A brilliant discourse on the classic artists crisis. Modeselektor convey their feelings on the matter musically. Dissecting the music reveals that the bass is used as a vessel for the little feeling of discomfort you get in your lower back when you know that you just made a concession in order to make a bit of loot. Counterbalancing that is the snare which through various hues of filtersweeps reminds one of swiping ones card to buy something ridiculous for money made by bad art. Deep.
so so Deep.

Modeselektor – Art & Cash [2009]

Ridiculously epic.

Spacemen 3 – Transparent Radiation

Textured bedroomrock. goes well with skammdegi. Standout tracks are ‘Shelia’, ‘Kid Klimax’, ‘Walkabout’.

Atlas Sound – Logos

XX

Warning : this is quite possibly the most beautiful album you will ever own. Arvo Pärt has in the last few years become almost synonymous with the new wave of electronic/classical composers, one of the names almost always quoted (along with Steve Reich) as a primary influence. His blend of spiritual/sacred themes and an icy minimal neu-classical compositional style has won him masses of followers and turned heads of even people totally unconnected to the classical music genre, which maybe is his greatest gift. There is a tendency in classical music for the subgenres to become somewhat exclusive, and it can be difficult for fresher interested parties to penetrate the scene in any way whatsoever, but Pärt has become something of an entry point for so many and in that he is responsible for influencing a generation of musicians. ‘Alina’ is one of his most well known discs, and one of his finest, containing variations on two pieces; ‘Spiegel Im Spiegel’ and ‘Fur Alina’, both of which have been used in countless films. You might remember ‘Spiegel Im Spiegel’ being used in the documentary ‘Touching the Void’ or Gus Van Sant’s unsettling buddy drama ‘Gerry’, and it’s one of those works that while sounding familiar never fails to send shivers down your spine. This is a disc that I can safely say I can play almost any time, and I am always left stunned by Pärt’s incredible ability to distil so much emotion and spirituality in his work. Whether you’re a believer or not you can’t help but feel moved by ‘Alina’, and any of you left floored by material from Marsen Jules, Max Richter, Ryan Teague or Greg Haines’ owe it to themselves to find out where it all came from. Utter perfection. – Boomkat

I’m sort of at a loss as to what I could write after the hyperbole I copypastad off boomkat. Very Very beautiful minimal compositions to be played at times when one is sitting alone in the morning, preferably thinking about something serious. Music that goes well with first snow.

Arvo Pärt – Alina

A couple of guys who really like motorik beats, understated vocals and sweet basslines.

Fujiya & Miyagi – Lightbulbs [2008]
Fujiya & Miyagi – Transparent Things [2006]
Fujiya & Miyagi – Electro Karaoke in the Negative Style [2002]

With contributions from M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, Warm Heart Of Africa is the product of a collaboration between Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and British DJ and producer Radioclit. Previously this pairing released a mixtape that accumulated it’s fair share of favourable press, sampling a host of hip contemporary artists (among them M.I.A. and Vampire Weekend), but this album marks the first collection of original material, and as culture-clash experiments go, this comes off very nicely indeed, with the title track in particular sounding like a brilliant Africanised take on the kind of sample-pop Noah Lennox trades in so fluently. Ace.
-boomkat

An album. It’s strengths are:
sounds christmassy (see ‘chalo’). Being surprisingly good despite the title track sounding like “a brilliant Africanised take on the kind of sample-pop Noah Lennox trades in so fluently” (read: butt). Percussion. Proper usage of synthesizers is displayed ‘mwazi’. It shows amazing strength of character by being an album that despite having a frontman of african origin refrains from using autotune effects in more than one song (nsokoto, and it’s not even that bad). Having a really really good singer. etc etc.

standout tracks: ‘mwazi’, ‘ntende uli’, ‘kamphobo’

the very best – warm heart of africa