Utility Fog

Sunday, 14th of April, 2013

Tonight we range from art-punk to post-classical electronica, lots of glitchy electronics, and even experimental Chinese folk music. LISTEN again or for the first time and forever! via the download link at the bottom, the podcast, or the glorious stereo of FBi's streaming on demand.

We start tonight with the totally unhinged vocals of Eugene S Robinson and his art-punk(?) group Oxbow, who go way back to the late '80s. First track features the one and only Marianne Faithfull duetting with Robinson in a slowed-down, intense cover of an already pretty intense blues song, Insane Asylum - and you really must click the link to hear the original by Willie Nixon with Koko Taylor. Please do.
"Angel" is from their first album, King of the Jews, and while it's their usual freakish sounding stuff, it has a vinyl sample that drove me crazy when I first heard it. Eventually my brother tracked it down as the choral bit from Kate Bush's "Hello Earth" from the Hounds of Love album, which is in turn a sample of an insanely awesome Georgian folk song. You need to listen to that link too.

We were listening to Oxbow because Eugene Robinson has been working a lot lately with Monsieur Philippe Petit, and I wanted to play some more of Philippe's work. The duo material is Robinson in storyteller mode, and while it's amazing it's probably too longform to play on the show, so we had a pretty amazing piece from Petit's ensemble Strings of Consciousness instead.
Outside of Strings of Consciousness, Philippe is an inveterate collaborator, and a regular outlet for these are his Philippe Petit + Friends albums. We heard a beautiful piece with English cellist Bela Emerson, who performed live on this show some years ago! And then another somewhat neo-classical piece with some amazing Russian musicians.

Next up, a few more samplings from the wonderful new Leah Kardos album, keeping the neo/post-classical theme, along with one from her previous album. Piano, opera-trained vocals, electronics.

Josh Abrahams is a name we haven't heard for ages as a solo producer. A renowned producer of other people's material (including Amiel's hit Addicted To Bass), he was also involved in the early rave days with Future Sound Of Melbourne. His new EP is a delightful set of upbeat bedroom electronics, no doubt involving his extensive collection of analogue synths.

Back to Sydney, or rather the Blue Mountains, we have a new single (17 minute!) track EP from 0.1. Feral Media gave us a radio edit, but I decided I could one-up them, or at least I wanted to highlight some slightly different sections, so I did my own. As usual, this young producer travels the gamut of styles from glitchy processing to breakneck beats to Sigur Rós-style postrock with vocals. Expect a fantastic album later this year.

Brisbane's Ektoise seem to fly a little under the radar in Australia, but their brand of post-industrial electronica and postrock has made a name overseas, and their previous remix album featured the likes of The Black Dog and Bola contributing. Their new one has some great locals including fellow Brisvegan Subsea, and the legendary Mark Fell who we'll hear in a later week, plus none other than British cellist and sound designer The Haxan Cloak.
This was a nice segue into the new Haxan Cloak album. His prior album and EP were released on Auorora Borealis, and were appropriately dark for a label known for releasing black metal. The new one appears on Tri-Angle, more known for witch house and new electronica forms - which shouldn't be surprising considering the twisted techno of his first EP. To be honest, I don't think the sound's changed that much - doom-laden percussion and strings, exquisite sound design, and some electronic beats of indeterminate genre. It doesn't matter how you try to pigeon-hole him, he makes incredible, indispensable sounds.

After years of scratching CDs and painting them with markers to created a signature sound in the glitch oeuvre, Markus Popp aka Oval disappeared from view for a while, and a few years ago he re-surfaced with a new sound, no less glitchy but based around purposeful arrangement of samples of mostly acoustic guitar and drums. It was strangely compelling folktronica, but it's very interesting to discover that he's recently extended that project with a project involving vocalists from various South American countries. The results are available to download free, and feature reworkings of recent Oval tracks (maybe some new ones too?) with some very talented singers. It's rather beautiful and very UFog-friendly.

Finally, for Record Store Day this year, Sydney's Tenzenmen are releasing a 7" of "Music For Advertisements" from Chinese-American musician Li Daiguo. Moving to Chengdu in China a few years ago, he composed a number of musical postcards which are the eponymous "advertisements" - not for real commercials, but rather depictions of areas in Chengdu. It's a fascinating mix of Chinese traditional music and experimental improv from a (Western) classically-trained musician. Check it out!

Oxbow - Insylum (feat. Marianne Faithfull) [re-release on Hydra Head]
Oxbow - Angel [re-release on Hydra Head]
Oxbow - Down a Stair Backward [Hydra Head]
Strings of Consciousness - Cleanliness is Next to Godliness (feat. Eugene Robinson) [Central Control]
Philippe Petit & Bela Emerson - The Moon Woman [Aagoo]
Philippe Petit & Hervé Vincenti, Maria Grigoryeva, Alexander Mahnev & Vladimir Shubin - Many-minds in Many-worlds [Home Normal]
Leah Kardos - Radiate Heat Into Space [Bigo & Twigetti]
Leah Kardos - Remnant 2 [Bigo & Twigetti]
Leah Kardos - Sleep Modes [Bigo & Twigetti]
Josh Abrahams - Life On Mars [ThirtyFive Music]
Josh Abrahams - This Is The Name Of This Song [ThirtyFive Music]
0.1 - The dance of mechanical birds (edit) [Feral Media]
Ektoise - Dissolved (Le Angustia Epoca by Subsea) [777 Operations]
Ektoise - Square Peg (The Haxan Cloak remix) [777 Operations]
The Haxan Cloak - Excavation (Part 2) [Tri-Angle]
The Haxan Cloak - The Mirror Reflecting (Part 2) [Tri-Angle]
Oval feat. Agustin Albrieu - Featurette [self-released, free!]
Oval feat. Aiace Felix - Alpen [self-released, free!]
Li Daiguo - Green Ram Daoist Temple [Tenzenmen]
Li Daiguo - Chengdu Tuberculosis Hospital [Tenzenmen]

Listen again — ~ 102MB

Comments are closed.