If the pool of sound into which we can dip to make our music is proven infinite - and it is because we are defeating our physical limitations – presumably the most beautiful music imaginable or unimaginable should be regularly made. It isn't, and more often than not we are simply pleased by what fits squarely into a box, or functionally challenges that box, if you prefer, or some successful tangent between those extremes. Rarely do we experience real transcendence.

Occasionally, we encounter a strange recording or performance that at once sounds so perfectly new and original, yet so ideal and familiar that it is as if we willed it into existence, or just personal awareness.

When and at whose hands have you experienced this?

Most recently, Earth's "Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method" has surfaced as an actualization of music I've always wanted to hear. Something so quiet and patient, and consequently so heavy, that it seems to challenge me, but grace me so easily that I can slip it into my back pocket and keep it there until forever.

Paavoharju - Yhä Hämärää

delicate, beautiful, and haunting. i'm attracted to it, but at times, frightened by it. innocent, but sinister.

if i could write music, it would sound like this. i can't, so thanks Paavoharju.

Harken back to Neolithic times: Jade Warrior, Floating World

for me the greatest realizations of my personal tastes over the past few years were:

iron & wine
the microphones
the black keys
the drive-by truckers

Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports. I remember reading a review in Trouser Press and knowing I had to get it; that this was gonna be the sound I didn't know I'd been searching for.

I was right. *goes to bed. puts on Harold Budd*

go plus - strum
laub - miniversum
einsturzende neubauten - halber mensch
potawatomi - le petit mal
tied and tickled trio - mutant


all experienced circa 1999 whilst living in belgium

After I heard "You Get What You Give" by The New Radicals a few years ago, I knew I found my perfect pop-rock group/songwriter. Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too is the rock album I always wanted to hear and I never get tired of it.

Recently, this guy named Saul Stokes has been making some of the best electronic music I ever heard, especially his album Fields. It's really light, dreamy ambient music with unique percussion and layers of synths. He makes his own instruments so that probably has something to do with the fact that his music sounds different.

Moving here coincided with my discovery of a lot of exact music that I had yet to hear. I distinctly remember listening to Low's Things We Lost in the Firefor the first time and thinking "this sad music is the happiest"; and with Amon Tobin's Supermodified confirming that electronic music could be musical and human. I had spent the previous 4 years listening to Maxells of Phish, which is another story altogether.

Us, messenger meeting, pronto, prego.

If I could record music I'd want to be David Sylvian, particularly Secrets Of the Beehive style. Though I'd probably screw it up and sound like John Denver trying to be Bowie. Oh well.

yeah for me a part of the experience has a lot to do with place and environment, and the way the music imprints itself on it.

you should post a track if you haven't already. umlauts and my search engines don't get along for some reason

I take it that's pronounced yhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaah haaaaammmmmahhhhhhraaahhhhhhh? With several glottal stops in it?

sorry dude. passed out early.

will hit you up today fo sho.

EDIT: (see sig.)

For those wanting to hear Paavoharju, here's a track from their album. Mind you, this is only a sample of their broad sound. If possible, listen to it through headphones to get the full effect.

Paavoharju - Kuu Lohduttaa Huolestuneita

http://s39.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3L2U ... PJP40WEBDC

Here's the album cover art..

It's like hipster rock, but sung by kids.

Brilliant!

Thanks, Dalen. I'll offer my thoughts when I've given it a listen.

cLOUDDEAD
Boards of Canada
The Flaming Lips
Morphine
Swervedriver

Lightning Bolt

I hear yah brother, I hear yah.

edit: To answer Ish's question:
I'd say Portishead did that for me when they released Dummy (incorporated jazz torch songs into a current and electronic/hiphop context)/

sounds like they are from a place that's nighttime 23 hours a day for half the year.

"AEIOU Sometimes Y" by ĒBN-ŌZN

I'm pretty sure I came up with that one while napping/crapping in my crib a good two decades before a couple of "adults" claimed it as their own.

Thanks. The singing reminds me a bit of the singing from the group Bel Canto. They had a couple of songs I really liked (and some other cheesy ones).

I was dreaming about comercial black/death metal in 93 and wola... screamo. Yeah i pretty much dreamed up Slipknot and Underoath back when Cannibal Corpse was all the rage.

Also i was real into autechre, orbital and aphex twin and i thought "wouldn't it be fun if they were more pop friendly" enter postal service/notwist/lali puna/styrofoam.