Welcome to the eighth edition of my mail-outs, all of which have been archived on my website. As usual, please find an overview of my recent articles and radio features as well as some assorted/unsorted bonus recommendations below. Again I specifically point it out if a piece is available in an official or my own English translation.
+++++ Stuff That I Wrote (or Said on the Radio)
— For over two years I was fortunate enough to be able to write a quarterly column called Quartalsbericht for DJ Lab. It is now coming to an end, fittingly, with a glance at the current discussion around the sorry state of things such as IMPALA’s notion of a »two-tier music streaming market« and MIDiA/Mark Mulligan’s »bifurcation theory.« I’d like to thank my editor Marius Pritzl for his trust in me and providing me with the opportunity to analyse and comment on the developments in the music industry for such a long time. It was an honour to do what I think was important work, and I am sad that it won’t be part of my life anymore. Thanks to everyone who has read and discussed previous instalments with me.
— The topic of my last Quartalsbericht also influenced a comment that I wrote for Die ZEIT about bands like Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard pulling their catalogues from Spotify because Daniel Ek had cashed out massively and then reinvested that money into AI-assisted military tech. My argument (gift link) is that none of this will concern Ek or his company at all, but that others should join those three nonetheless. I’ve made the same points for all you German-language audio freaks at WDR 3’s Westart today, but that piece isn’t available on demand yet.
— Something that I barely mentioned in my Quartalsbericht farewell piece is the on-going AI slopification of DSPs such as Spotify. Also at WDR’s Westart (also not available on demand) I talked about that more generally after having previously discussed with Martin Böttcher at DLF Kultur’s Tonart what Deezer is doing to limit the success of the Velvet Sundowns and Aventhesis of this world. For Die ZEIT, I wrote the whole thing down (gift link), describing the strategy behind these schemes and also shedding light on the counterstrategies pursued by both Deezer and Rokk (see my DJ Lab profile on the German streamer from last year).
— Speaking of AI (yes, again), you might have heard that some AI-generated songs were published through dead artists’ and even Toto’s Spotify accounts. I hopped on a call with DLF Kompressor to discuss with Gesa Ufer how mind-numbingly easy it is to make that happen, and that I am afraid that it will continue to happen.
— Remember that two-part history of the music industry and culture in Yugoslavia that was published a little while ago through HHV-Mag? (If you’d like to refresh your memory, here are Part 1/Part 2 in English and Part 1/Part 2 in German.) It was accompanied by a Fox & His Friends label feature (English/German) that went live a day later.
— For DJ Lab, I profiled the wonderful villaWuller in Trier as part of my on-going series of club portraits for the magazine.
— In the latest instalment of my Found Sounds column for field notes (English/German), I wrote about (dis-)comfort music, i.e. new releases by Jasmine Guffond, Okkyung Lee, Raven Chacon, and more.
+++++ Some Unsorted Recommendations
If you’re anything like me, you always have some red lentils at home and occasionally buy a whole cauliflower but never really know what to do with it. Just throw them together with everything else mentioned in this recipe, et voilà! Also, N. and I recently hosted a friend of ours whom we hadn’t seen in a while. As a main, she wanted to make fesenjān (with lots of, that’s right, lentils) so I looked for some suiting starter ideas and stumbled upon this borani kadoo (based on the winning combination of courgettes, tomatoes, yoghurt, and a lot of cumin) as well as this pistachio soup that will from now on be a staple in my cooking routine. Be generous with the spices and you’ll yield some amazing results. And if that isn’t comforting enough, I suggest you check out The Ballad of Wallis Island on a (literally or figuratively) dark day—a comedic drama with a tight script that is incredibly goofy and well aware of it, just as it is not too ambitious in regard to the story it wants to tell. While this isn’t the kind of film that I’d want to rewatch soon, it was a perfect feel-good movie, and Tim Key’s performance was definitely memorable. Speaking of memory, the music of composer Marta Forsberg has always meant a lot to me since a particularly sunny, surreal summer day in the year 2020 during which I was listening to New Love Music on repeat. She has a new album coming up that is called Archaeology of Intimacy and will be released through the ever-excellent Warm Winters Ltd. It is poppier than her previous work, which does not at all mean that it is conventional. Think Kate NV, but Wojciech Rusin, if that makes sense? It is one of my favourite things to come out this year. Also, if you’ve paid attention to this section of my mail-outs, you will know that I have a thing for strings. Three Four Five (they kept piling up!) recent releases made with those caught my ear in particular. Aly Eissa’s Feral Note debut is 27+ minutes of oud noodling, fittingly called The Fruit Fly. It’s very good. The guzheng plays a central role on Gūsū’s The Ending Was A Typical Part for Subject to Restrictions. Quote-unquote traditional instruments and electronics make for a difficult match, but not on this lovely album. Speaking of which, also ZÖJ are working between tradition and modernism, and in a Persian context that pretty much always means that a kamancheh is being put to use. Their newest, Give Water To Birds, is once more fantastic—less out there than HUUUM or other projects with a similar concept, but still forward-thinking throughout. Speaking of which, Širom are back! Everybody’s favourite imaginary folk band is returning with In the Wind of Night, Hard-Fallen Incantations Whisper and though I have only heard that album once so far, I can assure you that if fucking slaps. SANAM will debut on Constellation with Sametou Sawtan, a psychedelic rock album that borrows heavily from jazz and experimental music and features not only a guitar, but also a buzuq. Absolutely massive. Speaking of which, when I watched the third season of Squid Game, I was delighted to see that they finally stopped pretending to be interested in criticising modern-day capitalism (something that I have ranted about at length) and just embraced battle royale genre conventions. The hilariously titled Alice in Borderland—a Japanese Netflix production whose first two seasons came out in 2020 and 2022, respectively—never pretends to have such lofty goals in the first place, although there is a Neon Genesis Evangelion-like passage towards the end of it. It does follow a lot of tightly scripted carnage, effective worldbuilding, and the usual ethical dilemmas though, so that’s fine by me. I was glued to my seat for its entire runtime, and am tentatively looking forward to the third season released this autumn—apparently, the original manga’s storyline has concluded with the second season, so who knows if they end up Games of Thrones’ing this one.