On Sundays I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I would later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all.
▰ Tryptych by Symbion Project (aka Kasson Crooker) is three 10-minute-plus not quite ambient, maybe “romantic ambient” / post-classical, excursions. Richly evocative.
▰ I always keep my eye on what’s new from a synthesizer module maker called Djupviks. A module called the Bunker Archeology, which I have, takes the source audio here and “smears it all up,” per the description. No doubt. It’s like the Blade Runner vibe filtered through a rougher industrial aesthetic.
▰ Archival recommendation: I picked up this live 1981 Robert Fripp solo Frippertronics set (use that link, as there is no embeddable player) based on a recommendation from John Diliberto, host of the Echoes radio show. It’s really great, very simple, austere even by Fripp standards, maybe even more musical than atmospheric. You can hear the loops as they accrue, the seams as he stitches and layers. Bonus points for the bit of conversation with Joe Strummer (yeah, of the Clash) in the liner notes. (And if that interview is of interest, here’s the full text. The conversation was moderated by Vic Garbarini, and originally published in the June 1981 issue of Musician magazine. Here’s a great snippet: Strummer: “Now, I’m not a born musician like maybe Robert is…” Fripp: “Not at all! I was tone deaf and had no sense of rhythm…” Strummer: “… I got kicked out of the choir…” Fripp: “…they wouldn’t even let me join the choir!”)
▰ Somewhat less archival recommendation: here’s a saxophone foursome, Multiphonic Quartett, performing a piece (“Mishima/Closing,” originally written for Kronos) from Philip Glass’ score for Paul Schrader’s film Mishima, shot in a massive concrete industrial space. (This video is the source of the “radicalization” joke I posted here yesterday.) The video is from roughly three years ago. (And a side note for those chasing virality: despite this video having over 200,000 views, the group’s Instagram account has well under 600 followers, and its YouTube channel a mere 1,500 subscribers.)
