Thursday, January 28, 2010

Top of the Class



My top tunes of 2009

Lowtec - Angstrom EP

Long, hypnotic and of uncertain mood.

dOP - Dein Verlangen; The Genius of the Crowd; Change!A Various ep

Basically, last year they could do no wrong. The unassailable charm of the French.


Starkey - Miracles Jamie Vexd remix

Pure synaesthesia, a head banging, bass worrying earworm

Brackles - LHC

Wayward synth action, more bass and a soul diva laments. This and Miracles are the dubstep fruit I've been waiting to get my teeth into.

Pangaea - Memories

Another wailing RNB lament with skippity bass. And I'm off.


Hieroglyphic Being -So much noise to be heard


Oh, baby I like it raw and Jamal delivers as usual.Machine music handed down by the gods.

Hauntologists - EP2

Loping, hermetic excursions


Bodycode -What did you say

It's the Imitation Lover dub that does it-all his distinctive sounds roughened up and leavened with melancholy


Jimi Tenor - Selfish Gene


An ageing bachelor tells it like it is.

Oni Ayhun 03

Techno steeped in the early 90s which neatly sidesteps nostalgia.Don't ask me how they do that.

Omar S

My introduction to him-like Autechre discovering a big button marked JACK.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Winterpracht



Listen to this voice...
Like two people whose paths seem to cross and then they don't...
There is some neutrality here. No, I wouldn't call it neutrality ... but a need to concentrate on each sound, so that every blade of grass would be as important as a flower...
It could be like a break on the radio. Such signals sometimes sound as if they lasted an entire life.
Of future, or past, and outside time...
Listen.

~ Arvo Pärt playing and speaking of "Für Alina" in Arvo Pärt: 24 Preludes for a Fugue

(Kirlian photograph of meadow grasses by Tarrl Lightowler)
(photo and quote from the the fascinating woolgathersome.blogspot)

Winterpracht

Winterpracht

Fm3 - Zheng

Lawrence English & Sawako - Manufacturing Content

Chihei Hatakeyama - Starlight Reflecting on the Surface of the River

Biosphere - Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings

Jan Jelinek - A Concert for Television

Voices, field recordings, throat singing and drumming from Smithsonian Folkways Tuva Among the Spirits

?

The XX - Space Bass (Jamie XX's mix)


After 5 weeks on holiday, returning to Berlin in mid January feels somewhat like being cast out of Eden. Fortunately, unlike those other postlapsarians, I've been exiled with a decent record collection.
This mix was done on Traktor with edits in Wavelab.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Ice record


A new year, a new decade, the whole of northern Eurasia

locked under ice, and I am moving the to the Nordic lands.

My nervous anticipation of nine-month winters has

prompted me to listen to the songs of experience. Turns

out that winter is indeed eternal, an endless twilit blizzard

punctuated by will-o-the-wisp glimmers of pop-song

comfort. Wrap up warm everyone.


Winter Part I


Waiting for Snow Part I - Peter Benisch

Ice-Pulse - Cocteau Twins

Schnee - Laub

Tokyo Freeze (remix) - Ital Tek

Snowflakes & Frozen Lakes - Pac-Man

Iridescence - Hildur Gudnadottir

Winter Depressie - Estroe

Outside on a Cold Day - Felix

Snow Samba - Shrift

Glacial - Dinky

Winter Thaw - Shigeto

Tears of Happiness - Klimek

L'hiver - Geneviève Toupin


Winter Part II


Peter Venkman Part II - Ben Frost

Ice Record - Katie Paterson

Cutting Ice to Snow - Efterklang

Ice Touch - Masha Era

Winterslow (remix) - Dan Cat

White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes

Winter in Seney - Deepchord presents Echospace

Comme la Neige - Dasha Rush

Icicles & Snowflakes - Inchtime

Snowflakes & Frozen Lakes - Pac-Man

Snowflakes - Max de Wardener

Snow on Snow - Rue Royale

-73°C - Shrubbn!!

Baby it's Cold Outside - A Weather

Eternal Winter - KTL