“I think it’s similar being a jazz musician.

“I very often kind of fall collaboratively in love with people”, Ragnar says. Music is at the core of numerous works by the Icelandic artist, and at the heart of his desire to work with ensembles.

Le nozze di Figaro, K.492 / Act 4: “Gente, gente, all’armi, all’armi” by Mozart “It's my favourite work about the current situation.” I’m in Iceland, but I was a part of the American Empire that’s falling apart.” Kjartansson singles out a repeated line-“Don’t do to me what you did to America”-from the song. Few works of art have caught the state of mind America is in now, and the American Empire. He says of the album: “It's pretty great. Ragnar KjartanssonĪ song from the album, The Ascension (2020), which Kjartansson says he’s been listening to recently, describing it as “a sort of electro record”. And you can hear the full interviews and subscribe to A brush with… here. Read on to learn more about their musical inspirations and the influences they exert on their practices. To reflect the artists’ wide-ranging tastes and references, we have compiled this playlist on Spotify. There are recurring mentions, too, of dance music and classical heavyweights like Beethoven. But cumulatively, themes do emerge Number 1 in the A brush with… charts this series is Keith Jarrett, whose music is highlighted by three artists, and who reflects a broader engagement with (and love of) jazz shared by almost all the guests.

The guests in Series 2, sponsored by Bloomberg Connects-Ragnar Kjartansson, Christina Quarles, Roni Horn, Rachel Whiteread, Tracey Rose, Tal R, Charles Gaines and Tala Madani-offer similarly diverse responses to the podcast’s regular question about what music or other audio they listen to. Among the revelations of the inaugural series of our podcast A brush with…, featuring in-depth conversations with leading artists about their influences and cultural experiences, was the breadth of the music they listen to in their studio and the varying roles it plays in their lives and work.

New unknown artists spotify playlist