BLOG: The Fav Album Of…. – Meze Headphones!

In this weekly series of articles you will discover what are the business insider’s favorite albums and tracks. We have contacted a broad selection of industry experts and each Wednesday you can discover one of those guys’ favorite albums and why this is so.

This week’s honor goes to Antonio Meze, founder of Meze Headphones. We have of course reviewed Meze gear before and we have some other Meze reviews coming up real soon as well

Meze 99 Classics: https://www.headfonia.com/meze-99-classics-on-the-cups-of-brilliance/

Who am I

Antonio Meze, chief product designer at Meze. I try to focus on design, product development and manufacturing implementation, but in fact I get sidetracked by the business side of our operation more than I would like to.

Favorite Bands        

My way of loving music does not allow me to name only one favorite band or artist. I can’t even name one genre of music. I feel like you can get lost and flow with any type of music once you really get it. I mean when you understand where it’s coming from and what’s its reason of existing…. from Fado to Punk.

I can remember the time when all I listened to was Tom Waits (Ol’55, Hold On, Alice etc.). Simply one of the best song writers and performers of all time. I listened to a lot of John Frusciante and I can still remember that his Empyrean album came out around the time that I first thought about making my own headphones. Everything about his work is raw and visceral and honest and his style is continuously shape-shifting.  I had a Devendra Banhart, Regina Spektor, Public Image Ltd and a Knife period. And I love in equal amount but in a different way bands such as Pantera, Crystal Castles and Amália Rodrigues or R.L.Burnside.

My favorite band right now is The Do because I listened endlessly to their album A Mouthful when it came out and I rediscovered them recently trough a live gig they did on the amazing KEXP radio channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qLB68zUItI).

The Album    

If i had to name a best album I could not pick one, but I do remember that I thought that if an album is supposed to be really a whole I would choose Saint Dymphna by Gang Gang Dance. This album is like a good story with the tracks as the chapters.

Brooklyn’s Gang Gang Dance is an excellent example of the vibrancy found in the loosely knit underground musical community in New York. Traditionally, the trio has relied heavily on electronics and sampling but has used them to very free-form ends. Influences from Brian Eno to Tetsuo Inoue, and Eastern-tinged world music could be heard in their sprawling textures and ambience-laden warp grooves. With Saint Dymphna (titled for the patron saint of outsiders), GGD has a made another left turn but this time by turning right, away from the abstract collages and murky post-psychedelic tribal music toward more structured forms of electronic dance music: grime in particular. Gone are the long, sprawling ragged jams of previous albums, replaced with 11 “songs,” none more than five-and-a-half minutes. (TIDAL)

John Frusciante: “A Sphere in the Heart of Silence” is an amazing album, and I remember songs such as Murderers, Second Walk, Time goes back, Ramparts or anything from his Ataxia II album being constantly in my playlist.

The Song         

There are a lot, so I’ll just go with John Frusciante’s Murderers

Listening preference

Most of the listening throughout my life was made on my Ipod with 20$ Sony headphones. Once I got seriously into headphones I started using Grados and Sennheiser products. Today I keep switching between headphones from my extensive collection and my desktop system which consists of gear I still have from the time I was trying to record and mix.

Discover

If you want to check out Antonio’s favorite album and song, you can do so here:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IxI-uDVx1E&list=PL48347BE3DD85C80B

TIDAL: tidal.com/album/16025230

Qobuz: http://player.qobuz.com/#!/album/0801061017132

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5jSqAjod2HyrJehb096iiY

Enjoy!

Thank you Antonio for being on the series and for giving us a little insight in what you like to listen to. If you have suggestions of who we should feature in this article series, let us know in the comments!

Up to next week…