Utility Fog

Sunday, 22nd of February, 2015

Nice big range of stuff tonight including a good wad of Aussie music, with some politics embedded in parts, and then later some very cinematic, very dark stuff from Belgium & the Netherlands.

LISTEN AGAIN at the stereo stream or the podcast here.

To start off tonight, something topical: Sydney's folk-meets-prog/post-rock legends The Crooked Fiddle Band are playing this Thursday night at the Basement, as a special one-off with a whole (well, as much as they can fit) orchestra in tow! Should be awesome, with Jess Randall's already epic violin lines augmented... But equally awesome is Joe & Gordon's hopefully very short-lived hardcore band Until Abbott Gets Gone, who will break up as soon as, yes, Tony Abbott is out of office. While our political problems with climate change, human rights, education and so much more will not be solved by the demise of one odious man, it's a sentiment I can get behind, and an ingenious way of achieving (in a short time) some very good publicity for their political views (and great music).

Room40 are celebrating their 15th year this year, and still releasing innovative music in beautiful editions. Presumably Mirko Vogel's LP later this year will be one of those editions, but first up we have a 3-track digital EP out soon. Once a member of Brisbane's power pop band Sekiden, having toured with fellow Modular artist Cut Copy, he's now based in London and making sounds very much suited to Room40, with bass-heavy drones and distant pulsing beats.

2XX FM is Canberra's much-loved community radio station, therefore comrades of a sort to FBi in Sydney. Michael Norris and Reuben Ingall host an experimental electronic music show there called Subsequence Radio and late last year released a compilation of excellent electronic music from Canberra on their Bandcamp. There's a mixture of artist I know and those I don't - falling into the latter camp, P A R K S, with some nice chunky, crunchy beats. Meanwhile experimental producer and frequent collaborator with Ingall Paul Heslin covers Tassie two-piece Paint Your Golden Face, and ex-Underlapper Gatherer gives us some dense, evolving loops.

Reuben Ingall, one half of the radio show responsible for that compilation, has also just released a cassette with two live versions of his Microwave Drone Ritual, in which he cooks a pie (for 10 minutes apparently) and turns the microwave's hum into a magnificent drone piece, augmented by his own vocals. Strangely compelling.

Speaking of drones, and with a rather different take on music as politics compared to tonight's opening track, next we have an excerpt from Robert Curgenven's They tore the earth, and, like a scar, it swallowed them. Featuring field recordings from around Australia, along with drones on pipe organ, turtables and low frequency oscillators, it's a powerful meditation on the damage caused by colonialism...

Our final Australian track for tonight comes from ex-Faux Pas, current Double J broadcaster, current Gotye band member Tim Shiel. A couple of years ago he did the soundtrack to the massively successful Aussie mobile game Duet, and they've now released an expansion pack of new chapters. Tim's soundtrack is as sensitive and lovely as the previous works, and again features various live and acoustic instruments in the mix with his electronics.

Now we move overseas to Belgium where we join Pepijn Caudron with his acoustic doom project Kreng. In fact, up until this new album, most of the music was based around samples of films, and jazz and classical music. For his new album he's joined by a 12-piece orchestra and various other musicians including Belgian doom metal band Amenra. But we delved a fair bit into his back catalogue, going right back to old tunes which sound sortof like early Amon Tobin on mogadon.

Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek is well into his (as usual) packed schedule of releases for this year, and there've already been a number of sublime moments, but for me The Measures Taken on Polish label Zoharum is the highlight. One slow-moving piece split into 5 parts, it's got throbbing synths and quiet beats, radically treated field recordings, glitches and drones. Highly recommended.

Until Abbott Gets Gone - Climate Septic [Until Abbott Gets Gone Bandcamp]
The Crooked Fiddle Band - Puncture [Crooked Fiddle Bandcamp]
The Crooked Fiddle Band - Vanishing Shapes (Ribongia remix) [Crooked Fiddle SoundCloud]
Mirko - Glass [Room40]
P A R K S - Midwinter [Subsequence Radio Bandcamp]
Paul Heslin - Workwalker [Subsequence Radio Bandcamp]
Gatherer - Sōunkyō Snow [Subsequence Radio Bandcamp]
Reuben Ingall - Microwave Drone Ritual [Moontown Records]
Robert Curgenven - Scene 3. The Heat At Their Necks [Recorded Fields]
Tim Shiel - Something In You (feat. Luke Howard & Biddy Connor) [Tim Shiel Bandcamp]
Kreng - Alcyone [fant00m]
Kreng - Kolossus [Miasmah]
Kreng - Opkopper [Miasmah]
Kreng - Snuff - part 2 (excerpt) [Miasmah]
Kreng - Introduccion [sonic pieces]
Kreng - The Summoning (feat. Amenra) [Miasmah]
Machinefabriek - The Measures Taken Part II (excerpt) [Zoharum]

Listen again — ~105MB

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