Utility FogYour weekly fix of postfolkrocktronica, dronenoise, power ambient, post-everything improv... and more? Sunday nights from 9 to 11pm on FBi Radio, 94.5 FM in Sydney, Australia. LISTEN ONLINE now! Click here to find the start time for the show at your location! {Hey! Sign up to Utilityfoglet and get playlists emailed to you after each show!}
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Sunday, 25th of September, 2011
Playlist 25.09.11 (11:11 pm)
Amazing new music from Dutch folk songwriter Laura Arkana ably assisted by Peter Broderick tonight, and also the sublime new pimmon album... Even without the exquisite chamber arrangements of Peter Broderick, the songs of Laura Arkana would be instantly ear-catching. It doesn't matter that you don't understand Dutch (but if you do, there'll be an added layer of goodness) — these are pure inspired songs from the heart. From Broderick, we have his delightful strings, backing vocals and other instruments, turning Lentemusiek into an instant modern folk classic. It's a must-listen. Back to 2000, we join Grandaddy with a song from the "Hewlett's Daughter" single, now collected on the Deluxe edition of The Sophtware Slump. Just a great indie song, albeit with some lovely piano and keyboard lines. Kompost are two New Zealanders currently based in Sydney, making krautrock-inspired electronic sounds. They've got some excellent tracks up on their Bandcamp for free — check them out. Finally I am able to play you some tracks from the first Flaming Pines release, a compilation called Listen to the Weather. Philippe Pannier & Isambard Khroustaliov (Sam from Icarus) met at IRCAM a few years ago, but only hooked up for a recording together this year. It's highly abstract electro-acoustic music, but somewhat grounded by the guitar and banjo of Pannier. Then we're back in ravishing drone territory. Wonderful to have a new album from pimmon, and it's also nice to see it released on ROOM40. Seems like a good home for Paul Gough, and this seems like his masterwork — so far at least. These are works of real beauty, and patient shapeliness. I'm not sure whether this is newly available online, but Ben Frost's soundtrack to Amnesty's Invisibles short film is available on Bandcamp. Naturally it sticks more to the delicate acoustic end of his spectrum, but there's enough growly double bass in there to satisfy us. Fresh from much enthusiastic UFog airplay from his collaboration with Dung Nguyen, Melbourne jazz/experimental trumpet/laptop artist Peter Knight has a new solo album out, with the fine title Fish Boast of Fishing. We heard a subtle piece where a repetitive bassline supports prepared piano and electronics. From the UK, Aaron Wheeler's Laszlo makes an exuberant mix of minimalist classical, folky pop and melodic idm. A surprise hit of the week. Also great to have Rudi Zygadlo back, after last year's idiosyncratic post-dubstep album on Planet µ. It's angular pop, with basslines bouncing between dubstep and keyboard-funk, and a sort of '70s sheen to the vocals. Fun! Incredibly exciting that Strictly Kev's DJ Food is finally ready to release the long-awaited new album. His third EP is out now — originally the album was going to be a compilation of those EPs (the first two of which came out in 2009), but I think it's mutated a little since then. Even more exciting is the fact that JG Thirlwell aka UFog favourite Foetus appears on the opening track — all sinister snarls for the lead vocal. I revisited DJ Food's Foetus remix from 10 years ago as well. I took the opportunity of playing wonderful Stockholm duo Roll The Dice again tonight. "Swing" was the track that turned me on to them last year, from a Digitalis compilation. It's an irresistible ten minutes of analogue synthesiser programming. We followed it with the closing track from their new album on Leaf, which adds awesome chugging piano to the synths. Another reprise, from another of the best Australian albums of the year, Tom Hall's Muted Angels. Soaring ambient with undercurrents of noise. Two more remixes of Denmark's heavy rock/indie band Salli Lunn. First up, fellow Dane Manual takes them into shoegazey territory, while Markus Mehr glitches up the heavy riffs to superb effect. Before we round out the show with Laszlo's Fender Rhodes, we have another stray, pattering over from a few weeks ago when I featured the wonderful Japanese piano/breakcore/glitch artist Kashiwa Daisuke. Tonight's track is chopped-up piano and jittery minimalist beats — something a bit different, but still recognizably him. And just in from part timer, a new track, which is a remix of flau artist cokiyu, credited to "annim & eisseb". It's in his folktronic cut-ups and beats style, and is very pretty indeed. Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick - Souvenirs [Hush Records] Listen again — ~ 157MB
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Sunday, 18th of September, 2011
Playlist 18.09.11 (11:10 pm)
Hey hey! Many interestings for you tonight, and a real pleasure to have the new Mara Carlyle album in hand... I was totally surprised to mostly like the new Mogwai album this year. They continue the trend with their new Earth Division EP, which has songs (not exclusively), piano, and strings cutting in and out of the bombastic post-rock guitar stuff. It's different! And good. Very interesting hearing Matthew Cooper aka Eluvium collaborating with Peter Broderick on a new 5" (yes!) vinyl single from Brian Records. It's more Broderick than Cooper from these two brief tracks. I hope we get to hear more... Finally Heidi Elva’s new EP is available from her Bandcamp. It's true to its name, lo-fi musings, and she takes advantage of the lo-fi nature to bring her right inside the performances, layering field recordings, micing up odd parts of her harp and singing into pickups, etc. These songs have been part of her live sets since before she moved to Melbourne, and it's lovely to finally have recordings of them. Canberra's Austin Buckett is the pianist in post-jazz Pollen Trio and also plays keyboards with postrockers Kasha. The Andrew Pekler remix I played is one of those tracks I could just put on repeat endlessly. Austin's new album is something different again - contemporary composition for piano and string quartet, with some electronic studio interventions going on. Washington DC's BLK w/ BEAR are a collective made up of turntable, cello and bass, along with effects and electronics from all. I hadn't realised when I picked this up that it was remixes of another artist, and it's quite murky, mysterious stuff that doesn't very clearly reference its origins anyway. A quite fascinating short release. And so we reach The Lovely Mara Carlyle. I don't want to harp on about her (ex-)relationship with Andy from Plaid, but so much of her much-delayed new album is clearly about him that it's worth a mention. Somewhere along the line they broke up, but it's not really an angry break-up album. However, a few songs including the gorgeous highlight "King" are even addressed to him, and it's absolutely touching. Mara's luminous vocals appear on a many of the early Plaid albums (including the hidden track on Rest Proof Clockwork), but she didn't release a solo album until Matthew Herbert released The Lovely on his Accidental Records in 2004. Although she had a background in punk bands (apparently), her pure voice is perfect for classical music, or folky ukulele as much as electronic arrangements. We heard her on a beloved Plaid track from 2001 and also on Herbert's first Big Band album. Her new album took a few listens to grow on me, but I now think it's an absolutely worthy follow-up, lyrically and musically moving. It's only reasonable that we follow up with a couple of new Plaid tracks. What a great effort, 2+ decades on. Hopeless Local Marching Band are a Japanese math rock band who, unfortunately, do not transcend the genre's rather leaden musicality. In fact, to be totally honest they take an already-un-thrilling genre and make it worse, with bizarre vaudevillian touches, a melodic approach borrowed from the worst of postrock, and a ham-fisted understanding of harmony. Sorry for the invective, but what's interesting is that nevertheless they've inspired a rather excellent remix disk — proof, if it was needed, that remix albums are great compilations, regardless of who the original artist is. It's so great to have something new from Buttress O'Kneel. She's dropped another "Compop" album, typical digital mashup stuff with breakcore beats and lots of fun involved. Discovering the post-dubstep minimal tech lurch of Berlin's Objekt earlier this year was pretty exciting, so it was a nice surprise to see Radiohead commission a remix from him so early in his career! The weird glitches early in this track are very disturbing, but the bass and kick here are immense — this is definitely a contender for one of the top mixes (although I think Caribou's is probably still untouchable). Also a great pleasure to have Luke Killen back making tracks, or at least releasing them in an easy-to-find way. He co-ran the Couchblip! label, bringing awesome idm into the country and releasing his own music as Disjunction Reunion. There's some atmospheric Bass music up on his SoundCloud for free, highly recommended. And finally we hit the new New Weird Australia compilation Vox, co-curated with Gail Priest, an inspiring inventory of experimental vocal music from Australia. Before we continue with NWA Tracks, a quick detour: part timer's undead EP is now available as a beautiful postcard 3" from UK's Hibernate or direct from the Part Timer Bandcamp. And I'lls' EP is still getting plenty of spins on my virtual turntable. What a beauty of shoegazey indietronica. Back with NWA, we have from Adelaide the indietronica of Mosaic Mosaic, and one of Scissor Lock's droney layered vocal pieces, perfect for this comp. Penultimately, we need a selection from Animals on Wheels' eighth and final release in his 8 EPs in 8 Weeks. It's mostly pretty stuff on this one. In a week or two I'll do a bit of a summation of them all - it's been a fun ride! And finally, lucky dragons have released a surprise new track via the Mistletone SoundCloud, in preparation for their October Aus tour. Woo-hoo! Mogwai - Drunk and Crazy [Rock Action/Spunk] Listen again — ~ 154MB
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Sunday, 11th of September, 2011
Playlist 11.09.11 (11:18 pm)
Tonight, new highlights from Origamibiro and Plaid, and some great remixes of Telafonica... I wasn't going to draw attention to the date at all tonight, but then Busdriver happened to post the excellent MC Paul Barman track on Facebook this evening, and it seemed like an appropriate start of the show. The new Sole & the SkyRider Band is full of classic, catchy numbers, of which "We Will Not Be Moved" is a highlight. Not least of my motivations in playing it was so that I could showcase a couple of older SkyRider tunes — not the very oldest, but from 2008's self-titled album, with some obvious contributions from William Ryan Fritch (whose string presence on the Sole track is also very strong), and then a great beat-oriented track from last year's AUX SEND mixtape. Telafonica are taking an interesting approach with their latest recording: a whole slew of remix releases will come out before the actual album and the original tracks can be heard. Viceroy is first cab off the rank, and the remixes are superlative. Option Command aka Broken Chip is in his wonky beats mode, as seen also on his recent EP (from which we heard a cut), while Scissor Lock turns in almost 10 minutes of dark, shuddering drone. Deep and dark also is The Haxan Cloak, who we heard a couple of weeks ago. His rumbling cello mixes in perfectly with the percussion, electronics and drones. This is a hugely impressive record. Sydney's Kate Carr runs the Flaming Pines label, and has put out a couple of geography/weather inspired compilations recently, along with her own EP here. Beautifully recorded ambient guitar noise, field recordings and other sounds come together over 5 tracks. And from the Burning Palms compilation we have Darren McClure, who I don't believe has ever visited the beach being evoked on the record, rather beautifully describes the "Figure 8" pond in music. It's been a while since we've heard from Origamibiro. As a solo act, Tom Hill (one half of idm duo Wauvenfold) put out a beautiful folktronic album in 2007. It's my kind of folktronica - digital cut-ups and treatments of acoustic instruments. Now a duo (or trio with visuals), they're releasing a stunning new album, and to preview it, a remix EP which you can download for free. We heard two remixes of "Quad Time", one from the offthesky-related Juxta Phona and another from the fabulous Leafcutter John. The delicate harpsichord-like sounds introducing the first track on Plaid’s new album follow on rather nicely from the preceding folktronica. But it's vintage Plaid, this album, all the way through: perfect melodies, surprising harmonic progressions, bouncy beats and occasional weird time signatures. A very electronic tune from the new HTRK followed, plus a reminder of the greatness of their previous album — apathetic yet dejected vocals, production that takes the best of post-punk into the current day. Next, two tracks from Finnish Salli Lunn, Danish indie-metal band who've just released a most excellent remix disc, with influences from industrial and psychedelic music as well as electronica. Scott Solter goes pretty hard with his, in keeping with the source material. More next week! Very fine stuff, originals and remixes. I did intend last week to play some Grandaddy, but ran out of time, so here we are this week — celebrating the Deluxe edition of their 2000 opus The Sophtware Slump, sprawling indie Americana with electronics and studio nonsense. The opening track is a recognized classic, sometimes recalling Pink Floyd, often (as Grandaddy do) recalling The Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev... On EP track "Our Dying Brains", Jason Lytle recalls creating the vocal trickery through studio experimentation, no Pro Tools or anything being available — he recorded multiple vocal takes, and dropped in different versions throughout the chorus, to memorable robotic effect. Finally, it can't be a UFog at the moment without Animals on Wheels. He's up to number 7 of his 8 EPs in 8 Weeks, this one including some jazzy beats and tasteful piano. The whole thing is going to add up to something pretty damn impressive. MC Paul Barman - Happy September 11th [download here] Listen again — ~ 159MB
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Sunday, 4th of September, 2011
Playlist 04.09.11 (11:13 pm)
Evening! Jam-packed show tonight as usual, and an interview with the lovely Jochen of Hinterlandt. Started with two tracks from Roll The Dice, whose new album is coming out soon on the Leaf label, and is a perfect continuation from their debut on Digitalis — analogue synth explorations and (acoustic) piano, krautrock updated for today's ears. After a stint in Australia earlier last decade, German musician Hinterlandt is back in Sydney in a more permanent manner. Last time round he convened an experimental collective for improv performances under the name Hinterlandt Arkestra; for now, his new incarnation is Jochen solo, playing a multitude of instruments and effects pedals to create an incredibly varied, genre-hopping one-man show. After performing and evolving this set over the last year or so, he's put it down on disc as migration motion movement. We chatted about his travels & his musical modus operandi, and heard a wonderful ambient rendering of part of the set. Next up, I just had to feature some of the music of Kashiwa Diasuke, who's associated with one of my favourite artists ever, World's End Girlfriend (his latest album is released on WEG's label Virgin Babylon), but who I managed to remain ignorant of until very recently. He's fond of glitchy cut-ups, insane changes of mood, post-classical piano and crazed drill'n'bass beats, much like WEG — pretty much my ideal music. We heard a decent range of his music from the last 6 years, although sadly the program music I album had to be left out as its tracks are 36 and 26 minutes long (eek!) Like two of Kashiwa Daisuke's abums, yarn:moor are released on the fabulous Noble label. I discovered them through my usual habit of trying to add more to my shopping cart when order from Noble, and they seemed pretty good. It turns out that's an understatement — this is quality folktronica, with detailed programming, fun effects, cute Japanese vocals and, you know, all that. You should check them out. Sticking with Japan, a beautiful release from Preco Records from a new supergroup of sorts, Kinder Scout. The central players are cellist Danny Norbury, Home Normal's Ian Hawgood and Jason Corder of offthesky and Color Cassette. Strings, drones, folky guitars, dreamy backgrounded vocals, it's all here. Speaking of all that, how about a gorgeous exclusive new track from Peter Broderick from moss, a compilation on new Japanese label cote labo. Broken Chip hails from the Blue Mountains and has released some very pretty electronica on Feral Media and elsewhere. Under this name he's creating some beautiful more droney stuff, such as the track from Flaming Pines' burning palms compilation, put together by Sydney artist Kate Carr. Also recently discovered is duo Kritical Audio, whose latest EP is on Detroit Underground, with a highly technical take on idm, frenetic drum'n'bass breaks over a half-speed, in the style of some of the best US idm artists of 10 or so years ago (e.g. Unit). There'll always be a place in my heart for this sort of stuff. On one of Rjyan Kidwell's first Cex albums there's a remix of Washington, DC indiepunk band Dismemberment Plan. It seems a few years later when they were breaking up, Kidwell made another remix, but it was never released. You can now download it from his Cexman SoundCloud, dedicated to remixes. It's got more guitars than the other one :) Classic Cex feel. Back in the '90s, beatsystem had some releases on the well-loved ambient electronic label em:t. It's a bit of a surprise to get a new album from him now, with some pretty special packaging (really - check it out at the bottom of this page). Here he takes on a digitally processed trip around the Indian subcontinent, starting with an alien robot performing the tabla bol (a vocal rendering of the tabla sounds, familiar to anyone who's studied complex & beautiful music of India). Of course, another Animals on Wheels track this week, from the 6th in his series of 8 EPs. I think this was the only track with beats. When all 8 EPs are done (two more weeks!) I'll do an overview of all the EPs. It's been fun! Melbourne's doomy indie HTRK trio have managed to move on from the tragic death of their bassist Sean Stewart last year, and their new album continues with minimalist, hard-hitting, nostalgic yet cutting edge sounds. They've never been as noisy as their first, originally self-released EP, but they're no less uncompromising for it. Finally, ex-New Zealand, ex-Sydney harp/songwriter Heidi Elva is releasing an album of Lo-Fi Musings, a collection of songs written mainly while in Sydney, technology-based, yet lo-fi in sound. Delays and loops abound, vocals sung through pickups, field recordings washing in and out. Beautiful stuff from an always experimental song-writer. Roll The Dice - Way Out [Leaf] Listen again — ~ 159MB
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email: utilityfog at frogworth dot com bsky Mastodon Utility Fog teeters on the cusp between acoustic and electronic, organic and digital. Constantly changing and rearranging, this aural cloud of nanotech consumes genres and spits them out in new forms. Whether cataloguing the jungle resurgence, tracking the ups and downs of noise and drone, or unearthing the remnants of glitch and folktronica, all is contextualised within artist & genre histories for a fulfilling sonic journey. Since all these genre names are already pretty ridiculous, we thought we'd coin a new one. So "postfolkrocktronica" it is. Wear it. Now available: free "Live on Utility Fog" downloads! We got tasty rss2 or atom feeds - get Utility Fog playlists in your favourite RSS reader/aggregator. There's also a dedicated podcast feed. Click here to subscribe in iTunes. Archives of all previous playlists and entries are available:
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