The latest mix in our series for Apple Music is by S/A/M. Here’s what she says about it:
This mix flows from an almost meditative state moving through ambient and avant guard sounds that heal and stimulate the senses to chilled out jazz rhythms, trip-hop beats and haunting Spanish guitars before delving into deeper more sensual beats. There is a definite sense of femininity throughout the mix which comes from the grace and style of the artists featured. From the binaural sounds and therapeutic frequencies of composer and sound designer Hinako Omori to the experimental witchery of Scottish music artist CLAIR and including an upfront poetry rendition of Erica Jong’s Alcestis On The Poetry Circuit by vocalist and songwriter Vanessa Daou plus a cover version of Nina Simone’s Blackbird and also includes tracks by iconic women I grew up listening to. The mix explores themes of time, calm, love, desire, struggle, fun, frolics and the duality that is life.
Attempting to recreate the golden yesterdays of Jose Padilla`s White Isle sunsets with the tunes of today…
a.s.o. / Rain Down / Low Lying Records
a.s.o. aka Lewie Day and Alia Seror-O’Neil, release a second single, Rain Down, on their label, Low Lying Records. Rattling away on a familiar breakbeat it retains the vibe of their debut. With subliminal scratching, the production’s a conscious nod to the `90s sound of Bristolian pioneers Massive Attack, and Smith & Mighty. The song’s protagonist proclaiming independence, in what appears to be a pretty complicated relationship, as synths add moody, mysterious Middle Eastern details. The main melody, however, soars, recalling post-Soul II Soul classics, such as Praise’s Cafe del Mar favourite No Easy Way Out, and All Saints’ William Orbit-produced Pure Shores. Recreating music of such sophistication is no mean feat.
Here, on the flip side of the first Chill Out Tent compilation (which came out last summer), is the first in a series of ambient collections for time indoors, quiet contemplation and continental drift.
There are ten tracks, nine exclusive to this collection. The artists come from Japan, Ireland, Denmark, UK and Spain.
We begin with ambient sounds, birds and water then flow through various moods and styles. There are deep, pulsing arpeggios, sweet, angelic voices, muted conversations, distant drums and floating guitars, creating a sonic doorway to another place, a different mindset.
File under ambient / electronica / pastoral / piano / relaxation / meditation / contemplation
We’re sitting around flipping though tunes and a box of our latest obsessions, so that’s like – Japanese ambient music from the ‘90s; a book on the history of Drone; reconditioned vintage oil-wheel projectors; sheep-watching on the South Downs; and praxis, the art of working out what to do by actually doing it (as recommended to us by Anthony H Wilson).
Then it hits – the big, bright, beautiful idea.
We need to do something positive, make it happen, really make the difference, definitely, no messing… maybe tomorrow.
Then Chris, who sees himself as a bit of a hispanophile but is just over obsessed with music of the so called Balearic variety, says
“It’s like mañana, it’s not just a word, it’s an attitude, a philosophy. There’s a whole way of life in that word. It’s tomorrow, bright and early, sun rising, birds tweeting, always about to happen, but always somehow just out of reach. mañana is taking things easy while doing what you want, exactly whenever you want. Like we do. Mostly.”
Steve, because, well he’s Steve, is already running with the idea, up that hill, in the direction of some sheep, who by now are scattering in different directions, a little dazed and confused, as they disappear into a glitchy video portal to mañana.
“We’ll make a web page that is always ‘under construction’ – coming soon; and an email address with a constant out-of-office reply.”
“Thank you for your mail, we’ll get back to you soon.”
But because we’re who we are and we do what we do, which is to actually do stuff, albeit at our own pace, that conversation, on the hill, in the chill out tent, or wherever it was, has turned into this. The first physical version of our slightly blurred vision of mañana.
“It’s like mañana, it’s not just a word, it’s an attitude, a philosophy. There’s a whole way of life in that word. It’s tomorrow, bright and early, sun rising, birds tweeting, always about to happen, but always somehow just out of reach. mañana is taking things easy while doing what you want, exactly whenever you want. Like we do. Mostly.”
We’ve made some sweatshirts, really great sweatshirts, with a few different colours and a big fat mañana pasted across the front. No messing, no explanation. IYKYK.
We like to play nice with nice folks so we made a collaboration with (arguably) Manchester’s finest purveyors of quality clothing (Good Measure, obviously) and us, with our new mantra and a lovely logo (typeface designed by Studio Imeus).
They’re on pre-order now, but they won’t be for long, and when they’re gone they’re gone.
Here’s our list of tracks that we loved this year, (in no particular order) all sorts: ambient, Balearic, house, disco. You know the drill; buy the tracks, support the artists and labels who create all this beautiful music. This is just a sample of our year of listening, a couple of mixes and a Spotify playlist to follow…
We’re just back from an amazing weekend at the ‘Where Love Lives’ festival in Sussex where we hosted the Chill Out Tent stage with a full three day schedule of music, dancing, yoga and sunbathing. Huge thanks to our friends at 1BTN Radio for inviting us back for the second year. It’s a great event at a beautiful site with the friendliest crowd we’ve ever met, let’s do it again next year!
Here it is, our debut album! ‘The Chill Out Tent Volume 1‘ – 12 new tracks or versions of some our favourite tunes of the moment, curated lovingly by The Chill Out Tent crew.
The Chill Out Tent is our festival sanctuary, our country retreat, our dream of a better way to live with more sunshine, more sheep, more music, more love. It’s acid house hippy, it’s a blade of grass in your mouth, it’s getting stoned beautifully, it’s all our friends at once, it’s our new secret, favourite place. It’s that fleeting, unforgettable moment, it’s here, it’s now, it’s forever.
What’s the story of this beautiful collection, where did it come from? The compilation album peak happened around the turn of the century with the rise of the curator DJ and the peak of CD sales led to a boom in collections of music, mixed and unmixed. Of course, back then music was still hard to find and an album compiler could share gems from the past that would be really hard to find any other way.
Now, in the streaming age, a compilation of already released tracks, however obscure is effectively the same as a playlist because most music is available digitally somewhere or the other, and most of it on the popular streaming services.
So when we decided to make a Chill Out Tent compilation we had to re-engineer the idea of the compilation. We decided the only way to make it work was for all the tracks to be exclusive and previously unreleased. But because we wanted to share some of our favourite tunes for playing out in fields and listening bars we had to make new versions of some of them. That led to a lot of work for our in-tent producer Chris Coco and some exciting innovations and surprises from some of our current favourite producers who re-imagined their own tracks.
So here it is, our first collection of tunes that aims to reflect the sound of The Chill Out Tent, somewhere to relax, for sure, but also the perfect place for a party that probably starts some time in the afternoon and keeps on building.
‘The Chill Out Tent Volume 1‘ – Track by Track…
1 Calm – Long Summer Dream (Dub Mix) Our friend in Tokyo, and one of the first contributors to the Chill Out Tent online events, comes through with a lovely, building sunset moment.
2 Turbotito – To Feel In Love (Projections x Turbotito Version) With a cheeky reference to a top ranking reggae classic, this new version of Turbotito’s cover of the mighty Lucio Battisti’s classic is a real party starter.
3 SONLIFE – The First (Chris Coco Version) Here’s Chris Coco’s dance version of what has become a surprise Balearic classic from South London’s finest band, SONLIFE.
4 Blair French – Honey Rooftops (Chris Coco Version – Part 1) A favourite from last year gets reworked for the dance floor, or at least a grassy field. One of those tunes that always gets a – what’s this! from someone in the crowd when we play it out.
5 Sauco – Sun Goddess (Chris Coco Sunset Mix) Another firm favourite with The Chill Out Tent crew turned into a sunset classic with an extended guitar part from Nick & Samantha’s Nick Cornu.
6 Hear & Now x Chris Coco – For You (The Chill Out Tent Edit) A collaboration between the Italian duo Hear & Now and Chris Coco, leaning in a slightly more disco direction from their usual grooves
7 Reggae Disco Rockers – The Whistle Song (Quiet Storm Version) A reggae cover of Frankie Knuckles’ classic tune, here in a new extended version.
8 Quinn Lamont Luke – Don’t Run Away (Chris Coco Version) A great song from Cantoma collaborator Quinn, given a Mr Fingers type deep house twist.
9 Projections – Original Cell (Chris Coco Version) This one’s another Balearic beauty, this time via California, given a lift for an early or late play on one of THOSE nights.
10 Dexter Scott – Break Noise Some experimental psychedelic breaks and freak beats straight from the south coast of Merrie England from upcoming artist Dexter.
11 Coyote – Home Grown Everybody’s favourite Is It Balearic? duo with a dubby, bass heavy chug of a groove.
12 Joan Bibiloni – Castanyetes Eivissa / Mar Blava One of our musical heroes from Mallorca, Joan, puts a real Balearic twist on this atmospheric track for another magic sunset moment to close the album.
Launch Parties for our Debut Album this Weekend – In Real Life at Spiritland and in the Metaverse!
The Chill Out Tent was born online in the earliest days of lockdown, our collaborators and community are a wonderful collection of like-minded folks from around the world. Since then we’ve brought The Chill Out Tent into the real world with festivals, residencies, and now our first musical offering –‘The Chill Out Tent Vol. 1’ a compilation album of beautiful exclusive tracks from the global downtempo music community.
As our first gathering was online; a live-stream from London, Oslo and Ibiza, featuring the inaugural Sheepwatch mix (and now classic video). In keeping with our lo-fi / high-tech approach our listening parties for TCOT Vol 1 will be taking place IRL at Spiritland and online at our new lakeside hangout in the metaverse – Lake Mañana. Let’s hear more about this from our Chill Out Tent creative technology guru Steve Machin.
The Metaverse you say? Yup, we’ve made our first foray into virtual reality and you are all invited to come, listen to the album, explore the lake, and hang out. All you need is an internet connection, a browser (chrome works best – desktop or mobile) and a sense of adventure.
It might take a moment to get used to moving around – the lakeside hangout behaves much like a video game – except with added sheep, amazing music, and all our friends from The Chill Out Tent chat room.
Take a moment to get used to the controls, set up your audio / microphone and you avatar / webcam and remember this is very new technology so occasionally hitting the refresh button if you get stuck is usually the best way to resolve any issues.
1 – There will be 12 unique sheep (from 16:00 BST) on Sunday, each one plays a different track from the album when you stand near them.
2 – You can walk on the water.
3 – You can upload a photo, or you can use your webcam as a video avatar.
4 – You can explore anywhere you want, and you can’t break anything (although sometimes you might end up inside a mountain)
5 – Like a real place, the sounds are spatial and you can talk to people that are near you.
6 – There will be a free collectible sheep NFT for folks that come along on Sunday.
So, what are you waiting for? There are 3 TCOT Vol. 1 preview tracks waiting for you now so why not head over to https://spaces.vatom.com/@lakemanana and check out our new lakeside hangout. See you by the campfire tomorrow...
PS For those in London, we will be IRL atSpiritland from 1pm this Sunday (3rd July), and from 4pm we will be playing back the full album on that gorgeous sound system. Stop by, listen to the album and collect one of the limited edition golden sheep NFTs that we are making available this Sunday. There will be some augmented reality surprises dropping with the album from 4pm too.
Three of the four tracks on this E.P. are lush, highly percussive, latin house – sophisticated, futuristic fusion-esque sambas – but it was the mellow, marimba`d, Mallorca, that caught my attention. A daydream-like drift, a feather-light float of gentle hand drums and warm synth swells, surrounding carefully placed piano notes. Subtle, but haunting, with melodic patterns recalling John’s classic album, Ten Days Of Blue, the tune occupies a sonic space somewhere between Steve Cobby`s The Departure Lounge Awaitsand Art Of Noise`sMoments In Love and, to my ears, it coulda been a Cafe del Mar contender.
Phil Mison reunites with long-standing firm friend, and collaborator, Quinn Lamont Luke, and…
The Chill Out Tent 