Utility Fog

Sunday, 20th of February, 2011

ARGH I hate computers :(
So began the show. But after a bit of a stressful start, we were up and running. Stacks of great new (er, forthcoming) Sydney music and so much more!
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom as per usual. Oops! Accidentally linked to last week's show! Link fixed now.

Last year the boys from Seekae kindly asked me to play some cello and organise some other strings for the album they were recording. Well, +DOME is finally coming out in a month's time, and I am the proud owner of an advance copy, so I couldn't resist spinning a few tunes off it tonight. Their love of glitchy laptop effects and shiny melodic keyboard lines is augmented with not just strings and some clarinet, but also none other than electric guitar on a few tracks — it was such an unexpected sound that I actually ejected the CD from the car stereo on my first listen on Saturday to check if it was really Seekae! But never fear, it's just what we'd expected and more. You're gonna love it.

Another long-awaited Sydney electronic album comes out the week before the Seekae one: Collarbones’s album debut Iconography. At the moment we just have this one track, with Marcus’ multi-tracked vocal harmonies and their now-familiar stuttering digital edits and wonky beats.

Justin K Broadrick is on a roll. I don't know whether it just seems that way, but it's like every month there's at least one new release from him. My new favourite identity of his is Pale Sketcher, and his latest EP is just out now on none other than Ghostly International, on limited vinyl and digital.

And... Radiohead. Well it's not like they need an introduction from me. It's my guess that on the whole a UFog listener is going to like Radiohead, and as well as playing a couple of great tracks from the new album, I took us on a little tour of their more experimental (yet beautiful) tunes from the last decade or so.

Back in 2007, when Thom Yorke was releasing a series of dubstep and electronic remixes of his solo work, Ital Tek put out a couple of the best dubstep 12"s of the year. One of them featured the track I played tonight, with a piano line that always struck me as being almost a sample of Radiohead's "Pyramid Song". I can't help thinking that's how it's intended.

Back to electronica means back to Seekae, but first a pit-stop with ⅓ of the band, John Hassell as Peon. Clearly the J Dilla influence on this stuff is huge. It's fun wonky stuff.

The Seeds of Autumn surprised me this week — starts off as your standard jazzy instrumental stuff, and then adds a cut-up drum'n'bassy beat and goes all crazy. Nice to hear some more Sydney music taking an interesting approach.

Fab discovery of the week (thanks internets!) is Brooklyn's Live Footage, a duo made up of cello (with looping and other pedals) and drums/keyboards. It's sortof like live Squarepusher meets Penguin Café Orchestra. I'm disarmingly reminded of my own recent experiments in cello looping, and these guys have their technology down pat. Great stuff.

Also down with the technology are Sydney's 3ofmillions, with another forthcoming album we got a sneak preview of tonight. It's more live and less cut-up than their previous album, but explores a tremendous array of sounds for piano-bass-drums jazz (well, it's piano/Rhodes/electronics, bass/electronics, and some vocals from all). I'm a fan.

Back from last week, Aussie/US postrock band Beaten By Them noticed I couldn't find their first album and sent it to me. You can download it from their BandCamp (see below) and it's highly recommended — the cello is prominent in the arrangements and mix, far more than you'd expect from a standard (post-)rock band employing a string instrument. The new album is out soon and continues the story.

Chris Weisman is one of those insanely prolific songwriters who boggle the mind. A bit of an outsider artist perhaps, he's very willing to experiment with sounds (including in collaboration with his (boutique) label boss Greg Davis) but is entirely at home recording perfect lo-fi pop songs on cassette, with guitar, keyboards, drum machines, whatever. There's traces of the Beatles (obviously), Pavement and Antonio Carlos Jobim, but there's also a signature sound to his vocals and melodies that makes him a striking talent.

My colleague Stuart Buchanan's New Weird Australia has a new compilation out, one whose theme is a little difficult to articulate, but encompasses lo-fi in all its incarnations. From Melbourne's NO ZU, a track which escaped me when I (presumably) heard it on their EP from last year, krautrocky synths and tribal drums yeah!
Edwin Montgomery’s track certainly didn't pass me by when it came out on his Travel Ideas album last year, but it's a welcome addition to this compilation, and only one of many sides to the guy's musical abilities.

And before we reprise Pale Sketcher and Seekae once more to end the show, a reprise again from last week, of the amazing Danny Saul: lonely acoustic guitar and vocals are besieged by roaring, crackling noise.

Seekae - Go [Rice is Nice]
Seekae - Yodal [Rice is Nice]
Collarbones - Don Juan [Two Bright Lakes/Remote Control]
Pale Sketcher - The Rainy Season [Ghostly International]
Radiohead - Bloom [King of Limbs]
Radiohead - Idioteque / Morning Bell [Parlophone]
Radiohead - Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors [Parlophone]
Radiohead - Paperbag Writer [Parlophone]
Radiohead - 15 Steps [self-released/XL]
Radiohead - Feral [King of Limbs]
Thom Yorke - And It Rained All Night (Burial remix) [XL]
Ital Tek - Deep Pools [Planet µ]
Peon - Further Daughter [self-released] {download for free here}
Seekae - Halley Wars [Rice is Nice]
The Seeds of Autumn - Man in blue with angle grinder [self-released]
Live Footage - Sad Love Story [self-released]
3ofmillions - Abstruction [Rufus Records] {album forthcoming next month, but you can download this track for free from their website!}
Beaten By Them - Town Too Small [available from their Bandcamp] {free download of their very lovely first album from Bandcamp!}
Beaten By Them - Water [Logicpole]
Chris Weisman - Symbols and Signs [autumn records]
Chris Weisman - 999 [autumn records]
Chris Weisman - Contact High [autumn records]
Chris Weisman - working on my skateboarding [autumn records]
Chris Weisman and Greg Davis - crystal under battleboro [autumn records]
Chris Weisman - Fire And Flame [autumn records]
Chris Weisman - Nu Carta [autumn records]
NO ZU - Horoscope [New Weird Australia] {free download on Edition Five EP or We Are After All Here compilation}
Edwin Montgomery - Alone In The Museum [Lesstalk/New Weird Australia] {free download on We Are After All Here compilation}
Danny Saul - My Escape [White Box]
Pale Sketcher - Drag Your Feet [Ghostly International]
Seekae - 3 [Rice is Nice]

Listen again (LINK FIXED) — ~ 171MB

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