Vertigo of Time [mixtape]

Vertigo of Time is a free fall through the last four decades of deep dreaming psychedelia, evoking the spiritual high of meditation, the twinkling of the stars at night, and a deep communion with nature itself. This is a drumless mix of weirdo new age, German kosmische synth exploration, Japanese environmental music, and ambient jazz. It is an attempt to connect the most visionary pieces of early electronic music with its genealogical descendants through the unreliable persistence of memory. All feeling and mood, drifting from concrete thought and action, moving toward that unattainable ideal of pure being.

To put it simplest: this mixtape is made for floating inside your mind or a sensory deprivation chamber or just relaxing by yourself in the dark, reading on the train, or whenever time gets soft enough to push outside and stay a little while.

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Street Riding Man // On Engaged Listening

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Today I decided to make the best Saturday possible. I hit the farmer’s market for fresh Michigan asparagus and got a massive taco from the truck, eating in the sun. I got home and listened to my new ATLiens and Endtroducing vinyls before leaving on an extended bike ride along the lake shore. A lot happened; it’s detailed below. Spoiler: I had a much better time than last week, when I crashed my bike.

I came upon this lonely house, the first in a brand new development on the shoreline. With workers on the roof and the surrounding landscape, I was struck by the most indelible image from one of my favorite films of all time, Days of Heaven. Then I kept riding.

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Rod Modell and Michael Mantra – Radio Fore

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Photo: Marie Staggat

I’ve been familiar with Rod Modell via his Deepchord Presents Echospace project for several years now. 2007’s The Coldest Season is often cited as a monument of dub techno; icy beats, muted atmosphere, and warm rounded analog bass flesh out an album that bumps against the limits of control.

His second Deepchord album, Liumin, is one of my favorite techno releases of all time. This time the beats are more pronounced, evolving from broken radio tuner waves into a futuristic cityscape stomper.

However, I’d somehow missed his absolutely blissed-out meditation music, crafted with Michael Mantra over a decade ago. Listen to this half hour of pure alien serenity now:

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