This was originally posted on cohost on 2023-11-29.

I do not use Spotify, so I don’t get any unwrapped list or other summary of my listening habits. Also, just throwing out an autogenerated list of your music consumption habits feels a bit impersonal to me in addition to all the downer bits about Spotify being a shitty service that does not compensate artists. Instead I will write a bit about 3 tracks that stood out to me this year, just like last year.

Emptyset - Cinder

I was really excited to see a pre-release of new Emptyset material, and I was even more excited after hearing one of the early access tracks, Cinder.

Man, this is nasty. I love the raw dynamism of the noise the duo’s strange repurposed A/V gear produce, the way it swells and moves to fill in the gaps between the percussive elements and transients, like it has heft, inertia. A rapid, distorted 3/4 beat pounds away, but never settles in to order, always giving a small intermission between every phrase to stay in the gray zone between structure and chaos.

This brings me back to my first time hearing them and their Collapsed EP on raster-noton, in particular the track Core with is non-linear rhythms and noise swells. A great return to form after their last couple of releases which unfortunately did not grab me as much as their early material.

I saw them live in Brighton a couple of years back, much recommended if you have the chance to see them!

ASA - Inconsciente Alfa

This album ended up on my bandcamp wishlist due to it being something from Raster-Raster and the description mentioning this being a collaboration involving Atom TM. I bought it on a Bandcamp Friday and then let it sit in my collection unplayed, save for the first few tracks, which I found myself struggling to get past. It took me a few attempts to really get it - this is not music for playing in the background when working or in some sense enjoying. ASA do not hate you for listening to their album, but there is a certain indifference toward you, the listener, that permeates the whole experience. You are free to take this album in, but you have to meet it on its own terms. The music is hard, stoic, brutalistic. Spanish voice samples are thrown in, sometimes with little regard to matching the actual rhythm or mood of the underlying track with Modernizaciòn Acelerada being a good example of this (this song is only present in the digital release).

Inconsciente Alfa is one of the more approachable tracks on the album, and is the track that sort of made me ‘get’ this album and enjoy it for what it is. A rhythmic mishmash of chopped-up radio stingers give way to a 4-step beat that builds the track up again in a nice fashion, and I always find myself bobbing my head along to it.

Low Roar - I Won’t Be Long

This year I finally got around to building myself a proper gaming PC, and I have spent a lot of time playing titles that I felt I missed out on during the time I daily drove an old macbook. I bought Death Stranding on a whim after hearing a clip of @drewtoothpaste talking about it on a podcast. This game accompanied me during a time of recovering from a small surgery this autumn. This was my first time playing a really big ambitious game and I was completely hooked from the point where Low Roar - Don’t Be So Serious starts playing as you descend down into a valley, just taking in the beautiful landscapes and great music.

This is not really the stuff I normally listen to, but there was so music from this game that made an impression on me, both from Low Roar and others. There are a bunch of different Low Roar tracks I could have chosen for this entry, but I went with the one above which (at least I think) is not part of the Death Stranding soundtrack.

On the topic of game soundtracks, a runner-up was the Outer Wilds soundtrack, another game I caught up with with my new PC. Tremendous game.

Rest in peace Ryan Karazija.

Finishing thoughts

If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading about my musical tastes. I know these kinds of posts are kind of difficult get attention on - I know full well that I am quick to skip past music recommendations from others. There is just so much stuff out there and so little time. It is always easier to spend that time listening to the stuff you already know and that you know that you enjoy, you know?

If you liked this post or feel that your tastes seem to align with mine, you might also like my introduction to Pan Sonic, one of my favorite bands.