Utility Fog

Sunday, 26th of June, 2011

Hiya peeps! Lots of great sounds tonight, including the beautiful For Nihon compilation from Unseen Music, the new Brian Eno, and heaps more.
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We start tonight with the For Nihon compilation, which Peter Broderick just mentioned yesterday on his blog will have raised some $31k in donations to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund.
My opening track is just what I want from drone — a very varied, dynamic track from Deru. Beautiful.

Just on Saturday, I noticed Busdriver tweeting something about Radiohead on his Twitter, and followed the link to find a ridiculous but ridiculously cool mashup where the 'driver raps over and edits the 'head's "Bloom" from King of Limbs.
Busdriver was also talking to Sole on the Twitters yesterday, and that reminded me to play this excellent tune produced by Tobacco of Black Moth Super Rainbow.

Sydney neo-soul proponent Guerre has promos of his new album out now, but I'm still digging the Darker My Love Remixes free download release, and this week we heard Melbourne's Naminé with a nice post-dubstep take.

Enormous highlight of another strong week of new releases is the new album, finally, from Kangding Ray. Released on the mighty raster-noton (run by alva noto of whom more later), it's a swooping, encompassing album of minimal but detailed electronic beats, synths and distortion, with occasional vocals. I say distortion, because at times it sneaks towards a beat-oriented version of Ben Frost’s waves of growling machines.

I played a couple more tracks from this later, but in the meantime we heard from some other masterful sinewave distortion courtesy of emptyset, whose follow-up to 2009's self-titled debut is out now too. This leans even more towards the noise aspect than the compelling, regimented beats of their first outing, but still has plenty of that techno impetus to it, especially on the first track I played. We also had a reminder of their amazing first album.
And I couldn't resist playing an idm classic from µ-Ziq, from 1994 — very different beats, but still slathered with distortion and heaps of bass.

After some more kangding ray, it's time for something gorgeous from the latest collaboration between alva noto + ryuichi sakamoto — all lowercase as the music requires. Sakamoto's piano playing is legendary, and here he and Alva Noto play off each other in perfect sympathy. Quite wondrous.
In between two tracks, we had a short Sakamoto solo piece from the For Nihon comp, and then afterwards we had something special, also from the compilation, from Nils Frahm & Anne Müller. I played their duo album a lot last year, and it's great to hear something new, and very string-fuelled.

Strings feature all over David Sylvian’s new album, which still has a lot of life in it as far as UFog-land goes! Tonight's track features renowned Australian free improv cellist Michael Moser all over it.

Two Melbourne violin-loop acts follow: the indie thrills of Wintercoats and then something almost dub-pop from The Twoks.

I'm still caning the ridiculous(ly fun) Akron/Family remix bonanza <bmbz>, which is now available from what I can only assume is Akron/Family's own Bandcamp. HIGHLY recommended for insane processed rock noise glory.

Also rather over-the-top is the four track, 45-minute album from Brisbane's restream. No track is less than 10 minutes long, and each is electronic shoegaze with overdriven guitars and extended song structures. It's wonderful listening that could go on forever.

I was rather unimpressed by last year's debut on the Warp from the legendary Brian Eno. He's always had his moments, some undeniably classic, but often tends towards the insipid, and I found the best bits from last year were the obvious Jon Hopkins moments. This time round he's teamed up with poet Rick Holland, and somehow the inspiration of the lyrics and working with various vocalists has brought out the best in Eno. There are some quite head-nod-worthy beats, some true glitchy cut-up bits, and just some great settings of the words. Nice one, Brian!

Moving on from Eno's Warp excursions, it's time for some dark and complex drum'n'bass beats courtesy of maestro Paradox. I was surprised to see he's still putting out albums, and he tends to scatter slower breakbeat tracks through the d'n'b, but his programming is just top-notch.
More surprising is slapping a Björk track in this drum'n'bass set. The new track "Crystalline" is absolutely wonderful — it's not out yet, but a certain famous Aussie DJ played it on Sunday afternoon, and having come across it on a blog around that very time (see below) I thought it needed a spin - especially with the last minute or so being so OMGWTFBBQ. Seriously.
Another track harking back to '90s junglism is Africa Hitech’s Out In The Streets VIP, which has been rinsed by DJs across the world in the last week or so. Spot-on bassline and beats and energy from Mark Pritchard and Steve Spacek.

Ending with a bunch of Aussie music.
I played MindBuffer’s track from Enig'matik Records’s Painting Pictures on Silence comp a few weeks ago, and it's a sort of drum'n'bass-derived piece.
Sydney's Tim Fitz loves his superfast live d'n'b-style drumming in his acoustic indiepop. He's playing this Saturday at The Gate @ Pablo's in Epping - worth a visit!
From Melbourne, Pets With Pets cross genres from punky indie to noise and experimentalism, lots of fun.

Melbourne's in.del.able followed me on Soundcloud last week, and probably doesn't expect to be played on the radio, but I enjoyed this sketch of gamelan-like instruments and digital effects and samples.

Finally, another Melbourne electronic artist from Enig'matik: Circuit Bent does the glitch-hop thing in fine form.

Deru - Days Then... (Japan Version) [Unseen Music]
Busdriver - Bloomberg (Radiohead mashup) [Busdriverse]
Sole ft. Tobacco - Piano's Falling [free download from here]
Guerre - Mazu Heart Sutra (Naminé Remix) [Yes Please] {free from Bandcamp!}
kangding ray - Mojave [raster-noton]
emptyset - point [Subtext/Multiverse]
emptyset - Gate 3 [Caravan]
emptyset - return [Subtext/Multiverse]
µ-Ziq - Hector's House [Rephlex]
kangding ray - Monsters [raster-noton]
kangding ray - Athem [raster-noton]
alva noto + ryuichi sakamoto - pioneer IOO [raster-noton]
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Kizuna [Unseen Music]
alva noto + ryuichi sakamoto - naono [raster-noton]
Nils Frahm & Anne Müller - Aussenseiter [Unseen Music]
David Sylvian - Random Acts of Senseless Violence [Samadhi Sound]
Wintercoats - Unbearable Thinking [via their Bandcamp]
The Twoks - She'll Be Right [self-released via Listen/Hear Collective]
Akron/Family - Foogee Isalaci [Dead Oceans] {from <bmbz>, now available from Bandcamp}
Akron/Family - Izlamabalmz (feat. Barack 2mama) [Dead Oceans] {from <bmbz>, now available from Bandcamp}
restream - Myriad [lofly]
Brian Eno and the words of Rick Holland - glitch [Warp]
Brian Eno and the words of Rick Holland - the airman [Warp]
Paradox - Ghost Notes [Paradox Music]
Björk - Crystalline [forthcoming... found here] {wasn't sure I should play it, but Kingsmill played it on another station earlier today! *heh*}
Africa Hitech - Out In The Streets VIP [Warp]
Paradox - Antilogy [Paradox Music]
MindBuffer - Ghost in the Shell [Enig'matik Records]
Tim Fitz - Endtroduction [available from his Bandcamp]
Pets With Pets - Aquatic Life / House Wolf [Sensory Projects]
in.del.able - drather (unpolished) [from Soundcloud]
Circuit Bent - Glitchity Grub [Enig'matik Records]

Listen again — ~ 221MB
{forgot to encode as mono, although it still plays mono — sorry folks}

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