Utility Fog

Quite a trip tonight, from Vietnam via Melbourne through the USA, Germany, Norway, Japan, the Netherlands and the UK…
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom or the playlist…

Peter Knight & Dung Nguyen are both accomplished jazz musicians and members of Way Out West. Their new album explores Vietnamese musical traditions, through an Australian jazz and experimental lens. There’s some great live processing going on along with great instrumentalism.

The new Dakota Suite is, I believe, his best yet, taking his post-classical piano sounds in a quite jazzy territory, with brushed drumkit and double bass, but to start the show I’m most excited by the contributions from long-established (non-classical) cellist David Darling, whose pizzicato strummings are all over the first few tracks on this album.
Before hearing a cello-less track from the album, with either organ or computer processing, we had a gorgeous remix by Peter Broderick from 2009’s remix album the night just keeps coming in.

More minimal piano and electronics next, from the extremely fruitful collaboration of alva noto + ryuichi sakamoto. Last week I played tracks from their new album; tonight’s is from their very first, from 2005.
And I can’t help following with another raster-noton release, the amazing Or from kangding ray, one of the albums of the year… Minimal electronic beats and surging noise…
Also can’t help following with emptyset, more of the same but with the sinewave noise dialed up to 11…

The new Amon Tobin was a bit of a disappointment — lots of complex sound design but little in the way of compelling composition, and beats that go nowhere, fast. So it’s nice to hear a few remixes bringing things back down to earth. Here 16 Bit takes us into heavy wonky dubstep territory.
And back in Australia, Melbourne’s Desiseq loves his gltich-hop and also loves the wob-wob-wob basslines of dubstep.

More glitch-hop from London’s MusSck, who’s created a short soundtrack to a piece of manga artwork, available from Bandcamp with an accompanying hi-res PDF. Nice!

Some of us would remember Phoenecia and their Schematic label from way back 10-15 years ago as fairly prominent proponents of the US arm of the IDM world. It seems to me their latest album is not even just a return to form — it’s their best work yet. Somehow combining the characteristic sound of the bodhran, a Celtic drum played between the legs like a cross between the cajón of flamenco and the Indian tabla, with electronic processing and some tenuous melodies works very well.

Ex-psy-trance artist Sunsaria has some nice glitchy samples and dub-influenced beats on his new album Australien.
And sticking in Melbourne, we have our first taking from yet another (fantastic) Japan relief compilation, Kanshin. Focusing on drone and post-classical sounds, this one contributes directly to the relief effort via JEARS, a charity that Ian Hawgood‘s wife is working for. First cab off the rank is Melbourne’s Part Timer (John McCaffrey) in his Scissors and Sellotape guise, an amazing track of piano samples, crackle, and indistinct vocal sounds.

An act who were recommended to me by John McCaffrey are up next, from an album that’s a few years old, the self-titled release by Bersarin Quartett. Electronic beats, drones, and orchestral sounds meld into something spectacular.

Aaron Martin‘s acoustic instruments have been tampered with by Machinefabriek previously, creating huge cello drones, but for this track on the Kanshin comp it’s a very different affair, more folktronic than drone. More please!

From Japan but based in Berlin, on US label Overlap is Midori Hirano, whose new EP is beautiful rhythmic glitch well worth checking out.

And back with Japan compilations, this time For Nihon, we heard Norwegian electronic minimalist Biosphere, with lovely pulsating synths. Meanwhile, back with Kanshin, Library Tapes gives us a mournful vignette of piano and strings.

UK-based Czech singer Emika has been remixed by some of dubstep’s finest on her singles for Ninja Tune, so it’s nice to hear her turning the tables with Amon Tobin. I’m not sure how much of the original work is in here, but it’s a beautiful piece anyway.

It’s been a few weeks or more since I last played The Magic I.D., which is a shame. Their new album is quite incredible – two clarinettists, plus Christof Kurzmann on vocals and electronics, and Margareth Kammerer on vocals and guitar, leading to very experimental, quietly creepy arrangements with inspired songwriting. I strongly approve.

Returning from last week to the new Brian Eno, this time we hear him setting the words of Rick Holland to arcane-sounding bell tones and his own voice. I can’t help thinking if Jhonn Balance were still alive, the track would be utterly perfect with his vocal, but Eno does a pretty nice job himself.

I played this next David Sylvian track a couple of weeks ago, but it’s my favourite from the altogether brilliant new album, so it deserved a second spin — Dai Fujikura‘s string arrangements, a line-up of top British & European improv artists, and Sylvian’s vocals & electronics. Fabulous.

There’s a new album from JG Thirlwell out under his Manorexia moniker — so it’s quasi-classical and drone stuff. To give you an idea of his illustrious history, a short sharp industrial shock from 1988 as Foetus Interruptus, and a histrionic piece of industrial grind-pop from last year’s Foetus album Hide.

The weird Eastern Europeanisms of the Foetus track lead us back to Peter Knight & Dung Nguyen — an odd statement given this is Vietnamese-inspired music, and yet this track, with its lopsided time signature and augmented harmonies, sounds almost Eastern European to me.

And finally, one of those things I love — an artist I don’t know at all, Golden Gardens, being remixed by an artist I know and love, Cex. Looks like I’ll need to be checking out Golden Gardens in fact, but this track is pure Cex electro. Nod your head.

Peter Knight & Dung Nguyen – Autumn Music [Parenthèses Records]
dakota suite – easy steps / cataluña (feat. David Darling) [karaoke kalk]
dakota suite – this failing sea (peter broderick remix) [karaoke kalk]
dakota suite – eskimo nebula [karaoke kalk]
alva noto + ryuichi sakamoto – aurora [raster-noton]
kangding ray – La Belle [raster-noton]
emptyset – monad [Subtext/Multiverse]
Amon Tobin – Surge (16 Bit mix) [Ninja Tune]
Desiseq – When Acting as a Squarewave [Hopskotch]
Desiseq – Beatnik [Hopskotch]
MusSck – Shinen No Kaibutsu (to the manga work of Hiiragi Hitsuji) [from Onibaba Bandcamp]
Phoenecia – Two-Part Invention For Bodhran & Computer [Schematic]
Sunsaria – 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Minute [Tempest]
Scissors and Sellotape – Heal [Fluid Audio] {from very worthy Japan fundraiser comp Kanshin}
Bersarin Quartett – Mehr als alles andere [Lidar]
Aaron Martin & Machinefabriek – Utsutsu [Fluid Audio] {from very worthy Japan fundraiser comp Kanshin}
Midori Hirano – Saiboh [Overlap]
Biosphere – Inner Ohm [Unseen Music] {from Japan fundraised For Nihon}
Library Tapes – May (Variation) [Fluid Audio] {from very worthy Japan fundraiser comp Kanshin}
Amon Tobin – Surge (Emika Version) [Ninja Tune]
The Magic I.D. – Mambo [Staubgold]
Brian Eno and the words of Rick Holland – breath of crows [Warp]
David Sylvian – Snow White In Appalachia [Samadhi Sound]
Manorexia – A Plastic Island in the Pacific [Ectopic Ents]
Foetus Interruptus – Fin [Self Immolation/Some Bizzare, now available direct from Foetus]
Foetus – You’re Trying To Break Me [Ectopic Ents]
Peter Knight & Dung Nguyen – Travelling [Parenthèses Records]
Golden Gardens – Elizabeta (Lizzy remix by Cex) [Automation Records]

Listen again — ~ 160MB
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.