This week is Eurovision week, so I've been getting to know this year's contributions. The first semi-final was last night, with no big surprises (although I was personally a bit disappointed that Belgium and Switzerland failed to qualify). The early favourite Israel was a bit disappointing live, while the Albanian contestant really took his song to a higher level. My own country will be performing in tomorrow's semi-final, but is expected to qualify with ease. Saturday's grand final should be pretty great. :-) If you're not familiar with the Eurovision Song Contest, I recommend looking up Overthinking Eurovision on YouTube. They make entertaining reviews of some of the contribution from an outsider's perspective.
Shabaz Qalander Can't find it on youtube, just log into spotify Never has an ode to an ancient Sufi mystic sounded so. Fucking. Funky gawddamn. Track is 25 min long and I can't stop listening and my wife is upstairs being like "honey are you coming to bed" and I'm all "up in a sec I gotta jam with my man Qualandar for a few more bars" By the way mk for some reason if you post a raw link to spotify instead of embedding it just leaves a blank space. Ex.:
The new Jon Hopkins, SIngularity was released last week. I like his music but it doesn't really excite me. Half of it's exploring what seems to have become his signature style. I've already heard people complain they all sound the same. No for something really exciting - Autechre's NTS Sessions - four new 2-hour releases. I haven't had time to listen to them all yet, but the first hits on youtube are slowed down to 50% or sped up to 200% original and I really wonder whether they've done that themselves.