Diandra’s 2016 in Music

R&B and hip-hop composer Adrian Younge, who worked with Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of the recently resurgent A Tribe Called Quest) on the Luke Cage soundtrack, released two albums as well this year. Memories of War [Bandcamp] and Psalms [Bandcamp] are brief, breathy retro tributes from Something About April II (NSFW images at links). My favorites from The Electronique Void: Black Noise are the atmospheric The Night

and Systems

It was only while researching at this time of writing that I found out London-based Iranian electronic musician Ash Koosha was one of the stars of the film No One Knows About Persian Cats! His Bandcamp bio also mentions Koosha’s exploration of synaesthesia, which definitely comes across in the video for Mudafossil.

Note: Epilepsy warning.

Other songs I recommend are Feather [Bandcamp] and Biutiful [Bandcamp].

Venetian Snares returned with meditative Traditional Synthesizer Music, out of which I liked Dreamt Person V3 [Bandcamp] the best. On the other side of experimental electronic, Anna Meredith branch out from her classical composition training with percussion-heavy rock like Shill [Bandcamp], and R-Type.

Note: Epilepsy warning.

Wolf People looked back to ‘60’s/’70’s folk-rock with Ninth Night [MV] and Glass [1], while Debo Band hearkens back to the golden age of Ethiopian jazz with tunes like the Duke Ellington-Addis Police Orchestra blend Blue Awaze [1] and their energetic cover of traditional piece Yachat [1]. Meanwhile, Fumaça Preta continued on their shouting oddball way with singles Décimo Andar [MV] and La Trampa.