endless Reflections which is part of his 2012 Altar Records release Time Equals Eternity. Christian Müller has releasing music under the name Siebzehn since 2002 where he first came to our attention on an early Insolation Chilling compilation. Christian has found a happy and stable home now on Altar Records who are gathering a rather impressive group of artists. Oh and incase you are wondering Siebzehn means 17 in the German cardinal number system. 17 is the most picked random number between 1 and 20. 17 is atomic number of chlorine and Group 17 of the periodic table is called the halogens. Now, Halogen would be a cool name for a producer or group ! Perhaps I don't suck as this name thing 8). Ahh, damn, already taken, okay I still suck.

Our next artist really needs no introduction. Aes Dana is, along with Solar Fields and CBL, the leaders of the spacey ambient trance sound and together form an enormous catalog of releases including albums, EPs, singles, remixes, production work and countless compilation appearances. For his latest album, Pollen, Aes Dana has once again moved the bar up a notch. Superbly crafted music that literally takes you to another dimension of emotion and adds finely to the discography which includes the now classic albums Perimeters and Leylines.

We finish of this week with a slow and mellow journey thanks to the track The Source by Smooth Genestar ( Marco Köller ) from the album Cyantists.

Thanks for tuning in again guys and hope you all have a nice week full of good music. I'll probably look at putting another Nokorimono series mix up next - one of those various genre chillout mixes. Enjoy the mix guys. Its quite a long one !

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