What I'm listening to today: "Concerto for Cello and Wind Orchestra" (Overture), Friedrich Gulda

I don't know much about Gulda, but apparently his career was marked by a desire to work in both classical music but also jazz (back in an era when jazz was still cutting edge and/or illegal). This 1980 piece feels like he was asked to compose a concerto but he just really, really wanted to make funk music. This slaps. This cellist is fucking *shredding*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYTQQtwYYbQ

⚠️Loud static at 0:41

What I'm listening to today: "Cwejman/Verbos Dub", Lucas Marchal

Last week I linked this guy doing synth unboxing experiments, here's what he sounds like doing a completed track. Dark, intent dub using the full spectrum of electronic production. Slipping silently under abandoned awnings and cloudy skies as your robotic pursuers nip constantly at your heels. Glance up and your gaze is met by the first touches of rain, and a dual-rotor helicopter blotting out the sun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xTD7iqVjRs

What I'm listening to today: "Carrier",
Brandon McGhee

Extremely satisfying, semi-live electronic jam, feels like early Boards of Canada. Authentic-sounding/non-authentic analog synths on the Microfreak, lo-fi hip hop beats on the SP-404, and enormous Zoia reverb. What you see is what you get. Cool disintegration outro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WELUnqz6R00

What I'm listening to today: "Cryptic Flow", ME9AM0N

I was given the prompt "Lo-fi hip hop to have anxiety to". Trap music for blown out speakers and those Japanese crosswalk machines that play the creepy childrens' song. Basically the kind of music you'd find on a cassette tape in a street gutter and when you listen to it it makes your stereo haunted.

Apparently they call themselves "Memphis cult".

https://soundcloud.com/memphiscult/cryptic-flow-me9am0n-16

What I'm listening to today: "YOULL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE", hkmori

Sad girl breakcore anthem. This is what it feels like to be queer in 2025. Too loud. Too loud. Everything is too loud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6GmJC1ic4o

What I'm listening to today: "Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt", DJ Shadow

This album hit electronic music like a meteor. Apparently real heads already knew who DJ Shadow was and Dan the Automator had been working with him for years, but the first I'd heard of DJ Shadow was this song coming on Rice Radio 91.7 FM circa 1997 and I can draw you a diagram of exactly where on San Felipe St I was driving at the time because the moment is seared so clearly into my memory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HORLJvUMs08

What I'm listening to today: "Devil Stuff", Evil Nine

The first half of the 2000s saw this explosion of headphones-friendly "instrumental hip hop" whose existence I chalk up to DJ Shadow, if not as a direct inspiration then at least for convincing the record labels this stuff could sell. (Or maybe it was "Praise You".) Here's some fun big beat music made of metal samples. Yeah uh, my mom's boyfriend's kids are into this devil stuff from listening to Black Sabbath—

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKeAt3zdiYk

What I'm listening to today: "Heart's Desire", Awkward McLain

A Bandcamp beatmaker goes in for a bit of lo-fi hip hop and astral projection. Lovely crisp feeling.

The box is SP-404mk2, the most recent of a series of surprisingly incremental updates to J Dilla's favorite sampler, with the main effect AFAICT to add, like, USB and SD card support and the stuff that makes a device actually convenient to use in 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czR2NlmWE2g

What I'm listening to today: "The Mashed Up Mixes - Diplo of Hollertronix Meets RJD2"

During that 10 minutes of mainstream craze for "mashups", lo-fi hip hop virtuoso RJD2 invited a few artists to make DJ mixtapes out of his his back catalog. There's also a good one by "Haul & Mason", but this mix stuck in my head forever for a segment that strings together Cat Power, Slick Rick and Steve Reich, and later on what's still to me the definitive version of Outkast's "Roses"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj5h1o8XRnk

What I'm listening to today: "Jellyfish", Kazumi Totaka (Nintendo)

There is a weird pattern in video games:

- The "water level", in any game, is usually everyone's least favorite, but

- The "water level" often has the coolest, most memorable music of the game.

Upthread I linked some "ocean vibes" music from Mario Artist for N64DD. That game has *three* ocean-themed songs, all bangers; here's my other fav. Charmingly cheesy hold-music jazz transitioning into trip-hop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8DlaLKT3q8&list=PL-pEm4IqI6c_DfCBqt5VBvR-atgwqTlZB&index=95

What I'm listening to today: "What Does Your Soul Look Like?, Pt. 3", DJ Shadow

DJ Shadow followed up his major-label "debut" with an (incomplete) overview of his pre-"debut" indie releases. The information economy of the late 90s was less developed than that of today & getting into DJ Shadow in 1998 was a *little* confusing. Whatever! Here's the most rocking track from "preemptive strike". This *fucking* piano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9VIDrDXJmc

PS: Shadow fans listen to the Mighty Atom Endtroducing mix

What I'm listening to today: "Durationplex", Sevish

This musician describes this track as an exercise in golden-ratio "maxxing"; the (xenharmonic) tuning scale is based on ϕ, the (polyrhythmic, constantly shifting) rhythms are based on ϕ, the FM timbres are based on ϕ. Experientially all you can tell is that the musician was doing something *very specific*, which you can grasp the shape of but not understand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXMqkyVbFmI

( This track is also on Bandcamp: https://sevish.bandcamp.com/track/durationplex )

What I'm listening to today: "Small drops 2025-08-02", atnr

"Minimal Ambient". Giant reverb landscapes. Sitting on a dark hill, your hair mussed by gentle breeze, watching on the horizon the spaceships take off.

Made by combining Yamaha's modern DX7 revival, an original Game Boy, and three guitar pedals, one of which only exists to simulate the sound of cassette tape; someone probably *could* have made this exact music in 1989, in principle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSBqiEHJmH0

What I'm listening to today: "Fly to the Leaden Sky", Manabu Namiki

This is the stage 1 music from "Battle Garegga", an incredibly maximalist top-down shooter made in 1996 by former Compile staff. This is from the 2016 PS4/XBox rerelease, so the original onboard chip synthesis is replaced with slightly different instrumentation including crisper drum samples that really do improve this one track. A giant glowing idol to the 1980s, an exuberant tower of electric guitars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF-ENkufyCY&list=PLguGBzflGahMxYlXtQxX5e4yuqPMWKBAn&index=3

What I'm listening to today: "Speciation", Passepartout Duo

An old technique in ambient music is "phasing", where you play two loops of different lengths and let them go in and out of sync, creating different interesting patterns. It's a truism this requires electronics or tape, because two humans trying to play out-of-sync tempos would confuse each other. These two seem to be actually doing a live phase performance, dueling xylophone and gameboy-style squarewave loops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bejBCgHHAmE

What I'm listening to today: "Souzou Suru", Haru Nemuri

High-energy Japanese rap with seriously weird production. My wife was listening to this and now I'm listening to it.

https://specific.bandcamp.com/track/souzou-suru

Every lyrics site swears up and down she's saying "Touch my Yes", not whatever it is you thought you heard.

( If you're enjoying yourself by the end of this song maybe listen to the next one on the album, which I like for its mid-90s-arcade-shooter-style sampled guitars… https://specific.bandcamp.com/track/bang )

What I'm listening to today: "Finally", a773

This Danish musician uses the modular synth rack— usually the domain of weird noise ambient— for a purpose I've never seen it turned to: incredibly sincere Fusion Jazz. 80s fusion did use simple, early synths— and modular also tends toward the simple, because simple base tones respond best to layering in complications. So there's a lot of plausible 80s feel but with the strangest mystery sounds slipping through the background

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MYf2p-0TmQ

What I'm listening to today: "Mood piece from one machine to another", Sonaura

Three minutes of degraded humming, drone piece on two cassette tape machines one of which seems to be having serious problems. The desert in late evening, a wisp of smoke moving in a way smoke shouldn't. A transmission you pick up briefly on the radio and then can't find again. Do you hear it? No, it's gone. As far as recordings of degraded humming sounds go I'd say this is a pretty good one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXA3_VCYc98

What I'm listening to today: "Level 0", Jim Andron

In the 90s there was a thing called "smooth jazz". I think boomers probably understood it, but I was never clear how it was different from "easy listening music".

This opener from 1992's famously odd "CD-I" version of Tetris is easy-listening music transcended to the point you can understand why people like the genre. Hold music pulling at your heartstrings, incredibly cheesy FM piano over shockingly hype bass work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_SwDWKf-78

What I'm listening to today: "Orange", Tristan Baldi

Chill tabla groove on the Dirtywave M8, a small handheld tracker. Big warm analog-style pads and lots of fun little sound design scribbles low in the mix. Sun shining through some sort of medium, like the fronds of trees or the smog of southern California

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3_AeLUMVQA

What I'm listening to today: "Mocktapus, Rocktapus, Unlocktapus Rex", Prince Charming featuring Philosophy Major

I'm … I'm really not sure what's happening here! A two-minute hip hop hallucination, two or three stations fighting for control of your FM radio, a bunch of musical instruments thrown in a dryer and they turned it on. Sometimes my brain sort of demagnetizes and thoughts swarm in all directions aimlessly like bees. What if that felt pleasant? That's this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YauqHfDYZOI

What I'm listening to today: "White Paws", Tristan Baldi

This piece hijacks the Subharmonicon, Moog's idiosyncratic semi-generative synth, to a purpose it's not typically used for: Acid, coaxing some surprisingly 303-like sounds out of it. Combine this with an unusually clicky configuration for the DFAM and you have an unusual, unpredictable, quiet but punchy little electronic jam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgxCJsBKMcA

What I'm listening to today: "While you were gone", a773

This is the fusion-jazz-on-modular-synths guy I linked last Sunday. This track has that "downtempo Sega" feel but leans into the weirdness/jazziness by being in 7/8 time. Most people listening to 5/4 can tell they're listening to "a weird time signature" but 7/8 sounds like "normal music" with a strange pressured feel you can't explain. If you sleep too long the fire goes out you dare to dream and we have no doubt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me-bNxMT7k0

What I'm listening to today: "Biology 101", Dr. Octagon ft. "Chewbacca"

Removed track from Kool Keith's career-redefining "Dr. Octagonecologyst", present on the original indie release but not the Dreamworks version. The point where they apparently went "too far". Too weird, too creative, too surprising, too hard to follow, too "Kool Keith". A Dan the Automator groove slowed down to the breaking point, with a flood of incredibly dense sci-fi rap wordplay running over it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylnXDGr__DE

What I'm listening to today: "Cosmic Interlude", LTJ Bukem

Chill jazzy electronic from the year 2000 with delicious stand-up bass sounds. Bukem spent the mid 90s staking a flag on what he called "Intelligent Jungle" (as far as I can tell he invented "the Dreamcast menu sound") but then as the 90s ended pushed past that and crafted a distinct brand of self-confident instrumental jazz with skeletal drum&bass patterns as support. Would feel at home on a Ninja Tune mixtape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1KIWM-VuAU

What I'm listening to today: "Time 4 Breaks", Breakbeat Era

This album was supposed to be the Roni Size clique's breakout moment into pop domination, but a series of odd decisions left it as a one-off artifact that you've either never heard of or are still obsessed with 25 years later. This track shows the project at its best: A pop song structure with heart-gripping vocals and the production gloss of 1999's best D&B production team. Progressive but goes down smooth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4RnLUnFafs

What I'm listening to today: "Imouha", Etran de LAïr

Incredible surfrock¹ jam by a band that describes themselves as "the stars of the Agadez guitar scene" (Agadez is the fifth largest city in the Republic of Niger). Do not miss the video-toaster-core video. Dudes rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeytuhn0irM

I found this as the YouTube algorithm's next recommendation after watching "Prisencolinensinainciusol".

¹ Sahara rock?

What I'm listening to today: "Late Morning", Breakbeat Era

A couple days ago I linked the song from this album I thought had the closest chance of getting mainstream euro radio recognition for this odd Roni Size project. This (incidentally the next song on the album) is the track I think appeals best if you just like SOUNDS. Six minutes onrushing bull head down subway to an afternoon headache, breakbeat jungle boiled down to annihilation of all thought, moksha in motion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKTcJqkfzNU

What I'm listening to today: "icm", a773

One last track from the musician I've been calling "the fusion-jazz-on-modular-synths guy". So thing is, mixing jazz and electronic music is not odd, it's just what you're *expected* to do is cut up the jazz as a backing for sampled breakbeats. This raises a question: What if a773 made a track with breaks? Turns out it turns out extremely well. Something here for both prog and Ninja Tune lovers. Nice understated bassline groove.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ikmBVXgg-g

What I'm listening to today: "Hold Tight London", Chemical Brothers

This is just literally the song stuck in my head today.

Chemical Brothers are underrated TBH. They got some radio play with "Dig Your Own Hole" and I think the electronic heads (in the US?) mentally classified them as pop and tuned out. They continued making jams. I think this might be the best song they ever made. Does it stop being rock music if the guitars are sampled? *Are* these guitars sampled?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXV-jr64szI

What I'm listening to today: "Erm...Yes, This Is Yamaha RS7000", Isobutane

This ungainly 1999 pro groovebox from Yamaha is fairly capable at making techno and hip hop. It… doesn't sound like this at all! Apparently using no external samples only tweaked presets this musician creates a drunken rush of chaotic glitch sounds, a simply wild wobbling bass line and this one sound like an angel got stuck in your crawlspace and is moaning in divine ecstasy until you let it out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZFnQbLtgyg

What I'm listening to today: "AudCalc, Zeptocore, Phantasmal Force, GREAT CONJUNCTION Micro Synth Coordination", Arman Bohn

I at one point considered myself an authority on small handheld devices that make odd sounds, and I… I recognize exactly two of the six devices on this table. A glorious mess but it all comes together, floats your mind on a melange of algorithmic beeps, chirpy synth beats and bitcrushed Amen like a crashing sea. More is more. I like the buzzy bass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhyk4O1cYpc

What I'm listening to today: "souvenir d'autrefois", Trhä & Midoran

Asked on bsky for metal that makes every bar on the graphic equalizer jam all the way up. Blurry thrashy metal with kinda those stoner jam feels and this amazing softness like cassette tape, every blast of sound is a little bit rounded off. Ends with an inexplicable detour into… like… if I say "title screen music for a strip mahjong tabletop unit in a dingy bar in Kabukichō in 1994" will you understand?

https://trha.bandcamp.com/track/souvenir-dautrefois

What I'm listening to today: "沈む！", Banshimoku

I saw these folks live last night! Shizumu (沈む) appears to be "Sinking" or "Sink!", like a command. The word she yells at the end of the chorus is "ILLUMINATION!" in English. "Banshimoku" is a Japanese name for the Placodont, an extinct triassic reptile. Walking through the market this morning, kept yelling to myself under my breath, the quietest yell, "ILLUMINATION!". May the bridges we burn be the lights that show our way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKsXnZO9_Jo

What I'm listening to today: "Untitled", Åreknuteknyterne

In 1986 a tiny Norwegian cassette label named "Yecch Tapes" released a compilation named "FFFFF" with this song. It would be wrong to say it sounds like it does because these are ghosts reaching out of history to haunt us. That's just the cassette sound. But this sure *sounds* like ghosts trapped outside time, trying to score an epic 80s action thriller, but they're ghosts so it only feels like inexpressible loss

https://tribetapes.bandcamp.com/track/untitled-fffff-version

What I'm listening to today: "Virtual Star Embryology" (Revolutionary Girl Utena ED 2), J.A. Seazer

Ancient times. Perfection. Isolation in the desert.
Atmosphere, atom, a star of causality.
Yes, a child of earth is conceived
The embryo of philosophy.
The endless surface of the torus,
A single organic mechanism
A single perpetual motion.
Ah, it is empty movement!
Just empty movement,
Empty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkwU8yUjM9Y

What I'm listening to today: "My Cancerous Body in Music", Entropic Echo

Industrial-grade modular electronica with a focus on gigantic distorted pads. The large block of wood in the corner is a SOMA device that as far as I know works by your body grounding or bridging spontaneous circuits in the electrically active orbs. Hundreds of figures in hooded monk robes trudge determinedly across a gray wasteland. Raindrops pick their way down staircases of leaves.

Cool ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHZvGi2qIw4

What I'm listening to today: "Time III: plastic ego", StereoMan

Fun tracker tune (original upload September 1998) that leans into the uncanny feeling of sample tracker music with stunning results. Echoes of a SNES game where a robot jumps through 2D mazes made of girders, except if one single song from a 1998 game OST went this hard you'd still be talking about it 30 years later. (The ImpulseTracker file is 768k; maybe nobody shipping games wanted to invest that much?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5-IV_wats0

What I'm listening to today: "Benevolent Incubator", Icarus / @olliebown

A Certain Type of Jazz thrown through the sample blender in a Certain Way, makes me think of Amon Tobin or the Michael Fakesch solo albums or Four Tet remixing Andrew Bird. Fantastic groove. Has an arc to it, a tension, a single set of sounds gradually evolves from manic solo drumming to a gentle indie guitar-pluck lullaby before dissolving completely into incoherent nervous glitches.

https://icarus.bandcamp.com/track/benevolent-incubator

What I"m listening to today: "The Torrents of Destruction Overwhelmed Me", thoughtForm Max

Extended metal guitar solo, but with no guitar, done entirely on Roger Linn's isomorphic grid controller. Every pad on here has per-note expression via both pressure and how you wiggle your finger within the square, enabling techniques not usually possible on a keyboard synth. I imagine a lone figure playing this to a sunrise at the edge of some desert plateau in Big Bend in Texas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbUBw454ZG4