Nueva Forma has graciously allowed me to post these Listening Pleasures here for you guys. They have captivated me for the last month when stumbling upon them. Prior to this post I’ve also posted mixes 1-8 on Wanken with the track listing for each.
Each month Nueva Forma creates one of these mixes featuring artists from their own label and also guest artists whom they feel fit. The mixes are presented as podcasts and can be downloaded from the website. Each is around an hour or so in length. So sit back and enjoy the wonderful listening pleasures brought to us courtesy of Nueva Forma.
Jay Bodley aka A Setting Sun has been on the blog before with his cover of Air’s Le Soleil Est Pres de Moi but that sound is far different from what he’s brewing which is more of a textured doom metal that you’d find from an artist like Ulver with hints of what a non-metal fan would call beautiful. Raspberry is a song that could be split up into multiple sections where you start off with the unforgiving coldness of the intro and lets you enjoy a bit of familiar acoustic guitar and then fades into an almost ceremonial muted brother of the intro, its grey yet ends on a restful feeling that everything has calmed down.
The mysterious grace that Johann Johannsson shares with us reminds me of what a mad man would hide from anyone that feared him to not show that he has such a passionate side. Think if Tangerine Dream had to make a dark classical piece with Jan Jelinek without beats or glitches.
The label Kranky can never do me wrong, you dig in their back catalog and just find treasures and one song that I found from this Christopher Bissonnette LP made me happy that there were such things as good A+R.
Tim Hecker is a hero in my mind to lo-fi ambient, if I ever drowned this better be playing so its as bittersweet as I could ever imagine it being.
Take your time with these songs if you really want to enjoy them, if this sound isn’t something you usually listen to then I suggest listening to it alone, yet close to you but not overwhelming yourself. Try listening to it as background sound quietly then try listening to it noticing every detail, you might realize how much goes into making this sound appealing.
