Topic

Abstraction

Leaving the visible world behind, on purpose.

23: in music
10:12: average
235 min: in total
192: across the network

Abstraction across the network →

All briefs23

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11:02

Atrocity Exhibition

Danny Brown · 2016

Atrocity Exhibition is Danny Brown’s third studio album, released in 2016 after signing with Warp Records. It is named after a Joy Division song. Paul White produced all tracks except ‘Really Doe’ (Black Milk), ‘Pneumonia’ (Evian Christ), and unspecified contributions from The Alchemist. Guest appearances include Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, Earl Sweatshirt, B-Real, Kelela, and Petite Noir. The album draws stylistic influence from Talking Heads and Joy Division — and, while writing it, Brown also drew inspiration from Björk. It received continued critical acclaim but reduced commercial sales.

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10:04

Blonde on Blonde

Bob Dylan · 1966

Blonde on Blonde is a double album recorded in two phases: first in New York in October 1965 with the Hawks, yielding one track; then in Nashville in February–March 1966 with producer Bob Johnston, Al Kooper, Robbie Robertson, and elite Nashville session players.

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9:50

Deltron 3030

Deltron 3030 · 2000

Deltron 3030 is a 2000 hip-hop concept album set in the year 3030. It tells of Deltron-Zero and the Automator battling megalithic corporations in a thermodynamic universe. Its lyrics were written in under two weeks. Its samples come exclusively from William Sheller’s French classical compositions. It draws explicit lineage from Sun Ra and George Clinton’s Afrofuturism. It frames fatalism as a battle between 'righteousness' and 'malevolence'.

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14:22

Drukqs

Aphex Twin · 2001

Drukqs is a double album released in 2001 by Aphex Twin. It contains tracks dating back seven or eight years, though most were relatively new. James rushed its release after accidentally leaving an MP3 player with new tracks on a plane, aiming to preempt an internet leak.

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10:22

Einstein on the Beach

Philip Glass · 1979

Einstein on the Beach is a 1979 recording of Philip Glass’s 1976 opera—the first of his portrait trilogy—composed in 1975 in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in close collaboration with Robert Wilson. It incorporates Parts 1 and 2 of Another Look at Harmony. The 1979 recording features Paul Zukofsky on solo violin.

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11:05

Electric Circus

Common · 2002

Electric Circus is a studio document — not a manifesto, not a victory lap, but a working log of what happens when hip hop stops defending its borders and starts wiring them for feedback.

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8:48

Goldberg Variations

Johann Sebastian Bach · 1986

The Goldberg Variations is a 1741 harpsichord work by J.S. Bach. It contains an aria and thirty variations built on the aria’s bass line and chord progression — not its melody. Bach specified a two-manual instrument and marked eleven variations for two manuals, three for either. It was published during his lifetime by Balthasar Schmid of Nuremberg using engraved copper plates. It is the fourth and final volume of the Clavier-Übung series and contains nine canons.

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11:27

Hejira

Joni Mitchell · 1976

Hejira is Joni Mitchell’s 1976 album of road-written songs, defined by her guitar and Jaco Pastorius’s fretless bass. It contains no piano. It was made after Mitchell abandoned rock session players for jazz instrumentalists — a shift she initiated on their own recommendation. Pastorius’s bass appears on four tracks, overdubbed after basic tracking. The album is more cohesive and accessible than her later jazz work, yet was considered her most experimental to date at release. It underperformed commercially versus her earlier radio-friendly records. Mitchell regarded its songs as uniquely hers — unrepeatable by anyone else.

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10:37

Il trovatore

Giuseppe Verdi · 1988

A 1988 studio recording of Verdi’s Il trovatore, presenting 24 aria excerpts in strict sequence. No production context is provided. Its value lies only in its alignment with long-standing reception patterns — particularly around ‘Miserere’ and ‘Di quella pira’ — not in interpretive originality or sonic distinction.

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9:57

In C

Terry Riley · 1968

Terry Riley’s 1968 recording of In C is a landmark of process-based composition. Its sound is defined by collective repetition, room acoustics, and the physical limits of piano strings and vinyl grooves. It does not seek expression — it sets conditions and listens.

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10:24

In the Court of the Crimson King

King Crimson · 1969

In the Court of the Crimson King is the 1969 debut album by King Crimson — self-produced after initial sessions with Tony Clarke failed. Recorded on a 1" 8-channel recorder at Wessex Sound Studios in London, engineered by Robin Thompson with Tony Page assisting. Ian McDonald overdubbed Mellotron and woodwind layers across up to five tape generations; his Mellotron is dominant, fierce and overpowering. On 'Epitaph', he used two Mellotron parts with dynamic volume-shifting to create motion in sustained chords. Robert Fripp’s guitar fuses classical, Hendrix-like rock explosions, and jazz noodling. Greg Lake’s voice is plaintive. The band deliberately avoided simplicity, using unconventional time signatures like 7/8 or 5/8, expansive chords, and strange influences. Peter Sinfield wrote all lyrics — gothic, with 'dark and doom-laden visions'. The opening track '21st Century Schizoid Man' is proto-metal and criticises the Vietnam War. The record presents a Europeanised approach blending antiquity and modernity, distinct from blues-based hard rock.

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10:18

John Wesley Harding

Bob Dylan · 1967

John Wesley Harding is a folk record made with folk means: voice, bass, drums, harmonica, piano, guitar, and two pedal steel parts. It was recorded fast, dry, and direct in Nashville in autumn 1967. Its power lies in what it leaves out.

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8:51

Libertango

Astor Piazzolla · 1974

Libertango is a 1974 studio recording made in Milan. It declares tango nuevo through subtraction — no vocals, no ornament, no deference. Its sound is dry, linear, and precisely layered: bandoneón, Hammond organ C3, marimba, bass guitar, drums, guitar, timpani, strings, and flutes. It lands because every instrument has space and purpose. It does not land if you expect warmth, swing, or spectacle. It is worth your time if you value compositional rigour over emotional indulgence.

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10:29

One Nation Under a Groove

Funkadelic · 1978

A functional, tightly wound funk record that trades psychedelic sprawl for groove discipline — built on fuzz, banjo, and Junie Morrison’s keys.

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9:52

Os Mutantes

Os Mutantes · 1968

Os Mutantes’ 1968 debut is a studio-built act of translation: Brazilian song forms, international pop, political critique, and musique concrète fused by Rogério Duprat’s arrangements and the trio’s instrumental resourcefulness. It is not seamless. It is not polished. It is specific, inventive, and sonically legible — right down to the hiss of bug spray.

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11:17

Petrushka

Igor Stravinsky · 2018

This is a 2018 recording of Stravinsky’s 1911 ballet Petrushka — a work rooted in Russian puppet tradition, set during Maslenitsa in 1830 Saint Petersburg, and built from folk tunes, Lanner waltzes, a French music hall melody, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Its defining feature is the 'Petrushka chord', an early use of bitonality. The record also includes Concertino, Agon, and Scherzo à La Russe — but the sources say nothing about how this 2018 version interprets them.

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9:40

Power, Corruption & Lies

New Order · 1983

New Order’s Power, Corruption & Lies is their second studio album, released 2 May 1983 by Factory Records. It features more electronic tracks and heavier synthesiser use than Movement. It combines post-punk roots with electronic influences into synth-pop, electropop, new wave, synth-rock, dance-rock, post-punk and dance-punk. At the time, it was the heaviest the band had ever flirted with electronica. Its sound has been characterised as a gentle portrait of ambient, post-industrial tenderness. '5-8-6' has been called a literal interpretation of early house music, with noted influences from Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Darker songs such as 'We All Stand' and 'Your Silent Face' are contrasted with brighter, more optimistic songs such as 'The Village'. 'Blue Monday' was recorded in the same sessions and released separately as a non-album twelve-inch single.

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9:53

Purple Haze

Cam’ron · 2004

Purple Haze is Cam’ron’s fourth studio album, released December 7, 2004, via Diplomat Records and Roc-A-Fella Records, distributed by The Island Def Jam Music Group. It features bombastic production and surreal lyricism, with Cam’ron delivering a unique brand of idiosyncratic gangsta rap through an absurd, poker-faced delivery. The production shifts between aggressively insane and pop-oriented, and Cam’ron matches it with wordplay described as 'Missy gibberish swathed in 50 Cent menace', writing pop hooks and avant-garde rhymes while staying street-rooted. Cam’ron tightened his signature flow, chose quality and risk-worthy beats, and delivered Harlem symbolism and non-sensical muttering throughout the album. Kanye West produced 'Down and Out', Pop & Versatile produced 'Soap Opera', and the Heatmakerz produced 'More Gangsta Music'. 'More Gangsta Music' samples 'Woman I Need You' by Sizzla. 'Get Down' samples 'Life's Opera' by Marvin Gaye. 'Girls' and 'Harlem Streets' are weak inclusions. The album features collaborations with Kanye West, Jaheim, Twista, Juelz Santana, and various other artists. It reached gold status and was critically acclaimed, appearing on two major decade-end lists.

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9:39

Satyagraha

Philip Glass · 1985

Satyagraha is Philip Glass’s 1979 opera, recorded in 1985, based on Gandhi’s early South African years. It uses Sanskrit text, symphony orchestra, chorus, and solo voices to embody the concept of satyagraha — not narrate it. Repetition is its grammar. Resistance is its rhythm. It does not explain. It insists.

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9:11

The Art of Fugue

Johann Sebastian Bach · 1995

The Art of Fugue is not a piece to be performed. It is a set of problems posed in musical notation. Its 1995 recording makes no claim to solve them — only to present the lines as clearly as possible. It is austere. It is complete in its incompleteness. It asks only that you follow the voices.

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8:53

The Firebird

Igor Stravinsky · 1980

The 1928 Columbia recording is the first orchestral capture of Stravinsky’s 1910 ballet — conducted by the composer, using whole-tone and octatonic harmony as dramatic agents, and deploying extended techniques as deliberate ruptures. It is not nostalgic. It is not polite. It is structural storytelling in sound.

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9:33

The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume 1

Sun Ra · 1965

The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume 1 is a 1965 album of compositions and arrangements by Sun Ra played by Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra. It was recorded at Studio RLA in New York on April 20, 1965, engineered by Richard L Alderson. The music is heavily percussive but dispenses with a continuous beat, reconstructing itself around interweaving compositional and improvisatory creative principles with programmatic affects. It exemplifies a radical break from previous notions of melody or harmony. The interwoven lines of Ronnie Boykins' bass and Sun Ra's electronic keyboards provide cohesion. Sun Ra directed the session in real time—stopping takes, assigning rhythms, revising horn parts, and reassigning solos based on his understanding of each player's strengths. The album was originally released with a black-and-white sleeve designed by Sun Ra. It belongs to Sun Ra's New York phase, marked by experimentalism, tape delay, spatial sound, free improvisation, expanded instrumentation, and pioneering use of synthesizers and electronic keyboards.

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9:00

The Social Network

Trent Reznor · 2010

A five-track ambient-electronic score for a film about Facebook’s founding. Composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Released as a free EP before the full soundtrack on September 28, 2010. Won the 2011 Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Score. Portrays genius over ominous undertones.