Tragic news came out today of the passing of the brilliant composer & producer Jóhann Jóhannsson, nowadays famous and much-loved as a film composer. I’ve slotted some of his music in the top of the playlist. Most of the rest of the show is pretty electronic, some more ambient and some more dancefloor-oriented.
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Jóhann Jóhannsson – Melodia (iv) (Live at Ancienne Belgique) [Headphone Commute]
Jóhann Jóhannsson – Mingyun [Touch]
Two pieces of appropriately moving, slow music to mourn the passing of Jóhann Jóhannsson. Not from his soundtracks, but from some recent(ish) compilations. Like everyone, I was taken entirely be surprise by his death. He’s been an important part of the ambient & experimental world, and the burgeoning “post-classical” scene since before folks like Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm were around, but his work as a soundtrack composer has brought him into major prominence. It’s jarring to lose him so suddenly, at only 48 years old.
Anteloper – Ohoneotree [International Anthem via Wire Magazine]
Wilted Woman – Doing The Math [unreleased, via Wire Magazine]
Two of the amazing exclusive tracks available on the latest Below The Radar download compilation for Wire Magazine subscribers. Anteloper finds brilliant Chicago/New York trumpeter Jaimie Branch teaming up with the very busy & talented drummed Jason Nazary, both adding electronics to their arsenal.
Wilted Woman (aka Eel Burn aka various other names) is a Berlin-based New Yorker making deliciously twisted electronics.
Cedie Janson – Gradient [Cedie Janson Bandcamp]
Cedie Janson – Stillness (feat. Amirtha Kidambi) [Cedie Janson Bandcamp]
Cedie Janson first appeared on these airwaves as part of Brisbane indie/noise band Naked Maja. We heard the first fruits of his solo electronica a couple of years ago, and it’s lovely to hear his solo EP Stillness now that he’s based in LA. It’s all bright synths and busy beats in contrast with the title.
Yves De Mey – Mika [Latency]
Yves De Mey – Box Caisson [Opal Tapes]
Sendai – Anti-Jupiter Archives Intérieurs
Yves De Mey – Solemn But Fading [Houndstooth]
Yves De Mey – Bleak Comfort [Latency]
I’ve been a fan of Belgian musician Yves De Mey for some years, solo and in his duo Sendai with Peter Van Hoesen. His new release on French label Latency brings more of what we’ve come to expect – complex, detailed pure electronics, bass heavy with plenty of modular trickery alongside digital crispness. De Mey is a master sound designer, giving his beats and synth lines a three-dimensionality which makes for engrossing listening. This is actually his second appearance this year, as he had a track on that Houndstooth comp In Death’s Dream Kingdom that I’ve been going on about for a few weeks (as in fact did Van Hoesen).
The Third Eye Foundation – Procession for Eric [Ici d’ailleurs]
The Third Eye Foundation – Controlled Demolition [Ici d’ailleurs]
Suddenly, without warning, Matt Elliott has decided to stick another The Third Eye Foundation album out into the world. Around 2003 he switched from 3ef to his own name, swapping the woozy orchestral & opera samples and drones, and frenetic drum’n’bass & dub-influenced beats for woozy singing & arrangements influenced by sailors’ tunes, French chanson & gypsy jazz. In 2010 a surprise Third Eye Foundation album appeared – apparently people keep bugging him to do them, and he just felt like it. And so it is again. This time the drum’n’bass has been tamed into something they’re referring to as dubstep, but it’s more like deeply dubby hip-hop beats (and occasional junglisms) with the usual morose samples and drones. An extra bonus delight is seeing recent UFog discovery Gaspar Claus contributing cello on most of the tracks! He’s quite prominent at the end of the first selection tonight, and in the drop-out middle section of the second.
Aaron Spectre – They Don’t Know We [Jahmoni/drumcorps Bandcamp]
DJ C feat. Capleton – Conscience A Heng Dem (Aaron Spectre Remix) [Mashit!]
drumcorps – incarnate [CockRockDisco/drumcorps Bandcamp]
Aaron Spectre – Roots We Seek [Jahmoni/drumcorps Bandcamp]
It’s kind of funny that Aaron Spectre is still around now, 15 years after I started Utility Fog and coincidentally discovered his updated take on ragga jungle, a genre which originated around the early ’90s when jungle itself was getting going (so over a decade before that revival). The illicit sampling of dancehall versions (along with gangsta rap often) was a staple of breakcore for years, and admittedly of jungle from its earliest days, but it still makes me a little creeped out that the appropriated artists tend to go uncredited. I am certain that Aaron Spectre had nothing but the utmost respect for his sources anyway, both in this stuff and his drumcorps material, which started off as a way of merging his love of grindcore/speed metal/hardcore punk with blistering jungle. Thus, drumcorps’ track “incarnate” from the debut album is a mangling of “Incarnation” by hardcore punks Snapcase; the title track of Roots We Seek is a relatively recent track from Chronixx & Federation Sound. I don’t know the source(s) of the first track from Spectre’s new EP though. For what that’s worth…
Nevermen – Mr Mistake (Boards of Canada Remix Instrumental) [Lex Records]
Weirdly, I’d managed to remain blissfully ignorant of this track’s existence until now. Partly it’s because I’d decided not to be interested in the trio of Mike Patton, Adam “doseone” Drucker and Tunde Adebimpe as Nevermen – they each have their quirks, and dose’s in particular are audible in the vocal version of this track. Nevertheless I should really get that album in me at some point. Meanwhile, a Boards of Canada is in any case always an event, and the instrumental of this shows just how sweet they tend to be. It’s a bit soft rock but that’s how it is.
Listen again — ~203MB
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