1 Eartheater – Peripheral
The day I discovered Alexandra Drewchin’s music, I felt heavily relieved. At least for a moment. Which also happened with Dean Blunt for me. It’s like that rare moment when you experience someone making audible what partly goes on in your head, but you can’t even describe with words.
2 Yves Tumor – Licking an Orchid
“Licking an Orchid” is, as the title suggests, a song about sex. But as is often the case with the music of Yves Tumor, the arrangements and beguiling melodies are as provocative as the lyrics, which explore familial and romantic bonds and the uncanny wonders of the human body. Also his sound design and groove!
3 SKEE MASK – Rev8617
A shining hybrid of breakbeats and ambient textures: I discovered german producer Brian Müller only through algorithms and it made me sad, cause I should have known him long before.
4 Aphex Twin – Xtal
Widely regarded as one of the pioneering works in early IDM and modern electronic music, retrospective reviews mention its influence on electronic artists. Warp Records refers to it as “the birthplace and the benchmark of modern electronic music” and has stated that “every home should have a copy. Have to agree.
5 Flume – Some Minds (feat. Andrew Wyatt)
For me Flume is one of the most fascinating electronic music producers in the pop realm, unforgotten his incredible Remix of Disclosure’s ‘YOU&ME’. Equally is (Miike Snow’s) Andrew Wyatt in terms of Songwriting and Vocals for me – their track has accompanied me on many lonely night walks on the country side.
6 Marie Davidson – Workaholic Paranoid Bitch
To listen to Marie Davidson’s music is to be unsure whether or not you’re supposed to laugh or be genuinely frightened for your life. Also she explores what it means to love, and what it means to exist, and to be alive at this very moment in time, which deeply resonates.
7 Dorian Concept – Promises
Olover’s work always connected pretty much everything I look for in music. I was lucky to cross paths, with him in the role of a lecturer, at the Red Bull Music Acedemy Bass Camp in Berlin 2017. His latest album is probably my favorite of 2018.
8 Tirzah – Gladly
I don’t think it’s possible not to love this song. Also that pitchfork quote: “Gladly,” is a warm embrace of a song that clocks in at a leisurely 65 bpm—incidentally, the resting heartbeat rate that indicates tip-top physical condition.
9 Gajek – St. Pierre
Matti and I went to primary school together. But also as Gajek he produces electrifyingly futuristic club music true to the almost five decades old motto of Berlin’s Zodiak Free Arts Lab: „Total freie Musik“ – totally free music. It really resets my ears and brain every time I listen.
10 Jason Moran – Break Down
Radical, modern, free and ecstatic while highly intellectual. I had the privilege to have some sessions with Jason in New York, while staying in the city as a scholarship student. This track, feat. conceptual artist Adrian Piper, and it’s lyrics (!) are a manifesto to a forever anti-established mentality for me.
ANNAVR ‘II: Vibration’
Berlin based Avant-pop artist ANNAVR is poised to release her new EP with the arrival of has ‘II: Vibration’, the second chapter of a three part trilogy series, which began back in the summer with ‘I: Hallucination’. The self-produced EP trilogy outlines the evolution of ANNAVR as a person and as an artist. Where ‘I: Hallucination’ delves into her past and can be seen as a surreal collection of love songs collection and her tribute to the piano.‘II’: Vibration’ instead looks towards the future, with a more ecstatic, up-tempo approach. It has Anna wondering about romance, collective unity and freedom in a digital world. She says: “’Total Vibration’ is the opening track of my 2nd EP that’s all about our quest for romance and freedom in the current digital era. This song in particular touches on desire and the physical sensation of it with the lyrics, ‘I wanna dance your body, I wanna feel your total vibration’. The song opens on a mellotron melody, followed by a broken beat and helicopter sounds, blending into live drums and piano. We recorded this at the infamous Berlin Funkhaus (home to e.g. Nils Frahm). I wanted to create an ecstatic and warm passage intended to let your mind journey on this EP trip”.
She goes on to add: “On ‘Blue Satin’ island, a contemporary new age fantasy unfolds around vintage arps and a strong four-on-the-floor pulse. Where first ’I seek a revelation, try to understand, no access to the core’, we manage to escape and ’find our minds transformed and revive our hearts in freedom.’ ‘Vitamins’ is my space odyssey: ‘Camouflaged fragility, my entire form shaped differently, I am warming my hands at the thought of infinity.’ A collaboration with Ville Haimala (one part of Amnesia Scanner (PAN)) that builds around drums made of hydraulic robot sounds, low pitched voices and jazzy harmony. The final track ‘So Hi The Sky’ stays up high and dreams ’(…) preside over our wonder, truant of heaven come draw us under’, a quote by modernist lyricist Mina Loy. Verses carried by a distorted Hammond organ, lead into vocoder choirs opening to grande finale: a climax on the heavily chopped choirs of ’O Fortuna’ (Carmina Burana by Carl Orff).”
Classically trained in piano since the age of 9, ANNAVR discovered jazz at 14 and never looked back. Her talent took her to Amsterdam and New York, where she furthered her jazz training. Her musical spectrum has widened since then, and has skilfully come to combine the jazz and classical piano of her formative years, with trap beats, radio pop top lines and sounds from the electronic underground. Forever travelling, forever searching, ANNAVR wants to push past barriers both aesthetic and personal with her music. She adds: “Hybrid like our times, I don’t succumb to one genre and feel best when such criteria completely melts away in my music.”
Lauded by The Fader, i-D, Clash and Interview Magazine, ANNAVR has also been receiving a lot of love on British radio by the likes of Lauren Laverne, Gilles Peterson and Don Letts on BBC6 and Phil Taggart from Radio1. Following her live debut at Berlin’s Berghain Kantine in late 2017, ANNAVR has been invited to perform for TED and the Berlin Philharmonic. More
Live dates will be announced soon.
https://www.facebook.com/annavrmusic
https://www.instagram.com/__annavr__/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3NHrUfg7qWM2H9UBwsr1bm?si=h7_M0GYxTgWrc4XHqobiw
Photo credit: Alex de Brabant
