Particles

My latest favourite album: Island Songs, the neo-classical Icelandic genius of pianist Ólafur Arnalds.
And this is one of my favourite tracks from that favourite album, Particles:

Vocals from Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, lead vocalist with Of Monsters And Men.

Hats off to the violinists in this one. Not much elbow room on that staircase.

Particles is on my Inspired By 6 Spotify playlist. Please share and follow.

Spotify Wrapped

As I start writing this, I realise that it’s my first post with WordPress 5.0. As usual with a WordPress update, I chose not to read any of the instructions – something that has never mattered before – and now I find myself quite (or more) bemused by the whole situation. My God, it’s horrible. How do I go back? 

I clicked through on one of those review of the year things. This one was for Spotify, which I’ve only had for about 5 months.  Here’s my Top Artists, Genre, Songs etc. 

 

That image might not look like much, but it took me 35 minutes to upload, so damn well look at it, even though it’s probably still far too big.  

The several hours I spent solely on Ludovico Einaudi equate nicely with my air travel. His music has always been my goto on iPod or Spotify for calming, relaxing times on big planes.

 

Look at me with my lack of mainstream nonsense. And it’s not for want of being contrary. I like what I listen to. And I listen to what I like. 

Right. You can do your Spotify Wrapped here. And I’d love to write some more about it, but this editor is wearing me down already. It’s fecking awful and I want to go back to 4.9. I have no idea how to add categories or tags and they’re supposed to making it easier, better, more intuitive. 

It’s making me sad and I need to stop now. 

Suspirium

I’ve loved listening to this wonderfully fragile, simple offering from Thom Yorke for the past few weeks, now. (Yes, it’s on this Spotify playlist.) So I was obviously delighted to find this live performance for 6Music on Youtube.

I know not all my readers enjoy my musical posts (although, reasonably, how could you not love this piece?), but I do have clear evidence that there are others who do enjoy a break from the endless words on here (including me), and thus they are here to stay.

Tomorrow’s post is about music, but isn’t actually music, which will probably suitably alienate both parties.

Inspired by 6

I may have mentioned these things before, but not together, and even if I have, it deserves repeating.

First thing: I listen to BBC 6 Music at lot. I’m right in their target demographic, so they suit me and I suit them. Symbiotic, innit?

Second thing: I’m (still) really enjoying Spotify. I love having the flexibility to think of a song and just listen to it, there and then. I recognise that this has been something that’s been around elsewhere (and even here) for a while. But because Spotify is new here it still feels a bit like living in the future.

Now, I have tied these two things together in a wonderful marriage by starting a public playlist called “inspired by 6”.

What I do is to listen to BBC 6 Music all day and each time they play an amazing song (rather than just a really good song), I quickly add it to the playlist. Therefore, what’s currently on there is a collection of more than eighty songs which are the best of what’s available on the best radio station around.

All according to me, at least.

Great for solo listening, background listening or appearing cool (to that certain demographic) at a party.

If you are on Spotify, you can listen and follow the constantly-evolving playlist by clicking the clever little box above or here. You’ll need to be a member of Spotify too, obviously, but I’m told that there’s more than just me on there, so maybe it’s for you too.

 

80s music flashback

A couple of songs which have recently appeared on my metaprical musical radar, and which will therefore obviously be shared on the blog.

While there are a lot of famous 80s songs, I don’t think that these are/were amongst them. They’re not ones that you will hear at 80s-themed disco parties, although if you were looking for a archetypal early 80s analogue synth piece, this first one really does tick all the boxes. And (like Alphaville) the lyrics for John Foxx’s Underpass are… well… “basic”:

Click-click drone
Click-click drone
Click-click drone
Click-click drone
Click-click…
Underpass
Underpass
Underpass
Underpass
Underpass
Underpass
Underpass
Underpass

Wonderful.

And if that was a bit fast and loud for you, please now relax with This Mortal Coil’s version of Song To The Siren from 1984:

Wow. How beautiful is that?

Music posts on 6000 miles… don’t get as many hits as some of the other stuff I write about on here: perhaps because musical tastes are such a personal thing. Or perhaps because my musical tastes can be a bit odd. But I know that there is a hardcore set of readers who do like to give the stuff I share a spin.

Why not join them? You might just find something you like. And – if you want to delve a little more deeply – both these tracks make it onto my inspired by 6 Spotify playlist.