music criticism
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Notes On Daniel Lanois’s “Heavy Sun”
I kinda froze when I heard the two and a half-minute track “Heavy Sun” from Canadian producer and ambient instrumentalist Daniel Lanois’s latest recording (with Rocco Deluca), “Goodbye To Language.” I had been scrolling through the new releases on Spotify for the week when I found the Lanois piece and I froze because I found the music Continue reading
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One Way To Listen To Music: Notes On Mark Fell’s “Multistability 6-B”
One way to listen to music–and by to I mean up and over and through and around music–is to imagine it as proposing a set of ideas for our consideration. From this perspective we can think about any music as sonically embodying, modeling, and organizing itself through these ideas. As we listen the ideas become Continue reading
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On A Repeating Less Is More: Beck’s “Wave”
“He’s found the right sound for his disposition and he resonates like crazy with that sound.” – Ben Ratliff (The New York Times) “In ‘Wave,’ the angst pours out like a mantra. – Jody Rosen (vulture.com) “‘Wave,’ for instance, is a floating impressionistic orchestral dirge, Beck letting the strings surrounding his voice lift it up Continue reading
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On The Wisdom Of Online Listeners: Thinking Through A Performance Of Steve Reich’s “Music For Pieces Of Wood”
Sometimes a piece of music and an exceptional performance of it seem to telegraph to us some of the information we would need to know about what it is, how it works, and its presence in the world. Such may be the case with a rendition of Steve Reich’s “Music For Pieces Of Wood” by Continue reading
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On The Music Of Laraaji
I sometimes forget that much of my everyday music listening comes to me by way of established channels–whether these be record labels, music streaming recommendations, or tips from music reviews. So I’m surprised when one of those channels leads me to something off the well-trodden path of what is critically admired at the moment. Last Continue reading
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On Andreas Tilliander’s TM404 Project
“I would have a sequence running for two hours, seriously, and I was afraid to ruin it all by touching a single knob.” – Andreas Tilliander One of the more compelling soundworlds I’ve been listening to recently is a project by Andreas Tilliander called TM404. The music is made entirely with old Roland drum machines Continue reading
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Notes On What Makes A Piece Of Music Work: Boards Of Canada’s “Tomorrow’s Harvest”
“So it was becoming clear to me that texture deserved as great a place as process in the theory of how music involves people and draws you into deep identification, total participation, past the logical contradictions of separation from the Other.” — Charles Keil, Music Grooves, p. 169 *** As I listened to Boards Of Continue reading
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On Grid Music Antidotes: Harold Budd’s “Quadari”
Like a lot of people, I listen to a lot of “grid” music. Grid music is any music with a clear, consistent, and steady meter. By this definition, most music is grid music. Electronic music–especially the kind with steady beats, which is sometimes referred to as electronic dance music–is uber grid music. All of its Continue reading
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On African And Electronic Music Influences In Dawn Of Midi’s “Dysnomia”
“Dysnomia is an album about time; it is an expression of the fractal unfolding of the present, demonstrated through rhythm.” – Aakaash Israni, bassist There’s a part near the end of John Collins’ excellent documentary on West African rhythm, Listening To The Silence: African Cross-Rhythms, where Collins makes a striking observation. African music, he says, is Continue reading
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On The Sound Of Epic Achievement And Luxury: A Rolex Soundtrack
While overdosing on Wimbledon 2012 TV coverage over the past few weeks, I noticed a recurring ad for Rolex watches that features Roger Federer. In the 30-second spot the narrator begins by asking “When is greatness achieved?” as we see a montage of Federer’s milestone wins throughout his career interspersed with still shots of him Continue reading
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