Utility Fog

Oh what a big show tonight! LISTEN AGAIN link at the bottom – don’t miss it!

It’s Ninja Tune XX, 20th birthday of this ultra-important label. It’s the new Swans album OMG BRUTAL. And it’s the new Sufjan Stevens album OMG EPIC.

But also, EPIC interview with the brilliant, passionate, ultra-over-the-top Jason Forrest, who I’ve actually known for something like 12 years over the internets, and we were very excited to get on the phone together :)
See Jason as DJ Donna Summer getting his live breakcore on at a big event next Saturday at the Gladstone Hotel in Chippendale. Details on this handy poster.
We had tracks spanning his career, from 2001’s Joe Jackson breakcore mashup through his epic progcore from 2005 and some a bit dubstep and a bit funky from 2010. Plus an exclusive preview of a 7” that will be out on a Melbourne label later this year, the first new Jason Forrest-monikered music in years, with an awesome-sound album along the way too.

I also played another track from one of last week’s features, World’s End Girlfriend’s insane new album Seven Idiots, which would no doubt get the Jason Forrest stamp of approval.

But we started with something else again, from the Ninja Tune XX compilation (or set of compilations), Roots Manuva gets a rockin’ re-fit by Doomed, which is actually Richard Russell of XL Recordings.

After Jason Forrest it’s right back into Ninja Tune, via Amon Tobin, who used to end his live sets with this incredible mashup of The Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”. It works really well, with added big Amon Tobin beat.
Next up, Kronos Quartet doing an “interpretation” of some Amon Tobin music. I’m always disappointed that Kronos just commission some young composer or other to do arrangements, even when it’s a cover version like this or their Nine Inch Nails one. I guess they’re great players but not arrangers, but heck guys, it’s fun – I can tell you from experience :)
Anyway, great stuff, and then Amon collaborating with Eskmo, whose new album on Ninja Tune doesn’t quite live up to the expectations of his three(-plus) untouchable singles from last year, but is pretty nice all the same. This track is precisely the two producers’ sounds blended together. Want more!
And since we hadn’t had any “pure” Amon Tobin, a track from the Ninja Tune XX compilation featuring either Martenitsa, The Bulgarian Womens Choir, or someone very similar. And a big thumping beat of course.

Back in about 1994 I discovered Ninja Tune via some brilliant compilations they put out at the time, and a few flagship artists. 9 Lazy 9’s track appeared on Funkjazztical Tricknology, which features a lot of the best tracks from the label’s early history.
Then about a year later came Flexistentialism, which many more classics and some early dub-hop sounds from The Herbaliser. While I’m not actually the hugest of fans, they’ve made any number of top-class productions over the years, and for the Xen Cuts comp for Ninja’s 10th birthday (10 years ago!) they teamed up with Latyrx for some very special indeed.
And then back to Roots Manuva, who dubs up their more recent track “Something Wicked” and drops his own lyric over the top. Very nice.

Next up, The Bug reuses his own beat from the amazing “Skeng”, with Kiki Hitomi intoning a rather beautiful and effective new vocal. Next week I must play you the Autechre remix (maybe the dub) of “Skeng”, which is a spin-out and a half.

Not all M.I.A. fans may be aware that Diplo put out one of the best Ninja Tune albums (albeit on Big Dada) in 2004. One of many highlights on Florida was “Summer’s Gonna Hurt You”, and now he’s re-fitted it for 2010 with a big dubstep bassline, while keeping its original heat-saturated atmosphere.
Nice to see Lorn appearing here too, with a pretty number also with the fat basslines and an uncredited vocal.

Very much credited and very awesome is Ms Dynamite, teaming up with Toddla T for anthem of the year. Watch/listen now and bounce around the room. I dare you not to!

But next. OH MY GOD. There are two brilliant remixes of DJ Food’s classic track “Dark Lady”, the bassline of which we’ll explore slightly later. First off, Belgian-born south-west London-resident drum’n’bass producer Alix Perez does a wonderfully smooth contemporary minimal d’n’b remix, slowed down a little to accommodate the d’n’b tempo.
Zomby gives us another track in the post-drum’n’bass/hardcore continuum, with a lovely idm-style melody, and Scuba gives us a stunner of a remix of Fink, which eventually gets going with a classic breakbeat.

But let’s get back to that bassline, shall we? 808 State also got their hands on DJ Food’s “Dark Lady”, and we hear their bleepy acid-techno take which slowly mutates back into the bassline. It’s an astonishing take on a great track.
You’ve heard that bassline before of course. About a year after the DJ Food version, Tim Simenon’s Bomb The Bass released their perennial favourite “Bug Powder Dust”, based around William S Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, with samples from the film (which must have come out around then), and a Naked Lunch-inspired (and just inspired) rap from Justin Warfield, which we can all quote extensively from. “Shockin’ your ass like a faulty vibrator / Hear me now, but you’ll probably get the vibe later”… “I’ve got more flavour than a packet of macaroni”… and so on.
But the original bassline comes from a Flora Purim track from 1977, and it’s by Alphonso Johnson, who played in the early years of the great jazz fusion band Weather Report, so I guess no surprise there!

And yes… Sufjan Stevens’s is also coming out soon. As a pre-orderer, I got the digital download this week and am already willing to announce it as something of a work of genius. Epic and ambitious, it’s got everything from his delicate folk songwriting to his mega-orchestrations and plenty of electronic touches, from crunchy beats to glitchy edits. Most of that appears in this one song which I highlighted tonight, and in a couple of weeks when the physical CD is out I’ll play some more (I really want to play the entire 25-minute closing track!)

Another equal work of genius came out this week, in the form of the new Swans album. I got the limited double CD, and next week I promise to play an excerpt from the bonus disc as well as some useful Swans/M.Gira/Angels of Light history. A cornucopia of wonders brutal and beauteous.

And (nearly) finally, a few samplings of some artists playing a gig (which I happen to be playing at too – sorry!) next Friday, the 8th of October.
Ollie Bown from the brilliant Icarus (see my Cyclic Defrost interview) is based in Melbourne right now, and is coming up to play a show in Sydney in the lovely wooden-panelled surrounds of Megaphon Recording Studios in St Peters. Adrian Lim-Klumpes will take on the grand piano, Shoeb Ahmad and Evan Dorrian of Spartak will play guitar/processing and drum kit respectively, and I’ll play cello & loops/processing. Ollie has developed some amazing software that allows him to improvise in realtime on the laptop, so it will be a very special occasion. And Cleptoclectics will play a set first.
Shoeb has put together a free download comp that you can get from Bandcamp for it, so I featured a few tracks tonight.

And we ended with the expansive percussion and vocals of Sydney’s own kyü. Lovely, lovely.

Roots Manuva – The Falling (Doomed remix) [Ninja Tune]
Jason Forrest – Evil Doesn’t Exist Anymore [Sonig]
World’s End Girlfriend – ULYSSES GAZER [Virgin Babylon Records]
Jason Forrest/Donna Summer – Stepping the fuck out [CockRockDisco]
DJ Donna Summer – Figher [Nightshifters]
…interview with Jason Forrest…
Jason Forrest – Biker Movies [forthcoming 7”]
Amon Tobin – Venus Hendrix Live Mix [was a download from his site, gone now!] {mashup of The Velvet Underground and Jimi Hendrix}
Amon Tobin – Foley Versions (Kronos Quartet Interpretation, arranged by Jonathan Wong) [Ninja Tune]
Eskamon – Fine Objects [Ninja Tune]
Amon Tobin – Eight Sum [Ninja Tune]
9 Lazy 9 – Electric Lazyland [Ninja Tune]
The Herbaliser – A Mother (for your mind) [Ninja Tune]
The Herbaliser feat. Latyrx – 8 Pt Agenda [Ninja Tune]
The Herbaliser – Something Wicked (Roots Manuva Haunted House Dub) [Ninja Tune]
The Bug – Catch a Fire (feat. Kiki Hitomi) [Ninja Tune]
Diplo – Summer’s Gonna Hurt You (Diplo 2010 Remix) [Ninja Tune]
Lorn – Soft Room [Ninja Tune]
Toddla T – Want U Now (feat. Ms Dynamite) [Ninja Tune]
DJ Food – Dark Lady (Alix Perez remix) [Ninja Tune]
Zomby – The Forest [Ninja Tune]
Fink – See It All (Scuba remix) [Ninja Tune]
DJ Food – Dark Lady (808 State remix) [Ninja Tune]
Bomb The Bass feat. Justin Warfield – Bug Powder Dust [Island]
Flora Purim – Open Your Eyes You Can Fly [Milestone]
Sufjan Stevens – I Want To Be Well [Asthmatic Kitty]
Swans – You Fucking People Make Me Sick (feat. Devendra Banhart and Saoirse Daniel Gira) [Young God]
Ollie Bown – Live at London Placard Headphone Festival 2008 [free download from Bandcamp!]
Adrian Lim-Klumpes – Hillside [free download from Bandcamp!]
Shoeb Ahmad – Fashion No. 2 [free download from Bandcamp!]
kyü – koi [Popfrenzy]

Listen again — ~ 179MB