A 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
▰ Mike Weis translates grief into the beautiful, moving 49 Days (Music for a Transition), two quarter-hour tracks of bell field recordings pushed nearly beyond recognition. This is a record I hope to get around to writing about more soon, but I wanted to get a mention in sooner still, because I’ve been returning to it daily.
▰ Lush and ambient all the way through, this 20-minute live solo performance by Laurel Halo was recorded at the Monastery of São Martinho de Tibães near Braga, Portugal.
▰ Fahmi Mursyid, based in Bandung, Indonesia, ekes ripe atmospheres from a tape loop. The actual original tape is priced at $99. Four tracks derived from it comprise the album Satu, the digital version of which is set at whatever price the buyer wishes to pay.
▰ There’s a lot of beauty in Clint Mansell’s score to Ben Wheatley’s new film version of Rebecca, much of it devoted to expertly old-school thriller grandeur. One standout track, “Côte d’Azur,” is to Aphex Twin’s solo piano “Avril 14” what Wheatley might have hoped his film would be to Hitchcock’s Rebecca: alternately hinting at and veering from the original, and offering its own pleasures entirely.
▰ Also, covered with a bit more depth: Fadi Tabbal’s fifth solo album, Subject to Potential Errors and Distortions, + the Yumi Iwaki / Ryan J Raffa split Living Distances.