After his previous album “Age Of” and its change in style. Many fans clamored for an album of content closer to his earlier works, which can now be found complied on the fantastic “Rifts” collection.
Well it looks like with the announcement of a new album and its opening track “Love In the Time Of Lexapro” OPN has done just that. All the hallmarks of his style of sound design are there. The track opens with a wide synth pad and finishes with a lead line both from the Juno 60/106 Synthesizer used on many of his early works. The artwork also brings back memories of “Chuck Person’s Eccojams Vol.1”.
This is a trip into nostalgia for fans and will please many. It will be interesting to see how OPN continues to straggle both the need for experimentation in his music and the desires of avid listeners to his earlier works.
With this most recent release he seems to have gone back to an old formula that still hasn’t lost its charm and created something faithful to his early works without overdoing it. In turn he has created an easy and enjoyable listen and an anticipation to hear the rest of the album.
There are a handful of songs that become the soundtrack to our own personal lives. They happen to play at moments that unify with an experience and etch themselves into our memories. Listening to them brings you back to that very moment.
Bennie and the Jets by Elton John always does this to me. Taking me back to my youth with long summers boating in France and the best of Elton John on the stereo. Although there are over 20 tracks on that double album. There’s something about this track and its addition of live crowd that really suited long warm summer days and has become synonymous for me with this personal experience.
As he continues his final world tour before retirement. I’ve been listening to his staggering back catalog of fantastic songs with many many favorites of mine. But its Bennie and the Jets that I will always remember fondest.
The group Penguin Cafe Orchestra have a fond place in my heart. Their innovative mix of folk and experimental music is always full of the boisterousness of life. This is down to the vision of Simon Jeffes, who’s talents and playfulness come out in every track.
Music For A Found Harmonium is one of their most well known tracks and a perfect example of what makes the music special. The story goes that Simon Jeffes found a Harmonium on the streets of Kyoto during a tour in Japan. He moved it into a friend’s house, and over a few weeks created this piece. Without the story it would still be a great song, but with that knowledge the listener can really hear how the piece reflects it.
It manages to be full of jollity but also has a naivety that captures the feeling of adventure; the excitement and trepidation of visiting new places, going out of your comfort zone, and living life to its fullest. Through his music Simon Jeffes shows us that he did just that and captured it for prosperity and our enjoyment.
This week my music listening has taken a bit of a back seat to watching the most recent series of Bojack Horseman on Netflix. So I thought I would use my weekly blog to highlight both the show and its closing track “Back in the 90’s” by act Grouplove.
When I first watched Bojack Horseman It wasn’t what I was expecting. The show does have plenty of comic moments but it isn’t its main drive, like many other American animations. Instead, character development is the shows focus, making it more of a drama with comedic elements than a show that has a story to underpin jokes.
This decision to focus on developing characters makes it rather unique in animation but what sets it above most television is the extent that these charters have been developed. Many of them have flaws and weaknesses but they never feel like character traits built from a writers spec sheet. They develop organically from their world experiences which make them feel more real than many live action dramas.
The shows main character is a perfect example of this. A successful star from a 90’s sitcom Bojack starts the series with riches, a slightly fading fame and a feeling of a hollow lonely existence. As we go through the currently 5 series Bojack tries to fill the emptiness in his life in different ways which fluctuate between the comedic and tragic. As a viewer you go on this journey with him and your opinions about him change from routing for him to succeed to loathing him for his decisions and at times pitying him for his weaknesses. There aren’t many shows I can think of that have that level of complexity in their main character and what makes Bojack Horseman even more special is its in most of the main supporting characters as well. They’re all so well developed that you could make a full season focused on one of them without fleshing them out further.
The level of detail and care that’s put into the characters pays off when the writers put them into situations within the world they inhabit. They can tell stories that are emotionally charged, satirical, funny and even bleak without ever feeling like its undeserved. It does this so naturally that you can easily forget just how hard it is to create.
This subtlety may not be as brash as other animations that get more praise but for me Bojack is more than great entertainment because it has something to say about society at large. At the poignant end of most of its episodes a version of “back in the 90’s” plays over the credits. The original version played is this stoner rock style by Grouplove and is my track of the week.
Iglooghost brings more elements of traditional instrumentation to his latest EP “Clear Tamei” . On the track “New Vectors,” piano, vocal and violin recordings bring an organic feel to a production heavy sound. They are all warped to fit his skittish, unique style, which he continues to develop further on this EP.
It’s a sound that may not be for everyone. Iglooghost sits at the very forefront of modern computer music. In doing so, he often pushes the listener outside of what they expect from music. He reflects popular music through his clear vision, and in turn shows a direction it could go.
This has often been the case with popular music. Acts who push the current technology and methods of making music past the current conventions often influence its future. Pop takes these acts style and offers a slightly watered down consumer friendly version.
Time will tell if Iglooghost is looked back on as a taste maker, but for now he proves that there’s still fresh and new ideas in music as a whole, and we’re still only scratching the surface of the computer as an instrument.
Streaming services do have their negatives. Unifying music under playlists helps people find music in their comfort zone, but not go out of it. They also remove the power of the album, as it’s mighty tempting to skip onto something else when you’re not that keen on first listen. I often wonder if I would have ever got into some of my favorite albums if streaming services existed when i was younger, because on first listen they didn’t grab me, Only on returning to them multiple times did they grow into works I now consider my favourites of all time. That’s hard to do these days when you can easily listen to something else.
One positive they do offer is quick access to most acts. Their curation methods may not work well for people with eclectic tastes, but they allow you to listen to recommendations from external sources instantly.
That’s what happened for me with this track. I’d heard of the band “The Modern Lovers” from LCD soundsystems track “loosing my edge” but never got around to giving them a listen. However on a recent Adam Buxton podcast, with guest interviewee Mac DeMarco, Jonathan Richmans name came up as a major influence. Instantly I could go into Spotify, look him up and have a listen. I was greeted with this gem of a track.
The sound of this song is iconic of the 70s New York style that became a major influence of punk. Not in its intensity, but in its rawness and honesty. It manages to tell a story simply but with a joyous reverence that puts you in the position of the singer. A great track to start my induction into his catalog. I’m looking forward to hearing more.
Rave on U lives by its name; a progressive evolving take on dance music that falls slightly outside the norm. It starts routinely enough with a fairly traditional take on the genre, before sounds and composition go from a minor to major key and then drift into the completely discordant.
Each element of the track takes odd turns into the obscure. Traditional techniques for processing audio in this genre are taken past their usual settings making them caricatures of conventions long held. But throughout its experimentation, the track remains faithful to its core of strong rhythmic percussion and repeating melodies.
This results in a track with eccentricities that provide unique character and a rigidity that stops them being all consuming. It remains fun and full of energy throughout its longer playtime. A unique take on a now classic sound.
When electronic synthesis started, the aim was to use electronics to realistically replicate organic instruments. Cheat Sheets would be released explaining how to patch a Moog modular to emulate instruments from the orchestra. Sometimes they were realistic and other times they didn’t quite match up for many reasons.
But these sounds that were slightly disjointed from their original goals were still used and became the basis of a lot of synthesis we know today. Experimentation to create sounds that have never been heard before became a key element in developing a new genre in electronic music.
It is this experimentation in sound design which is my favorite part of electronic music, as it stops it from stagnating. Fashions for particular styles of synthesis/sampling come and go, developing new genres, or breathing fresh air into older ones.
Subtitles from Throwing Snow fits into this mold. The track is based on a sound that sits somewhere between a vocal and a woodwind. Is it an electronic instrument imitating an organic sound or an organic recording being manipulated electronically? In the past I would have said it was the latter. However, the more I delve into learning synthesis and becoming more aware of what you can achieve with good programming, the greater these lines blur.
This ambiguity continues my interest in electronic music; driving me to learn more about it is what attracts me to this piece. But Throwing Snow has cleverly wrapped their experimentation in more mainstream elements of electronic music and in doing so has created a track that can be enjoyed by all fans of the genre.
I heard this track through a spotify playlist which is probably the only way you would find out about it with its cryptic title and artist name. Many believe it to be the Alias of Kieran Hebdan better known as electronic artist Four Tet. This wouldn’t be surprising as there are many similarities between the two acts.
On this track large ambient synth pads and a shuffling down tempo drum beat start the track and then they develop with Four Tet’s characteristic rhythms that give the electronic instrumentation an organic and human feel. It creates a sound that’s far more accessible then its title. It may be out of the ordinary for dance music but it still follows enough of its conventions to work in that environment.
Nujabes has been a act that I continue to come back to year in, year out. Its nice that he is finally available on spotify as his work has always been hard to get outside of Japan.
The album Spiritual State came out after his tragic death, with many tracks being finished by friends and collaborators posthumously. Its title track was a collaboration with Uyama Hiroto and contains sparse elements. A piano, backed up with a shuffling clapping loop, together with a clarinet, provide the only instrumentation, giving the piece space for the cord patterns and busy melodies to be both interesting and relaxing.
Spotify:
TOTW Playlist:
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
