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, 30th of October, 2011
Playlist 30.10.11 (10:09 pm)
Good evening, you. Love you. That's why I love playing you music. Hope you don't find that creepy. We start with the lovely electronic noise and periodical strings of Roly Porter, who was one half of industrial dubstep pioneers Vex'd. He keeps the bass and noise here but mostly rejects the beats in favour of swelling drones and more abstract strutures. It's pretty awesome. Very exciting that finally Spartak's edits from their Japanese tour are available as Nippon. Brilliant Aussie post-rock/post-jazz/electronic sounds. After a good few singles, dubstep chanteuse Emika is finally releasing her album. The singles features some pretty central dubstep names remixing her, such as Pinch. The album mostly keeps with the dubstep influence, although it's not as heavy as the various (male) remixers tend to make it. And that's stuff's great but it's lovely to hear another side of her shine through on the very classical solo piano closing track. Canadian drone maestro Tim Hecker has been messing around with the piano lately, and it's a very effective addition to his fizzling Fennesz-style drones and ambience. His second album for the year presents "sketches" for Ravedeath, 1972, which to my ear sound just as well-formed and fully-produced as anything off the album proper. Next up, we dive into a big loving special on the music of Dntel, aka Jimmy Tamborello, aka half of The Postal Service and so much more. I didn't even approach his work as James Figurine, or his many remixes, because mainly I'm celebrating Sub Pop beautiful ten-year anniversary reissue of his indietronic classic Life is Full of Possibilities, with an excellent remaster and a swag of additional tracks. I also revisited a couple of old favourites — the compilation track that introduced him to me earlier in 2001, and a track from a split 7" which has still not been re-issued or compiled anywhere else. And lest we presume that indietronic started around 2001 with this release, we head back to 1992 with one of the early singles of the iconoclastic Disco Inferno, whose 5 EPs have just been (re-)collected One Little Indian. Theirs is a bewildering sound, crammed full of angular, odd samples and affecting, mopey indie songwriting. Big influence on one of my favourite bands of all time, Hood. Sydney electronic-punk artist Simo Soo has just released a remix collection as companion to his new album. I find his shouty, brash sound a little hard to take, but he's always working with fantastic people, and the remixers here are top class. Nakagin takes him into floaty post-r'n'b territory, while Anonymeye is uncategorisable (in a good way). And then it's time to head to China, courtesy of Tenzenmen. Shaun Tenzenmen has been instrumental in bringing many Chinese artists over here, and even more of their music. This batch includes some absolutely incredible folk/folk-rock. These bands are, I believe, well-established in their home country, and while the music wears its Western influences on its sleeves, it's unfailingly creative and idiosyncratic. Before a reprise of Simon Scott's album which I rather brashly declared "album of the year" last week (I'm sure it'll stand as *one of* them...), we had to hear two beautiful scintillating tracks from Sweden's Ohayo, a collaboration between Ass and Tape, sounding exactly like a combination of those two acts — minimal, poised postrock. Roly Porter - Tleilax [Subtext] Listen again — ~ 155MB
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Sunday, 23rd of October, 2011
Playlist 23.10.11 (10:09 pm)
Tonight's the lost-voice edition of UFog. See if you can make out the words... Ex-Slowdive drummer Simon Scott has delivered what I'm thinking right now is album of the year. Well, one of. Wonderful textures, moving from drone to full band to noise to shoegaze... I played FOUR tracks tonight, and every one got at least one response from a listener. We had many visitors from Japan tonight: Minamo's beautiful acoustic drone, Cokiyu's glitchy songwriting, Kashiwa Daisuke bringing the drill'n'bass back to his post-classical piano with vocals and piano from Piana, and world's end girlfriend taking it all hardcore in between his dreamy post-classical electronics. William Ryan Fritch, he of Vieo Abiungo and SkyRider, has a new album of his world beat sounds out via his Bandcamp - except it's not new, it's an unreleased gem from 2006. More vocals, a bit more studio editing, but very recognizably him. A year and a bit ago, the lovely Danny Jumpertz of Feral Media hope on a plane with his family on the back of a Green Card Lottery win, to relocate to New York for a while. His Alpen album had already been shelved for the birth of his son, so it's taken a good 4 years to arrive. A dub influence is always there in the electronically-edited (kraut)rock. Great stuff... I had to feature a couple more tracks from Leah Kardos tonight. Her music made a big impact last week, so hopefully a few more fans after tonight. Modeselektor's new album is a lot of fun, and notable for the various collaborators. There are two tracks with Thom Yorke, and I feel this minimal, pulsating one is the better. Also in collaboration are PVT, with thick synth lines and a very '80s pop vocal from Richie Pike — a big success, this one. And finally, everybody's favourite weird-hop madman Busdriver is a perfect fit for the demented German technoists. In between, another cut from Julianna Barwick's remix EP. Here Prizewinning, with its signature bassline, gets added afro-percussion and edits from Alias Pail — it works remarkably well. Speaking of aliases, Alias's new album has been a bit of a disappointment after his incredible production efforts on other people's albums lately, particularly with B.Dolan. But the cut I played tonight is real head-nodding quality, female vocal sample and a great beat. Carla Kihlstedt, Matthias Bossi & Shahzad Ismaily put out a semi(?)-improv album a little while ago called Causing a Tiger, and now are a trio under that name. Discovering that they work best outside of their comfort zone, Kihlstedt dropped the violin/viola from this lineup, concentrating mainly on vocals. Bossi plays drums and Ismaily guitar, and they have a fantastically raw sound from the preview tracks here. The full album is released soon, and I'm looking forward to it. Another excellent discovery this week in the liminal area between drone, rock, country and Somewhere Else is Newcastle's Mark Whittaker aka Frederick. His music is as lo-fi as all get out, and deliberately so. Tracks are often mixed in harsh stereo, effects over everything, and songs come into focus out of murk. Just as we like it here at Utility Fog Towers. Somewhere in there we had the relentless 4/4 beat of Four Tet's latest house number, "Pyramid". But with his gentle vocal cut-ups and background hum, he manages to win me over. I also have to keep slipping in tracks from the new pimmon album The Oansome Orbit. Perhaps along with Tom Hall's Muted Angels it's my pick for best Australian album this year. Two albums to finish off that I haven't had a chance to digest properly yet. And Tom Waits of course has a new album out, and it's genius. I got the 2CD deluxe edition, in a hardcover book with all the lyrics, plus a (short) bonus disc. The third bonus track is vintage Tom, his bent rendition of trad blues perfectly interpreted by his band and his, er, uniquely expressive voice. Simon Scott - Radiances [Miasmah] Listen again — ~ 154MB
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Sunday, 16th of October, 2011
Playlist 16.10.11 (10:07 pm)
Strings, remixes, piano, folk-and-tronica, all featured tonight... Sydney's Charge Group play indie music with a violin leading them into the frey. It's a mix of folk and indie rock, and it's only appropriate that they have some lovely ambient remixes on their new single (along with a couple of bizarrely clubby ones). Speaking of indie strings, we've heard plenty of Melbourne's Wintercoats on this show, and here's another pretty tune from his new 12" on Mistletone. Here's an interesting team-up: Prepared piano maestro Hauschka working with ambient/postrock cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir. What they've created together is a hybrid of their sounds which is more experimental than the standard (wonderful) post-classical sounds of Hauschka, but perhaps more structured than Hildur Guðnadóttir's usual work. In any case, it's music with depth and magic to it. And the packaging, as always with Sonic Pieces, is stunning. Leah Kardos is the most exciting discovery of the week. Once from Australia, she's now based in the UK, and when recording under her own name she makes subtle glitchy piano-based music. Ambient piano, jazzy rhythmic piano with glitchy beats, minimalist chopped-up piano, it's all in there. Highly recommended, for only £5 from her Bandcamp. You might have noticed Björk has a new album out... Last week I played "Mutual Core" with hardcore eruptions suitable to the volcano theme from 16bit. Tonight's track, "Sacrifice", features some more heavy beats, from drum'n'bass producer Current Value. And while we're hangin' with the blockbuster artists, let's hear from Radiohead, whose remix EPs I picked up along the way, but they've just released the lot as a 2CD set. The Caribou remix was a delight from the start - sparkly harpsichord-like sounds and a head-nodding beat. This mixed in nicely with the other head-nodding genius remix, from Berlin's Objekt. And after a quick detour with The Bug's remix of Thom Yorke from 2007, we heard the stunningly evocative and murky Harmonic 313 remix. Nick Zammuto's on a roll at the moment with his new solo project. Last week he dropped two new tracks, both excellent. I'm still in love with last week's "Harlequin", but this one is an energetic move in yet another new direction. Speaking of energetic, UK audiovisual duo Sculpture do a nice turn in live sample-based drill'n'bass here, courtesy of the latest digital compilation from The Wire. I'll have to pick up their latest album, even though it's vinyl only (and it does look like a stunning package). Thomas William has always made somewhat frenetic and discombobulating sample-based music which... what's that? You've never heard of him? Well that's because it's the new moniker for Sydney's glitch-hop fave Cleptoclectics. He has a new album coming out in a month or so from Melbourne label This Thing, and it's ace. The interestingly-spelled Fabels are a Sydney shoegaze duo featuring Hiske Weijers of Psychic Date and Ben Aylward of beloved '90s indie shoegazers Swirl. Vintage stuff, with a contemporary twist. They're launching their debut EP at the Lansdowne next Sunday (23rd of Oct), so head down there before listening to next weeks's 'Fog :) Back with Charge Group, we heard the single "Run", which moves from folky violin patters into shouty indie rock and back, while their own (I guess?) remix is if anything even more ambient than Seaworthy's! From Flaming Pines' fantastic 10x3"CD project Rivers Home, tonight we heard the evocative field recordings and guitar of Broken Chip, from the Blue Mountains. And back with the Wire Magazine compilation, Espers' Meg Baird gives us a timeless folk guitar song. Another one straight on the "to buy" list. I'm very excited about the new Origamibiro album — out on CD any minute now. It's the best folktronic stuff I've heard in a good while. To preview the album they released a free download remix EP, and one of the remix artists was Juxta Phona. I hadn't heard of them before, but quickly discovered it's either an alias for Jason Corder of offthesky or a group he's part of. Interspersed, we had a couple more tracks from Spartak's brilliant new album, recorded live in Japan (although you couldn't tell it's a live album), and we finished with a new remix, hot off the press, of Underlapper by FBi's own Loopsnake. Charge Group - The Gold is Gone (Seaworthy remix) [Microphone & Loudspeaker] Listen again — ~ 156MB
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Sunday, 9th of October, 2011
Playlist 09.10.11 (10:06 pm)
Epic interview with my friends Sub Bass Snarl, who taught me a lot about electronic music in the mid-'90s, and are playing their "final ever show" on Friday the 21st of October (tickets here), as well as a not-so-secret afternoon picnic event next Saturday, the 15th of October at Sydney Park. Tribute to the late Bert Jansch to start tonight... Was very sad to hear he'd passed away from cancer earlier this week. I played a fantastic song from Pentangle from 1969, with his stellar guitar playing and interplay between his vocals and Jacqui McShee's. Then on to another new song released by Nick Zammuto, still sounding like his Books work, but extended in a particular direction. The shimmery vocals on this track have a spine-chilling moment about halfway through. Best track yet from his new project! Julianna Barwick is an interesting choice for a remix EP, but a few of the tracks on her beautiful layered-vocal album did have a head-nodding pulse of bass or other such elements. Diplo & Lunice here are toned down, but still sound about what you'd expect - which is great! I didn't get to play my other favourite remix from this EP, so hopefully next week hey! After the insane breakcore ending to "Crystalline", I've approached the new Björk album expecting nothing less than disappointment, so it's great to discover a number of other tracks let loose the hardcore beats and crazy shit. There's a fair bit of aimless noodling, but also some genuinely great songs with great production, like the volcanic eruptions from (I presume) 16bit on this one. ...And then the studio was taken over by the lovely Seb & Luke, who reminisced about the last *gasp* 20 years, and played two mega DJ mixes of hardcore and drum'n'bass sounds, old and not so old. Himuro Yoshiteru is still pumping out the great tunes, and this week we have a couple of hip-hoppy numbers for us. I don't know Handbook, but his original tune is very nice bassy hip-hop, and Himuro makes it even wonkier & glitchier. Then we heard a more downtempo number from him on the Mizukage label, which I was glad to discover. Hilarious concept of the week: Paul Heslin and Reuben Ingall have gotten together with an album created from processed samples of a christian rock video cassette — and they're releasing it in a limited edition on VHS cassette! But fear not, it's also available from Bandcamp, and with everything from glitched-up rock guitars to amen breaks, it's highly recommended. Having seen the wonderful Spartak in Japan at a couple of the gigs from which their new album Nippon is sourced, I'm very excited that New Weird Australia have releasd it finally. Mournful indie guitars, crazily-glitching vocal samples, hyperactive stumbling drum patterns — it's Spartak at their best. illkinski are new to me, a duo one of whom is now based in Australia. I enjoyed the glitchy female vocals on this track, and they led rather nicely into Sydney's actual russian brides, whose album came out a little while ago, but I didn't give it enough of a spin at the time, and now they have a residency at Low302 in Darlinghurst for the next 5 Thursdays. They themselves are a mix of arch performance and deep electronica. Aria Rostami is a Persian-American artist I discovered through Ollie Bown, who remixes a track in fine Icarus style. Rostami's music is abstract electronica, and most excellent indeed. Continuing her excellent curation of fascinating compilations on her Flaming Pines label, Sydney's Kate Carr has just release five 3"s from a new series (of ten) called Rivers Home. Each artist explores a river dear to their hearts, and tonight we heard one ambient track and one much harder track from Billy Gomberg from his release, "Gowanus Canal". Finally for tonight, the lovely violin-looping indie of Melbourne's Wintercoats, who has graduated from Bandcamp to Mistletone, and just released a 12"/digital EP. His older stuff is still available from his Bandcamp too. Pentangle - Train Song [Shanachie] Listen again — ~ 161MB
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Sunday, 2nd of October, 2011
Playlist 02.10.11 (10:10 pm)
Long weekend! Daylight savings! So much joy. Started, though, with a track from new Dutch singer-songwriter Laura Arkana, collaborating with Peter Broderick. I played this last week but it's so beautiful I had to play it again! Then we chatted with Lachlan Hughes and Ivan Cheng from Volta Collective about their chamber operetta Nothing but a Raucous Instrument which they're putting on this week. See it from Wednesday the 5th to Saturday the 8th (this week) at TAP Gallery in Darlinghurst — modern composition and experimental theatre meet in a story of madrigals and murder... I just visited the Bandcamp of Motion Sickness of Time Travel after a little time away, and there's a whole host of new music from her. A Disembodied Voice in the Darkness is particularly lovely, and pretty much describes itself! But from another release we had a buried 4/4 techno beat under her distinctive dreamy vocals. And then we're into one of two big compilations this week [adult swim]'s [unclassified]. It's not so unclassified really — it's mostly dubstep and post-dubstep. One of many highlights is dubstep stalwart Pinch — minimal head-nodding goodness. And thence we follow the bass, into the amazing beatless Bass music of Sun Hammer, who we've heard before on the show. This time it's from SEQUENCE1, a 42-track download album put together by the excellent music blog Future Sequence. It features lots of great drone and post-classical and folktronica, and its fair share also of wonky beats and suchlike. Very fine. The new pimmon album The Oansome Orbit, as discussed last week, is a true gem, some of the best work he's ever done, and I'm sure it'll remain on these playlists, every week or two for a while yet. Tonight we heard the lovely opening track. I love compilations for introducing me to new artists as well as potentially bringing me exclusive tracks from artists I love. Future Sequence here bring us Dublin's Zvuku, whose strings and glitchy drones are very welcome round these parts. Telafonica are continuing their schedule of releasing remix singles from their album before the album of non-remixed tracks, and "The Unravelling Man" is the second in the list. St Jambience does a nice experimental chopped-up take, while later Actual Russian Brides keep it bassy and beaty. In between, we heard two tracks from the new EP by Melbourne's Paul Heslin, made up of non-musical sounds à la Matmos. Nicely done. Well, speaking of remixes, the last of the Radiohead King of Limbs remix EPs is out, and as well as Jamie xx's take, there's a very danceable (not surprisingly) SBTRKT remix in there. It's surprising to find Future Sequence interested in beats as well as drones, ambience and glitches, but there you go. Here we have some very nice wonky hip-hop of a sort from Sun Glitters. And back with [adult swim], we have a hazy dream of '90s hardcore and idm from Zomby - wonderful. Oh, speaking of '90s hardcore and idm, the new Plaid album should be out in physical form now, and what a delight it is, as I tried to express in my recent review for Cyclic Defrost. In between a dubstep-influenced track and the gorgeous closer (that piano coda is just perfect), we heard a little dizzy drum'n'bass tune from their first Warp album not for threes. Back with ex-pat New Zealanders Kompost, we had two excellent tracks from their Bandcamp showcasing some beats and some analogue synths. In between, Perth's now-defunct Snowman give us some epic shoegaze. The new Feist album is probably her most pop yet, which is not a bad thing of course, but I'm glad there's something as edgy as "A Commotion" on there so I can fit it into my playlist. I first came across her on some early albums by (Chilly) Gonzales and got to see her performing with her when he toured in probably about 2003. Our Gonzo (aka Jason Beck) has a bit of a bee in his bonnet about his much-loved Solo Piano album, which critics tend to take more seriously than this flamboyant pop persona. Fair enough; I love that stuff, but I do also appreciate his sense of humour, his lyrical playfulness, and his musical adventurousness. The last track on his new "orchestral rap" album is cute, though, with its cod-Satie piano and rap about how one day he'll "Shut Up And Play The Piano", like everybody wants him to do. UFog face part timer has a rather different take on piano, sampling individual chords for a dreamy piece of folktronica. On the other track I played tonight (both available from his new(ish) Bandcamp), we hear what I assume are his own vocals for once. Lovely! One of the last two of Preservation's Circa series of limited CD releases is from US artist Nickolas Mohanna, who fits in the synthesiser revival of the last few years rather splendidly. Quality stuff. And finishing up, the first Boxcutter track I've liked unreservedly for some time. It's melodic and dubsteppy. Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick - Het Vuilnis [Hush Records] Listen again — ~ 160MB
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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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