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As 2023 ends, I have to admit that my physical, mental and emotional state has not allowed me to engage the breadth and depth of the year’s new music as fully and consistently as I hope to, normally. I just haven’t been able to give all kinds of music what they deserve, and so while I’ve heard a lot of new music I know I’ll love when I’m in a better state, I don’t feel like I can honestly create a “Musicophilia’s Top 75 Albums of 2023” list or a traditional wide-ranging year-encapsulating mix, at least not yet. In truth, only certain kinds of sounds have almost always felt “right” for both my headspace and my feelings about the world, this year.
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‘The Unease’ is an LP-length mix of some of the music that met me where I’m at in 2023. It’s haunted stuff, perhaps ambient but not relaxed, beautiful but rarely simply “pretty,” dark in tone and atmosphere, more concerned with feeling and sound-craft than melody or rhythm. (In fact, I even tried my hand at making these sorts of sounds this year, and I’m not ashamed to include some of the results in this mix.) I find this music reassuring in its unsettledness, its shape-shifting ambiguity, its mystery, its open exploration without a clear path or destination. It probably wouldn’t be called “uplifting” or “soothing” by most people, but I find it helps me make sense of a time and place (in my life, in the world) that can feel full of nonsense. This music admits our uncertain state, and somehow its honesty regarding the unease we so often experience, the music feels nourishing, perhaps even healing. I hope you will find it so.
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Thank you for listening over these last fifteen years, some brighter and some darker. Through music, may we find hope. Stay strong, be kind whenever you can, fight those who dehumanize and oppress.
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Download/stream the mix below the tracklist. Please, please, buy music (don’t just Spotify) at local shops, independent online sellers, Bandcamp et al. You have to stream thousands of times to make artists even pennies–buying music puts much-needed money into artists’ and labels hands immediately. Please visit the Bandcamp links below, and buy what you can. Thank you for listening, and please pass it on.
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Various – ‘The Unease’
2023
01 [00:00-03:20] Richard Skelton – “Hypervelocity” (‘Selenodesy’ 2023)
02 [02:45-07:50] Ian Manire – “Evensong, Part Five” (‘Evensong’ 2023)
03 [07:35-10:05] Tim Hecker – “Total Garbage” (‘No Highs’ 2023)
04 [09:15-13:45] Karen Vogt – “Losing the Sea” (‘Losing the Sea’ 2023)
05 [10:00-21:10] Natalia Beylis & Eimear Reidy – “The Whistling Dust” (excerpt) (‘She Came Through…’ 2023)
06 [15:45-18:45] Daily Rituals – “Wild Dusk Singing” (‘Aftersongs’ 2023)
07 [18:05-24:20] Old Saw – “Spinner’s Weave” (‘Sewn the Name’ 2023)
08 [20:50-25:10] Chuck Johnson – “Interrogation” (‘Burdon of Proof’ 2023)
09 [24:40-28:35] Mizu – “Prelude (An Eternity of Light)” (‘Distant Intervals’ 2023)
10 [28:35-32:40] Samuel Adams – “Shade Studies” (excerpt) (‘Current’ 2023)
11 [31:40-36:05] Kuma – “All We Can Do Is Carry On with Grace” (‘We Have Dark Friends’ 2023)
12 [33:40-37:05] Sailcloth – “Civil Twilight” (‘Resting Fields’ 2023)
13 [36:35-40:50] Laurel Halo – “Earthbound” (‘Atlas’ 2023)
14 [40:30-43:20] Hilary Woods – “Burial Rites” (‘Acts of Light’ 2023)
15 [43:05-46:40] J.P.A. Falzone – “Sublunar Harmonies” (excerpt) (‘Sublunar Harmonies’ 2023)
[Total Time: 46:40]
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Download ‘The Unease’ As A Mixed File Here (120 MB)
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