Black Angels
Kronos Quartet · 1990
A string quartet record that refuses to behave like one—and never tells you why.
Silence
The other half of the composition.
- 24
- briefs
- 2
- subjects
- 12:08
- average
- 291 min
- in total
Abstraction 407Absurdism 137Acoustics 220Acting 65Adaptation 372Addiction 95Adolescence 202Advertising 77Age of exploration 14Ageing 113Agriculture 100Algorithms 114Ambition 46Anarchism 38Ancient Egypt 17Ancient Greece 38Ancient Rome 30Animals 172Anthropology 23Apartheid 12Architecture 165Archives 32Argentina 10Art Deco 26Artificial intelligence 78Astronomy 81Attention 42Australia 32Automation 73Avant-garde 164Aviation 79Banking 72Banned works 40Bauhaus 12Beer 5Behavioural economics 22Berlin 16Big tech 6Biodiversity 136Biography 86Birds 41Black holes 20Blockchain 12Boxing 14Branding 77Brazil 43Bread 29Britain 131Brutalism 4Bubbles 3Buddhism 28Byzantium 10California 17Canada 18Capitalism 94Cars 468Celebrity 59Censorship 110Cheese 24Chefs 9Chemistry 104Chess 2Childhood 87China 109Chocolate 8Christianity 49Cinematography 343Cities 90Class 485Climate change 107Club culture 100Cocktails 2Coffee 11Cognitive bias 14Collecting 16Colonialism 284Colour 42Comedy 89Community 52Complexity 21Computing 309Consciousness 16Conservatism 14Conspiracy theories 8Cooking 178Corruption 38Cosmology 31Cover versions 64Craft 116Crate digging 42Creativity 8Crime 234Cryptocurrency 8Cryptography 24Cuba 10Cybersecurity 30Dada 12Debt 38Decision-making 28Decolonisation 46Deep time 80Democracy 45Denim 16Deserts 45Detroit 17Dinosaurs 12Directing 168Disasters 59Disease 109DJ culture 89Dreams 32Drones 5Drum machines 96Dystopia 69East Africa 28Ecology 337Economics 36Editing 72Education 92Egypt 12Electric vehicles 59Emotion 22Empire 92Endurance 49Energy 120Engineering 541Entropy 8Epidemics 13Equality 9Espionage 31Ethics 44Evolution 174Existentialism 106Expertise 2Exploration 49Extinction 23Failure 37Family 240Fandom 22Fascism 45Fashion 215Fast fashion 12Fear 34Feminism 122Fermentation 126Film music 81Fishing 12Folklore 71Food history 588Football 16Forests 31Forgery 7France 163Fraud 15Free will 13Freedom 16French literature 15Friendship 24Furniture 36Gambling 14Gender 63Generations 28Genetics 87Geology 96Germany 66Globalisation 74Gothic 32Greece 5Grief 126Habits 6Happiness 2Hardware 709Haute couture 22Headphones 8Hi-fi 12Hinduism 12Hoaxes 1Human history 23Human nature 41Identity 138Illustration 8Impressionism 6Improvisation 249India 89Indonesia 15Industrial design 342Inequality 13Inflation 4Information 34Infrastructure 280Insects 29Intelligence 8Interiors 31Internet culture 88Invention 329Iran 41Islam 40Islands 17Israel 9Italy 52Jamaica 10Japan 114Jewellery 5Journalism 34Judaism 13Justice 42Korea 41Language 70Law 90Leadership 20Learning 6Liberalism 1Libraries 6Literary criticism 26London 12Loneliness 61Los Angeles 62Lost works 9Love 67Luxury 55Machine learning 15Management 10Maps 5Marketing 21Markets 51Mars 6Marxism 26Masculinity 46Materials 138Mathematics 79Meaning 6Medicine 124Memory 82Mental health 70Mesopotamia 4Mexico 38Migration 95Minimalism 68Mining 30Misinformation 9Modernism 63Money 24Monopoly 32Mortality 61Motivation 2Mountains 16Museums 27Mysticism 11Mythology 60Nationalism 40Neuroscience 23New York 36Nigeria 7Nihilism 10Noise 31Nostalgia 33Nuclear 29Nutrition 17Oceans 48Oil 42Open source 45Painting 18Palaeontology 29Parenting 14Paris 18Partition 6Patents 71Patronage 14Perception 44Personal style 27Personality 2Persuasion 8Peru 10Philosophy 77Photography 37Physics 206Plants 26Platforms 89Podcasting 1Poetry 25Poland 17Policing 34Pop Art 16Populism 2Portraiture 6Portugal 18Postmodernism 23Power 91Prehistory 24Preservation 28Printmaking 21Privacy 11Probability 6Productivity 1Programming 54Prohibition 1Propaganda 35Protest 75Pseudoscience 17Psychology 80Publishing 22Punishment 16Quantum mechanics 44Race 145Radio 30Railways 35Rave 17Realism 47Record labels 19Recording 810Relativity 23Religion 154Resilience 15Restaurants 30Restoration 2Retail 94Revolution 58Risk 18Ritual 96Robotics 26Romance 96Russia 58Salt 9Sampling 246Satire 84Scandinavia 28Scientific method 186Screenwriting 26Sculpture 7Secularism 2Self-deception 14Semiconductors 73Sexuality 102Ships 18Silence 24Silicon Valley 17Slavery 35Sleep 2Smartphones 27Sneakers 15Social media 58Socialism 9Software 68Songwriting 180Sound design 332Sound systems 20South Africa 19South East Asia 30Space exploration 84Spain 18Special effects 41Spices 62Spirits 12Sport 82Startups 21Statistics 10Status 9Stoicism 4Storytelling 68Strategy 70Street food 99Streetwear 16Studio craft 508Subcultures 59Sugar 12Supply chains 115Surrealism 53Surveillance 21Sustainability 30Synthesis 232Tailoring 37Taxation 14Tea 24Textiles 97Thailand 11The American Revolution 19The American South 88The Arab world 41The Arctic 19The Balkans 17The Belle Epoque 13The body 29The brain 26The Caribbean 28The civil rights movement 62The Cold War 160The eighties 268The Enlightenment 29The financial crisis 19The First World War 39The food industry 157The French Revolution 9The Gilded Age 9The Great Depression 18The Holocaust 20The Industrial Revolution 93The internet 61The interwar years 135The Middle Ages 35The Moon 4The music business 169The Netherlands 10The nineties 26The Olympics 10The pandemic 13The Reformation 1The Renaissance 16The Russian Revolution 19The Second World War 102The seventies 58The sixties 28The space race 5The United States 19The universe 7The Victorian era 37Therapy 20Tokyo 11Trade 48Tragedy 22Translation 5Trauma 85Travel 5True crime 2Turkey 18Typography 54Uniforms 23Unions 8Urban planning 66Utilitarianism 1Utopia 5Vaccines 10Vegetarianism 15Venture capital 6Video games 291Vietnam 12Vintage 65Vinyl 6Virtual reality 11War 169Watches 4Water 11Weather 29West Africa 29Wilderness 10Wine 3Work 22Workwear 19Worldbuilding 121
music.briefs Music
All 11 in music →
Silent Shout
The Knife · 2006
Silent Shout is The Knife’s third studio album, released 17 February 2006. It is darker than Deep Cuts. It is synth-pop and techno. Karin Dreijer’s vocals are pitch-shifted and multi-tracked. The Knife handled recording, programming, production, vocals, and mixing. Christoffer Berg mixed tracks 1–7, 9, and 11. Pelle Gunnerfeldt mixed tracks 8 and 10. Henrik Jonsson mastered the album. Pitchfork named it the best album of 2006. A companion DVD, Silent Shout: An Audio Visual Experience, was released 8 November 2006. 'We Share Our Mothers’ Health' was iTunes’ Single of the Week in late 2006.
The Bridge
Sonny Rollins · 1962
The Bridge is Sonny Rollins’s 1962 studio album, recorded in January and February 1962 and released in April 1962. It marks his return after a three-year sabbatical and his debut for RCA Victor. The core quartet features Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone, Jim Hall on electric guitar, Bob Cranshaw on double bass, and Ben Riley on drums — with Harry "H.T." Saunders substituting on drums for one track. The sessions were held across three dates: January 30 ("God Bless the Child"), February 13 ("Where Are You", "John S.", "You Do Something to Me"), and February 14 ("Without a Song", "The Bridge"). Produced by George Avakian and engineered by Ray Hall, the album was critically lauded and later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.
xx
The xx · 2009
The xx’s 'xx' is a document of constraint: recorded in a converted garage, at night, with two voices, a bass, a drum machine, and one shared microphone. Nothing is added. Nothing is smoothed. It is what fits in the room.
Red Headed Stranger
Willie Nelson · 1975
Red Headed Stranger is a 1975 concept album by Willie Nelson, recorded at low cost in a quiet cypress-panelled room at Autumn Sound Studios in Garland, Texas. It features sparse arrangements limited to Nelson's guitar, piano, and drums, with no equalisation and no additional production — a direct rejection of Nashville conventions. Columbia executives initially mistook it for a demo, but Nelson's creative control and Waylon Jennings' insistence secured its release. The album includes a cover of Fred Rose's 1945 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain', which became Nelson's first number one hit. Its power lies in restraint: the Bosendorfer piano's deep bass, the dry drum hits, the absence of reverb or ornamentation. It is a record about silence as moral weight.
Ambient 1: Music for Airports
Brian Eno · 1978
Brian Eno's 1978 EMI release grew out of a bad afternoon at Cologne's airport and a conviction that background music could be more than wallpaper. Made from looped tape rather than a band, it named ambient music as a genre in the act of making it.
Future Days
Can · 1973
Made at Can's own Inner Space Studio after a scattering four-week holiday, Future Days trades the band's earlier rhythmic tension for unhurried, textured grooves built from Farfisa organ, field recordings and Jaki Liebezeit's constant, understated drumming, with Damo Suzuki's vocals reduced to a passing presence before his departure soon after.
In a Silent Way
Miles Davis · 1969
Recorded in a single February 1969 session at Columbia's Studio B and shaped afterward by producer Teo Macero's editing, In a Silent Way marked Miles Davis's full turn toward electric instruments. Built from just two long pieces stitched from a handful of takes by an expanded band including three electric pianists and a guitarist new to New York, it plays as a hushed, largely beatless record that unsettled jazz and rock critics alike on release.
film.briefs Film
All 13 in film →
Compensation
Zeinabu irene Davis · 2000
Compensation is a 1999 independent film directed by Zeinabu irene Davis, telling parallel love stories—one in 1910 Chicago, the other in the 1990s—between deaf women and hearing men. Shot in black-and-white silent-film style for the past and with open captions for the present, it draws on Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 1906 poem and foregrounds ASL, Chicago’s geography, and the social realities of tuberculosis and AIDS. Restored in 4K by Criterion and UCLA, it premiered at Sundance 2000 and entered the National Film Registry in 2024.
Good Morning
Yasujirō Ozu · 1959
Yasujirō Ozu’s 1959 colour comedy follows two brothers who stop speaking to protest their parents’ refusal to buy a television. Set in a Tokyo suburb, the film traces how their silence ripples through the neighbourhood, exposing the fragility of gossip, the labour of politeness, and the quiet absurdity of adult consensus — all observed with Ozu’s characteristic stillness and dry precision.
Hôtel Monterey
Chantal Akerman · 1972
Chantal Akerman’s 1972 debut feature is a silent, sixty-five-minute documentary shot in fixed long takes inside New York’s Hotel Monterey. With Babette Mangolte’s precise cinematography, it maps the building’s corridors, rooms and roof without narration, music or commentary — treating architecture as a sequence of visual propositions about time, space and perception.
I Was Born, But...
Yasujirō Ozu · 1932
Yasujirō Ozu’s 1932 silent comedy follows two brothers whose faith in their father collapses when they see him humiliate himself before his boss on home film. With still camerawork, sparse intertitles, and performances rooted in physical truth, the film traces the quiet transmission of social submission across generations — not as satire or tragedy, but as observed fact.
Japanese Girls At The Harbor
Hiroshi Shimizu · 1933
Japanese Girls at the Harbor (1933), directed by Hiroshi Shimizu, follows Sunako Kurokawa, a mixed-race teenager in Yokohama whose life fractures after a jealous shooting in a church. Years later, living as a bar worker and companion to an unsuccessful painter, she confronts the people she once loved—including the man who left her and the girl she shot. With no spoken dialogue and minimal intertitles, the film relies on composition, gesture, and duration to chart moral consequence without judgment or resolution.
Passing Fancy
Yasujirō Ozu · 1933
A 1933 Japanese silent film directed by Yasujirō Ozu, Passing Fancy follows Kihachi, a widowed brewery worker in Tokyo, as he shelters a destitute young woman and navigates care for her and his young son. With minimal intertitles, restrained performances, and Hideo Shigehara’s understated cinematography, the film traces quiet shifts in dignity, class, and paternal love — all within the confines of everyday spaces and routines.
Street Without End
Mikio Naruse · 1934
Street Without End (1934), Mikio Naruse’s final silent film, follows Tokyo waitress Sugiko as she navigates competing paths — marriage into wealth, stardom in film, or return to work — all shaped by rigid class boundaries and unspoken expectations. With restrained performances and precise, shallow-focus cinematography, it observes rather than judges, finding tension in stillness and consequence in repetition.
The Naked Island
Kaneto Shindō · 1960
Kaneto Shindō’s 1960 film follows a family surviving alone on a remote island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, carrying water daily to grow crops. With almost no spoken dialogue, it relies on repetition, physical exertion and Kiyomi Kuroda’s restrained cinematography to convey endurance, grief and routine. Though its agricultural premise is factually flawed, its austere method remains compelling: a rigorous, unsentimental portrait of persistence.