Track List

1. The Light Becomes You 20/00
2. The Mirror of God 16/54
3. Two Breaths of Forever 08/20
4. Sweet Eva Lena 21/00

Notes

Highlands        ffm•010
Phillip Wilkerson

When I first started the label, if I had made a list of the ‘dream’ artists that I’d want to release on Free Floating, Phillip Wilkerson would probably have been at the top of the list.

I think Phil was probably one of the first artists that I discovered when I began to seriously pursue and document free ambient music on the internet. I found most of his free music via Last.fm and downloaded as much as I could. I very quickly fell in love with the subtle artistry of his sonic worlds. I was pretty instantly hooked.

Luckily for me (and ambient fans around the world), Phil has continued his prolific musical journey and his creative output over the past several years is a staggering catalogue of inspired and sublime sonic beauty. He has explored many aural landscapes on his artistic journey, but he almost always seems to return to his spiritual base camp — intense abstract pieces of complex harmonic and melodic brilliance.

As I embedded myself more deeply in the ambient music culture of the web, Phil and I would often cross paths and we built up a friendship based on mutual admiration and dedicated cheerleading of each other’s work. At this point, he is the only musician I’ve released whom I’ve actually spoken to directly (over the phone). I feel a strong connection to Phil through his music and his humble, compassionate personality.

So this release of Phil’s music on Free Floating was somewhat inevitable, given the paths we have both followed up to this point.

I am, of course, deeply humbled that Phil has decided to share this work via Free Floating. It shows how well he understands my aesthetic and ‘gets’ what I want Free Floating music to be. These four pieces create a space of subtle yet immense stillness, a place to find repose or to explore the depths of our truest selves. No matter how much of Phil’s music I hear, I am ever amazed at the ease with which he conjures these spaces. It is a testament to the truth at the heart of himself that cannot help but be reflected in his art.

I hope that this music enables you to find that truth in yourself and those around you.

Brad Ross-MacLeod
Vancouver, BC
May 2012

All music by Phillip Wilkerson
Mastering by Ben Cox
Cover by Brad Ross-MacLeod
Cover photo by Mauro Bertolini

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Track List

1. ever  (13:37)
2. the sweetest drops (10:04)
3. in midair (5:23)
4. wonder’s returning (10:29)
5. days like this (16:46)
6. breathing may surprise (14:40)

Notes

breathing may surprise        ffm•009
daniel robert lahey

Like many artists, I first encountered daniel in the Stillstream chat room and then, I believe, through the Relaxed Machinery community. It was on the latter where he posted a SoundCloud link to “Being Peace”. Here is what he had to say about it:

I recorded this piece, “Being Peace” about 10 years ago, and I have never come close to its perfection since…. During that day that ended with Being Peace, I was for some reason unentangled with the result, which mental state I was able to sustain long enough to have a recording of what bliss sounds like to me by the end of the day. I would cry every time I listened to it for weeks.

I instantly fell in love with the piece and asked daniel if I could release it on Conception.

Now daniel has many times mentioned “Being Peace” as the pinnacle of his art and how nothing he’s done has ever come close. I, naturally, took him at his word.

Then he began to post more tracks to SoundCloud, intending them primarily as experiments, looking for feedback.

With the post of each new “thing” (his own term for his pieces), I came to realize that here is a man who vastly underestimates the depth of his art. For me it finally reached a critical mass and I contacted daniel, telling him that unless he objected I would release these pieces. Luckily for all of us he consented.

While these pieces may not be finally tuned and mastered as perfect works, I believe deeply in their beauty and the depth of feeling they convey. There is a deep well of emotions that daniel can tap into. While there is a sense of melancholy to be found, the ultimate sense I take from this music is a serene sense of being present to the current moment.

Take some time to explore these pieces and I believe you will find some beautiful places to be at peace.

Brad Ross-MacLeod
Vancouver, BC
April 2012
http://freefloatingmusic.com.

All instruments and sounds by daniel robert lahey
http://relaxedmachinery.ning.com/profile/danielLahey

Cover photo by Mark Botham

These pieces appeared on SoundCloud under the following titles: Thing 008  (the sweetest drops), Thing 009 (ever), Thing 010 (in midair), Thing 016 (wonder’s returning), Thing 019 (days like this), Thing 14 (breathing may surprise).

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Track List

1 – Moments Between 19/08
2 – Another Time 29/09
3 – Tomorrow 14/57
4 – Yesterday 13/24

Notes

Time        ffm•008
Jack Hertz

This release almost didn’t happen (though, thankfully for all of us, it obviously has…).

Jack Hertz sent me these tracks back at the beginning of December 2011. I promptly entered them into my regular rotation of new music and gave them lots of thorough listening. When new music is submitted to Free Floating I try to listen to it in as many ways as possible—doing work at the computer, while reading, in headphones as I go to sleep…. I want to experience the music fully.

As I listened to these four tracks (in somewhat different mixes from what is released here), I vacillated. Jack’s artistry and compositional subtlety were apparent. It was just that there were passages that stretched the boundaries of what I imagine Free Floating music to be.

Jack, understandably, got impatient with not hearing from me and said he could take the music elsewhere. We exchanged messages and I explained my feelings. Jack offered to remix the tracks.

I mention this to emphasize one of my favorite aspects of running this label—collaborating with amazingly creative and humble musicians who share my creative and personal mission. I am grateful that Jack believes enough in Free Floating that he would revisit and revise his own music to fit my particular vision. I have an immense respect for that artistic decision.

The good news is that I think Jack’s edits definitely took these pieces to a different level. In some ways, the mixes are not drastically different, which I like because it retains Jack’s creative spark. But the editing has taken some amazing music and made it that much more resonant and beautiful.

So perhaps there is something valuable here in the collaboration between artist and label, though the lion’s share of praise must, assuredly, belong to Jack and this phenomenal music he has made for us.

Brad Ross-MacLeod
Vancouver, BC
March 2012

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Track List

1 – Nine 1

Notes

Nine        ffm•007
Seconds Before Awakening

The music of Seconds Before Awakening (the nom de disque of one Michael S. Waller) is tied up with the history of Free Floating right from the very beginning….

Way back in July of 2008 I played “Zero 2” on the very first installment of my Stillstream radio show. Since then the music of Seconds Before Awakening has graced the show quite a few times and now I am happy to be releasing new music under the Free Floating banner.

There are many aspects of the music that reach out to me. There is the glacial pace of many of the drifting tones, moving and changing so slowly that at times they seem almost frozen. There is the deep and distant echo that sends those frozen tones out into the infinite stillness of space. There is a sense of darkness punctuated by light, the sonic equivalent of the amazing photographs produced by the Hubble Space Telescope. I almost feel like this is the sound of those nebulae and galaxies frozen for us to contemplate the shifting energy and interplay between matter and nothingness.

Some find those kinds of images—and indeed this kind of music—strange and cold, offering little comfort. For some reason I tend to have the opposite reaction. These sounds and those images remind me that infinity is real, here and now. There is no need to wait for an imagined afterlife to experience this simple grand creation….

I believe that Nine continues the sonic explorations that are the forte of Seconds Before Awakening while expanding the sonic palette of Free Floating. I am most grateful to Michael for sharing his journey through Free Floating.

Brad Ross-MacLeod
February 2012

Seconds Before Awakening is an ambient sound project that is the soundtrack for dreams and dreamers alike. Seconds Before Awakening was formed in 2008 and all the dreams are created in New York, NY USA

All music by Michael S. Waller
Cover by Brad Ross-MacLeod

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Track List

1 – I Will Tell The Audient Void Part 1
2 – I Will Tell The Audient Void Part 2

Notes

I Will Tell The Audient Void        ffm•006
Tange

There are several reasons why I am especially glad to be releasing Tange’s I Will Tell The Audient Void on Free Floating.

First is that Gordie (AKA Gordon MacMillan AKA Tange) is just a really nice guy. I only really know him through the digital realm; having chatted in the Stillstream chatroom, interacted occasionally on Facebook, and exchanged emails. But each time I have come away with an impression of Gordie as a just a really straightforwardly good guy.

Second is that I now have an example to use when I am asked what music on Free Floating sounds like.
These are the sounds that I heard in my head as I began this label. I did not physically hear them at the time, but as I listen to the gorgeous serenity of Tange’s work I certainly hear it now. Gordie somehow managed to get inside my head and extract what I imagined there.

This music provides the architecture to a place of serene majesty and imagination. The flow of sound is gentle and relaxed yet inviting. It is quite simple in its construction, the timbres and themes are laid out early and diverge only minimally throughout. But those divergings are like the stones in a gentle stream that gently push the water but allow it to flow. Tange is a master at placing these stones at just the right location and depth to create soundstreams of gentle and insistent wonder.

Many thanks to Gordon for sharing these pieces with Free Floating and, thereby, with you.

The title comes (ironically, for such peaceful music) from the story Nyarlathotep by H.P. Lovecraft.

Cover Artwork by the multi-talented Pyracantha – visit pyracanthasketch.blogspot.com

Brad Ross-MacLeod
January 2012

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