on the front: 2020, as heard by Joshua.

December 2020, Joshua Wise. Comments over on DreamWidth .

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on the front: 2020, as heard by Joshua. (144MB, MP3)
This README, in text form (1.5 kB, text)
Cover art, full resolution (2.6MB, JPEG)
Cover art, 1024x1024 (374 kB, JPEG)

Liner notes

2020 has been a year that seems unlike any other that I can remember, along so many different axes. I have to imagine that I'm not the only one who feels that way, either; for me, at least, it seemed like everything kept changing at every instant, and nothing remained consistent at all, even from week to week. The feelings associated with each of these moments were constantly morphing, too; as a result, so was the music I listened to. Last year, I worried about whether the mix was too "dark"; well, could anyone be blamed for that, this year? I decided not to concern myself with what it looked like this time, and just go through the list of things that resonated with me.

Please find below the soundtrack to my 2020.

Track list

0:00 — Gareth Emery – prologue (Joshua's intro edit) (from “THE LASERS”, 2020)
0:31 — Justin Sullivan – Ocean Rising (from “Navigating by the Stars”, 2003)
5:35 — Austra – How Did You Know? (from “HiRUDiN”, 2020)
9:50 — Bastille – Doom Days (from “Doom Days”, 2019)
12:05 — IAMX – The Great Shipwreck of Life (from “Kingdom of Welcome Addiction”, 2009)
16:14 — Phantogram – In A Spiral (from “Ceremony”, 2020)
19:34 — Empathy Test – Monsters (from “Monsters”, 2020)
24:16 — Front Line Assembly – Negative Territory (from “Wake Up The Coma”, 2019)
30:03 — Rotersand – Hot Ashes (from “How Do You Feel Today?”, 2020)
34:49 — Street Fever – In Your Lungs (from “Enchaîné”, 2018)
40:03 — Netsky – Basic Instinct (from “Second Nature”, 2020)
43:51 — Seven Lions ft. Tyler Graves – Only Now (from “Find Another Way”, 2020)
47:17 — Gareth Emery – welcome to your life (from “THE LASERS”, 2020)
51:27 — Seeming – Go Small (from “The Birdwatcher's Guide to Atrocity”, 2020)
55:27 — Iris – Imposter (from “Wrath”, 2005)
60:06 — GoGo Penguin – Atomised (from “GoGo Penguin”, 2020)
64:27 — Nakama – The People Around You (from “The People Around You”, 2020)
70:30 — Simon Posford – On A Rainy Day (from “Flux & Contemplation – Portrait of an Artist in Isolation”, 2020)
73:43 —

Technical notes

This mix was cut together and edited using Ableton Live; I estimate that this mix took me around 20 hours of work, including selecting tracks, cutting, mixing, test-listening, and writing up supporting documentation. Special thanks to Matthew Wright for beta-testing early versions of this mix.

Previous years

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