My original goal for this week was to make a mixtape of gentler, more conventionally accessible tracks for anyone for whom these mixtapes are usually too heavy on the harsh experimental techno. But… then I started listening to experimental techno and I just got so excited!! and some of that leaked in. If you want the "gentle" version of this mixtape, boot tracks 1 and 3 to next week and replace them with tracks 1 and 3 from next week's mixtape.
- "primordial satellite", Luna SC
In this video, a cool futch person commands a wall of modular synths to make a stream-of-consciousness series of captivating sounds; IDM-y metallic beats like robots drumming on sheet metal, air conditioner organs, drifting notes singing out from twinkling chimes. A bit of an order-out-of-chaos thing, each individual component is very noisy but the impression of the overall groove is musical, fluid, flowing.
The YouTube title marks this as "tmod 4" from the album "tmods"; it turns out every track on this album has a video of its recording on Luna SC's YouTube, so it's like the YouTube playlist is bonus content for the album.
- "Air Plant", Yoko Kanno
"TURN A GUNDAM" is one of the least popular, slowest-paced, and (seriously) best shows in the Gundam corpus, nailing home Tomino's "no, really, war is bad!" message by setting the entire show during a set of peace talks. For icing mechanical design on the robots was done by Syd Mead, and the score is by the legendary Yoko Kanno.
Here Kanno flexes her musical polyglot muscles, scoring simmering, low-key spy intrigue with the imagined music of the 1910s-Southern-US aesthetic of far-future post-post-apocalypse "Inglessa".
- 2022-DEC-10 Mastodon post, Autechre
Turns out Sean Booth of Autechre has a Mastodon account? He just like, posts. And in 2022 (or so this YouTuber claims) he posted, then deleted, some rare tracks here.
This is a behind-the-scenes video of Autechre's bespoke Max/MSP software; Booth's alt-text described the clip as an attempt to emulate the drums from Led Zeppelin's When the Levee Breaks with "a model made of water and spider silk (?!)". Question marks in original
- "Oceans and Moons", Lanthan O'Ide
This is a lovely, peaceful improvised piano performance on Yamaha's electric piano emulator (a really nice device; for this track I think it's in Rhodes mk II mode). Kinda has a 1980s pop ballad feeling to me, I kinda lack the genre language to describe it. It just feels nice.
- "Shadow of Doubt", Hajime Mizoguchi
So above I mention prolific composer Yoko Kanno; if you like anime there is probably at least one anime you love that Yoko Kanno scored. This is from the 1996 proto-Isekai anime "Vision of Escaflowne", which was co-composed by Kanno and her husband at the time, cellist Hajime Mizoguchi. This track was written, and apparently mostly performed, by Mizoguchi, and consists of layer after layer of Steve-Reich-reminiscent violins laid down in loops until it's just a wall of sound, a string section that spontaneously decided to form a moshpit or a riot or something. Just one of my favorite, like… songs, period.
⬇️ Click below for drone ambient and Zoomer breakcore ⬇️