Downstairs People - DSP

Last few days I’ve been compiling a mix-tape for Amsterdam based music platform ‘Far Blue’.
They operate under this quote and I’m gonna shamelessly CTRL-C+CTRL-V the thing in, because it’s beautiful:

“The world is blue at its edges and in its depths… For many years I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go. For the blue is not in the place those miles away at the horizon… Blue is the color of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world.”
- Rebecca Solnit from ‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost’

When I compiled all the music together I was surprised it didn’t have this faraway feeling of the ether I expected myself to go for. Especially with this theme. You might’ve noticed the ambient / IDM pattern of my other Listenings recommendations, which I naturally gravitate to.

It was instead a bit half-worldly - half ether, with many human elements in the form of whispers and subdued talking in the background. I like telling myself now that maybe it’s because that Far Blue is someplace I aspire to go to, but always find myself not fully escaping human world.

In the mix is a track by Downstairs People from their extraordinary album called DSP. The sounds in there exemplify this half-human feeling best; super poppy top-40 sound, but it’s all distorted and subdued and in an unknown language. The words never really come through, as if you’re tuning in to planet earth from far away. Really recommend this one!

~ Mark

Check out the album on Spotify or Bandcamp.