Utility Fog

Some rad beats and glitches for you tonight!

LISTEN AGAIN to the best sounds around. Stream on demand is yours to demand from FBi, or there’s a podcast here.

Machinefabriek – As Much As It Is Worth (Single Edit) [Machinefabriek Bandcamp]
New music from Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek is not exactly a rare occurrence, but it’s always celebrated here at Utility Fog Towers. Rutger has found a nice line in works for dance as well as documentaries and other film works of late. This is a “single edit” of a work for dance, and you can see why he decided to do it as a single – it’s surprisingly melodic and positive sounding. It’s a free download, if you like! Or a decently-priced 7″ single.

Alon Ilsar, Tim Motzer, Jane Sheldon – glacier [1K Recordings]
Gauche – CCTV [Art As Catharsis Bandcamp (reissue)]
Gauche – Snowflake [Art As Catharsis Bandcamp (reissue)]
Alon Ilsar, Tim Motzer, Jane Sheldon – vacuum [1K Recordings]
Sydney drummer Alon Ilsar and singer Jane Sheldon used to be 2/5 of the beloved pan-genre band Gauche, who played a big part in the early years of this show’s existence. A band featuring members of Hermitude, The Tango Saloon and others, they had a pretty big impact on a small number of people for their way of crossing electronic production with live breakbeats, jazz & classical-influenced chord progressions, explosions of metal riffing, and a pop core to their songwriting. Jane is a highly accomplished classical soprano now, and Alon plays drums with countless musicians as well as being known for his incredible gestural percussion/synthesis device the AirSticks.
For this new release, the two Sydney musicians have teamed up with Philadelphia guitarist Tim Motzer, who plays with such luminaries as Ursula Rucker, David Sylvian and many others. The drums and vocals were recorded as quietly as possible with sensitive microphones, and along with the guitar textures it’s a beautiful album of restraint.

Koenraad Ecker – Black blocks and red zones [In Aulis/Koenraad Ecker Bandcamp]
Koenraad Ecker – Between the desire and the spasm (falls the shadow) (feat. Alex „Bogues“ Rendall) [In Aulis/Koenraad Ecker Bandcamp]
I’ve been a fan of the work of Koenraad Ecker for some years, since discovering his duo Lumisokea on the Opal Tapes label, and shortly afterwards a separate, equally awesome duo Stray Dogs. A cellist by training, Ecker is also a formidable sound designer and works at times also with bass-heavy beats. There is not a lot of recognisable cello on the new album and only a few beats, but plenty of bass and sonic brilliance. There are a number of collaborators as well, including Alex Rendall on a couple of tracks, who will segue us rather conveniently into our Young Echo special, as he’s part of the wonderful subtle r’n’b/dubstep/ambient trio Jabu.

Young Echo – Sedate Private [Young Echo]
Baba Yaga / Jabu – Voices On The Water [Ramp Recordings]
Om Unit – Patients (feat. MC Jabu) [Civil Music]
Vessel – Red Sex [Tri-Angle]
Killing Sound – $ixxx Harmonie$ Version [Blackest Ever Black]
Commodo, Gantz & Kahn – So Familia [Deep Medi]
asda – spud-u-like [FuckPunk]
Young Echo – Nothing [Young Echo]
Young Echo – Psychology Of Destructive Cult Leaders [Young Echo]
Incredibly exciting to have the second album from the entire Young Echo collective released this last week. Bristol’s not-quite-so-young anymore collective features a pretty sizeable roll-call of brilliant producers & vocalists, themselves forming various groups: Jabu might sometimes represent just Alex Rendall (see above), but is also an r’n’b/ambient dubstep trio with Amos Childs and Jasmine Butt. Sebastian Gainsborough is Vessel, but is also part of Killing Sound (with Amos Childs and Sam Kidel aka El Kid), Baba Yaga with Joseph McGann aka Kahn, and asda with chester giles. Kahn works with Sam Barrett (aka Neek) as Gorgon Sound (and, it has to be said, frequently as Kahn & Neek) and these two are probably the most straight-down dubstep of any of the acts. Other producers include Ishan Sound and Ossia; other vocalists include Rider Shafique and more recently ManonMars, who I’m guessing appears on the fantastic first track I took from the new Young Echo collective album.
Although dubstep, techno, hip-hop and r’n’b are all subtantial parts of their make-up, the various Young Echo members and sub-groups are notably not shy of treading into ambient/beatless waters quite frequently, or equally into industrial-influenced sounds (particularly from Seb Gainsborough’s productions). The new album does not credit individual artists, but the vocalists and often the producers as well are pretty identifiable. There’s some useful info in the press release found on their website anyway.

Hanz – A Breathing House [Tri-Angle Records]
Hanz – Advice Ad [Tri-Angle Records]
Hanz – Page [Tri-Angle Records]
Brandon Juhans’ productions as Hanz didn’t use to be quite as manic & fucked up as this latest stuff. He’s a maker of very warped instrumental hip-hop, but his new EP on the Tri-Angle label (also home of Young Echo’s Vessel as featured above), goes into manic realms with swift-chopped samples and stuttering beats, glitch-hop pushed into drum’n’bass tempos. It’s pretty awesome.

Kaltès & Nene H. – Persist [Eotrax]
Eomac – Observe The Vessel Beneath You [Bastakiya Tapes]
Two female producers out of Berlin’s rich techno scene, here released on Eomac‘s new Eotrax label. These young artists have produced a couple of banging 4/4 tunes with that industrial undercurrent that runs through so much music now, especially coming out of Berlin.
Eomac is one half of Lakker, the now-Berlin-based techno duo who started off making idm in Dublin. Eomac released a 12″ on the Bedouin Records-related Bastakiya Tapes last year – techno with more than a nod to dubstep & 2step.

Listen again — ~197MB