Playlist of the Week (2018/46)

Playlist of the Week No 46: Filtersweep Collective - Stay Clean 2018This week’s POTW is another from the Filtersweep Collective stable,  Jamie Christie’s Filtersweep Collective – Stay Clean 2018.  I’ve previously introduced you to Jamie in July, when I covered his easy listening/AOR playlist geared up for lazy weekend mornings.

This playlist is a mix of genres tending towards a slightly dark flavour, anchored by the synth-tronica of JJ Christie himself and other indie and synthy artists like Resonanz Kreis and War Syntaire. It’s not all about the synths, though: there’s a good balance of guitar-orientated music in the selection. It also has its lighter moments, such as Robert Maitland’s optimistic song All is Well, and the beautiful cinematic piano piece The Song Without a Name from Merlijn Depré.

All in all it’s a really nice showcase of a variety of independent music – I don’t think there’s a single track in this collection by a mainstream artist.

Rating: “PG” – This playlist mostly avoids songs with the ‘explicit’ label for swearing or adult themes, as the title of the list might suggest, but there are a couple of exceptions with the odd stronger word.

Playlist of the Week (2018/22)

This week’s POTW is Elegant Electronic Music, compiled by Roz RK, aka Resonanz Kreis. In this playlist, RK has pulled together a great collection of tracks from across the world of electronica, encompassing genres as diverse as chillhop, EBM, ambient, synthwave and plenty of tracks that I couldn’t quite assign to a particular genre*.   Some of the tracks make for more challenging listening, but overall this is a good playlist to put on whilst you get on with a few hours of work, as it feels rather like a film soundtrack.

Roz is an electronic artist based in Northern Italy and Resonanz Kreis is a solo project that has been going for about 20 years, but is a relatively recent discovery for me, via the loose network of independent musicians in contact on social media. Resonanz Kreis’s best work has an uncluttered simplicity with hints of classic electronica from such artists as Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre and Enigma. I’d especially recommend My Silence if you like tracks by Enigma, or T.F.L.D. if you like a slightly more experimental sound, like this one by the Flying Lizards.

 

*Disclaimer: I’m pretty rubbish with genres: the electronica scene is always coming up with new genre names and their meanings shift over time. If I tried to keep up 100%, I’d not have any time left for making music!