Utility Fog

Sunday, 30th of November, 2014

Dark ambient and techno are the order of the day tonight, including a big feature on a pretty much new artist for 2014, double bassist & sound-artist Yair Elazar Glotman.

LISTEN AGAIN because this is where it's at. This meaning either here or other there at FBi Radio where you can stream on demand with the advantage of STEREO.

Starting with TJ Hertz' Objekt, a projekt that appeared fully-formed in 2011 with his first self-released EP. There's a definite dubstep/bass influence to his techno, and not just because the bottom end features so, er, heavily. It's also because unlike a lot of techno, he focuses a lot on syncopation and gaps - indeed, he loves pulling the rug out from under the listener, no more so than on his stunning remix of Radiohead from later in the very year he released his first EP. Almost as soon as the vocal enters, it gets viciously glitched so (even in this day and age) you almost think something's gone wrong with your download (or CD player). Beats drop out or dissolve at weird junctures, and then the bassline re-enters with perfectly-engineered funk. So it's about time he released an album, and as is only proper, it's a mix of shorter and longer tracks, more ambient, more electro and more technoey tracks. It's a great showcase of a huge talent.

From Oslo, Norway comes the considerably more fucked-up techno & ambient of Lars Holdhus aka TCF. Those strings of hexadecimal pairs that title his tracks lead to a disorienting effect, and the music is almost as-if created by some kind of futuristic, slightly malfunctioning AI. Like Giant Claw from last week there's a sense that this music could only have been created now, in this post-everything world, and it also shares a distinct focus on sub-bass with the other artists from tonight. Very fine.

Next up, a big focus on one of the artists of the year, Yair Elazar Glotman and his post-techno guise KETEV. An Israeli double-bassist now based in Berlin, he's trained in sound art and has some fascinating installation work documented on his site, as well as two cassette releases under the KETEV moniker and a stunning piece of deeply-textured ambient under his own name, combining double bass, acoustic guitar, field recordings, synths, plenty of sub bass and some submerged beats. The KETEV stuff isn't that far removed, but has a lot more focus on beats obviously, sometimes even recalling Andy Stott (and actually being good enough to dare to do so)...
All this attention on Glotman comes from my discovery of him via a collaboration with James Ginzburg out this week on Subtext Recordings (run by quasi-Aussie-expat Paul Jebanasam). Ginzburg is one half of Bristolian post-techno duo emptyset, whose reconfigured techno hit my right in the brain cavity a few years ago (see my review for Cyclic Defrost). They've gone on to abstract their sound further from techno & dubstep into explorations of pure electronics, distortion and space. Meanwhile, Ginzburg put out a gorgeous and surprising album of acoustic & folktronic pop last year as Faint Wild Light... We can only hope that the Glotman/Ginzburg duo produces more music, as this is enthralling and enveloping, and sees Glotman exploring his double bass more thoroughly than in his solo work.
It recalls the more experimental pairings of Hildur Guðnadóttir's cello on the Pan Sonic-related Angel project (including an album from this year) and another cellist, Arne Deforce's collaboration with the other half of Pan Sonic, Mika Vainio. But of course the added depth of the double bass (almost an octave lower) creates an even heavier sound, amplified and bowed so it's almost like some eldritch, organic motor grinding away... Fantastic.

I thought we should hear Ginzburg's Faint Wild Light music as it's truly excellent and under-appreciated, and conveniently there's an excellent remix by Brazilian percussionist (by way of Boston) Ricardo Donoso, our last artist of the night. Donoso released a number of noise cassettes and then a few amazing EPs and albums on Digitalis Industries, and has now signed to the all-consuming Denovali, who are releasing the astonishing Saravá Exu album early next year. It's the best thing he's done, which is saying a lot after some very impressive ambient/techno synth albums. All the synth stuff is still there, along with glitchy bursts of noise, live percussion and some beats. Definitely one to look out for at the start of 2015.

Objekt - One Fell Swoop [PAN]
Objekt - The Goose That Got Away [Objekt]
Radiohead - Bloom (Objekt remix) [Radiohead]
Objekt - Agnes Demise [Objekt]
Objekt - First Witness [PAN]
TCF - D7 08 2A 8D 2A 37 FA FE 17 0E 62 39 06 81 C8 A1 49 30 6F ED 56 AD 5E 04 [Liberation Technologies]
TCF - 8B 2E E5 32 7B 5A 0B 33 73 B7 00 A9 F5 C2 A5 E4 0F D9 E5 17 DC 5F 3D BC 54 98 20 2C 55 F0 E6 87 6B 06 0C 5A 0E 3B EA 9B C1 4F 7C 50 45 E1 31 4D 8F B0 36 F9 89 AD A8 62 D1 96 D9 63 4C C8 40 05 [The Wire/Unsound]
TCF - 54 C6 05 1C 13 CC 72 E9 CC DC 84 F2 A3 FF CC 38 1E 94 0D C0 50 5C 3E E8 [Liberation Technologies]
KETEV - Zelah [Opal Tapes]
KETEV - Akko [Where To Now? Records]
Yair Elazar Glotman - Sunken Anchor [Glacial Movements]
Yair Elazar Glotman - Home Port [Glacial Movements]
KETEV - Uruk [Opal Tapes]
James Ginzburg & Yair Elazar Glotman - Nimbes [Subtext Recordings]
emptyset - Gate 3 [Caravan Recordings]
Faint Wild Light - Halfsleep [Digitalis]
Faint Wild Light - Debris (Ricardo Donoso remix) [Digitalis]
Ricardo Donoso - Galliciniuim [Denovali]
Ricardo Donoso - Conticinium [Denovali]

Listen again — ~104MB

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