Tonight, quite a few little featurettes of a couple of songs each from various artists. See bottom of playlist to listen again.
Sydney’s Edwin Montgomery starts off the proceedings with a dose of widescreen postrock, featuring his violin, guitar and excellent production. I played another of his tracks later in the show, with wild scraping violin and crashing drums in the middle.
The folks who run the fabulous CAD Factory performance/rehearsal/exhibition space in Marrickville are also a band called Grace Before Meals, and I fully intended to play one of their more conventional (ha!) songs from their double-EP, but only had time tonight for the amazing double-bass scrapings and bashings of “Track 12”.
Underlapper guitarist and occasional vocalist Morgan McKellar has been making beautiful dronescapes as Morning Stalker for a while now, but it’s taken hellosQuarerecordings to finally get a fully-fledged release out of him. Half of the tracks on In Unit have previously appeared on compilations and suchlike, and they’re great, but it’s the new tracks which are really doing it for me. I’ll play another next week.
Chris Hearn’s Alps of New South W(h)ales launched his new album on Saturday night – a lo-fi shoegazey indie keyboard album dedicated to our cetaceous friends of the deep. I also played an earlier track, with wonderful abrasive guitar feedback offsetting the drum machine, keyboards and vocals.
Back in 2005 I played quite a bit of young Jordy Lane’s indietronica, after which he appeared to go into hiding. It’s great to see him (in his new guise as Shady Lane) getting his music out there. There are a few nicely off-beat electronic tracks on the new album that I’ll play in coming weeks.
One of the exciting eventualities of last week was discovering a new EP by The Black Dog on Bleep, with none other than an Autechre – and it’s fabulous! Bass-heavy, great beat, melodies not too buried… just what you need.
A recent discovery round these parts is Viennese singer-songwriter Anja Plaschg, aka Soap&Skin. The first track I played is crunchy electronica (and instrumental), while the second is like Tori Amos crossed with This Mortal Coil.
Speaking of female singer-songwriters with unusual arrangements, Clare Hubbard’s Caethua, on Sydney label Preservation, takes folky acoustic guitars and occasional piano as her base, but expands it with field recordings, muffled distorted beats and other techniques to create something otherworldly. Her new album is a double CD, and won’t be far from my stereo all week.
I’ve been meaning to play The Spheres’ new track for a while. The release is a one-track CD accompanied by a DVD that adds visuals — indeed, they describe themselves as an audio-visual group. Crackly jazz samples give way to quiet post-rock and a magical violin-augmented crescendo… Lovely stuff.
A new Jim O’Rourke album is an event. In this case it’s one 38 minute track, which is a bit hard for even me to fit into a show, but I managed the last 22 minutes or so. I played one of his, er, “pop” tunes from a while back, and also two glorious tracks from the iconoclastic fingerstyle guitarist John Fahey, a huge influence on Mr O’Rourke (and many others).
sole & the skyrider band’s remix album, featuring everyone you’d expect from the Anticon/Mush world, must have snuck out while I wasn’t looking, and I grabbed a copy in Melbourne a week and a bit ago. son lux does his usual orchestral thing, with nice edits and scratching.
Also picked up in Melbourne was a stunning album from 2001 by Terminal Sound System, RH-8SB. Pure bass tones & chopped beats, it’s amazing stuff.
And Vladislav Delay’s debut release on the Leaf label is coming shortly. One of his best yet, methinks — more acoustic instruments thrown into the mix, along with chaotic-seeming beats and warm bass.
edwin montgomery – desert [self-released]
Grace Before Meals – Track 12 [CAD Factory]
Morning Stalker – Day Of The Christmas Beetle [hellosQuarerecordings]
The Red Tree – A Spark, A Sparrow [A New Entity]
Alps of New South Wales – I.D.L.S.? [Shrieksounds]
Alps of New South Whales – Minke Whale [Beat Is Murder]
Jordy Lane – Have Some Patience: Life Is Long [self-released/promo]
Shady Lane – Oh, Reality [Rice Is Nice]
The Black Dog – Tunnels Ov Set (Autechre Remix) [Soma]
Soap&Skin – DDMMYYYY [PIAS]
Soap&Skin – Spiracle [PIAS]
Caethua – In a Garden Barely Looked At [Preservation]
Caethua – Day Break [Preservation]
The Spheres – A song for your sleep [self-released]
edwin montgomery – clouds [self-released]
Jim O’Rourke – The Visitor (2nd half – approx last 20 minutes) [Drag City]
John Fahey – Delta Dog Through The Book Of Revelation [Shanachie]
Jim O’Rourke – Memory Lame [Drag City]
John Fahey – Sun Gonna Shine In My Back Door Someday Blues [Takoma]
sole & the skyrider band – 100 light years and running (son lux remix) [black canyon recordings/midheaven]
Terminal Sound System – Whine [Relapse]
Vladislav Delay – Musta Planeeta [Leaf]
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