Picasso Playlist: Like Cubism To Your Ears

We asked Alan Lopez (left), a producer in NYC whose knowledge of music culture blows us away, to create a Picasso-inspired playlist. Check out his comments and curated picks, below, which you can download from iTunes and listen to while walking through our exhibition. Start with track #1 in the first gallery and work your way through the musical art journey...

1. To Be Continued...
Ben Frost, from "School Of Emotional Engineering"

A suitable intro. A hint of darkness, but also quite lovely.

2. Poems
Tricky, Terry Hall and Martina Topley Bird, from "Nearly God"

"You promised me poems..." At turns beautiful and sad. This song seems to be constructed atop layers of diethyl ether and absinthe. Pablo would have liked this one.

3. Godspeed
Modeselektor, from "Happy Birthday!"

A perpetual motion machine of a track, Modeselektor evoke the playfulness in the avant-garde that is sometimes overshadowed by the seriousness of the ideologies behind the movement.


4. Colores Sin Nombre
Savath & Savalas, from "Apropa't"

Breezy and evocative. As dreamlike as a Picasso but just as easily imagined being played during a secret Parisian orgy.

5. Untrue
Burial, from "Untrue"


Rhythmic and complex, the processed samples and drum patterns here evoke a Braque. Aural cubism, anyone? Ok, that was clumsy...


6. Hunter

 Portishead, from "Third"

Beth, Geoff, and Adrian play a torch song that could just have easily been heard in 1900's Paris.

7. Inland Empire

Peter, Bjørn and John, from "Seaside Rock"

Unexpectedly ominous instrumental goodness from these usually more pop-oriented Swedes. A staccato mystery unfolding in your brain.

8. Flat Of The Blade

Massive Attack, from "Heligoland"

With it's alternately cryptic and evocative lyrics, it could be an artist confessing or painting out loud. Love this one.

9. Heroes (Aphex Twin Remix)

Philip Glass, from "26 Mixes For Cash"

Insane and hilarious. Dada.

10. Composition 0919
Ryuichi Sakamoto, from "Playing The Piano 2009 Japan"


Beautifully experimental.


11. Oscillations

Silver Apples, from "Silver Apples"

Loops, harmonies, percussion aplenty. Avant-garde at heart, Silver Apples were ahead of their time and fearless in their musical approach.

12. A Night In

Tindersticks, from "Tindersticks II"

Always thought of Paris when listening to this one. Romantic in execution but toughness in the words.

13. Ambivalence Avenue Bibio, from "Ambivalence Avenue"

Strong colors; layers creating an interesting and breezy collage.

14. Paris By Night
Thomas Bangalter, from "Irreversible"


Scary, crazy, amazing things were happening in Paris back then, just beneath the surface of society. Must have been something...

15. Moth
Burial & Four Tet, from "Moth / Wolf Cub"


Immersive repetition. Layered within an inch of its life. So good.

16. Avenue Of Hope

I Am Kloot, from "Gods And Monsters"

The band's writer/singer John Bramwell writes of their music: "It's only in the context of the bleakness and the quite filthy passion at the core of us, that when we present something that naïve and that simple that it really gets its charm and finds its beauty."

17. Circling

Four Tet, from "There Is Love In You"

Enjoy the exhibition.

For image credits, please refer to the gallery guide for Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris.