Utility Fog

Sunday, 23rd of June, 2013

Another huge week in which I'm not able to fit everything in. Lots of great stuff anyway!

Don't forget that you can always listen back to the shows by streaming on demand at FBi or you can download/subscribe to the podcast right here!

It's great hearing Sydney's Seaworthy collaborating with long-time friend and 12k label boss Taylor Deupree, who is also the mastering talent behind many of the drone, folktronica and experimental electronic releases you hear on this very show. It's just as you'd expect - very subdued guitar phrases, electronics and field recordings. Deupree's preference with collaborations is to work with the other artist in person, and Cam Webb has been very interested in site-specific works of late, so this album is "Inspired by the Ward Pound Ridge nature reserve, Poundge Ridge, NY".

From the very excellent Sixes and Twelves compilation of Australian guitar music which we heard from last week, we have another highlight from Hinterlandt, showing us a pretty different face from his recent musical travelogues.

It's always great to receive an excellent demo from a complete unknown, and last week we received an EP of bedroom recordings from Sydney's North Shore courtesy of Hazey Daydreams. Showing huge potential, it's got lo-fi MBV-style shoegaze as well as twisty electronic beats and songwriting. Hopefully you'll be able to pick these tunes up for yourself soon.

Canberra's Spartak continue their self-reinvention as masters of indietronica with their latest single on their own hellosQuare recordings. Foregoing their previous post-punk guitar, drones and jazz-influenced drumming for drum machines, synths, glitches and... vocals!, they continue to prove they're at the top of the game. And it's great to hear Japanese singer/producer Cokiyu on the remix duties rather than being remixed herself!

In 2011 Melbourne's I'lls put out a little EP that made a huge impression and basically reinstored by faith in Australian indietronica, avoiding the anodyne in its beats and production, allowing long and unusual song structures and experimentalism. If I was worried that their new EP, 2 years later on Yes Please, was to be more pop-orientd, I needn't have. There are some pretty (FBi-)radio friendly tunes on there, but without sacrificing what made the first EP so special, and the closer that I played first is another classic of their genre.

Still in Australia, but only now courtsy of the label, we join Aquatic Lab in the second of their Sessions volumes, featuring the best dubstep sounds collected by Farj & Paul of FBi's own Garage Pressure. Tonight we heard New Zealand's Truth along with Dutty Ranks.
Farj is also Moving Ninja, which originally was a collaboration with Jabba, aka Paul Jebanasam, who moved to Bristol a few years ago to work on music and joined the Tectonic label. Since then, however, he's started his own label, the amazing Subtext, on which he's releasing ambient/drone/noise music still with a real connection to the Bass pressure of dubstep - including a fantastic album of his own which we featured a few weeks back. We didn't hear anything from Subtext this week, but as well as Aquatic Lab Sessions Vol. 2 coming out this week, Tectonic released their Tectonic Plates Volume 4, and coincidentally I chose to play the quite demented track by Armour, which turns out to be a new beats-based pseudonym for Roly Porter, once of the mighty Vex'd and the man behind two marvellous releases on Subtext. Connections, hey?

And so the bewildering array of post-and-pre-dubstep genres in the hardcore continuum lands us with Zomby, who likes to dabble in early-'90s-style jungle and hardcore, grime, dubstep, trap, and even some ambient stylings (and I'd love it if anyone can identify the track I keep recalling when I hear the beginning of "Reflection In Black Glass"). The new album With Love continues his penchant for very short tracks with little in the way of intros or outros, not always even mixed into much of a flow on the albums - although especially the 2nd disc of the newie is very listenable as essentially one long track. Also in there was "The Lie" from 2008, which samples a Sizzla vocal from "I Was Born (In a System)" that also features in a house track which I think I've tracked down as being Ricky L feat. M:CK's "Born Again". Anyway, now you know I guess?

Moving on with the electronica, away from the dancefloor, we join one of myriad monikers of the genius Justin K Broadrick, this time with his electronic shoegaze as Pale Sketcher. A Warm Sunday it has not been in Sydney today, but this 2-track single helps us float away blissfully anyway.

The excellent Futuresequence bring us a cassette & digital release from London's Moon Zero - an EP plus this week an EP of rmeixes by some Futuresequence luminaries, including Sun Hammer who drops some beats rather than his usual drones and deep-bass emanations. Moon Zero's original tracks are just as worth checking out, though - freakishly warped melodies and noises.

And finally, for his latest digital release, Dutch artist Michel Banabila has teamed up with his compatriot Radboud Mens for some sort-of dance remixes of recent sound works, along with a few new Banabila tracks, reminding me a little of recent Jon Hopkins perhaps, but strangely also of something like Jean-Michel Jarre's forward-looking Zoolook album (almost 30 years old!) - not to say that it's dated-sounding in any way. It's hugely recommended, as always with Banabila's work.

Seaworthy + Taylor Deupree - Wood [12k]
Seaworthy + Taylor Deupree - February 21, 2013 [12k]
Hinterlandt - Tired Of This [New Weird Australia]
Hazey Daydreams - Cicada [demo]
Hazey Daydreams - Assam Bold [demo]
Spartak - Consistence [hellosQuare recordings]
Spartak - Nightshift (Cokiyu remix) [hellosQuare recordings]
I'lls - Mine's Here or My End's Here or Ninetee [Yes Please]
I'lls - To Not Second Guess Oneself [I'lls Bandcamp]
I'lls - Plans Only Drawn [Yes Please]
Truth & Dutty Ranks - Only Me [Aquatic Lab]
Armour - Skylark [Tectonic]
Zomby - Overdose [4ad]
Zomby - Reflection In Black Glass [4ad]
Zomby - The Lie [Ramp Recordings]
Zomby - Shiva [4ad]
Zomby - With Love [4ad]
Pale Sketcher - Warm Sunday [Pale Sketcher Bandcamp]
Moon Zero - Shadow Den (Sun Hammer remix) [Futuresequence]
Moon Zero - Endless Palms [Futuresequence]
Michel Banabila - Interference [Michel Banabila Bandcamp]
Michel Banabila & Radboud Mens - In Other Words (Radbound & Bilaa mix) [Michel Banabila Bandcamp]

Listen again — ~ 106MB

Comments are closed.