I don’t want to belittle Alva Noto’s amazing art to “work music” but his albums are definitely my best aid in focusing recently. Other than that, this one is yet another fantastic ambient record. Part meditative drone, part nuanced and finessed rhythmic noise.
This is such an amazing, carefree, summer breeze of an album. House for the most part, with hints of other electronic stuff.
It’s interesting that if I think of Gou I have this up-and-coming talent in mind who’s at the peak of her rising but still connects more with the underground scene than the mainstream. But in reality she’s the only current female DJ on the DJ Mag Top 100, appeared on cover of a whole bunch of fashion magazines, plays sold-out stadiums, runs her own festival, etc. She’s nowhere near being an underground name but a massive global sensation, I’ve just missed to follow the news. Although whenever she played in town in the past two years it was always sold out and I couldn’t get to see her live, so that should have been a hint.
Anyways, and still, this album doesn’t show any signs of self-imposed pressure. It’s very impressive how she seems to dictate and follow her on rhythm instead of trying to fit herself into boxes where I’m sure people would like to see her. She’s truly a star.
I have another case of Moon on my hands when I listen to the soundtrack album a million times before seeing the movie. This is the best original score by Reznor and Ross since The Social Network, by far. The mixed version is also a blast.
Triphop but with a surprising amount of glitch and IDM compared to a regular DJ Krush record. I recently saw him play live, which was a huge demo of his technical skills, and that shows on this album, too. It’s a diverse ride from smooth hiphop flows to strong industrial bangers.
Post rock but black metal. (I can see the confusion of how to label this when there’s every possible version of putting these words together present in this albums tag list on Bandcamp.)