Category Archives: Track Of The Week

Weekly selection of other artists music

TOTW: Disasterpeace_ Panacea

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Disasterpeace made one of my favourite game soundtracks when he composed the music for FEZ. Since then he has been busy working on other varied soundtracks for film and game. Showing his wealth of skills as a composer.

The Hyper Light Drifter soundtrack goes back to the sound design used in FEZ but adds a little organic instrumentation to the mix. Exemplified in this solo piano piece entitled Panacea.

The piece revolves around an incomplete motif that the track continues to return to without ever concluding. Leaving the listener with a sense of anticipation and longing, a desire that is never fully resolved. The arrangement is then perfectly supplemented with its production as the piano resonates within a space that manages portray both an intimacy and a distance:

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TOTW: Datassette_Cagney XOR Lacey, Pt.1

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Datassette have a sonic aesthetic that I love and it’s exemplified on this track.

Cagney XOR Lacey Pt.1 has some lovely textures that weave in and out of the track, driven with a down tempo drumbeat. The complexity of the track is derived by the lead and bass parts which take it in turn to bounce their way into the foreground whilst large wide pads fill the background with glorious lush textures that spread across the stereo field, warping between instrumentation and reverb tails.

This all works because the production of the track perfectly accentuates the most important elements of the mix throughout its play time whilst giving the kick drum plenty of room to really drive the piece forward:

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TOTW: Takuya Matsumoto_ An Oriental Tale

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“An Oriental Tale” is my favourite work from Takuya Matsumotos “Assembly” EP.

Weaving lighter more traditional organic elements into house music such as piano and violins, he crates a piece which focuses on melodic structure for it’s complexity over heavy instrumentation. This has made the track a bit of a chameleon, fitting into many different playlists and personal moods.

On first listen I didn’t expect the track to still be on regular rotation in my music library months later but its interesting chord structures and melodic content have kept it there:

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TOTW: Kevin Morby_I Have Been to the Mountain

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The New album “Singing Saw” by Kevin Morby really surprised me. He wasn’t on my radar so when I put it on I had little preconceptions and by its second track I was hooked.

“I Have Been To The Mountain” is a Steady crescendo. As more instrumentation builds to create a sound that has elements of several genres rich in Americana. By the halfway mark when the gospel backing singers arrive it cements its place as one of my favourite tracks this year:

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TOTW Bonus: An evening with Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm

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After speaking Highly of Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm on my Track of the Week this week, a video of them making it came to my attention on youtube and shows the whole process of making the album over one night in Nils Frahms studio in Berlin.

It’s a great document to the album and well worth your time so I thought I should bring it to your attention as a special bonus for this week:


 

 

TOTW: Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm_23:52

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After listening to the EP “Loon” by Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm a few months ago and really enjoying the sparse soundscapes created by the experimental artists collaboration, I decided to dig deeper into some of their other works.

“Trance Frendz” came out this year and the sound of minimal organic instrumentation blended with strongly synthetic elements is still here, but this time with a stronger structure in terms of an album. The longer playtime allows them to create an overall mood that slowly shifts between the tracks which when played as a complete piece become more than the sum of their parts.

23:52 comes right in the middle of the “Trance Frendz” and provides this powerful, awe inspiring force that gives the album a sense of scope grander then the more insular music found on “Loon”.

Although fairly simple in structure the sound design is complex and rich and as the filters on the synth open they reveal more and more layers of design until the scale of the track reaches cosmic levels. Simple yet incredibly powerful work from two artists who are quickly becoming some of my favourites working in electronic music today:

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TOTW: Ash Koosha_ Feather

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Ash Koosha creates experimental electronica that’s sporadic and expressive in weird and wonderful ways. His New Album “I AKA I” feels a little more structured than his previous works but it still has these beautifully lush textures arranged and composed in ways that are both unexpected and exiting.

Feather feels as if the synth sounds of the history of video game music were turned into a freestyle collage of instrumentation. Starting with these garish yet uplifting FM Synth faux brass sounds before quickly diving into a the depths of dark rhythmic percussion and bass highlighted with piercing bleeps and bloops.

Although almost the antithesis of improvisational jazz in tone these electronic interments remind me of the organic structures of that genre as the sounds adjust in tempo and structure to find space for other elements in the piece. It creates a barrage of sound that I have found captivating on many listens:

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TOTW: Melt-Banana_ The Hive

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Melt-Banana have a take on noise rock that could only come out of Japan. Frantic fast paced guitar is looped and slammed through effects by Ichirou Agata to create massive soundscapes for Yasuko Onuki to shout over. These soundscapes shift around in unexpected ways that keep the listener constantly guessing.

The Hive is a perfect example. The track starts frenetic and thrashy but towards the end more effects and loops over the guitar add some order to the chaos. Shifting the track into sounds reminiscent of electronic genre.

If you want some music to pick you up by the scruff of the neck and shake some life into you this could well be it. Melt-Banana offer a refreshing take on the noise rock sound that’s clearly influenced by the their culture and musical proficiency.

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TOTW: Anna Meredith_Blackfriars

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Anna Merediths album varmints has a lovely collection of songs that blend both classical and electrical instruments in novel ways. Blackfriars Is a piece for strings that repeats and drifts around creating a beautiful and distinct atmosphere with a constant clicking rhythm from a metronome as its sole percussion:

 
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TOTW: Matmos: Ultimate Care II Excerpt Nine

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Ultimate Care II is a really interesting album. A single piece of music made from the recordings of a washing machine. This may seem a little avant-garde for most people but trust me they manage to pull of the miraculous and make something so unique also highly assessable.

Although one long track, the album is split into excerpts and ends on a powerful high with Excerpt Nine my track of the week. Sounds from this washing machine are expertly cut and moulded to make brilliantly well structured persuasive sections that are constantly evolving and jumping around the stereo field with a real drive. Matmos turn these unique samples into great modern dance music because of skilled design. You won’t hear percussion programmed so well on many modern dance music and its this programming prowess that makes the album as catchy as it is:

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