I met Terre Thaemlitz on May 18, 1996 when we both performed at the same Cloudwatch event in Baltimore. That night I was handing out a promo mixtape that I had finished a few days before, “Absolute Zer0″. (which, coincidentally, included his track “Hovering Glows” mixed over “E.P.L. (Femme Machine)” his ode to Kraftwerk) I gave him a copy, and a few weeks later he returned the favor with a couple Comatonse promos and the recording shown above which he had cheekily packaged in the Bon Jovi tape case shown. Now here we are nearly thirteen years later and Terre, back then a guru of the ambient and downtempo scene, has become a bit of a deep house hero. All the blogs are ga-ga over his album “Midtown 120 Blues” which he released under his “DJ Sprinkles” alias. Fair enough, it is a great album, but I thought I’d share Terre as I knew and loved him, the more ambient, experimental side of Terre Thaemlitz. I hope you enjoy this dj set “Of An Acoustic Nature - live in Calgary 06-01-1996″. Be forewarned, it is decidedly not dance music, but it is totally awesome.
Download side A here and side B over here.
If you like this dj set you should definitely check out his other ambient releases from the mid 90s, which were all pretty mind blowing.
Oh, and to new readers, welcome, take a look around, especially at the main site where you can find all my dj mixes, and please do subscribe!
very good listen. especially interesting since im from cgy.
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Count Zero reply on February 24, 2009 8:37 am:
Thanks for the comment, and thanks for reading. Glad you enjoyed the mix.
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Comment by md — February 23, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
great observation. I, too, have been thinking about a post in similar retrospect of what Terre had been doing back when I was first introduced to him. And it’s funny because listening to portions of the new album, I can see that he’s been able to fuse some characteristics of this older approach to his new sound. and I believe he actually may still be doing some ambient stuff as well.
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Count Zero reply on March 10, 2009 10:46 pm:
Thanks for commenting! Will check out your blog too. I can kind of see what you mean about the experimental aspects of the DJ Sprinkles album. Thanks again.
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Comment by kuri — March 10, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
stumbled upon this through the RA thread, and I must say this is one of the best ambient sets I’ve ever heard! thanks a lot!!
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Comment by chava — January 31, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
Wow, this is like a long lost friend. I actually attended this event in Calgary.
Also on the bill that night were Charles Uzzell-Edwards, Oliver Lieb and Colin Hart (local act who had a Harthouse release), as well as local djs. It was held in a community centre in a suburban neighborhood. As the crowd was showing up, a couple of hockey teams were finishing up a game. There was a dance floor room and an ambient room.
This was a big deal for electronic music fans in Alberta and a bunch of us drove down from Edmonton, about 3.5 hrs North. Unfortunately, the promoters were not very experienced (previously they had run chill out rooms at raves) and there were some glitches in the event. The whole thing got shut down very early by the police (shortly after midnight maybe?) because of noise complaints from neighbours. The promoters had tried to get Oliver Lieb to turn down the volume, but he wouldn’t, on artistic principle, and that was it.
But Terre’s set was a definite highlight for me. I remember lying on my back listening to it. Later, he gave me a copy of the same erik dahl release he gave you, and that I now hear he actually used in the set at about 9:00 minutes on side A.
Great memories and a great set.
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Count Zero reply on March 12, 2010 11:47 am:
BEHOLD the awesome power of the internet. Thanks for reading. This is definitely the best comment I’ve ever received on the blog, and the reason I posted the set. I am so glad you found it.
Tell me, how were you directed here?
Thanks again.
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wijit reply on March 12, 2010 4:29 pm:
Awesome indeed. Finding this set is like a moebius loop back in time. I think I got here from the mnml ssgs Thursday, January 28, 2010 post. Cheers.
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wijit reply on March 12, 2010 4:48 pm:
Oh, yeah, and my pal and I hitch-hiked to Calgary, and, with youthful naivety, had planned on not sleeping and hitch-hiking home in the morning. Somehow, the idea of taking a greyhound had never occured to me. So when it was shut down, we had to crash with someone older who had actually thought to book a hotel room. Then we took a train and a taxi to the edge of the city to catch a ride home. I believe we went and sang an evensong service when we got home.
Comment by wijit — March 12, 2010 @ 11:17 am
Absolutely wonderful sets. Does anyone have access to any more ambient sets like this?…
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Comment by Paul C — June 2, 2010 @ 11:51 am