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5:4
CD/Digital releasesFree music

Darren McClure – The World Is Made Of Words

by 5:4 January 26, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment

Fermata myrkir

by 5:4 January 24, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment

Seaming – Mermaid

by 5:4 January 23, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment
CD/Digital releasesFree music

Gelg – Look Around You

by 5:4 January 19, 2023 • 09:00 0 comment

Danz CM – While Mortals Sleep (Original Score)

by 5:4 January 16, 2023 • 08:36 0 comment

Ektoise – Down River

by 5:4 January 12, 2023 • 10:32 0 comment
CD/Digital releasesFree music

Gareth Davis, Jan Kleefstra, Romke Kleefstra – Sieleslyk

by 5:4 January 9, 2023 • 08:24 2 comments

Mixtape #67 : Best Albums of 2022

by 5:4 January 1, 2023 • 05:00 0 comment

Best Albums of 2022 (Part 2)

by 5:4 December 31, 2022 • 00:00 1 comment
Best of the Year

Best Albums of 2022 (Part 1)

by 5:4 December 30, 2022 • 00:00 0 comment

Helmut Lachenmann – Marche Fatale

by 5:4 December 25, 2022 • 05:00 0 comment

Justė Janulytė – Unanime (World Première, first version)

by 5:4 December 24, 2022 • 05:00 0 comment

more articles

  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Darren McClure – The World Is Made Of Words

    by 5:4 January 26, 2023 • 09:00
    January 26, 2023 • 09:00

    Today’s piece of freely-available music comes via Yugen Art, an online repository of sound art that in some respects resembles a netlabel but is more aloof, publishing things online with an absolute minimum of fuss or extraneous (or even pertinent) information. i’ve written about works from the Yugen Art archive…

    Read more
  • Announcements

    Fermata myrkir

    by 5:4 January 24, 2023 • 09:00
    January 24, 2023 • 09:00

    This morning i’m setting off for a week in Reykjavík, to experience all that’s going on during this year’s Myrkir músíkdagar, aka Dark Music Days. In my absence there’s a bit more free music to be explored, and there’ll be words galore when i get back from Iceland.

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Seaming – Mermaid

    by 5:4 January 23, 2023 • 09:00
    January 23, 2023 • 09:00

    Seaming To is an English singer and musician whose work seems to be the product of, to date, three distinct periods of activity. She was a guest vocalist on some singles in the early 2000s, followed by her own first EP, Soda Slow, in 2006. Then things went quiet until…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Gelg – Look Around You

    by 5:4 January 19, 2023 • 09:00
    January 19, 2023 • 09:00

    The next music i’m featuring in my series exploring interesting free music is another soundtrack, again very short, this time from television. It’s something of an oddity, partly because it was never a ‘release’ in the usual sense of the word (and isn’t really available any longer), partly because it’s…

    Read more
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Danz CM – While Mortals Sleep (Original Score)

    by 5:4 January 16, 2023 • 08:36
    January 16, 2023 • 08:36

    i’ve written about the music of Danielle Johnson – aka Danz CM (previously aka Computer Magic) – on a number of occasions. Her usual output is analogue synth-laden bedroom pop – growing increasingly sophisticated over the years, featuring in my Best Albums of the Year in 2018 and 2021 –…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Ektoise – Down River

    by 5:4 January 12, 2023 • 10:32
    January 12, 2023 • 10:32

    One of the musical acts i’m always hoping might get back together at some point is Ektoise, an Australian group who from 2010 to 2013 put out a series of albums and EPs that forged an experimental synthesis of rock, ambient, doomjazz and shoegaze without once missing a step. While…

    Read more
  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Gareth Davis, Jan Kleefstra, Romke Kleefstra – Sieleslyk

    by 5:4 January 9, 2023 • 08:24
    January 9, 2023 • 08:24

    To begin my usual January focus on interesting free music, i’m returning to the ephemeral world of netlabels. Rural Colours appeared in 2010 as a tangential off-shoot from parent label Hibernate, which had begun the previous year. What distinguished them both from other netlabels was the fact that their releases…

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  • Best of the YearMixtapes

    Mixtape #67 : Best Albums of 2022

    by 5:4 January 1, 2023 • 05:00
    January 1, 2023 • 05:00

    HAPPY NEW YEAR! i want to give a loud shout out of thanks to all of you who have supported 5:4 during the last year, especially my most excellent posse of Patrons. As always, i’m starting the new year with a look back at the best albums of 2022, in…

    Read more
  • Best of the Year

    Best Albums of 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 December 31, 2022 • 00:00
    December 31, 2022 • 00:00

    So here they are, crowning this year’s 5:4 Best Albums list, the most imaginative, extraordinary and downright amazing releases of 2022.

    Read more
  • Best of the Year

    Best Albums of 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 December 30, 2022 • 00:00
    December 30, 2022 • 00:00

    With 2022 poised to come to an end, it’s time once again to take a fond look back at the best albums of the year. For a reminder of the process and the rules behind the 5:4 Best Albums list, go here; and now for the music, each one of…

    Read more
  • Advent Calendar

    Helmut Lachenmann – Marche Fatale

    by 5:4 December 25, 2022 • 05:00
    December 25, 2022 • 05:00

    SEASONS GREETINGS! For Christmas Day i’m bringing my Advent Calendar to a close with one of the most wonderfully perverse orchestral works i’ve heard in recent years, Helmut Lachenmann‘s Marche Fatale. It began life as a piece for solo piano, premièred in 2017, and the orchestral version followed a year…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Justė Janulytė – Unanime (World Première, first version)

    by 5:4 December 24, 2022 • 05:00
    December 24, 2022 • 05:00

    One of my personal highlights of this year’s Huddersfield Festival was the performance of Justė Janulytė‘s 2020 work for 8 trumpets, Unanime. Composed for Marco Blaauw’s Monochrome Project, the piece exists in two versions: the first, with a single climax, lasts 15 minutes; the second, with two climaxes (one muted,…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Maurice Ravel (orch. Colin Matthews) – Oiseaux tristes (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 23, 2022 • 05:00
    December 23, 2022 • 05:00

    In last year’s Advent Calendar i featured an arrangement of one of Ravel’s piano works by Boulez; this year i’m exploring one by UK composer Colin Matthews. Ravel completed his five-movement piano suite Miroirs in 1905. He subsequently orchestrated two of the movements himself, Une barque sur l’océan and Alborada…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Elizabeth Ogonek – Sleep & Unremembrance (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 22, 2022 • 05:00
    December 22, 2022 • 05:00

    For today’s Advent Calendar work i’m returning to one of the composers who stood out most prominently among the premières at last year’s Proms festival. Elizabeth Ogonek‘s Cloudline wasn’t just one of my own favourites, you evidently felt exactly the same way, as the work almost came top of the…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Michael Finnissy – Polskie tańce ludowe (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 21, 2022 • 05:00
    December 21, 2022 • 05:00

    Michael Finnissy’s Polskie tańce ludowe (Polish folk dances) have had multiple lives. Their origins are in a volume of Polish folk music given to Finnissy as a child by his godfather, Peter Klos. Finnissy recently recalled to me that … he served with the Polish Airforce, he was not a…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Linda Catlin Smith – Wilderness (European Première)

    by 5:4 December 20, 2022 • 05:00
    December 20, 2022 • 05:00

    Behind today’s Advent Calendar door is a beautiful, contemplative orchestral work by Canada-based composer Linda Catlin Smith. Wilderness was composed in 2005, and while it would be inaccurate to call it a work for violin and orchestra (still less a concerto), a solo violin has a role distinct from the…

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  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Francisco López – Untitled, Live at Cafe Oto (#2) (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 19, 2022 • 05:00
    December 19, 2022 • 05:00

    Francisco López‘s second live performance at Cafe Oto, in March 2015, makes a strong contrast to the first (featured earlier this month); where that had harnessed electronic elements largely devoid of referential qualities, this piece focuses on a juxtaposition of sounds that are clearly derived from (or intended to imitate)…

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  • Advent Calendar

    Rolf Wallin – Soundspeed

    by 5:4 December 18, 2022 • 05:00
    December 18, 2022 • 05:00

    i’m returning to the world of the miniature today, with Rolf Wallin‘s 60-second orchestral piece Soundspeed. There’s only so much you can expect from a minute’s worth of music, but i like what Wallin manages to cram into this tiny piece.

    Read more
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Mica Levi – BOUND. 9 Minuets (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 17, 2022 • 05:00
    December 17, 2022 • 05:00

    Today’s work in the 5:4 Advent Calendar is a typically leftfield piece by British musician Mica Levi. Levi’s music encompasses the deep and the trivial, the profound and the nonsensical, sometimes simultaneously. Their work BOUND. 9 Minuets, for two small snare drums & ensemble, tends more towards the latter than…

    Read more
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Anna Fišere – Radices (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 16, 2022 • 05:00
    December 16, 2022 • 05:00

    One of the more memorable works performed at the inaugural Baltic Music Days in 2020 was Mundus Invisibilis by Latvian composer Anna Fišere (formerly Ķirse). That piece was concerned with fungal mycelium, and her earlier work Radices for 8 singers and electronics, composed in 2018, is similarly rooted in the…

    Read more
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5:4
  • About
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  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
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