Ambient and drone from the Echospace label

Today we have a 19-hour ambient and drone playlist from the Detroit label Echospace. Someone might raise an eyebrow: Do you call this noise music? Yes, madam, this too. “If by noise you mean uncomfortable sound, then pop music is noise to me”—these words are attributed to the great noise terrorist Masami Akita aka Merzbow. Yes, the very one who was crazy about acoustic feedback, when the hum and rasp oozed out of the speaker, the listeners plugged their ears, and Masami only made it louder. Stephen Hitchell is quieter. Although he likes to listen to a lot of things, he himself can’t get away from music based on special effects.

“I think one of my personal greatest past-times was playing keys in a local ska/dub band in which another band member opened my eyes to older tape and hand-crafted echo units; he taught me that the dirtier and grainier the effect, the better the sound. It was also my first introduction to home-made spring tanks and Orban ‘60s-era EQs and reverbs; he was my link to the dub information highway. I was more drawn into the effects than the actual music, to me the effects were the music.