A rare International Women’s Day edition of Utility Fog. It’s not that rare for me to program a lot of music by women, but it’s not that often that the show actually falls on IWD, so it’s nice to be able to celebrate that in style. So much to choose from too!

LISTEN AGAIN, listening is good, listening is necessary. Podcast here, stream on demand from FBi.

Leah Kardos – Bird Rib [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Apology [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Remnant 2 [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Sexy Monday [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Novice [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Little Phase [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
Leah Kardos – Into Sporks [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
London composer Leah Kardos, who grew up in Brisbane but has been in the UK so long she’s a native now, is a beloved stalwart of Utility Fog playlists, with her combined interests & deep capabilities in classical composition, electronica and pop – indeed she’s teaching a BA(Hons) in Music Technology at the University of Kingston in London nowadays. Since her last album Roccocochet in 2017, she founded the Visconti Studio at the University with the venerable longtime David Bowie producer Tony Visconti. It’s great to have a new album from her, one which looks back at her earlier work and builds a number of compositions from reversed and manipulated versions of older works.
We went back to that original wonder, 2011’s Feather Hammer – two tracks, the sampled yearning voices over emotive piano on “Apology”, and the live acoustic cut-ups and piano-percussion of “Remnant 2”. From 2013’s Machines, featuring the classically-trained Laura Wolk-Lewanowicz on vocals, we have spam emails turned into IDM pop, and then from Spirit Level’s 2017 Piano Day comp Kindred Spirits, her pitch-perfect mute-pedal post-classical piano ballad “Novice”. Finally, on 2017’s Roccocochet, Leah abandoned computer recording techniques almost entirely, so on “Little Phase” we have a live ensemble performing a piece that’s equal parts minimalist composition and post-rock. And we finish back with the new album, where “Into Sporks” harkens back to the IDM beats of Leah’s earlier work.

Belia Winnewisser – Lower [Buh Records/The Wire]
From a compilation of Swiss Underground Experimental Music from late last year, this is a new track of glitchy electronica from producer Belia Winnewisser, a cross between almost academic sound design and quite catchy electronica. Her last release was 2018, so I hope we get something more from her this coming year along the lines of this track!

Soho Rezanejad – Ezra [Silicone Records/SHAPE Platform 2019/The Wire]
I first discovered Danish-Iranian artist Soho Rezanejad via her beautiful vocals on Croatian Amor‘s Love Means Taking Action album. I now need to investigate her two albums on her Silicone Records, from which this track is taken – experimental electronic techniques, extended vocal techniques, a pop sensibility but also a love of darkness, drones and noise. What’s not to love!

Carla dal Forno – Blue Morning [Blackest Ever Black]
Another Australian artist (here from Melbourne) who’s relocated to London, Carla dal Forno has a background in quite experimental ensembles, but creates subtle, catchy minimalist pop with some surprising instruments and a talent for getting under your skin. Her last album came out on her own new Kallista Records label, in no small part because the label who nurtured her earlier releases, Blackest Ever Black, has now closed up shop with this last compilation, aptly titled A short illness from which he never recovered.

Bonniesongs – Sand Dunes [Bonniesongs]
Hot on the heels of her wonderful debut album Energetic Mind, Sydney-based Irish musician Bonnie Stewart aka Bonniesongs recently released this gorgeous new song, inspired by a trip into the NSW wilderness with the improv ensemble Splinter Orchestra, which was followed by the devastation of the recent bushfires. It features regular collaborator Freya Schack-Arnott on cello, and all profits go to WIRES.

Lack The Low – Convert The Masses [Provenance Records]
More strings here, with a stunning track combining beauty with harshness from Melbourne singer-songwriter Kat Hunter aka Lack The Low, from another bushfire fundraiser, Provenance Records’ Marks of Provenance III.

Insect Ark – Tectonic [Profound Lore Records/Bandcamp]
Insect Ark – Lift Off [Insect Ark Bandcamp]
Insect Ark – The Collector [AutumnSongs Records/Bandcamp]
Insect Ark – Daath [Profound Lore Records/Bandcamp]
Insect Ark – Swollen Sun [Profound Lore Records/Bandcamp]
Dana Schechter is a very busy woman. I first heard her work in Michael Gira’s Angels of Light, which combined sometimes heavy sonics with psychedelic folk and roots. She now plays in the touring line-up of Swans, as well as joining the doom-folk of Wrekmeister Harmonies, and the insanely evil extreme metal band Gnaw, among many others. But among a few of her own ensembles, she’s recorded as Insect Ark since 2011. The 2013 EP Lift Off already showcases the doomy riffs and disconcerting sonic experimentation of the project, and the brilliant 2015 debut album Portal/Well has punishing doom riffs and dark drones aplenty. Schecter’s multi-instrumental talents have her playing massive basslines alongside pedal steel and electronics, but for the last two albums she’s augmented the band into a duo with drummers Ashley Spungin for 2018’s Marrow Hymns, and now Andy Patterson (of the great female-led folk/metal group SubRosa, RIP) for 2020’s The Vanishing, both released on Profound Lore Records. The fact that it’s instrumental makes it no less heavy and no less absorbing. It’s all about the bloody great riffs and sonic exploration (e.g. the binaural panning of the lovely ambient track I finished with).

Laura Cannell – BE ONE – The Tallest Tower [Brawl Records]
A stunning field recording of church bells recorded in Cow Hill, Norwich is at the centre of this new track from Laura Cannell, English folk violinist from the UK. She has requested recordings of bells from around the world to incorporate into new recordings – a series called The Bell Effect Project. These ringing tones in the first track to be released fit beautifully with the organ drones and (perhaps?) electronics here. I hope there are more of these soon!

Maria Moles – II [Nice Music]
Releases from solo percussionists can often be surprising affairs. Melbourne percussionist Maria Moles works extensively with contemporary ensembles and composers as well as bands and electronic musicians. Her own practice involves live drums and percussion layered and then manipulated with filters and modulators. This track, the second side of a cassette recently released by Melbourne’s Nice Music, starts with a loping repetitive rhythm but slowly the sounds are swamped in resonant electronics, eventually fading to nothing and restarting a few times in different ways. It’s quite wonderful to zone out to, or to follow closely.

Listen again — ~196MB

The jungle music virus strikes again tonight – after some lovely experimental pop & indie, and other experimental types of electronica.

LISTEN AGAIN because music is an antivirus in these trying times! Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here.

Lee Ranaldo & Raül Refree – Alice, Etc. [Mute]
Richard Youngs & Raül Refree – Nil By Mind [Soft Abuse/Bandcamp]
Lee Ranaldo & Raül Refree – Humps (Espriu Mix) [Mute]
Late last year the legendary outer-limits experimental musician and free folk singer Richard Youngs released an extraordinary 4-track album with Barcelona producer & multi-instrumentalist Raül Refree. The wonderful arrangements, featuring piano, guitar, cello and/or double bass and some interesting studio effects, supported Youngs’ freewheeling melodic sensibility at least as well as his solo work or any other combos he’s been involved with over the years, but this was my first introduction to Refree’s work. If I’d been paying more attention to the archipelago of Sonic Youth side projects, I would have known that Refree produced the last solo album from Lee Ranaldo, but at least I noticed their new album Names of North End Women, on which they are given equal billing. Ranaldo’s songwriting is a revelation, and even his singing voice is touching and expressive. The two use the studio and its contents without fear or favour – tuned percussion, piano, acoustic guitar and strings coexist with tape loops, cut-ups, drum machines and digital effects, and songs venture easily between subdued spoken word, indiepunk expressionism and surprisingly catchy melodic pop. A strange & excellent beast.

A Country Practice – The Inundation into Our Room (aheadphonehome remix) [A Country Practice Bandcamp]
Brisbane band A Country Practice have precious few recorded releases as yet, but position themselves as indietronica, basically. Their first single has now been mixed by a couple of Brisbane cross-genre alumni – Andrew Tuttle’s is equally recommended, but tonight we heard the crunchy beats & shoegaze/glitchscape of Phillip Laidlaw’s aheadphonehome, a project which I hope might be resurfacing soon!

Vladislav Delay – Rakkine [Cosmo Rhythmatic/Vladislav Delay Bandcamp]
Vladislav Delay – #22 [Ripatti]
Vladislav Delay – Rasite [Cosmo Rhythmatic/Vladislav Delay Bandcamp]
Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti is legendary among experimental electronic circles, going back to early days in the late 1990s creating extraordinary minimal techno hybridized with dub in league with the Berlin-based Chain Reaction collective among others. As Vladislav Delay, longform minimal dub releases followed, and then various excursions in glitchy soundscaping and electro-acoustic techniques, while under various other guises such as Luomo, Uusitalo, Sistol and others he explored variants of house, deep house, techno etc. He’s also worked extensively with his partner Antye Greie-Fuchs with AGF/Delay and other projects.
It’s been over 5 years since the last Vladislav Delay album, which itself followed a series of amazing 12”s under the Ripatti imprint which took him into glitchy footwork and jungle territory – I played one track tonight as our flashback because the new album heads into industrial, skittery territory, at times echoing grindcore & black metal’s blast beats as much as anything from electronica. It’s perfectly suited to Shapednoise’s Cosmo Rhythmatic label and a welcome return from an inspiring producer.

Aaron Spectre – Inmyeyeees [Jahmoni/Aaron Spectre Bandcamp]
Aaron Spectre – Computorr [Jahmoni/Aaron Spectre Bandcamp]
From jungle-adjacent to one of the original & dedicated jungle revivalists, Aaron Spectre, who’s been pumping out ragga jungle tunes since the mid-2000s, and with his drumcorps alias also niftily combined grindcore/speedcore metal with jungle – something which reappears on the first, short, sharp track lifted tonight from his new EP for German label Jahmoni (it’s a “remix” of Minor Threat by the way). The insanely accelerated breaks and samples push it into breakcore territory probably, but whatever, it’s suitably fun and as technically impressive as ever.

Babylon Timewarp – Durban Poison [Soul Jazz]
Rhythm for Reasons – The Smokers Rhythm [Soul Jazz]
Aaron Spectre’s EP conveniently comes out the same week as Soul Jazz’s latest compilation to explore the origins of jungle – Black Riot: Early Jungle, Rave and Hardcore goes back to at least 1992, with the first track we heard here, Babylon Timewarp’s “Durban Poison”. This would be right where hardcore techno’s speedy beats and sampled breaks got hybridized with dancehall’s syncopations and the nascent jungle genre came into being. It’s still astounding and dizzying stuff (Babylon Timewarp is an alias of drum’n’bass legends Intense). Much of the material on this compilation is incredibly raw, and you can hear them pushing their AKAI samplers to the max. Another legendary tune, “The Smokers Rhythm” from Rhythm for Reasons (probably best known as DJ SS), comes from 1994, when beat juggling was still going strong…

Dom & Roland – Trauma [Renegade Hardware/Dom & Roland Bandcamp]
Strangely enough, here’s another drum’n’bass re-release that came out this week! Dominic Angas (his partner Roland was the S760 sampler) was dropping 12”s in 1994, but really came to the fore a few years later as jungle became drum’n’bass and then the darker, heavier tech step style became the mode. And while a lot of it became oversimplified and too macho, Dom & Roland was always beautifully atmospheric and head-nodding. The Trauma / Transmissions EP came out around the time of his great first album Industry, and I caned those tracks so much that I can still follow along with every change in both tracks. Dom has remastered them for this digital re-release on his Bandcamp, so I hope you find “Trauma” as evocative as I always did.

A2A – Lilac [Local Action]
We’re not quite done with the jungle connection yet. A2A is a new collaboration between two contemporary artists who both draw a lot from the UK hardcore continuum. Manchester’s AYA (fka LOFT) makes messed-up club music and loves dropping mangled jungle breaks over her own tracks and others’, while London-based Air Max ’97 makes dancefloor-ready music drawing on idm, grime, techno and rave styles. The third track on their debut EP, released this week by Local Action, is the one for the junglist connections.

Calum Gunn – Moebu [Central Processing Unit]
Thus far, the solo music of Calum Gunn has tended towards the more abstract end of electronic music. He’s known for live programming and generative music (although as a member of Dananananaykroyd he’s known for indie & punk), but this new EP on Central Processing Unit suits that label to a tee – idm, electro, grime as the main touchpoints. I decided to play this 5/4 piece of loveliness because the track that follows also has a leaning into the melodic end of electronica. For the ‘ardkore continuum styles we could instead have heard “Ternenmarz”, which has a kind of grime swagger to it. Recommended EP.

Laurin Huber – Hostage to History [Hallow Ground]
Finishing up with melodic synths juxtaposed with complex rhythms from Swiss underground fixture Laurin Huber, released on Swiss label Hallow Ground, known for experimental electronic and industrial releases. Huber here investigates ways to escape dualistic thinking, and we find various styles and musical approaches juxtaposed. On this long track we have skittering electronic electronic hi-hats in a slow 3/4 over which other rhythms move in 4/4 (perhaps is 12 vs 8), and various melodic elements and chords flit in and out dubwise. It could almost be a strangely alien reference back to the dub techno of Vladislav Delay, although these are not sounds that Delay would ever have produced. The four tracks on this EP dark & light, melodic and mechanical, not really pigeonholeable – just how we like it on Utility Fog.

Listen again — ~197MB