Category: Mixes

Desert Wave is an Arabic/Eastern themed concept which is both ambient and rave in equal measure.

It conceptualizes a hallucinogenic & psychedelic vibe where you can trip’ the **** out either in mellow mood at the Sand Dunes (dreaming your dreams) or more upbeat at the Light Fantastic, raving till dawn.

Part 1 – Trippin’ at the Sand Dunes:

A collage of cinematic, ambient & club sounds draw from music made by emerging artists from the Middle East, artists from the past, western artists with an interest in the Middle East, movie soundtracks, the deeply spiritual, video game composers and much, much more. Nestled amongst all of this is one of the world’s greatest ever rock bands but in this collection they are made to sound just as anonymous as many of the other artists they feel comfortable to sit with in the mix, truly hUMBled 🙂

DesertWave – Part 1 Trippin’ at the Sand Dunes (March 2015) by Dj Umb on Mixcloud

Part 2 – Trippin’ the Light Fantastic:

The higher octane side embraces psychedelic club sounds that take you on a shamanic journey that lilts you into a deep trance and draws from music on the leftfield of the dance world. Here you get the latest underground merging with some classic and relatively unknown material of the past and some real curveballs thrown in to add that unique experience from 60’s drone merchants, 70’s & 80’s Electronic pioneers, one of the 90’s biggest Electronic acts and also North African infused Krautrock and finishing with musicians in North Africa paying homage to a Rolling Stone.

DesertWave Part 2 – Trippin’ the Light Fantastic (March 2015) by Dj Umb on Mixcloud

Here’s some of the Artists on the mixes, which might come as a bit of a surprise to some of you:

AGITATION FREE

Regarded as one of the greatest ever Krautrock albums, this debut release by German band Agitation Free saw them taking in the Middle Eastern vibes as far back as in 1972.   Heavily inspired by Egypt and full of “dueling guitars, spacy synth work, desert rhythms and taped sounds of dusky cities… adding depth and spice to the otherwise smooth, Teutonic grooves.”

This is one of the greatest ever albums in any genre and I would strongly reccommend that you buy the whole album.

The vibe of the track I used just fitted this whole concept in feel and atmosphere and it’s relative anonymity just added to its allure!

TANGERINE DREAM

Another act from the 60’s who were hugely influential in both the Krautrock and Electronic worlds.  In 1983 though they released an album called “Hyperborea”.

“‘No Man’s Land’ was a tour de force of conception full of spirited North African pipe and drum inflections. Its oriental flavour was increased by the use of exceptionally crafted electronic sitar and tabla sounds. With its hazy Moroccan dance feel and use of additive and cyclical melodies ‘No Man’s Land’ was an entrancing nine minutes of luminous Dream music.”

The track I used just sets off the second ambient passage of Part 2 perfectly!

VELVET UNDERGROUND 

The sustained oriental drones in this epic track had to be included.

The track in the mix beautifully concludes the second ambient passage in Part 2 before the mix really starts to rise up a few gears with more dance oriented material.

LED ZEPPELIN 

Led Zeppelin are well known for their forays into Middle Eastern music with their world conquering “Kashmir” track and they have hinted at the Middle East in other tracks like “Friends”.  From the same album as Kashmir, I used a track that has all the eerie, transcendental atmospherics of the kind of vibe I wanted to create for the first mix  and I think it is snuck in there (in edited form) in completely mysterious and anonymous fashion.  If you didn’t know Led Zeppelin material, you couldn’t be blamed for not recognizing it was a tune from one of the world’s greatest ever rock bands.

CHEMICAL BROTHERS

No, it’s not “Galvanize”, a track that was based on “Just Tell Me the Truth” by Morocco’s Najaat Aatabou.  It was originally a big hit in Morocco in or about 1993 and was sampled by the Chemical Brothers in their worldwide hit “Galvanize” in 2005 which sold over one million singles.

I was lucky enough to be 1 of only 2 people ever to be granted permission to license this track for a compilation, my Experience Morocco comp.  The other being, PAUL BOWLES!!!!  Indeed the track on my & Paul Bowles’ compilations is only an MP3.  A WAV version does not exist.  Najaat had agreed to re-record the track for me at the time of my compilation but it didn’t happen in the end cause she suddenly wasn’t in the mood for it!!!!

The Chemical Brothers track that I have used in Part 2 came much later than Galvanize and it’s a heavy, Big Beat Floor Stomper of a Middle Eastern tinged track that has been grossly overlooked.  I hope more people find it now or pay more attention because of its inclusion in this mix.

THE BLUE LILY COMMISSION

Amongst all the big ass dudes in the mix, who are in the minority, there’s some equally enthralling little known guys like The Blue Lily Commission aka Steve Palmer from my neck of the woods.  He makes global music that also fuses synthesisers into the swirly mix and some of his tracks are an intoxicating brew like the one I used which is probably one of my favourite tracks over the 2 mixes.

Please check out his material, some of it is pretty mega:

VANGELIS

What can you say about this man and that hasn’t been said before…..BLADERUNNER……!!!

I have used a few tracks, one from that soundtrack and a few from other albums and one that is not him but which might be mistaken for him.

He is the master at evoking future sounds and when those sounds have a Middle Eastern tinge, it’s better than sex!

YELLO

Yello were one of the first Electronic acts that intrigued me and I’ve been a huge follower of them since they hooked me in. There’s a great Snake Charmer-esque track by them that I’ve included in this mix, it’s brilliant.

The Master Musicians of Jajouka

We were lucky enough to include a transcendental track by these legendary dudes on our Transnational Dubstep Compilation when they teamed up with Dub Gabriel and ex-Bauhaus & Love & Rockets bassist, David J.

“The Master Musicians of Joujouka are Jbala Sufi trance musicians most famous for their connections with the Beat Generation and the Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones.”

I’ve taken a track from their Sub Rosa release which is in the praise of the last coming of Brian Jones and it’s dead trippy – “brahim jones joujouka very stoned”!!

STEPHANE PICQ

Stephane is a French composer of video game music and his Dune soundtrack is legendary.

The tracks here on Part 1 are renditions of the Dune soundtrack played through dunemidi.exe in DOSBox.

ERIC SERRA

Another French Composer best known for working with Luc Besson.  He’s done some great soundtracks, many of which include arabic inspired sounds.

Other Artists

If you’re into the Arabic Undeground, you’ll know some of the other stuff by dudes like Professor Genius, Crackboy, Legowelt, Acid Arab, El Mahdy Jr and our Generation Bass dude C-Productions!