Mauritius

I apologise. The video is of very low quality (240p!) but the audio quality is good. This is Air playing Love live in 2009. Air are an electronic music duo from France who released a critically acclaimed debut album, Moon Safari, in 1998. They then did the soundtrack of Sofia Coppola’s first movie, The Virgin Suicides, and a number of other albums including Love 2, from which Love is taken.

When I listen to Air, I sometimes get a Pink Floyd vide but in a modern way, mixed with some smooth Jazz. Interestingly, some of their tracks are good house or even techno tracks too. My favourite album is not Love 2 in fact but rather 10,000Hz which I got on CD twenty years ago and which still sounds amazing. My favourite song on it is Radian and it’s a 7:30 masterpiece.

I’ve been listening to music since I was a kid but, because I also play music, I really value every track I listen to. I sincerely believe, now, that there is no bad music. There is only music I like and music which, for some reason, I do not like. People have different taste. And that’s fine.

This is not a video of Aphex Twin. Rather, it’s from a guy called Gizuco who is having some fun with sequences of Tha played on a Moog Minitaur, a Roland SH-01A and a Waldorf Streichfett. Music is fun. Listening. Composing. Playing. Whatever.

What I like about this video is that it combines two of my greatest passions: listening to good music and making music. I believe that, as a music maker, one can better understand the intent of composers, why certain choices were made, why this chord instead of another one, etc. Everyone should learn how to play some music. Do you know that music was part of maths in ancient Greece at the times of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle?

Aphex Twin, whose real name is Richard David James, is one of my favourite electronic musicians. He’s one of the most inventive in IDM (intelligent dance music) and electronic music in general. He has influenced countless others. Tha was released in 1992 on Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85–92 album.

This is smooth. This is smooth rock jazz. And this is Aja, the second track from the Steely Dan album also called Aja. The album was released in September 1977 to critical acclaim. It won the Grammy Award for best engineered (i.e. sounding) recording and Aja has become one of my reference tracks.

I only discovered Aja two years ago. I have been reading about it for decades in Hi-Fi magazines as this song was always being used to test equipment. But, for me, it was a magical moment the first time I heard Aja and, hence, the musicality and dexterity of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

I also love this YouTube video of Jamel_AKA_Jamal listening to Aja for the first time. He expresses his feelings so simply and beautifully. Music should always be enjoyed like this. Each time I listen to Aja, I’m a bit like him. It’s pure joy.