Almost in F - Kevin Macleod

After watching videos of several off-grid living vloggers...one of the whom I really enjoy, in general, did a video based on her road trip to Yellowstone from where she lives in the mountains of Wyoming, in March of last year.  Part of this piece of music is used for the video.  I was moved by it instantly; repeatedly ever since.

Very low-key and understated. Reminds me of the first 3 minutes of O Magnum Mysterium but done with piano over 30 minutes. I've put on a Kevin MacLeod playlist for the next few hours.

It's been some time since I've listened to O Magnum Mysterium, but I put that right up there along with Speigel im Spiegel for music I can relax, stretch, and/or read to.  

I'm checking out some more Kevin Macleod as I write.  Music with a soft, somewhat meditative flow to it, seems to be - even if/when it's repetitive at points - something I need in my life.  For more reasons than I'll delve into for now.

But...  However I come across music that just works for me, I jump into who's that and what's it called mode.  During the days of satellite music in the TV room, when The Spa and Ambient channels were around, I almost always had pen and writing material at the ready.  But, being with and around you guys for close on 20 years now, exploded my musical experience.

I actually queued 'Almost in F' and then 'O Magnum Mysterium'. The first song lulls you into a nice mellow trance, when Magnum Mysterium starts the brassy sound is still mellow yet notably 'brighter' then when those final glorious minutes arrive it's like the first dawn on planet earth - almost psychedelic. We'll have to make our own Hearts of Space and called it "Mellow to Magnum".

I like the sound of "Mellow to Magnum".  Just over 30 years ago, while working in Toronto for the summer, CHUM FM had a program called "Lights Out."  I'll call that my earliest Hearts of Space-type musical introduction.  Back then, I never wrote down artists and song titles.  I simply pressed record on my cassette player/radio and fell asleep listening to the program.

My morning song: Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa. The whole track in 75 minutes.

I first heard this song (or at least the very melancholy final portion of it) on HoS program #375 'Constant Stillness'. It has a busy beginning with violins and a brief crash of piano but quickly finds a slower pace, this rise and fall will repeat as cinematic orchestral swells, choral vocals, gongs, and bursts of violin step forward and recede. After an hour of this in-motion mellowness you are treated to a final 10 minutes of sheer melancholy bliss similar to Barber's Adagio for Strings.