Genres

POTW (2019/6): Electronica by Independent Female Artists

This week’s POTW is another compiled by Line Munch-Petersen (ENILSounds). In this playlist, she features tunes by female electronic artists who are unsigned or with independent record labels.

The music ranges from ambient through to electro-country with various shades of electronica, pop and rock in between. Some of the tracks have a darker feel to them, like Brexistentialism and The Elders Secret and some have clubby vibes, e.g. Corazon de Lluvia and There’s a Place for You. There are a lot of tracks on this playlist from artists I’d never heard before, so it’s a really good one for new music discovery, too. And if I’m not mistaken there’s a European flavour pervading the list, Brexistentialism included.

Rating: PG – it has a song or two flagged ‘explicit’, but is mostly ‘clean’.

POTW (2019/5): Yoga Chill by Michelle Qureshi

This week’s playlist of the week is Yoga Chill, from Michelle Qureshi, and brings together a selection of beautiful pieces in the chill out, new age, ambient and acoustic genres. You don’t need to be doing yoga to enjoy this playlist – it makes great background music for reading, studying or other non-physical activities, which is great if you’re an unbendy couch-potato like me.

Michelle Qureshi is an acoustic artist in her own right, writing and recording almost classical style new age and ambient pieces, often guitar based. She has several tracks in the playlist, so you can get a feel for her style. (She’s also included a couple of tracks by Andy Salvanos, who I’ve mentioned before in the blog.) Michelle brings a great deal of feeling to everything I’ve heard her do, and pieces like Never Odd Or Even can leave you floating off into some imaginary sunset, so I think you’ll really enjoy listening.

Playlist of the Week (2018/50)

Playlist of the Week, No 50: Chill Sesh by FancyFoxx #POTW

This POTW has been on my list to cover for a while.  It’s Chill Sesh, from Fancy Foxx Music. This is one smooooth playlist, steeped in loungey, funky-jazz vibes.  It feels both clubby and yet very horizontal.  It’s a bit late in the year, I know, but some of the songs feel quite summery, too, as there are various songs that are either reggae beat or have a clear West Indian influence. We can dream of beaches in the middle of autumn, right?

Fancy Foxx is a small label that has been around for a couple of years, and has a handful of artists associated with it. Their image is very much ‘the life & soul of the party’, whereas this playlist is more like the after-party wind-down at 2am or so when most of the few remaining participants still awake have collapsed into the comfy chairs and have started having deep and meaningful conversations and don’t want to go home. There are still a few people dancing, though – the music’s funky.

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/44)

Digital Music Goodness, from Replicant Theory, is this week's playlist of the week.

Digital Music Goodness by the artist Replicant Theory is this week’s Playlist of the Week. It’s full of various forms of electronica, focussing on darkwave, synthwave, ambient and electronica.

The Replicant Theory project originated as a collaboration between two artists in the early 2000s, but after making their first album, one of the members relocated and the project fizzled out. After a couple of failed attempts at getting going again and a second album, Polaroids, Replicant found new momentum after writing two tracks for a zombie shooting game as a result of a chance encounter with a game developer. Since then, as well as releasing more albums of his own, he has collaborated with a number of independent artists (including GJART, whose playlist GJART Loves I featured back in February). Replicant Theory describes the music he makes as a “hybrid of alt-metal, progressive, industrial, electronica & darkwave from the underground.”  There are several good examples of his work, such as Shadows Fall, within the playlist.

 

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/41)

POTW No 41: Soulful Fox's Chill-out Downtempo Dance Music

This week’s POTW is the fantastic Chillout Downtempo Dance Music, by Soulful Fox, an independent music producer and performer from Liverpool who makes uplifting electronica music that leans towards house, downtempo and liquid drum and bass.

After studying for a music degree, she took a detour and started a career in banking, but  decided it wasn’t for her. She subsequently went into music teaching, which she loved and which also gave her the opportunity to learn music production, using Logic  software. You can find some of her excellent work via this playlist, or at her CD Baby or Soundcloud pages.

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/40)

POTW-2018-40-NickTempest 600x900

Our POTW this Monday, Relax Soul, comes from Mirko Consoli, otherwise known as the singer Nick Tempest.

Nick’s from Sicily, Italy, and takes the second half of his stage name from the lead singer of the 80s rock group “Europe”. (Incidentally, that singer’s name, Joey Tempest, is also a pseudonym – he’s really Rolf Larsson). 

Nick says his love of music stems from his childhood, when he was particularly struck by Power Metal and West Coast AOR, which he loves for their sense of melodic power. But  these are not the only genres that he says have made an impact on his own musical direction – he also cites Celtic and Italian influences, particularly the popular Italian singer-songwriter Amedeo Minghi. 

Nick’s self taught on the guitar and keyboard and can sing in six different European languages. His music is pop; the best description I can manage is that it’s a kind of cross between 80s-inspired Euro-synthpop and that easy-listening – almost crooning – style of classical music. Kind of Julio Iglesias crossed with Pet Shop Boys with a bit of light opera thrown in, very loosely speaking. I can certainly hear Minghi’s influence on his style, having checked out a selection of his music for the purposes of writing this article.

Back to the playlist: it’s a collection of soundtrack, filmscore-esque and instrumental music, with the aim of being relaxing to listen to. (Obviously – the clue is in the title.)  Piano features quite often and Nick’s included a generous sprinkling of lesser-known artists in the mix, too. The overall result of his work putting this together is a great playlist for listening to when you have tasks that you need to really focus on without being distracted by lyrics. Equally, it makes a great late-night playlist for de-stressing before sleep.

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/39)

Playlist of the Week (2018/39): Andy Salvanos's gorgeous Dreaming Instrumental collection.

This week, our POTW is Dreaming Instrumental, compiled by Andy Salvanos. Andy is a highly talented musician, as evidenced by his beautiful tracks Solace and Peace, which feature on the playlist. Born in Sweden with Greek-Russian-Irish heritage, and growing up in the US, Salvanos spent a decade in Los Angeles as a session bassist, before settling in Glenalta, Australia. He is now a highly respected solo performer at events such as The Adelaide International Guitar Festival and The National Folk Festival. Here’s an example of his work:

The instrument behind these sounds is a 10 string Chapman Stick (also available as a 12 string variety) . Unlike the better-known 12 string guitar, all the strings are played separately, not in pairs, so Andy’s fingers can get pretty busy as he creates his hypnotic tunes.

I’ve come across the Chapman Stick before – when Nick Beggs* was playing with Iona, this was his weapon of choice for the bass-lines – so I have always thought of it as a bass instrument. But apparently Nick was only playing half the strings on the Iona pieces: presumably because he wasn’t performing solo.  Andy’s self-composed solo pieces make full use of all the strings, so that he is effectively playing the equivalent of a bass and a treble guitar simultaneously. (For an equivalent solo piece from Nick, see here.)

Back to the playlist, before I get completely carried away discussing UK celtic prog rock!  It’s an absolute beauty: full of dreamy, evocative instrumentals that you can pretty much float around the world on, as you journey into different lands through ethnic beats and instruments and the cinematic feel of this collection of tunes that keep coming back to solo guitar (or stick).

 

*Iona fans will appreciate this Youtube clip I found of Nick playing Chapman Stick for a Magenta recording.

Playlist of the Week (2018/38)

Playlist of the Week (2018/38): r/DreamFolk_, curated by Tommy Wilson

This week’s Playlist of the Week comes from the recently formed “Dreamfolk_” community on Reddit.com.  There are some really lovely tracks here, mostly from artists I hadn’t previously discovered, like Ben Howard and Wilsen. To be honest, before I found this group (via the Indiefolk subreddit), I was unaware of the ‘Dreamfolk’ genre label, even though it turns out it’s entirely my kind of music!  (So many sub-genres, so little time, as I’ve probably said before.)

The list is quite short at present, weighing in at under an hour at the time of writing, but hopefully as the Reddit community grows, there will be new additions and further discoveries to be made.

Playlist of the Week (2018/32)

Playlist of the Week (2018/32): Barry McLoughlin's Acoustic Treasures collection.

This Monday’s POTW comes from a Dublin-born and Canadian-raised acoustic artist, Barry McLoughlin, who has been lauded for his songwriting as well as his vocals.

A resident of a small town Sioux Lookout, Ontario, McLoughlin is a prolific songwriter, who first appeared at Toronto’s Massey Hall, at just 17 years old.  For a taste of his sparsely produced guitar-folk ballads, check out the beautiful love song “Dulcinea“, or “Do You Still Believe?“.  If you like the music of Gordon Lightfoot, Iain Archer or Glen Hansard, I think you’ll enjoy his writing, too.

The Acoustic Treasures playlist is a collection of songs by lesser-known artists, which fit with the aesthetic – but not necessarily the genre – of his own music, where the songs speak for themselves. I really enjoyed playing it and hope you will too.

Playlist of the Week (2018/28)

Playlist of the Week 2018, No 28: Staalklang's collection of epic music - art rock, prog rock, cinematic...

This week’s POTW is very special. It’s Nothing But Epics, a collection of prog rock, compiled by Staalklang, from Norway. According to Staalklang, the rule for music to be included is that, “it has to be epic, meaning recurring themes, keychanges, beatchanges, progressive, odd, cinematic.”

It certainly does all that. Pink Floyd, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Yes all feature, as well as Staalklang’s own music, and he has not shied away from including longer tracks, that might not get a look in on other playlists, due to their length. In fact, the longest track is over half an hour, which is highly unusual for a compilation, but well worth the time listening!  Similarly, some of the tracks – such as ELP’s Tarkus – are more demanding to listen to, making this playlist a pretty rare find. You may find that you want to listen to this when you don’t have competing distractions, to really appreciate the complexity of the music.

Staalklang is a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, drums and keyboards, and who is interested in both rock and electronica. He is making his own approach to ambient music – he has already completed his 4th album, late last year, and says that progressive rock and ambient electronica are the genres closest to his heart.

Overall this playlist is a very immersive listening experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it, as well as contributing several suggestions for tracks to include.