Utility Fog

Sunday, 24th of March, 2013

A bit of everything on tonight's Utility Fog. LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom, subscribe to the podcast, or just stream on demand (the only stereo option - sorry!)

Trent Reznor's How To Destroy Angels project with his wife Mariqueen Maandig and his movie soundtrack collaborator Atticus Ross releases their album this week, following an EP which perhaps wore its Nine Inch Nails derivation a little too strongly - although even then it was a different beast. On this album Maandig is not saddled as much with Reznor's distinctive vocal melodies, and in particular our opening tack tonight, "Ice age", showcases the sweetness of her voice over a kalimba-like melody, with some nicely sinister drones coming in at the end. It's got enough NIN in there to satisfy us, mind you. Definitely worth a listen!

Really nice seeing UFog fave Machinefabriek turning up on The Notwist's Alien Transistor label. His recent interest in analogue synths continues, with some nice subtle drum machine beats in the mix too. New vistas (vergezichten) for Rutger? Well, straight drone has only ever been part of what he does, but I think his recent stuff has been particularly strong.

Then we had a couple of excellent local repeats from last week (er, not the same tracks, same releases) from the fantastic new Chris Abrahams and the beautiful experimental electronic opera of Textile Audio.
So then from Sydney we head down to Adelaide, with a trio of longtime musical experimenters X-E-S, featuring Louis Burdett, Patrick Kavanagh and Anastasia Mano. This track is a trip through dark and exotic electronic territories.

UFog fave Fieldhead did put out an album last year, but it's been a quieter time for him of late, so it's nice to hear a new remix (although I suspect it's not actually that new), and of a much more recent fave no less, Matthew Collings. This comes from a new online compilation, Wrong Weather Forecast #2, available to download for free from the, erm, fashion blog? clothing store? ...place, follow the link. There's some great tracks there, including the Alien Transistor-affiliated Saroos remixing New York indietronic band Life & Limb.

Wonderful to have a new glitch-pop album from the great Uwe Schmidt aka Atom™, who's been exploring more esoteric territories of late. HD continues his relationship with raster-noton, with punchy, skittery beats and processed vocals of various sorts, with everything chopped & skewed into funk, r'n'b & technoid rhythms. As is his wont. Nobody does this quite like Atom™ does, as he has for many years in his remixes and his own releases. I wanted to take us back to his 1999 album Pop Artificielle under the lassigue bendthaus (aka lb) moniker, a whole album of cheeky-yet-reverent covers, given the perfect(ly silly) "My Generation" cover on the newie, with Pete Townshend's classic stutters replaced by digital glitches. (And as I played the Bowie cover, it's worth mentioning how surprisingly excellent the new David Bowie album is... who'da thunk it!)

A Canadian now based in France, Total Normal makes very listenable and slightly weird collage music, kind of like Lemon Jelly or early Ninja Tune. The new album might be just what you need to bounce you through your afternoon. The last track I played samples liberally from a track by one of my favourite bands, Tin Hat Trio, whose violinist Carla Kihlstedt features frequently on this show. Not the kind of thing most people would recognize, but it was pretty weird for me to be hearing these slide guitar chords recontextualized like this!

Penultimately, we heard three tracks from the latest Wire Tapper CD, the 31st, appearing with April's issue of Wire Magazine. There's always good stuff on hand, but this one seems to be one of the better recent compilations. We had looped and effected electric guitar fingerpicking from Christopher Cordoba, lovely ambient from the Buddha Machines' Christiaan Virant, and electronically-mediated minimalist composition from Italian experimentalist Emanuele de Raymondi.

And finally, another remix from the wonderful Inch-time, this time by English duo Piano Interrupted, and I'll certainly be checking out more from these guys...

How To Destroy Angels - Ice age [Columbia]
How To Destroy Angels - The wake-up [Columbia]
Machinefabriek - Vergezicht 1 [Alien Transistor]
Chris Abrahams - Stabilised Ruin [Room40]
Textile Audio - Searching [Wood & Wire]
Textile Audio - Of Hymn [Wood & Wire]
X-E-S - Paramythi [Digital Penetration]
Matthew Collings - The Sailor In The City Is Buying up Time (Fieldhead remix) [Wrong Weather]
Life & Limb - Before the flame (Saroos remix) [Wrong Weather]
Atom™ - Pop HD [raster-noton]
Atom™ - My Generation [raster-noton]
lb - ashes to ashes (digital spacepop repliceviant) [Form & Function]
Atom™ - The Sound of Decay [raster-noton]
Total Normal - Better Tell Me John [Total Normal Bandcamp]
Total Normal - Driftwood [Total Normal Bandcamp]
Total Normal - Hugo Nine's Dog Blacky [Total Normal Bandcamp]
Tin Hat Trio - Bill [Ropeadope]
Christopher Cordoba - The Static And The Swerve [Supple Pipe via Wire Magazine]
Christiaan Virant - Metropolis Waltz [courtesy Wire Magazine]
Emanuele de Raymondi - BV6 [ZerOKilled Music]
Inch-time - The Sun Myth (Piano Interrupted mix) [Mystery Plays Records]

Listen again — ~ 106MB

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