Let's talk about music!

[carly rae jetfuel]

yeah kexp's youtube performances rock too - spent an afternoon the other day looking through a bunch of them

[AtomicRunner]

I tried yesterday to listen to an album in bed before sleeping, so I tried to think about something both not very long and instrumental. So I ended listening to all of Jean Michell Jarre's Oxygène in one go.

And I've listened to the album before at work, and you hear part's 2 and 4 a lot. But there was something about just listening to the entire thing without any other stimulus than the music itself that was... quite meditative, to be honest. I've always had a soft spot for this early era of electronic music and the harshness of its sound. But this time it put me in a really good state of mind. I don't know, it was a nice 40 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ab7tIZNplM

I also had a very funny dream I guess thanks to this album, but that's beyond the scope of this thread. Surprisingly, it did not involve the skull in its famous (and really good!) album cover.

[higadoyrinon]

I've never liked spotify personally but that's mostly from the perspective of expecting people to pay for ad free listening. If the baseline user experience is bad, then I don't think any tier of it is worth it. As far as albums and playlists are concerned, I think it's pretty easy to manage both. There's a lot of value to curation and I wouldn't say it outright threatens the full album experience. More of an aside. They're fantastic for branching out. A song stands out to you > you find the album > you find the artist > then you can possibly find their influences. That's so much music right there that can strengthen the connection to the artist. And they're great exercises to create as sort of a summation of experiences. The problem is more on algorithms filtering out tons of potential songs/projects because of an arbitrary numbers game. If you're interested in written pieces on music, there's stuff like The Quietus that can throw names at you. There's also websites like theshfl that you might enjoy. Radio Garden is great too, but doesn't usually list names. The best way to explore new music is to ignore your taste. Knowing what you enjoy affects how you react to new material and can limit what you allow yourself to listen to.

I totally agree about the problem with algorithms. Most of the times when using spotify I would end up listening to radios derived from a particular artist or song and it would bring out results that I already knew. And I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I discovered something new that blew my mind.
My most rewarding experiences with albums and discovering new music have come from reading blogs, a thing that's probably over by now... I haven't checked. I think because it works as just a recommendation that you have to jump sort of blindly to, but you end up trusting the curation of others. Tbh spotify had that option as well, but I never took advantage of it, strangely, and so never found someone who made playlists to latch on to.
Radio Garden is such a wonderful tool, I love just playing around on it. It really is a connection to the world.

I tried yesterday to listen to an album in bed before sleeping, so I tried to think about something both not very long and instrumental. So I ended listening to all of Jean Michell Jarre's Oxygène in one go.

And I've listened to the album before at work, and you hear part's 2 and 4 a lot. But there was something about just listening to the entire thing without any other stimulus than the music itself that was... quite meditative, to be honest. I've always had a soft spot for this early era of electronic music and the harshness of its sound. But this time it put me in a really good state of mind. I don't know, it was a nice 40 mins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ab7tIZNplM

I also had a very funny dream I guess thanks to this album, but that's beyond the scope of this thread. Surprisingly, it did not involve the skull in its famous (and really good!) album cover.

This is a really cool album! I have it on LP and always found it to be a great choice to chill at night and do nothing.

[nullnug]

My most rewarding experiences with albums and discovering new music have come from reading blogs, a thing that's probably over by now... I haven't checked. I think because it works as just a recommendation that you have to jump sort of blindly to, but you end up trusting the curation of others.

Definitely. Some of the best recommendations come from random writeups/posts that drop names. That way you can find all sorts of stuff that you probably never would've looked at otherwise.

[amos]

for music discovering i really enjoy https://www.nts.live/ for the novelty of "humans picking music". i pay a sub mostly for the track-listing but it's a bit spotty

NTS is also what I jumped over to for "background listening" purposes when my boy Neil Young libbed out on Spotify. It's real nice! I really like some of the live shows they do with DJs, my favourite being The Early Bird Show w/ Maria Somerville. There's also some really fantastic research/deepdive stuff like Reimagining Country w/ Jamal Khadar, or guest playlists by musicians, like Shoji Yamashiro

[nullnug]

10 (11) Albums:


New York Tendaberry - Laura Nyro



Finding My Way Home - Yazz Ahmed



Wrong - Nomeansno



Teen Dream - Beach House



Metallic Life Review - Matmos


A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure - Matmos
Here's the (11)th. This album sampled real surgery sounds, which I don't think were too sensory, but I figured it's worth the mention just in case. Wanted to include it and an alternative without taking up another artist's slot.



Luz y Sombra - S-Tone Inc.



Come to My Garden - Minnie Riperton



Remission - Mastodon



AAA - HYUKOH & Sunset Rollercoaster



Super æ - Boredoms


If you haven't heard of any, feel free to check them out. No preface except the one content warning because I personally find it more exciting going into a project knowing as little as possible.

[nullnug]

I actually meant to share this one before the previous post, but it slipped my mind.



Timelines - Hamid Drake & Jesse Stewart

Really lovely album.