An instrumental hip-hop set from Philadelphia's Nex Millen
/ By Marc Weidenbaum
February, July, September, and December were my favorite months this year. Not this year meaning this year, but this year as memorialized in a dozen tracks, one for each month, on Philadelphia producer Nex Millen’s *2020 HindSight Millennium Beat EP*. From tightly clasped hi-hats to loungey keys, jittery atmospheres to nearly subaural bass line melodies, refracted guitar samples to vocal playfulness, stereo hijinks to ratatatat percussion, those four tracks are among the album’s moodiest. Each, presumably, map’s Millen’s state of mind over the course of 2020’s countless horrors. Now his instrumental hip-hop is something to relax to, to recuperate to. There’s much more to *2020 HindSight* than just those four tracks, but they’re the ones helping me make it through the last few weeks of the year.
Album originally posted at [nexmillen.bandcamp.com](https://nexmillen.bandcamp.com/album/2020-hindsight-millennium-beat-ep). More from Nex Millen at [twitter.com/nexmillen](https://twitter.com/nexmillen).
On the new album from Orbitalpatterns, aka Abdul Allums
/ By Marc Weidenbaum
“A Vessel in the Fog” was the title of a live video that Orbitalpatterns, the Michigan-based synthesizer musician, posted back in July on his YouTube channel. Shortly after its initial release, I praised how its textures [“twist and turn like clouds of smoke, turning in the air before vaporizing and being replaced by something else, something similar and yet apart.”](https://disquiet.com/2020/07/15/orbital-patterns-goes-deep/) That track now is one of seven that comprise *Bitter Magicians*, a fine album of exploratory compositions. Many of the pieces evolve considerably as they advance. Take how “The Magicians Notebook” moves from wispy and hesitant to something denser, more full-throated, or how the singsong sway of “Demi-Gods Ramble” gets more orchestral as it presses on. Which isn’t to say, as an atmosphere-minded musician, Orbitalpatterns (aka Abdul Allums) shys away from the sublime. If anything, the final track, a warpy treat titled “That Last Mile Will Go On Forever,” is engulfed by its own echoes by the time it slurs to a close. *Bitter Magicians* is a tremendous collection throughout.
Album originally posted at [orbitalpatterns.bandcamp.com](https://orbitalpatterns.bandcamp.com/album/bitter-magicians). More at [instagram.com/orbitalpatterns](https://www.instagram.com/orbitalpatterns/).
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. I hope to write more about some of these in the future, but didn’t want to delay sharing them. (This weekly feature was previously titled Current Listens. The name’s been updated for clarity’s sake.)
▰ **TA2MI’s [*Kanchi | Complete Cure*](https://ta2mi.bandcamp.com/album/kanchi-complete-cure) explores downtempo, instrumental hip-hop** with a freshness that will not just appeal to but even push the comfort level of DJ Krush fans, the samples all the noisier, the beats all the more broken. TA2MI is Tatsumi Akinobu, based in Yatsushiro, Japan.
▰ **Simon Farintosh adapts various works for classical guitar, including music by Aphex Twin.** Here’s a gorgeous, romantic take on [“Flim,”](https://youtu.be/_Ub04hInps8) off the latter’s *Come to Daddy*. Farintosh, who was born the year after the release of *Selected Ambient Works Volume II*, lives in British Columbia.
▰ **Hilary Robinson continued her winter-solstice advent calendar of sound sketches today** with [a track of melodica and train noise](https://soundcloud.com/hilaryrobinson/sounds-for-shrinking-days-20). There may be one more track in the series coming, since tomorrow is the 21st, though [Stonehenge celebrated the solstice Sunday evening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bEEaA9Rzvs). She is based in London, England.
I do this manually each week, collating the tweets I made at [twitter.com/disquiet](https://twitter.com/disquiet/) of which I want to keep track. For the most part, this means ones I initiated, not ones in which I directly responded to someone.
▰ I was listening to a movie score (all instrumental) and noticed it was labeled E (meaning Explicit in music, unlike in video games, where it means Everyone, which yes is very confusing). Why E? Because one of album’s 14 tracks had a four-letter obscenity (the F one) in the title. There are edited versions of songs and albums available in a variety of genres, where the sung/spoken obscenities are bleeped or replaced. But far as I can tell, this instrumental album exists only as E(xplicit), and all due to this one word in a track title.
▰ “It is possible that some 8,000 years ago, in this acoustically resonant haven, people not only hid from passing coastal thunderstorms, they may have used this place to commune with their dead — using music.” The exploration of sound in archeology: [sapiens.org](https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/archaeology-sound-tools/). Also: “New technological developments can also bolster a music archaeologist’s case as to whether an object produced sound: Repeated use leaves tell-tale signs on the objects, microscopic friction marks that hum their history.” (via Lucas Gonze)
▰ The computer’s dictionary recognizes the brand names of most of the products in the pantry, but not the word “soundscape.” This truly is David Foster Wallace’s world, and we’re just living in it.
▰ “A Fifth of Beethoven” on the composer’s 250th birthday. This 1976 hit was, for many of us, an entry point into classical music, up there with John Williams’ score to the first Star Wars movie the following spring.
▰ I have no idea what NaN degrees is, but apparently my phone has finally acknowledged that it doesn’t understand San Francisco weather.
Actually, I do know. It’s NaN as in “not a number,” and not as in cloudy with a chance of flatbread (which would also require and extra a).
▰ The New York Times’ Electoral College map apparently reimagined democracy in light of Conway’s Game of Life. Despite concerns, faithless cellular automata failed to materialize, and the system has been confirmed Turing complete (and, as a side note, outdated).
▰ I’m used to hitting forward 8 or 9 times each episode of *Star Trek: Discovery*, to bypass the opening credits, but I hung around this week for the mirror-universe sequence. Reminded me, of course, of those *Fringe* alternate-universe episodes and how they had alternate opening credits (blood red for several seasons, then concrete grey later). *Fringe* also used different music (notably for a flashback ’80s episode, which had its own credits).
Another great A/B listen, comparing and contrasting an original and its remix. First came “Tapeloop,” a brief, lofi, understated groove from Hector Plimmer. It’s high impact low impact, modest moves in service of a greater mood. There’s a brief keyboard riff, echoing lightly above a smothered, raspy handclap of a beat. Occasionally it pitches up or down. And then it slinks into the shadows. It’s called “Tapeloop,” and it’s barely a minute and a half long, so you hit repeat.
To the remixer’s credit, when Kidkanevil goes to work, he manages to augment and add, dissect and course correct, without ever losing what made the original so compelling. He glitches it out in a manner that reflects the original’s surface tension. He adds vocals that sound like someone doing hyperspeed play-by-play on the production. He injects and carves, but never loses the balance that made Plimmer’s source audio function. Kidkanevil plays Jenga with the building blocks, yet the material never even teeters. Not every remix needs to pay tribute to the original, but when it’s done right, it helps you understand the original.
“Tapeloop” originally appeared as the fifth track on Plimmer’s late 2019 album, [*Next to Nothing*](https://hector-plimmer.bandcamp.com/album/next-to-nothing). The Kidkanevil remix is part of an ongoing series that has included Alex Harley, Matthew Herbert, Elkka, and Bex Burch.
Album originally posted at [hector-plimmer.bandcamp.com](https://hector-plimmer.bandcamp.com/album/tapeloop-kidkanevil-remix). More from Plimmer, who is based in London, at [soundcloud.com/hectorplimmer](https://soundcloud.com/hectorplimmer), [twitter.com/HectorPlimmer](https://twitter.com/HectorPlimmer). More from Kidkanevil, aka Gerard Roberts, at [kidkanevilofficial.com](http://kidkanevilofficial.com/).
