I had the MOST gratifying experience of working with people who are not big or even known in the ambient music world to create this mix. It all started when RYAN LUCHT contacted my via Mixcloud and expressed his interest in having me use his music for mix. I told some musician friends of mine, and stated that I would love to use some stuff that they created. They agreed to it, and here's the mix I came up with.
To give you a small insight of some of these guys and myself, I will say that 2 of these artists I currently work with, and we DON'T make ambient music as a profession (we ARE professional musicians, but we travel across the US 100-120 days a year melting faces!). We are in a rock band, in the Army (no lie, I can't even make that up), and we travel all over the lower 48 (and to Kuwait, and Iraq) playing music and supporting the troops. I love ambient music because it is really left field for me, and I've never done it (until now, there are some things of mine in this mix).
So, first off, RANDY WIGHT is a singer with the band that I play in (The United States Army Field Band Volunteers, see us HERE, I'm the guy with my arms crossed, Randy's left of me). He has written tons of killer music, and believe it or not, it is a lot of odd meter prog rock and fusion. He's my room mate when we travel, and we put on our sleep music every night. Well, when I expressed my interest for a track of his, he felt that being my room mate for years had allowed him to feel qualified to begin creating. He says that Steve Roach is a big influence in his style, due to his dark, cinematic soundscapes. You can hear that in all of his stuff (there are 3 tracks by him), and even named 'The Further' after the movie Insidious (we saw that together hopped up on a massive Starbucks coffee binge).
With Randy's ability to create and compose such amazing backgrounds, I was able to ask him to provide me some background ambiance to to a track that I improvised last year in a hotel room on tour (like now, we are on tour, thus my inability to get a lot of stuff outside of work generated). The end result is the second track 'Burning Sky'. We have since decided to create some more stuff and go under the name 'harmony & decay', so stay tuned on that.
The next artist, KIRK KADISH, is also a musician in the US Army Field Band (he is the one on the right of me in the photo from our bio page). He is a monster musician, and keyboardist extraordinaire (and my boss, so I HAVE to say good stuff about him, ha!). All kidding aside, he has been in the ambient scene for some time now, and we have a lot of favorite artists in in common (Steve Roach, Stars Of The Lid, Between Interval, etc.). I was blessed to have him contribute some tracks (I have some more, saving those for a later mix).
The next track, is from RYAN LUCHT. Ryan has created music that is generated by photographs and has a release entitled Photogenesis that promises to be pretty amazing. He has posted a small amount to be heard on the above link, and is currently raising money to have it done by pledges. Please, PLEASE, pay him a visit, and contribute, so that we can have some amazing music shared with us by an extraordinarily talented musician! I really enjoyed mixing his tracks (I have one more that I want to use on another mix of the same sort very soon!). Thank you, so much, Ryan, for allowing me to create some magic with your tracks!
I have one more artist that I really wanted to work with, but didn't get the tracks in time, so that will have to wait for just a bit. I am EXTREMELY honored to have worked with these musicians, and I really look forward to doing more with them in the future. Make sure you visit these guys, take a look and listen, and support the artists.
turn on, tune in, sleep...
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