Live Review: Music To Isolate To: Perto

With the ongoing and ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a crazy world out there right now, so it’s never been more important to band together. Self-isolation and social distancing are two of the most effective tools we have as a society to help fight COVID-19, but they’re also very difficult to undertake and they have very real, long-lasting consequences on the music and arts industries — some of which we aren’t even aware of yet. Our artists and our industry are already feeling the ripple effect, and things are only going to get worse before they get better.

Because of this, it’s up to us to use what we’ve got at our disposal to best represent and amplify our community and continue to tell artists’ stories. Purple Sneakers has always fiercely represented Australian music and our team are some of the best writers in the country, so we’re going to use our platform to continue doing what we do best: connect our community with the artists we love, and support artists by promoting their incredible music.

Music To Isolate To is an ongoing artist-curated playlist series by Purple Sneakers. We’ve asked some of our favourite artists ever to provide us with the ten songs they’re listening to while in isolation, and provide some commentary for their selections. We’ll be running these for the foreseeable future every Monday and Thursday, and you can follow the Spotify playlist which will be updated on these days right HERE. The idea is to not only promote artists who are curating the playlists, but to also promote those songs that mean a lot to them whether they be longtime classics or fresh new releases.

The next artist in our Music To Isolate To series is PERTO. Being hailed as a prodigy might be a cliche in any other circumstance, but for Perto it rings true. With millions of streams and exceptional high-energy shows around the world under his belt, plus studio sessions with some of the industry's biggest names, all around the same time as turning just 18, this producer is absolutely one to watch. He’s created official remixes for Flosstradamus and Valentino Khan, supported Alison Wonderland on tour, tapped GRAMMY-nominated artist Kah-Lo for guest vocals and was busy touring on the 2019 Listen Out run instead of graduating high school. While he was gearing up to make even more waves this year with a few key festival appearances that have had to be put on ice due to the global pandemic, Perto is still making the most of things with a brand new single out just a few weeks ago and plenty more still in the bag. His music is big, booming, and all-encompassing. Never straying too far into trends or fads, he sticks to his guns and knows just when enough is enough with his production — a skill many of his contemporaries with a few years on him still are yet to finesse. It makes for a thrilling watch as he continues his ascent, and we can't wait to see where he goes next.

From SOPHIE and 100 gecs to a track from the Uncut Gems soundtrack, PERTO's selects are all high energy, high intensity and a wild ride indeed. Strap in!

Ecco2K - Sugar & Diesel

Ecco is probably my favorite person right now, I’m obsessed with everything he does in every space he touches. This is song is so pretty and I would give everything to be able to sing like him :')

SOPHIE - BIPP

I have no idea how we progress from this song. music has hit a wall. huge

Aphex Twin - Xtal

I’ve consumed this song so much lately that I’ve been digging through every edit of it just so I can get the feeling of hearing it for the first time again. I finally settled for this version of YouTube that has stretched it to 39 minutes but until you get to my stage you should listen to the og.

Ariel Pink - Lipstick

Sounds like a horror movie. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to isolate to this but it’s an incredible song. I’ve tried so many times to recreate it and have failed every time.

Thaiboy Digital, Bladee & Ecco2k - Waterfall

dg 4 life man

Yung Lean - Drop it/Scooter

Anticipating Lean's next record so I’m currently going through every single song of his right now. This one was brought back to me when my friend wildly dropped this at my birthday party show in Sydney. It didn’t work in that environment at all, but we let it play out and went crazy on stage. :’) I miss it

100 gecs - Ringtone

My favourite song off 100 gecs' 1000 gecs project. 2nd verse is perfect, Laura went crazy.

Caroline Polachek - Hit Me Where It Hurts

This is my favourite album right now. Every song is perfect, especially this one. Also, she might have coronavirus which shakes me to my core. Anyone but her.

Daniel Lopatin - Mohegan Suite

A song from the soundtrack to one of my favourite movies, Uncut Gems. The whole album is amazing, but this cut in particular is super suspenseful and energetic. Also, I had no idea it was made by oneohtrix point never, which is wild.

Pentagon - Heal

Found this while going through the who sampled library of thaiboy digital. Such a pretty song + they recorded guinea pigs over it!!

Introduction by EMMA JONES

Image: Byron Spencer

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