The New Cue #551 November 28: Ulrika Spacek, Oneohtrix Point Never, Tenderness, Ellie O'Neill, Radio Free Alice

"No blues, database or otherwise"

Good morning,

Welcome to another round of Recommender action. Ted is still away but you’ve got me, Niall, selecting some decent picks. Although I would say that.

Here’s this week’s playlist:

And here for the Apple Music crew.

See you on Monday for a Life & Times chat with Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson.

Enjoy the edition,

Ted and Niall

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Recommender

It’s quite mad and not a little Brian Eno-y that Oneohtrix Point Never has carved out a career as one of the world’s most out-there experimentalists at the same time as becoming a key artistic foil to one of the biggest acts in the world in The Weeknd. It makes listening to material like Tranquilizer, Daniel Lopatin’s new record, a dreamily disorientating experience, one where you can hear the sonic touchstones and atmospheric soundscapes that have underpinned a number of huge recent hits but in a setting where they’ve been stripped of all their pop melodicism, the elements floating around like balloons that have had their ribbons cut. But pretend you’re not listening to Tranquilizer and it all starts to make much more sense, an ambient masterclass of soft-focus samples and loops that sound like they’re lost in a smoke machine. At its best, like on Measuring Ruins, you could draw a line from it leading back to Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works.