Chill That Overwhelm
A record that's an antidote to the whirl of it all.
If you're paying attention, the world feels like a lot right now. Heavy. Brooding. Bleak.
When I first named Drowned in Sound waaaay back in the year 2000, the idea of overwhelm was a positive thing. To be fully immersed, totally lost in music, your emotions feeling flooded by sound, your body buoyant enough to crowd surf.
Fast forward to now, with 120,000 songs released every day, the moniker often feels like a metaphor for standing in the way of a firehose of music - many, oh-so many of these new releases jam into my email inbox, slide into my DMs or ping up in my notifications.
With so much noise and little clear signal, I sometimes wish a random journalist would join my group chat and recommend a record I've not taken the time to explore, because this sensation of everything being drowned out, one recommendation flushing away another, is a lot. Even if you're trying your hardest to pay attention, it can feel very disorientating.
This week's newsletter then is gonna be a short-ish one to ensure this record is in stark focus, and after this recommendation, I have tiny favour to ask...
Bolted (Deconstructed)
by FOREST SWORDS
rikalover33
Whenever I'm feeling the riptide pull of the newscycle, I often dip into the Ambient/Modern Classical/Drone thread on the DiS forums. The community share new releases they're loving and I was totally taken aback by this recommendation from DiSser tattybye.
Forest Swords has long been a favourite of mine and of the DiS communities. The recent album Bolted featured on our 2024 Neptune Prize list. I love his ability to create sonic worlds of cold sci-fi synths and grainy textures with the occasional thunderous tectonic underbelly. You is a discomforting calm, which is quite something to find your brain being gently pulverized by.
There's something soothing about the barely-lit shadowlands he conjures and he's soundtracked many a day where my cup followeth over.
This deconstructed version of the record, featuring ambient, improvised reinterpretations, is perfect for a grey day when you can't bare to see another breaking news alert.
Whilst swept up in the lunarscapes of Bolted (Deconstructed), I opened the bandcamp page and saw this
...Forest Swords' (aka producer and composer Matthew Barnes) most recent album, released as a fundraiser for winter food banks in his home city of Liverpool.
And if that's not a reason to "trust me, bro" that this record - which comes with some added Neneh Cherry - sits above everything else vying for your attention, I'm not sure how else to convince you. Enjoy zoning out to it.
3 MINS OF YOUR TIME, PLEASE
It's 2 years since I relaunched the Drowned in Sound podcast, and 1 year since I rebooted this newsletter and I need your help.
I can see bits of data about what people read and what gets clicked on but beyond a few thoughtful emails, I'm otherwise flying blind, unsure if this is what my imagined version of you wants.
I'm happy to carry on following my own muse and curiosity and frustrations with the world but it would be super helpful to get some of your insight to ensure I best focus my time and energy. And there may be ideas I haven't considered.
If you have 3 minutes, please could you fill in this anonymous survey to give me your feedback? If you include your email address, I'll send a random few of you some gifts.
This Week's Music News
- Members of British punk rock band UK Subs denied entry into the US, detained and returned to the UK after flying to Los Angeles for a gig (The Guardian)
- Paramore’s Hayley Williams joined Deftones onstage in Nashville last night to help sing 2003 single Minerva (Kerrang!)
- 'Creating a safe space is paramount': Saskhia Menendez on a transgender charter for the industry (Music Week)
- UK music industry fears grassroots impact of government’s Spring Statement (MusicAlly)
- Boiler Room issue statement over concern of new owners: “We will always remain unapologetically pro-Palestine” (NME)
- Dropkick Murphys Clarify X ‘Suspension’: ‘We Broke Up With [Musk] First’ (Variety)
- I spoke to The Drum about a brand new advertising format that aims to help music journalism, and the interconnected mess that is the online world (TheDrum)
- Iggy Azalea slams Universal Music as “criminals” and the “scummiest company” which “actively takes advantage” of artists (CMU)
- From soggy paper towels to high fashion shoots – Mike Hadreas takes Wallpaper* on a visual tour of his back catalogue (Wallpaper)
This Week's Must Read
This is a fascinating read about podcasters and the anchoring points in a time of overwhelm.
"We're in desperate need of "anchors" for culture and information right now. Not in the sense of centers of gravity, but in the sense of the news anchor, the person who calmly sits behind the desk on camera and explains what you need to know. Even though we know their content essentially comes via a committee of editorial staff, we trust the individual person. I think that's why people like Jamelle Bouie or Joe Rogan are so popular right now: They embrace telling people what or how to think about something by explaining how they think about something. The anchor then brings other people on to have conversations."
One Thing
This Weeks Must Watch
Jules Terpak is one of my favourite tech-obsessed, terminally-only content creators. She has a really chilled way of deconstructing big topics. In her first lengthy video essay she's illuminated the podcaster era, looking at how a lot of people shy away from being called journalists (in my view, that's often a good thing because most of them are more like columnists. Many big names really don't have any journalistic rigour!).
Image of the Week
Source: BBC News - As streaming subscriptions stall, are price rises inevitable?
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