This Week's Playlist #145 - The Le Guess Who 2024 edition
5 songs of bands I saw at Le Guess Who festival in Utrecht last week
Hello everyone!
This Week's Playlist - Season 3, Episode 41.
Really sorry for the 2 weeks of silence. I was sick for a week and flew to Le Guess Who festival last Thursday (a 4-day festival happening across the whole city of Utrecht -between a five-hall contemporary music complex, TivoliVredenburg, and other musical venues and churches across town).
This is my third time there (I reported my trip in 2023 on this newsletter). It is always a pleasure to come back to this annual pilgrimage. Some people spend a week retreating in a remote place to isolate and self-reflect, but I prefer to attend a packed four-day music event with more bands than I could ever think of discovering.
So for this week, 5 bands I discovered (or enjoyed) at LGW24.
I hope you enjoy it and see you next week.
There is a YouTube link for each of the songs on the cover, and here are the playlists for each streaming platform:
1. GAISTER - Sento
I’ll start with the last act of the festival.
Gaister is a trio formed by Olivia Salvadori (a classical soprano turned to experimental music), Akihide Monna (drummer of Japanese acid punk band Bo Ningen) and Coby Sey (keyboards, machine and voice)
Their first released album is a weird musical creature, mixing haunting Olivia’s vocal improvisation, drums and weird sound textures.
Their performance transcended this eerie feeling to sheer tension in the Hertz auditorium, for a whole hour.
2. DARKSIDE - Paper Trails (Live in Paris, June 5, 2023)
I have already written about Darkside in this newsletter.
Darkside is the progressive/experimental rock project of DJ Nicolas Jaar and his sound engineer. It started as a side project and now tours on an (almost) regular basis.
This is a recorded testimony of their live performance from last year, morphing one of their classic songs into a frantic dancing / industrial jam at the end.
3. SHARDS - Amen, amen, amen
Another highlight of the festival was the set of Shards.
The London-based choir played in a church song of the Rennaissance composer William Byrd.
4. MABE FRATTI - Kravitz
One more discovery of this year.
Mabe Fratti, a singer / celloist. She’s coming from Guatelama, and playing as a trio with a drummer and keyboard.
Her latest album distills pop melodies across her more experimental groovy base. I would really recommend it.
5. AROOJ AFTAB - Bolo Na (ft Moor Mother & Joel Ross)
Talking about groovy bass, listen to this ferocious contrabass beat.
Let me re-introduce you, Arooj Aftab. The Pakistani/American songwriter puts traditional poems in an acoustic jazz manner.
I discovered her in LGW 2021 and since then, she has released her new album “Night Reign”, from which this track is taken.
Until the next time, Godspeed!
Thomas
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