Utility Fog

Sunday, 26th of July, 2015

Four part feature show tonight, each quarter highly deserving of some attention!

LISTEN AGAIN to all four and seek out their musics... podcast here, stream at FBi.

Starting tonight with Ambrosia(@), a UK duo I discovered last week via The Wire Magazine's Wire Tapper 38 compilation. Their characterisation of "noise-folk" is a fair description of some of what they do - a droney, shoegazey folk - but there's also everything from glitch to processed field recordings to crunchy beats... and it's all gorgeous. There's a new album on the way, so you'll be hearing more from them in a couple of weeks!

Next up, a stunning project from ACT musician Charlie Sage (this may not be 100% accurate as last time I checked he was based in Queenbeyan, which is in NSW...), aka y0t0 (Year of the Ox) and one half of renowned ambient duo Hessien. Since 2012, Sage has been working on a multi-media project called Internecine, and I exhort you to read more about the project at that link. Inspired by Albrecht Duemling's 2012 book The Vanished Musicians "about ninety-six German nationals who fled Nazism and settled in Australia", it's a powerful examination of the positive impacts of welcoming refugees - for the host country as well as those fleeing persecution and murder. It wouldn't be far off the truth to say that Australia's musical and art scenes would be nothing like what they are today without the influx of these strange foreigners so many decades ago. Sage's music approaches its material in a subversive way, with these "vanished" voices sometimes haunting the drones, sometimes merely informing the moods. It's absolutely beautiful, and his collaborators also rise to the challenge.

Next little feature is for Montreal duo AUN, Martin Dumais and Julie Leblanc on guitars, synths, percussion and various other instruments. Their music has a kosmische psych/krautrock feel, frequently with no drums or beats, but sometimes exploding into tribal, almost metal batteries, and on their new album featuring guest contributions from some recently-familiar French contributors like Frédéric D. Oberland and Philippe Petit. But their music is equally compelling sans guests, and I feel that their last few releases (as exhibited tonight) have seen them find a unique, absorbing musical palette.

Finally we have some incredible sounds from one of my artists of the year last year, Yair Elazar Glotman aka KETEV. As KETEV he makes subterranean bass, underwater beats, tape-drenched sounds, and occasionally employs his double bass, and his previous "solo" release saw him exploring sound design with acoustic instruments and field recordings (and plenty of electronics) - but under his own name he is now exploring his main instrument, the double bass. A collaboration with James Ginzburg of emptyset preceded the new album on Bristol post-bass label Subtext (a label run by ex-Sydney ex-dubstep musician and composer Paul Jebanasam), on which Glotman played double bass and Ginzburg contributed electronic sounds and processing. The new album sees Glotman mic-ing up his instrument in every way possible to get the darkest and heaviest tones he can from bowing, plucking and tapping, and further enhancing the aural weight through overloading the analogue equipment. A hefty amount of smart sound design and a fine ear for melodic and sonic mise-en-scène (and rhythm) make this compulsory listening - surely Glotman will blow up like cellist & sound master The Haxan Cloak did a few years back...

Ambrosia(@) - Go Your Way [Bomb Shop]
Ambrosia(@) - Yacht [Bomb Shop]
Ambrosia(@) - II (from Pevensy NLZ) [Bomb Shop]
y0t0 - How Goodly Are Your Tents of Jacob [Internecine Bandcamp]
y0t0 - Should Voices Flood Your Vision [Internecine Bandcamp]
y0t0 - Interlude, Pitched [Internecine Bandcamp]
The New Honey Shade - Internecine VI [Internecine Bandcamp]
Markus Mehr - Internecine II [Internecine Bandcamp]
y0t0 - Damnatio Memoriae [Internecine Bandcamp]
AUN - Dark Energy [Cyclic Law]
AUN - Shining [Cyclic Law]
AUN - Travellers [Denovali]
AUN - Voyager [Denovali]
AUN - Crystal Towers feat. Frédéric D. Oberland and Philippe Petit [Cyclic Law]
Yair Elazar Glotman - Drifts [Subtext]
KETEV - Akkad [Opal Tapes]
KETEV - Akko [Where To Now? Records]
Yair Elazar Glotman - Home Port [Glacial Movements]
Yair Elazar Glotman - Ulterior [Subtext]
Yair Elazar Glotman - Lamant (Coda) [Subtext]

Listen again — ~105MB

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