POTW (2019/18): Instrumental Chill Out Gems

This week, our Playlist of the Week is Jon Magnusson’s Instrumental Chill Out Gems.

I’ve featured some of Jon Magnusson’s playlists in the past, as he is the artist who started the ‘Monster Thread’ movement which started with The Monster Thread playlist and developed into a platform for indie artists to support each other, collaborate and share knowledge of the industry so we can all benefit from each other’s experience. (For more about Jon, read post on The Monster Thread).

This is another playlist that does what it says. Instrumental Chill Out Gems starts out with Chet Atkins’s Maybelle, a folky guitar piece with a hill-billy ragtime flavour, then moves into modern classical piano territory with Yiruma’s River Flows in You, before featuring independent artists like Tommy Berre, Kip LaVie and some of Jon Magnusson’s own guitar-based pieces.

This collection of pieces frequently features solo acoustic guitars and pianos, and would be perfect for waiting rooms or reading, as it is very calm, without being particularly sleep-inducing. (It’s probably still too calm for playing behind the wheel, though). There are also laid back rock pieces, jazz, downtempo electronica and ambient tracks, plus an occasional foray into epic orchestral music.

Duration: 87 songs, 5h 10min. (Subject to change, of course).

Rating: PG. I would have rated this as U, were it not for the inclusion of Alessandros Kilias’s piece ‘My Idea’, which has some spoken samples from the film The Indestructible Man, including the threat ‘I’m going to kill you’, which I imagine may not be suitable for very small children.

Playlist of the Week (2018/40)

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Our POTW this Monday, Relax Soul, comes from Mirko Consoli, otherwise known as the singer Nick Tempest.

Nick’s from Sicily, Italy, and takes the second half of his stage name from the lead singer of the 80s rock group “Europe”. (Incidentally, that singer’s name, Joey Tempest, is also a pseudonym – he’s really Rolf Larsson). 

Nick says his love of music stems from his childhood, when he was particularly struck by Power Metal and West Coast AOR, which he loves for their sense of melodic power. But  these are not the only genres that he says have made an impact on his own musical direction – he also cites Celtic and Italian influences, particularly the popular Italian singer-songwriter Amedeo Minghi

Nick’s self taught on the guitar and keyboard and can sing in six different European languages. His music is pop; the best description I can manage is that it’s a kind of cross between 80s-inspired Euro-synthpop and that easy-listening – almost crooning – style of classical music. Kind of Julio Iglesias crossed with Pet Shop Boys with a bit of light opera thrown in, very loosely speaking. I can certainly hear Minghi’s influence on his style, having checked out a selection of his music for the purposes of writing this article.

Back to the playlist: it’s a collection of soundtrack, filmscore-esque and instrumental music, with the aim of being relaxing to listen to. (Obviously – the clue is in the title.)  Piano features quite often and Nick’s included a generous sprinkling of lesser-known artists in the mix, too. The overall result of his work putting this together is a great playlist for listening to when you have tasks that you need to really focus on without being distracted by lyrics. Equally, it makes a great late-night playlist for de-stressing before sleep.

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/21)

This week’s POTW is KevOz’s Pianoscapes, on Spotify, which features (wait for it…) piano-centred music.

KevOz is an independent musician that has been heard by millions of people, because some of his music is used at Tokyo’s Disneyland. His music is difficult to categorise – it has a quirky mixture of styles and influences, but it is based around synths and keyboards and there is an 80s influence evident in many of his tracks, but always with a twist. KevOz’s music is not synthwave, but it’s clear he has dipped into that particular pool of inspiration.  Style-wise, there is a fair overlap with my own Stoneygate music, but with his own very individual stamp.

The Pianoscapes playlist features a range of artists, and KevOz has been very kind and included my Spiralesque track amongst the tracks featured. This one should be a good one for playing whilst you get your work done if you use music to help you focus.