things i’ve liked this week, vol. 0

2024-10-25 23:31

here are some things i liked. no promises on this being a regular thing!

music

some i have listened to on repeat, some i have just started getting into. either way!

kelly lee owens - dreamstate

listen/buy on bandcamp

trance is back, baby. i’ve enjoyed all of kelly lee owens’ work so far, and in this album her signature synths and her cool voice mesh very well with these new, warm trance influences (“sunshine” and “dark angel”). while much more energetic than her previous album lp8 she also slows down for some more minimalist, melodic ballads (“ballad (in the end)”, “trust and desire”). my favorite song is probably “higher”, which starts as a dying flame and ends as a barn burner. despite this being her most energetic and lightweight record it retains the hypnotism and organic wabi-sabi i have enjoyed in all her work.

tdj - spf infini: genesis

watch on youtube / listen/buy on bandcamp

trance is back, baybee, and over the last few years, montreal-based TDJ has been releasing a series of audiovisual mixes called spf infini, all of which have an accompanying music video, where she djs in some farflung location while people dance around her, take selfies, or browse a retrofuturistic internet.

this mix is her biggest and most ambitious. clocking in at just over an hour and a half, the accompanying music video takes you on a plane trip to he4ven with a variegated scattering of unabashed weirdos. tdj blends a mix of euro-trance and hardstyle, along with her own tracks: “ただdance in the dark” is influenced by russian eurodance while closer “clear blue water” sounds straight out of y2k. it’s a smooth ride with no turbulence that nonetheless remains interesting. i want to burn this onto my discman and dance around with my chunky silver sneakers, but my coding workstation will suffice, i suppose!

natural wonder beauty concept - natural wonder beauty concept

listen/buy on bandcamp

a collaboration between ana roxanne and dj python, who met at the cusp of the pandemic, collaborated over the next few years in brooklyn and la, and produced by cz wang. the result is a textured collage of a trip-hop album. i adore ana roxanne’s voice and her ethereality truly lends itself to the beats on this album. as i listen to this i feel like i truly experienced the nonlinearity of time.

ccl - beats in space 135

listen on apple music / tracklist

unfortunately this is an apple music exclusive, but if you do have this service i think you should listen to their dj mix, a mix of techno and dubstep which includes a lot of djs from seattle.

video

this video about how to travel to west berlin via the DDR

some context: this is a VHS tape presentation produced by the british royal military police on how to drive from helmstedt to west berlin, via a specially designated highway on the DDR (travel into the DDR was restricted and heavily monitored by the Stasi). the absurdly high production values (remember, making video content was expensive back then) and banality belie the underlying tone of paranoia (NEVER talk to the east german authorities! NEVER speak russian at a checkpoint! and NEVER, ever for the love of god eat at the Rastätten) and convoluted diplomatic gymnastics (we do not respect east german authority, however, we must take care to respect the soviets, however). and remember, there was no cell phones or gps navigation widely available. it’s worth noting that this was produced in 1989, a year before the berlin wall fell.

philosphy tube - how death changes your perspective

new to me, i don’t want to spoil it! but like her other videos, it’s insightful, extremely well-researched, and comes to some rather haunting conclusions. in particular, it contains a really great description of affect which has helped me distill it as such: knowledge is to thinking as affect is to feeling.