Similar to Ascendant. This is calm electronic music, painting audio landscapes for the listener to slowly absorb. The proximity to Ascendant’s last album is more than genre-based: to my preferences, both creators could benefit from a better use of punctual silences and other simple elements, for a less monotonic results. For example, the artist “Ultramarine” achieves this with non-recurrent audio events featuring samples from the everyday world, namely water flowing, a cork popping out of the bottle, etc.
Category Archives: Spotify
Spotify – the music streaming service
Listening to Ascendant – "Meridian [Ex]"
Very calm electronic music. Lacking silence at stages but, overall, what I needed to decrease my metabolic level.
Listening to Dan Misha Goldman – "Champion of the Afterworld"
For some reason, music from Canada has been coming my way. This Toronto creator performs mostly slow compositions, with eventual lyrics. “Champion of the Afterworld” is an album labeled as “folk”, but I am not sure about that classification.
“Folk music” should be closer to traditional songs, passed from one generation to the next. These tracks do not feel traditional. To me, they feel innovative! They paint audio landscapes, sometimes with no lyrics at all (as in “Corners Reprise”), or they chant beyond-superficial phrases. Tracks like “Pipo Romero”, featuring a classical guitar, might justify the “folk” label; still, the blending of it all is different and very pleasurable!
Here is the corresponding Spotify playlist:
Listening to Mercedes Peón – Deixaas
This album in an outlier in my music library. To my preferences, vocals come in second place, after instrumentals, yet all tracks here are sung in Spanish. Moreover the featured voice(s) go beyond melodically reproducing the lyrics, and often enter “performance” territory. Spanish music is also underrepresented in my collection.
Against odds, “Deixass” landed on my desk, got my attention, and I am enjoying it. This album feels new and different, except between some of its own tracks: periodically, the listener will perceive the repetition of its original musical constructs.
Here is the corresponding Spotify playlist.
Listening to Atsuko Chiba – "Trace"
To me “Atsuko Chiba” sounds like a Japanese band name, but no. According to their bio at Spotify they are from Montreal (Canada?). That is irrelevant. What is relevant is that I am enjoying their music. As usual, I am no good with labels.
Oddly, this album remembers me Diego Trip (see https://arturmarques.com/wp/2019/07/07/listening-to-diego-trip-al-espacio/): the same blend of old and new, less lyrics, less predictable.
Listening to Tonbruket – "Nubium Swimtrip"
Oh, so imagistic and relaxing. It feels like a slow jazz stage without wind instruments, featuring some experimental mixing with electronic music.
Listening to Chris Forsyth – "Tomorrow Might as Well Be Today"
The wind of good fortune brought me the music of Chris Forsyth. By chance, I just discovered his latest album. This is a mostly instrumental piece, with punctual singing. It is different, even experimental, yet without unpleasant ruptures. The audio in this album paints a very “full” stage, with few opportunities for silence, but it does not get tiring, instead involving and flowing through the listener. At times, it remembers me the early Pink Floyd.
Listening to Diego Trip – "Al Espacio"
A surprising album, sung in Spanish. I usually prefer strictly instrumental albums, yet I cannot resist quality lyrics, in this case framed in what feels like a well-researched landscape of conservative-to-modern arrangements. “Al Espacio” (which translates to “To the Space”) is a superb, often original, album! Non-monotonous tracks, sung by a male vocalist, but with its instruments-only moments.
Again, I am not listening to it on Spotify, but I cannot find a better way to share its playlist:
Listening to Mnemonic – "Aversionen"
I am listening to “Mnemonic” (artist), album “Aversionen”, but not on Spotify.
This “Mnemonic” is an artist with just 18 monthly listeners on Spotify. This should highlight how incredibly hard is for creators, in any field of activity, to be recognized, even when producing good to great art, as is the case. The “sheeping” behavior on humans is such that people tend to flock and form clusters on everything, including music consumption, giving rise to unjust asymmetries in the “market of attention”.
It was not trivial to find the right “Mnemonic” artist on Spotify. There are at least two artists named “Mnemonic”, both in the electronic music genre, both worth listening.
There is
“Mnemonic” (NOT the author of “Aversionen”):
and there is the author of what I am listening to:
“Mnemonic”:
Here is the playlist of “Aversionen”, a rhythmic bassy album with exotic, quality, mixes:
Listening to Molly Burch – "First Flower"
Involving. Rather classical instrumentals, but a different female voice, with a heavier timbre than most. Simple lyrics, presented in an effective production that grabs the listener’s attention. The whole album is enjoyable and even soothing.
I am not listening to it on Spotify, but here is its corresponding playlist: