This summer has been ridiculously, painfully, destructively hot. 
So what do we do? The only thing we can — we make music.

Even here in North Carolina, where it’s been raining so much that I often have a moat around my house, it’s still hot as blazes (and humid, but that’s a different topic).

Elsewhere, fires rage, and environments unaccustomed to heat are experiencing record-breaking temperatures. So today we illustrate it with music from the RadioSpiral library.

Late summer is its own phenomenon, where the heat settles in, the colors slowly begin to fade and turn golden, and a few leaves already start to fall.

As high summer wanes and the light begins to change, the colors of the earth change. Early harbingers of autumn begin appearing, in random golden leaves, in the occasional fallen branch, in the angle of the sun.

As autumn approaches, the harvest begins to come in. Fruits fall from trees, leaves fall, and although perhaps temperatures haven’t yet begun to follow suit, the feeling is in the air. On this edition of At Water’s Edge, we fall.

Every now and then, it’s nice to take a quiet day. Here in coastal North Carolina, it’s been raining for weeks on end. Today brings that kind of gentle rain that makes it a good day to stay inside.

On such days, one is inspired by gentle pursuits: reading, visiting, listening to quiet music. Today will be a day of droney drift to accompany the drifting rains…

We’ll hear a variety of long form ambient music from some of our favorite artists in the Spiral archives.

On this edition of At Water’s Edge, we bring you another challenge! This is the first of a series of field recording challenges that we have put out, and it seemed appropriate to do this during high summer.

Glenn Sogge caught some lovely, dense sounds in Door County, Wisconsin, and in Troutdale, Oregon. The challenge? Using only these sounds, make music. The artists could alter them however they liked, but the frog files must be the only source material used. The results were misty, mysterious, crunchy and wonderful.

The remainder of the program is devoted to froggy life by way of the RadioSpiral library.

This week’s show theme suggested itself through the weather. It’s been raining off and on for a few days, and the sound of it is rather wonderful here. We feature music of Max Corbacho, Dan Pound, Sensitive Chaos, Robert Rich, Janne Hanhisuanto, Robert Carty, Syndromeda, Thom Brennan, Ari Porki, Forrest Fang, Tim Kays, Palancar, Loren Nerell, and Charles Denler.

Rain has been one of the more popular subjects of music, especially in the ambient genre, for what are probably obvious reasons. Even by itself the sounds of rain evoke their own moods, depending on the nature of the rain itself.

Here in coastal North Carolina, the rain can sometimes be a comfort, but when it comes with tropical winds, can be disastrous. I’m happy to say that lately the rains have fallen in the former category. So today we bring you comfortable rain. Ahhhh…..

Today’s topic was elusive. Something about summer heat, but that might have been too obvious, not to mention overdone. Okay then, something else about being near the water? Yawn. 

But then Mom mentioned the local tales of Blackbeard the pirate, his treasure, and a buried princess. So this edition explores mysteries, secrets, and shadows. We’ll tell you what we know of Blackbeard and his legendary presence in this part of the world.

Today’s episode of At Water’s Edge is called “Origins”; we explore our roots, our beginnings, our origins. That can take many forms, depending on your personal mythos, so we go exploring in the Garden, in polar ice, in the stars, in the roots of trees, and more.

As you may know, recently I moved to a little town on the inland waterways of North Carolina — so, yes, we are still at water’s edge. I’m here for my mother, but interestingly, despite our all scattering to the four winds when we were younger, my father was born in a little town about 50 miles from here, and much of that side of the family has been rooted here for generations.

Our personal beginnings, our cultural beginnings, our planetary beginnings… we all start somewhere, and those starting points all help define who we are individually and collectively. Who we are as individuals is a culmination of all those things, and what we do with the knowledge of those things along the way.

Another of our challenges here on At Water’s Edge, today’s program, 52 Stories Up, only received two responses (and they’re GOOD!), so most of the show is devoted to tracks that tell stories.

The challenge was… well, challenging. A few months ago, I posted an image on Facebook, a spectacular view of downtown Los Angeles from the office where I was working. I mentioned that it was 52 stories up, and of course the puns started flying. Stories (as in tales), and cards, and great wordplay ensued. A challenge was born: create a track that incorporates elements of both your favorite story and your favorite card game.

The remainder of the program relies on the RadioSpiral library, where we went spelunking for tracks that told stories in one form or another.

This is a podcast-only episode.

It’s a protest show, a prayer, a hope, a rant, a wish, an exhortation. Given all that’s going on in the U.S. this past week or two, your host couldn’t remain silent. So this program is one long wish to

Give

The

Children

Back

Predictable if you know me at all.

This episode features music by Palancar (Darrell Burgan), Tony Gerber, Scott Lawlor, Brother Saturn (Drew Miller), Robert Rich, Michael Brückner, HeadJoint (Michael Jobborn), Giles Reaves, Darren Harper, Phillip Wilkerson, and Lily Pond Orchestra.

Take Two! Continuing the previous episode’s collaboration challenge and theme, we bring you more tracks by two or more artists — two of which were created specifically for the challenge, and the rest from the RadioSpiral library or elsewhere around the interwebz.

We’re also featuring a new album in its entirety, Memories of Akhenaten, from Chris Russell and Dawn Tuesday, and a long form track from Dan Miñoza and Symatic Star.

Music is better with friends. 🙂