Music that ignites the senses : NPR

Pianist and composer Kelly Moran interprets her love of determine skating into the luxuriant “Butterfly Part.”

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Pianist and composer Kelly Moran interprets her love of determine skating into the luxuriant “Butterfly Part.”

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8 Tracks is your antidote to the algorithm. Every week, NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich, with the assistance of his colleagues, makes connections between sounds throughout time.

Synesthesia, in line with an NPR article from 2013, is “a neurological situation during which stimulation of 1 sense produces experiences in a very completely different sense.” Style coloration, hear photos, and many others. It is onerous to know precisely how many individuals have synesthesia, however there are occasions when my very own senses cross to create a novel expertise with music.

Two particular examples bounce to thoughts: At a efficiency the place two dancers moved slowly and with small gestures, like ghosts swimming by way of water. Within the cavernous Cover Studio, an aerial arts house in Athens, Ga., the one sound was the friction of muslin material and toe tape towards pores and skin. They danced with out music and, but, I might hear music; it was a heavy and monotonic drone of strings, as if submerged underwater.

The same however completely different expertise occurred on the Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C.: James Turrell’s mild set up Milk Run options closely saturated shades of sentimental reds in a darkish, silent room, but the impact felt like listening to blissfully noisy ambient music. This does not occur sufficient that I might name myself a synesthete, however I do suppose the thoughts’s eye can fill within the blanks when met with stunning or bewildering artwork. This week on 8 Tracks: Just a few songs that pirouette and paint, plus new music by Charli XCX, Mdou Moctar and TikTok shoegazer Wisp.

Julia Holter, “Night Temper”

As summary and aloof as her pop songs could be, Julia Holter interprets temper into one thing each tangible and magical. When she lately visitor DJ’d an episode of All Songs Thought of, Holter advised Robin Hilton and me {that a} aim for One thing within the Room She Strikes was to “seize emotions.” On “Night Temper,” that feeling is oxytocin, the love pheromone. The tune’s sun-streaked pastels are illustrated by Chris Velocity’s fluttering clarinet, Beth Goodfellow’s heartbeat drums and Tashi Wada’s glowing blocks of synths.

Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones, “Farmer’s Track”

The New York-based vocalist and composer Amirtha Kidambi is closely invested in decolonization and deconstruction of borders bodily, psychological and musical. “Farmer’s Track,” impressed by a mass labor motion in India, wheezes on a whooping harmonium riff that provides her band room to groove and rage with equal measure. Lester St. Louis, specifically, offers the protest tune its distinctive curvature — like dancers suspended from and flying on silks — as his cello extends Kidambi’s dirge with ecstatic glissando: “We work from cradle to grave, conditioned like a slave. Not realizing a dwelling wage, we work from cradle to grave.”

Kelly Moran, “Butterfly Part”

Kelly Moran‘s compositions for piano are elegant, even luxuriant, of their experimentation. She’s linked with FKA twigs on tour and in a Tiny Desk; their shared aesthetics are rapidly obvious. On “Butterfly Part,” Moran interprets her love of determine skating into a bit of music that exists in two states: a capital-R Romantic melody that glides with grace and serenity, but in addition frenetic, however nonetheless effusive staccato notes on the higher keys. The music video encompasses a routine by determine skater Elizabeth Yoshiko Schmidt, harnessing the outward great thing about the efficiency and the inward nerves of the performer.

Charli XCX, “Von dutch”

OK, this one has nothing to do with synesthesia… until you see flashing lights whereas listening to rave-y pop music. Charli XCX’s been right here earlier than (see: early MySpace demos, her co-write on Icona Pop’s ode to finish chaos), however that is Struggle Membership: Trash Pop Mode. EASYFUN, who additionally produced “Femmebot” and Barbie standout observe “Velocity Drive,” amplifies the pop singer’s destructo-banger tendencies: gritty synths, a dizzying four-on-the-floor and a bratty vocal supply all wrapped into an early 2000s electroclash mystique. On the worst and finest evening of your club-hopping life, this shall be your soundtrack.

Mdou Moctar, “Funeral for Justice”

After I noticed Mdou Moctar stay in 2022, I could not assist however suppose: “This rocks.” That is some vital wit proper there. To my credit score, nonetheless, the Tuareg guitarist had proven us extra folkloric acumen on 2021’s Afrique Victime — a pastoral quietude with a gradual burn. “Funeral for Justice,” a tune pointed at African leaders who let France and America push them over, flashes way more arena-rock strikes — crunchy suggestions! large, dumb riffs! — but nonetheless maintains a slippery fingerplay at punk speeds.

Swati Bhatt, “Embrace”

My colleague Nikki Birch, video producer for Jazz Evening in America, is all the time turning me onto music not in my common wheelhouse. This totally beautiful tune by New Delhi-based singer Swati Bhatt, co-produced with Bob Lanzetti and that includes a few of his Snarky Pet bandmates, is one way or the other lush and lightweight without delay. A swooning association of harp, synths, violin and percussion affords a decadent house to cry, however nonetheless serves the tune’s soothing core: “Shed your crust and go away behind / Worries that crowd your thoughts,” she sings. “Gauge the great thing about the storm.”

Wisp, “See You Quickly”

Look, like most elder millennials, I do not spend any time on TikTok apart from what’s texted to me. So when All Issues Thought of producer Jordan-Marie Smith requested if I might heard of Wisp, I responded: Is not that the identify of a tooth cleaner? Shoegaze — the blown-out, feedback-ridden style for loners and losers with Fender Jazzmasters — is in style on TikTok, the platform for loners and losers on-line collectively. The 19-year-old Wisp seems to be TikTok’s shoegaze goddess and it isn’t onerous to listen to why: “See You Quickly,” with a despondently catchy guitar hook, creates a hushed stress that erupts at simply the precise second.

Combo Chimbita, “Margarita”

Combo Chimbita‘s Afro Colombian psychedelia is already a number of shades of soulful haze, however add Ticklah’s dub reggae contact to those intoxicating rhythms? ¡Ay, Dios mío! Right here the New York band hangs on a languid guitar riff, ping-pong synths and Carolina Oliveros’ amber-toned trills, however waits a full minute to unfurl cumbia’s signature chuch-chucha-chuch rhythm on the guacharaca. It is a delayed gratification that swims within the dubby deep finish and dance drifts into the ether.