We’ve been pretty blown away by LA based interdisciplinary artist Yann Novak’s latest album, the gorgeous and hypnotic Lifeblood of Light and Rapture, which is out now via Room40. Utilising analogue and digital synthesis, it’s a work of depth and beauty that we’re really enjoying immersing ourselves in. You can check out his clip for ‘A Biochemical Cascade’ here.
So we asked him to make a mix for us, we set no parameters. This is what he has to say about it:
“While making this mix, I was thinking a lot about a favorite novella of mine, The Churn. For me, the title concept feels like a much better analogy for the changes in the world right now, as opposed to the idea of complete reversal—that things are “getting back to normal.” In the book, the “the churn” is a term used by the characters to describe moments of great social and political upheaval. A churn usually manifests when criminal activity becomes so overwhelming in a future version of Baltimore that it triggers an overwhelming response: Security forces come in to arrest or kill mob bosses, radically shifting the structures of power. What I find useful about this idea of a churn is that it speaks to the concept of a metamorphosis— a transition from one state to another—like a caterpillar that breaks down within its chrysalis, intermediately becoming a disintegrated goo before it reforms as a butterfly.
In the U.S., the urge to “get back to normal” feels like an inescapable force dragging you along, no matter how uncomfortable you may feel. For me, the false idea that we can somehow return to exactly what the world used to be feels like an affront to all the people, places, and things that have been lost. We can’t go back; there are too many missing pieces, too many gaps, so much lost, and so much changed. But if I think about it as a churn—a changing of states—it becomes palatable. I can’t go back, but I can figure out how to adjust, and transform…again.
I hope this sentiment of transition is mirrored in the tracks I have chosen for this mix. They’ve been revolving around me this spring as I begin to reform from the goo. They’re tracks that have helped me to look towards the future when I take some sort of form in this new world.”
tracklist:
Exiting the Churn
Mirko – In Conversation – LP1
Darren Korb – Primordial Chaos – Hades: Original Soundtrack
Bethan Kellough – Low – Aven
Yann Novak – Dark, Perplexing, Ruptures of Plane – Lifeblood of Light and Rapture
Robert Crouch – A Drowning – Touch: Displacing
Fax & Braulio Lam – Focus – Mixed Signals
G. Brenner – Brushfire – Brushfire
Genrietta – Park Kulturi – Park Kulturi
Labrinth – The Lake – Euphoria (Original Score)
Mirko – Cloud Chain – LP1
Fila Brazillia – Subtle Body – Maim That Tune
Byron Westbrook – Yellow Horizon Line – Distortion Hue
Darren Korb – Good Riddance (Eurydice Solo feat. Ashley Barrett) – Hades: Original Soundtrack
You can find Lifeblood of Light and Rapture (Room40) here.
