Simon12345  aka Henrik (Doumen Records & Praezisa Rapid 3000)

Things I would like to share

//music:

Ben Jacov – Transalp (forthcoming Doumen Records)
It took me a while to really catch the depths, but this is undoubtedly the record I have listened to most frequently this year, and still I find myself wanting to listen again almost every week

Four Tet – Beautiful Rewind (Text)
For me the record, concept, promotion etc. was the most controversial and clever thing he could have done at this point of his career and I love that he did it…

Tropic of Cancer – Restless Idylls (Blackest ever Black)

Cuushe – Butterfly Case
This album lives in it’s own world. Not a thousand obvious references and known feelings, more an intimate little piece of beauty on it’s own

Maft Sai – Selection, Doumen Podcast (Zudrangma Records, Bangkok)
In times where Podcast’s are everywhere, this is a rare gem. A true master working on what he does best

Fennesz – Liveset (ATP festival, UK)
This is kind of weird, because I don’t understand it. One speaker was broken, I was almost too tired to stand and I only liked too songs for real, but this was my most intense musical moment this whole year as far as I remember

John Talabot – ADE closing set (Trouw, Amsterdam)
I have very seldom felt so positively overwhelmed while not being in the mood for good moods at all

//movie:

Richard Linklater – Before Midnight
When I went to Amsterdam for the first day at my new workplace I took the night train from Berlin after being completely happy and wasted from a great weekend of seeing people and playing concerts as well as saying goodbye one more time. While waking up on this tiny train bed in the morning, an old indian couple (she writer, he journalist it turned out) stared at me while talking about this movie. I was still feeling like being in a dream, but nevertheless immediately joined the conversation, as I liked the movie and had just seen it two weeks ago. This led to an inspiring conversation about religion, lifestyle, politics, migration and much more…

Lapalux – Without you
The fetish reference as a metaphor for being the expelled one and never really fitting in, touched me a lot..combined with this outstanding piece of music, this beauty makes you think. I can connect to the main character a lot

Zachary Formwalt – Unsupported Transit
Slow short movie, almost like a photograph, observing the construction site in Shenzhen, the first of China’s Special Economic Zones. A huge stock exchange building is the protagonist of this movie

Cuushe – Airy me
This must have been an amazing amount of work. I love studio ghibli a lot and for me this is strongly influenced by those films, but rougher and with better music 😉

Real Humans – TV Series
Interesting topic and kind of brave for the time and channel it was displayed on

Inside Llewyn Davis – Coen brothers
A well-known feeling

//books:

The Inexplicable Unhappiness of Ramu Hajjam (by Taj Hassan)
A story about class struggle, village hierarchies and Maoism in rural india

//Festivals:

Fusion Festival
This will stay my favourite Festival for a while I guess

Nachtdigital
This was maybe the first year I really understood the whole festival, what does not mean, that I didn’t love to be there beforehand

All Tomorrow’s Parties
Last time it happened at the channel in UK and I was there with some friends. I’d say it was kind of a weird experience, but still I am very happy to have been there again!!

photo by Jonas Fischer