honest words on honest music
HC 3.0 BETA
PLEASE READ
The new Headphone Commute Site is here! But it’s not public yet. Here’s everything you need to know about this BETA release in the first quarter of 2019.
Boards of Canada
Geogaddi is a record for some sort of trial-by-fire, a claustrophobic, twisting journey that takes you into some pretty dark experiences before you reach the open air again.
Patrick Jonsson
Suddenly We Looked Like Giants
It takes just one listen to recognize how good this record really is, and then it takes another two or three plays to dig into its depths, to hear the familiar motifs, and to truly fall in love.
Interview with Brock Van Wey
An in-depth two-part conversation with the man behind the bvdub moniker on his Earth House Hold project and the latest release for A Strangely Isolated Place
Murcof
The Versailles Sessions
Ten years of writing means ten years of content, right? I’ve got a few more surprises on the way for the readers of Headphone Commute, but for now, let’s have some fun with a Flashback Friday entry, revisiting an album that indeed needs another play through.
liftmuziek sessions
A quietly veiled incarnation of the Headphone Commute podcast originating in a series of mixes originally published in 2006.
Dag Rosenqvist (aka Jasper TX) returns to Headphone Commute with an eclectic selection of his favourite tunes.
36
Fade To Grey (A Strangely Isolated Place)
… on the isolation of individuals using (and often abusing) technology as a means of escapism…
Dennis Huddleston explores the outer reaches of our reality, “where social media has become a weak substitute for human interaction.“
øjeRum, Ex Confusion, and Fennesz
A set of moody, melancholic and introspective albums for a chilly day…
Julien Marchal
Insight XXXVII
The listener has no choice…
ASC
Trans-Neptunian Objects 2 (Auxiliary)
… on dwarf planets and asteroids that lay in Kuiper Belt
Featuring another seven astral excursions into deep space and beyond and spanning just short of 70 minutes, Trans-Neptunian Objects 2 is the final journey in the series
Gavin Miller showcases his favorite selections from Lost Tribe Sound, Sound In Silence and his very own This Is It Forever labels.
Thom Yorke
Suspiria (XL)
“… a weird form of darkness […] exploring the darker side of what could be loosely described as music, or, experiment, or sound […]”
Thom Yorke’s very first film score, with all original music, composed for the same-titled film by Luca Guadagnino
Black Swan, Kryshe, and Billow Observatory
A selection of beautiful music for a cold frosty morning
Air Liquide, Ram Dass & Boreta, and bvdub
This is not a mind trip, this is a body journey
Taylor Deupree
Fallen (Spekk)
“Half-broken tape machines and plenty of ghostly echoes helped hide the honesty of the piano as I hid myself, and my music, away under the cover of abstraction.”
I often speak of music used for meditation. This is an album to be tucked away for such a time… a timeless masterpiece.
The Lotus Eaters, Bluetech, M. Cadoo & P. Stephan
“sonic objects which can be rotated and viewed from multiple perspectives…”
Dronarivm
Illuminations II, kj, and Endless Melancholy
A roundup of the latest goodies from Dronarivm
Richard Devine
Sort\Lave (TimeSig)
“I wanted the record to sound very different to my previous works which had been more cold, digital, clinical even and had all been made using computers.”
No matter how deformed these atonal sounds are the cadence of the piece holds up its monumental structure… this allows for a formation to stand strong while free abstraction sways through open trails…
The Gentleman Losers
Always Crashing on the Same Wave
…a sense of introversion to it, a feeling of winter approaching…
Ólafur Arnalds
re:member (Mercury KX)
“For me, [re:member] means the opposite of dismemberment – to become yourself again, to become a member of yourself…”
[…] incorporating transcending rhythms into a cinematic piece of music, which lifts it from the slowly crowding stage of comfort zones, onto a plinth, where Arnalds is uniquely on his own.
Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones, Varg, and Chevel
Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones Vicious Circles It’s pretty easy to get stuck on a single …
Hammock
We Watched You Disappear
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness…
It’s time to revisit another favorite album by Fennesz and Sakamoto-san
Chilly Gonzales
Solo Piano III (Gentle Threat)
“The musical purity of Solo Piano III is not an antidote for our times, it is a reflection of all the beauty and ugliness around us.”
Chilly returns with his third, and hopefully not a final album, of whimsical and clever tunes.
Ian Hawgood, Michael Vallera and Liars
At this point, there’s honestly no rhyme or thought or reason behind the path of my arrival at these sounds.
Orangewarrior
HALFTIME FOOTWORK JUNGLE MAYHEM
It’s that time of the year, kids, when we invite our favourite Halloween ghost and ghoul to wreck some mayhem on our ears.
Murcof
Lost In Time (Glacial Movements)
Lost in Time plunges us into perpetual renewal, each ending leading to a new beginning.
A soundtrack to Patrick Bernatchez‘s same-titled film; “a sound project that is part of the explorations around Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” initiated in Berlin in 2010.“
Frédéric D. Oberland
E Quindi Uscimmo A Riveder Le Stelle
[…] a cocoon whose ascending and cyclical pulsations intoxicate us, as if under a hypnosis…
From the Mouth of the Sun
Sleep Stations (Lost Tribe Sound)
The album’s modesty and restraint becomes part of its charm as it lulls the listener into a sweet melancholy…
Helios
Veriditas (Ghostly)
Viriditas is a word meaning vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth. It is particularly associated with abbess Hildegard von Bingen, who used it to refer to or symbolize spiritual and physical health…
After a decade of albums on his very own Unseen label, this Boston-based modern classical and film composer gets a backing from a well-respected Ghostly International imprint.
Peaking inside Alan Myson’s studio and his making of Bodied for Planet Mu
Ital Tek
Bodied (Planet Mu)
“the music focuses on the interplay between the minuscule and the vast, beauty and brutalism…”
A powerful entry in the Planet Mu‘s catalogue, and an outstanding follow-up to Alan Myson’s 2016 release, Hallowed.
Some honest thoughts on integration of music into your daily practice
Jóhann Jóhannsson
Fordlandia (4AD)
Fordlandia brings together the soaring grandeur of its predecessor […] moving between heady, melting cadences and crystalline motifs with gorgeous, dreamlike logic.
This coverage of the late Jóhann Jóhannsson‘s sixth studio album is a continuation of my personal revisit through the albums that have changed my life, as yet another entry in my occasional RECITAL series.