With the world in such a weird place at the moment, now seems like a good time to share a playlist of ambient music to ease the mind.
This one, homemade on the hoof, includes some personal favourites from Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Brian Eno, The Orb and a whole lot more:
I hope you enjoy it – and if you have any suggestions for future playlists please get in touch. Happy to do a whole load more!
Ben Hogwood
It gives us great pleasure to welcome BUNKR – aka James Dean – as the first contributor to Arcana’s playlist section this decade!
In an hour of music, James takes us through “a collection of tracks I love and artists I admire who have no doubt helped to shape the BUNKR sound”. Over the last year the BUNKR sounds has been established through the very fine instrumental album The Initiation Well, containing ‘finely crafted pictures where the imagination is left open’, according to a certain Arcana website.
Our playlist takes in blissful, slowly shifting ambience from Susumu Yokota and Steve Hauschildt, before the music gains more rhythmic impetus from R84D and Plaid. Fujiya & Miyagi are up next, applying their distinctive hushed vocals to a remix of BUNKR’s own Solitary Drift, from The Initiation Well remix album due to be reviewed on this site soon.
Moving on to more intricate constructions, we hear from Yimino and Baccara Smart, preston.outatime and the twisted synth lines of Dalham. Electronica royalty Boards of Canada are next, then the contrasting pictures offered by the remote Lost Idol and the lush Ochre. Finally µ-Ziq takes us into orbit with Goodbye, Goodbye, the closing track from his Royal Astronomy album of 1999.
Our thanks to James for a fine hour of new music, introducing us to new names and reinforcing some established ones! Enjoy on Spotify below…
It gives us great pleasure to welcome Courier Sounds to Arcana’s steadily growing playlist section.
Courier Sounds, whose Silhouette Cameo 3 LP was released in October, also did a mix to celebrate their ninth year as a label. It’s compiled by Stuart Bowditch who has previously contributed to the Essex Sound and Video Archive (which can be found here, The British Library, Cities and Memory and The Field Recording Archive.
Begins with the space-style intercom of Eumig’s The Cassegrain but soon broadens out into the sonorous, held notes of Lunar’s Oscillate that waver very slightly – and very pleasantly – in pitch. Lachrylic’s Ellipse is more noise based, with sharp tones that have a sinister undertone, but Bowditch flips the switch, changing the outlook dramatically with ambient but penetrating midrange tones.
I won’t tell you what happens from there on, but safe to say this is a mix that evolves like one continuous note, changing its sonorities in really interesting ways throughout. An intense form of ambience, which really focuses the mind.
The tracklisting is:
Eumig – The Cassegrain
Hybernation – Ptolemy Cluster
Lunar – Oscillate
Lachrylic – Ellipse
Bowditch & Kipps – Proscenium
Silences – (Everyone) Turns To The Wall
Viridian – Cathedral Speech
Belly Full Of Stars – skipandwow
Bowditch – Being
Isnaj Dui – Sunspot Loop 4
Furrows – The Disappearance Of The Things We Loved
Gagarin – Holmbury Hillfort
Wil Bolton – Anguk
((((((PALINDROMES)))))) – Shy
Eumig – F = 2.0 x
Sonicslice – HR2491
Eumig – Eugon A
Diacritical Mark – Lozenge
Graham Dunning – Bulkhead
Rainbow Valley – First Light
Alien – Perimeter (Live 28/11/2017)
Bowditch – Saturday
It gives us great pleasure to welcome Daniel Parsons – aka Amongst The Pigeons – to Arcana’s steadily growing playlist section.
In an hour of listening entitled Homing Instincts, you can enjoy an hour of freshly minted beats and electronica. With remixes of Foals and Snapped Ankles from Alex Metric and The Utopia Strong respectively, down tempo quality from BUNKR and Tycho and beat filled wonders from Chug and Floating Points, there really should be something for everyone.
As it takes to the wing, Homing Instinct also includes music from O’Flynn, Ásgeir, Wayward and the Chemical Brothers.
Our thanks to Daniel for a fine hour of new music for a Sunday! Enjoy on Spotify below…
It gives us great pleasure to welcome Ryan Teague to Arcana’s playlist section.
In an hour’s listening you can enjoy a playlist of Japanese Negative Space. This is a rich variety of largely ambient music that taps into the recent rush of releases from the country over the last few months, in which the Kankyo Ogaku collection of Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990 has been particularly successful.
Ryan’s selection also includes work by Japanese masters Ryuichi Sakamoto and the much-missed Susumu Yokota. along with an excerpt from Meitei’s recently released Komachi album.
Our thanks to Ryan for a whole host of new names to enjoy! Listen on Spotify below…
Arcana.fm 