On Sundays I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I would later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all.
▰ This video (and the album it promotes), by flugelhorn player Andris Mattson, exemplifies the reason I do these On Repeat segments. It’s music I listen to a lot, and keep thinking, “Oh, I’ll hold off on mentioning this, because I want to say more,” and then time passes. The album, simply titled Flugel, came out at the start of December, and the video shows how Mattson transforms the sound of his horn live. Beautiful, richly harmonic work.
[bandcamp width=640 height=373 album=105782657 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 artwork=small]
▰ This is a little hyper-specific, but I have found myself going back to this single-video collection for one specific note. Ólafur Arnalds, on piano, had some musicians over for the shortest day of the year to play together, and this was the result. At 5:58 — in a video that lasts just over 14 minutes — he lets a motif resolve, and then it just lingers in the air for about nine seconds. Even before it fades, other sounds occur, as the the video shifts from one vignette to another.
▰ Very pleasing dub techno from Pittsburgh-based bytecas, aka Rui Peixoto, all the better because it’s 10 minutes long, so it really becomes encompassing.
▰ Stellar little ambient modular synth sketch by he_nu_ri, who’s based in California.