Trying to not get sick. 70 pages of unedited thesis text. More importantly:
– Saw the wonderful Xenia Pestova in concert with Shawn Mativetsky, playing pieces for various keyboards / tabla combinations. They’re both great.
– The cat who made Twitch Plays Pokemon won the internet.
– WALLS have done an album with Daphne Oram, and it sounds like the future. Oram, like Derbyshire, was one of the Radiophonic Workshop originals, built her own tool for turning images into music, and was a genuine British Weirdo of the first rank. If you don’t know her, find out.
– Pretty samplers are pretty.
– The trailer for Chroma, from Harmonix, is so generic as to be meaningless, but the words in the article are very, very interesting.
– Heavy congrats to My People who had works peformed at the latest live@CIRMMT concert: Ian Hattwick’s glowing percussion, James O’Callaghan’s amplified books, and Eliot Briton’s postmodern Amon-Tobin-esq freakout. Well done to all.
– Kim Boekbinder interviews Clayton Cubbit about the internet and the Attention Economy.
– Zeynep Tufekci on our need for new internet nightmares.
– I am super harsh on new interfaces for making music, but this one looks not-terrible, and is kind of suggestive of some of my thoughts about new DJ-like interfaces.
– Peanut Butter Wolf made a 24-hour Valentine’s day mix for FACT, in alphabetical order. Colour me impressed.
– This has been coming: a Spotify / streaming based DJ app. ‘Oh shit’ is not too strong a word.
– Tim Knowles makes trees make art.
– Went to see my pal Erin Gee talk at Objet Sonore. If you don’t know Erin, she does amazing things, and is well worth your time.
– I’ve also been staying with my friend Cassandra Miller for the past week and some change. She is also amazing, and is well worth your time.
– I survived going to IglooFest on a Saturday night, to see Claude von Stroke and Justin Martin, who are pretty good at what they do. I’d be happy with IglooFest selling 2/3rds the number of tickets that they do, because it was beyond packed. Still looking forward to Adam Beyer in two weeks though.
Welcome back to Montreal – it is catch up time here.
– Mixes from legendary NYC nightspots.
– 60 Minutes on Studio 54.
– Art from c3.
– Software face replacement, and the same thing in action. I repeat my comment / concern about every form of human interaction being mediated by computers.
– Loopers are boring: this one is not.
– Matt Fraction and Christian Ward are doing The Odyssey, genderswapped, in space, and it looks amazing.
– Gestures-as-puzzle.
Hannah Read & Charlie Van Kirk – Kids
This is a sucker punch: one of my favorite voices, one of my favorite producers / good friends, and a song that’s nothing but memories. With that said, the entire EP is objectively gorgeous as well as subjectively gorgeous.
Alex Jang – Bartered Dreams
My man Mr. Jang is going to be annoyed that I picked the most conventionally ‘pretty’ of his output…but hot damn, those chords.
Danny Kaye & Louis Armstrong – Oh When The Saints
Via Alex Richards, a dash of pure, overacted glee. (More seriously: Listen to Kaye’s imitation, his scat, the canon that they pull out, Armstrong’s straight-man face, his harmony, and so on.)
Honorable mentions of the highest order to: Kim Shepherd’s Fields, T.H.E.M. doing Waterbound, Hollas Longton’s insane contact-mic Machaut covers, Holden’s Renata, Clara Moto’s cover of Wicked Games, Jacques Greene’s Ciara remixes, CHRVCHES’s Gun, and Ikonika /Jessy Lanza’s Beach Mode.
Rustie, Jackmaster, Oneman @ Le Belmont
Hot damn. This was sonically colossal, had a perfectly diverse / messy crowd, and featured two smooth-as-silk DJ sets before Rustie’s smash and grab.
Ben UFO @ IglooFest
COLD. I have never been this cold in my life, and the set was totally worth it. Ben UFO will grow up to be the British equivalent to Laurent Garnier, mark my words.
Four Tet @ Middle East
I wasn’t sure what to expect out of Mr. Hebden – what I got was a glorious live reconstruction of his latest tunes, on two non-Mac laptops, no less.
Honorable mentions out to Justin Carter at Mr. Sunday, Soulelujah at Zuzu, the monster that is James Blake, and Move D at Glasslands. Also, special bonus mention to Cobblestone Jazz / Hrdvsion at Lucky, which I suspect will be one hell of a NYE show…
Strauss / Strauss / Ligeti – 2001
The NY Philharmonic did two sold out nights doing a play-along to the entirety of 2001. The weirdness of watching a movie with 2,700 other people aside, it was a fantastic performance: dense and hypnagogic for the Ligeti, brassy and climbing for the Strauss.
Chaya Czernowin – Upstream
Czernowin knows.
Honorable mentions to Nadia Pona’s grad recital, the Bozzini’s Composer’s Kitchen concert, Preston Bebe’s jam that involved throwing popcorn around, the Boston pops doing Fantasia (and the percussionist who blew an entrance!), and SCIPP’s Xenakis freakout.
Holden – The Inheritors
Astonishing.
Julianna Barwick – Nepenthe
Some wags at work called this ‘slowed-down Enya’ – which is basically true, but in all the best ways.
Julia Holter – Loud City Song
Holter, for me, sits at this nexus of classical / pop and electronic / acoustic, and does it so well. I wish I could make music like this
Honorable mentions to Ellen Allien’s ultra-future ballet score, LISM, everything that Laurel Halo did, Purity Ring’s amazing Shrines, Ikonika’s Aerotropolis, DJ Rashad’s gorgeous/sad/heavy Rollin’ EP, the new Burial, of course, the new Boards, of course, and Norah Lorway’s I’ve Had Dreams Like This.
DJ HENNESSY YOUNGMAN – NSA BANGERS
Clearly the mix of the year. Fuck the NSA, long live Hennessey
James Holden – RA 367
A companion piece to his masterful album. Holden continues to be a Holden – which, really, is more than enough.
Mr. Saturday Night – Live at Gowanus Grove
Mr. Carter and Mr. Harkin are just two very good DJs, just playing a closing party at a just-perfect venue.
Honorable mentions to: Julianna Barwick’s FACT mix, Solid Steel’s “Funky Eno”, Jackmaster’s Mastermix, Ewan Pearson at Panorama Bar, EVOL’s Acid Megamix, and so many more.
