music: february 26
My February covered a wide range of genres, releases and artists – from dreamy ambient to chunky house or loud gqom. But what brought me the most joy (and kept me thinking a lot) was IDM (ambient IDM in particular: I discovered Yeong Die's new release Uncapturable, which is strange, cool and weird). And I have been trying to understand why IDM resonates with me. The two things that come to mind are surprise and ambiguity.
IDM stretches electronic music in very intelligent (!) and deliberate ways. It is very fragmented, seemingly chaotic, irregular, glitchy. It seems unstable, but everything is on purpose. The sounds are crafted, even though they might appear random. But as a listener you never feel safe. You cannot listen and move on autopilot, knowing when the next break or chorus will drop. You have to be on guard. And often it is emotionally ambiguous. You don't know what you are supposed to feel.
I think I'm drawn to that. I value surprise – in music, in books, in films, in travel, in relationships. And IDM surprises me all the time (among other genres and cross-genre artists).
Good art does things that we didn't predict in some way. It has an ability to surprise or teach us something new or maybe view something in a different light. And this is kind of what separates good art from craft.
– Tyler Hobbs, Code Goes In, Art Comes Out
Electronic music has become very formulaic (like art/media/social media in general?), and it is so rare to be surprised.
I also like ambiguity. I like when things hold multiple ideas at the same time – even contradicting ones. Music that is sad and playful at once. Films where you're not sure who to root for. People who believe something strongly but stay open to being wrong. When something doesn't tell you what to feel, you have to figure it out for yourself. You have to engage with the material and cannot passively consume. I think that is (sometimes? often?) more rewarding than clarity.
I need to explore this some more, but in the meantime, here are some tracks from February:
Alignment
- Album: Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick – Tragic Magic (harp and voice ambient, soft, cinematic, dreamy, fav tracks: Melted Moon, The Four Sleeping Princesses, and Rachel's Song – the Blade Runner cover)
- Album: Purelink – Faith (fav tracks: Rookie – ambient, dreamy, dub-like space with Loraine James vocals; Kite Scene – dubby ambient techno, fleeting, percussive, aura of calm)
- Album: Yeong Die – Uncapturable (IDM ambient, playful, daydreaming, every track sounds completely different – new age, experimental, weird and cool and wonky; fav track: Hyper Efficient)
- Track: lucra400 – Chimes (ambient IDM, downtempo, glitchy wind chimes; great rec from S.S.)
- Album: sora – Re.sort (ambient IDM, playful, tropical vibe, vibrant, chimes, hazy summer dream, as pleasant as glitch can be – a cult classic from 2003 that I only discovered this month; rec from S.S.)
- Track: Tangerine Dream – Green Desert (psychedelic rock / kosmische, slow, long intro, 20 min journey, reminds me a lot of Pink Floyd – Tangerine Dream helped define early Berlin electronic music)
- Album: Anthony Child – of the Beginning (ambient, glassy drones, ethereal, meditative – vivid and colourful in a way that contrasts sharply with his techno alias Surgeon)
- Album: Dialect – Full Serpent (IDM, ambient, chopped high-pitched vocals triggered throughout, what sounds like birds, reminds me of glitchy gameboy sounds from my childhood)
- Album: J. Albert – Return to Sender (ambient dub techno, murky, restless)
- Album: JakoJako – Tết 41 (beatless but rhythmic, modular sound, vibrant, gleaming and playful, fun, warm, bright, full of field recordings from Vietnam and Tết – the most important celebration in Vietnamese culture, marking the arrival of spring; fav tracks: Kumquat, Gió)
- Track: Lamin Fofana – Obscure Light (Decomposition) (kosmische ambient with rhythmic energy, like the calm before the storm, very cool)
- Track: bambinodj – Carrier (balearic trancehall, shimmering autotune, reminds me of amapiano, sun-drenched and floating)
Takeoff
- Track: ex_libris – Running Out (dubby downtempo house, percussive, ambient dub, acoustic percussion, old school bboy stuff somehow)
- Track: Al Wootton – Glorias (Drums Version) (congas, vocals, samples, birds – sounds spiritual, spacious; a tribute to the International Brigades who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War; honestly not sure what to call this – folk techno? folk dub?)
- Track: bvdub & East of Oceans – We Remembered When We Danced (ambient opening with reverby vocals, morphs into jungle breaks, then switches gears to 4/4 ambient techno – very atmospheric, 18 min journey; both aliases are the same person – bvdub is abstract ambient, East of Oceans is breaks – and they come together nicely in this track)
- Track: Baltra – Never Let Go of Me (lo-fi house, Traumprinz vibe, melancholic grainy vocal loop of the track title, cowbells, acid line)
- Track: Emily Jeanne – Wet Skin (psychedelic dub techno, polyrhythmic, twitchy, echo, read that it sounds like "rushing water through an underground cave system" and I cannot unhear that, atmospheric; the whole release, Call of the Sea, is worth checking out)
- Album: Mr. G – OG Retrospective (chunky groovy house, with keys, with gospel, with lots of energy – a 23-track celebration of 25 years of Mr. G; finally sat down with this in full and it's really good, so many killer tracks; fav tracks: Mmmm, Lights, Hear me Out, Daily Prayer)
- Track: Fort Romeau & Gold Panda – El Fantasma (fast ravey dub techno, vocal chops over synths, nocturnal, very locked in, not euphoric, just serious)
- Tracks from: State OFFF – Hard Currency (this release combines "Durban's gqom, São Paulo's funk, Baltimore club, London's basslines"; not my usual territory, but this sounds cool, very boisterous, loud, chaotic; fav tracks: eGroovini, Right!, Toma)
Thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing tracks and thoughts!
