I recently visited Morocco on holiday and during my travels was introduced to a collection of music from the region that I found captivating. Tinariwen were one of the first to grab my attention with a sound that manages to blend traditional folk and modern styles.
On Islegh Tagharm Tifhamam the guitars and percussion create a fluid almost hypnotic sound that provides the perfect background for the vocal harmonies to whisk you away:
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Slowdive have been away for a long time but their first album in over twenty years sounds as if nothings changed.
In most cases this could be seen as a negative for most bands however it works here because a sound they helped pioneer which was mostly ignored and maligned at the time of their previous albums is now very much in vogue.
No Longer Making Time with its mumbling vocals, deep reverbs and jangling guitar exemplify a sound that I have always been a fan of. Give it a listen:
Spotify:
TOTW Playlist:
I have been listening to quite a few seminal and classic albums over the past few weeks and Remain In Light by Talking Heads is undoubtedly one of these.
The album features a lot of rhythmic patterns that loop and create atmospheres that are all engulfing and Listening Wind is no exception.
This repetition starts to become trancelike and in the entirety of the album you can really zone out until it becomes almost meditative. Out of context Listening Wind becomes slightly less effective however put this track on repeat and by the second listen you are in the right mindset to truly get into it or just listen to the whole album, it really is fantastic:
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Spotify:
Spotify (TOTW Playlisht):
Oneohtrix Point Never creates some of the most varied and exiting experimental music out there. Although over the past few years he has been releasing work related to his commission pieces his albums feel very much spawned by limiting himself to a collection of ideas.
This makes each album sound very different and his 2013 release R Plus Seven is no exception. It blends a lot of sounds from computer synthesis and samplers, especially the use of choir samples. This use of the weirdly synthetic and organic along with its skittish blending of musical styles makes the whole album a complex work to get your head arround.
I have gone back to this album many times now over the past year and still find more complexities in it. Chrome Country finishes the album off and is the one track I go back to the most. The blend of the organic vocal samples with warm pad sounds that all get time stretched into digital artifacts before a pipe organ finishes the track off make for a sound that is truly out there.
Throughout all the weirdness the thing that I most appreciate about his music is that it often leads to an emotional rather than cerebral outcome. Which is not the case with most experimental music.
When I first heard Hearts by I Break Horses I was instantly charmed and wanted to let other people know about it. That and several other tracks convinced me to start adding music I like and not just my own to this website. So in a way they are responsible for this Track of the Week segment.
Although a huge fan of their first album the second Chiarosuro was released at a weird time, early last year and never slipped into my music collection rather than being played regularly. However recently I’ve gone back to it and it’s got some great tracks.
Denial has a strong 80’s feel from that famous tom sound to the synth pad design blended with more modern production like side chain compression which as a whole creates that bitter-sweet sound that I enjoy most in electronic music:
Repeat Listening of the Young Farthers album has opened up my appreciation for it.
Low demonstrates their unique mix of lyrics and production to create something that manages to reference many genre of music, but also stand out from the crowd of a lot of music this year:
This week I started work on a track using my modular and realised it was a bit dark. So I’ve decided to give it the benefit of another few days in the studio and make this weeks track a bridge between the more pop sound of previous tracks to the new darker angle of the next few weeks.
Transition was made mostly with teenage engineering’s op1 but with some splashes of sound from the modular for good measure and then mixed in Ableton Live:
I didn’t have a lot of time last week and so decided to go for a theme that would be heavily restrict me into working quickly. The track was recorded over one night using a piano and a looping pedal with panning and effects added later.
Have a listen:
Jon Hopkins album Immunity is dark and layered with wonderful textures that are open for Remixing and Abandon Window (Previously a TOTW track) has been given this honour by Moderat.
Keeping the Original stripped down sound Moderat manage to create something that manages to stay faithful whilst adding a more rhythmic club aesthetic from the get go:
I have been interested in the idea of prepared pianos for a few years now. The basic idea of a prepared piano is to add/alter parts of the piano to crate new textures during its playing. Hauschka is known for his works on prepared piano and demonstrates the ideas perfectly in this Live Performance on NPR: