The Beautiful Land of Nod

 

 

Set the wayback machine to 2007.

I started creating ambient mixes back in the mid-2000s. Those were the days before social media had taken over our lives, before Bandcamp was such a great resource for ambient music.  Back then I spent a lot of time on the Hypnos Records forum. There, a bunch of like-mined music nerds shared comments about new recordings, gear, movies, books, tv, music trends, etc. 

We also shared mixes. That was one of the first places I tried to promote my mixes online. Back in 2007 fellow forum member, Brian Bieniowski, created a couple mixes under the Asphalt Eden moniker. These mixes, The Beautiful Land of Nod 1 & 2, are some of my all-time favorites and I've used them as sleep soundtracks for years.

With that as background, a few weeks ago a loyal listener reached out with this request - "Could you post some of the Asphalt Eden super-classics like The Beautiful Land of Nod I and II to your Mixcloud as guest mixes/classics in the field/inspirations to your mixes please? I think your fans would be overjoyed by this, and it would be sheer cultural maintenance."

I contacted Brian and he was kind enough to give the thumbs up to posting these classic mixes. He did not have the original tracklists but somehow was able to reconstruct them by listening to each set. Impressive! Thanks Brian for the mixes and for your memory. Here's a link to his website - https://www.handsometechnologies.com/

So kickback and remember a time before credit default swaps almost cratered the economy, before a reality show host became president, before a coronavirus swept around the globe, before....ugh...I'll stop now. Just sit back and drift away to The Beautiful Land of Nod 1.

Cheers!

 

T R A C K L I S T :

• Robert Rich -Seascape (Trances/Drones)
• Koda - Where the Morning Light Exits (Movements)
• Scott Solter - Wave and Sepia Wire (The Brief Light)
• Thom Brennan - Raingardens (Mist)
• Robert Fripp and Jeffrey Fayman - The Sky Below (A Temple in the Clouds)
• James Johnson?
• MLO - Noodle #1
• Heavenly Music Corp - Ambient to Be Here (In a Garden of Eden)
• Tetsu Inoue & Pete Namlook - 2350 Broadway 2 - Art of Dream
• Klaus Wiese - Soma
• Rameses III - Queens Road Cemetery - 28th March 2005 (Matanuska)
• Brian Eno - Discreet Music (Discreet Music)
• Jonn Serrie - Stratos (And the Stars Go With You)