Gareth Davis

And the beat lockdown goes on, so here’s a new Isolation Mixtape, exploring some of the very best sounds from the years 2010–19, focusing on artists, composers and groups beginning with the letter G. As always, none of the tracks have been featured in any previous 5:4 mixtapes, and once…

November is a somewhat sombre month, and not only because the days are getting a lot colder and darker here in the UK. This year’s remembrance ceremonies have had extra potency due to the centenary of the end of the First World War, so i’ve taken this as my cue…

Next up in my series looking at free internet music is a triptych by Danish composer Martin Stig Andersen. To many, Andersen is likely best known for his award-winning music and sound design work on Limbo, one of the most breathtakingly stunning – and, often, terrifying – video games of recent…

Even more than is usually the case, the new 5:4 Mixtape is a pure stream of consciousness. i’ve returned to a theme i explored in one of the earliest mixtapes, miniatures, once again setting myself a limit of music lasting under two minutes. With a shortlist of 100+ tracks (each…

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! Many, many thanks to all of you who have followed the blog through the last 12 months, particularly to all those who have commented and tweeted in response or retort. As usual, here’s my new year mixtape featuring a track from all forty of my Best…

* Please note this list has how been superseded by the one on the Best Albums of the Years page * Bringing the main course to an end, here’s the conclusion of the countdown of my forty best albums of 2014. It’s been a breathtaking year. 20 | Salvatore Sciarrino – Cantare con silenzio…

Last night’s and this morning’s concerts all featured soloists performing and interacting with electronics and/or visual elements within large-scale compositional forms. Monty Adkins‘ new 40-minute work Spiral Paths to some extent brings together the twin lines of enquiry that led to Four Shibusa (electronics with live performers) and Rift Patterns…

Have you heard of Fuzzy? No, i hadn’t either – so i was pleased to explore a new compilation of music by the enigmatically-monikered Danish composer (otherwise known as Jens Vilhelm Pedersen), recently released by DaCapo. Chimes of Memory presents five works, most of them pretty hefty and which together…

Ordinarily, finding yourself traipsing along cold, dark, damp streets from concert to concert of cutting edge music, you’d expect the time to be late autumn and the place to be Huddersfield. Except this time it was the streets and venues of Bristol that were the focus of attention, for the…

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! Today marks 5:4‘s fifth anniversary, and so i’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who regularly read, share and respond to the articles and music explored here. Since 2008, the blog has grown from being an occasional hobby (reading the…

* Please note this list has how been superseded by the one on the Best Albums of the Years page * The lists reduce the vastness into controllable sizes, into the size of things that can fit into our mind, where they can expand again to the size of everything.…

The list is what brings a world of chaos into some kind of pattern. The list fixes a broken world floating out into the outer world of emptiness. The list links us to ourselves, places us together, puts us in order. The list soothes us in the way it organises…

It’s time for a new mixtape, and once again it reflects my current predilections and listening habits. Film noir, and particularly its musical analogues, are much on my mind at present, so the new mixtape reflects that, drawing on 23 examples of muted monochrome. The similarities between these pieces are…