Minimalist patterning. Atmospheric score. Philadelphia beat tape. Fripp’s quietude. This is my weekly(ish) answer to the question “What have you been listening to lately?” It’s lightly annotated because I don’t like re-posting material without providing some context. In the interest of conversation, let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below. Just please don’t promote your own work (or that of your label/client). This isn’t the right venue. (Just use email.)
▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ ▰ NEW: Recent(ish) arrivals and pre-releases
▰ Gorgeous little pre-release taste of Memory Loops, an album due out July 31 from Arms and Sleepers (aka Mark McGlinchey and Mirza Ramic). The soft repetitive patterns and descending melodic riff sound like the start of something, which makes sense since the track is the first of the album’s projected 14.
▰ Cello, violin, voice — spare elements are the building blocks for the roomy music Martha Skye Murphy composed for a film titled The Late Departure, by Ivan Krzeszowiec. Listen for the entrancing electronic touches, like the glitchy delay midway through “Connecting Flight.” (Felix Stephens on cello, Murphy on the remainder.)
▰ David Evan McDowell, aka Philadelphia-based musician æon, started 2020 with Rebirth, a dozen downtempo hip-hop (mostly) instrumentals full of jazz samples, surface noise, rhythmic play, and a remarkable sense of space.
▰ Robert Fripp continues to make good on his promise of 50 straight weeks of “Music for Quiet Moments” instrumentals. The latest, “Skyscape (Chicago 12 Oct 2005),” number 11 in the series, is more synth-driven than some of the others, though his guitar certainly makes itself heard.