Tipper, “Dreamsters” (2014). David Tipper is the best kind of artist—someone not easily pigeonholed, and someone whose work creates a unique aesthetic world. Such artists are rare in our time–Right?–when so many producer-composers sound similar to one another. But Tipper ins’t worried about fitting in. He’s an outsider about whom little is known. I like… Continue reading

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Hand Covers Bruise” (2010). This four-and-a-half minute track is a gem of minimalist melody, orchestration, and form. The music is the opening theme of the 2010 film The Social Network, which chronicles the earliest days of Facebook and historicizes how Mark Zuckerberg invented a website that would go on to… Continue reading

Clark, “Pleen 1930s.” Clark (Chris Clark) is a prolific and inventive producer-composer who makes shape-shifting music in which no two moments—not to mention no two pieces—ever sound similar. He’s sort of a chameleon whose signature sound is that his tracks never sound like anyone else and they do unconventional things that are beautifully surprising. “Pleen… Continue reading

Steve Reich, “Double Sextet: II. Slow”The composer Steve Reich is a formalist whose austere works show an artist confident that feeling in music comes from structure in music. From his earliest piece scored for tape loops, “Come Out”, to his percussion opus “Drumming”, to his many chamber pieces for mixed ensembles, Reich designs music that… Continue reading