Utility Fog

Back after an extra week’s gap when I went off to see Ben Frost & Tim Hecker!

LISTEN AGAIN for the highs and the lows (there are no lows though)! Stereo stream, mono podcast over here!

It’s been a surprisingly long while between drinks for Telafonica . Their last album seemed like a single factory, full of wonderful indietronic marvels, and the new one’s off to a great start with this rapturous single.

Last year I played some great experimental indie rock from Brisbane’s Naked Maja, and tonight we hear from the first single from member Cedie Janson – a purely electronic affair full of bright synth pads.

It’s no secret that Demdike Stare, who made their name as purveyors of murky hauntological ambience and occasional dub excursions, are big fans of rave, drum’n’bass & techno. Miles Whittaker, is also the Millie half of Millie & Andrea with Andy Stott, who years ago released some brilliant darkside jungle & UK garage 12″s, and an equally brilliant album last year. In 2013, Demdike released a mind-boggling slab of melted-down jungle on their first Testpressing 12″, nothing like what they’d previously released, and the series has continued with various post-rave genres. Apparently #007, just released this weekend, spells the end of the series, and it’s a great pair of tracks to end with. Hopefully they’ll be collected on CD (well, stranger things have happened), but whatever they do next is keenly anticipated in Utility Fog Towers…

I first discovered world’s end girlfriend on a Japanese electronica compilation in 2002 and it was love at first sight (aural sight obvs peeps). At the time Japanese releases were rather hard to come by outside of Japan, so it took some time to collect everything, but I did my best because this was my music to a tee – chopped-up acoustic guitars or strings colliding with complex breakneck drill’n’bass beats, eventually augmented with rock riffs, free jazz, awesome string quartet arrangements… all the best genres all at once! It’s “clever” music but also emotive, and also lotsa silly. And hella heavy.
No time for a bit special tonight just because of a new EP, but what a great EP it is, with all his signature styles as usual. Certified genius.

Jon Mueller is something of a musical chameleon, working with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon in Volcano Choir, releasing pure percussion compositions under his own name, and also exploring in various media his thoughts about life’s termination in his Death Blues project. I only recently twigged to the fact that Aaron Turner’s magnificent SIGE Records (the one small mercy coming out of the sort-of death of Hydra Head a couple of years ago) released a 12″ with two more-than-15-minute tracks from Death Blues. This incarnation sees Mueller joined by Ken Palme and Jim Warchol on “hammered acoustic guitar”, and along with Mueller’s chants and tribal percussion they make a dirge-like music a lot like an acoustic version of doom metal. The solo Jon Mueller album Death Blues from 2013 features similar work in shorter lengths, and meanwhile another Death Blues album, Ensemble, was release last year with sizeable input from UFog stalwart William Ryan Fritch – and kind of doomier, dirgier (but only slightly) adaptation of Fritch’s own ecstatic world-meets-classical concoctions.

Teho Teardo has appeared a fair bit on this show courtesy of his splendid string arrangements and glitchy beats on various soundtracks and collaborations – including most recently an album and EP with Blixa Bargeld. The industrial connection goes right back to Teho’s first releases with his Meathead duo, albeit a good generation later than Blixa. In 1997 he released an album with industrial dub/hip-hop pioneer Mick Harris of Scorn et al, but I first came across him in collaboration with one of my favourite cellists, Erik Friedlander. More recently he’s worked with the Balanescu Quartet and Julia Kent among other string players and other musicians. Whoever he works with, there will be masterful arrangements, warm production, tasteful crunchy beats and processing… The Blixa collaborations in particular show just how a melding of minds should work.

Telafonica – What Remains (Single Edit) [4-4-2 Music]
Cedie Janson – Light Curve [Lost Race]
Demdike Stare – Rathe [Modern Love]
Demdike Stare – Collision [Modern Love]
Demdike Stare – Primitive Equations [Modern Love]
world’s end girlfriend – Unable [Virgin Babylon Records]
world’s end girlfriend – Girls [Virgin Babylon Records]
Death Blues – Participant [Rhythmplex]
Jon Mueller – Acceptance [Hometapes/Taiga]
Death Blues – Do [SIGE Records]
Teho Teardo – The outside force [Spècula]
matera – constant thing [Invisible]
Erik Friedlander & Teho Teardo – to the red flag [BiP_HOp]
Teho Teardo – Nemmeno Io [Spècula]
Teho Teardo / Balanescu Quartet – I’ll Meet You On That Other Shore / Never The Same [Radiofandango]
Teho Teardo – wilder mann feat. Balanescu Quartet [Spècula]
Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld – What If…? [Spècula]
Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld – The Empty Boat [Spècula]
Teho Teardo – Poisonous his envy [Spècula]

Listen again — ~105MB