“This seems really poppy/upbeat for you. Of course I’m always imagining you listening to weird post breakbeat Croatian footwork jazz with Russian metal and Japanese house influences”
The above works were spoken to me by a friend as I shared this fantastic video for an old CFCF track.
While the artist has evolved into something far more weirdly specific and perfect for my tastes (see his last album and Night Bus mixes, which have obviously influenced my own mixtapes), this is the song that started it all. I was immediately hooked and never looked back.
I don’t really have anything else to say. Ed said it best. Enjoy!
Basically, I feel like turning everything into craziness. It’s off, it won’t ever match, it’s.. what?
This is perfect.
I meant the music; this is one of the most perfect moments so far during my journey through all 110 freely shared Aphex Twin (as user48736353001 on Soundcloud) songs. The couplet of 4 Red Calx[slo] and luke vibert spiral staircase [future music competition] [afx remix] stands apart in a menagerie of music that already consists of some of the best stuff I’ve heard all year. Completely given away for free.
Red Calx is an aural lullaby in hushed, ambient tones. Ultra-minimal construction, with merely a small, undulating melody slowly evaporates into fog, it’s gorgeous in a highly specific way. Brian Eno would have sold his soul for this little riff. There’s nothing much to it, but what is there is undeniable.
The second track races through a laser forest over a wobbly synth rhythm and noodly ray gun melodies, a perfect counterpoint to the meditative calm before it.
Those words at the beginning? The remnants of trying to blog drunk from my phone, apparently. I found an unpublished post that I don’t remember starting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you’re an Aphex fan and haven’t already done so, get to the user48736353001 page and click Download on everything. Absolutely everything. This is great music by one of the most important artists alive today, and it’s free. You can also simply listen to it streaming, but there’s no guarantee this music will remain in perpetuity.
Turn the volume up really fucking loud and let yourself get loose.
This song would be a guilty pleasure if it didn’t bang so fucking hard and noisy.
So this is !!! turning Nate Dogg’s party anthem Get Up into a frenzied maelstrom nearly matches prime-era Can in pure, swaggering trance rocking. This kind of thing toss-off brilliance doesn’t happen often. In fact, I can’t recall any other tranced-out funk rock covers of hip-hop that outlasted novelty status. Or really any others at all.
If you’re into fun at all, you’ll probably like this. Listen now, and prepare for it to hear it on repeat in your mind until tomorrow.
Seeing ‘with Donato Dozzy’ attached to the first track on this debut album from Marco Shuttle, I absolutely had to listen. As a total unknown to me, the bespoke surrealism of the cover art caught my eye, but Dozzy grabbed my attention. As half of Voices From The Lake and an incredible techno artist in his own right, this guy will always deserve my time.
Featuring on this album is an endorsement that’s paid off handsomely. This is one of the best albums of 2015 so far. The best news is that the entire thing is streaming free:
My morning news just brought word that Edgar Froese, founder of one of my favorite bands of all time, Tangerine Dream, has died at age 70. The cause of death was pulmonary embolism.
Tangerine Dream, for those only familiar with the name via a smattering of mostly-great 1980s film soundtracks, were one of the most innovative and popular bands to emerge from the 70s German krautrock / kosmiche scene. Constantly evolving, they helped birth the modern ambient sound and informed generations of electronic music in every form. Froese was the only consistent member through dozens of lineup changes that included the luminous contributions of Klaus Schulze and Conrad Schnitzler.
Moving from spooky moonscape-scouring meditations through epic space rock and pulsing dance music, Froese never let the band stay perched on one sound for long. With over 40 years worth of music to choose from, fans of the band can never reach consensus on what is the best. Personally, my heart will always return to Rubycon. The eerie psychedelia on these two tracks laid the blueprint for ambient rock, but was so much more than a chill-out session. Analog synth arpeggios lay a spaced out bed for for a quietly propulsive rhythm. With a wash of disembodied choral voices influenced by György Ligeti, plus tactile sounds from gongs, strings, and woodwinds, the eponymous pieces build tension and ease it away like a tidal wave in slow motion.
A couple days ago, NASA released a new photo of the Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbor.
Hubble produced one of the largest images ever created. With 1,500,000,000 pixels, you’d apparently need “more than 600 HD television screens” to view the entire thing at once. Instead, check this sublime video to get a swooping, zooming view of the galaxy.
What you’re seeing is a selection of over 100 million stars embedded in a section of the disc galaxy, spanning 40,000 light-years. That’s astounding.
If you want to see the full image for yourself, check out Hubble’s Zoom Tool. You’ll be able to pan and zoom as deep as you’d like, to view individual stars from the far end of the galaxy. It’ll take a minute to load at the deepest levels, but it’s worth it.
Here’s a smaller “thumbnail” of the real deal, just to give you an idea of the scope at play here.
And finally, if you’re enjoying the song in that video, I’ve got it streaming below. Artist name Koda; he’s new to me.
Watching the video, I was thinking at first that I was hearing Ryan Teague. By the end I was convinced it was Sigur Rós. I’d say Koda falls somewhere between, and far more subtly. It’s not normally my sort of thing, but I might check out his other work.
So, I’m well aware you can view the image on all sorts of high profile sites, but I wanted to share it here because I’ve got a deeply rooted fascination with and love for anything space related. Thanks for reading!
Please, for the love of all that is holy, check out that Zoom Tool!
Optimistic Underground 