Another pretty busy year for me, writing-about-music-wise. Below is a list of everything, if you're interested. Below that is a list of some releases I particularly enjoyed this year in alphabetical order. If something's not in there, it could well be because I haven't got round to listening yet (sorry). I didn't join in with any of the year-end stuff in print or online magazines this year, not because I disapprove - vaguely because I'm finding it difficult to claim I've listened to enough to make the call, and find it really difficult to compare online underground music with more traditionally distributed underground stuff within single assessments - not to mention the fact that great stuff is increasingly coming in chunks smaller and/or less official than the album. But mostly it was because I was really busy at the time all that stuff was due.
Stuff I wrote
- Pattern Recognition: Cold Forecast - a broad look at the aesthetics of coldness in recent underground music, and how it's an exploration of modernity. Ft. Egytprixx, Logos, Diamond Black Hearted Boy, Mykki Blanco and more
- Pattern Recognition: Pon! Cuter Love - on the rise of cuteness and kawaii. Ft. JACK댄스, Sophie, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Meishi Smile.
- Pattern Recognition: Gangnam and Beyond - selections from recent K-Pop and how it might reflect underground aesthetics.
- System Focus: The Divine Surrealism of Epic Collage - on the striking and sublime music of E+E, Diamond Black Hearted Boy, Total Freedom, TCF and more.
- System Focus: Inside the New Digital DIY Labels - a look at a handful of digital DIY labels, with interviews, ft. Illuminated Paths, Ailanthus, 1080p, Zoom Lens, Dopefish Family and Aural Sects
- System Focus: The Evolution of the Voice in the Digital Landscape - a look at the spectrum of technological uses of the voice, ft. Nima, Metallic Ghosts, Blank Banshee, vocaloids and more.
- System Focus: Today's Hi-Tech World Has given Birth to a New, Gleaming Grey Sonic Vocabulary - hi-tech dark luxury beats from bine☃, DYNOOO, Dutch E Germ, M-O-R-S-E, Sentinel, Subaeris, Weed Konducta and James Ferraro.
- Cute Computer Chaos (for Boiler Room) - the new wave of digital desire, ft. Hudson Mohawke, Oneohtrix Point Never, AG Cook, SOPHIE and more.
- System Focus: Bridging the Singular Sounds of Lisbon's Underground - I take a trip to Lisbon to investigate Portugal's underground scene and consider what it means to be local in the digital age. Ft., the AVNL and Golden Mist labels, and artists including RAP/RAP/RAP, Old Manual, Marie Dior, Conan Osiris and Lake Haze.
- The Online Underground: A New Kind of Punk? (Resident Advisor Article) - big bad polemical account of the online underground and the aesthetics it takes from its context, with running comparisons to previous generations of punk and indie. Key examples in vaporwave and PC Music.
- Indie Goes Hi-Tech: The End of Analogue Warmth and Cosy Nostalgia (Berlin Music Week Talk) - a talk tying together all the various different hi-tech sub-trends I've been writing about lately.
- System Focus: High-Speed Sounds to Blister Even Internet-Accelerated Brains - more cuteness, this time at high speed and high complexity. Ft. Guy Akimoto, DV-i, Miami Mais, Maxo, Yeongrak, Friendly Sneakrz, Onika, Ba-Kuura, Xyloid, So So In Luv, Lockbox and more.
- Future Instruments 2214 (for Red Bull Music Academy) - I was one of a number of artists and writers invited to imagine a musical instrument of 2214. Mine was 'Gan,' 'a cross between a synthesiser, a record collection and a game of golf.'
- System Focus: Fandom Music is as Underground as it Gets - an exploration of the music made as a manifestation of fandom, and its sincerity in particular. Ft. Pokémon, Adventure Time, Minecraft (those note blocks), Homestuck and My Little Pony.
- Review of Arca's Xen (for Electronic Beats) - feverish and gooey writing on one of the year's best albums.
- Electronica column, reviews and other small-to-medium pieces for Wire throughout the year.
Stuff I Liked
Click on the links to listen...
Posts
Hi Adam,
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to thank you for all the awesome articles you wrote in 2014. They are really a breath of fresh air and a source of inspiration for me, and I can only encourage you to continue along this path for the year ahead, with the same benevolent curiosity and quality of curating.
As an small expression of my gratitude, I invite you to listen to a mix a made last month. It includes some tracks – among others – composed by artists I discovered by reading your columns, like kane west, Old Manual, 18+, A. G. Cook, Mikeneko Homeless, Giant Claw, Friendly Sneakrz, as well as other ones you often mentioned, like James Ferraro, Sophie, Geotic, Fatima Al Qadiri, Oneohtrix Point Never and Arca. Here’s the link http://www.mixcloud.com/timotheegoguely/bleep-x-xlr8r-100-tracks-mix-competition-ego-time-hotel-guy/
I hope you’ll enjoy it :)
Thanks again for all your work,
music criticism definitely need more people like you.
Sincerely,
Ego Time Hotel Guy
from Paris, France.
Hi - wow, thanks! So kind. Glad you've been feeling the writing, and the encouragement is really getting me fired up for 2015.
ReplyDeleteAnd what a cool mix - so many of my favourites in there, put together so well. I'm particularly pleased to see Old Manual and Friendly Sneakrz in there, as they're lesser known I guess (so good though), and with some of my favourite tracks of theirs. Thanks for posting the link! Very best,
Adam
Kyoka! Why this record never got the attention it deserves?
ReplyDeleteExcellent writing as always!
JL
You´re great Adam, thanks for the music and the love in your writing!
ReplyDelete