Thirty years ago, Ian Curtis, lead singer and prime mover of Joy Division throughout its short-lived existence, took his own life. i can’t and won’t claim to have known anything about this at the time (being a mere six years old, my own musical journey had barely begun, let alone …
Mixtapes
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It’s been a while since the last mixtape, and i’ve decided to return to the theme of the the first two mixes, music particularly suitable for late night listening. Steve Peters‘ work is always fascinating, and his field recording project Here-ings is a masterpiece. i wrote about it at length …
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A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!. Today marks the 2nd birthday of 5:4, so a big thank you to all of you who are regular readers for your time and interest in this blog. Following yesterday’s run-down of my favourite 40 albums from 2009, here’s the accompanying mixtape, …
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Today finds me feeling not at all well, so i’ve kept myself occupied making a new mixtape, with a theme i’ve wanted to explore for a while: female vocalists. At a guess, i’d say i listen to more female singers than male, and the content of this mix reflects a …
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Back, not so much with a vengeance as a new mixtape; the theme this time is simply electronics. Many of the pieces are rather long, so this mix, more than the others, features excerpts rather than complete works. The mix opens with one of the most exciting electronic works by …
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Following a hectic Easter weekend, and a few days spent in Cambridge, here’s a new mixtape, the theme this time being joy. To start, a wonderful jazz-folk fusion number from Yellowjackets; Greenhouse is an album i’ve loved for years, and “Freda” is one of its most exciting tracks. It’s followed …
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Lent: ’tis the season to be dolorous, and so the tenth 5:4 mixtape has melancholia as its theme. Both songs and instrumental music are included, taken from a diverse selection of artists and composers. It begins with the opening of one of the best of William Basinski‘s Disintegration Loops, “d|p …
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Today 5:4 is one year old, and to celebrate that—and continue the celebration of the best albums of last year, here’s a new mixtape, featuring tracks from each of those albums. Not surprisingly, it’s the most eclectic mix so far, and also the longest, just a few seconds shy of …
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After far too long a hiatus, here’s a new mixtape, this time exploring some of my favourite cover versions. To be clear, none of these tracks are what i’d call ‘remixes’, which i think of as a separate, quite different discipline; these are good ol’-fashioned covers of some great original …
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To conclude the little series of posts about the “ambient tradition”, here’s a new mixtape devoted to this special genre. It’s the hardest mix i’ve made so far; the temptation was, perhaps, never to stop, to create a compilation that could play into infinity—which is, after all, the point towards …
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For years, the piano has been to me an object of fascination and awe; its range of capabilities, expressive potential and timbral variety are breathtaking. Also for years, these qualities were the very things preventing me from attempting to compose something for it. Listening to piano music is a supreme …
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If music was my first love, then my fascination with rhythm was the first part of that attraction; beat-driven music—particularly early hip-hop and electro—dominated my earliest teenage years. My taste in beats has evolved since that time, of course, and the selection represented here (which may well come as little …
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This new mixtape began life as one of my playlists on iTunes, which simply specified that it should only include tracks under two minutes in duration. Surprisingly, 815 tracks from my music library fulfil this criteria, amounting to over 15 hours of music. Not surprisingly, this playlist makes for an …
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Being Easter week, it seems appropriate that this new mixtape should focus on the sound of bells. As usual, the following selection reflects my recent listening, with one or two old favourites thrown in for good measure; one hour of gloriously eclectic resonance and reverberation. Bathe in the overtones… Here’s …
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While it’s not my intention to create a series of mixtape each intended to be listened to late at night, this new mix again has that in mind. Perhaps i’m just drawn to nocturnal kinds of music; or perhaps it is i that is nocturnal and not the music. Either …
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There was a discussion on Radio 4 yesterday, about a possible link between creativity and the late night. i have no opinion on this, except insofar as i have had some highly productive late night composing sessions. A lot of my listening to music takes place at night, however, and …