A Promotion And An Introvert’s Dream

I was recently promoted at work and given the largest desk on the floor which is affectionately referred to as “The Fortress of Solitude” by my team. It’s off by itself with four enclosed walls making it an incredibly quiet and private space which is a dream for an introvert like myself. My supervisor was confident placing me there because he knew I could work independently but would also continue to supervise and interact with new members of the team to assist them as needed.

I wasted no time in making the space my own – a home away from home. I ordered a few antique art pieces, a Persian style rug, I printed custom posters and had them framed, ordered limited edition lithographs, and had a second bronze bust of Beethoven cast to match the one I use in my home office for use as headphone stands in each space.

To ensure that each of the pieces would function well in the space, I took a moment between tasks at work to sketch out a rough template of the work area’s measurements and where I planned to place/hang each artifact. Here’s the (very) rough layout.

It took a few months for all of the art works to be created, printed, or to ship from their nations of origin, but it’s all come together. The final step was to replace the boring wheeled plastic desk chair with something more my style. Thankfully I scored a vintage red armchair for just $7 at a local garage sale.

Here are a few shots of the results.

The last item has just arrived and is now handsomely framed on my office wall. This is the limited edition bonus A2 lithograph from Brian Eno’s new Extended Edition of Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, exclusively shipped to the first 250 persons worldwide to submit their orders upon the announcement of its release last May.

The print showcases the lunar surface depicted on the original album cover from 1983. The piece is a perfect complement to the official Hearts of Space nebula poster I ordered from the ambient radio program that has been wishing space fans safe journeys for nearly forty years.

The Beethoven bust turned out fantastic and really adds a refined touch to the space –

My dual desktop wallpaper is a photo of the century-old chalkware “Nipper” statue and 1911 Monarch gramophone proudly displayed in my dining room in celebration of “His Master’s Voice,” the legacy of RCA, and the history of recorded music, and a small cast iron figure of Nipper sits humbly between the two monitors.

Here’s the actual statue in my home –

and the cast iron figure –

Also on display is my recently-acquired “His Master’s Voice” antique art mirror –

a portrait of James Joyce, mantel clock, and I found a vintage lamp and shade to complement my burgundy-and-brass theme –

a collage I assembled of influential figures in the history of experimental music titled, “The Rest Is Noise” –

DJ Food (Strictly Kev)’s poster of all the releases from the late Pete Namlook’s ambient FAX +49-69/450464 record label –

an engraved tea chest –

and a limited edition t-shirt graphic I framed of post-rock legend Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Faulty Schematics of a Ruined Machine from their majestic F# A# ∞ LP –

There is also a fun antique style console radio clock –

and I produced a high-res scan of Brian Eno’s sheet music for his seminal Music for Airports LP and formatted the layout to frame beautifully in a 10×13 frame above my desk.

And on the far wall behind my desk I’ve framed the Apollo print and a classy 24” x 36” portrait of Miles Davis taken in 1948 in NYC from the Herman Leonard Collection.

The Persian style area rug finishes off the space nicely, and makes it feel extra cozy.

It’s a serene work space and really makes me feel at home.

The Innerspace Labs Top 100 Albums

Recently a vinyl community I frequent held a month-long event where members shared their Top 30 LPs. I had a wonderful time coming up with my list and writing small reviews for each title. Unfortunately, I had a terrible time limiting my list to just 30, and it quickly grew to a Top 100. (And even then, I’ve cheated here and there with multi-disc box sets and discographies.)

But it all seemed too good not to share here at Innerspace so please enjoy a gallery of 100 of my favorite albums. Mouse over any thumbnail for artist and title info and click any image to expand and view the full-resolution photograph. All albums are presented alphabetically by artist.

Have I made any glaring omissions? Any indisputable electronic classics? Let me know! Perhaps we’ll have to push it to 200…

Enjoy!

Air – Moon Safari

Albert Ayler Trio – Spiritual Unity

Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Vol II

Archie Shepp – The Magic of Ju-Ju

Beaver & Krause – The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music

Beck – Mutations + Diamond Bollocks 7in

Beck – Sea Change (Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs Limited Edition, Numbered, 180g Remaster on Pink wax)

Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children

Bonobo – Black Sands

Brian Eno – Ambient 1 – Music for Airports

Brian Eno and David Byrne – My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Can – Ege Bamyasi

Can – Future Days

Can – Peel Sessions

Can – Tago Mago

Captain Beefheart – Safe as Milk

Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica

Carl Sagan – A Glorious Dawn (by Symphony of Science) single-sided 7″, reverse etched with the image of the Voyager Golden Record

Charles Dodge – Earth’s Magnetic Field

Cluster – Cluster II

Cluster & Eno – Cluster & Eno

Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center

Cyril Richard – Alices Adventures in Wonderland w clothbound hardcover facsimile of the first edition

Del Close & John Brent – How to Speak Hip

Die Welt ist Klang – A Tribute to Pete Namlook

DJ Shadow – Endtroducing

Dr. John – Gris Gris

Eduard Artemyev – Solaris OST (1972)

Eno & Hyde – High Life

Eno & Hyde – Someday World deluxe ed. w Art Print

Fraggle Rock

Fripp & Eno – (No Pussyfooting)

Future Sound of London – Lifeforms 2CD

Godspeed You Black Emperor – F A Infinity

Harmonia – Complete Works

Harry Partch – Delusions of the Fury

James Joyce reads Ulysses and Finnegans Wake

John Cage and David Tudor – Indeterminacy

John Cage – The 25-Year Retrospective Concert Of The Music Of John Cage

John Perry Barlow – A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

Karlheinz Stockhausen – Kontakte

Klaus Schulze – (Don’t ask me to choose)

Klaus Schulze & Pete Namlook – The Dark Side of the Moog Vol 1-4

Kraftwerk I and Kraftwerk II (Crown label green and red wax)

Kraftwerk – Ralf und Florian

Kruder & Dorfmeister – The K&D Sessions

Last Poets – Last Poets

Lemon Jelly – lemonjelly.ky

Lemon Jelly – Lost Horizons

Lemon Jelly – Rolled Oats

Louis & Bebe Barron – Forbidden Planet

Low – Things We Lost in the Fire

Mannheim Steamroller – Fresh Aire Volume 1 (limited numbered edition distributed as a gift item to the employees of American Gramaphone)

Manos the Soundtrack of Fate

Manuel Gottsching – E2 – E4

Manuel Gottsching – Inventions for Electric Guitar

Marsha Gee – Peanut Duck

Miles Davis Fillmore Box Set

Miles Davis – In a Silent Way

Moondog – Moondog 1969

Moondog – Moondog And His Friends (first-ever release from 1953)

Morton Subotnick – Silver Apples of the Moon

M Ward remixing and remastering Jimmy Cauty (as Space) – This is Not What Space is About (Full-Length 2CD Unmixed Promo Only)

M Ward remixing and remastering The KLF – Live From the Lost Continent 2012

My Bloody Valentine – Loveless

Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come

Pacman Records and Picture Discs including a Square Picture Disc of “Pacman Fever”

Parliament – Osmium 180g picture disc signed by George Clinton at the harbor in Buffalo, NY

Philip Glass – Einstein on the Beach (Numbered Promo)

Philip Glass – Koyaanisquatsi

Pink Floyd – The Wall Performed Live Aug 06 1980 (Italian soundboard Bootleg)

Popol Vuh – Hosianna Mantra

Raymond Scott – Manhattan Research Inc

Red House Painters – Songs for a Blue Guitar

Sigur Ros – ( ) and Ágætis byrjun

Silver Apples – Silver Apples

Soul Coughing – Ruby Vroom

Spiritualized – Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space

Steve Hillage – Rainbow Dome Musick

Sun Ra – Space is the Place (Blue Thumb)

Tangerine Dream – In the Beginning Box Set

Terry Riley – Persian Surgery Dervishes

The Avalanches – Since I Left You

The Black Dog – Music For Real Airports 3LP Numbered Set

The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin (2xLP, Album, RE, 180 + CD, Promo)

The KLF – Chill Out

The Orb – Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld

The Orb – The Blue Room

The Prisoner Official Soundtrack to the 1967 BBC series by the Six of One Prisoner Appreciation Society

Tom Waits – A Bit of Everything

Tom Waits – Orphans 7LP set, RSD 7in, Lowside of the Road, Under Review DVD

Underworld – A Hundred Days Off

Underworld – Barbara Barbara We Face a Shining Future

Underworld – Beaucoup Fish

Underworld – Born Slippy.nuxx

Underworld – Dubnobasswithmyheadman Collection

Underworld – Second Toughest in the Infants

Vangelis – Blade Runner transluscent red OST

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops 9LP+5CD+Book Limited and Numbered Box Set

The KLF – “America, What Time is Love?” ltd. ed. 12″ French pic LP

Gas- Gas Box 10LP + 4CD + Book (Wolfgang Voigt)

Die Welt ist Klang: A Tribute to Pete Namlook (Revisited)

Recently I revisited a lossless archive I’d picked up of the 8CD box set, Die Welt ist Klang: A Tribute to Pete Namlook. (Readers may recall my introducing the set when I discovered it in January of 2015). The re-visitation was an effort to remedy my terrible neglect of the many large collections I’d acquired but never given the proper, dedicated listen that they each deserved.  

As I surveyed the list of artists who’d contributed to the project, It quickly became evident that I had done a particular disservice both to the collection and to my own ears for having passed over something so significant.

Die Welt ist Klang is a tribute to Peter Kuhlmann, aka Pete Namlook. Namlook was a prominent ambient and electronic-music producer and composer, and the founder of the German record label FAX +49-69/450464. During the span of his career, Namlook and his label release 135 wonderful albums. Namlook also famously collaborated with Klaus Schulze for the monumental 11-volume series, The Dark Side of the Moog.

After Namlook’s passing in 2012, artists from his label and his fans banded together to produce a tribute album in his memory. This included artists like Bill Laswell, Dr. Atmo (of Silence), and F.U.S.E. (an alias of Richie Hawtin), as well as ambient veterans like Spacetime Continuum, Higher Intelligence Agency, Biosphere, and Oliver Lieb.

Die Welt ist Klang is the result of their efforts.  The set comprises four discs of 47 tracks contributed by FAX +49-69/450464 alumni, and four additional CDs of 44 tracks from their fans.  About half of the tracks were never before released and several were composed specifically for the set.  Die Welt ist Klang is handsomely packaged in a custom wooden box and includes a 24-page booklet.  

The set was released by Carpe Sonum Records and distributed by EAR/Rational Music. EAR/Rational was the official North American distributor for the FAX label and Carpe Sonum was created to keep the ambient spirit alive, beginning with this wonderful tribute collection.

From their official website:

Carpe Sonum’s goal in the coming years is to make the CD (and hopefully vinyl) a cherished and valuable commodity for you in this digital age and have the way we handle music dubbed “the Carpe Sonum treatment”. In everything we do, in every detail, we think about Pete and if he would be proud of what we do as well.

There have been three runs of the tribute set produced to date.  There was an initial run of 500 copies sold via bandcamp.com followed by two smaller runs of 100 copies each. Proceeds from the sale of the release go to Namlook’s family.

I wasted not another moment’s hesitation and secured one of the remaining copies from the label for my own. Some might call it an irrational purchase, as I don’t even own a device with which to play these CDs.  But sometimes music is more than the physical object. This collection is an objet d’art – a symbol of the celebration of a lifetime of music – and a collaborative triumph between artists and their fans.  It’s precisely the sort of album I want in my library.

As of the writing of this article, EAR/Rational Music is offering the unsold copies from the third run for auction on eBay.  It is a wonderful piece of ambient history and a fitting tribute to a man who did so much for the genre.  I’m proud to have added it to my collection.

RIP, Peter Kuhlmann 25.11.1960 – 08.11.2012

NOTE: All of the images above are official photos from the Pete Namlook Tribute Bandcamp page.  Support great music and order your own copy of this box set while they’re still available!

Slow Music for Fast Times

This morning saw the conclusion of our latest archival project.  The world’s longest-running ambient radio program, Hearts of Space began broadcasting slow music for fast times back in 1973.  The original program was a 3-hour set, shortened to its present 1-hour format when the show began public radio syndication in 1983.

Since syndication Heats of Space has aired 1080 hour-long episodes showcasing quality ambient music each week for over 30 years.  Innerspace has successfully compiled a complete archive of the show’s broadcasts and will continue to add new episodes as they are aired.

We’ve made sure to uniformly name and tag each program and to include the original broadcast date and a companion track listing with the metadata for each episode.

Beginning next week I’ll be moving into a larger office and wanted to create a downtempo chill-out library as a relaxing ambient soundscape for my work day.  The Hearts of Space broadcasts will be added to a rotation along with other complete label archives, such as:

– the six phases from the late Pete Namlook’s ambient FAX +49-69/450464 label

– the intelligent d’n’b sounds of LTJ Bukem’s Good Looking Records and its companion projects

– the first ~150 records on the Ninja Tune label for some jazzy, downtempo electronic music

– a wonderful 330-hour audio archive of psybient albums from Simon Posford and other prominent figures of the scene

– and an additional 72-hour collection of quality psybient mixes by Spacemind

The majority of these selections are not offered by any of the major streaming networks or from current commercial markets, but Innerspace Labs has got it covered.

And you can check out Spacemind’s mixes on Youtube.  Here’s Light Reactions (Remastered)

Arctic Ambient (or) Ambient House at 30,000 Ft

I’ve really been enjoying my copies of Gas’ Nah Und Fern vinyl set and the deluxe edition 9LP set of William Basinki’s epic Disintegration Loops. It seemed long-overdue that I retrace my musical steps to the summer of 2009 when I’d first crossed paths with a fellow music-lover and ambient guru who introduced me to Gas in the first place.

He’d mentioned several similar artists which I briefly sampled but never fully-explored.  There’s no better time than the present to remedy that mistake.

This friend had a particular affinity for Nordic-based “arctic-ambient” music – frigid soundscapes of isolation and desolation. Still these recordings had a cerebral and meditative quality that really draws the listener in and that’s something I really need in my life at present.

So I began my re-visiting of 2009 with an artist whose name happened to surface in one of my online vinyl communities. (Call it a sign if you’d like.) Biosphere is Geir Jenssen – a Norwegian musician specializing in ambient electronic music. It was while researching him that I first-encountered the term, “arctic-ambient” and I just had to hear more. In 2001 users of the online rave community, Hyperreal voted his Substrata LP as the best all-time classic ambient album. It was this very album which surfaced in the vinyl community and inspired my rediscovery of the genre, and I was truly impressed by the transportive quality of the record.

Another artist I recalled as having worked with Biosphere was HIA. Higher Intelligence Agency is the music project of Bobby Bird of Birmingham, UK. I was instantly excited to learn that he had released two ambient glitch albums on Pete Namlook’s brilliant FAX +49-69/450464 label of which I make frequent mention.

HIA collaborated with Biosphere on two live recordings, namely the frigid Polar Sequences in 1996…

…and the more temperate Birmingham Frequencies in 1999.

These are wonderfully expansive, atmospheric recordings and make for excellent headphone listening.

But stripping things down to the very shell of ambient music I found the next half-forgotten memory of the summer long-passed.  Deathprod is Norwegian artist Helge Sten. (I envision Norway as being absolutely overrun with ambient laptop musicians.) If you only buy one Deathprod album, get the self-titled Deathprod box set. (Not cheating – box sets are okay in my book.) The 4-disc set comprises Morals and Dogma, Treetop Drive (a long-deleted album from 1994), Imaginary Songs From Tristan Da Cunha from 1996, and “Reference Frequencies” (a disc of previously unreleased, rare and deleted tracks). Better-still, Deathprod Collaborated with Biosphere in 1998 on the album, Nordheim Transformed.

Christian Fennesz (performing simply as “Fennesz”) of Vienna, Austria has produced a number of albums in the same stark, ambient-electronic vein. Highlights include his 2004 album Venice,

Endless Summer from 2001

and Black Sea released in 2008.

I also enjoyed his collaborations with ambient veteran, Ryuichi Sakamoto – Cendre (2007)

…and Flumina (2011).

Fennesz creates white-noise washes of modified guitar loops very much in the spirit of the Frippertronic tape works of Fripp and Eno and Sakamoto adds a refined touch of modern-classical solo piano.

Deaf Center is the last major piece of this dark ambient puzzle.  Norway’s Erik Skodvin and Otto Totland produce epic and theatrical minimal soundscapes.  To steal a beautifully-concise description from RYM user, Son_of_Northern_Darkness – Deaf Center is, “a nice soundtrack to the construction of your own snow-coffin.”

Neon City was an impressive first-outing for the duo, but their first full-length LP released the following year, Pale Ravine stands as their most cohesive work thus far.

Neon City

and the haunting, Pale Ravine

To close with something a bit more lively, Sweden’s own Carbon Based Lifeforms leans more in the direction of psybient music, with their heavy usage of melodic loops, echoes, and steady rhythms. This is ambient music with a vibrant pulse. Check out World of Sleepers

So thank you, my old friend for sharing such wonderful music with me.  I’m sorry it’s taken me all these years to really explore it, but better late than never!

Die Welt ist Klang: A Tribute to Pete Namlook (Carpe Sonum)

Just when I’ve sworn off my compulsion for collecting albums, something beautiful turns up that and makes me reconsider.  I’d promised myself that I’d exercise greater selectivity in my album purchasing – opting only for the crème de la crème for my library.  Today’s featured box set is exactly the kind of album I’m talking about.

After the untimely passing of Pete Namlook in 2012, Carpe Sonum Records was formed by EAR/Rational Music, (the North American distributor of FAX and related labels) and issued a handsome limited edition 8-disc box set celebrating his music.  The first four discs explore the 20-year history of Namlook’s legendary FAX +49-69/450464 record label.  The label featured ambient electronic artists, many of whom collaborated with Namlook on their FAX releases.

The remaining four discs feature exclusive recordings submitted by fans of the label.  Released in two limited runs in 2013, the box set has since sold out.  However I am pleased to announce that Carpe Sonum is now accepting donations and pre-orders for a reissue of the set AND are considering a 10LP edition!  All sales proceeds will go to Namlook’s family.

You can subscribe to their mailing list for updates, contribute your own tracks to the project, or simply offer a financial contribution to help make the release happen.  Visit Carpe Sonum for more information!

 

The History of Modern Ambient Music: Part 2 – 1993-2014

The conclusion to my 2-part Ambient Milestones series is now published on YouTube!  The exciting final element to the feature arrived in the post just a few days ago and I am delighted to share it with you all.

Or click here for the HD version.

An Evening of Ambient Trance Classics

I had a quiet evening to myself, and I took advantage of the free time and finally sat down to explore Klaus Schulze and Pete Namlook’s Dark Side of the Moog 12-disc series.

Each of the track titles play off of classics from Pink Floyd’s catalog, such as “Wish You Were There,” “A Saucerful of Ambience,” “Obscured by Klaus,” and “Careful with the AKS, Peter.”

From Dark Side of the Moog I moved on to Pete Namlook’s solo efforts and quickly discovered that he had founded a record label, Germany’s Fax +49-69/450464 (and yes, that is his fax number.) Nearly 450 releases premiered on the label from 1992 until his death in November of 2012, and additional research revealed that Namlook, himself was performing with the ~40 artists and under various monikers which comprised the label’s catalog. FAX earned a reputation for ahead-of-the-curve, timeless electronic ambient music, which still sounds fresh today unlike many of the 90s fad electronic artists who came and went over the decade.

Unfortunately, Namlook released only 500–1000 copies of the majority of the titles on his label.  Then I found a 17 LP retrospective of FAX’s finest work called the Final Vinyl Collector’s Box Set. Sadly, there were only 25 copies produced worldwide.  The set was meant to be officially released, but at that time Fax changed to a non-vinyl distributor and so the boxsets have never been officially released. However, Pete Namlook confirmed that this is an original Fax release. The last copy to surface sold for $550 in 2010.

While scouring the web for more information, I cued up what I had of Namlook in my library, beginning with his 4CD set performing as “Air” from 1993-1996, which was released as a box set in ’97, and then on to 2003’s Ten Years of Silence – a 5CD set of his tribal ambient work as Silence.

Most of my experience with 90s electronic music had been limited to the major downtempo releases from the decade, and the Air Collection inspired me to look deeper into the psychedelic ambient genre.

I quickly found two noteworthy compilations on Namlook’s label titled The Ambient Cookbook volumes I and II.

The first was a 4-disc box set from 1995 which highlighted various artists from the FAX archive.  The second volume, released in 2002, introduced four more discs demonstrating how the ambient genre had evolved over the decade.

If you’re exploring Fax +49-69/450464 Records for the first time, these collections are an excellent place to begin.

Moving onward, ambient trance music led me to psytrance, which I then narrowed further to the psybient subgenre. This was the 90s incarnation of slowbeat space music, described by a RYM user as “Gas on uppers.”

I entered the term “psybient” into youtube and several 1 – 10 hour playlist results populated.  The first track I heard was Russian artist, Cell’s “Audio Deepest Night.”

I loved the minimal beats and sparse, echoey vocal samples. Looking up the artist, I found that the track appeared on disc 4 of a 7-volume series called The Fahrenheit Project on Ultimae Records, released between 2001 and 2011.  The series featured various Russian and French deep techno artists and was released simultaneously in both countries.

I am working my way through the series and enjoy everything I’ve heard thus far.

So ended a productive night of exploration.  The 36 discs described above will keep me busy for the rest of the weekend.  I welcome any recommendations for further listening that you may have to offer.

Additionally, two more rare LPs arrived in the post this week.  Stay tuned for details.