Utility Fog

Sunday, 25th of March, 2012

Big interview with Greg Haines tonight, plus Teho Teardo, Margins, Clark and more.
LISTEN AGAIN (including Greg Haines, 1st hour!) as per usual via the link at the bottom, podcast or on demand streaming.

We started the show with some of the beautiful music on Greg Haines' new album for Sydney's Preservation, and then I had a chat with Greg over Skype from Europe. He talked about not coming from an academic classical background, his composition process, working with (very talented) schoolkids and with various Berlin-based colleagues, playing live vs creating music for recordings, and lots more — plus we heard a goodly amount of his wonderful music, including his duo with Danny Saul, Liondialer.

From Greg we go east to another composer working with electronics and crossing genres, Italian Teho Teardo, with his new album Music, Film. Music. A few years ago I played on the show a rather brilliant collaboration with one of my favourite cellists, Erik Friedlander. Erik appears on this new album along with genre-leaping violinist Alexander Balanescu and, on one track, the voice of the one and only Blixa Bargeld. Being film music, the sounds here are somewhat tamed compared to the experimentalism of the Freidlander collaboration, but the combination of electronic elements and lush string arrangements is beautiful.

Another experimental artist "experimenting" with more approachable sounds for soundtrack work is Melbourne composer Anthony Pateras, who we recently saw in Sydney in an incendiary solo piano performance supporting Mike Patton's Mondo Cane. His piano's certainly prominent on these tracks, along with orchestral instruments and electronics. One track stands out with beats and noises, produced with Lachlan Carrick.

Sticking with Melbourne, we have the new album from postrockers (or instrumental rock band, anyway) Margins. I'll be chatting with Brett from the band in a couple of weeks, and I'm really enjoying their new album, which sticks mostly to the guitar/bass/drums template, but isn't afraid to explore sound, drop dub echoes in here and there, and even introduce some wordless female vocals on one standout track. They strike me as a bit of a Melbourne Founder, which is high praise!

In celebration of his very excellent new album, we had a bit of a feature on Warp's Chris Clark — once a young turk bringing his Aphex-influenced acid to a well-established label, and now a vanguard name on the label. He's got the wonderful Martina Topley Bird singing on a few tracks, to great effect — it's hard not to be reminded of the Bristol trip-hop of Tricky's debut album when one hears her voice, and there's something of that flavour in the folktronic numbers which feature her, but one thing Clark has achieved over the last 6 or so years since Body Riddle is an absolutely idiosyncratic sound, for all its references to Boards of Canada and Autechre.
As well as some old favourites from that time period, we heard a couple of his remixes. The Milanese remix takes him into raging ragga jungle territory (and a subsequent remix of the same artist followed similar ground), while his version of Amon Tobin's "Kitchen Sink" takes the title literally in fine Clark style.

Finally this week also saw the release of a collaboration nobody saw coming, nor asked for. I'm surprised, really, at how lacklustre the Sufjan Stevens / Son Lux / Serengeti collaboration is. I loved the touches of autotune on Sufjan's last album, but here it's cloying and gratuitous; and after his autotuned appearance on the first track, Sufjan's all but ununnoticeable on the rest of the EP. Highlight is definitely the Shara Worden-heavy "If This Is Real", jazzy and extroverted. And so we finish with the equally extroverted Son Lux remix of Ms Worden's My Brightest Diamond, and look forward to seeing her at Vivid Sydney in May.

Greg Haines - 183 Times [Preservation]
Greg Haines - Ernetti [Preservation]
...interview with Greg Haines...
Greg Haines - Azure [Preservation]
Greg Haines - Snow Airport [Miasmah]
Liondialer - Intro / Green Room 2 [White Box]
Teho Teardo - I'm Gonna Live Anyhow Until I Die [Spècula]
Teho Teardo - A Quiet Life (feat. Blixa Bargeld) [Spècula]
Erik Friedlander & Teho Teardo - to the red flag [Bip-Hop]
Erik Friedlander & Teho Teardo - warm leatherette [Bip-Hop]
Teho Teardo - Brake [Spècula]
Teho Teardo - Nemmeno Io [Spècula]
Anthony Pateras - At Least I Knew Who I Was Fucking [Editions Mego]
Anthony Pateras - XIJ [Editions Mego]
Margins - Cousteau [Casadeldisco Records]
Margins - Static Cleaner [Casadeldisco Records]
Margins - Cowboys [self-released]
Margins - Rabbit Head [Casadeldisco Records]
Founder - Cat Eat Machine [Understandation Records]
Clark - Secret (feat. Martina Topley Bird) [Warp]
Clark - Com Touch [Warp]
Clark - Herr Bar [Warp]
Milanese - Mr Bad News (Clark remix) [Planet µ]
Amon Tobin - Kitchen Sink (Clark remix) [Ninja Tune]
Clark - Truncation Horn [Warp]
Clark - Growls Garden [Warp]
Clark - The Pining Pt2 [Warp]
s / s / s - If This Is Real (feat. My Brightest Diamond) [anticon.]
My Brightest Diamond - Inside A Boy (Son Lux remix) [Asthmatic Kitty]

Listen again — ~ 158MB

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