Dinner Music #141: The weekly lineup
ambient western, Yugoslavian folk, "radiant slowness"
This week, we’re listening to “radiant slowness,” a phrase used to describe the music of Ana Roxanne, the last artist on our weekly lineup.
We begin with Marisa Anderson’s Into The Light, a cinematic and experimental album “written as the soundtrack to an imaginary science-fiction western film” that tracks a journey into the heart of the sun. Listening to the album reminded me of something I learned recently: wide-open landscapes allow our eyes to relax, which can reduce activation of the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for stress responses), which, in turn, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which gives us a sense of calmness. That’s what listening to this album sounds like. That calm only the wide open space of the desert can give. Next, we move into the ghostly and equally cinematic sounds of 1974 Yugoslavia, as imagined by Serbian–American folk guitarist Branko Mataja. To his son, Mataja once said, “music is beautiful – it will open doors for you that you didn’t think will open.” If you listen intently enough, these songs will no doubt open something for you, something you’ve likely long forgotten. On the opposite side of this feeling, we get Cameron Knowler’s CPK, an album that feels as though he’s writing and playing his toward remembering something forgotten or left behind. The album begins with a spoken-word poem floating over drifting guitar plucks, aimless and narrow, like a long and winding path, then moves into bigger chords, bigger feelings, reminiscent of William Tyler or Chuck Johnson. If you like the ambient western sound, don’t miss this one. Next, we have an album I’ve returned to again and again, Hermanos Gutiérrez’s Sonido Cósmico (DM’s best of 2024). We reach a peak of “radiant slowness” here, with the reverberation of a pedal steel set against a finger-plucked electric guitar, evoking a sense of the sublime, danger and melancholy and all. There are highs and lows on the album, with nods to higher energy Latin sounds, like cumbia or salsa, laced between the stark openness of desert sounds, the reverberation of everything against nothing. We end with Ana Roxanne and her album of experimental slowness, radiant in its ambiance.
Enjoy.
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