Utility Fog

Tonight’s big special is on The Notwist, who are pretty important to the Utility Fog postfolkrocktronica spectrum, coming from grunge/metal roots, through indie and idm, incorporating glitchy folktronica, just about founding indietronica along with a few other bands at the time, and spreading into jazz fusion and soundtrack music… Their many side projects and collaborations (including with various members of the indie-loving hip-hop collective Anticon) saw them being pretty much ubiquitous for a while. In any case, their new album is a massive return to form, if they needed such a thing (I discovered their last album, from 6 years ago, wasn’t actually that bad after a long time away from it).

Started with the magnificent Perth duo Gilded (Adam Trainer & M Rösner), whose minimalist acoustic sounds don’t lend themselves easily to genre pigeonholes. The excellent remixes take things into somewhat more electronic/beat-oriented climes, but are still nicely unpigeonholeable.
We also heard a bunch of tracks from a new compilation on the Wood and Wire label entitled Chillection, courtesy of Sydney beats electronica collective Filthy Children. Lots of young artists not sticking to any particular electronic music template – there’s experimental drum’n’bass, post-dubstep sorts of sounds, computer game beats and even some psychedelic songwriting stuff.
And finally before the Notwist we heard a fab piece of pop from Sparkle Gang, aka Brisbane visual artist Mel Stringer. Crunchy beats & angelic vocals, while on the demo the perfect vocal harmonies work just as well accompanied by just her guitar.

LISTEN AGAIN to the power & the glory, the glitches and the geetars, the indies and the tronicas. Link at bottom, stream in stereo from FBi.

Gilded – Cluttered Room (Shoeb Spartak‘s Thriftstore Mix) [Hidden Shoal]
Gilded – Tyne [Hidden Shoal]
Gilded – Cluttered Room (perth Remix) [Hidden Shoal]
cyber.akb – Sh̄jo no kokuhaku [Wood and Wire]
Moufteef – Fishfingur [Wood and Wire]
bærfrens – Spacerocket [Wood and Wire]
Sparkle Gang – Bring You Back [ZZAAPP Records]
Sparkle Gang – Bring You Back (Demo) [ZZAAPP Records]
The Notwist – Kong [City Slang/Sub Pop/Spunk]
The Notwist – Close To The Glass [City Slang/Sub Pop/Spunk]
The Notwist – Moron [Duophonic]
Console – my dog eats beats [Payola/Matador]
Console – crabcraft (excerpt) [Payola/Matador]
The Notwist – Scoop [Morr Music]
The Notwist – One Step Inside Doesn’t Mean You Understand [City Slang/Domino/Spunk]
The Notwist – Trashing Days [City Slang/Domino/Spunk]
Bomb The Bass / Lali Puna – clearcut [Morr Music]
Ms. John Soda – no. one [Morr Music]
Alias – unseen sights (feat. Markus Acher) [Anticon.]
13&god – L’Atlas Flexible,Von Gradleute (mix by Hrvatski) [Alien Transistor/Anticon.]
The Notwist – Your Alphabet [City Slang/Domino/Spunk]
13&god – janu are [Alien Transistor/Anticon.]
The Notwist – 7-Hour-Drive [City Slang/Sub Pop/Spunk]

Listen again — ~109MB