Utility Fog

Sunday, 25th of December, 2011

Tonight, our first Best of 2011 show. It'll take at least 2, probably 3 shows to play everything I want, but I certainly managed fit a goodly proportion of the top faves in tonight!
LISTEN AGAIN in the usual ways of course - on demand streaming, podcast, link at the bottom...

Let's just say... this is a lot of my favourite stuff, with more coming. I'll do a write-up in a general "best of 2011" post soon I hope, rather than writing up these episodes!

jenny hval - blood flight [Rune Grammofon]
jenny hval - portrait of the young girl as an artist [Rune Grammofon]
Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick - Souvenirs [Hush Records]
Laura Arkana met Peter Broderick - Het Vuilnis [Hush Records]
ensemble - Things I Forget [FatCat]
ensemble - Envies d'Avalanches [FatCat]
Colin Stetson - Home [Constellation]
Colin Stetson - Fear of the unknown and the blazing sun (feat. Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden) [Constellation]
My Brightest Diamond - In The Beginning [Asthmatic Kitty]
My Brightest Diamond - Be Brave (Alternate version with Son Lux) [Asthmatic Kitty]
Son Lux - Leave The Riches [anticon.]
13&god - its own sun [Alien Transistor/Anticon]
13&god - janu are [Alien Transistor/Anticon]
Underlapper - elephant shoe [hellosQuare/Feral Media]
Collarbones - Kill Off The Vowels [Two Bright Lakes]
Collarbones - Closer [Two Bright Lakes]
Thomas William - by proxy / history shock [This Thing] {free download release!}
Pimmon - düülbludgers [Room40]
Fabio Orsi - Full Metal Flat [Preservation]
Fabio Orsi - Naked Trance [Preservation]
Geese - Tundra Bean [self-released, see Geese Bandcamp]
Autistici - Bed of Powdered Glass [Home Normal]
Autistici - Religion of Water and Air [Home Normal]
David Sylvian - Snow White In Appalachia [Samadhi Sound]
Nils Frahm - More [Erased Tapes]
Nils Frahm - Familiar [Erased Tapes]
Simon Scott - AC Waters [Miasmah]
Simon Scott - Betty [Miasmah]
Grails - Future Primitive [Temporary Residence]

Listen again — ~ 159MB

Sunday, 18th of December, 2011

So crazy that I'm still bringing you new music at this time of year.
Tonight, though, is dominated by the reissue of the year — a remastered boxset of all Hood’s releases on the Domino label, along with various rarities and unreleased tracks. Amazing stuff, people!
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom, or the podcast, or of course streaming on demand.

Our first track tonight is a taste of things to come — one of the bonus Hood tracks on the boxset that were started sometime in 2005 and finishedin September 2011. I guess it's too much to hope that the Adams brothers are going to go back into the studio to record something more together again... Much more on Hood later on though!

Last night (Saturday) in Sydney saw the launch of the much-awaited (by a select few anyway) collaborative album between Sydney's Thomas William and Scissor Lock. The two of them set up their laptops, mini-mixing desks, pedals and microphones facing each other, and proceed to output dense washes of sound and vocal loops. The beats of Thomas William are absent, but his samples still pulsate as they would if they were there. Marcus Whale's signature vocal loops are there, along with lots of processing, and it all somehow comes together. Great to have this on CD, courtesy of New Weird Australia's New Editions series.

The Haxan Cloak has had a great debut year, with an amazing album of deep scraping cello and percussion, and it's great that this highly limited vinyl EP is now available digitally. Two long tracks of arcane techno, deep and mysterious.

As a massive fan of his noise/psych outfit Burning Star Core, I'm very excited about the new solo album from C. Spencer Yeh. While BxC was often Yeh solo anyway, this is the first album (as opposed to many EPs and other sundry releases) that he's put his own name to, and perhaps it is a more personal statement. Many tracks are just entitled "Drone" or "Vocal", or "Two Guitars", leaving the sounds to speak for themselves. While the drones are indubitably what they are, the vocal pieces are cut up to extreme levels — none of his frequent gutteral groaning — and later on some more noisy elements do come through. For an album where everything's broken down to its constituent elements, it's an absorbing listen.

The wonderful Icelandic label Bedroom Community] ring in the end of the year with their second Yule compilation (see here), which is a free download with any purchase from their online store at the moment. Exclusive remixes and new music, albeit mixed into one track (I downloaded the FLAC and split it up, because that's how I roll).
DanishBelgian artist Montauk in February delicately edits Daníel Bjarnason, Scanner keeps the spirit of the Ben Frost piece while putting his own "stomp" onto it, and Valgeir Sigurðsson is icily Scandinavian in between.

Next up, Peter Broderick. Before playing a couple of tracks from his rather amazing and slightly disturbing soundtrack Music for Confluence, I played his entry into the 2CD set Satie et les nouveaux jeunes, from French label Arbouse. It's a pretty impressive collection of names, all interpreting or taking influence from Erik Satie. As a lover of his music, I can say that some people "get" him better than others, so as expected there are some pedestrian efforts, and also some real gems. Sad I only got to one track tonight.
Meanwhile, Peter has been getting a bit of work doing documentary soundtracks, and from the sounds of it, this one is rather disturbing. His music is sympathetic and beautiful, with a few undercurrents of disquiet represented through studio edits and effects, and some pretty passionate violin playing.

A few others before our big special tonight.
Sole and the SkyRider Band have just released The Challenger EP digitally as a companion to their excellent Hello Cruel World album of earlier this year. With some high quality guests, they continue the surprisingly mainstream-hip-hop-friendly production of the album, with Sole's fiery delivery.

With Vladislav Delay you know what you're going to get — dubby textures with stop-start, broken beats and deep electronic sounds. Another perfectly-suited raster-noton release, in a rather awesome couple of years for the label.

I hope to have the most recent album for Daniel Mackenzie's Ekca Liena for you shortly, but meanwhile he sent me this single track, which shows the breadth of his production — too detailed to really be drone, perhaps, although that's where this sound is headed. Very fine.

German indietronic artist Teamforest has enlisted some quality help for his latest EP, including Melbourne's own Sympático, but tonight I couldn't resist the opportunity to head back towards Hood via the bizarre bracken remix. Both Adams brothers from Hood contribute remixes, but here Chris goes from wonky hip-hop with vocoder, through strummy guitar and his own vocals, and out the other side.

So... Hood. It's hard to know where to start with this most Utility Fog of bands. If anyone embodies postfolkrocktronica it's them. And no surprise, I've been obsessed with them for well over a decade. As I said on air, I was familiar with two electronic side-projects well before I really knew who Hood were. In 1997, completely immersed in idm via the likes of the Warp and Skam labels, I came across Downpour’s Windstorms Broken Microphones EP. Sampled female vocals, swathes of noise, mega-distorted chopped-up amen breaks — this was heaven. It was the beginnings of breakcore, and Chris Adams (Hood's main songwriter and vocalist) was there. Only a couple of years later did I realise the connection with Hood, and start to gather what an important group they were.
Then in 1999, I was on tour in the UK and found my way to Pelicanneck in Affleck's Palace, a crazy marketplace in a multi-story building. As I browsed through electronica and postrock, my ears were constantly turning to the record they were spinning — minimal electronics, clicky beats, morose loops. I bought it on spec, and it was the debut self-titled album from The Remote Viewer, on the legendary 555 Recordings of Leeds. Once again, it was some time before I connected The Remote Viewer with Hood, and still later before I could work out when Andrew Johnson & Craig Tattersal actually left the band. Their other duo, the indietronica, non-instrumental The Famous Boyfriend, certainly existed simultaneously with Hood, although their best work was also released post-split.

So my Hood story goes sideways and backwards from these masterful electronic releases, back through to their earliest punky indie days, tape noise experiments, their work with Matt Elliott in Bristol and with Richard Formby and Choque Hosein in Leeds, their numerous works of genius relegated to b-sides and highly limited EPs, and then through their albums and EPs on Domino. They synthesised all their influences into something incredibly special, with live drumming rubbing up against glitchy drum programming, samples and drones mixed in with jangly guitars, mournful violin and clarinet with muffled vocals, bizarre and bizarrely successful collaborations with the iconic anticon rappers, short experimental tracks, long immersive tracks (no less experimental), true indiepop gems and sometimes almost impenetrable vocal meanderings.

Their influences were many and venerable, from Robert Wyatt through late Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis, Disco Inferno, Third Eye Foundation and many more, and their influence on many younger bands immeasurable, but there's never been anyone like them, and long may they keep making music — separately at least, assuming "Hood is finished", really, 6 years on now.

Hood - hymn to the hill [Domino]
Thomas William vs Scissor Lock - Jewelz [New Weird Australia]
The Haxan Cloak - Hounfour (Temple) [Aurora Borealis]
C. Spencer Yeh - Drone (track 1) [Intansitive Recordings]
C. Spencer Yeh - Voice (track 2) [Intansitive Recordings]
C. Spencer Yeh - Au Revoir... [Intansitive Recordings]
Daníel Bjarnason - Spindrift (Montauk in February remix) [Bedroom Community] {from the free download compilation Yule 2011, available with any purchase from the Bedroom Community shop right now!}
Valgeir Sigurðsson - Flesh and Wine and Firewood [Bedroom Community] {from the free download compilation Yule 2011, available with any purchase from the Bedroom Community shop right now!}
Ben Frost - Stomp (Scanner remix) [Bedroom Community] {from the free download compilation Yule 2011, available with any purchase from the Bedroom Community shop right now!}
Peter Broderick - Les trois valses distinguées du précieux dégouté 2 [Arbouse]
Peter Broderick - in the valley itself [Erased Tapes]
Peter Broderick - the person of interest [Erased Tapes]
Sole and the SkyRider Band - Infanticide (feat. Alexandrah of Solillaquists of Sound) [Fake Four]
Vladislav Delay - Henki [raster-noton]
Ekca Liena - Skate [direct from artist]
Teamforest - leave the north, head southwards (bracken remix) [Tarkovsky Green]
Hood - She's caught in sunshine [555 Recordings of Flagstaff, AZ]
Hood - I've forgotten how to live [555 Recordings of Leeds]
Downpour - Torrential Rain [Drop Beat]
Hood - Your Ambient Voice [Domino]
Hood - Houses Tilting Towards The Sea [Domino]
The Remote Viewer - untitled 04 from first album [555 Recordings of Leeds]
The Famous Boyfriend - i woke up this morning and remembered what you'd done [555 Recordings of Leeds]
Hood - Home Is Where It Hurts [Domino]
Hood - They removed all trace that anything had ever happened here (feat. doseone and Why?) [Domino]
Hood - Painting the Town Dead [Domino]
Hood - Over the land, over the sea. [Domino]
Hood - the lost you [Domino]
Hood - winter politics [self released/Domino]
Hood - guess my age [Domino]

Listen again — ~ 221MB {sorry it's bigger this time, forgot to do that thing y'know?}

Sunday, 11th of December, 2011

Good evening! Still with the new music and we're well into December... It's been a pretty good year!
Many highlights tonight, including Hinterlandt Presents: Through The Motions... LISTEN AGAIN, of course you wanna. Link at bottom, podcast, or stream On Demand.

We've heard Jay Bodley's music on this show a fair bit as Sun Hammer — poised, thoughtful drone with lots of bass. He's suggested (I'm paraphrasing) that it's like dubstep without the beats (or at least mostly without beats). As A Setting Sun he's got a similar aesthetic at play, but it's more into the ambient territory. Don't worry though, there's still plenty of Bass in there, and some generous helpings of growling noise.

We've also heard Valence Drakes quite a lot on this show under the name MusSck, but he seems to have reverted to the easier-to-pronounce Valence Drakes lately. Impeccably-produced atmospheric glitch-hop, whatever he calls himself.

Finally I can play you the new Necks record. It's been out overseas for a month or two now, and I've been sitting on it as I didn't want to play it till it was available here. It's that rarer breed of Necks album, with more than one track! In fact, with two tracks weighing in at just over 21 minutes each, it's surprisingly short for a Necks album, but it's quality vs quantity — the first track dives in almost right away with a driving rhythm that never lets up, but this one starts with gorgeous piano patterns and gradually grows with breakbeats, bowed double bass and layers, while Tim Whitten's production keeps the scribbly piano shining through above it all.

It's also exciting to have the new alog record, which I had to order from Rune Grammofon in Norway as nobody else has got it in yet. Turns out it didn't take that long or cost that much to get it direct. Alog are a fascinating duo who take everyday sounds and naïve musical elements and piece everything together digitally. They can sound very electronic or strangely acoustic, and they suit Utility Fog down to a tee. We heard a couple of quite rhythmic tracks, one in fact basically consisting of awkwardly cut-up drums.

Speaking of rhythmic, it's not an adjective we generally associate with Machinefabriek nowadays, but for a free download (see below) that appeared this week, he's taken his keen ear for sound design and wrapped it around some gently pulsating, mysterious sounds. I had it on repeat for some time after downloading it.

And thence we get to German postrock and minimal electronic figure Robert Lippok, whose latest sounds fit snugly into raster-noton. All electronic sounds, lots of movement, and strangely funky.

Puzahki brings us the first of many tonight from the Hinterlandt-curated compilation Through The Motions (click the link as it's a free download!). Jochen Hinterlandt presented the artists with short snippets of sounds from his track "Motion", from which they created an impressively diverse and high-quality collection of tunes. From Brisbane, Puzahki tones down his frenetic breakbeat of yore, but pumps up the bass for a fantastic track. Later we have awesome ambient waves from Broken Chip, motorik techno from Telafonica and strange, grainy hip-hop from AFXJIM.

From Finland, Fanu is a new producer to me, but has in fact been making drum'n'bass for a good 5 years or more. His new album follows the Paradox model of mixing drum'n'bass with breakbeat at other tempos, including some dubstep, but it's the complex drum'n'bass programming that's particularly irresistible. Very impressive.

Further excitement tonight as we have a rare new tune from Adelaide's Tim Koch, doyen of Australian idm, thanks to Japanese label Mizukage Records — and it's on one of their regular free download compilations! Very pretty electronica as we've come to expect from him. From the same comp we also heard the beats of UK's Arctic Sunrise.

Ensemble Economique is the solo project of Brian Pyle of psychedelic improv group Starving Weirdos, in which he creates arcane sound journeys. His latest offering on Dekorder takes a fairly percussive direction, and indeed on the first cut tonight we have almost jazzy drums, whereas elsewhere they tend towards the more tribal. This record's a grower — it may well end up very high in the best-of list this year...

Sydney stalwart Kevin Purdy has been threatening to put out an ambient album for some years, and it's finally finished, and coming out on vinyl next year. We had a sneak preview tonight, with something edging towards the Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works direction with its gentle beats, whereas much of this album is even more "ambient", if that makes sense.

Michał Jacaszek is a Polish composer/producer who's been creating his electronic-yet-classical works for some years, and now finds himself on the influential Ghostly International label. It's not simply classical pastiche; in fact it's something else — as much electronic drone, with some contemporary sounding distorted noise here and there, strongly informed by 20th century classical and indeed baroque music. A heady mix.

I've only just discovered Julia Holter, as the blogs start spruiking her forthcoming second album. Chalk that up to her first release being vinyl only, in the physical world, but luckily there's a digital version for me. Classically trained, seemingly with a love of bizarre juxtapositions and indirect song structures, Holter creates a fascinating amalgam of field recordings, experimental sound art, '80s nostalgia and songwriting. I'm not sure it's quite album of the year material, but it's very good, and I'll certainly be snapping up her next one as soon as I can.

Along with the new sounds, we did have a few re-appearances tonight. The wonderful Cokiyu remix album was represented by both Tokyo Bloodworm (sounding more electronic than they have recently) and Vieo Abiungo (sounding as lush and world-music-y as ever).
Meanwhile, another take from Origamibiro's amazing Shakkei album features more violin, cut-up folktronic sounds and loping beats.
And to close, another piece of wonky beats from the lovely Mr Monk Fly.

A Setting Sun - Cosmic Trigger Pt. 2 [available from Bandcamp]
Valence Drakes - Sky Open To Those Who Have Wings [Bedroom Research] {get it from Bandcamp}
Valence Drakes - One Winged Angel [Bedroom Research] {get it from Bandcamp}
Sun Hammer - Underscore [available from Bandcamp]
The Necks - Daylights [Fish of Milk/ReR]
alog - the mountaineer [Rune Grammofon]
Machinefabriek - Danse des Loops [Viral Radio] {free download from SoundCloud!}
Robert Lippok - sugarcubes [raster-noton]
Puzahki - Motion Sickness [Feral Media] {free download from Bandcamp!}
Fanu - Pilvien Päällä [Lightless]
Tim Koch - parallarap [Mizukage Records]
Ensemble Economique - To Feel The Night As It Really Is [Dekorder]
Arctic Sunrise - Chi-Ee-I-Su (The Chase) [Mizukage Records]
Fanu - Jupiter 2011 (featuring Mineral) [Lightless]
Telafonica - Kosmische Bewegung [Feral Media] {free download from Bandcamp!}
Purdy - Mountains Dreaming [Soft Records]
Broken Chip - Particle Motion [Feral Media] {free download from Bandcamp!}
Jacaszek - Evening Strains To Be Time's Vast [Ghostly International]
Julia Holter - Tragedy Finale [Leaving Records]
Cokiyu - Little Waves (Tokyo Bloodworm remix) [flau]
Cokiyu - Gloomy (Vieo Abiungo remix) [flau]
Robert Lippok - nycycle [raster-noton]
alog - the weatherman [Rune Grammofon]
Origamibiro - Ballerina Platform Shoes [Denizen/Abandon Building Recordings]
AFXJIM - Mouth In Motion [Feral Media] {free download from Bandcamp!}
Monk Fly - Happier Times To Come My Love [Frequency Lab]

Listen again — ~ 153MB

Sunday, 4th of December, 2011

Gosh, the year's almost over! I've been going through some 2011 releases, and it's been pretty awesome...
Much goodness tonight, including the perfect folktronica of Origamibiro... LISTEN AGAIN, see below, see podcast, see FBi On Demand...

We'll get to Origamibiro later, but it's a marvellous album. After an introductory piece from him/them, we had the 21-minute journey that is the opening track from the new He Can Jog release (mini-album? EP?) on the Home Normal-affiliated Nomadic Kids Republic. A fair bit of his recent work has been more drone-based, but the drones here meld into more rhythmic sections, then subtle beats and folktronic effects, and vocals here and there. Very lovely.

Second Language have just released the follow-up to last year's Music & Migration comp, once again raising money for BirdLife International. The list of contributors is fantastic, as was the last one, and includes Sydney's own Sophie Hutchings. But before we heard her contribution (featuring some wordless vocals in the mix), we started off with Dollboy's contribution, sounding susprisingly like Robert Wyatt, with piano and gradually more lush instrumentation, plus birdsong.

We find our way to Sophie Hutchings via her "remix" (or cover really) of Finnish artist Ous Mal, of tracks from his first album on Preservation. The Preservation posse have been asked to remix his tracks for a special compilation called Ous Mal is dead, commemorating the fact that he is discarding that moniker in favour of Nuojuva for his album next year. There are some very special interpretations here, and it's only available direct from the label.

Back to Music & Migration, we hear from UFog favourite of days of yore, James Brewster, whose recent album this year was perhaps just far enough into esoteric to not make the splash it should have — but to these ears an amazing amalgam of classical, folk and experimental electronic. His track on this comp manages to mix all of that into a little over 3 minutes...

It's been a turbulent year for Monk Fly, with successes for his Frequency Lab label, losses of relatives and the birth of his first child. This all comes out in his Odes EP, excellent emotion-laden wonky beats.

Remixing Maps and Diagrams, Part Timer gets his post-dubstep on with the first official release under his Dark Mahoney moniker. And he's also remixing Cokiyu as Scissors and Sellotape on her wonderful Your Thorn Remixes release, coming very soon from flau.

We jump straight in with two more tracks from there, killer remixes both from flau boss aus and idm/folktronica legend Opiate. So many more to play you next week too!

And then it's time to get back to Origamibiro. Although he's joined by Andrew Tytherleigh on a few tracks, Origamibiro is mostly the folktronic project of Tom Hill, who used to be half of celebrated idm duo Wauvenfold. As we heard, Wauvenfold could chop up beats with the best of them. Many years later came the first Origamibiro album, surprising us all with wonderful glitchy acoustic guitars, reminiscent of the heyday of folktronica. The new album is another step forward, both in compositional construction and production, incorporating layered violin with the electronics. It's pretty marvellous. I think I used that word before.

I played a gorgeous track from (still) the last Alister Spence Trio album because they're playing at 505 this Wednesday. First class contemporary jazz atmospherics.

On a totally different tip, making make hard-hitting punky rock, with a focus on rhythm and dynamics, and very little vocals. Haven't heard rock this good since Ohana.

Another change of gear brings us to cellist Theresa Wong, teaming up with Carla Kihlstedt to bring us a suite of cello, violin and vocal songs based around Goya's etchings on "The Disasters of War". The Unlearning features so many tracks it can be hard to get one's head around, but it sits in a similar genre to Kihlstedt's own songwriting work — adventurous and experimental but melodic music using strings for rhythm, harmony, texture and melody. In the declamatory, often political bent of the lyrics I hear a little of Dagmar Krause and Art Bears.

From here we segue via cello back into Ous Mal with a lugubrious inerpretation from Aaron Martin, and then a typical droning, chittering remix from Pimmon. Recommended.

Telafonica's new album is certainly a stayer, and happily jumps around many genres, from drone to indietronica to guitar based songs. I also took the opportunity to reprise a favourite indietronic song of theirs from a few years back.

Sydney's got a bit of a post-r'n'b beats scene springing up, to no small amount nurtured by a couple of blogs: Life Aquatic and East To West. The former is apparently releasing a 7" from Albatross shortly, from which we took a very pretty number and then finished with the remix by the internationally-celebrated (by Boomkat at least) Dro Carey.
In between, the floating vocal samples and frenetic sped-up 2step beats of Sepalcure, dancefloor creation of Machinedrum and Praveen.

Origamibiro - Dismantle Piece [Denizen/Abandon Building Recordings]
He Can Jog - Gather / Burn/ Echo [Nomadic Kids Republic]
Dollboy - Birds in my Mouth [Second Language]
Ous Mal - Marraskuu (Marraskewered by Sophie Hutchings) [Preservation]
Sophie Hutchings - Between Two Hills [Second Language]
James Brewster - Dissent en route [Second Language]
Monk Fly - Watching You Watch Him Pass Away [Frequency Lab]
Maps and Diagrams - Jupiter Incidental (Dark Mahoney Remix) [Sutemos]
Cokiyu - Textured Clouds (Scissors and Sellotape Remix) [flau]
Cokiyu - Gloomy Monday (aus remix) [flau]
Cokiyu - Round In Fog (Opiate Rework) [flau]
Origamibiro - Quad Time and the Genius of the Crowd [Denizen/Abandon Building Recordings]
Wauvenfold - Clip (clopt) [Wichita Recordings]
Origamibiro - noshi [Expanding Records]
Origamibiro - Impressions of Footfall [Denizen/Abandon Building Recordings]
Alister Spence Trio - neon and rain [Rufus Records]
making - Partial / AB [available from Bandcamp]
Theresa Wong with Carla Kihlstedt - Candlehat [Tzadik]
Theresa Wong with Carla Kihlstedt - What Courage! [Tzadik]
Theresa Wong with Carla Kihlstedt - We Shall See [Tzadik]
Ous Mal - Tuulensuoja (at breath's end) by Aaron Martin [Preservation]
Ous Mal - Marraskuu (Pimmon's Shallow Grave mix) [Preservation]
Telafonica - I Can Hear There's A Peace In The Dark [4-4-2music/available from Bandcamp]
Telafonica - Nothing Ventured [4-4-2music/available from Bandcamp]
Albatross - Casper's Theme [Life Aquatic]
Sepalcure - Eternally Yrs [Hotflush]
Albatross - Casper's Theme (Dro Carey remix) [Life Aquatic]

Listen again — ~ 152MB