Spring Roundup Part 2: Evening Music

I have a longstanding interest in music that is "soothing but not boring," but this area of my listening is often eclipsed by more energetic styles. This is probably because the primary site of listening has traditionally been my car, and active music more readily overlays the experience of driving. The increased access provided by the Plex app, however, has opened up new spaces in my everyday routine.

For example, Seabuckthorn’s Turns is a masterful, atmospheric yet emotionally moving album that worked in the car well enough, but its status as the 2017 Album of the Year is a result of its pervasive presence in the evenings after the kids went to sleep. Towards the end of last year, I became increasingly interested in finding more music that could fill this space, giving rise to the second category that has arisen in the past few months - Evening Music.

There are many albums that I put in this category, and virtually all of them are engaging, but very few of them actually ended up working as well as I had hoped. With only a couple of exceptions, most of them balanced ambient aspects with at least a few moments of explosive noise. I find this musically interesting, but from a functional standpoint, Evening Music can’t wake up the kids or cause study room doors to slam in irritated disgust.



Pejman Hadadi - Epiphany: It's hard to believe that I never wrote about this, but last semester we had a housemate from Iran (via Belgium) who was auditing the PhD program that my wife is in. She gave me this CD as a Christmas/parting gift, and it has served very well as my “non-Western” listening at the beginning of this year.

Tangerine Dream - Zeit: I walked into Zeit hoping to investigate retro-synth source material, only to find that Zeit is hardly the place to start this kind of research. As it turns out, however, it is a surprisingly captivating proto-ambient album that shares more common ground with Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma than Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygene.

Kyle Dixon & Micheal Stein - Stranger Things 2 OST: Like its predecessor, Stranger Things 2 shows its intent in its structure. It is a collection of cues, rather than freestanding compositions, which opens up different creative freedoms for Dixon and Stein.

The Radiophonic Workshop - Burials on Several Earths: This is more in line with what I thought Zeit would be like, but it is also far more ambient than I had anticipated. In terms of authenticity, however, you really can't go wrong with three or four guys who worked in the BBC radiophonic Workshop during its heyday in the 70s.

Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch - Blade Runner 2049 OST: This soundtrack doesn’t speak quite as clearly as a lot of Hans Zimmer’s work, but it matches the movie so well that it is hard not to appreciate. It falls prey to the unfortunate trend of closing with a painfully formulaic pop song.

Burial - Untrue: This album has received some attention recently due to its rhizomatic influence on several current electronic styles. Although it’s dark atmosphere has found a pretty regular spot in my evening music listening, its complexity and subtle energy allows it to spill beyond this setting with ease.

Park Jiha - Communion: I love Communion’s emotional cross-pollination of jazz, classical, and traditional Korean music. When it moves into more strident territory, however, other people in the house unfortunately start to plug their ears.

Air - Moon Safari: Moon Safari came up on a Pitchfork “best of the 90’s” playlist a week before I found it in a used bin, I have had Air on my playlist for years, mainly due to Jason Falkner’s involvement, and,despite knowing that Falkner was not involved, I got it on a whim.

Matt Chamberlain, Viktor Krauss, and Dan Phelps - Modular: This one is my favorite of the bunch by far. Its got an amazingly well-thought out concept that binds it together, fantastic playing, and enough mystery as to its overall construction that I simply can’t stop listening to it.

Spring Roundup Part 1: Dinner Music

It makes me incredibly happy to say that I received an obscene amount of music for Christmas and my birthday this year. So much, in fact, that getting acquainted with it all well enough to generate commentary with any kind of confidence has taken the better part of the past few months. Now, however, I am at the point at which addressing them all, even in a generalized roundup, would result in a prohibitively long post.  Additionally, the longer the lapse in the posting, the more unruly catching up seems. What to do?

After spending some time with all this music during my commute, I started to notice that loose categories began emerge. These categories were partially based on style, but also arose in the music’s everyday functionality. For example, some music seemed appropriate after the kids had gone to sleep, while others were far too abrasive to get much airplay in any other setting than the privacy of my car. To break down this overwhelming influx of music, I will post a series of roundups according to these categories.

For example, dinner time in our house is one of the rare occasions in the course of the day that the whole family has a chance to sit down and enjoy each other’s company. Thanks to the Netflix series Beat Bugs, my kids have grown to love the music of the Beatles, so I curated a playlist based on their favorite songs,  It has dominated dinner time for the majority of the year. This set the tone for a category I have come to call Dinner Music, which has evolved into a showcase for newly discovered power pop, relatively accessible songwriting-based music, and, of course, the Beatles.



Danny De La Matyr - Crybaby: Danny was the primary songwriter behind one of my favorite bands of the 90s Dallas scene, The Days, so I was very excited when I heard about his recent solo album. It is, however, disappointing in that it is marred by distractingly flat production.

Dawes - We’re All Gonna Die: Dedicated Dawes fans have raised a bit of commotion about the stylistic direction on the band’s most recent release. We’re All Gonna Die is decisively more rock-oriented than its predecessors, but it is not as jarringly different as reviewers might suggest.

Shugo Tokumaru - In Focus?: In Focus? is a super-eclectic take on pop-styled songwriting, occupying a unique place on the spectrum between Sean Lennon. and Frank Zappa. Despite its unapologetic eccentricity, the album holds together as a fun and and challenging listen.

Field Music - Open Here: Each of Field Music’s albums have become increasingly grand and sweeping in their scale. Open Here continues this trend, with liberal use of strings and other orchestral instruments sidling up beside some of their most accessible and political work.