Eighty-Five is interested in time and place/space, collecting music over the past year that engaged notions of memory, fleeting moments, and faraway destinations. The mix moves in loose parts — from piano to strings, guitar, synth, and voice — and is less intentionally linked by powerful return records, longtime-favorite artists arriving at defining statements in their stories. On a more personal note, I got to live with a few of them as a writer of bios (Benoît Pioulard, Braids, M. Sage) and in my capacity at Ghostly (Khotin, Julie Byrne, Mary Lattimore). If S&S is predestined to be lost at sea, on occasion a project pulls this practice back into range and leaves me breathless; to see several in a season, well that’s perhaps a moment divine.
Ani Zakareishvili unearthed and collaged haunting new context from cuts of Eartha Kit’s cadence on the topic of love. Khotin rode warbling keys as a means of transcontinental computer screen daydream. Celia Hollander allowed the winds of spontaneity to dance across her improvised piano free-writes.
Yu Su drew from landscapes, tracing the climates, contours, and rhythms of the planet. ML Buch conjured distant, shimmering, elemental scenes on her seven-stringed guitar. M. Sage imagined a conceptual campground, straddling the synthetic and natural world.
Yasuhiko Fukuzono, aka aus, accessed the vibrations of memory through hyper-detailed electro-acoustic sound, while MIZU deployed the vastness of the cello. Mary Lattimore said goodbye to the charms of an old hotel and by extension, life’s ephemeral beauty. Mutual Benefit sought “to make music that could simultaneously mourn versions of the past but still find hope in the seedlings which could, perhaps, bloom into better futures.” Which feels like an appropriate place to sign off and thank you for drifting. Tracklist and broader playlist below.
E85 illustration by Matthew Sage (pastel and colored pencil)
Ani Zakareishvili – Answer (Warm Winters Ltd)
Khotin – Sound Gathering Trip (Ghostly International)
ann annie – Three Chords (Nettwerk Music Group)
Gia Margaret – Hinoki Wood (Jagjaguwar)
Celia Hollander – In Plain Sight (Leaving Records)
Braids – Apple (Secret City Records)
Yu Su – Pardon (Pinchy & friends)
Laurel Halo – Belleville (Awe)
Lonnie Holly – Testing (Jagjaguwar)
mui zyu – Sore Bear (Lucy Liyou remix) (Father/Daughter Records)
waterbaby – Wishing well (Sub Pop Records)
aus – Swim / Memories / Further (all my thoughts / Flau Records)
Mary Lattimore – And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me (feat. Meg Baird and Walt McClements) (Ghostly International)
Nina Keith – Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To) [feat. Barrie & Qur’an Shaheed]
M. Sage – Crick Dynamo (RVNG Intl.)
Masahiro Takahashi – Sweltering Drive (Telephone Explosion Records)
Benoît Pioulard – Where To (Morr Music)
MIZU – Aveu (The Beginning Is a Farewell) [feat. Maria BC] (NNA Tapes)
Freak Heat Waves – In a Moment Divine (feat. Cindy Lee) (Mood Hut Records)
Nighttime – The Sea (Ba Da Bing!)
Peel Dream Magazine – Mary, Johnny and Me (Slumberland Records)
ML Buch – Working it out (15 love)
Mutual Benefit – Remembering a Dream (Transgressive Records)
Yussef Dayes – Crystal Palace Park (feat. Elijah Fox) (Nonesuch Records)
Avalon Emerson – The Stone (Another Dove / One House)
Romance – I Hear A Symphony (Ecstatic Recordings)
Julie Byrne – Summer Glass (Ghostly International)