Music to excel to

[josephbaines]

Doing quantitative research can be exhilarating at times. But working through reams of data and organizing it into presentable charts can also entail a lot of blurry-eyed drudgery. I find it useful to have music playing in the background to keep me going. Music without lyrics that it is. For anything with too many words can get me quite distracted... I have some go-to composers that I listen to perennially, such as Steve Reich, JS Bach, Brahms and Philip Glass, but there's also a lot of contemporary electronic music that can help the brain cells and spreadsheet cells work together in harmony.

What makes electronic music so exciting and ever-changing is that the best producers and DJs have this knack of imperiously drawing on myriad influences from other genres (from hip hop, to grime, to minimal classical and to folk) and then repackaging these sounds in ways that are fresh and exciting. In 2013 we have witnessed ample illustration of this. Here's a list of my top 5 albums. I hope that you enjoy and that you also reciprocate with recommendations of your own...

1) The Field - 'Cupid's Head' - the Field must be the master of putting together throbbing beats in ways that are completely mesmerizing. Pretty edifying stuff.
2) Burial - 'Rival Dealer' - much of Burial's previous material takes me back to the drizzly, melancholy streets of the UK. But this latest album is an unexpected homily on sexual identity.
3) Oneohtrix Point Never - 'R Plus 7' - at some points wistfully ethereal and at other points migraine-inducing mechanical. So many surprises in the album.
4) Forest Swords - 'Engravings' - never has electronic music sounded so utterly pagan. This is a soundscape that is suffused with magic and mystery and it is a soundscape that I have taken a delight in ambling through over and over again.
5) The Range - 'Nonfiction' - Simultaneously brutish and redemptive (in particular the track 'Jamie') apparently this artist drew almost all of his sounds from youtube videos. It therefore seems fitting that the album is available to listen to on the site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj6zBxsU ... xy6NO3fWs-

[jmc]

Joseph, those are all great recommendations. 2013 has been a great year for electronic music. There are many LPs and EPs that I can pile on to the list:


Outboxx - Outboxx


Segue - Pacifica


Akkord - Akkord


Lawrence - FIlm & Windows


Omar-S - Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself

[DT Cochrane]

Thanks, Friends! I'm definitely going to check those recommendations out.

Here are two of my own. They're a bit more metal-y and one has vocals. However, the vocals are death metal screaming, so it can pretty much just sink into the aural background.

Fuck Buttons


The album is Slow Focus. The video is for my current favourite song "Stalker."

Deafheaven


The album is Sunbather. The video is for the opening track "Dream House."

[wayburn]

Lately, I have been impressed by the following mp3s from my safe, non-commercial website:



http://jazzandclassical.net/Charlie%20P ... simodo.mp3



http://jazzandclassical.net/Bud%20Powel ... 0Celia.mp3

http://jazzandclassical.net/TristanoTri ... -AtTYA.mp3

http://jazzandclassical.net/geniusofDjango.mp3


Give your ears and your mind a treat.

Tom

[wayburn]

More than forty years ago, I was into electronic music too. I met Milton Babbitt, visited Morton Subotnik in his studio, and wrote music using a computer program developed by Max Matthews at Bell Labs called Music 66. Later on, I played what could only be called "electronic music" in a live concert with Donn Preston - some of which is recorded. I no longer listen to that stuff, which probably isn't even music in the strict sense; however, I shall make an exception regarding the five examples listed in the note. The music I listed in my first reply is what I do listen to along with other music the URLs of which can be found at http://jazzandclassical.wikispaces.com/ where I am collecting music little by little. This music isn't too good for playing in the background while I do research, computation, or document what I have done, as it gets my full attention. I can play it while I work on model railroads though.

That said, I'd like to replace the Lennie Tristano selection listed with the following copy of it along with notes lifted from the wiki:

This is from Lennie’s trio album Manhattan Studio. Lennie, Peter Ind, and I recorded early in the morning after Peter’s Hickory House gig and my first chemical engineering job after college.
http://jazzandclassical.net/TristanoTri ... -AtTYA.mp3 All the Things You Are

Also, for an example of the things Lennie wrote for the two saxophones played by Lee Konetz and Warne Marsh:

http://jazzandclassical.net/Tristano-I' ... _April.mp3

This sort of thing shocked the world in the late 40s.

[jmc]

[James McMahon]

Excellent from start to finish:

Voices from the Lake - Voices from the Lake

[wayburn]

[wayburn]

[wayburn]