music: november 25

November felt heavy and quiet at once. Work filled most of it, but music filled the spaces between – processing, reflecting, sinking into sound. I was lucky to spend a day in Utrecht for Le Guess Who and thought a lot about listening – deep listening, immersive listening, social listening and listening as creation. More thoughts on that later. For now, some highlights before December swallows them whole.

Floating

• Florian T M Zeisig – Planet Inc (space ambient, weightless dub, late-night drift)
• Alva Noto – Xerrox vol 5 (cosmic ambient, 20-year series finale – sounds copied and transformed until they become something new)
• Lia Kohl – Normal Sounds (field recordings that made me want to go outside and capture things)
• Donato Dozzy – Magda (half-ambient techno, named after his aunt, inspired by the Adriatic – modular, building energy)
• J. Albert – I want to be good so bad (murky dub techno, Basic Channel DNA)
• The Allegorist – From Birth Until Death (industrial-ambient, poetic song titles, field recordings from Grunewald)
• Pavel Milyakov, Yana Pavlova – the thrill (dreamy, melancholic ambient; their album Blue is also very cool)
• Brendon Moeller – Blue Moon (dub techno meets drum & bass – warm, sunny, 90s intelligent d&b energy)
• Verses GT (Jacques Greene & Nosaj Thing) – Verses GT (ambient-leaning electronic, club-adjacent, perfect for night driving)
• Carrier – Rhythm Immortal (alien dub minimalism, fractured, full of empty space)
• Stars of the Lid – "Requiem for Dying Mothers, Pt. 2" (one of the saddest ambient pieces ever made)

Moving

• Anthony Naples – Scanners (minimal but chunky house, high energy – especially Night)
• Drum Club – "Sound System" (long intro, groovy sample, slowly turns into trance meditation, the best track I found in a long time)
• Caldera – "Spiral Path of Joy (Skii Mix)" (heady techno at 160bpm, somehow still organic and quirky)
• Silvio Ecomo – "Standing (General Midi Remix)" (nu-skool breaks, ravey, 2000s bboy battle nostalgia)
• Binary Algorithms – "Sub-Periphery" (sci-fi electro/IDM, colorful, bright)
• Buttechno (Pavel Milyakov's alias – crazy jungle, dub techno, groovy chaos, especially the track "hypno")

Three highlights from Le Guess Who 2025 (Saturday)

33EMYBW & Li Jianhong
Deconstructed traditional Chinese instruments through distortion and noise in Pieterskerk. Li Jianhong used something like a Theragun on the guitar strings – creating chaotic, vibrating textures. Witchy and very gloomy (but cool).

Adrian Younge
Full band: trumpets, saxophone, drums, bass, vocals. Soul and funk with Brazilian threads. Everyone on stage strongly vibing, the band moving as one whole. "Sirens" (from Something About April, sampled by Jay-Z) was very recognizable and clearly the peak.

Mark Ernestus' Ndagga Rhythm Force
Multiple Senegalese percussionists layering interlocking polyrhythms into one hypnotic groove. Ernestus's minimal techno aesthetic lives in the spacious production. Happy vocals, viral energy.

December will be slow – shorter days and more reflection. But it is not over. Thanks for reading!