Mood Talk

Read the conversations we’ve had with some of our favorite artists and labels and discover the quirks and quips that make these creatives tick.

6 Longform Editions for imagining new realms
Mood List
Since 2018, Longform Editions has been bringing together a diverse range of established and emerging artists from all over the world to create absorptive listening experiences for the everyday. Intrigued by their roster that is expansive as it is inclusive, we reached out to Andrew Khedoori to share with us his favorite longform editions that create the perfect sonic backdrop for his current state of mind.
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sonic confessions with Martyna Basta
Mood Talk
The tables have turned for Martyna Basta. She is now answering questions, instead of asking them. Though she is normally self-assured in conversation, she becomes more shy and self-conscious to talk about her own work, revealing that she started making music to express in tones what she can't with words.
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striving for harmony with Adam Badí Donoval
Mood Talk
Dividing his time between creating his own music and tenderly looking after the sonic universes of others, Bratislava-based Adam Badí Donoval has carefully crafted his own approach to sound and its detailed fractures. Since 2019, these many elusive realities are finding their rightful homes under the label he runs, Warm Winters. His own compositions are similarly thoughtful assemblages of times and places, expressing a gesture that gives a second life to the forgotten. Always heartened by Adam’s support and genuine interest in supporting artists, it is interesting to pick out his thoughts on the workings of the label and the nature of his own sonic practice.
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embracing dualities with Pernille Meidell
Mood Talk
Gently observing the ambivalences of everyday life, Oslo-based Pernille Meidell aka Perimeter O examines the boundaries of perception while searching for unique narratives and forms of expression. Torn between the visual and audial worlds, she finally decided to merge them together in 2020. That’s how Breton Cassette came into being – not only to bridge this gap, but to create a space for sharing ideas and making them become real through boundless explorations. Although she usually prefers to hide behind the scenes, she made an exception for us and confided in us about where she finds her comfort zones and why she used to sing to her sculptures.
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looking for the music in everyday sounds with Laila Sakini
Mood Talk
A moment before heading to Belgium, Laila Sakini finds the time for us to meet. She reflects on her musical practice and invites us to her dreamy sonic world, which is filled with fragments of her voice, field recordings, and instruments in every shape and form. She is not one to stand still, an observation that comes from listening to all her different musical projects. Talking about fingerprints, dogs rolling in the dirt, the sound of her door, and the confirming feeling of recording in her bedroom, our conversation feels like an ode to everyday sounds. It is an invitation to absorb the musical capacity of our surroundings, as they can surprise us in many unexpected ways.
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constructing imaginary spaces with christina vantzou and john also bennett
Mood Talk
A first listen makes it quite clear that the new albums of Christina Vantzou and John Also Bennett embark on a search for musical landscapes that have yet to be discovered. While Christina weaves distant choirs and field recordings of branches and pebbles with mesmerizing synthesizers on No°5, John crafts an almost surreal and imaginative sonic space on Out there in the middle of nowhere with a richness of color and timbre. Both currently residing in Brussels, we went for a stroll on a not so windy but still sunny Thursday afternoon. They talked about their new records and collaborating with each other, but also about imaginative spaces and birdsong.
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8 albums for envisioning the new year ahead
Mood List
The one thing we know for sure, is that however anything unfolds, music will always be here to lift our spirits. With this comforting truth, we enter the new year believing that it will not only be full of soothing melodies, intriguing rhythms, and revealing sounds, but of tightening ties with the people with whom we share their goodness. To celebrate this new chapter, each of our team has picked an album that reflects both the year that has passed and is a sonic well-wishing for the coming one ahead. Our invitation to embrace life’s beautiful contrasts: hope and acceptance, calm and excitement, comfort and challenge. May you find inspiration in them to spark this new beginning.
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pushing boundaries with Dania Shihab
Mood Talk
Imagine being an emergency medicine doctor and running an independent label between shifts? That’s just another day for Baghdad-born Dania Shihab, a musician balancing her time between saving lives in rural Australia and working on creative projects in her home studio in Barcelona. Running Paralaxe Editions since 2014, this year she decided to take sound into her own hands and released her debut album Voz on Geographic North where she intertwined contemplative ambient loops with abstract vocal expressions with the greatest kind of sensitivity. Intrigued by her sound and her story, we caught up with Dania to learn more about what fuels her drive and creativity.
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embracing the unknown with Cate Kennan
Mood Talk
Constantly challenging herself while being spontaneous yet watchful in action is the key to LA-based Cate Kennan’s sonic practice. Working on several tracks at once, as well as incorporating samples from her archive that had long been forgotten, she creates new realms composed of multiple temporalities. Her recently released debut LP, The Arbitrary Dimension of Dreams, is an assemblage of distant places located on the borders of illusions, dreams, fiction, and reality. Intrigued by her passion for vigilant explorations, we keenly spoke with Cate to get a glimpse of the process behind making her new record and to learn more about what it means for her to be a better musician.
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Ranie Ribeiro’s 10 picks for invoking a world of golden beauty
Mood List
You'd be hard-pressed to find a more humble, yet superbly talented artist than the Rotterdam-based Ranie Ribeiro. His mood list reflects a deep-rooted admiration and sense of gratitude for some of the artists who've not only inspired him, but have sparked the most profound sense of awe.
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connecting imaginary threads with Alexandra Spence
Mood Talk
Seemingly inaudible spaces for Sydney-based Alexandra Spence are places brimming with potential sounds and harmonies just waiting to be uncovered. Her boundless creativity and tender passion for micro sonic universes collectively develop spaces filled with tickling resonances and vibrations. She finds meaning in a practice of careful listening and insightful observations. As Alexandra is touring now around Europe, we were lucky enough to catch her for a little chat and learn more about her musical journey and main inspirations. As Alexandra is touring now around Europe, we were lucky enough to catch her for a little chat and learn more about her musical journey and main inspirations.
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finding clarity in ambiguity with romy buquet
Mood Board
Romy Buquet is a painter based in Ghent who also works with sculptures, installations, drawings, and collages to create paradise-like landscapes that reference the human body. Almost all of Romy’s works arise from the tension between matter and illusion, between what is made and what seems to appear without intervention. Her use of fluorescent paint and lacquer coating gives her pieces a bold and distinct personality, but the figures she depicts are often blurry, almost ghostly. Everything and everyone is ambiguous and in the making. Perhaps this duality is a mirror of her personality. As a visual all-rounder of our team, Romy is expressive but grounded, imaginative but pragmatic. Joining us on board, she dug through her archive and picked eight works that best represent our moods in store.
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Kai Gittos’ 9 records for melancholic inspiration
Mood List
With an inaugural release from Inhmost and a new album from Tarotplane, the immersive sound palettes and warm familiarity of the releases by Tonight’s Dream Records evoke promise that the label is well worth keeping tabs on in the future. We eagerly reached out to Kai Gittos to learn more about his musical inclinations and what records keep him going behind-the-scenes. He put together a list of 9 records that capture a mood of melancholic inspiration.
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removing the scaffolding with Rick Myers
Mood Talk
Behind every semblance of normalcy lies the absurd, and behind every brush with absurdity lies humanity. Through decades of questioning and creating, the Manchester-born, Massachusetts-based Rick Myers has bridged disparate disciplines and posited new frameworks for considering how we approach others and the world. Recent years have found Rick immersed in his latest body of work, Obstacle Corpus, a conceptual chronology of sorts that finds him blending visual, textual, and sonic practices. We spoke with Rick to learn about his artistic path and the meaningful connections he’s fostered along the way.
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Martyna Basta’s 9 album picks for when words fail to express
Mood List
Martyna Basta is a musician, photographer, and journalist based in Kraków, Poland. Trained as a classical guitarist for more than a decade, she recently traded her well-loved instrument for a synthesizer, moving towards a more tactile and experiential approach to creating music. Today, she works mainly with field recordings, classical instruments, voice, and electronic manipulation to capture sensible moments in sound. We’re delighted to share that Martyna will be joining us as a creative writer, complementing our journal and newsletters with her sincere words and intuitive connection with sound. For her first contribution, she gifts us with 9 albums to listen to when words fail to express.
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expanding musical corners with Ali Safi
Mood Talk
Meet Marionette: a Toronto-based label run by Ali Safi that is consistently surprising, yet surprisingly consistent in output. Going through the label’s catalogue is like stumbling on a bottomless treasure trove. Every release is a world of its own. Charming, elaborate, and disparate, but together they form a coherent whole. As it is impossible to miss the level of care and detail that goes into every Marionette release, we couldn’t help but ask Ali to give us a small peep behind the scenes. He takes us through the label’s past and excitedly shares with us a few glimpses of what’s yet to come.
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affective materiality with soosumsee’s Bec Kirby
Mood Talk
One of the creative forces behind Tactile Interactions is the Manchester-based Bec Kirby. Her work exemplifies both concepts of "tactility" and "interaction." With a background in interior design, her understanding of how spaces, objects, and materials affect emotion and how we interact with our physical environments paved the way for her current pursuits under the creative name of soosumsee.
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Luke Cohlen’s 7 poetics, through sound
Mood List
Luke Cohlen is an Utrecht-based DJ and programmer whose mixes and sets tread a variegated landscape, from quiet introspection through trippy and rhythmic terrains. With a knack for curation and an inherent drive to spotlight artists worthy of new eyes and ears, Luke’s latest chapter marks a natural segue in his career: the launch of his own record label, aural conduct. In celebration of his new imprint, we asked Luke to put together a mood list. His resulting picks reflect the path towards aural conduct – a distillation of poetics in sound.
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time as an ally for Cristian Subirà
Mood Talk
Barcelona-based Cristian Subirà has come to direct his musical career by mostly taking an observer’s perspective. He’s gone by a number of monikers, such as Summer Recreation Camp, Cosmic D’Alessandro, Nubian Deli, and Quanta, as a means of stepping behind the scenes and detaching preconceptions to his identity. In 2018, he released his first album ‘Modified Perspectives’ as Jason Kolàr on Stroom. While it may seem like yet another new moniker, the name seemed to have stuck, as Jason Kolàr reappeared on Dauw three years later with not just one but two albums—'Loops & Pieces' and 'Liquid Rhythm.'
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finding the sublime in the present moment with Ned Milligan
Mood Talk
New York-based artist Ned Milligan is one of those individuals whose demeanor and musical output seem to mirror one another: a gentleness, a groundedness, and a sense of flowing gratitude that envelops every crevice. His releases integrate wind chimes, singing drums, and field recordings that, rather than demand your attention, invite you to open your ears to the world that surrounds you, the soft hum of stillness and attention. These qualities also shine through across the releases of his record label Florabelle, an imprint home to small-run editions.
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everyday textures with Joda Foerster and Niklas Kramer
Mood Talk
Berlin-based Joda Foerster and Niklas Kramer have been endearingly described by loved ones as “ambient pals,” a testament to their friendship and shared musical sensibility. This connection is felt in both their production and their live sets, two diverging contexts that equally highlight the experimentation and compositional balance the duo explores and constructs together.
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Tala Drum Corps’ 9 albums for mud bathing
Mood List
Intrigued by Tijmen's fascination for uncommon soundscapes, we invited him to dream up one of his own. His resulting collection, 9 albums inspired by mud bathing, exemplifies his penchant for putting sounds under the microscope and distilling their most intriguing shapes and forms.
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bringing worlds together with Matt Werth
Mood Talk
For nearly 20 years, RVNG. Intl. has simultaneously - and successfully - managed to both push the musical envelope and maintain a sturdy foundation. One of the central advocates behind this steadfast mentality of inclusion and respect for the artists’ craft is co-founder of RVNG, Matt Werth. We caught up with Matt to learn more about RVNG and the philosophies that continue to propel the label forward.
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9 tracks by McBain for underrated midnight escapades
Mood List
A huge component of Stroom's strong roots in Belgium's considerable music heritage is the Ghent-based Brecht Van Dingenen. Starting a mixtape cassette series last year called Midnight Vultures, Brecht draws inspiration from cities at night, times which take him to the twilight zone of feelings where, "one becomes proud of the daylight accomplished missions and the scheming mind begins to wander."⁠
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Allie Hatch’s 10 records for building bouquets
Mood List
Our paths crossed with Allie last year. Little did we know back then that she would soon be part of our team. Currently based in Amsterdam, Allie lends her creative voice to Objects & Sounds with her playfully imaginative pen and listening ears. If you’ve been following our journey, you’ve already seen, read or listened to a lot of her inspirations seeping in the store and our releases.
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unbounded exploration with Suso Saiz
Mood Talk
Spanish musician, composer, and producer Suso Saiz needs no introduction in the world of minimal and experimental electronic music. Since the late 1970’s, Suso has been guided by an insatiable curiosity for the (sonic) world around him, engendering an ever-evolving and ever-expansive sound palette. While his inspirations and techniques may have changed over the years, this exploratory sensibility has been the benchmark throughout his musical career.
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Hugo LX’s 10 album picks to revel in unfathomable emotions
Mood List
Hugo LX is a Paris-based DJ and producer. For his mood list, he captures the vast range of emotions ensconced within a single day, or even a single moment. In the way that memories are oftentimes woven into settings and sounds, Hugo’s selections intertwine the volumes of joy, sorrow, vibrance, grief, desire, and all of the unfathomable emotions in between that can be experienced within every simple or detailed memory.
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finding symphonies in everyday sounds with Lieven Martens
Mood Talk
Lieven Martens is an Antwerp-based composer with a knack for storytelling. He greatly enjoys weaving narratives into field recordings, transforming the most mundane sounds into full-fledged pieces of music. Bringing scenes to life with a focus on nature and remote cultures, Lieven’s music invites you to rethink everyday sounds and open yourself to deep listening in places you would least expect.
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Morgan Cuinet’s 8 records to entice reverie
Mood List
Morgan Cuinet is the co-founder of Hands In The Dark. Founded in Besançon in 2010, Hands In The Dark focuses on proposing exciting auditory explorations and singular visions of experimental and psychedelic music. As fans of the label and having a handful of their titles in store, we asked Morgan to put together a mood list for us, and the result is a collection of records that gently whisk the listener into a dreamlike state of mind.
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painting musical scenes with Razen
Mood Talk
Razen is the playground of Brussels-based Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour. Together with an ever-shifting ensemble of musicians, they employ a wide array of ancient and sometimes unusual instruments to create emotive music that can't easily be put into scores. Deviating from the comfortable confines of notes and rhythms, they turn to colors, texture and composition like painters do. Engrossed with their latest album, we recently met the duo in an old and charming café in the heart of Brussels to get a glimpse of their universe.
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going beyond the obvious with Squama
Mood Talk
Squama is a Munich-based label run by Martin Brugger, producer and founder of jazz quintet Fazer, and Maximilian Schachtner, head of design and founder of Daily Dialogue. Together, they have distilled a unique identity for Squama that carries over across their musical production and visual communication.
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making tea a ceremony with Anna Morton
Mood Talk
Happy to have their botanical infusions and teas in store, we invited Anna Morton of Leaves and Flowers to share with us her journey into botanicals, the process of developing the infusions, and the humble sanctity of everyday tea rituals. Anna offers a rich perspective on the world of teas, and as a natural extension, mindfulness and presence.
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sharing tonal sensibilities with Hugh Small and Brian Allen Simon
Mood Talk
‘The Side I Never See’ is a shimmering suite of ten compositions for piano, saxophone, synthesizer and guitar by Hugh Small and Brian Allen Simon. An improvised recording of Brian playing over the Vazz piece ‘Kazimierz’ kickstarted this long-distance collaboration. Curious to dive deeper into this intriguing backstory, we spoke with Hugh and Brian about their collaboration. More than just learning about the making of this beautiful album, what we were heartwarmingly delighted to discover is a mutual respect between two musicians who just recently met online and live 6,000 miles apart.
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feeling free with Baal & Mortimer
Mood Talk
Baal & Mortimer is more than just a project by Alexandra Grübler. It’s an unbounded universe. A probe into the concrete possibilities between tone and image, language and body, research and movement. In 2020, Baal & Mortimer released their debut album ‘Deixis’, followed up with an EP called ‘Torso Tapes’ released on Italic early this year. Both albums combine sensible atmospheric synthesizer sounds with downtempo rhythms and choir-like voices. Although there’s more to the music than how it sounds. These sonic explorations do not only wrestle with themes of autonomy, language, and identity; they also form an arresting, ever-evolving narrative teeming with equal bouts of expression and resistance. Yet, sound is just one outlet for Alexandra Grübler. Movement, poetry and dance also inform the universe of Baal & Mortimer. Like different parts forming one whole, they’re also German, English, machine, human, male, female, ancient and now.
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9 albums for finding a new clarity by Sean Conrad
Mood List
Sean Conrad is an artist and musician based in Oakland, California. He predominantly records as Channelers and Ashan. He also recently started a collaborative duo with Michael Henning recording together as Skyminds. Next to making sounds for as long as he can remember, he also runs the Inner Islands label since 2014. Both as a creator and a curator, Sean is drawn to sharing honest and heartfelt sounds that are often peaceful, positive and inward-looking. They mostly find inspiration from the natural world and are rooted in improvisation which he once shared as “a pathway and a tool for delving into and revealing the inner world.”
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music as a form of meditation and healing with Noémi Büchi
Mood Talk
Noémi Büchi stumbled upon her parents’ ancient, unused and out-of-tune piano at a very young age, and it was clear from her first keystroke that music would always be a part of her. Intrigued to learn more about her creation process, we spoke with Noémi about her triggers, inspirations and what’s next.
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delving into the rich world of overtones with Pak Yan Lau
Mood Talk
Pak Yan Lau is a Brussels-based artist with a relentless curiosity for sound in all its different forms and possibilities. In the recent years, Pak Yan grew particularly fond of toy pianos and the rich harmonic overtones they produce. This led to the creation of the Book of Toy, which is part of a wooden object trilogy she released on Silent Water in 2015. Taking her fascination for these unconventional instruments to the next level, Pak Yan recently started a fresh new ensemble where they delve and dig deep into the sound spectrum of detuned toy pianos, secondhand gong rods, metal tubes and ring modulators. The result of their sonic exploration is Bakunawa, a spellbinding album released on Belgian label Cortizona.
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Lisa Lerkenfeldt’s 10 nightlife companions
Mood List
Lisa Lerkenfeldt is an Australian composer and multidisciplinary artist working in sound and performance. In this mood list, she revisits the long play albums that have moved and informed her in the lead up to producing her albums Collagen, A Liquor Of Daisies and A Garden Dissolves Into Black Silk. Each reveal a dedication to analogue manipulations, field work, the cinematic and long form minimal composition.
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bringing characters to life with Park Pardon
Mood Talk
Park Pardon is the whimsical world and creative playground of Bloeme van Bon and Geran Knol. Born out of their shared fascination for bringing characters to life, it is a collaborative project that brings their individual styles together to form a new narrative across drawing, publication and sculpture. Drawn to their vibrant and moody world, we teamed up with Park Pardon for a limited-edition series of 8 handmade papier-mâché masks inspired by the 8 moods we have in store. Titled ‘Stemmingswisselen’ which means ‘mood swings’ in Dutch, we feel it perfectly encapsulates the abstract expressions of their characters and the fleeting nature of our moods.
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elevating the everyday with Alex Chan of the Shophouse
Mood Talk
THE SHOPHOUSE in Hong Kong is not your typical gallery. It’s a blank canvas. A vibrant hub that celebrates the prolific and exciting overlap between art, culture and the mundanities of everyday life. Intrigued by their unconventional approach, we spoke with THE SHOPHOUSE's founder Alex Chan to learn more about his inspirations and visions for the space. We couldn’t be more excited about teaming up with THE SHOPHOUSE for a series of playlists inspired by their upcoming exhibitions and a cherry-picked selection of records on display in their mezzanine study.
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10 albums for flowing in the glow by Mark “Frosty” McNeill
Mood List
Mark “Frosty” McNeill is a DJ, radio producer, lecturer, sonic curator, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. At the heart of his sonic explorations is a resounding passion for sharing transcendent experiences with one another. Curious what mood and albums would speak to him, we asked Frosty to contribute to our mood list series. What he shares with us is a true glimpse of what his sonic explorations tend to be: grounded as they are otherworldly, connecting as they are personal.
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12 earthy, organic and blissful record picks by e/tape
Mood List
As a DJ and musician, Eli has spent the last decade working on the sound archive of ambient music. Born in Slovenia but a true citizen of the world, he started the e/tape project out of his desire to expand his inner self and invite others to join him on these expanded states of consciousness. He strongly gravitates towards an electronic sound space that lies somewhere between the heavenly and the blissful. As Eli is equally passionate about using sound as a powerful tool to set the mood, we were naturally curious about what albums would float his boat.
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7 albums for domestic hibernation by Jamison Isaak
Mood List
Since 2010, Jamison Isaak has been creating music under a multitude of different aliases. Whether it's the ambient-leaning synth pop sounds of Teen Daze, sun-drenched dance tracks of Pacific Coliseum, or the quiet and meditative folk songs as Two Bicycles, Jamison just never fails to set the mood with his melodic and atmospheric tracks. In this mood list, Jamison gravitates towards a sentiment that hits close to home.
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expressing one’s self through lines and symbols with Beatrice Gasca Queirazza
Mood Board
Our first mood board comes all the way from the capital city of Piedmont in Northern Italy. Beatrice Gasca Queirazza is an illustrator and graphic designer based in Turin. From an early age, she describes things that excite her with figures and lines. She shares: "symbols and music don't need words" and we couldn't agree more.
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reliving a long lost youth with Pablo’s Eye
Mood Talk
The 90s was undoubtedly a prolific decade for Pablo’s Eye. Aside from releasing six albums between 1989 and 1999, they were also heavily involved in many artistic projects where music meets architecture, video, theatre, dance and design. Curious to know more about the people behind the collective, we met Axel Libeert and Marie Mandi in their lovely apartment in the heart of Brussels for an inspiring evening filled with ruminations and insights into the unique world of Pablo’s Eye.
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10 albums for a mild & placid evening by Daniel Jahn
Mood List
For our next mood list, we've invited one of our earliest supporters Daniel Jahn from the Hamburg-based label Bureau B. Aside from curating for Bureau B, Daniel is also a member of the unhappybirthday band. The trio revels in a deep sense of melancholy in their arsenal of dreamy, melodic yet ultimately upbeat and uplifting songs.
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taking snapshots of time with Celia Hollander
Mood Talk
Celia Hollander is a Los Angeles based artist and composer working with audio, scores, performance, installation and text. Intrigued by her fascination for space and time and also her ongoing list of questions, we set out to have a chat with her to have a glimpse into her unique approach to music making.
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playing exquisite corpse with Cucina Povera
Mood Talk
Our next mood talk brings us all the way to Finland where we spoke with Maria Rossi about how she found inspiration in the simplicity of Italian cooking and the joys of playing exquisite corpses with artists that have seemingly different approaches.
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Kong’s 7 record picks for gentle mornings
Mood List
Passionately spreading the real house sound for longer than anyone can remember, Koen Galle is one of the most industrious tastemakers of Belgium’s scene. Aside from his close relationship with the capital’s paramount underground club C12, he's been relentlessly busy unearthing many stories about the rich Belgian electronic music and vinyl culture scene. As a thriving creature of the night, we're mostly curious about how Koen spends his mornings.
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ruminating about the meaning of music with Roméo Poirier
Mood Talk
Hailing from Strasbourg, Roméo Poirier had always been making music as long as he can remember. He currently lives in Brussels, so we met up with him for a chat where we talked about his fascination for water, his love for languages, and his never-ending quest for music. Though much of the conversation was dominated by buzzing wasps, it didn’t stop Roméo from sharing what’s on his mind.
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