Resonance Theory | 02

"Teardrop" - Avishai Cohen, Big Vicious

"2" - Misled Children and Clutchy Hopkins

"The Big Sea (Instrumental)" - Funki Porcini

"Obscured by 5" - Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit

"Not The Destination" - 40 Winks

"I'm Not" - Panda Bear

"Pandora (For Cindy)" - Cocteau Twins

"Playing Parties (Yesterdays New Quintet The Stars Remix)" - Daedelus

"High Rise" - Al Stylus

"Urban Waltz" - Baby Mammoth

“Rainy Streets” - Blue In Green

"Yǔ" - Catching Flies

"Opus for Four" - The Art of Noise

"02-00" - B. Fleischmann

“Teardrop” — Avishai Cohen, Big Vicious
Recorded at Studio La Buissonne in 2019 with Manfred Eicher producing for ECM Records, “Teardrop” arrived first as a digital single in March 2020 and then on the album Big Vicious. This cover of a Massive Attack classic is built around a clear trumpet topline from Avishai Cohen, with Uzi Ramirez and Jonathan Albalak on guitars and dual drum chairs occupied by Aviv Cohen and Ziv Ravitz. Avishai's horn stylings conjure up Miles Davis' electric period, keeping the melody clear on open horn, with guitar shimmer creating the long tails ECM favors. An instrumental track with restraint and headroom, it sits with other reframings on the album, and marks an electric turn for Cohen within the label’s late-period aesthetic.

“2” — Misled Children & Clutchy Hopkins
“2” is part of the Misled Children collaboration Peoples Market, a record that first circulated in 2005 and then gained broader visibility on Porter Records in 2008. The numeric track list is intentionally minimal, with dusty drum programming, a short modal bassline, and library-style keys drifting in and out. Hopkins’ discography leans on small-press issues, sparse credits, and a cultivated origin mythology. “2” sits early in the sequence, both a hip-hop passage and downtempo nod.

“The Big Sea (Instrumental)” — Funki Porcini
Issued on Ninja Tune in 2002, Fast Asleep bundled a CD and a DVD of Openmind visuals and “The Big Sea” was one of the pieces that received a film counterpart. James Braddell’s track sounds like a late-night score, a slow build of strings and ride cymbal that holds a phrase long enough that your ear starts writing its own scene. That CD+DVD pairing marked a moment when the label was committed to audiovisual companions and when Porcini’s long takes and noir humor were part of the brand’s identity as much as the turntable work. The length and structure make it a set piece for late-night sequences.

“Obscured by 5 (Extended)” — Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit
“Obscured by 5” emerges from Secret Rhythms 1 on the Nonplace label, the first in a series where Burnt Friedman’s percussive electronics meet Jaki Liebezeit’s cyclical drumming. The Extended variant underlines the laboratory approach that defines the project. Spanning Electronica with Dub and Future Jazz, the track shifts the lens on drum patterns, altering the experience to a half-machine four-square time feel, with a touch of sinister guitar, and the bass maintaining the dubby groove. Friedman and Liebezeit met around 2000 and formalized their “secret rhythms” method of non-4/4, cycle-based figures across multiple Nonplace volumes, with studio and session notes underscoring the system’s rigor.

“Not The Destination” — 40 Winks
Antwerp duo 40 Winks closed It’s The Trip with “Not The Destination". Released in 2011 by Project: Mooncircle, the cut floats on tape-softened drums, and Rhodes keywork that nod to 1970s European film libraries. The album follows earlier 40 Winks releases including 2007’s The Lucid Effect that trace a steady evolution from swing-y beats to widescreen downtempo. The melancholic mood maintains the cinematic blend with an extended arrangement of negative space and dark spiritual voicings.

“I’m Not” — Panda Bear
“I’m Not” first appears in 2005 on a small double-A single paired with “Comfy in Nautica,” then returns on Person Pitch in 2007 on Paw Tracks. The track’s sample lineage includes Gothic Voices performing Guillaume de Machaut’s “Rose, liz, printemps, verdure,” stretched and layered into a weightless pad that Noah Lennox sings, through an enormous stereo field of Gregorian smoke. The single established the sample-collage palette and the reverb-as-architecture approach that defined the album’s reception.

“Pandora (For Cindy)” — Cocteau Twins
“Pandora (For Cindy)” was issued in late 1984 with the Cocteau's canonical lineup of Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, and Simon Raymonde. This is the Cocteaus at their most elemental: Robin Guthrie’s guitar blurred into bell tones, Elizabeth Fraser’s voice soaring throughout, and Simon Raymonde’s bass anchoring it all. Mid-sequence on Treasure, “Pandora” is a perfect 4AD object, with sound and image of a piece in Vaughan Oliver’s 23 record sleeve artwork enshrining the thing in myth.

“Playing Parties (Yesterdays New Quintet The Stars Remix)” — Daedelus
Plug Research issued The Quiet Party around 2003 and placed the Yesterdays New Quintet remix of “Playing Parties” at the top of the sequence. The track lies inside Madlib’s Angles Without Edges period, functioning as a one-person jazz group built from samplers, Rhodes, and brushed-kit time. The EP includes “Madlib Bonus Beats” and a High Priest remix of “Muggle Born,” and later appeared in multiple 12 inch pressings, cementing the Daedelus/Yesterdays New Quintet cross link during the influential early-’00s LA beat scene.

“High Rise” — Al Stylus
“High Rise” appears on When Shapes Join Together 2, a Tru Thoughts label sampler curated by Robert Luis in 2002. The Shapes series produced seasonal dispatches from the Brighton club orbit, introducing artists who would become central to the catalog. Al Stylus is Alex Cowan before the TM Juke identity solidifies, and you can hear the through line in his saturated drums, compact chord changes, and the way a small vocal element is used for texture rather than for lyric. The label positioned its downtempo and nu-jazz axis in the early 2000s and sits in either broken-beat or jazz lounge sets without feeling out of place. The Shapes 2 album helped establish the sampler tradition the label would maintain for years, with “High Rise” an early snapshot of its downtempo side.

“Urban Waltz” — Baby Mammoth
“Urban Waltz” is drawn from Swimming on Pork Recordings, released in 2001, with personnel credited to Mark Blissenden and Andrew Burdall and guitar by Tom Harland, continuing the live-instrument spine running through Pork’s catalog. The album exemplifies the downtempo and chill-out scene of the era. The time feel swings, while the kick and bass make a straight line through the bars so that the meter change never feels like a novelty. In the wider Hull constellation with Fila Brazillia, and The Solid Doctor, this is a certified classic.

“Rainy Streets” — Blue In Green
A compact mood piece built for late-night segues, “Rainy Streets” leans on brushed snares, a laid-back bass, and a minor-key loop. Blue In Green is an anonymous Japanese composer and guitarist, with a penchant for bossa-friendly chords voiced cleanly, minimal ornament, and attention to negative space. The track’s harmonic backbone draws from Jimmy Smith’s reading of “Summertime,” so the lineage points straight to organ-jazz language even as the arrangement stays resolutely downtempo. The label’s art direction and production values also warrant notice, as Cold Busted under Derrick Daisey built a catalog where short-form instrumentals live comfortably next to design-forward sleeves. “Rainy Streets” was paired on a 7 inch with The Deli for Emapea’s Re-Works, which tightened the drums and nudged the gait toward classic boom-bap without losing the original’s hush.

“Yǔ” — Catching Flies
“Yǔ” is track two on Silver Linings, released on Indigo Soul in 2019. The piece has soft-focus arpeggios over downtempo drums, taking care with space as the stereo field opens and closes, and the vocal praising the beauty of rain. A companion set, Silver Linings Remixed, arrived in 2020 and includes “Yu (Part 2)” with verses from Blu and Jehst demonstrating how the tune could accept hip-hop cadence while maintaining its tonal beauty. The remixed edition drew support from UK tastemakers (Mixmag, DJ Mag) and BBC selectors (Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs), while “Yǔ (Part 2)” also landed as a single.

“Opus for Four” — The Art of Noise
From the In No Sense? Nonsense! album, released on China Records in 1987, “Opus for Four” sits as a miniature with a running time around 3:11. AON’s “Opus” miniatures were always part joke, part craft—chamber gestures rebuilt from Fairlight synth shards. The personnel list for this period typically puts Anne Dudley and J. J. Jeczalik at the center with Gary Langan in the engineering and production picture, and session credits often include Dave Bronze on bass and Paul Robinson on drums. The group by this stage had sharpened their filmic approach that treated short pieces as structural punctuation rather than throwaways.

“02/00” — B. Fleischmann
“02/00” dropped in 2003 on the Welcome Tourist album, released by Morr Music. The album sits in the label’s early 2000s indietronica arc, blending micro-programming with live instrumentation, piano figures, and percussive lattices slowly assembling into a quickening pulse. Bernhard Fleischmann opens the track with a Henry David Thoreau quotation from “Civil Disobedience,” with human warmth established by the time the electronic drums kick in, delivering a hopeful glide to end the mix. The track serves as a gateway to Fleischmann’s broader catalog, from solo albums to film work.

Listen to: Resonance Theory | 01