Mission Control: ambient music and NASA audio
BB pal Gareth Branwyn says:
Mission Control: Celebrating NASA and Space Explorers everywhereI'm absolutely... er... "over the moon" about the new SomaFM Mission Control channel. They've taken the Apollo radio feeds and mixed them on top of space/ambient/electronic music. It's fucking brilliant! It's become the soundtrack to my late night work sessions. Some of this stuff has seriously popped my circuits. Geek ambient!
the latest
latest episodes
I was listening to their recent simulcast of the space shuttle launch and SpaceStation channel, and it was perfect. Glad they're doing the same thing with the Apollo feeds.
I don't know if they still do this, but the German TV station HR Alpha (or was BR?) used to have "Space Night," in which they would show footage from space launches, missions, landings, etc., all layered over with a healthy dose of ambient/trance music. Occasionally they would mix in recordings of transmissions. Next to Bob Ross, it was my favorite thing to watch while stoned.
Man, I miss Europe.
Wow! TOTALLY COOL. Thanks for this, listening now and it's a real concentration booster.
Anonymous: "Space Night" is alive and well on BR-Alpha and Bayerisches Fernsehen, available free-to-air via digital satellite in most of Europe (Astra 19.2°E, 11836 MHz).
Some of the stuff ("Earthviews" in particular) is on Youtube (chopped into ten-minute segments of less than stellar quality, of course).
I confess I like to listen to the soundtrack from THX 1138.
Thanks for the tip. I'm really enjoying it. Smooths out the work day considerably.
Weird thing was that for some reason my playlist seamlessly switched over to ScanAmerica and it took me forever to understand where the beats went.
This is such a trope in ambient/electronic music that I can't help seeing this channel as a snarky comment of a sort.
That being said, it's a trope because it's really fucking cool.
((I can't listen to somaFM because it reminds me of meeting one of the guys. He was such a royal asshole. Meeting people who's work you respect is such a risky proposition.))
Here's a version of the Genesis Apollo 8 reading:
http://radiomovies.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/apollo-good-earth/
Rad! I did this with the Walter Cronkite narrated version called 'Man on the Moon' vinyl. He narrates the entire space program from the Mercury missions thru the first lunar landing. For 4 hours on the Tuesday of the week of the 40th anny (Walter had just passed as well) at a local bar called the Whistlestop in SD. Ambient tunes, Walter and space telemetry, plus Atari 2600 lLunar Landing wire-frame vid-game = complete awesomeness!
Our satellite provider has a channel called Earth that just shows a live (updated every 5 seconds) view of the Earth from space and plays totally relaxing 70's rock and folk music, which I think Mama Earth totally digs.
We're addicted to it at my house because it's so weirdly calming and different from anything else on TV, possibly because it has no schedule associated with it - it's just always there and doing the same thing.
BEEP!
Frakkin' awesome!
BEEP!
somaFM is almost all i listen to. they have so many great channels... i just wish i could afford to throw some money their way. it's always on my list of things i hope to do, though. i love them.
Anyone looking to create their own media with Apollo audio can find some Apollo 11 clips here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/40th/a11_audio_highlights.html
A fascinating page about the onboard audio recorders and NASA archives: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/40th/a11_audio_highlights.html
More audio available in the multimedia section of the excellent http://www.apolloarchive.com/
Have fun!
Had to switch to Safari to get it to load.. Firefox wouldn't fly... Nice combination!
Chroma Key (Kevin Moore) did something like this on the You Go Now album.
Check out Chroma Key's Lunar on YouTube for a mellow piano and drums background to Apollo 11 audio.
It's cool to see comments about it being a "concentration booster" and "smoothing out the work day." That's exactly how it works for me, too.
I can't listen to music with lyrics or too much going on when I write, but if the music is too passive, too ambient, it makes me sleepy. This is just the right level of engagement. It's become sort of a carrier wave upon which my mind travels through the day.
I also listen to the Lush channel a lot. That's really good, too, but can have too much variance in tempos, moods, styles, so that sometimes, I have to turn it off when it becomes too distracting.
Bassic (Martin Lindhe) has three glorious tracks like this on his 1991-2003 compilation album titled "Tranquility Bass", "Tranquility Bass II" and "Tranquility Bass III" Quite enjoyable.
I have to add another voice saying "SomaFM rocks". I discovered them through their "Secret Agent" radio/stream (good lounge/jazz), and stayed for Space Station.
I've been donating them 8$ a month since a few months back, and my only regret is that I haven't done it sooner: they deserve it.
OK, I have another regret: my cell phone carrier (in France) blocks me from streaming it to my cell, even though I have an Unlimited* data plan.
*for finite** values of unlimited***
**for small values of finite
***only on selected sites
Vangelis was doing something similar to this with the album "Albedo 0.39" in 1976, track "Mare Tranquillitatis."
http://play.rhapsody.com/vangelis/albedo-039/mare-tranquillitatis?didAutoplayBounce=true