Utility Fog

Sunday, 14th of June, 2015

Evening all! I'm back from a creative & fun (and exhausting) trip to the UK & Paris - many thanks to Heli Newton and Xiaoran Shi for filling in while I was away.

LISTEN... AGAIN or for the first time! Stream on demand from FBi, in stereo! Or podcast over here.

German duo Schneider Kacirek are playing at the Goethe-Institut in Sydney on Friday (and various other locations around Australia from Wednesday). It's an early show - 6-8pm - and you need to RSVP to the Goethe-Institut beforehand. Recommended!
Stefan Schneider aka Mapstation is a member of German post-rock/electronic trio To Rococo Rot and combines his synths with Sven Kacirek to create a moody music equally influenced by German krautrock and the African music they've spent some time studying.
hellosQuare Recordings' own hellosQuare Recordings appears on the flipside of a new 12" they've released in conjunction with the duo's Australian tour, a fantastic follow-up to his 2012 solo album - electronic beats & edits colliding with drones and postpunk guitars.

Some more of the subtle sounds of Daughter's Fever... a gorgeous collaboration between Grand Salvo's Paddy Mann and Peter Knight on trumpet/electronics. This jazz/experimental/indie collision is rounded out with Joe Talia on drums, Erik Griswold on prepared piano, Vanessa Tomlinson on junk percussion and Andrew Brooks on saxophone. Magical stuff.

English duo Grasscut first appeared in 2010, released by Ninja Tune. Rooted in English geography, combining arcane English folk and glitchy electronic in the manner of early Tunng, they've never made as much impact as I've felt they deserve. I played a couple of tracks from their excellent first album, because I think the first track is an unsung folktronic classic, and the second beautifully combines an archival folk recording off a 78 record (it sounds) with live instrumentation and electronics - a technique they've continued to use in later recordings. They've shown off their electronic credentials also on a few remixes, including a skittery take on venerable jazztronic Norwegians Jaga Jazzist.

Peter Broderick's new album Colours of the Night brings African pop and dub into his acoustic/electronic equation... Occasionally he can stray to the wrong side of the corny/naff divide for my ears, but he delivers his music with such earnestness and with such beauty that it's hard to complain.
Recently, Peter put up the stems of the title track from the album and invited remixes from all around the world. A selection of those have been released on 7" and digital by Portland record store and label Beacon Sound. We heard a twisted dub take by E3, and a droney one by Fabio Keiner.

Edinburgh-based artist Ben Chatwin has been releasing music for some time under the Talvihorros moniker, mostly sitting in the drone/noise spectrum, albeit always featuring acoustic & live instruments. It's evident from the sounds on his new album The Sleeper Awakes why he's put this one out under his own name though - the darkness is tempered by much more lushness, twinkly piano (or Dulcitone), strings carrying warm harmonies, etc. It's beautiful - and I do recommend checking out the Talvihorros stuff too, especially Eaten Alive and And It Was So for sounds which are in fact more in keeping with our next artist...

English bass guitarist James Welburn has been based in Berlin for a while and plays in Tony Buck's Transmit. He's enlisted the Necks drummer on his solo album Hold, released on the ever-reliable Miasmah label, creating very dark soundscapes of ever-growing distortion and krautrocky dirge drumming.

Ending on an even noisier note, we join Dutch free jazz/noise duo Dead Neanderthals, who have collaborated with the likes of Machinefabriek (including on a massive 2CD live set which is winging its way to me as we speak) and are beginning to make a big name for themselves outside of Holland. Here they collaborate with Norwegian noise artist Sten Ove Toft on a brutal & disturbing piece of noise.

Shoeb Ahmad - White Teeth [hellosQuare Recordings]
Schneider Kacirek - Lithos [hellosQuare Recordings]
Schneider Kacirek - Holzton [hellosQuare Recordings]
Shoeb Ahmad - Aloha Osaka! [hellosQuare Recordings]
Daughter's Fever - Daughter's Fever [hellosQuare Recordings]
Grasscut - Islander [Lo Recordings]
Grasscut - High Down [Ninja Tune]
Grasscut - The Tin Man [Ninja Tune]
Jaga Jazzist - Toccata Grasscut remix) [Ninja Tune]
Grasscut - Reservoir [Ninja Tune]
Grasscut - Red Kite [Lo Recordings]
Peter Broderick - Red Earth [Bella Union]
Peter Broderick - Colours of the Night (E3's To The Moon Mix) [Beacon Sound]
Peter Broderick - Colours of the Night (Totensonntagslied by Fabio Keiner) [Beacon Sound]
Ben Chatwin - Sirius [Village Green]
Ben Chatwin - In The Fire [Village Green]
James Welburn - Naught [Miasmah]
Sten Ove Toft & Dead Neanderthals - Hollow [Dead Neanderthals Bandcamp]

Listen again — ~107MB

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