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, 29th of July, 2012
Playlist 29.07.12 (11:19 pm)
HE'S BAAAAAACK! After a month in Europe and Hong Kong, I've got a suitcaseful of loot to play you over the coming weeks. Only got back early on Saturday morning and haven't had a chance to listen to a lot yet, but here we go... So LISTEN AGAIN, and rest assured On demand streaming, the podcast and download (see bottom of post) aren't going anywhere! Started with a huge special on a very special band: Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Tim Elsenburg & co have been making folk- & electronic-tinged indie pop for some years, and I first heard of them via their exquisite remix of a David Sylvian track. It was great to discover that their own music is no less beautiful, and for all that it's centred around lyrical melodicism, it never loses its experimental edge — even on the latest, probably most accessible album. We follow them with a heap of tunes from Ninja Tune duo Grasscut, who are reminiscent to me of early Tunng's evocation of a dark, arcane English folk through a glitchy electronic lens. The last track on their second album features Robert Wyatt prominently, an appropriate guest. And along with their own vocals, we have sampled singing from crackly old 78 records. Both albums are strongly recommended. Next, we find ourselves back in Australia. Melbourne's Peter Knight, jazz musician, composer, electronic musician, has written music for a theatre piece called Pin Drop which is on at the Performance Space from the 1st to the 4th of August - this Wednesday to Saturday. Check out the link! Also on Saturday the 4th, the fantastic Fabels are launching their second EP at a possibly secret venue in Marrickville - check out their Facebook for details. With folk, electronic production and shoegaze in the mix, Hiske Weijers and Ben Aylward (the latter of legendary Sydney indie/shoegaze band Swirl) play with a drum machine in place of a drummer, and should put on a great show. Moving west into the Blue Mountains we join Broken Chip, this alias now firmly hosting the ambient/drone side of Martyn Palmer's output, with Option Command for his beats. His new album Into The Diamond is available now from his Bandcamp and will bring a bit of glittery, bubbly calm into your day. You need it! Also from the same region, Comatone has recently sent around some rare and unreleased tracks to Special People™, so tonight we heard a heavy bit of beat-trickery originally released on a breakcore compilation a few years ago. Keeping with the heavy, we're off with emptyset next, from a 12" (and download release) of remixes of tracks from their Demiurge album. Already their Bass/techno sound has focused further on the noise aspect rather than the beats. Roly Porter (late of industrial dubstep legends Vex'd) has taken a similar journey, and here brings both droning noise and jackhammering beats. Very, very fine. Cristian Vogel has also journeyed around ultra-technical beats and synth soundtracks for years, and it's great to have a new album of beats from him. They're somewhat Bass-influenced, both head-nodding and mind-massaging. Berlin's Carsten Nicolai aka alva noto (somehow his moniker suits the lower case) has featured plenty on these pages, and it's great hearing his minimalist take on Björk from one of the recent Biophilia remix EPs. The fabulous Matthew Herbert has remixed her Icelandic majesty a number of times before, and turns in no less than three remixes on his EP. All great, too. I came across Memotone via The Wire's latest Wire Tapper cover CD, and was intrigued enough to go and find his EP on Bandcamp. Thoroughly contemporary electro-acoustic/folktronic sounds with a bit of a Bass influence in there too. Looking forward to checking out his other stuff now I'm back from overseas... Also with the folktronica, the wonderful Origamibiro have finally released their Shakkei Remixes album, which is most excellent. There are some great names on the list, including Plaid and the Upward Arrows incarnation of UFog regular Part Timer. And Bad Panda have a few of the remixes plus an exclusive track as free downloads! Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Joyful Reunion [Luxor Purchase through EMI] Listen again — ~ 159MB
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Saturday, 28th of July, 2012
Utility Fog news! New timeslot coming up! (9:22 pm)
I return also with big news re UFog. Calm down, it's OK — I'm still here. But from next Sunday night, the 5th of August, I'm moving to 9-11pm. Coincidentally I begin this 9pm timeslot on Utility Fog's 9th birthday! After 9 years of ultra-late Sunday nights and 3hrs of radio a week, it'll be nice to be semi-human on Mondays again. You get to hear me at a more accessible hour, so I hope this makes up for cutting it down by an hour (maybe 2hrs is a more accessible length too?) But 3hrs really has been luxurious, hasn't it? I get to play long pieces, and multiple tracks by key artists. So I am brewing up a plan to make up the lost hour with a supplemental podcast, perhaps, featuring a couple of artists or trends each week (if I can manage it). Likely not ready for next Sunday.
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Monday, 16th of July, 2012
Playlist 15.07.12 (1:56 am)
Tonight Shannon O'Neill and his lovely partner Jennifer Teo did a sterling job yet again filling in for me on Utility Fog. Slightly sad occasion as they're billing it as the last Sydney radio show, before they head north (I believe) for warmer climes. Shannon's been doing radio since before I even finished school (and he was only a year above me), so it's a bit of an honour that my Sunday segment of radio was host to this event. James Ferraro - Palm Trees, Wi-Fi and Dream Sushi / Google Poeises
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Monday, 9th of July, 2012
Playlist, 08.07.12 (7:52 pm)
Last night, the estimable Luke Telford filled in for me while I was travelling between Bilbao and Madrid. Here's what he played: gary war - thousand yard stare
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Monday, 2nd of July, 2012
Playlist 01.07.12 (10:22 am)
Thanks to Shannon & Adrian for filling in tonight while I was swanning around London and Paris! Igorrr - Moelleux
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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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Like the prodigal son, I returned today to Australia, suitcase full of CDs, and I'll be playing a sampling of my loot (I haven't even listened to half of it all yet!) on Sunday night.