Ext - One of the Moments (2015)

I would like to present a LP made by Sergey Mogilevsky an Ukrainian music producer. It belongs to a music style called UK Garage which I haven’t presented on this blog so far. When you play somebody a track like the ones on this album he will probably compare them to Burial. That can be a compliment, but on the other hand you could get “Another Burial copycat?” reaction. In this case I think that we can say that it’s a compliment. Twelve tracks and each one filled with emotions, pitched vocals and rhythmic drums. As I’m writing this I am trying to pinpoint the best piece, but it’s rather hard. I didn’t have an occasion to listen to it walking around at night in the rain which is what I usually tend to do with this kind of music, so maybe that’s the reason. Maybe we will go with the "tempus fugit" one.

bvdub - Today He Felt Life (from "All is Forgiven")

Another week, another post, another bvdub’s album.  Recently I’ve had an urge to listen to some relaxing music, so obvious choice here is something from Brock Van Wey. The other day, or evening to be precise, I listened to his tracks from various albums for about 2-3 hours, quite an experience I must say. I was sitting comfortably in my chair, looking at the sky, unfortunately through my window and not in the open, drinking tea and all that put together created an amazing atmosphere and a wonderful evening. “Today He Felt Life” is one of the pieces that I own it to. It lasts almost 32 minutes, so you can guess that it’s not an ordinary track, and I perceive it as a two-part song, the second one being the superior one, but hey, it wouldn’t exist if not for the first!

"All you need is love"? Not according to Schopenhauer.

The other day I was presenting Schopenhauer’s ideas about love and thought it would be a good idea to post some of them as well.

One might wonder why Schopenhauer, well known for him  optimism and sympathy towards humanity,  picked “love” as his object of studies. That’s because he thought love has a very important meaning in the human life. We tent to idealize it when in fact it is just a sexual instinct. What purpose does it have? Only one, prolongation of the human race. It doesn’t care about personal interests of individuals, about happiness and so on. For that Schopenhauer called it an invention, an illusion and deception of nature. The poets across history described love and the longing for it, which can’t be done completely. It’s just too big of a force to try to exhaust it’s content.

So there we have it, a few words about Schopenhauer’s vision of love.

Dark Souls OST

Today I would like to present music from a videogame called “Dark Souls”. It was released in 2011 and was well received by both, the press and the gamers. What stand out is it difficulty level, which is just brutal, unforgiving and ruthless. The back cover of the game says “prepare to die” so really, what can you expect? And why music from a videogame and not just form an album? It think that a lot of people don’t appreciate this form of entertainment, categorizing it as childish and utterly useless. I find it completely wrong because we can find examples of games that could be considered art. Putting that aside, let’s concentrate on music. It was composed by Motoi Sakuraba (Japanese musician, arranger and compositor) and reflects the game atmosphere tremendously well, although it appears mainly during boss fights. Without further ado, here are two tracks. 

birds of passage - Winter Lady (2011)

The weather outside is reminding us which season it is right now. I wanted to follow that fact, so I’m presenting an album of Alicia Merz, a minimalistic masterpiece.

It starts with “Fatal Melody” a dark, sad and kind of depressing song. It doesn’t get happier as the album focuses on creating a desolate and icy world in our imagination. Many other songs use vocals as an additional instrument, but here the voice of Alicia is the key instruments in all the tracks, accompanied by piano, ambient drones, some fields recordings and so on. It’s really a unique music and I find it strange that listening to it always makes me experience peacefulness, even though it’s cover and titles such as “Hollow”, “Disaster Of Dreams”, “The Monster Inside You” are definitely not bound to do such a task. I love listening to it in the dark, laying down with my eyes closed, in fact I once or twice fell asleep while doing so, which just proves the calmness it produces in me.

Sorrow - Dreamstone (2013)

From a guy who’s nickname is Sorrow it’s natural to expect sad, depressing music, right? Not in this case, at least not in “Dreamstone”. None of the twelve tracks available on the album is filled with…well, sorrow. I know that’s a subjective thing, but still I will insist on the fact that this LP is devoid of sadness. The first track “Elixir” is a wonderful example of it as it makes me think about childhood, that carefree time when we were always playing about joyfully. Maybe that was the idea behind it, it was supposed to have that effect hence the title. “Dreamstone” and “Dalliance” on the other hand are, for me, the highlight of the album. The appearance of CoMa, an uprising female vocalist, had much to do with it. Her delicate voice adds another dimension to the tracks and makes them oneiric.

bvdub - The Art Of Dying Alone (2010)

Another one from bvdub, but this time something a little different. Brock Van Wey creates music using repetition, because of that his tracks are usually very long (up to almost 30 minutes), it produces a hypnotizing experience. Before recording the first notes bvdub thinks about an emotion he wants to evoke in the listeners, he reminds himself about past experiences he had and comes out with a title. “To Finally Forget It All”, “No One Will Ever Find You Here”, “The Art Of Dying Alone” - we can see that the titles have meaning and that this album is filled with isolation, melancholy and contemplation. It reminds me of the medieval theme “Ars moriendi” although it wasn’t related to music. Listening to it really makes you contemplate about your life and death, and about life in general. It isn’t just something to listen to in order to kill time, mere entertainment, it is something more, something deeper, something more profound.