Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Asgeir & Mo – Danza de Andalucia (Flamenco fusion)

    Asgeir & Mo – Danza de Andalucia (Flamenco fusion)

    Flamenco is a music that lends itself to fusions, and that has been successfully fused in many different contexts, but it is also the site of a pronounced ideology of purism. The kind of cultural essentialism that has afflicted British folk music, or the blues, is still probably still the norm in Andalucia: this is… Read more

  • H.L.I. – Omniglyph (hip-hop)

    H.L.I. – Omniglyph (hip-hop)

    Rap is a form of spoken language; perhaps more than any other discursive art, it has no independent existence on the page; semantics are central to its meanings, but flow and orality are its material substance. It’s interesting then, that H.L.I. have chosen to title this release in a way that ascribes universal significance to… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    This is a record that gets straight down to business, a short, kinetic acoustic guitar intro prefacing a series of remarks, delivered with such visceral charisma that it almost doesn’t matter what they mean; the fact that they mean a lot imbues this music with a density that belies its simplicity and lack of frills.… Read more

  • Coalition – In Search Of Forever (progressive rock)

    Coalition – In Search Of Forever (progressive rock)

    I felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity when I first saw this album, but I couldn’t work out why. The first thing I thought of was Return To Forever, but that band’s album covers had very little in common with this one. It was several days before it came to me: the fantasy artist Rodney… Read more

  • Dementio 13 – El Lissitzky (electronic post-rock)

    Dementio 13 – El Lissitzky (electronic post-rock)

    Composers of electronic music, if they wish to work with a relatively accessible aesthetic, face a particular set of challenges: to avoid a sense of impersonality, to make their music feel ‘human’, to make it breathe, when it may in fact move no physical air between the moment of composition and the moment of reproduction,… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Quietness has been an important trope in avant-garde music since the days of Minimalism I guess, but it has been articulated in many ways, within a diversity of musical practices. The near inactivity to which some free improvisors have gravitated, or John Cage’s invitation to listen to the contextual ambience for four minutes and thirty-three… Read more