Burial; ‘Burial’
Wire magazine’s album of the year ’06, just thought I’d give it ago and glad I did. Dubstep concept album about South London being underwater after the collapse of the Thames barrier in 2023. If you’ve ever heard ‘Rhythm and Stealth’ by Leftfield you’ve got an idea of the dark electronic atmosphere created here.
Scott Walker; ‘The Drift’
There’s not enough room to even begin explaining this album. I get insomnia a lot and that’s the best time to listen to this; in the dark, with the headphones on.
Jóhann Jóhannsson; ‘IBM 1401, A User’s Manual’
There’s a bit of a story behind this one. In 1964, a computer - the IBM 1401 Data Processing System - arrived in Iceland, one of the very first computers to be imported into the country. The chief maintenance engineer for this machine was Jóhann Gunnarsson – Jóhannsson’s dad.
Gunnarsson was a keen musician, he learned of an obscure method of making music on this computer. The computer's memory emitted strong electromagnetic waves and by programming the memory in a certain way and by placing a radio receiver next to it, melodies could be coaxed out - captured by the receiver as a delicate, melancholy sine-wave tone.
When the IBM 1401 was taken out of service in 1971, it wasn't simply thrown away like an old refrigerator, but was given a little farewell ceremony, almost a funeral, when its melodies were played for one last time. This "performance" was documented on tape along with recordings of the sound of the machine in operation.
Jóhann Jóhannsson has taken his dad’s recordings made in the 70s and has added a string quartet to them. The result is one of the most emotional albums you’ll ever hear.
The last track ‘The Sun’s Gone Dim And The Sky’s Turned Black’ is 5 lines of a poem by Dorothy Parker that the IBM sings at its farewell ceremony and is really, really sad!
For sound samples;
http://www.ausersmanual.com/credits/ Steve Reich; ‘Music for 18 Musicians’
I got the extremely reasonably priced ‘Phases’ box-set for xmas. 5 CDs but I’m still stuck on this one - just absolutely beautiful music.
John Foxx & Louis Gordon; ‘From Trash’ / ‘Sideways’
I know it’s got its detractors, but I think ‘From Trash’ is the strongest album since ‘Shifting City’.
John Foxx; ‘Tiny Colour Movies’
So much has been said already I think. Beautiful.
Scientist; ‘Scientist Meets The Space Invaders’
Some superb minimal dub from 1981. The music’s brilliant to get lost in, but quite frankly it’s worth buying for the cover art alone.
X-Ray Spex: ‘Germ-Free Adolescence’
Punk Pop from 1978 – almost every song on here could have been a hit single. ‘Warrior in Woolworths’ is my favourite
Others; ESG; ‘A South Bronx Story’, Martha and the Muffins; ‘This Is The Ice Age’,
