Music is one of my greatest passions in life.
Essentially my interests fall into two "families" of music - "contemporary instrumental/classical" and "post-rock". I also go to live shows a lot and bring my A-game to the table.
The 50 Greatest Albums of All Time
After a recent intense and loud concert, I decided to go back to what I love most, which is peaceful, relaxing music. This is a list of the 50 greatest albums in all of music, in my opinion. I hope you can discover some beautiful music here. I selected each carefully because it is calming, peaceful and beautiful. I’m lucky enough to have seen 13 of these artists live. 1-35 are peaceful albums and 36-50 rounds up the greatest albums in my view with guitar based post-rock. Nowadays it’s so easy to stream new music online without having to amass a huge CD collection. Pick any album from this list and if you like it go listen to all of the artist’s albums and maybe see them live if possible. I dare you to listen to them all.
Hammock - Mysterium Max Richter - Songs From Before Zbigniew Preisner - Silence, Night and Dreams Poppy Ackroyd - Feathers
Sophie Hutchings - Scattered on the Wind Anoice - Out of Season Balmorhea - Clear Language Films - Signs From the Past Johann Johannssonn - Orphee Lights Out Asia - Tanks and Recognisers Mono - You Are There Port-Royal - Afraid to Dance Dustin O’Halloran - Lumiere Carlos Cipa - All Your Life You Walk Wim Mertens - Music and Film Federico Albanese - By the Deep Sea Nils Frahm - Wintermusik Valgeir Sigurdsson - Ekvilibrium Olafur Arnalds - For Now I Am Winter Ludovico Einaudi - Live at Itunes Festival Rhian Sheehan - Live at Wellington Opera House Garth Stevenson - Flying Jo Quail - Exsolve Clint Mansell - The Fountain Ola Gjeilo - Ola Gjeilo Tracy Chattaway - Nightsky Dirk Maassen - One Night in Cologne Dax Johnson - Levity Tangerine Dream - Madcap’s Flaming Duty Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden Craig Armstrong - Far From the Madding Crowd OST Ben Woods - An Attempt to Fly Jon Hopkins - How I Live Now Havasi - Drum and Piano Ilya Beshevli - Deja Vu
And in terms of post-rock:
Ben Frost - By The Throat
Caspian - Dust And Disquiet
EF - Ceremonies The Evpatoria Report - Golevka Immanu El - In Passage Jakob - Solace Joy Wants Eternity - You Who Pretend To Sleep Laura - Radio Swan Is Down Mogwai - Young Team Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind
Oh Hiroshima - In Silence We Yearn
pg.lost - Yes I Am
Saxon Shore - It Doesn't Matter
The Appleseed Cast - Peregrine
There Will be Fireworks - The Dark Dark Bright
You can easily find out more about all these artists on the artist's website, Bandcamp, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or whatever your preferred site is.
The images above and below are photographs from an earlier contemporary classical concert, with Sophie Hutchings and Lorenzo Masotto.
I once catalogued the 25,000 plus artists I'd listened to all my life on last.fm - all of the artists in my library can be viewed here:
I hope you enjoy browsing my my music library...
I also enjoyed creating this collage of my most listened to albums of all time:
New Music
Caspian - On Circles
It’s hard to describe how to feel when one of your favourite bands brings out a new album after 5 years. As G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “man really believes that he can produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire”. Yet that is the role of music - to express what cannot be expressed in words. Not sure if you like the cover art, not sure if it still has that edge that you need to cut through you deeply. Gone is the immense wall of sound expressing the beautiful chaos of the universe, gone is the storm, and in its place is a tighter, streamlined, insistent optimism that intricately weaves around you the beauty in this world. The detail is what matters. Still you crank it up loud, and when finally you get to track 6, “Collapser”, and it builds up to a thunderous crescendo, and the noise comes flooding over you like memories of dust and disquiet, then you finally know that Caspian is back.
Quarantine Lockdown Music
Recently this album has kept me going through the difficult period of lockdown due to the measures brought about regarding the Coronavirus. It is a truly beautiful, uplifting, and powerful album from the edge of dreams. It has truly kept me going through self-isolation.
I never dreamed that I could express something honestly like this, and that I would not be misunderstood. I first entered Sophie’s musical universe in 2010, when I would walk around London listening to her beautiful first record. You can imagine how I felt when Sophie approached me directly and wanted to use my photography to promote her work. So now I will return the favour for the new album, in recognition of a great artist.
I always thought that music was the only thing that could express the emotions and love that could never be shared in words; as Nietzsche wrote, “music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent”. I am deeply thankful to everyone, who has read the book and photography on the new website. You mean the world to me.
It is you. What you give is like music, though I feel you through silence - so beautiful to me that now, it is hard to speak to you. I wish I could speak, but the words won’t come. We express ourselves in the only way we know how to. I hope that soon my words will speak, and you will hear them like music - and the music will find the words for me to speak. I wish that I could give you what you are giving me - that you will be able to speak, and I will listen.
Live Music
The photographs below are of the bands Mono and Alcest, taken live during an incendiary show, where the music speaks for itself - it comes straight from the heart and aims for the stars:
