David Emery Online

Curating your curation

I know from personal experience that if you work with an artist or band, you very frequently end up liking, or even loving, their music. This is true even for music that is wildly out of your comfort zone. This is also partly why whenever you see a flotilla of music execs in a industry magazine choosing their favourite music of the last year — or their tips for next — they will invariably choose their labels’ own.

The wonderful thing about this is that it is not, I think, really about egos, or capitalistic nepotism; No, it’s because music is good. In almost any piece of music you care to identify there is joy to be found, you just have to pay attention. And, if you’re being paid to do so, you may well do just that. I remember, quite some time ago now, I had the immense fortune of visiting Scott Walker for a playback at a studio of his (then) forthcoming album ‘Bish Bosch’. There was about four of us there, along with Scott, baseball cap seemingly permanently affixed to his head, sat round a mixing desk. We shared some pleasantries until he clearly was getting either bored...

TRANSA by Red Hot Org

If you haven’t heard of Red Hot, they are a charity that have been putting out sublime music complications for many years, and the latest one, Transa — spotlighting trans and non-binary artists — is no exception.

It is a formidable undertaking, weighing in at almost 4 hours long and featuring over 100 artists — including Sharon Van Etten, Perfume Genius, a twenty six minute long André 3000 track, and a stunning Arthur Baker and Pharoah Sanders song that also features Peter Hook from New Order on bass, Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai on guitar, and Four Tet on guitar and percussion.

The Invisible Man

A stunning piece of writing.

Uniquely American, at least in the details, if not the overall situation. A perfect read for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Reincarnated by Kendrick Lamar

I didn’t get as hyped as everyone else over the Drake back and forth, but this is a great victory lap from Kendrick.

Also — a good reminder, as ever, not to write your end of year lists too soon.

On Bluesky

Did I need another social app to check? No not really.

But yet, here we are. For now I like it just fine, but let’s see how it all plays out. It would be great if we could get past the “replicating Twitter but less evil” phase that the competing networks are stuck on, and get on with figuring out what might come next.

LCD Soundsystem x Miles Davis

I couldn’t not post this. The music! The DJ-ing using YouTube! The fact it’s been on the internet for thirteen years I’ve only just seen it!

Via Kottke.

Writ Small: "Today" by Julie Morstad

This line hit me as remarkably profound.

And true — you can see the cogs of storytelling slowly start to mesh together as they grow up, narrative and plot appearing out of a steam of consciousness.

Well, when they don’t just say “it was ok”, which is remarkably often.

Collaborative Playlists in Apple Music

The latest version of iOS—17.3—just dropped*, and with it comes a great and long overdue update to Apple Music: Collaborative Playlists.

There’s delightful touches throughout, including emoji reactions per song, which strikes me as just the right amount of social in a Music app.

If you want to test it out, update to 17.3 and add something good (no pressure) to my shared playlist (link below).

* Can operating systems “drop”, or is that reserved for sneakers and hipster brewery collabs? Needs research.

Apple Music Replay ‘23

Apple Music Replay ‘23 just launched—I say ‘launched’, but you can actually get your stats all year round, so it’s just the final year recap that’s fresh.

Either way, this just makes me wonder what a Taylor x Four Tet remix would sound like…

Is My Toddler a Stochastic Parrot?

A beautiful mediation on a concept that has been contained to science fiction for the longest time but, now, is quickly losing the “fiction”. While it is likely that AI and large language models may well take jobs away from people, it seems that philosophers have heady days ahead of them.

The Inter typeface family

A wonderful free, open source typeface, just updated to version 4 with a range of additional alternate glyphs and styles.

So wonderful, in fact, that I’ve just switched it in to replace the default-choice Helvetica on this site. Much better. I particularly like the option that let you switch in slashed zeros—amongst many other little tweaks—to give it a little more character.

(No pun intended.)

The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge

Never have I been more interested to know why a bridge was built.

Radiohead x Kendrick Lamar

There’s two things I like about this.

Firstly, if you mash up my favourite album from 2022 with my favourite album of 2000, and you do it this well, there’s no way I’m not going to write about it.

Secondly, posting a mashup clip from YouTube, found on another blog, seems so deeply noughties that I’m getting nostalgic whiplash. Be right back, I’m just going to put this on my Facebook wall.

The Last Dinner Party, Glastonbury 2023

Blur - Live at Colchester Arts Centre

Stepping out of Colchester station you are presented with a giant Asda lurking off a roundabout, which is connected to another roundabout which, too, is connected to yet another roundabout. I did not stop to check whether that third roundabout is, indeed, hooked up to the first one as well, but I would not be surprised if it were so. All of which to say; Colchester is a town in England, similar in structure and form to so many others. Maybe a little prettier then most, though, with sprinklings of ancient walls and a river with lush greenery drooping over and into it; all of that sharing the space with Nando’s and H&M and Zizzi and countless other chains that wearily cling on across the country, sandwiched between empty resurants and shuttered shops.

I come from a town that could fit the description above almost exactly—other then it being a Tesco not an Asda, and there being an additional roundabout between it and the station—so I say this with love: It is the sort of place you only visit for a reason. Maybe you need to get your MOT sorted at the KwikFit, maybe it’s for that big shop. My reason would have absolutely infuriated my thirteen year old self.

I was exactly the right age to buy into the idea that some music was good and some music was bad. CDs were expensive, and you had to be sure—really sure—that what you were buying was worth the fifteen pounds or so you’d saved up. And of course, once you’d done so that decision was locked in. It was good, and you would revel in telling everyone of your refined taste and excellent spending choices. The conviction of a young teenager with a limited purchasing power is strong, and those definitive decisions would spread through a friend group like a virus. It was this landscape that Blur vs Oasis was born into.

I am unsure of the origins of why, or who was patient zero, but my friend group and I were very much on team Oasis. My first gig was Oasis, supported by The Verve, at Earls Court. My dad took me and we stood on the second barrier, not that far from the front, and I was awestruck. On the other hand Blur, deep in their Country House and Girls and Boys era, seemed somewhat silly and irrevant. It wasn’t until their self titled fifth album—which coincidently came out in the same year that Oasis’s infamously bloated third album ‘Be Here Now’—when I started properly paying attention. Blur revelled in trying new things, reinventing themselves time and time again, which was in stark contrast to the unfortunately diminishing returns from the boys from Manchester.

That reinvention continues with new song The Narcissist, from forthcoming album The Ballard of Darren, which got its live debut in a converted church in Colchester last Friday night. Nestled in the encore between the aforementioned Girls and Boys, and perennial favourite Tender, The Narcissist was a standout, which is impressive for a song that was less than twenty four hours old and surrounded by bonafide hits. It is reinvention by the way of introspection, the lyrics sounding world weary in a way that the best Blur songs do, the sound sounding fuller and more rounded then they have before, especially with Graham’s harmonies.

The rest of the set was a study in setlist selection, mixing in deep cuts, a smattering of new songs, and hit after hit without even getting to all of them. Yes, we were all a little older—the crowd were about as wild as you’d expect for an audience that fell in love with a band some thirty years ago—but it felt like Blur have found something, an indefinable spark, that they haven’t had for some time.

Three Drums by Four Tet

I came to electronic music late, much like I always thought I would with jazz. I could see jazz, hovering there, interesting, beguiling, not quite in view but on the horizon. Inevitable. I would get to it eventually. Electronic music, on the other hand, I dismissed out of hand.

I remember working with an artist when I was early to the music industry—I was going to say fifteen years ago but, sadly, I just checked and it will be twenty years ago next year—and being entranced by the music, but I could not get past the lack of vocals, or the lack of live instrumentation. The latter I find most odd in hindsight, coming from someone who was only in their orbit by virtue of his decades long obsession with ones and zeros. For far too long I was caught up in maintaining how I thought things should be, rather than embracing all of the possibilities of what they could be.

Four Tet, right now, is embracing those possibilities. He has entered his imperial phase—a phrase coined by Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys, who knows a thing or two both about pop culture and electronic music, referring to when an artist is at their commercial and creative peak—which is objectively quite funny for someone that clearly is just having so much fun. From accidently forming a supergroup with Skrillex and Fred again.. to releasing albums by Brian Eno (and Fred again.. again), and ending up accidentally headlining Coachella, Four Tet is somehow everywhere, but in the nicest possible way.

This latest track—another in a long line of standalone singles since his last album proper in 2020—is over 8 minutes long, but the first time I heard it I immediately played it again. The way it builds and flows and ebbs and soars, adding new elements only to take them away and make you long for their return, makes that runtime feel the same as a punchy radio edit, drowning you only to bring you back to the surface. I remember my cocky, righteous, twenty-something self being so sure that electronic music couldn’t bring the same emotion, the same connection, that quote-unquote real music could conjure. I’d like to think that if I’d played him this track, maybe—just maybe—he might have changed his mind.

Fly past

Black Country, New Road - 'Live at Bush Hall'

Black Country, New Road are a fascinating band. Up until last year, a music journalist would have probably focused on the dry wit of their lyrics and the wry delivery of lead singer Isaac Wood, both of which were the cornerstones of a sound that was taking them to bigger and bigger audiences. And then, on the eve of their second album release, he quit.

They were always more than just one person, though. And so, they have continued, reconfigured, and got on with it—continuing to tour, but with all new material. It’s still great—different, of course—but the spark that made them interesting in the first place is still very much intact.

‘Live at Bush Hall’ is a statement of intent—a full live performance film of brand new material, complete with a dose of theatre and artistic rigour. The vibe is Arcade Fire (without the problematic overtones) meets the best high-school band that ever was:

UPDATE: This has now been released as a proper live album, and it’s glorious: Black Country, New Road – Live at Bush Hall

The Work by Gold Panda

Sometimes, and in fact often with my most favourite records, it takes quite a few listens for an album to reveal itself. Listen one will just bounce off in a wave of indifference, or disappointment if expectations are high. Another try will result in the same, often the second half doesn’t even get listened to. Then a week will go by. Maybe a track appears in shuffle and I’ll check to see what it is and be surprised. And so on. Until, eventually, my ears are accustomed enough to let the whole album in, and again and again until it dominates my listening.

So it goes, and so it has been with the latest album by Gold Panda.

I’ve been a fan for years, and in fact I would credit his 2013 album “Half of Where you live” as being my first introduction to electronic music, having focused on guitars for far too many years prior. “The Work” initially passed me by, despite wanting to love it. Now it’s a daily play.

In Memory Of Tweetbot

For a while I’ve been hearing people say how “bad” their Twitter experience has been recently. How many controversy-baiting tweets they’re being pushed, or how often they get content they just don’t want to see. This had always confused me, as it didn’t match at all with what I was seeing—I thought to myself that maybe they should just unfollow whoever was retweeting that content into their timelines.

Well, now I get it.

I’ve not used the official Twitter client in—checks notes—over a decade and, well, it turns out it’s not… great. Spot checking it just now, and out of my latest 15 posts, 7 of them are negative, click-batey noise that the algorithm is prioritising as the most “engaging” content. I’m also getting notifications about random accounts that I don’t follow having posted. Hugh Laurie’s dog has died. Thanks for letting me know, Twitter.

Tweetbot has been one of my top used apps for years, but also my refuge. Always focused on the user experience above all else, it is such a loss to see it come to an end in such an abrupt and unceremonious way.

The only silver lining to this dark cloud is that Ivory—Tapbot’s new Mastodon client—is brilliant. It already feels like home.