Hot Tracks in Black Sands
Decided to catch up with all the hottest electronic releases of the past decade, since I spent most of the time listening to Synthwave or Vaporwave. Did u know there is this artist called Grimes…?
Yeah, Visions by Grimes is pretty cool, never listened to it. Maybe I heard snippets here and there. The video for Oblivion is also pretty cool.
FKA Twigs. Hmm-Hmm. No likey. Too self-infatuated. Too much narcissism. Idk, maybe I just don’t like R’n’B’. I don’t think that’s it though. To some extent those ephemeral and hazy female vocals in indie pop have become a cliché, I can’t listen to them anymore. Grimes does the same thing, but she… does it smarter? With a sense of humor? That, maybe.
Shinichi Atobe, Heat. Yeah, this is fun. I also like the cover art, featuring a car on a beach with some kind of cloth draped over the windows. The tracks show a sense of humor, apart from being clever.
Sandwell District, Feed Forward. I don’t remember much, except liking this.
Fatima al Qadiri, Asiatisch. Only listened to the opener, but it’s fun. Nothing compares to you in mandarin? Something like it.
Bonobo, Black Sands. This is a bit too easy for me, idk I don’t find it challenging or rewarding. A bit on the muzak side of things.
Arca, Xen. Only listened to it like five seconds, but it sounds fun and her whole act is interesting. Be sure to check out more.
Andy Stott, Luxury Problems. Yeah, cool. One of the tracks came up in the shuffle mix, and I thought ‘Yeah woah cool’.
Disclosure, Settle. Good? I forgot. But it didn’t leave a bad taste. Will come back to it.
Clarence Clarity, THINK: PEACE. I don’t think I like hyperpop. This is too artsy fartsy, it sounds like music made by art school students. We can’t simply make pop, we also have to leave meta commentary. Eh.
Jamie xx, In Colour. Already forgot what this was about, but I believe it was good.
Mark System. Final Approach. Same thing, not bad, but forgot.
Jon Hopkins, Immunity. Good beats. Good.
Legowelt, The Paranormal Soul. I followed this guy on social media a while back, I didn’t even know he makes music. I just downloaded a bunch of samples from his page. Cool guy.
Mount Kimble, Crooks & Lovers. This was advertised to me as ‘you heard it everywhere, usally with drink in hand’. Aha. Well that cover is something. Is it one of the producers? A random person? Who knows. Music is ok, not my thing exactly but I’ll listen to it.
Nicolas Jaar, Space is Only Noise. Fun screetchy-scratchy with experimental song-writing. Not bad. Probably pretty good. Need to give it a more thorough listen.
Nidia, Nidia e ma, Nidia e fudida. Very interesting. Aggressive? Need to give it another spin. But always interested in things from Portugal. Because I know next to nothing about that music scene there.
Omar-S, Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself. Holy shit this is right up my alley. Love the beats, love the approach, love the cover art. This is why I go foraging through music history of the past.
Rustie, Glass Swords. Good, need some more tracks to come to a judgment. Still on my solid state disk.
Soichi Terada, Sounds from The Far East. Old beats, sounded cool, only heard a track for a couple seconds. Will come back to it.
This concludes Part I, because there’s more shit and I will keep listening so come back in two weeks or next month. Or never? Who knows. As Rumi said:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
