Utility Fog

Sunday, 19th of June, 2011

Some new and exclusive music tonight, from world-folk to dubstep to live drum'n'bass...
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom or the podcast.

Amazing album from Ryan Teague starts tonight's show, on the beautifully-packaged Sonic Pieces label. After some orchestral classical music with ambient electronics on the Type label, it's interesting to hear his approach here, which features crystalline acoustic guitar, played fingerstyle, with some very tasteful/tasty production and occasional e-bow and vocals. It's highly effective, and if it's strong on first listen, it's still a grower. I'll be coming back to this one frequently.

I'm very lucky to have to have an exclusive tonight — some tracks from the forthcoming Vieo Abiungo album and the world is still yawning, via Lost Tribe Sound. As with his previous album, William Ryan Fritch produces a sumptuous mix of instruments (all played by him) in a world-folk mélange — but I think if anything he's more successful at pulling it together here, and there are a few melodic sections which are just breathtaking.
There's a remix CD coming with the album (which isn't out till later in August), and I'll be sure to spin it when it arrives, but meanwhile I played a couple of takings from the one which came out earlier this year, featuring Melbourne's Part Timer in his Scissors and Sellotape guise, and Manyfingers, aka Chris Cole, sounding a lot like his sometime collaborator Third Eye Foundation here. I'm told there's new Manyfingers in the works, and I couldn't be more pleased.

Manyfingers' 3ef impression takes us into almost-drum'n'bass territory, so it's time to hear from London's Three Trapped Tigers, who've done a great line in live Squarepusher impressions, but also like their rock riffs. It's math rock meets live drill'n'bass drumming, and surprisingly raucous and rocky on the whole on their new album. I had to play one track from the first of their three EPs as well. More next week, fun stuff.

From there, we head into heavy bass territory via the excellent dubstep label Deep Medi, whose three Deep Medi Releases volumes I recently picked up on CD. Japan's Goth-Trad has insanely awesome beats and drum fills on "Law", while Finnish duo Clouds bring in some female vocals from Tiiu along with a lighter touch. Silkie’s album on Deep Medi is one of my favourite single-artist dubstep album of all time (OF ALL TIME), and I can't wait for City Limits Volume 2, which drops any minute. Love the extravagance of the bassline and keys on "Planet X".
Then Mr Bill brings us back to Sydney, and adds some glitches to the dubstep groove. We're back with Enig'matik Records, and I also played the big drill'n'bass track from Mind Tree from the same Painting Pictures on Silence V1 compilation.

We also heard from Antlerland last week, and this time round it's a very demented bedroom drum'n'bass tune. All good fun.
The Seeds of Autumn, from Sydney, had also approached drum'n'bass sounds on one or two tracks, although this one is a bit more in a jazzy postrock vein.

Finally I've gotten around to playing some of the "Bleak Metal" brought to us by New Weird Australia — their latest compilation. We started with Brisbane's Axxonn, screeching digital noise giving way to huge layers of distortion. What makes it special are the regular chord changes - it's not just a humungous static drone by any means.
A rather different approach to distorted drone-mess came from Sydney's Machine Death, whose suffocating aural space suddenly opens out into stereophonic synth noise halfway through.
In between, something else entirely from Kirin J Callinan, who played in The Mercy Arms and now plays with Jack Ladder. With "She" he couples a loping lo-fi drum machine beat with savage post-punk guitars and a vocal delivery that recalls Aussie post-punk singers like Simon Bonney of Crime & the City Solution. One of the best local guitar-based songs I've heard in ages.

And with the guitars, let's go now to Matt Christensen, best known for his band Zelienople. Solo he keeps the lo-fi (but well-produced) vibes, with heartfelt songs and simple but unique arrangements. Zelienople deserve wider recognition than I think they've received, and I hope this album can also get some traction despite being on the relatively obscure (but totally awesome) UK label Under The Spire.

Somehow the feeling coming from Matt Christensen's songs pushed me into Julianna Barwick next. Her layered vocals, I must admit, at first didn't quite appeal to me, but by the time I was starting to keep hitting the skip button, I heard a couple of exquisite songs near the end of her LP which make me want to give the whole album a much fairer go. Admittedly the vocal harmonies here are less extravagant, and there's room for a bit of bass guitar impetus too.

We follow with two tracks from a lost masterpiece, an early release (from 2006) by Geoff Mullen, who works at Keith Fullerton Whitman’s legendary online experimental experimental music emporium Mimaroglu Music Sales. Keith released this album, thrtysxtrllnmnfstns, on a short-lived (beautifully-packaged) label, and still seems to have a few copies left (see label link below). It's genius — Mullen plays pristinely-recorded acoustic & electric guitar and banjo, and then sets it in dialogue with very noisy electronic machines.

Also a genius at juxtaposition is David Sylvian, whose new album I can't get enough of. The title track concludes tonight's show with more ravishing strings, with Sylvian's vocals somehow pressing on in a weirdly-unrelated key, until twice an enthralling bass note and harmonies bring everything into focus. Masterful.

Ryan Teague - White Nights [Sonic Pieces]
Ryan Teague - Nephesch [Type]
Ryan Teague - Undone [Sonic Pieces]
Vieo Abiungo - and the world is still yawning [Lost Tribe Sound]
Vieo Abiungo - Rust & Bile (Scissors and Sellotape remix) [Lost Tribe Sound]
Vieo Abiungo - the barges bellow their foul air [Lost Tribe Sound]
Vieo Abiungo - Fugue (Manyfingers remix) [Lost Tribe Sound]
Three Trapped Tigers - Ulnastricter [Blood and Biscuits]
Three Trapped Tigers - 5 [Blood and Biscuits]
Three Trapped Tigers - Noise Trade [Blood and Biscuits]
Goth-Trad - Law [Deep Medi]
Clouds - Protecting Hands Part 2 [Deep Medi]
Silkie - Planet X [Deep Medi]
Mr Bill - The Bouba-Kiki Effect [Enig'matik Records]
Mind Tree - The Caravan [Enig'matik Records]
Antlerland - Muton Base Attack [available from Bandcamp]
The Seeds of Autumn - Buzz [self-released]
Axxonn - From Black's Void [New Weird Australia]
Kirin J Callinan - She [Siberia] {available from Polaroids of Androids}
Machine Death - You Ruin Everything [New Weird Australia]
Matt Christensen - Someday I Won't Matter [Under the Spire]
Zelienople - Stone Faced About It [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Matt Christensen - Simple Lives Mean Nothing [Under the Spire]
Julianna Barwick - Prizewinning [Asthmatic Kitty/Mistletone]
Geoff Mullen - Untitled 02 / 03 from thrtysxtrllnmnfstns [Entschuldigen]
David Sylvian - Died in the Wool [Samadhi Sound]

Listen again — ~ 164MB
Note: as the studio recorder is in any case currently in mono, I've encoded the file as mono, reducing its file size. Let me know if there are any issues.

Comments are closed.