15 Years of PsyAmb by the numbers !

Hi There ! While mixing one of the recent Patreon series mixes, in which we looked back at the music of 2009, I realized that the PsyAmb mix series is now 15 years old ! Which, in human years, puts it in the precocious teenager stage and caused me to reflect on the collection of music as a whole and the artists who have filled these sonic journeys over the years.

Looking back therefore I have extracted all the available data I could find related to the main mix series ( excluding those one-off mixes for labels and online streaming radio stations such as the Psionic Geometry series for Di.FM ). I then put my limited math skills to work and came up with some interesting figures to share with you. So without further ado, here are the results of my number crunching and spreadsheet fumbling.

Total Number of mixes in data set - 127 ( up to March 2024 )

Early mixes were released on a weekly schedule with complete write-ups and discussions online. This came to a grinding halt around the birth of our first son. Things slowly picked up again and then went on an extended hiatus once more as our next boy landed on Earth. Things picked up once again a year or so later as more free time became available. Recent mixes have been uploaded around once every two or three weeks.

Total Recording time - 11172 minutes / 186.2 hours / 7.75 days / 1.1 weeks

Wow. You could actually listen to the entire series non stop for a little over an entire week 24/7 ! However you would need a psychological examination thereafter I'm sure.

• Shortest mix length 50 min - 0hr:50min ( mix 121 )
  

• Longest mix length 162 min - 2:42 ( mix 20 )
  

• Average mix length 87 min - 1hr:27min
  

Generally speaking earlier mixes in the series were longer than later,more current mixes. This is mainly due to transitioning mix hosting to YouTube videos where listeners are more inclined to appreciate shorter mixes and also the fact that my life was getting busier once again with work commitments. Although more recent mixes are indeed shorter, I always strive to present the best music possible so hopefully nothing has been compromised.

Total Number of Mix Genres :

• Spacey Psychill : 15
  

• Ambient : 5
  

• World / Ethno : 5
  

• Psybient : 37
  

• Dub / Psydub : 44
  

• PsyStep : 3
  

• Psybreaks : 1
  

• Psyglitch : 1
  

• PsyBass : 4
  

• Various : 12
  

Number Of Featured Artists  : 998

Within the 127 mixes of the main series we have seen a total of 998 individual artists represented ! That is pretty huge ! This number was derived by extracting the artists name from each featured track and removing any duplicates. In reality the true number is somewhere a little higher as 998 does not include artists who have remixed songs but not actually originated any songs. Their names generally appear in the track title field and not the artists name field. It is quite difficult to merge all that info so we will have to estimate it to be somewhere a little above 998 for now.

Number of Featured Songs : 1681

As you would expect the number of individual, unique songs is above the number of artists as artists have been featured with multiple songs ( some a lot more than others as we will see later ). Although I always try to mix something new and different, some songs may have been played more than once, so I also filtered out any multiple plays so as to have a unique list of individual tracks.

Average Number of Songs per Mix  : 13

13 is the average number of songs featured per mix. Once again earlier mixes generally had more songs per mix however recent mixes have been continuing around this average of 13 per mix I think.

Most Represented Artist by Country Of Origin

Artists from all around the world have featured in the mixes and you can see from the data below that British and American based artists featured very heavily. There were 197 British artsits , just pipping out American artists at 188. Certainly British artists were there at the formation of psychedelic chillout music scenes with pioneering producers such as Youth,Simon Posford,The Orb and many more. America caught on some years later and made up for it in no short time with their own collection and amazing talent such as Desert Dwellers, Androcell and Bluetech.

Top 20 Number of Artists Featured by County Of Origin

• 197 UK
  

• 182 USA
  

• 89 GERMANY
  

• 76 FRANCE
  

• 58 AUSTRALIA
  

• 54 ISRAEL
  

• 47 RUSSIA
  

• 35 GREECE
  

• 27 SWEDEN
  

• 24 CANADA
  

• 21 NETHERLANDS
  

• 17 NEW ZEALAND
  

• 14 SPAIN
  

• 13 JAPAN
  

• 12 DENMARK
  

• 12 MEXICO
  

• 10 ITALY
  

• 10 PORTUGAL
  

• 10 SWITZERLAND
  

• 9 NORWAY
  

Most Represented Artists

And so now we get to the real data I've been waiting for - which artists featured most in these past 15 years ? If I asked myself this question before compiling this data I would have said Shpongle, Ott, Entheogenic, Globular and maybe Carbon Based Lifeforms. So I was quite surprised to see Desert Dwellers at number 2. However, when you consider the quality of their music,range of styles ( ambient,dub,trance,tribal etc ) and the amount of remixes involving them I guess it really should not come as a such a surprise that their music would feature so heavily.

Globular and Ott featured highly as expected, especially considering the globular vs Ott mix that included only tracks from these two psydub legends and my general preference for quality psydub music. Artists from French label Ultimate records featured heavily in early mixes with Aes Dana and Carbon Based Lifeforms leading the way. As mixes moved to focusing on trippy psybient and psydub we saw less of them and that spacey psychill style.

Top 30 featured Artist ( Number of Times featured in mixes )

• Globular ( 37 )
  

• Desert Dwellers ( 35 )
  

• Ott ( 25 )
  

• Kuba (20)
  

• Entheogenic ( 18 )
  

• Shpongle ( 18 )
  

• Quanta ( 15 )
  

• Geoglyph ( 13 )
  

• Zero Cult ( 12 )
  

• Aes Dana ( 11 )
  

• Tor.Ma in Dub ( 11 )
  

• Kaminanda (11)
  

• Bluetech (11)
  

• Kaya Project ( 10 )
  

• Youth (10)
  

• Astropilot (10)
  

• Eat Static (9)
  

• Solar Fields (9)
  

• Looney Grandpas (9)
  

• Mantismash (9)
  

• Androcell (9)
  

• Capsula (8)
  

• Psybur (8)
  

• Carbon Based Lifeforms (8)
  

• Terra Nine (8)
  

• Birds Of Paradise (8)
  

• Shulman (8)
  

• Green Beats (8)
  

• Tea Tree (8)
  

• Suduaya (7)
  

Well there we have it. A quick look back at the past 15 years of PsyAmb in terms of statistical shenanigans. Of course, it doesn't mean much in the big scale of things - what really matters is the music and the feelings it generates within you. Which is exactly what I'll be keeping in mind as I continue on this mixing journey for the next 15 years and beyond !

Have a great weekend everyone. I'll be working on setting up our next mix in the both the regular PsyAmb series ( mix 132 ) and another look back at some older tunes in the ongoing Patreon mix series.

Cheers,

PsyAmb