Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. To celebrate I have been listening to more alternative Christmas songs and was reminded of the title track to the soundtrack for the film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. A beautiful piece for piano, written and performed live by Ryuichi Sakamoto:
Berlin has always been tied to the electronic development of many artists, whether they be fully fledged pop stars looking for a creative change or new artists developing their trade. Berlin is considered by many as a mecca of the wide swath of genre that encapsulate electronica.
Moderat is the collaboration between two heavy hitters of Berlins prolific electronic music world. Apparat who creates an atmospheric mix of the organic and electronic and Modeselektor who fall into a more electronic dance orientated groove. Together they have managed on two occasions to blend together their ideologies into new and exiting music. Driven by the rougher edge danced based percussion of Modeslektor mixed in with the organic instrumental textures, electronic synth pads and vocals of apparat.
This works because Apparat and Modeselektor have common ground, both are known for their experemental use of sound design throughout their tracks. Often turing found sounds and wildtracks into drum kits and background textures. This attention to detail gives us allot more to contemplate when listening to their music and on Moderat II we hear the same. Tracks will always have beds of interesting sounds bubbling underneath, adding to the overall feel of the album and the individual tracks.
Moderat II is also a perfect example of production as an instrument. All three musicians are virtuosos of the studio and On Tracks Like Damage Done, the isolated aesthetic of the overall track is aided by the use of tape delay echo and cold reverbs that add just as much for me as the instrumentation does.
If you want to hear an album that is at the forefront of berlin based electronica Moderat II covers this perfectly with a collection of varied tracks that manage to showpiece the best parts of modern electronica and production and yet come together to form an overall experience.
From the Opening intro melody of Tomorrows Harvest you can tell boards of Canada are back. It’s been eight years since their last album the campfire headphase and it was worth the wait.
BOC were a pioneering part of the IDM scene in the 90’s. Their dreamlike sound design and use of sampling made them one of the cornerstones of the genre. But their sound (although highly influential) has always belonged to them. Tomorrows Harvest replicates this sound all over again and will fit nicely into their back catalogue but still has some new ideas that keep it fresh and interesting. Synthesizers are very much the forefront to Tomorrows Harvest. Looped samples of more traditional instruments have taken a side line on the most part, with the music beds being made this time from drone and pad sounds giving the album a more ambient dreamlike feel overall.
This is where BOC excel. To me their music feels like when you wake up from a dream but can’t quite remember what happened or whether it was a nightmare. Their music constantly hints at feelings but rarely brigs them to the forefront of the track. There’s always an underlying feeling of something dark lurking in the albums shadows. What cuts through these ambiguous textures is the heavily processed drum patterns, chopped and sequenced to perfection which drive all the tracks forward.
Tomorrows Harvest manages slip into your subconscious and buries itself there. With repeat listens the album starts to feel like its been there all along. You get a continuous feeling that your about to uncover and understand it and yet its constantly evading you which makes it a captivating piece of work.
Every year it gets harder to decide my 5 albums. It’s got to a state where I would have felt guilty to leave out a few, so i will include them as notable mentions throughout the week. I have managed to round them all down to seven albums in total. So my notable mentions will be over the next two days and then following that we will get into my favourite five before I finish with my album of the year on new years day.
This year has seen some heavy hitters and more unexpected contenders for my list. But one thing that’s becoming clear is the development of technology and its influence in the music industry.
I’m not just talking about the proliferation of synthesis into the mainstream in the past few years. Technology is shaping the way modern music is being created and developed from every angle in the same way that stereo or the 8 track recorder revolutionised how music was made in the past. Only this time it isn’t just one technological advancement but many that are making the future of music as exiting and fresh as it has ever been.
We can start with the fundamentals, creating music to a standard that would be considered studio grade ten years ago can now be done at a cost open to any enthusiast. Quite simply the bar to low-end technology is increasing at such a rate that even the cheapest equipment is of a standard that takes itself out of the equation and leaves the producer/musician to make music of a “professional quality”. Production terminology such as “lofi” now exist purely as a choice in style rather than an end to a means. Because this barrier has been lowered, anyone can create music no matter how inaccessible or unique and with the wonder of the internet it can be available to anyone who can find it.
The internet is also fundamental in the development of new acts, The entirety of all music recorded is available online if your willing to look hard enough and this allows modern artists and producers to be influenced by Music they simply wouldn’t have had access to in the past.
So were left with artists who have a greater knowledge of the history of music to source from, who can create anything they want on a budget available to them and with a method of distribution that doesn’t require any third-party support. This is the future of music, It may not be as commercially viable as it was in the past and it may be hard to find the stuff you want to hear but I would happily sacrifice that convenience for variety. Over the next week i will highlight the albums that have struck a chord with me the most over the previous year and try to explain why they do. All the albums I write about are worth your time, So give the articles a read and if you like what you read give them a listen.
On his album Rossz Csillag Alatt Született artist Venetian Snares samples classical compositions and adds traditional instrumentation along with heavily processed drum samples to create an interesting hybrid of genres. Hanjal is one of the highlights for me, listen to it below:
I’ve only just noticed that I haven’t put Flim By Aphex Twin up as a TOTW before so I’ve amend this misgiving today.
Flim is one of my favourite tracks of all time. It manages to blend a couple of interweaving detuning synth lines and sampled strings with Aphex Twins trademark glitched drum sound. What astonishes me about the piece is I have never got tired of it on repeat listens. The track is expertly crafted, every note and drum hit was placed into the arrangement with purpose and were left with a track that reveals more to the listener every time they hear it:
This is the third time Grandaddy have appeared on my track of the week segment and with good reason. Their mix of Lo-Fi sound with highly ambitious structure manage to create tracks that you have to admire. The punk “do it yourself” ethos can be ascribed to all of Grandaddys work including their production and its this creation of amazing music almost in spite of the technology that me a massive fan.
Although their second album the software slump is a favourite for me and highlighted in the previous tracks of the week underneath the weeping willow and He’s simple, he’s dumb he’s the pilot. This week I thought i would go to a track from their first album under the western freeway.
Although on the more grungy side of Grandaddys tracks. Summer here kids has the seeds in it that would grow into the gargantuan oaks of later work. The opening synth line and the skittish structure which attacks its own tempo after the acoustic guitar break are perfect examples. Mix that with the cynical downtrodden vocals of Jason Lytle and your on to a great track:
In attempting to gather my thoughts for my top five albums of the year, I’ve been going back to previous years winners and seeing how they all stand up. This brought me back to the wonderful second Girls album from 2011.
Jamie Marie is the final track to the album and is a perfect swan song for their work being both the end of the album and the end track of their material due to the band disbanding after this albums tour.
For me vocals have never been about them as an instrument but as a form of communication. You can be pitch perfect and have a fantastic range but if what your singing isn’t believable to me I just don’t see the point. Some singers have the talent to make you belive words they havent written sound like they come from their heart, but often I find a singer songwriters achieve it more regularly and Christopher Owens vocals demonstrate this perfectly.
There is a fragility and innocence to his voice that suits the lyrics and hearing him sing “Maybe it’s all right. I mean, I went and found the modern world. But i miss the way live was when you were my girl” Get me every time:
For me there are few bands that can hit with the same emotional punch as classical music. However with the development of polyphonic synthesis even small bands or single artists can create more complex arrangements that fill the spectrum with sounds that manage to come close.
Reprise carry’s a heft, It feels like the weight of the world is on Mews shoulders and when it is contradicted by the break down into the innocent vocals from singer Jonas Bjerre the childlike naivety manages to free itself and the listener from this oppression.
Mew manages to mix the emotions of both the dreamer and the pessimist to create something that strikes a blow to me on many of their tracks. Reprise is a perfect example:
John Hopkins fourth album immunity came out earlier this year and I have only recently caught up with it. He has managed to create music which straggles both the dance floor and your headphones with its blend of instrumentation, electronics and recorded textures.
I really like the way the album manges to go from tracks more orientated towards the club to thought pieces like Abandon Window without loosing an overall mood.
Abandon Window features a simple piano melody which is accompanied by a bed of intriguing organic textures. These textures become a key point of the track. Some are easily recognisable like the fireworks, others are more of a mystery which I find captivating: