One of the interesting things that rounding up a new batch of blogs, bands, and music friends to contribute mixes every year for All Around Sound's birthday is that it provides an opportunity to reflect - not only on the state of the blog itself but on just how lucky I am to meet a bunch of lovely people who are kind enough to volunteer their free time and great music tastes towards something as minor as celebrating a blog's continued existence.
While I've met most of the people I know in music seemingly by accident, I was actually introduced to Dave from Stadiums & Shrines by past mix contributor and undeniable friend of the blog Zach from We Listen For You during my first official CMJ (technically the second but semantics!) at the Beats Per Minute x The Needle Drop x We Listen For You showcase at Public Assembly. It was a brief introduction which most likely consisted of me being utterly uninformed about who he even was and just generally being my regular embarrassing self but ended up being a major moment when later I ran into him again at the bar next door, we chatted, I ate, and he extended an invitation to a showcase he was hosting with Portals later that night. I needed some convincing but Dave ultimately did just that and I showed up that night with Rafael from Heart & Soul and had my mind absolutely blown not only by the utterly abstract nature of their showcase - sitting was encouraged as bands played in dim lighting and visuals were projected on three of the room's four walls but also by the outsider brand of music. There was not a buzz band in sight and I relished experiencing the totally refreshing newness of it all. I was plugged into realm of music completely outside of my knowledge and I wanted to explore more of it.
Since then Stadiums & Shrines has been a regular go to for music of that ilk where absolutely every sense in stimulated and the artists themselves are challenged to create new works. Stadiums & Shrines was a blog that essentially occasionally created its own content and it was marvelously intoxicating. They've also got some incredibly next level visuals that accompany their Year-End Lists so I was sold. Stadiums & Shrines is such a rad batch of creatives I knew when I started people contribute mixes that I absolutely needed them to be apart of it, it was just a matter of timing and thankfully, just in time to usher All Around Sound into its 5th year, Stadiums & Shrines provides a welcome addition to the birthday festivities.
Dave's contribution:
"There's a fire in you, Dante... a great desire to engage with music, to seek and discuss. It's been burning All Around Sound for five years now, but one can imagine it was there, in you, All along. This is a sequence of music in honor of your blog's birthday. And more so, these are songs of simmer, combustion, and eruption, dedicated to the eternal blaze that is Infernal Dante.
May it burn, on.
S&S"
Mountains - Simmer
Brian Eno - St. Elmo's Fire
Tim Hecker - City In Flames (In 3 Parts), Pt. 1 / Pt. 2 / Pt. 3
Kiasmos - Burnt
Broadcast - Drums On Fire
Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Fire (Glenn Rivera ReStructure Mutant Disco Edit)
Lone - Airglow fires
Joe Henderson featuring Alice Coltrane - Fire
Microkingdom featuring Sam Herring - I'm On Fire
Jon Hopkins - Form By Firelight (with Raphaelle Standell)
Tiny Vipers - Forest on Fire
Boards of Canada - Farewell Fire
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