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 …

Engaging with music (or any of the arts) is one of the greatest, most edifying experiences life has to offer. Arguably the most insuperable barrier to this engagement is expectation. It’s a mistake that arises all too easily; our past experiences (pleasurable or otherwise) construct the likelihood of a similar …

It doesn’t seem to matter what medium they turn their hand to – film, fashion, theatre, literature, photography or, indeed, music – Japanese culture always seems to combine an intensity and honesty of expression with a forthright, futuristic vision. By contrast, we in the West – particularly here in England, …

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 …

If Good Friday is emotionally draining, Holy Saturday feels emotionally empty, numbed and spent. i never quite know what to do with myself on this awful day; everything, somehow, feels wrong, trivial or stupid. i imagine i’m not alone in this; perhaps it’s this feeling that explains the general liturgical …

Each year, on this, its most solemn day, i used to travel to Gloucester Cathedral for the morning Liturgy. Their approach, while lacking a true sense of the abject, was fittingly sombre, particularly at the service’s central point, the Veneration of the Cross. The moment is crushing enough, filing to …

i’m an occasional listener to BBC Radio 3’s broadcasts of Choral Evensong. Only occasional because Evensong, it seems, has got itself stuck – or is deliberately kept – in a rut, where it has languished for at least 50 years (this suspicion was proved some time ago, when a 50-year …

As i’ve said before, my love of the chorale began in my teenage years with Bach. This love grew after hearing Franz Liszt‘s Holy Week cycle, Via Crucis, some years later. Not that chorales are a principal feature of the work; on the contrary, Liszt’s exploration of the Stations of …

One of the greatest difficulties, i feel, with writing music for Holy Week, is the need to be objectively austere, while also expressing some sense of the highly-wrought feelings that pervade the week. i don’t mean in some ghastly “stiff upper lip” way; that would be dishonest and repressed. One …

It was at a concert in the spring of 1995 that i first encountered the music of Thomas Adès. The piece was Living Toys, and it was significant to my own development as a composer; i came away from the concert with a new vigour, determination and excitement about the …

Two weeks ago, i was fortunate enough to be at the performance of J. S. Bach‘s St John Passion, given by Ex Cathedra in Birmingham Town Hall. i’ve loved this work since i was a teenager, when a friend lent me a recording of the arias and chorales. It was …

Prior to the launch of Quaristice, Autechre‘s Sean Booth said the following, in an interview with Clash Magazine, concerning the issue of whether to buy the digital download or the physical CD: It makes no odds to me. Actually, it does; I’d prefer (people) to download it than buy it …

Passion Sunday, and my thoughts move into more sombre, vermilion territory. Not in a morbid sense but, nonetheless, death unavoidably starts to pervade things from now on. and with it, a return to some music that can accurately be said to have changed my life. At the time i first …

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 …

For years, i’ve had a penchant for female singers with unconventional voices. This is, i suspect, as much to do with the fact that such singers usually surround their voice with equally unconventional sounds, as with the actual voices themselves. The list is considerable: Clodagh Simonds (Fovea Hex), Liz Fraser …

i was surprised to find, yesterday, that since 1 January, i had listened to 99 albums. It seemed all too fortunate then, that my 100th album of the year should be a brand new release from one of my favourite artists and, in my opinion, one of the very greatest …

From about the age of 10, i was given £5 pocket money each month. And every month, i would walk to the record shop and buy a new album, which would always cost me £4.99. Since i could only afford one album, i would take a lot of time choosing, …

One of the most immediately powerful and communicative images of our time is that of the ruin. Whether it’s something prosaic and dark, like a human suicide, or profound and vivid, like the remains of a cathedral, the effect is similar: we’re made aware of, and irresistably drawn into, something …

Listening to as much music as i do, it’s quite rare to come across something that’s truly surprising. While surprises aren’t as rare as shocks (which are becoming extinct, it seems), they’re elusive nonetheless, and when they do happen it’s exciting and compelling. Those two words apply well to the …

Good music likes company, it seems, as three CDs came through my letterbox this morning, Autechre‘s Quaristice – strange, as it’s not released until Saturday – and Gantz Graf (which i’ve loved for years, but only now got round to buying), plus Goldfrapp‘s new album Seventh Tree, released yesterday. i …