It gives us great pleasure to welcome Kit Downes to Arcana’s playlist section.

In the space of just under 40 minutes Kit introduces us to some fascinating sound worlds that will doubtless be new to a lot of listeners out there. They certainly were to me!

Philipp Gropper‘s Philm begins the sequence with the dappled shades of Sun Ship, Pt. 2 from the 2017 album of the same name. We move from there to the ghostly outlines of Lucy Railton‘s For J.R., with its combination of solemn organ and slightly warped field recordings. Disasterpeace‘s otherworldly Vignette: Visions is next, followed by an excerpt from Messiaen‘s La Nativité du Seigneur, Desseins eternels (Eternal Purposes), played here by Kevin Bowyer.

Shimmering textures abound in Stian Westerhus‘ Don’t Tell Me This Is Home, then the mellow, minimalist overtones of Robert Stillman‘s Ruthie In May bring some Autumnal colours to the mix. Garoto‘s Improviso at once sounds older, a lovely interlude of South American guitar, before Jan Johansson shifts the attention to the piano for his Baroque-like Leksands skänklåt. Finally an excerpt from this year’s Mokum in Hi-Fi album, Palace, bring saxophone and guitar together from Ben van Gelder and Reinier Baas.

Our thanks to Kit for opening our ears! Listen on Spotify below…