Photography by Bijan Shahrad.
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“An unsteady movement of a flame or light that causes rapid variations in brightness.”

This past year, indeed much of the past two years of pandemic, have felt much like this delicate dance of fire, casting light and shadow everywhere, as it fights not to go out.  In these uncertain times of loss and suffering, as we are buffeted this way and that by ever more unpredictable circumstance, we search for that gentle hand extended to cup our flame against the wind, to keep our fire from extinguishing.  Life, we are reminded again and again, is more fragile then we thought, but also more resilient, and so much more precious in every moment: the sparkle in the laugh of a child, the glitter of a setting sun on the waves, a soft mountain breeze, a warm mug of coffee steaming on a cold winter morning, the unexpected call from an old friend from a time and space faraway.  We flicker against the dark, dancing in our own light.

Music has kept my flame alive. This collection of songs came together in the fall as the days shortened and the nights grew.  It’s a transitional season, a time of slowing things down, and turning inwards, both as the pandemic tugs us back into our homes, and as we reflect on the year past.  We move through the solstice, the longest night, towards 2022 and the promise it holds.  In this winter of our soul, we dance through the shadow and towards the light with ease, grace and, at times, more than a little groove.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!  May we continue to oscillate around the fire.

FLICKER
Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra - Kiyomizu-Dera - When The World Was One
Manu Delago - The Silent Flight of the Owl - The Silent Flight of the Owl
Hidden Orchestra - Stone - Dawn Chorus
The Cinematic Orchestra - Child’s Song - Live At The Royal Albert Hall
Jazzanova w/ Hajime Yoshizawa - Hanazono - In Between
St. Germain - Rose Rouge - Tourist (Remastered)
Gigi (w/ Bill Laswell) - Gomelaleye - Gold & Wax
Pete Kuzma - Walk to the Marmara - Equilibrium
Cheb I Sabbah - Pour Mahtoub - Spiritual Beauty: Imaginal Orient
Air - Radian - 10,000 Hz Legend
David Bowie - Lazarus - Black Star
Cassandra Jenkins - Hard Drive - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature

Flicker

Watch the video: http://bit.ly/17CUxYf
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Artwork by Spencer Murphy, from his Traces series: http://bit.ly/X9so5E.

Precious Little

Artwork by Spencer Murphy: bit.ly/X9so5E.

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They climbed the mountain and entered the cave of the Oracle of AI.  They sat before it and asked about The Outer Limits.  After a pause, the Oracle replied:

"The Outer Limits is a phrase that can evoke various thoughts and concepts depending on the context in which it is used such as:

Exploration: The phrase suggests the exploration of unknown territories, whether in outer space or within the human mind. It often implies a journey into the unknown, where conventional rules and understanding may not apply.

Creativity and Innovation: For artists and creators, "The Outer Limits" can be an invitation to explore unconventional ideas and experiment with new forms and mediums.

Boundaries: "The Outer Limits" can symbolize the edges of human experience, knowledge, or endurance. It refers to pushing the boundaries of what is possible or known, whether in science, technology, or personal growth.

Challenge and Growth: It suggests stepping out of comfort zones and confronting challenges that lie at the edge of one's capabilities. This can relate to personal development, innovation, and overcoming fears.

Human Potential: The phrase can represent the untapped potential within individuals or societies. It encourages thinking beyond the current limitations and striving for greater achievements.

Existential Themes: It can also delve into existential questions about the nature of reality, consciousness, and the universe. It prompts reflections on what lies beyond the observable and known world."

Then the Oracle fell silent.  Outside, night had fallen.  They turned their gaze up to the stars and the promise of their distant light.



THE OUTER LIMITS
1. Melody Sheep - Children of Planet Earth - (single)
2. Delia Darbyshire - Doctor Who Theme (Mark Ayers Remix) - BBC 
3. Nicolas Godin - The Border - Concrete and Steel
4. Fred Again & Brian Eno - I Saw You - Secret Life
5/6. David Bowie - Time /  Ian Fish U.K. Heir (Daydream Mix) - Moonage Daydream soundtrack 
7. Tara Rai - Prey - Mauta EP
8. Arushi Jain - Our Touching Tongues - Delight 
9. Ancient Astronauts - Bass and Time - Into Bass and Time
10. Air - La Femme D’Argent - Moon Safari
11. numün - Voyage Au Soleil - Voyage Au Soleil 
12. Alain Goraguer - Le bracelet - La Planete Sauvage 
13. Azymuth - Zé e Paraná - (single)
14. Flying Lotus - Intro/A Cosmic Drama - Cosmogramma
15. Arooj Aftab - Raat Ki Rani - Night Rein 
16. Moshlmoss - Myriad - (single) 
17. Bob Holyrod - Beige - (single) 
18. Kid Koala - The Moons of Galileo - Music To Draw To (Vol.  2)
19. Max Richter - A Trip To The Moon  - Ad Astra soundtrack 
20. Daniel Helmer & Wolf-Maximillan Liebich - Up North (Aftermath) - Rubikon soundtrack
21. Svaneborg Kardyb - Over Tage - Over Tage
22. Visit Venus - Harlem Overdrive - Music For Space Tourism Vol. 1 
23. El Buho - Calchaqui - (single) 
24. Ishmael Ensemble - First Light - A State of Flow 
25. Laya Project - Waterside Tales (Bombay Dub Orchestra’s Blade Runner mix) - A New Day (Laya Project Remixed)
26. David Bowie -  * (Moonage Mix) - Moonage Daydream soundtrack 
27. Big Red Machine - OMDB - Big Red Machine 
28. Stephen Hawking - Look Up At The Stars (Bassnectar Mix) - (live in Chicago)
29. Daft Punk - Touch (Epilogue) - Random Access Memories (deluxe anniversary edition)
30. Seahawks - Space Oracle (aus remix) - Infinite Echo Remixes 
31. Helen Vogelsinger - Rebirth - Contemplation

THE OUTER LIMITS

Unofficial and entirely unnecessary. Listen to the original instead: http://bit.ly/1IYjDeu.

Photography by Spencer Murphy: http://spencermurphy.co.uk. 

FREE DOWNLOAD: Jon Hopkins - Abandon Window (Hiatus Remix)

There’s a modern term that has recently entered our vocabulary, arising from the need to describe the mental and existential distress caused by climate change: Solastalgia. Drought spreads across the land, storms lash the coasts and plastic choked ocean waters rise swallowing cities and islands.  Closer to home, fires burn across our state of California and the toxic clouds of smoke that descend on the Bay Area each fall and blacken the sky become an annual occurrence, as if it were its own dark season. The one where we pull out our apocalyptic Vog masks so we can breathe as, instead of colorful leaves falling from trees, bits of burning ash flutter down upon us. All in the shadow of the oil refineries that loom over the so-called sacrifice zones we live in.

 Now that I have a young toddler, who has just started preschool a couple of miles from the refinery, I wonder what kind of planet will be left for him and all the future generations. When we think about all that has already been lost - the trees, the waters, the beings - the emotional anguish can flood in like a red tide. Yet just a few weeks back, joining millions of youth and their allies marching in the streets for their Climate Strike to save our planet, I also felt a small sense of hope and imagined my little one joining them someday, not just in the fight, but in the greener future.

 There’s much still to celebrate here on Mother Earth and so this blend is a tribute to the songs and sounds of our wondrous planet as we still have it. At a time of nationalism and tightening borders, music still has its magical power to transcend all that, as our one international language that moves us in ways beyond words. So while some music choices honor tradition, others focus on collaborations across time, countries, cultures, shattering any notion that we must live behind walls, or that we are anything but beings that share one planet together.  

My sonic travels were greatly enhanced by collaborating with a fellow audiophile and sound documentarian, Heather, who spent a year recording sounds and soundscapes from around the world to answer the question, "what do we sound like?"—from human-made urban rhythms, to the sounds of people at work and at play, to the animals that make their own music day and night, and nature itself joining in the chorus.

In the meantime, happy travels through the sonic wilds of Solastalgia.  Don’t forget to pack your headphones!

SOLASTALGIA SETLIST
U2 with Brian Eno - Zooropa (Intro) - Zooropa
weSound Interlude 1
Peter Gabriel - The Rabbit-Proof Fence - Long Walk Home 
Sanggar Ceraken of Bali - Prelude For Meditation - Gamelan Cage
Asuna & Opitope - the lake was opened when came out of the grove at the dawn - The Crepuscular Grove
Maghreb Machine - Aum Boreal - single
Dark Morph - Kavura - Dark Morph
Massive Attack - Home of the Whale (Mayday Mix) - single for Parley For The Oceans
Orchestra Baka Gbine - Liquindi 1 - Voice of the Rainforest
Aukai - Colorado - Branches of the Sun
Clave Y Guaguanco & Bill Laswell - Para Clave Y Guaguanco - Imaginary Cuba
Frank Emilio & Bill Laswell - Loungin’ With F.E. - Imaginary Cuba
weSound Interlude 2
Anugama & Sebastiano - African Journey - Baraka soundtrack
Quantic and his Combo Barbaro - Un Canto A Mi Tierre - Tradition In Transition
Da Lata feat. Jandira Silva & Pedro Martins - Ronco Da Cuica - Fabiola
Horace Andy & Ashley Beedle - Watch We (Souljazz Orchestra remix) - Strut Africa
Karsh Kale, Natacha Atlas & Nitin Sawney - Nomadic Sky - Samaya
Shye Ben-Tzur, Jonny Greenwood & The Rajasthan Express - Allah Elohim - Junun
Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder - Lasidan - Talking Timbuktu
Astor Piazzolla - Prologue (Tango Apasionada) - Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night
Kongar-ol Ondar - It’s Hard To Lose A Friend - Genghis Blues soundtrack
weSound Interlude 3
Cheb I Sabbah - Hari Om Narayan - As Far As
Kailash & Ducky
Iarla O’Lionaird - Abha - Bliss

Solastalgia

Photography by Spencer Murphy: www.spencermurphy.co.uk
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In my last Dream Feed, I collaborated with Heather Love, a global documentenarian of audio soundscapes from her travels to different corners of our Earth. We were also co-members of a local Listening Lab dedicating complete attention to music so often a background to something else we are doing.  I appreciate the spirit of anyone who devotes time to sharing the amazing everyday sounds that surround us everywhere that we so often miss, caught up in our own hustle.  Of course, our reality is different now that we are largely confined to our home environments, waiting out the viral storm outside.  So it feels like a good moment to offer the balm of music in these edgy times from our first guest Dream Feed, a moving journey of sound.  Here's Heather:

INTRO
There's not much to know about me other than to say I'm a human like any other human who is, as Adam Phillips writes, "dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear." Developing self-love has felt elusive and chaotic until I began to focus on tolerating the experience of being myself. In bearing my aliveness, I surf sensations in my energy body, I doodle maps of the abyss, and on the days where I find myself anesthetizing instead of being brave, I laugh and double down on whatever (mostly-harmless) hedonistic comfort I've landed in. As I've learned to tolerate and love myself, so has it become effortless to tolerate and love every being. To no longer watch from the sidelines, but to bear withness in all things.

This Dream Feed, Bearing Withness, is dedicated to the intensity of the human experience. We incarnate, we think we have a clue, we realize nobody has a clue, we forgive ourselves, we love ourselves, we love the world, we are the world, we die unto ourselves, and we bear ourselves again. I give thanks to my teachers and lovers and friends. I especially give thanks to Ram Dass, who passed away this past December 22nd. In bearing his own aliveness with so much love and laughter, he gave us a model for how to do the same for ourselves. "Love everyone, and tell the truth." "We're all just walking each other home." "Be here, now." And I give thanks to you, dear listener, for the gift of bearing your aliveness that we may bear withness together for the rest of the ride.

TRACKLIST
They Dream By Day - Pruina - Pruina
Kid Koala - The Observable Universe - Music To Draw To: Satellite
ODESZA - Kusanagi-Instrumental - In Return (Deluxe Edition)
Mt. Wolf - Red - Red (Deluxe Edition)
Mike Monday - When The Rain Falls - Smorgasbord
Donso - Waati - Waati-EP
Oumou Sangaré - Mogoya - Mogoya
Konradsen - Baby Hallelujah - Saints And Sebastian Stories
Jay Electronica - Better In Tune With The Infinite
Josh Ritter - Dreams - Gathering
Ibrahim Maalouf - Beirut - Diagnostic
Sussan Deyhim - Beshno Az Ney / Windfall - City Of Leaves
Djivan Gasparyan - I Will Not Be Sad In This World - I Will Not Be Sad In This World
East Forest & Ram Dass w/ Krishna Das & Javad Butah - I Am Loving Awareness (Christopher Willits Rework) - Reworks
Moby w/ Damien Jurado - Almost Home - Innocents
Jon Hopkins - Abandon Window - Immunity
Maree Docia - At Last, Sunrise - We Were Legends
Essie Jain - O, I Love You - Until The Light Of Morning

Bearing Withness (guest set Heather Love)

Cinematic Journeys in Sound

Access full mix archive at https://www.mixcloud.com/TheDreamFeed

THE OUTER LIMITS

The Dream Feed

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