Category Archives: Track Of The Week

Weekly selection of other artists music

TOTW: The Flaming Lips_In The Morning Of The Magicians

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The Flaming Lips have been on of my favourite bands for years, however my introduction to them was quite late in their career. I first heard them through their most commercially successful album (In the UK) Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and was blown away by the lush instrumentation and expansive vision of the band. It stands as a great place to get into the band as it represents the perfection of a sound both the band and their producer  Dave Fridman had spent years developing.

In The Morning Of The Magicians is a perfect example of this. If Phil Spector is known for creating “The Wall of Sound” where multiple instruments are layered to create massively powerful textures. Dave Fridmann should be known as creating a “collage of sound” where complexity in instrumentation and melody rules. If you take an analytical ear to this track for a play through and think about how many instruments/sounds happen you’ll quickly be dumfounded by its intricacy. A sound that moved with Dave Fridmann to other successful albums like Oracular Spectacular by MGMT.

This level of intricacy in the music can only work with an incredible mix. With so many textures of instrumentation going on at the same time it could very quickly turn into a mess without the incredible use of a keen ear. Instruments are panned across the stereo field and carefully blended together to bring the important textures to the foreground at the times they’re needed.

I still hold this up as one of the best mixes I’ve heard and listen to it regularly as a reference point to aim for. But even if you ignore it for its technically creative decisions you’re still left with a great piece of music that holds its own. Stripping the track away to its core leaves you with a traditional singer songwriter piece on vocals and acoustic guitar which focuses on Wayne Coynes introspection, a theme that feeds the entirety of the album.

I would recommend the entirety of the album but this lesser known track is on of my favourites so give it a listen:

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TOTW: Beach House_Wishes

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Some tracks take time to grow for me, I loved the Beach House album Bloom on its release in 2012, enough to put In my favourite five albums of the year.

I still enjoy this album occasionally and its continued to grow on me with one track above all others as a clear stand out. Wishes will get in my head from time to time until I have to play it.

The track opens with with the now iconic Beach House sound. Electric drum machines interweave with arpeggiated synth melodies and provide a bed for the electric guitar and vocals. For me the song is all about the halfway mark where the guitar track fades its way into prominence on the mix. The tone and effects on the guitar along with its multi tracking and panning which widen the stereo field are absolutely perfect for the track, and its melody provides a drive and aggression without overdoing the underplayed sound Beach House are known for. It’s easily one of my favourite guitar parts of all time and well worth your attention so check it out by listening to the track below:

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TOTW: Gold Panda- Time Eater

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Gold Panda mixes dance music with eastern traditional instrumentation. On Time Eater Eastern Strings provide interweaving melodies backed up by strong electronic percussion. As the track evolves more sampled elements are added and washed in thick reverbs to create lush pad sounds that add to the sonic pallet of the track.

It’s the pallet of sounds used on Time Eater that are the highlight of the track, organic and electric textures complement each other perfectly creating a fresh and exiting piece of music:
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TOTW: Suicide_Ghost Rider

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Sad news arrived last weekend with the death of Alan Vega frontman to long running band Suicide.

Listening back to their first two albums over the week really brings home just how ahead of the curve they were in style and sound. Dark looping electronics underpin whaling lyrics of despair and anger. Although in it’s infancy this sound is the foundation of a lot of modern electronic music today. Roots that spread from CBGB a small underground club in Manhattan to the mainstream over the last 40 years.

Suicide may not be the one and only reference to this sound but they’re a really important one and highly influential. Overtly for the likes of bands Crystal Castles, LCD sound system and even Bruce Springsteen but also subtly in many other artists throughout the years.
Unfortunately when you set the trend you’re not usually going to be the one who receives the notoriety. Suicide although highly regarded in the alternative scene never achieved mainstream success. But they won’t be forgotten by the many people they influenced. Alan Vega and Martin Rev will Live on, Not just though their music but as a stepping stone in the evolution of music as a whole.

Over a year where famous deaths (especially musicians) seem to have become the norm, artists like Alan Vega are more likely to be sidelined. But not by me, If you haven’t heard suicide and like my posts on this site you simply have to immerse yourself in their world. It often isn’t a pleasant one but it’s certainly revelatory:

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TOTW: Frederic Chopin, Olafur Arnalds, Alice Sara Ott_Prelude in D Flat Major (“Raindrop”)

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The Chopin Project is a fantastic album where a selection of Chopin’s work are mixed together with new instrumentation to provide a flowing, evolving whole which culminates in his most famous work and my track of the week, Prelude in D Flat Major (“Raindrop”).

Chopin is one of my favourite composers because his music often communicates with me emotionally as well as intellectually. His pieces manage to convey a bitter sweetness that epitomise the romantic movement with Prelude in D Flat Major (“raindrop”) being a perfect example.

Alice Sara Ott performs this solo piece for piano beautifully, taking us on an emotional rollercoaster. The piece starts with an uplifting melody that slowly becomes more mournful until the darker bass elements bring a sense of dread before they turn even more aggressive. Over six minutes these melodies are interwoven to portray a wide variety of feelings for the listener. The Piece is wonderful in any version but Olafur Arnalds production and Alice Sara Otts performance elevate it even further. The album is fantastic and its finale is the icing on the cake a truly wonderful piece of work:

Frederic Chopin, Olafur Arnalds, Alice Sara Ott_Prelude in D Flat Major (“Raindrop”):

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TOTW: Borland_Dead Air

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Borland have put out a large collection fo music on Bandcamp over the years and i have enjoyed hearing their evolution, taking a traditional IDM sound and twisting it into darker more gothic styles. On their latest and final record from their OMAR series, Borland have brought back allot more of the elements heard in their early works.

Dead Air is a perfect example of this, a slow building piece that mixes the Ambient and Shoegaze genre. A delicate synth chord progression loops on every six bars as elements are added to create a build until the tracks halfway mark where randomisation starts to affect the synth before the whole track falls into a dark sub bass.

This is my favourite side to borlands work and it’s nice to hear these elements come into the foreground again. Now the OMAR series is finished it will be interesting to see where they take their sound next. For now there’s a collection of really good albums on Bandcamp to go back to:

 

TOTW: Love_Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale

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The idea behind track of the week is to shed light on some of my favourite tracks old and new. I was surprised to see that I have never added a track from Love especially “Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale” because it’s one of my all time favourite pieces of music.

I haven’t added this track partly because I assumed that it was a mainstream piece from an essential record but in talking to more people outside of a small subset of musos about this record I realised it wasn’t quite so well-known as I originally envisaged. So It’s time to use this forum to remind or introduce people to this wonderful track.

On the album Forever Changes we are treated to psychedelic rock with very strong folk influences. Released in the heyday of this sound it wasn’t a commercial success but the quality and complexity of composition in the record have given it timeless attributes, allowing its success to grow over the last sixty years.

The two standout tracks for me are the opening cut “Alone Again Or” and my TOTW “Maybe The People Would Be the Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale”. Throughout the record the traditional instruments surrounding a rock band are accompanied by beautiful melodies from string and brass sections which excel on these two tracks.

On “Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale” the brass creates a positive edge to the darker more distorted bass sound which combine to create bitter-sweet feelings that perfectly match the vocals from Arther Lee. His vague lyrics with cryptic delivery, drift between verses offering conclusion only when we get to the instrumental sections of the track.

Its one of the few tracks that I have never got bored with. I have heard it hundreds of times and it still feels as fresh now as it did on first listen. Even on an instant repeat it has never lost its qualities and for that I can’t recommend it highly enough:

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TOTW: Swans_The World looks Red/The World Looks Black

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It’s been one of those weeks, one of those weeks where you need a band like Swans in your life.
Dystopian, relentless grooves that pound into your very soul. Words that vary from passive aggression, downright hedonism to cosmic horror. Since their reforming in 1997 they have built up and developed this sound to it’s pinical on the last 3 albums which finishes with The Glowing Man their final work in the current bands formation.
Swans aren’t an easy listen and took me many repeat attempts to get into. Their sound doesn’t try to pander to public consensus instead it’s an outspoken unique voice of creativity and vision. Lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira has cut his own way through the music industry. For years his small but dedicated fan base have crowd funded his creative endeavours before the likes of Kickstarer existed.
Because of this Swans have developed a sound that is rather unique, although I could relate it to the likes of acts like Godspeed You! Black Emperor textually but with the repetitive live looping sound from album Remain In Light by Talking Heads. To recommend one track is hard because the albums very much feel like they should be played as a whole or at least on sides of a vinyl. But this is the Track of the week segment so I guess I should stick to convention.
So with much thought I decided to pick “The World looks Red/The World Looks Black” and for a few reasons. It’s from the latest album “the glowing man” and I think promoting the newer work is important. It also manages to convey the Swans sound which needs time to get going as the loops repeat and build into an uproar of electric guitar and heavy bass and the track does this quite concisely for their works at just under fifteen minutes long. Finally it sonically has a lot of the textures from the previous two albums on this work. Through listening to the Swans back catalogue you get a real feeling of progression as they develop some ideas and remove others. This creates albums that although based round the same gene of ideas are varied in sound. Different people will prefer different albums depending on the paths they have chosen to go down but the albums also work as a collection. Something I love as someone who listens to entire back catalogues of artists works.
Swans have been a unique voice in alternative music for decades now and will continue to in the future as the formation of the band change. Whatever happens next I will look forward to it with exited anticipation:

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TOTW: William Basinski_dlp3

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Well this is an interesting one. Looking through my history of this series I realised I haven’t had any work by William Basinski which is both surprising (because I listen to his music a lot) and understandable (because the music is reserved and illusive).

Although considered an avant-garde composer. I would say most of his work epitomises the ambient genre. Creating an atmosphere and mood instead of a rhythm and melody. His tracks don’t grab you by the ears but linger in the background hinting at things like long forgotten memories.

The Disintegration Loops are the collection of music he’s best known for and are highlighted here. In this series William Basinski takes samples from old tape recordings and stitches them together into a short loop of around 10 seconds. He then lets them run through a tape machine and records the results. As the old tape moves through the head or the machine hundreds to thousands of times it starts to warp and disintegrate, creating new variations and textures which reminds me of the generative ideas used in Ambient music.

The loops themselves are often quite cryptic; they sound both organic and electronic and seem to hint at classical instrumentation. However as the tape destroys itself those elements become even harder to distinguish as the electronics of the tape machine distort it towards something more electronic.

Although I am a huge fan of all the Disintegration Loops series dlp1 and dlp3 are my favourites. I decided to go with dlp3 because the percussive elements of what sounds like a snare drum in the loop mix with the tapes destruction to create interesting rhythmic patterns that are more noticeable to the less trained ear.

Finally I want to say this music isn’t for everyone. Come to it with an open mind and don’t expect it to grab you straight away, Instead play it in the background whilst doing something else. I think this is when the track really shines. Your concentration will drift away from the music itself after a few minutes and it will just become part of the scenery. Occasionally the tape will change drastically and your attention is drawn back to the music briefly before you get used to the new development in the loop, accept it and let the music drift itself into the background.

As the track continues and the destruction of the tape becomes more rapid, the piece will also become more prominent within your environment. As your mind try’s to process the changes of a soundscape that it has become accustomed to over the past several minutes. When it finally comes to an end it leaves a hole in the surroundings. It has become part of your environment and that makes it an interesting piece of music that deserves to be heard.

If this style of music is new to you and your’e interested by the piece please leave a comment below or send me an email and I will give a larger collection of works for your consideration.

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TOTW: Venetian Sanres_ You And Shayna v1

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On his latest album “Traditional Synthesizer Music” Venetian Snares uses a modular synth with no editing or overdubbing to create every track. Although an incredible feat in itself what’s most surprising is how close it is to his other albums.

The complexity of the percussive parts on his music is always astonishing even when he has a sampler and DAW to handle most of the grunt work. If you take those pieces of equipment out of the equation and work within the modular setting it becomes a mind boggling achievement that he achieves flawlessly.

I’m not sure if it’s the modular or the one take nature but this form of production has added a warmth to the sound of the album that is lacking from the harsher sounds heard on his other works. Creating music that’s easier on the ear without losing the structures and complexity’s of his music.

The whole album is worth a listen but You And Shayna v1 stood out as a highlight for me so I’ve made it my Track of the week:

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