Utility Fog

Evening! Wow, what a weekend! Political upheaval to a fascinating degree, with probably quite profound effects (hopefully for the better).
Meanwhile, I bring you music, the food of love! Get a bit of that up ya why don’t ya!
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom! Then go back and listen to the older shows.

From Sydney, a band of whom I don’t know a lot, but they do a great line in post-classical full-on drum’n’bass funk thingy. Thingy is my new favourite genre actually. I heard a few of these tracks from forced perspective last year when they put out a promo disc. The album’s pretty excellent, definitely recommended — and the first track I played reminded me in no small amount of the recent These New Puritans album.

OK, the big news of the weekend, other than the Greens’ unprecedented success, the huge informal vote and *ahem* anyway… the other big news was the sudden unexpected appearance of a new release from Sufjan Stevens! Out of the blue, we have an 8-track, almost 1-hour long “EP” called All Delighted People, and it’s pretty fantastic. Could it have been otherwise? And it’s available right now for only USD$5 from Bandcamp (therefore in pretty much whatever digital audio format you like).
There are two versions of the title track, and I played the slightly less epic one – a mere 8 minutes long. It liberally references Simon & Garfunkel’s classic “The Sound of Silence”, so what more excuse did I need to play it? Then “The Owl and the Tanager”, a beautiful Sufjan track with muted piano.

I shouldn’t need any excuse to play the gorgeous tune following either, but Ólöf Arnalds has a track on the new Second Language comp, Vertical Integration, and it’s not quite as great as this one, so a little skip back to 2007. I declared this on Twitter earlier this week to be one of the most wonderful folk tunes of the last few years (decade even?) and I think I wasn’t exaggerating.

From said compilation, we started with Pete Astor — who’s been making music since the ’80s and was involved with a few acts on the Creation label. It’s a lovely, lovely tune, and I took the opportunity to play a track from one of my favourite compilations, the Leonard Cohen tribute I’m your fan from 1991. Nothing can compare to Leonard, but his works do lend themselves to awesome covers, as heard here.
Back with the Vertical Integration comp, a typically pretty and engaging offering from Robin Saville, one half of Isan among many other things.
From Second Language’s previous (highly recommended) 2010 comp, Music and Migration, we heard Hauschka’s prepared piano and electronics.

Earlier this week I saw Chris Morris’s brilliant jihadist black comedy Four Lions. Morris has always had impeccable musical taste, and he’s with Warp Films, so it wasn’t altogether surprising when Aphex Twin’s solo piano “avril 14th” turned up in the very moving end sequence.

Sometime this week I was alerted to the fact that DJ Food had done a cover of The The’s classic tune “GIANT”. It sounded familiar, and when I got home I found the Instrumental on one of his (yes, DJ Food is finally just Strictly Kev) EPs from last year. I’m a The The fan from way back, so it was nice to be able to play the very long original and then the almost-as-long, impeccably-styled cover version.

Next up, the first this week from The Wire’s latest subscriber-only download comp, Below The Radar Volume 4. Renato Rinaldi is a rather below-the-radar artist from Italy, who contributes a fantastic slab of noisy full-spectrum analog synth insanity.
While it’s not wonky hip-hop, it’s pretty wonky, and led quite nicely into Terror Danjah’s latest Planet µ release, taking grime into pretty dubstep and drum’n’bass-influenced territories here.
From Lebanon, Munma isn’t really dubstep either, but once it gets going it’s Middle-Eastern dub with a definite low-end wobble to it. Really great.

Mickey Morphingaz’ remix of fellow Sydney-ites Kids at Risk is described in the press release as “dubstep” — a classic example of throwing popular genre terms around. It’s got a little bit of dub and a little bit of drum’n’bass to it, but it’s basically very dextrous hip-hop. I’ve asked Micha/Mickey for some more tunes, as he’s doing a really interesting klezmer/improv/hip-hop hybrid thing called The Asthmatix which I’d like to hear more of!

From Switzerland, Dimlite is released on Stones Throw off-shoot Now-Again, and although not all tracks on this mini-album are totally to my taste, the wonky aspect and the African influence on the opening track is something special. I’m sure this one will get all the attention it deserves.

Next, back to our two opening artists. forced perspective give us a track which is decidedly drum’n’bass, and then equally funk, and a lot else in between. Crazy, and crazy good.
And then, as promised, the entire 17 minutes of Sufjan Stevens’ “Djohariah”, from that new EP. There’s no other word to describe this except “epic”. It doesn’t go to as many places as his wonderful version of “You Are The Blood” from last year’s Dark Was The Night comp — but it’s definitely a journey, and you have to admire a track that takes almost 12 minutes to get to the verse…

Apropos of nothing much, I wanted to play two breakcore artists sampling Billie Holiday. First up, cdatakill does great injury to “Strange Fruit”, while somehow keeping its impact. And Venetian Snares’ “Öngyilkos Vasárnap” (the Hungarian name for the classic suicide torch song “Gloomy Sunday”) is well celebrated. (New Snares album will be here in a week or two – further cause for celebration!)

The end of the show was all about the latest REFRACTION gig to happen at UTS’ Bon Marche Studio. This coming Friday, the 27th of August, Sydney’s brilliant 3ofmillions (piano/organ, bass & drums), Germany-via-Sydney’s Hinterlandt and Canberra’s Reuben Ingall are joined as usual by a UTS student act for a gig at one of the best spots to see experimental music in Sydney.
On the night, 3ofmillions will see Adrian Klumpes playing electric organ (of some sort) and effects rather than piano, but the track I played was so chopped up in the studio that it’s unlikely to resemble anything they do live anyway. Suffice to say they’re a live experience not to be missed.
I saw Hinterlandt playing last weekend, and it’s an epic, hilarious and wonderful act. The delightful piece I played tonight does feature in the current set.
And Reuben Ingall is quite a discovery, with lo-fi guitar songs jostling with digital cut-ups and drones. And it’s available for as little as $0 on Bandcamp!

In between, a couple more perfect pop tunes buried in murk by White Woods. I love this album, so should you.

forced perspective – exit strategy [self-released]
Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People (Classic Rock Version) [direct from Bandcamp!]
Simon & Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence [Columbia]
Sufjan Stevens – The Owl and the Tanager [direct from Bandcamp!]
Ólöf Arnalds – Í Nýhu Húsi [12 Tonar]
Pete Astor – Tree of Birds [Second Language]
Pete Astor – Take this longing [Les Inrockuptibles]
Robin Saville – Wesley’s Fingers [Second Language]
Hauschka – Lipstick Race [Second Language]
Aphex Twin – avril 14th [Warp]
The The – GIANT [Epic]
DJ Food – GIANT (Instrumental) [Ninja Tune]
Renato Rinaldi – Untitled [courtesy The Wire]
Terror Danjah – Power Grid [Planet µ]
Munma – Bits And Dust [Planet µ]
Kids at Risk – I Am A Fire (Mickey Morphingaz remix) [Rice Is Nice]
Dimlite – Kalimba Deathswamp/Kurt Feelings [Now-Again]
forced perspective – you can’t look me in the eye [self-released]
Sufjan Stevens – Djohariah [direct from Bandcamp!]
cdatakill – Strange Fruit [Low Res]
Venetian Snares – Öngyilkos Vasárnap [Planet µ]
Hinterlandt – Lose Lose Situation [self-released]
3ofmillions – the hand of god [space dairy records]
Reuben Ingall – webbed [direct from Bandcamp]
White Woods – Sea Sickened [Sensory Projects]
Reuben Ingall – mountains [direct from Bandcamp]
White Woods – Elbows and Kneebones [Sensory Projects]

Listen again — ~ 175MB