This time we asked our favourite drummer in the world Valentina Magaletti from the great Tomaga, Oscillation, Raime, Shit and Shine etc etc and this is the great list she gave us:
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Glen Branca – Structure
This track taken from the seminal The Ascension had to be on top of my list of favorite piece of repetitive music. 5/4 is such a great time signature that enhances even more the power of this stellar riff. Lee Ranaldo and Glen Branca are at their best here.
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Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Sankofa
Toni Allen’s grove, hypnotic and elegantly tense never stops to intrigue me. He is not just an exceptional drummer, he is also a story teller, like one that you can’t stop listening to…
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William Basinsky – Disintegration Loops
I could listen to this forever. I consider this piece of music a real masterpiece. I remember reading about Basinsky literally composing it while watching the ash from his window on September the 11th; truly powerful stuff.
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Tony Conrad with Faust – Outside the dream syndicate
“Dear John, I am sitting here listening to the playback of this copy of Outside”. I can hear the tape making noise and dropouts”. I never met John Cale, but I did meet and had the pleasure to share the stage with Mr Conrad. What an incredible artist. This record is the ultimate mantra. Conrad teams up with Faust and manage to create the perfect match between Kraut rock and avant-garde galore. I struggle in fact to pick a side. Both tracks are legendary and every time I put them on I wish they never end.
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Terry Riley – You're No Good
This is just the best modernist prototechno jam ever. I don’t think I ever seen this on vinyl. I remember I almost felt sick the first time I heard that this was recorded in 1968. I thought: what is the point of djing, or playing in the studio for hours when perfection can be achieved with two reel to reel tape machines drifting in and out of sync creating a world of its own? Incredible stuff.
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Rob Mazurek – Alternate Moon Cycles
I picked this record very recently from a little pop up store at a festival were I was performing for two reasons. First of all because I heard very good things about this new San Francisco’s label International Anthem, but mostly because I red the following quote from Samuel R. Delany on the front cover: “A moon’s beauty is in variations of sameness” and I though YES! This is what my brain needs. An extremely blissful and pleasant listening highly recommended.
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Blutwurst – Yogurt
These guys are just phenomenal. They are radical impro ensemble from Florence and this piece in particular blew my mind. To me they are like the Italian version of La Monte Young, knowledgeable, atonal, and extremely prolific. I had the pleasure of working with them on some Tomaga’s material and me and Tom Relleen proposed to put this and few other of their compositions out on LP this year on Negative Days. Exciting times.
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The Residents – Kaw liga
This is a must for me every time I am on dj duty. It never fails to entertain me. I am big residents fan so I could have pick up a few songs who fits this list but this song somehow sums their message. A big cluster fuck version of Billie Jean, with a relentless repetitive killer bass line; groovy and dishonestly funny.
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Ellen Fullman – Woven Processional
I love waking up with this record in the morning. It charges me. I red that the recording of the Long String Installation was the result of looking for tonalities, which could not be achieved with traditional instruments.
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Jaydee – Plastic Dream
Because why the hell not? What a killer tune. When this came out in 1993 it restored my faith in dance music. I must admit though, I am still not a big house music fan so this is probably how far I can go.
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France – Do Den Haag Church
Great record from this Mysterious trio called France.
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Super Furry Animals – Some Things Come From Nothing
I love this SFA little tune, simple and effective progression of sweet chords and great analogue sounds. ‘Some things come from nothing Nothing seems to come from something Some things come from nothing Nothing seems to come from something. Some things come from nothing’.
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Stereolab – Percolator
A great example of a perfectly crafted pop song based on repetition. Tim Gane had always been a real master in creating circular grooves.
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Also, I was listening to a 50 minutes version of Tomorrow never knows by Andrew Liles on his sound cloud the other day an I thought it was terrific I can’t find it anymore on line have you heard that? If you can find it, it should be on this list!
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