Of all words associated with the digital era, there’s one that is ubiquitous like no other: ‘remastered’. It has become tantamount to a religious dogma, that the works we have known and loved from our analogue heritage are holy treasures, deserving nothing less than to be preserved in æternum, and…

Lately it’s music from Canada that’s been interesting me; and most recently, taking their place alongside such disparate luminaries as Aaron Funk, Aidan Baker, Elsiane and Paul Dolden (about whom, in due course, much, much more), have been Dragonette, whose second album Fixin To Thrill came out earlier this month.…

On this day in 1928, the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara was born, and to commemorate the occasion, here is a performance of his 1971 work, Vigilia. A complete setting of the Orthodox liturgies of Vespers and Matins, it was broadcast in an edition of Choirworks on Radio 3 in 2001,…

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…

Out this week is the latest release from Benn Jordan, better known as The Flashbulb. It’s high time Jordan’s music was featured on here, as he’s nothing short of a marvel, his music touching on a wide variety of styles, every one of which seems to turn to gold in…

This year marks the 25th anniversary of two of the most striking songs of the 1980s—as well as being, in my opinion, among the best songs of all time. The first is “Dr. Mabuse” by German synthpop outfit Propaganda, inspired by the character made famous by Fritz Lang. Released to…

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…

The Moors and the Dales are beckoning, so the Beloved and i are going to be away in Yorkshire for the next couple of weeks (if any readers live in that great county, let me know), so time for a hiatus here on 5:4. “Silence is more musical than any…

Posts have been somewhat less frequent through the last two or three months; but these hands have been far from idle. i’m very happy to announce that my first CD will be released at the end of August, containing a new electronic work, Triptych, May/July 2009. Lasting 25 minutes, the…

Returning to the (more recent) archives, here are some interesting works taking a look back at the 2008 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Markus Trunk‘s Parhelion is most striking for its extreme delicacy; after a while, the prominent celesta actually starts to sound loud. The material appears as though formed from…

Remixes are an entity about which i have long felt deeply ambivalent; experience has taught one to approach them with extreme caution. In musically imaginative hands, they can of course be spectacular, teasing out new aspects of the original, even redefining it, becoming worthy to stand equally beside it, a…

“Too many notes”, complained Emperor Joseph II to Mozart in response to his opera Le Nozze de Figaro; quite how he would have reacted to the concert that took place a little over a week ago in Glasgow University Chapel – featuring the Finale from Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji‘s Second Organ Symphony,…

Take a large helping of electronica, add more than a hint of retro, a dash of attitude, and then bestow on the combination a northern accent. The result might have been Client, Sarah Blackwood’s project for the last 5 years—were it not for the fact that Client have proved themselves…

It’s perhaps not too fanciful to say that music today has two ‘poles’: one characterised by the presence of beats (in whatever form), the other by their absence. Occupying each end of an impossibly wide continuum, these poles have both had their creative bars set extremely high, from the intricate,…

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…

What is it, i’ve often wondered, that makes melancholy such rich, fertile inspiration for art? Perhaps because in its impossibly deep, dark furrows—in the troughs of our experience—there simply is nothing else an artist can do, but (in whatever guise) sing. Art, after all, captures what words alone cannot; it…

Of late, i’ve been revelling in new releases from a number of British female singers, all of whom deserve much wider appreciation. First up is the superbly-named Polly Scattergood, whose self-titled debut album was released early last month. Scattergood—her real name—is an alumnus of the BRIT School, an inconsistent institution…

Yesterday’s Choral Evensong came from one of our most beautiful cathedrals, Wells Cathedral, celebrating the feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The canticles came in the form of Peter Maxwell-Davies‘ Wells Service. The Magnificat is a dense and stodgy affair, briefly aerated with a treble solo; it’s…

Is it me or is Aaron Funk’s output beginning to slow? Nine months on from last year’s Detrimentalist, Funk is back with a new Venetian Snares album, Filth, released in late April. Opening track “Deep Dicking” is a paradigm for the whole album, hyperactively squelching around in digital detritus; sounds,…

Almost a year on from their last tour EP, there’s now a new 6-track EP from Nine Inch Nails, together with their tour buddies, Jane’s Addiction and Streetsweeper (the new project from Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello). Titled the NINJA 2009 Tour Sampler EP, it features two tracks from…