Utility Fog

Sunday, 23rd of October, 2011

Tonight's the lost-voice edition of UFog. See if you can make out the words...
LISTEN AGAIN, to wonderful sounds, music unbound. Link at the bottom, podcast and of course On Demand.

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.
In between, on the lovely Tokyo label flau, is French pianist Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven with a delightful bit of jazzy post-classicism.

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.
Dntel's seminal Life is Full of Possibilities has been re-released in deluxe format, remastered with a bonus disc of b-sides and extras. Even though I have most of these tracks, I'm rapt in this — the remaster is stunning, and they've packaged it very nicely. Compulsory, peeps! More raving about it next week. One of my favourite albums of all time.

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]
Minamo - Paperweight [Room40]
Simon Scott - AC Waters [Miasmah]
Cokiyu - Gloomy [flau]
Kashiwa Daisuke - Sky Liner [noble]
Cokiyu - Textured Clouds [flau]
Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven - Gus [flau]
world's end girlfriend - R.I.P. [noble]
William Ryan Fritch - teeth of marrow, bones that resound [available from Bandcamp]
William Ryan Fritch - The plastic won't remember [available from Bandcamp]
Alpen - A Meditation on Flight [Feral Media]
Alpen - Returning to the Blue [Feral Media]
Leah Kardos - Remnant 1 [available from her Bandcamp]
Modeselektor - This (with Thom Yorke) [Monkeytown]
Julianna Barwick - Prizewinning (Alias Pail remix) [available from Bandcamp]
Modeselektor - Green Light Go (with PVT) [Monkeytown]
Alias - Lady Lambin' [Anticon]
Modeselektor - Pretentious Friends (feat. Busdriver) [Monkeytown]
Causing a Tiger (Carla Kihlstedt, Matthias Bossi & Shahzad Ismaily) - Sealed Orders [pre-order from Bandcamp]
Frederick - Take to the Highways [demo - find tracks on Bandcamp]
Simon Scott - Black Western Lights [Miasmah]
Frederick - Three [demo - find tracks on Bandcamp]
Simon Scott - Betty [Miasmah]
Four Tet - Pyramid [Text]
Leah Kardos - Dura Mater [available from her Bandcamp]
pimmon - shadow catch you tiring [Room40]
Dntel - Anywhere Anyone (feat. Mia Doi Todd) [Sub Pop]
Tom Waits - After You Die [ANTI-]

Listen again — ~ 154MB

Comments are closed.