Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Sven Kacirek – The Kenya Sessions (world music)

    Sven Kacirek – The Kenya Sessions (world music)

    Altin Village & Mine will shortly (at the time of writing) be releasing The Kenya Sessions as a vinyl album, but they will be doing so about a year after its original CD and MP3 release on Pingipung, which gives me a welcome excuse to cover a recording that managed to pass me by on… Read more

  • Dementio 13 – Crash St (electronic post-rock)

    Dementio 13 – Crash St (electronic post-rock)

    Our statements have meanings only inasmuch as they indicate distinctions or differences. Words, and other meaningful gestures, draw lines around pieces of our conceptual universe, and say ‘x means y because it doesn’t mean z’. A piece of music that sounds very similar to another, has a very similar meaning; in the context of a… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    There’s more than a nod to dreampop and shoegaze in this music, but Lisa Masia and Marina Cristofalo are clearly too in love with the raw and ragged sound of a distorted electric guitar to tame it to the extent that might imply. Some of Wish You Were A Pony is downright heavy! This is… Read more

  • Monday Musing: Listening Communities And DIY Culture

    Monday Musing: Listening Communities And DIY Culture

    My last Monday Musing was on the topic of music scenes; this time it’s on a closely related theme. Just as there are social networks of musical production and consumption (a confusing multitude of inter-related networks), so there are networks of cultural practice that contextualise our listening. It’s apparent to anyone who takes an interest… Read more

  • Janne Hanhisuanto – Circles In 3D (ambient)

    Janne Hanhisuanto – Circles In 3D (ambient)

    All music has an atmosphere. I’d go so far as to say it’s a central aspect of all musical meaning, although it’s obviously not the only meaningful element in music. Words, melodies, harmonies, rhythms, timbres and so on, all have their particular capacities, but the atmosphere of a piece of music falls somewhere in the… Read more

  • Various Artists – Singles & EPs

    Various Artists – Singles & EPs

    The struggle. It’s a recurring theme in conscious hip-hop from the underground (for much the same reason that a lot of mainstream, mass-market hip-hop concerns conspicuous consumption). Life is hard for young people from urban areas, living with no privileges and few prospects; but here’s a form of art whose practice is primarily accessible to… Read more