The Soft Pink Truth — Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase
I’ve been wondering. What’s good music? To 2020’s layperson (of which I consider myself one) attempting to describe what good popular music is (as opposed to classical music), I think the following definition works well.
Does it pass the distractingly good test? In the Age Of Distraction(TM), good music is music that refuses to just play in the background, and that’s a good thing. Does it force you to pay attention?
This is a particularly important question, I’ve found, to ask of ambient music, which is a genre that’s built on the idea of ambience, and therefore particularly prone to being in the background and forgettable. But the great ambient albums, I’ve found, are just the opposite. Be it Music For Airports, or Disintegration Loops, or The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, they’re all hugely memorable. They aren’t hotel lobby music.
The same is true for Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase, by The Soft Pink Truth, the pseudonym of Drew Daniel, one half of one of the 21st century’s most interesting electronic music acts, Matmos. It’s a fantastic album.
You can check it out on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube.
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