Koan - Argonautica (2012)

Happy Holidays, everyone! Hope Santa found you well - yes, even you grinches - and that the New Year brings hope, happiness and wonderful adventure.


My pick this week is 'Argonautica' by Koan. I don't know much about the artists other than it is a Russian duo, with rather unrussian names, of Daniel Roeth and William Grey. Google tells me that they have put out some 13 albums plus other assorted releases since they formed in 1993.

 (dear god... surely that can't be 21 years? I remember what I was doing in 1993!)

'Argonautica' came to me via a recommendation from a friend who is heavily in to electronic music, which is a genre I've never had a lot to do with before. His eyes lit up when I said I was interested in learning more about it and I was promptly and generously given a whole bunch music to listen to and explore. There seems to be a gadzillion sub genres and, honestly, I have no idea which one this fits into. Ambient? Progressive Trance? Chill? I have absolutely no clue, sorry! For me, music generally falls into three boxes: “Love it”, “Hate it” & “It Grew on Me”. Argonautica tumbled into the latter.

The album is a pretty seamless 80 minute journey, I don't usually notice where one track ends and the next one starts. I've enjoyed it both as background music to work to (it's very non-distracting) and a relatively high volume, with headphones in a dark room and just letting my imagination wander off to wherever it will. It's positive, it's happy, it's... just nice :-)

'Argonautica' hasn't changed my life, but I've definitely enjoyed it. 3.5 – subject to change ;-)

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/9g5bzqnkx604odg/Koan%20-%20Argonautica.zip?dl=0

While I'm sure you're all sitting there, mice/fingertip at the ready to click/tap that, my upload speed is about as slow as the weather we're having in Brisbane at the moment. It should be up sometime... oh, this week.

Maybe.

*sigh*