A mix of my favourite music of 2023 is nigh impossible and realistically will last for approximately ... well, a week or so. At least. So I've got some of the music from my selection of 2023 and created a near 40 minute sojourn.
It features:
Ava Rasti - I discovered Iranian composer, pianist and bass player Ava Rasti through Flaming Pines in 2023. I was lead to Marsh. It's a poignant piano piece set within a disfigured, twisting and subtly churning, drum'n'bass death throe. Well, that's where it took me.
Spanish composer Pepo Gálan and Australian (Parisian resident) musician, educator and broadcaster Karen Vogt co-create as GÁLAN/VOGT. My discovery of Karen's music was through sussing Adam Cole's participation in Karen's 2020 release, I Just Want to Feel. Nothing Is Under Control (Madeline Cocolas Remix) is a sensual, crooning meditation on well ... letting go? Upon further listening, there is also a degree of sorrow within the vocal delivery - a deep cut.
Brisbane based Ellena Ramsey aka Fhae, crafted a slew of eps, singles and an album in 2023, on Brisbane label 4000 Records. Reminiscent of Grouper, we aren't allowed to look under the kitchen sink is lifted from the album she lives within me. Featuring layered vocals and a bowed guitar, there is a woozy, heady inflorescence about this song. It's haunted and troubled. And beguilingly soothing. Innocence lost?
Then a meld between London based Turkiye born composer, Zeynep Ağcabay and Dutch/Friesian ensemble Piipstjilling. Zeynep's Ruya features a loop of layered male voices intoning a slow, quieted mantric chorus. Sound ephemera - static crackle, rustle and percussive strike edits - cut across and through this brief incantation. The Piipstjilling track, Wynstilling Dagen (Windy Day) from In Spoar (A Track), comes in replete with the spacious dynamics of the church it was recorded in. It too features a choral like sample which loops in oscillating pans across and within the soundfield. Jan Kleefstra recites his poem with patient, measured gravitas.
Ghostwoods is a recording project led by Naarm/Brisbane composer/musician James Lees. They released the beautifully languid album, My Neon through 4000 Records in 2023. Brighter Soon is a kind of post-rock, kosmiche, no-new-age ambient thing. Y'know, My Neon is a fine album, I found it as part of my ongoing search for saxophone playing in an ambient vein. Andrew Saragossi's sax playing features more prominantly on Terminal Bliss.
Ollie Cox released the richly textural Objects in Mirror in March. Traversing glitch, crunch, celestial and warehouse ambiences and otherwards, Memory Foam plays with sparse, glinting, echoic space. Distant mechanic roil too. And lovely decay.
Seguing from mirrored objects to the floating in space, layered drones of Brian O'Dwyer's Supreme Over Reality, lifted from Kangaroo - this piece plays with notions of kinetic stillness. I committed some impressions of the album over here.
Closing the mix with a track, I Take Pictures of Fire, by ZÖJ - Gelareh Pour and Brian O'Dwyer. Lifted from Fil O Fenjoon, this track is like an aural creek of gentleness and surrender. I figure it's a good way to leave. If you're interested, I reviewed Fil O Fenjoon over here.
Hey, I hope you enjoyed it. Till next time - stay safe.
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