Enlightened Listening for January 8

It's our first real Friday of the year, which means it's high time to get back on the Enlightened Listening bandwagon. While we're just getting our feet under us, we're going to keep things short and sweet, both musically and with this description.

Nine new releases span 15 tracks that move from progressive house through a bevy of banging Apashe remixes to a killer conclusion from oh! gee. While I'm recommending all nine releases, I want to further highlight the tough Kerri Chandler remix of one of 2020's best, "Heartbreak," and the stunning High Contrast remix of "Freedom," which, in a truly random coincidence, I woke up singing yesterday. Dig into the weekly new music playlist below and find each individual release linked at the bottom.

Greg Ochman - Delylah

Nox Vahn - Brainwasher (Warung Remix)

Bonobo & Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - Heartbreak (Kerri Chandler Remix)

Bob Moses & ZHU - Desire (Vintage Culture & Kiko Franco Remix)

Apashe ft. Geoffroy - Distance (Remixes)

DNMO & The Arcturians - Without You Near

Sub Focus & Wilkinson ft. Empara Mi - Freedom (High Contrast Remix)

Kraysh - Shrapnel

oh! gee - Gucci Whistle

Fairchild - Touch The Sun (Nox Vahn Revisit)

A VIP mix five years in the making, Nox Vahn returns to his now-defunct project Fairchild for a facelift of his Arkade release "Touch The Sun." It's always intriguing when an artist remixes themselves, especially so after several years and through the lens of a new project, so of course, this track is full of fascination.

On the surface, "Touch The Sun" remains largely, if not wholly, intact in its structure and quantitative values (runtime, key and BPM). But as much as this revisit is a sidestep, it is indeed an enjoyable affair. A brilliant track even if were released today, "Touch The Sun" is not broken and therefore does not need to be fixed. Rather the revisit appears to be more of a refining as opposed to a wholesale remix.

As if "Touch The Sun" were the first stepping stone in the evolution from Fairchild to Nox Vahn, it showcases the producer's dive into darker, more diversely orchestrated epics. And therein lies the difference between the five-year-old original and this new Nox Vahn version.

While you wouldn't be wrong in calling the original an epic and immersive soundscape, the new version has even more of that film score type feel in its plethora of percussion and myriad of movement. The biggest difference is the depth of sounds and designs, turning the foggy dreamscape of the original into a more animated and lifelike awakening.

Compare and contrast the original vs the revisit yourself, and follow Nox Vahn below.

Anjunadeep · Fairchild - Touch The Sun (Nox Vahn Revisit)

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Enlightened Listening for May 15

Another week has passed and so it's time for another edition of Enlightened Listening. I'm gonna keep things relatively short and sweet this week, so read into the playlist in the following paragraphs or just listen at your leisure below. Have a great weekend, enjoy and stay sane!

Albums from Moby and Nathan Micay open the playlist, each ingenious in their own right. A couple EP pairings follow as Anjunadeep and Speicher deliver the kind of quality one can expect from the legendary labels. Mind Against then break the ice on a number of forthcoming remixes of Dominik Eulberg's Mannigfaltig. A quartet of larger EPs follow that remix as the playlist straddles the house/techno boundary. My favourite from each of the four, respectively: "Maranta," "Echoes From Beyond," "Red South" and  "Les Gens."

The back half of the playlist opens with the 3rd version of what was Hunter Siegel's house hit "Waiting Up," now updated to better fit HNTR's techno turn. Another ingenious revision follows that as Four Tet puts his inimitable touch, and a peak time touch at that, on Caribou's brilliant "Never Come Back." The whole playlist turns on its head with the next track, "Arch Enemy" from the fabulous Everything Everything. Even funkier, the final three releases from The Phenomenal Handclap Band (with an incredible album), Pat Lok and The Magician will have you dancing all the way through the weekend.


Moby - All Visible Objects

Nathan Micay - The World I'm Going To Hell For

Nox Vahn & Marsh - Come Together / Naturish

Robag Wruhme - Speicher 115

Dominik Eulberg - Goldene Acht (Mind Against Remix)

Solanca - Flor Roja

Woo York - Echoes From Beyond

Jos & Eli / Julian Wasserman & Henri Bergmann - Jos & Eli / Julian Wasserman & Henri Bergmann

Carsten Halm - I Fall In Love | Les Gens | Kristall

HNTR - Waiting Up (Reprise)

Caribou - Never Come Back (Four Tet Remix)

Everything Everything - Arch Enemy

The Phenomenal Handclap Band - PHB

Pat Lok - Gone Is Yesterday

The Magician - Renaissance