That new Autechre at the start signals the crossed channels of tonight’s show – there’s ambient (post-classical/postrock/glitch) in there, but also idm (drill’n’bass/techno/glitch) too. Classic UFog when it comes down to it.
LISTEN AGAIN to all that stuff, stream on demand from FBi or podcast here.
Autechre – r cazt [Warp]
It’s a new album from Autechre! There’s been a HEAP of music from Autechre over the last 4 years – countless live albums, the 8CDs (and 8 hours) of the NTS Sessions, the 4+ hours of Elseq 1-5… but it really has been 7 years since a real album from the pair, one that fits on one CD and 2 sides of vinyl. Sign is really nice, but to me as a real Autechre fanatic, it feels just “nice” – I don’t get a sense of any of the tracks being classics, or of there being anything that really progresses from what they’ve been doing over the last 5 years, not to mention the last decade+. But that’s OK, new Ae is good!
Oliver Coates – Soaring X (featuring Malibu) [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp]
Oliver Coates – Caregiver part 3 (slorki) [RVNG Intl./Bandcamp]
The previous solo albums from English cellist Oliver Coates have either been performances of contemporary composers, or, generally, have mixed layers of his pristine & processed cello with beats & electronics. For his new album skins n slime, again on RVNG Intl., Coates drops the beats, instead delivering a selection of tonal drones, repeating ostinato phrases, and interpolated elements of processed sounds, the cello at times sounding like a synthesiser or a distorted guitar or even voice. Right at the end, frequent collaborator Malibu, the French ambient artist and singer, contributes evocative spoken word to the final track.
Memory Drawings – Dead To Me Now [Second Language Music/Bandcamp]
Memory Drawings – Exit Wounds (Giulio Aldinucci remix) [Second Language Music/Bandcamp]
Memory Drawings – Days I’m Happy To Forget [Second Language Music/Bandcamp]
About 8 years ago, Richard Adams of legendary indietronic band Hood and more recently The Declining Winter came out with a new project, the hammered dulcimer-led postrock band Memory Drawings – fruit of a collaboration with the originally-Minneapolis-based dulcimer player Joel Hanson. Along with Adams on bass, another Declining Winter member Sarah Kemp plays violin, and another ex-Hood member, Gareth S Brown can be heard on piano and keyboards. On many of their releases, I’ve contributed cello here and there, and for the latest album Joel got me on enough tracks that he invited me to be a fully-fledged member, to my great honour! Nevertheless, I consider this Joel’s project above all, and I’m really happy to play a bunch of their tracks tonight – the opening “Dead To Me Now” is one of my favourites, and I’m not on it.
Like most of their releases, new album A Few Scattered Hours comes with a bonus disc of remixes & reworkings, among them the inventive Italian sound-artist Giulio Aldinucci, who made my heart sing with his stretched-out, interleaved, pitch-shifted take on my cello parts.
Note, there’s also a vinyl edition available from Spanish label Zozaya with the remixes as a download – blue and black vinyl can be pre-ordered from Norman Records.
Son Lux – Undertow [City Slang/Bandcamp]
Son Lux – Live Another Life (Heal For Me) [feat. Nappy Nina] [City Slang/Bandcamp]
When Son Lux first appeared, it was the solo work of West Coast USA composer Ryan Lott – a unique mix of classical orchestration, indie songwriting and glitchy electronics, released on the primarily hip-hop-focused Anticon. label. In the ensuing years, Lott has been joined by guitarist Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang in Son Lux, but the project retains the sound-art element – hear the processing on the drums and also the guest string quartet on the first track here, which comes from the first of a pair of albums from the ensemble this year, Tomorrows I. New single “Live Another Life” is taken from the forthcoming Tomorrows II, and comes with an alternate version featuring verses from the brilliant Nappy Nina.
Andrew Broder, Denzel Curry & Dua Saleh feat. Haleek Maul – Bloodrush [Lex Records]
Staying on an experimental hip-hop tip, here’s a new one from the ever-restless Andrew Broder, aka Fog. This is a single from the soundtrack to Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins’ forthcoming film The Show, which Broder worked on with various collaborators including Adam Drucker aka Doseone (it’s not their first collaboration with the prickly reclusive genius Moore). This single is full of big names in experimental hip-hop, with main verses from Denzel Curry, melodic vocals from Dua Saleh, and a guest spot from Haleek Maul. Very keen to hear the rest of the music – and indeed see the film!
Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy – Locked in Syndrome [BFDM Records/Bandcamp]
Simo Cell – Crystal [BFDM Records/Bandcamp]
Abdullah Miniawy – Criteria of good [Abdullah Miniaway Bandcamp]
Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy – Music Gene [BFDM Records/Bandcamp]
I discovered the Europe-based Egyptian poet, actor, singer & musician Abdullah Miniawy last year via a collaborative release with German trio Carl Gari released by AD 93 (prev. Whities). A week or two ago we also heard Miniawy’s extraordinary vocals on a track with DJ Hvad via Irsh Cairo, and now we have this monster duo with French bass artist Simo Cell. As well as this label, Brothers From Different Mothers, Simo Cell has been released on labels like Livity Sound & Timedance, but I thought I’d play a moody bass techno number from a previous BFDM EP released in 2017; meanwhile I also wanted to showcase Miniawy’s own production talents with a track he put out on his own Bandcamp the following year. The new duo release Kill Me Or Negotiate combines bass-heavy club grooves with Miniawy’s Arabic vocals and trumpet, to brilliant effect.
Hence Therefore – Path Dependents [Decisions/Bandcamp]
Emily Glass – Scribble Machine [Decisions/Bandcamp]
Hard to believe that Air Max ’97‘s Decisions Records are 5 years old. Home to forward-thinking club & *ahem* deconstructed club styles from Melbourne, Australia and the world, they are celebrating their anniversary with the release of the Consequences compilation next Friday, from which we heard two previews: Sydney’s Hence Therefore with his twitchy techno/bass, and Adelaide’s Emily Glass with creepy post-classical keyboards and a scrabbling trudge of bass & beats.
Tim Shiel – Get Into Your Love (feat. Lucy Roleff) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
After a series of game soundtracks, Tim Shiel is back making electronica, here with a second team-up after the phenomenal Coliseum with Genesis Owusu. This time the uk garage-style beats are paired with a lovely vocal from classically-trained songwriter/producer Lucy Roleff.
Tennis Pagan – HOLDER [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Tennis Pagan – Heads [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
As well as producing music and presenting almost daily on Australia-wide Double J radio, Tim Shiel runs the Spirit Level label. This week saw the release of the third EP in 2020 from the MAYBE new artist Tennis Pagan – shrouded in mystery, it could be an alias for someone we know??? Each EP has been a bit different, with this one a little more kosmische – still redolent of times past; as a reminder, the first EP Was old-school idm & downtempo, and “Heads” should take us nicely into the next track…
◙ – ◙ (1) [EOD Bandcamp]
Norway’s Stian Gjevik is best known as EOD, but his latest series of releases on Bandcamp has the conceit of naming each release after a different almost-indistinguisable placeholder Unicode character. Each release is a collection of electronic nostalgia, with a mixture of idm and downtempo beats and melodies, always with a hefty dose of acid. Lovely stuff.
seskamol – Empty [Force Inc./Bandcamp]
seskamol – Sausage Cancer [Force Inc./Bandcamp]
The debut release in a new series of “Hyperglitch” for the revived Force Inc., curated by idm artist Woulg, this is music of intense contradictions from Turkish electronic audio-visual artist Umut Gonca aka seskamol. Glitch, clicks’n’cuts, juxtaposed ambient & accelerated beats have all been around for decades now, but I’m willing to take their word for it that hyperglitch is something new, and I’m certainly looking forward to more of this, especially from Seskamol!
sluta leta – utegångsförbud [generate + test/Bandcamp]
sluta leta – whispers special (med angelika koehlermann aka anne laplantine)
sluta leta – snöade läger [generate + test/Bandcamp]
The story goes that sluta leta began as the duo of Bengt Liljstad and Jonas Bergkvist, formed in a small town in the north of Sweden, who got in touch with the folks from pioneering Austrian glitch label MEGO and released a series of 12″s on that label and others including Chocolate Industries. It’s fairly transparently always been a joke story, and the core members were Ramon Bauer & Andi Pieper, co-founders of Mego and the guys behind the groundbreaking electronic experimentalists General Magic. With Sluta Leta they indulge their disco, hip-hop & pop side, often in collaboration with Austrian techno producer Gerhard Potuznik and various guests. It’s quite a surprise, in any case, to find after more than a decade and half’s gap that they’ve put together another Sluta Leta album, entrée contrôle, released by another group of Austrian glitch royalty, Farmers Manual, recently very active on Bandcamp, through their generate + test label.
Ulrich Troyer – NOK 5 [4Bit Productions]
Ulrich Troyer – NOK 9 (Fennesz Remix) [4Bit Productions]
Originally released in 2000 on the great Austrian label MEGO before it dissolved and reformed as Editions Mego, Ulrich Troyer‘s debut release (as Uli Troyer) was a cute little 3″ CD called NOK. Mostly clicky glitch-beats, it had only a little of the dub influence that’s pervaded his music since, but it’s a very fine bit of European glitch and it’s need to see it re-released in vinyl+CD(+digital) form now, with bonus tracks and a couple of new remixes. Obscure Austrian glitch artist (*ahem*) Christian Fennesz contributes a lovely ambient take as of his usual style (complete with smeared guitar).
Listen again — ~204MB
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