The good people at Seismograf – one of the few really interesting sources discussing new music these days, and pretty much the only one i read – asked me recently to contribute to their “Would you like to see my playlist?” series. It’s recently been published, and i thought i’d share a very brief accompaniment here about the five tracks i selected.
Aya – off to the ESSO – i’ll be getting to Aya’s latest album at some point. When i can; when i’m ready. Few things have blown me away more this year, and that’s the main reason i haven’t written about it yet. Despite the fact it’s an album of stunners, this track has pulled me back again and again; musically and verbally it’s pure poetic brilliance.
Toivo Tulev – Black Mirror – playlists (as i’ve mentioned numerous times before) depend to a large extent on the exact time they’re compiled, and when Seismograf approached me i was spending a lot of time with this latest release of Tulev’s music. My review tells you everything you need to know about this incredible, radical piece.
Hekla – Gráminn – a remarkable track from a remarkable album that will surely be among my best of the year. Gráminn comes toward its end and it’s a superbly immersive dive into an unsettling dark ambient soundscape that seems to radiate pure black.
Rudi Stephan – Music for Orchestra (1910) – Like so many of the very best composers of all time, Rudi Stephan is almost entirely unknown. Born in the late 1880s, he came out of nowhere, started writing extremely forward-looking, radically modernist works in the early 1900s (even their functional titles go against all Romantic norms), and was then killed during WWI. One can only imagine what he would have done next, but the 20th century could have been very different.
Mark Sherry & David Forbes – Superposition – i do a lot of listening, and that takes place in a lot of contexts and environments. Each day, the earliest listening i do takes place in the gym, where i’m able to indulge my long-term passion for trance music. i’ve always gravitated most toward quicker, 138 BPM tracks, and Mark Sherry (whose latest album TH3RTY is an absolute cavalcade of fast workout romperstompers) and David Forbes are two of my current favourites. They’ve teamed up here to make something irresistibly energising.
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