Utility Fog

Sunday, 15th of February, 2015

Tonight we have an all female Utility Fog, or UtiLADY Fog perhaps? A pretty wonderful array of artists and a particularly sizeable focus on Jasmine Guffond.

LISTEN AGAIN via the on-demand streaming at the FBi Radio website. OK now we have a podcast, of the stream.

We start with a couple of projects from Kristina Esfandiari, once a singer with (infamous?) Bay Area shoegazers Whirr. Miserable is her solo project, with hazy dark folk rock the name of the game. It's lovely stuff, sometimes on the depressing side (go figure, with that name, not to mention the Sylvia Plath reference in the second song) - but it all goes up a notch with King Woman, which takes the dark folk but throws doom metal in with the shoegaze noise already present.

Sydney's Bianca Calandra moved to France a few years back simultaneously with forming her duo Machine est mon Coeur with Gabin Lopez. Their debut album (after a self-released EP) is finally out this week and it's a stunner. Lopez' piano and synths accompany Calandra's singing and guitar, but everything is both underpinned and undermined by strange dub delays, loops and tape effects. Occasional beats or drums on one track also both ground and disorient. I can't recommend it highly enough. Physical copies are available from Berlin, or you know, digital RIGHT NOW!

Jasmine Guffond is also originally from Sydney, although resident in Berlin for many years now. She formed the minimal electronic duo Minit in 1997 with New Zealander Torben Tilly, pioneering the drone/glitch sound in Australia and influencing many, despite remaining relatively obscure. She also played bass in the all-grrl indie/electronic disco-punk trio Alternahunk, and as Jasmina Maschina writes folky indie songs, although always with the sound-art aspects of her work smudging and disturbing the arrangements. Her new album yellow bell is the first under her own name, and it's a low-key tour de force. A return to a more abstract sound-world of drones and glitched processing, but with acoustic and live instruments, and occasional fragments of song creeping in, it's a magical listen. It should also be noted that Sonic Pieces' packaging is gorgeous, so it's well worth picking up the CD.

Finally, we hear a few tunes from Sarah Lipstate aka Noveller, who's most famous as a noise/drone artist, wrangling her guitar through stacks of pedals. There's plenty of gentle beauty, which makes it all the more pleasing when the heaviness hits. Occasionally, thudding rhythm or even something like prepared piano enter the mix, although for all I know everything is treated guitar. She's lately going from strength to strength and I feel her new album Fantastic Planet is her best yet - although 2013's No Dreams comes close.

King Woman - Wrong [The Flenser]
Miserable - Kiss [Miserable Bandcamp]
Miserable - Bell Jar [The Native Sound]
King Woman - Burn [The Flenser]
Machine est mon Coeur - Grow [Blank Records/Machine est mon Coeur Bandcamp]
Machine est mon Coeur - You know me, I know you [Machine est mon Coeur Bandcamp]
Machine est mon Coeur - Moon prophet [Machine est mon Coeur Bandcamp]
Machine est mon Coeur - Sweet memories [Blank Records/Machine est mon Coeur Bandcamp]
Machine est mon Coeur - Trainwreck [Blank Records/Machine est mon Coeur Bandcamp]
jasmine guffond - useful knowledge [sonic pieces]
Alternahunk - Green Tara [Dual Plover]
minit - cg [Staubgold]
Jasmina Maschina - Slow Walker [Staubgold]
Jasmina Maschina - Asleep (Minit Variation) [Staubgold]
Jasmina Maschina - love you more and more [Monika]
Jasmina Maschina - Sun [Staubgold]
jasmine guffond - rr variation [sonic pieces]
Noveller - Into The Dunes [Fire Records]
Noveller - The Fright [Important Records]
Noveller - Pulse Point [Fire Records]

Listen again — ~58MB

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