Playlist 11.10.09

Posted by Peter on Sunday, 11th of October, 2009

LISTEN AGAIN via the link below the playlist.

Tonight started with an excellent cello-pop tune from Melbourne artist Gareth Skinner, who I was lucky to have a talk to a bit later on in the show. His new album Looking For Vertical is out now on Rubber Records, in very limited physical copies, and available also for download. Recommended!
Next, Sufjan Stevens’ Castanets cover from compilation of the year Dark Was The Night — I was given the excuse because I just got hold of the as always fascinating new Castanets album.
Also out with a new album is Oliver Barrett (another cellist) aka bleeding heart narrative. If you’ve been following Utility Fog for a little while you’ll know that bhn’s debut album was one of my top albums of last year. The new one features more vocals and a bit less noise and experimentation. Heaps of depth to this one, and you can expect more cuts appearing in the next while on the show.
More Gareth Skinner followed, and a few insights into his background and approach to music-making.
Another string player in the indie music world is Lisa Germano, whose violin is featured all over her new album of exquisite chamber pop songs on the ever-reliable Young God Records.

This week’s recommended gig is Feral Media’s double CD launch — the latest two releases in their POWWOW series. It’s at St Petersberg, a semi-secret warehouse venue at 21 May St, St Peters. OK, not that secret ;)
We heard another track from afxjim’s excellent Blackout Music, combining postrock, folktronica and an evident delight in music.

Phoenix probably wouldn’t usually find their way into a Utility Fog playlist, but with Animal Collective remixing them, they’re a shoe-in. We followed them up with dragging pianos, revelation of the week. They’re from Townsville, where they have connections with The Middle East, and they make a beautiful brand of indietronica all to their own.
Speaking of which, Telafonica have a new EP out, a song that we were playing in demo form on FBi a little while ago. Karoshi is typically detailed in his sympathetic remix.
If you happen to be reading this before midday on Monday the 12th, it’s strongly recommended that you tune into FBi to listen to Paul’s Playlunch, where Paul Gough will be featuring the amazing retrospective Severed Heads box set, and talking to Tom Ellard. Essential listening. I didn’t have anything quite that early available from Severed Heads, so we had a track from 1984’s City Slab Horror, and one from 1994’s Gigapus – both instrumentals, and a little bit different from the standard (and no less brilliant) post-industrial electronic “pop” Tom’s known for.
Ben Frost has a new album out in a couple of weeks, and those who know his previous, Theory of Machines, will have high expectations. And those expectations will be ably met – it’s as incredible as it should be. Postrock strings, acoustic guitar and piano are subsumed by raging distorted bass drones and crunching beats, and everything, from the bowed double bass to the heavy riffage, is recorded in wondrous high fidelity.
Ben was originally based in Adelaide, where I met him in about 2001 (introduced, as I mentioned on-air, by Mark “Clue to Kalo” Mitchell). His first EP clearly pointed to the greatness to come. Next week I’ll spin a track from, I guess, his last “Australian” release – 2004’s school of emotional engineering, as well as some more newness.
Ben’s track “Theory of Machines” appeared on Mary Anne Hobbs’ Evangeline compilation last year, and we followed it with Mark Pritchard’s analogue ode “?”, with which she chose to open this year’s Wild Angels.
Atlas Sound’s new album, just out now, features a lovely krautrocky number with Laetitia Sadier on vocals. For some reason of late I’ve expected Deerhunter and Atlas Sound to tedious and lacking (perhaps having been blown away by their volume and inspiration in Montreal in 2007) — yet when I sit down to listen to the new releases, they’re invariably excellent! So it goes…
As all the Warp20 box sets arrived on Friday, we went into a little Warp zone for a while. While the 2 CDs of (Recreated) have their fair share of filler, there are also any number of artists willing to take their chosen tracks into new directions. Jamie Lidell is appropriately respectful of Grizzly Bear’s gorgeous “Little Brother”, while simultaneously making it his own. And Tim Exile certainly makes Lidell’s “A Little Bit More” his own. John Callaghan, on the other hand, takes an almost-forgotten Autechre track from the Cichlisuite EP, adds vocals, and creates something wonderful – utterly English, still Autechre, but with another layer of loveliness, especially in the chorus.
Autechre’s contribution to the (Unheard) set follows, clearly from the early days, around 1993. The melody consistently recalls an element from the classic “eutow”, from Tri Repetae for me — so I had to give it a spin too.
Finally, we heard an “Unheard” track from Boards of Canada — this time potentially from the geogaddi days, or even later. Lovely regardless.
And to finish, another preview of fieldhead’s fabulous forthcoming album.