Month: January 2016

Mark Van Hoen – Nightvision

/ David James / Leave a comment

21000 Digipak 6P 1CD-outlines

Every once in a while, a great album by a favorite artist slips right by me. Nightvision is a perfect example. Mark Van Hoen released the album in November of 2015, and I stumbled upon it only this week. Van Hoen’s work has appeared on my best of lists and his former band, Seefeel, created some of my favorite music of all time. This was a huge oversight, as it turns out.

After just a few listens, I really wish I’d heard the album a few months ago. I have no doubt that it would have appeared somewhere on my best of 2015 list. Nightvision is frankly incredible.

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Best of Dream Catalogue, 2814-2815

/ David James / 2 Comments

dreamcd_1_

Dream Catalogue has quickly become one of my favorite music labels. Their aesthetic is a utopian ideal for tomorrow’s world. The music they release is futuristic, wrapped in a warm emotional embrace, full of nostalgia and hope. Everything I’ve heard is, naturally, painted with a deeply dreamlike palette. Edges are blurred, time vanishes, and the listener becomes unmoored from tactile reality.

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David Bowie – Modern Love

/ David James / 2 Comments

bowiecig

For a week now, I’ve woken with this song stuck in my head.

Modern Love takes off like a bottle rocket, perfect as the lead tune on David Bowie‘s 1983 pop opus, Let’s Dance. It’s about as get-up-and-go as any song has ever been. I feel an electricity pulsing through me the second those first guitar stabs hit, and it doesn’t let up even when the melody fades a few minutes later.

If you’re not already in the mood for this kind of energy, I present a pair of films that absolutely nailed it. I can’t help but get caught up when seeing either of these scenes; the positivity is infectious:

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Colin Stetson is reimagining Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony

/ David James / 2 Comments

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I just read on twitter that Colin Stetson, one of the greatest saxophonists alive, is working on a new version of one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century.

Here’s the trailer, featuring a minute of the newly recorded composition:

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Gabriel Saloman – Movement Building Vol. 2

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gabrielsaloman-movementbuilding2

Here’s an album that received so little mention upon its release, I’m surprised to learn that anyone else got to hear it. Gabriel Saloman’s Movement Building Vol. 2 is a self-contained explosion. It made my best of 2015 list, but I didn’t see it on literally any other. Here’s my bid for wider recognition.

This is the full album:

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Rachel’s – The Mysterious Disappearance of Louis LePrince

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rachels545

Yesterday I decided to have a fresh listen of one of my old favorite bands, Rachel’s. This chamber-post-rock outfit may have disappeared soon after I was introduced, but they left an impact for years.

It was nearly 15 years ago when, funny enough, a girl named Rachel gave me a burned CD of Selenography, the band’s 1999 masterpiece. It’d been at least a decade, but when I cued the music up on spotify yesterday, this is the tune that struck me hardest, shooting right through the years to that old memory. It’s an incredibly catchy harpsichord jam called The Mysterious Disappearance of Louis LePrince.

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Best of 2015: 25 More Great Albums

/ David James / 11 Comments

Bestof2015edit

I hear a lot of great music almost every day, and it really adds up. I might not be rich or famous, but my life is wealthy with incredible music. I want to make everyone else as wealthy, too. Every single year, there are so many great albums that I’d recommend anyone, far more than I’d feel comfortable putting on a top ten list.

So here we are, my “honorable mention” list of 2015 albums. Every one of these albums are worth your time. Unlike my top list, they appear in the order that I heard them.

After you’ve checked this out, make sure to see the 17 Best Albums of 2015 here.

Read on to hear the best of the rest of 2015:

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