Utility Fog

Sunday, 11th of April, 2010

Jam-packed show tonight, including an interview with the lovely Michael Pulsford of Battlesnake. Check them out along with various other excellent acts this Saturday night (17th of April) at the Excelsior in Glebe.
Download the interview separately via this link (~30MB).
LISTEN AGAIN to the whole show via the link at the bottom!

Started with the latest edition of the L-O-A-F Explorers' Club, with Brighton collective Sons of Noel and Adrian contributing beautiful string arrangements and a doom-laden folk song.
Second up was the only track I managed to play from Sam Amidon’s brilliant new album. We'll be hearing plenty more next week from this master of post-folk, but we heard Nico Muhly’s first-rate orchestral arrangements and Shahzad Ismaily’s everything else...

Sydney band Parades’s first album has been a long time coming. I've been sitting on this Underlapper remix ever since Greg Underlapper sent it to me months ago, and am very excited to have been able to play it tonight. Bit of a 65daysofstatic feel, and with a new 65dos album out soon, I'll be sure to give it another spin then. I just happen to have heard a preview of the new Underlapper album this week and I can't wait to play you that one! Unspecified release date as yet though.

Next up, a bit of a hint of things to come with some electronic music. Two drum'n'bass-influenced tunes, starting with Roel Funcken, who with his brother Don has produced some of the best idm of the last decade or more as Funckarma. Funckarma have always looked outside idm for influences from hip-hop, drum'n'bass, techno and these days dubstep, and all those are present on Roel's debut solo album Vade. This track, in collaboration with another Dutch idm hero, Kettel, is distinctly drum'n'bassy, and I approve.

Also on excellent German electronic label Ad Noiseam is a new EP from Enduser, another old favourite of this show. In fine form, Lynn Standafer is up to his usual tricks, sampling lovely female vocalists and overlaying huge bass synths and drum'n'bass beats. This time it's the turn of Miki Berenyi and her beloved band Lush, and I'm such a fanboy of the album it's off that it took me about 2 secs from the first sample to go running to the CD shelf and grab my copy, and we heard the original source song tonight as well.

Next up, Michael from Battlesnake talks about his band's history and philosophy of music-making, and we heard a couple of songs under the interview plus another after. Their music on the album Umlaut is a beautiful mix of improv influences and cinematic evocativeness. Being bass, drums and organ/keyboards, they have a pretty unusual sound. Should be a top gig this Saturday.

We also had one precious song from an altogether brilliant album from another Melbourne band, otouto. They're making quite a stir at the moment anyway, with the Brown sisters' lovely songs and multiple instruments, and Kishore Ryan's unbeatable drumming (see his other band Kid Sam).

...And then we're into something quite unusual and special. The Internal Tulips’ debut album on Planet µ prompted a bit of a trip down memory lane, as the band is made up of two most excellent idm/experimental electronic artists whose work was worth exploring independently as well as together.
Alex Graham put out two 12”s as Lexaunculpt in the late '90s, and was for a while the wunkerkind, the next big thing. The music is very much the idm of the time, skittering beats with a hip-hop foundation and tiny melodies, and I've really been enjoying nodding my head along, having pulled the vinyl off my shelves earlier this week. He also had one quality album on the µ, but even that was back in 2003.
Brad Laner, meanwhile, has had many projects including indie rock band Medicine, but it's as Electric Company that I'm most fond of him, and that's the most apposite of his identities for this new project anyway. He had a few albums on Tigerbeat6, moving from minimal glitchy electronica to something like maximal glitchy electronica. The album it's hard to be a baby, from which I took two tracks tonight, really is a bit of an unknown classic, with crunchy beats, acoustic and orchestral samples galore, and just a great feel to it.
I also dug up a collaboration (or at least Lex remixing Electric Co) from years back, and in between we had a number of slices of rather bent pop from The Internal Tulips. This act very much shows their pedigree in electronic music, but also Laner's pop experience. I have a feeling it's a grower, and I'm already really liking it. One to keep an eye out for.

From here we go even further into electronic territories. Our gateway thence is the incredibly intricate work of John Kameel Farah, who combines his classical piano technique with elements of jazz and Squarepusher-stylee drum programming. Crazy stuff from Toronto - we like.
This came from the Ad Noiseam store, while I was picking up a bunch of new stuff on the label itself. Nicolas at Ad Noiseam has a very fine and wide-ranging selection of electronica, breakcore, dubstep, dark ambient and more. I also found the CD version of the Underscan label's now series. I have a couple of them on 12’, but it's great to have CD, and Funckarma’s contribution is worth the whole thing — they've often hinted and drum'n'bass in their crazy drum programming, but this is pretty much the real deal.

DJ Hidden is definitely the real deal, if you're looking for really heavy & dark d'n'b that's also pretty intricate. This track from his 2009 album The Words Below is particularly special, with its quasi-classical elements and comparitive restraint :)
Another Enduser track samples another female vocalist, and we have a brief but full-on track from Hymen artist Defrag.

Back to Roel Funcken, whose next offering is a kind of hip-hoppy 2-step thing that takes us conveniently into a mellow 2-step kind of tune from Scuba’s beautiful new album. Even though it verges a bit too much on the 4/4 minimal Berlin dub-techno thing, there's a lot to love about Triangulation and it's garnering well-deserved praise from all over the place.
On Ad Noiseam, Broken Note’s debut album collects all their 12” tracks on CD, making for a very heavy affair, mostly dubstep with some bits of drum'n'bass in there. Not unexpectedly you wouldn't expect to find this on the dancefloors of drum'n'bass clubs, but it fits the bill along with the breakcore-verging stuff I've been playing tonight.
And my last Roel Funcken track of the night has some very nice bass growls and off-beats of the dubstep variety.

Finally, Emeralds’ self-titled LP from last year is now out on CD. Analogue heaven, nostalgic synth lines galore, with appropriately psychedelic artwork. To get us there, Pimmon from his cassette-only Steered in Smash Ascent. I know that Paul Gough aka Pimmon has been listening to a lot of this underground cassette culture that Emeralds are part of, and no doubt he's been soaking up the analogue synth yumminess, because it's overflowing all over this cassette. Next week I'm hoping to play epic tracks from both these releases...

Sons of Noel and Adrian - Black Side of the River [L-O-A-F]
Sam Amidon - Rain And Snow [Bedroom Community]
Parades - Hunters (Underlapper remix) [Direct from the 'lappies, but available on iTunes (eek!)]
Roel Funcken - Halfkriel (with Kettel) [Ad Noiseam]
Enduser - Death Vest 09 [Ad Noiseam]
Lush - light from a dead star [4ad]
...interview with Michael from Battlesnake. Tracks 1.1 & The Integrity Unit underneath conversation...
Battlesnake - Shadow of the World's Tallest Midget [self-released]
otouto - Autumn [Two Bright Lakes]
The Internal Tulips - Bee Calmed [Planet µ]
Electric Company - test card [Tigerbeat6]
Electric Company vs Lexaunculpt - The Blingus Cufflinks [Tigerbeat6]
The Internal Tulips - 9 Tomorrows [Planet µ]
Lexaunculpt - Peraudi.tt.e [Isophlux]
Lexaunculpt - my peach and my pear [Orange]
Electric Company - it is not that very true [Tigerbeat6]
Lexaunculpt - Has Been Trying Not To Wonder [Planet µ]
Electric Company - i shall choice my self [Tigerbeat6]
The Internal Tulips - Mr. Baby [Planet µ]
John Kameel Farah - Crystalline [Dross:tik]
Funckarma - Brim [Underscan]
DJ Hidden - The Devil's Instant [Ad Noiseam]
Enduser - 2/3 [Ad Noiseam]
Defrag - Pale Shotguns [Hymen]
Roel Funcken - Martyrz [Ad Noiseam]
Scuba - Three Sided Shape [Hotflush]
Broken Note - Dubversion [Ad Noiseam]
Roel Funcken - Fiction Stub [Ad Noiseam]
Pimmon - That Anguyestes Loop [Stunned Records]
Emeralds - Geode [Hanson]

Listen again — ~ 173MB

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