Memory keeper. Mostly music and movies, plus some series and video games. Obscure darkness meets pop culture glow.
It was just recently that I revisited some memories of nu jazz and Thievery Corporation is definitely of the same era. This album is essentially a best of record for them with orchestral rearrangements. Honestly, this is not a big deal, the reworks are not earth shattering, but the tracks are classics anyway and it’s a nice throwback.
Another one of those soundtracks that get me to watch a movie. Otherwise I’d probably pass on another film starring Barry Keoghan. But the music is another hit home by Benjamin John Power, he has never let me down so far. Tense, dark, full of stress, from ambient to pumping industrial electronics. I can hear those pictures of unease and emptiness, then running and fighting, I want to see that editing that’s based on these rhythms and sounds. I’d love to play it too, if this was a game soundtrack.
Ambient house, straight-up ambient, and dub-fused chill-out music, exactly something like made by The Orb. All sounds are coming from a happy place, it’s light-hearted, easy to listen, and high on delight, it just makes me happy. It’s hard to pick favorite tracks but right now I love the long soothing soundscape of Shape Shifters best with its city ambience and trumpet notes. Although I changed favorites quite a bit since this is my go-to record to listen to whenever I don’t have time or need to think twice for the past two monhts right from its very release. I’m quite amazed how Paterson can deliver such a great album after 30 years steady in the business.
It’s a bitch that sometimes I can least elaborate about my favorite music. There are certain stuff that you just have to listen to and feels mundane to write words. This is one of those.
This movie has been on my radar and watch list for such a long time and randomly came across its soundtrack now, which just emphasized that I have to see this. Mysterious and eerie ambient, and also retro futuristic synthwave done right. Just listening to it visualizes the neon lights blinking through the mist in the thick forest at night. I love this atmosphere and aesthetic so very much.
The last time I listened to a soundtrack so many times before watching a movie was The Moon where I had already known all the cues by the time of actually connecting the sounds to visual images. But that was fun! Btw the other movie of Panos Cosmatos (Mandy) I have seen and it was hilarious and fascinating at the same time. So looking forward to Beyond The Black Rainbow, too.
Two very distinct tracks on this record. The liner notes are pretty accurate for Turbo Olé: “fucking rocket fuel” with “giddy jibber-jaw trance lead”, “electro breaks” and “a ‘90s cyber-trance riff”. Correct, it’s a rave scene in a sci-fi movie. The B side starts off as an IDM rhythmic noise piece but also ends up in with some broken beat trance vibe. Wow. My current favorite music for reading the setting book for the new Cyberpunk Red RPG.
After their epic debut filled with wonderful voodoo blues the new album experiments on a way wider spectrum. I still like the first record better but this one has a few good songs, too, although not necessarily in the same genre. The occult American folk is now swapped with more of an outlaw country style, the only one that’s dark enough for my taste is Man of the Cross. And then there are the odd ones out, which are great just for another album, like Run with the Devil (a full-on party rock and roll track) or How Come? (can neve resist a Corey Taylor cameo).
It’s simply a folk album. And it blows my heart up.
I like many things that’s related to folklore as narrative, spiritualism, and different forms of art. I love tales, mythology, traditions, rituals, masks, songs of heroic deeds, folk artwork, traditional instruments, the spiritual connection to nature, Earth, blood, flesh.
I think people would assume me to be a full-on technocrat because I take stand on transhumanism, utmost use of technological advancements, and generally admire achievements of intelligence. And that’s true. But where I position myself is the intersection of these two worlds, sometimes referred to as technopaganism or technoshamanism.
As such I despise all forms of using technology against nature, including erasing wildlife to be superseded by the footprint of human civilization, industrialized farming to serve consumerist gluttony, and warfare where intelligence is exploited to fight against itself. However I have no problem for example with hunting or farming for food and personal consumption as a part of life, as an element of the cycle of nature.
These are thoughts I get when listening to Myrkur. It is an enchanting soundscape to close my eyes to and think that I am an eagle soaring in the bright blue sky, feeling the wind brushing my wings, looking down at a vast forest, seeing the dashing of deers, the wolf pack chasing after them, and finding the thin stream of smoke rising from a couple of chimneys of a small human settlement in the distance.
This kind of music keeps returning to my life occasionally and every time we meet I fall in love. The last and most memorable occurrence was when I got to know Heilung – the live recording of Krigsgaldr still gives me goosebumps any time I watch it.
African world music meets afro-futurism. The essence of this tradicional instruments meet booty shake electronics shows well in the track Sohaa Gb3k3 – that’s a favorite, hilarious but in a good way.
It’s electronic music with tribal and psychedelic sounds. I could call it quirky downtempo, so I guess that’s what we have leftfield for. Interestingly it reminds me of the time when I discovered the Afro-Caribbean scene even if the stylistic expression is different.
Easy listening nu jazz. I rarely listen to this genre nowadays but it’s nice to come back to something that brings back memories of the Couch Records of dZihan & Kamien, the !K7 of Tosca, the Sonar Kollektiv of Jazzanova. Smells like sitting on a terrace on a summer night with warm breeze moving around the little paper umbrella pinned to a slice of lemon sitting on the top of a gin tonic and having no problems at all in the world.
I remember travelling to Vienna, Austria with a group of music journalist to report from a concert and during the night ride home talking about what’s hot in music, and there was this guy saying that nu jazz is the best music genre in the world and will stay forever. It was 2006. I wonder if he was right: looking at Skalpel underlines that it’s indeed here even if not topping the charts although it never have done so. Being the cornerstone music of the ruin pub revolution in Budapest was never a Billboard chart defining attribute for a genre I guess.
I remember a guy from Byron Bay, Australia who I quite randomly met at a coffee place in a small town in Hungary and who told me he had a vinyl and surf shop by the oceanside. His main reason to travel to Central Europe every year was to seek out new nu jazz records. That and pretty Hungarian girls. Anyhow, his favorite label was Couch Records, we got along quickly. He ended up leeching most of my music collection and went on to Vienna with a long list of new record ideas to collect for his shop.
Many people were crazy about nu jazz 15-20 years ago, it was an underground music movement that I never understood why stayed underground. Probably the easy listening tunes are too perfectly fit for mindless chilling on a beach and in popular use it just stuck to that lounge setting and noone really paid attention.