Year-End Mania is the Key’s survey of the things below the surface that made 2014 awesome. In this installment, Key contributor Chris Zakorchemny shares five colorful songs he heard this year.
These five electronic tracks are less about the pulse of a beat, and more how electronic music would look if it was a Frank Bowling painting.
Synesthesia is a medical term describing the activation of one sense coming from the activation of another sense. That could mean looking at a photo and perceiving an audible element to it, or the inverse. Some musicians who have synesthesia describe being able to visually organize the music they create, or distinguish the colors of melodies. Wassily Kandinsky famously created paintings that were representations of music.
My initial thought for this list was to try to describe these five artists as sound collagists, but once I googled the phrase, I realized it was already a thing. Motherboard and the multi-talented Samantha Urbani (of various great bands) came up with it first. The following tracks are about the big picture coming from the smallest details. Continue reading →