One of my goals for 2024 is to listen to more new music. To achieve that goal, I'll be listening to 1 track I've never heard before every day.  I'll post here weekly about it. I'm not really sure what form it will take and it might be different every week. But every Monday I'll post something here about it.  It might be as simple as a track list, but it might be more.  Enjoy.

For the first official post of this series I'm going with 2 notables from this week's listening.

How the West was Won - Solar Woodroach
Found on an album entitled "7 Perversions on Pachelbel's Canon," this track can be described only as what it would sound like if a pretty good pops orchestra had their instruments tuned by 2nd graders.  Dissonant harmonies screech and give the impression of a haunted choir. I was able to find the creator's website (Tom Ellard) and I kinda want to have coffee with him.

The soundstage of the orchestra is surprisingly wide and has a sense of intimacy that I don't usually hear on orchestral recordings.  It does sound like a pretty small string orchestra so maybe it's a small studio recording. Or maybe they're synthesized.  At any rate, it's horrendous. I love it.

Hike - Rob Araujo
The very short release on the piano gives what is otherwise a reasonably thick tone a nice sense of clarity and stacatto-like abruptness to shorter notes. This quality provides a nice contrast to sustained notes and the other instruments.  The piano also sits considerably louder in the mix compared to the other instruments. There's really no question about what's being showcased.  Part of me wants to criticize the mix for being unbalanced but if the goal was to have the rest of the ensemble serve as support for the piano, then it does a fantastic job.

Have a recommendation for a track to listen to? For the love of sound let me know in the comments!​