It’s week 13 in my series of Isolation Mixtapes, which means we’re now halfway through the alphabet. When i began this series it seemed possible that the prospect of 26 mixtapes, unfolding weekly over the course of six months, might well be in keeping with the length of time of…

i want to give a big shout-out and a heads-up for a new book that’s just been published, which includes a chapter by me. Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices had its inception at the Sound/Image conference at the University of Greenwich in late 2018. Edited by Andrew Knight-Hill, the…

This week’s addition to the Outside-In field recording project comes from Portuguese composer Luís Salgueiro. Here’s his introduction to the recording: In February, I found myself working a week in Stuttgart. This came on the tail end of an intense period of work and travel — and it was, in…

The twelfth in my weekly series of Isolation Mixtapes focuses on composers, artists and groups beginning with the letter L. Once again, there are two of the most interesting tracks from each of the years 2010 to 2019, featured in chronological order. Here’s the tracklisting in full, together with approximate…

It’s fitting that the first portrait disc devoted to the music of UK composer Naomi Pinnock should be titled Lines and Spaces. Not merely because one of the four works featured on the disc has that as its title, but due to the fact that every time i’ve listened to…

Today’s addition to the Outside-In field recording compilation comes from Huddersfield-based composer Monty Adkins. Here’s Monty’s introduction The recording was made in February 2019 during a residency in Reims. The short soundscape charts the route from my apartment to the studio space in which I was working. Proceeding from the…

In this week’s Isolation Mixtape, exploring the best music from the last decade, all of the music is by groups, composers and artists beginning with the letter K. As always, two of the most splendiferous tracks from each of the years 2010 to 2019, presented in chronological order. Here’s the…

Composer portrait albums tend to go one of two ways, highlighting either the broad diversity of their output or the more single-minded consistency of a central idea permeating multiple works. In the case of Verbinden und Abwenden, a new disc exploring the music of Turkish composer Zeynep Gedizlioğlu, it’s most…

Today’s contribution to the Outside-In compilation comes from Ed Nixon in Canada. His recording takes its starting point from the recent killing of George Floyd – specifically the now notorious length of time it took for that atrocity to happen. Ed writes: I suppose I wanted to know what eight…

This week’s Isolation Mixtape explores music by artists, composers and groups starting with the letter J. Once again there are two of the most interesting tracks from each of the years 2010 to 2019, featured in chronological order. Here’s the tracklisting in full, together with approximate timings and links to…

A few days ago marked the 25th anniversary of my father’s death. It seems like such an impossibly long time ago, yet his all-too-brief presence in my life, and all-too-long absence from it, continue to resonate in me and make their mark in my life and in my music. Back…

The latest field recording in my Outside-In project comes from Icelandic composer Davíð Brynjar Franzson. His recording was made a few days ago in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, and in contrast to the previous recordings i’ve featured, it’s something rather different, primarily because i think it’s fair…

Nine years ago, in a series of articles about ‘Contemporary Epics’, i wrote about The Death of Rave, Leyland Kirby‘s gargantuan paean to the world of rave culture. Originally released in 2006 as a free MP3 download in 20 instalments (under Kirby’s occasional nom de guerre V/Vm), it vanished from…

Week number nine in my ongoing series of Isolation Mixtapes is focused on artists, groups and composers beginning with the letter I. Two of the best tracks from each of the years 2010 to 2019, explored in chronological order. Here’s the tracklisting in full, together with approximate timings and links…

i’ve been waiting for this for three years. At the 2017 Estonian Music Days, i experienced a double onslaught to the head and heart courtesy of choir Vox Clamantis performing the music of Cyrillus Kreek. For this reason more than any other, i’ve clung to the memories of that first…

The latest recording in the Outside-In project comes from long-term 5:4 friend and patron Chris Legg. His field recording was made in woodland not far from Halifax in Yorkshire, in the north of England. Chris says of the recording: It was recorded during lockdown (but the sounds are not lockdown-specific!), using…

This week’s Isolation Mixtape exploring some of the best music from the last decade focuses on composers, artists and groups beginning with the letter H. Two tracks from of the year’s 2010 to 2019, once again explored in chronological order. All the previous mixtapes can be found on the Mixtapes…

One of the first works of contemporary music that i ever got to know was Dérive 1 by Pierre Boulez. i fell for the piece pretty hard, and one of the main reasons for that infatuation – which hasn’t really subsided in the decades since – was the way Boulez…

For those of you who prefer a little less avant in your garde, consider the latest portrait disc of music by Tõnu Kõrvits. Kõrvits occupies an interesting position within the Estonian contemporary scene. His music embodies a great deal of the conservatism that tends to typify new music from that…

It’s always nice when music you’ve encountered in a previous context finds its way onto disc. That’s true of two of the three works on the latest CD of Olga Neuwirth‘s music, released by Kairos. i first heard Neuwirth’s viola concerto Remnants of Songs … an Amphigory during the 2012…