Anti-colonial doom, displaced junglism, canonical indietronica, jazzy dubstep and field recording processing tonight, but starting with the iconic SOPHIE, who very tragically passed away yesterday.

LISTEN AGAIN, and take me with you… stream on demand from FBi, podcast here.

SOPHIE – Faceshopping [MSMSMSM/future classic/Transgressive]
SOPHIE – UNISIL [Numbers/Bandcamp]
As I started putting together the selections for tonight’s show, I already was planning to play SOPHIE, whose early single BIPP has just been remixed by Autechre, and the b-side UNISIL is an excellent unreleased IDM-ish track from the same era. But then yesterday, unimaginably awful news started to come out, eventually confirmed by those close to the artist: when climbing on to the roof her house in Greece to watch the full moon, SOPHIE slipped and fell to her death. Such a sudden and meaningless death is hard to process, and SOPHIE is very important to many people – as a pioneer of glossy, glitchy hyperpop, and importantly as an out trans woman. My heart goes out to all who are hit badly by the loss of a lovely talented soul.

Gooooose – Ion [Super Hexagon]
Christoph De Babalon – The Legendary Sleep [Super Hexagon]
Leeds-based music night and record label Super Hexagon start 2021 with a compilation called Rondogs Vol. 1, collecting experimental electronic artists from near & far ranging from ambient to idm, acid to jungle, and passing on all profits to the Winchester-based Key Changes Music Therapy, using music to help the most vulnerable. Among some corkers, Shanghai’s Gooooose contributes beautiful layered classical music samples and pulsating synths, while Berlin’s Christoph De Babalon brings his classic digital hardcore stylings with an exclusive cut of his signature dark classical samples and heavy-duty jungle/drum’n’bass.

Gallery S – The Junglist [Gallery S/MoMA Ready Bandcamp]
Gallery S – Heavens Gate [Gallery S/MoMA Ready Bandcamp]
Wyatt D. Stevens releases music both as MoMA READY and Gallery S, as well as running the HAUS of ALTR label. He’s instrumental in New York’s underground dance music scene, and joyfully mashes up influences from classic house & techno, idm and healthy slabs of classic jungle. In the past, releases have mixed everything up, but of late he’s seemingly separating the genres somewhat – meaning that the latest Gallery S album The Many Hands of God is pure jungle goodness of an early ’90s nature, free-flowing breaks, bass drops and vocal snippets at the ready. It’s a true delight.

Manslaughter 777 – ARC [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
the body – Eschatological Imperative [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
the body – A Lament [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
So here’s a strange segue. From jungle to doom metal in one fell swoop. For a long time, the blackened doom metal of Chip King & Lee Buford’s the body has been tempered & amplified by electronics – sub-bass, crunches & glitches, drum machines and so on. Amen breaks even appeared on a 2018 track from their collaboration with Uniform, and on last year’s phenomenal collaboration with MSC (previously aka Braveyoung) I Don’t Ever Want To Be Alone. Now in March, the body’s Lee Buford and MSC’s Zac Jones team up as Manslaughter 777 for an album that makes explicit the jungle, dub & hip-hop influences, World Vision Perfect Harmony, while remaining dark as heck. But a preview of that aside, it’s the new body album I’ve Seen All I Need To See that’s the focus tonight. Here the duo strip back to the essentials – no vocals from Chrissy Wolpert & the Assembly of Light Choir or other frequent collaborators, no electronics except the studio magic of Seth Manchester from Machines With Magnets, who ensures that the guitar & drums are distorted to within an inch of their lives. This is the music of decay, with King’s usual high-pitched, gargled shrieks mixed back within the grotesque sounds, which occasionally crash so intensely into the tapes that the entire mix stutters into oblivion (or so they’ve arranged it). I feared that this album would lose some of the creative magic the band have exhibited over the last 5-10 years, but it’s the perfect complement to and culmination of this adventure. Long may they horrify us.

Divide and Dissolve – Oblique [Invada/Bandcamp]
Divide and Dissolve – Mental Gymnastics [Invada/Bandcamp]
Using doom metal as the energy for political change is what Divide and Dissolve are all about. The duo of Takiaya Reed (of Black/Cherokee background) & Sylvie Nehill (of Māori background) aim to dismantle white supremacy, and spread their message through righteously heavy music. As heard at times on their previous albums, as well as the downtuned guitar noise, Takiaya Reed plays a beautiful saxophone, and her dimished intervals and minor-key melodies grace the opening & closing of many tracks on their stunning breakthrough third album Gas Lit, released internationally through Invada. There’s also spoken word from Minori Sanchiz-Fung, and “Mental Gymnastics” abandons the noise almost entirely for saxophone and threads of feedback. It’s early in 2021, but this album is going echo through the whole year.

Party Dozen – The Worker [GRUPO/Bandcamp]
Speaking of righteous saxophone and drums, here’s the latest single from Kirsty Tickle, shouting & singing into her blasting saxophone, and Jonathan Boulet as Party Dozen. They seem to be taking it a single track at a time at the moment, and this one comes with a kickass video too.

The Notwist – Al Sur feat. Juana Molina [Morr Music/Bandcamp]
The Notwist – Moron [Big Store]
The Notwist – This Room [City Slang/Domino/Bandcamp]
13&god – janu are [Alien Transistor/Anticon/Bandcamp]
The Notwist – Al Norte [Morr Music/Bandcamp]
The Notwist – Into Love / Stars [Morr Music/Bandcamp]
The Notwist – Exit Strategy To Myself [Morr Music/Bandcamp]
It’s impossible to overstate how important The Notwist are to me and to this show. While their origins are in a kind of clean-voiced punk, within a couple of albums influences from jazz, postrock and electronic music filtered in. They’re central players in one branch of indietronica, and various members’ work runs into IDM, dub and jazzy postrock. In fact the second track I played, from 1998’s Shrink, is a lovely piece of postrocky jazz in (to me) a classic German fashion, foreshadowing some of the members’ work in Tied & Tickled Trio; meanwhile from the classic, important 2003 album Neon Golden we heard a piece of drum’n’bass-meets-indie rock… And in the ’00s the members also collaborated with core Anticon members doseone and Jel for that indietronica/indie-hip-hop crossover we absolutely needed.
So here they are in 2021 with a new album, Vertigo Days, showing they haven’t lost any of their energy and creativity. It draws a lot on the extended modular/krautrocky jams of their live shows over the last few years, and I finished up with the segue of the first three tracks on the album. There are also many collaborations, and the track with the wonderful Juana Molina could easily be one of her own songs, but it’s lovely hearing the two iconic artists working together! An absolute joy.

Silkie – What You Want [Deep Medi/Bandcamp]
Silkie – Beauty [Deep Medi/Bandcamp]
Silkie – Taxi Mi Get [Deep Medi/Bandcamp]
Silkie – Cascada [Anarchostar/Bandcamp]
Silkie – Leave It [Deep Medi/Bandcamp]
Dubstep has been important to Utility Fog for a long time too, and one of the greatest musicians in the dubstep sphere is undoubtedly Silkie, whose brings a lush jazz sensibility to his chord sequences and melodies, even at the most “core dubstep”, and easily slips into the jazz-funk stratosphere at times too. His 2015 album Fractals was the only one not released on the great Deep Medi (who released the great City Limits Volumes 1 & 2 and various 12″s as well) – it came out on Distal‘s Anarchostar and often leaves dubstep’s waters altogether for purple funk & fusion – but with Panorama and some 12″s preceding it, he’s back with Deep Medi for head-nods, skanks and delicious jazz soul.

Ai Yamamoto – Late morning – Remote learning and house chores, remote working (washing machine, vacuum cleaner, printing, typing, clicking, pencil, paper, cup, glass bottle) [Room40/Bandcamp]
Ai Yamamoto – Gigi’s lullaby (cat purr and melody with wine bottle) [Room40/Bandcamp]
Nobody could quite have pulled off the iso album with the same delicacy and panache as Melbourne-based Ai Yamamoto has with her Pan De Sonic – Iso, released on Room40’s Someone Good imprint this week. All the sounds come from field recordings taken in her family home during Melbourne’s marathon lockdown last year, and they mostly evoke a peaceful intimacy, and a creative spirit doing its very finest with what it’s been given. The source sounds are delightfully documented for each track, which Yamamoto adroitly maneuvres between direct reproduction and field recordings processed & arranged into rhythms and touching melodies. Despite the podcast excerpt at the very start, it’s not gimmicky at all, but rather a very human piece of life-as-art.

Listen again — ~210MB

Tonight we’re looking for the hidden & not-so-hidden connections between IDM, jungle, sound-art/electro-acoustic/musique concrète and contemporary classical music. Get ready for a journey.

LISTEN AGAIN to this sound-art-trip. Stream on demand @ FBi, podcast here.

Electric Company – Silver Egg 6/8 Mix of Kid 606 [Electric Company Bandcamp]
Electric Company – i shall choice my self [Tigerbeat6]
The Internal Tulips – 9 Tomorrows [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Electric Company – Indelicate (remix of Stars As Eyes) [Electric Company Bandcamp]
LA musician Brad Laner‘s work goes back to the ’80s with various experimental bands, but it’s his ’90s noise-pop/shoegaze band Medicine that he’s best known for in many circles. However, as a lover of all things IDM & glitch, I’ve always been particularly fond of Laner’s work as Electric Company, and I’ve been pleased to see all sorts of Electric Company material appearing on the Brad Laner Bandcamp over the last couple of years. Just this week, with joyful disregard for the schedules of Bandcamp Friday, Laner chucked up a selection of remixes, compilation tracks & rarities called 26 Mixes For Love (a delightful riposte to Aphex Twin), and I’ve enjoyed revisiting or discovering a bunch of crunchy beats, glitches and melodies from ages past. The Kid 606 remix that started the show comes from the 2000 album Kid 606 & Friends that also featured the first appearance of the legendary Hrvatski remix, as well as the work of Christoph de Babalon and others… As well as another remix from this compilation, I played a 2003 track from Electric Company’s it’s hard to be a baby, and something from Laner’s weird electronic pop collaborative project with Lexaunculpt called The Internal Tulips…

Accelera Deck – Viral Violet [Accelera Deck Bandcamp]
Speaking of US IDM, last year I featured some back catalogue work from Chris Jeely’s Accelera Deck, and noted that he’s started releasing some new beats. His work always fitted uncomfortably between the complex programming of jungle & IDM and the more abstract sounds of drone, noise & shoegaze. Jeely started 2021 with a new 2-tracker which continues the Accelera Deck story with not-quite-danceable fast beats and shimmering droney textures.

Christian Kleine – Touch & Fuse [A Strangely Isolated Place/Bandcamp]
Christian Kleine – Val 2 [A Strangely Isolated Place/Bandcamp]
bomb the bass / lali puna – clearcut amstel mix (remix: christian kleine) [Morr Music/Bandcamp]
bomb the bass / lali puna – clearcut [Morr Music/Bandcamp]
Another IDM-adjacent artist from the ’90s and ’00s, Christian Kleine was part of a German / European scene from the mid-’90s centred around Morr Music, City Centre Offices and such labels. A couple of years ago a collection of unreleased music from 1998-2001 appeared, but really he hasn’t stopped making music – with indie & shoegaze influences as well as the crunchy beats and delicate melodies. New album Touch & Fuse came out late last year on A Strangely Isolated Place, and it has a lot of the melodies and “soft-toughness” of his earlier work. I decided to play his remix from the 2001 single “Clearcut” by beloved indietronica band Lali Puna – the original was a collaboration with breakbeat don Bomb The Bass, but every remix on the EP is a gem! Still, the original very close to my heart, so I gave it a spin as well.
Notably, Morr Music legends The Notwist (who shared at least one member with the original Lali Puna) have an album coming out next Friday which you’ll be hearing right here…

Mindy Meng Wang x Tim Shiel – My Love Is Not What It Was嗔念 [Music In Exile/Bandcamp]
So I played a track from this EP last week on the show, not knowing when it would be released. It appears now that it’s out next Friday, which is great – so keep an eye on Music In Exile‘s social media or Mindy Meng Wang‘s Bandcamp. Four tracks created by Australian-Chinese guzheng player Mindy Meng Wang and Melbourne electronic musician Tim Shiel, with bass lines & breakbeats rubbing shoulders with bowed strings and the plucked tones of the guzheng. So great!

Know V.A. – Artefact (Sully Remix) [Sully Bandcamp]
Recently the Dutch duo Know V.A. released their Hibernation EP on the Knives label, run by Kuedo and designer Joe Shakespeare. The hard ravey sounds of the original were to be followed closely by a remix EP, which seems to have taken a little longer to surface – but courtesy of his own Bandcamp, we have a classical dark jungle fit-out by Sully now.

Lawrence English – Dual Process [Cajid/Room40/Bandcamp]
Late in November last year, Room40 boss Lawrence English decided to celebrate the 15th anniversary of his first solo album proper, Transit, by cleaning it up and remastering it for a re-release. It’s quite a revelation – not half-baked in any way at all. Already the music is embedded in field recordings, with a focus on sound-as-sound, and each piece is an engrossing audio picture – especially with the new sound.

Patrick Ascione – Enième (2004) [empreintes DIGITALes/electrocd]
Here’s some electro-acoustic music from the *ahem* serious side of things, the academy… French composer Patrick Ascione passed away in 2014 (tragically young, not much over 61), and this last album has only just seen the light of day. He was closely connected with IRCAM and Ina-GRM, and so it’s striking how much rhythm and humanity there is in his work – the vocal stabs and rhythmic structures in the 2004 work Enième could easily have been created by someone with a background in the club world.

Jos Smolders – (last track from Bagatellen, excerpt) [Esc.rec/Bandcamp]
OK, now we’re in proper abstract territory. Dutch sound-artist Jos Smolders is a mastering engineer, with a very keen ear, and a substantial proportion of the sound in the short tracks of Bagatellen album for Esc.rec is silence. But that makes the fragmented, half-erased vocal snatches and stumbling drones all the more striking. It’s inspired by visual art – specifically a xeroxed zine by Jeroen Diepenmaat which is reproduced with some versions of the cassette release. I particularly love the longform final track, over 12 minutes in length, of which we heard about the first half – but I do appreciate the slightly disturbing gaps that precede it!

Trondheim Voices – Chant for the Multipresence [Hubro/Bandcamp]
Trondheim Voices + Asle Karstad – Pulser [Grappa]
Trondheim Voices – Choral [Hubro/Bandcamp]
A bit over 2 years ago I played some music from the previous album of Trondheim Voices, collaborating with sound designer Asle Karstad who devised individual interfaces for looping & processing their voices as they perform. Now the great Norwegian label Hubro has released a new album, full title Folklore (traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people), which sees them performing compositions by two legendary Norwegian experimental musicians – Ståle Storløkken and Helge Sten (aka Deathprod), both members of the untouchable Supersilent. So it’s no surprise that the immaculate chorus of Trondheim Voices (featuring among others Storløkken’s wife Tone Åse) is at times supported or complicated by subtle electronic sound-sculpting – but in fact more surprising is that there’s so little. The beautiful compositions require the singers to engage in microtonal harmonies at times, and to chant & pulse as if expressing the synths & electronics of the composers. It’s a tour de force of vocal discipline.

Mandel – Mini Suite i [Bedroom Community/Bandcamp]
Emily Hall – mantra [Bedroom Community/Bandcamp]
Finally, British musician & composer Emily Hall teams up with fellow violinist & musical therapist Misha Law for a new project called Mandel, debuting with an EP of pieces composed through improvisation. The result is somewhere between folk music & classical musicm, and I look forward to hearing more. I loved Hall’s 2015 album for Bedroom Community, Folie Á Deux, which sets poetry by Icelandic poet & novelist Sjón to classical-electronic-pop arrangements featuring the extraordinary Swedish singer Sofia Jernberg, so we finish tonight’s show with the gorgeous “mantra” from that album.

Listen again — ~199MB

Tonight we’ve got future 2021 releases for Jan and later, new releases as of right now, and some more 2020 catching up, including a very important album remastered in 2020.

LISTEN AGAIN to a whole world of music… Stream on demand @ FBi, podcast here.

Wendra Hill – Historien om Brian [Playdate Records]
Wendra Hill – Det vakre ved laminat [Playdate Records]
Wendra Hill – Hammer´n i Tokyo [Playdate Records]
Previewing here some tracks from the phenomenal album Ungdomskilden (“the source of youth”) from Oslo/Bergen collective Wendra Hill out on the 28th of January. The core of Wendra Hill are two Oslo-based musicians, Jo David Meyer Lysne on guitars, turntable & electronics, and Joel Ring on bass, cello & electronics. They’re joined here by Bergen-based drummer Øyvind Hegg-Lunde, who has worked with many great Norwegian & Swedish artists including Building Instrument, Strings & Timpani, Erlend Apneseth and more. All three have fine credentials in experimental music, rock, jazz and even classical, and with Wendra Hill they create a playful form of what’s familiar to many as the Norwegian/Swedish arm of jazz and folk influenced postrock. Strangely decontextualised spoken samples are found throughout, there’s pitch-bending turntable weirdness, electronic beats, and live acoustic instrumentation. It’s akin to the approach of The Books for their first few albums, very much in its own way, and that’s as Utility Fog as you can get.

Mindy Meng Wang x Tim Shiel – Body of Water (What Is Love) 一线之间 [Music In Exile]
Excited to have received a promo of this wonderful collaboration well ahead of release – it’s coming out in “2021”, although hopefully real soon now? Mindy Meng Wang is a Chinese/Australian musician and expert guzheng player, who has been pioneering the meeting of East & West through the use of her instrument in contexts as wide as classical, jazz and electronic music for years – for a decade of which she’s been based in Australia. Late last year she released a beautiful improvisational EP on Melbourne’s Music In Exile, a label that’s centred around Australia’s many culturally diverse communities, and it’s that label that will release the Nervous Energy EP from Mindy Meng Wang and restless Melbourne producer, label head and radio bod Tim Shiel. MMW’s guzheng compositions and improvisations are chopped up and filtered into Shiel’s beats which, after a 4/4 opening, lean more towards jittery breakbeats. Through constant back-and-forth filesharing all throughout last year, the artists have created a hybrid music in which pentatonic scales are subverted in Western club-ready fashion and beats & basslines give way to lovely acoustic washes. It’s an exciting work of love & connectedness at a time when borders and societies have been closing up.

Kode9 – The Jackpot [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
First in a series of releases from Hyperdub boss Kode9, this is the best stuff I’ve heard from him in ages. The b-side was released first, a rainy piece of stuttery downtempo, but the a-side is all full of nervous energy, hybridizing jungle, footwork, computer game music and who knows what else.

San – Half In [Rua Sound]
“The jungle alias of a Bristol based techno producer” is all we’re told about this artist San on UK jungle/drum’n’bass label Rua Sound. It’s dark stuff, with dizzying, intricate beats just the way we like it.

Fnord – Hendecagon [People Can Listen]
Kothyus – Nubes Incandescentes [People Can Listen]
This great IDM comp from Belarusian label People Can Listen – their Ninth Listen – has a lot of nicely done rhythmic tracks, many with a drill’n’bass tendency, as well as some more ambient feels. From the Netherlands, Fnord aka Jeffrey Van Der Wielen brings double-time drums in a track which flickers between jazzy drum’n’bass and dub. And Chilean producer Kothyus offers skittery acid through crunchy, squished distortions.

3Phaz – Exploit [3Phaz]
3Phaz – Drill [3Phaz]
An interpretation of Mahraganat (aka electro-Shaabi), already an intense genre, with electronic styles like harddrum, footwork, jungle and techno, from Cairo-based musician 3Phaz, who I’ve heard on a few different compilations over last year (including do you mean: irish and This Is Cairo Not The Screamers). His album Three Phaze is fantastic, with a brilliant sense of rhythm, plenty of bass and electronic processing.

Praed – Stoned Crocodiles [Annihaya/Discrepant]
Praed – Embassy Of Embarassment [Akuphone/Bandcamp]
Raed Yassin – The Cyber Oracle [Akuphone/Bandcamp]
We heard some stunning sounds from Lebanese musician Raed Yassin last week. I’m playing another track from his album of repossessed ethnomusicological recordings, Archeophony, tonight, but we’re also hearing two tracks from his awesome psych/free-jazz/electronic duo with Paed Conca that naturally they call Praed. Again obviously an extension of Arabic Shaabi music, Praed also refer to the “Mouled” music played in religious trance ceremonies, which feeds wonderfully into the hypnotic nature of psych rock and techno. Along with the endless grooves, Conca’s unchained clarinet playing is a frequent pleasure in these tracks too.

the empty sleeps – panthers (Tim Koch remix) [the empty sleeps Bandcamp]
the empty sleeps – panthers (dental jams / ezroh remix) [the empty sleeps Bandcamp]
Adelaide’s Nic Datson (once aka The Backfeed Slumber, who we heard in December last year on the show) and Tristan Hennig team up for some shoegaze/dream pop as the empty sleeps, and their latest single has a bunch of remixes attached from fellow Radelaidians. IDM hero Tim Koch chops things up into a delightful glitchfest, while hip-hop producer ezroh teams up with Manila-born dental jams for some even more intense overdriven glitch.

Kcin – Distance From The Sea Of Sorrow (feat. Elizabeth Fader) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
The proper debut album from Sydney’s Nicholas Meredith aka Kcin is fast approaching now – due in March – and here’s the latest single. It features Elizabeth Fader (in whose band Meredith plays), but lest you think it’s pop in any way, Fader’s vocals are whispered over relentless 4/4 techno kicks and surging noise, just the way Kcin likes to sound.

Volunteer Coroner – A Token Saved From A Previous Life [Eastern Nurseries/Bandcamp]
Volunteer Coroner – Unkempt Memorial [Eastern Nurseries/Bandcamp]
Prolific Denver artist Preston Weippert has many aliases, but Volunteer Coroner is one of his more common (he also runs Colorado label Trust Collective). He’s new to me but I’m very glad to be introduced through the adventurous, super-tuned-in Portuguese label Eastern Nurseries. Across these tracks the delicate drones and melodies (already melancholy or ominous) are subsumed in static, even when accompanied by subtle drum machine beats.

Ben Peers – mátiqa [Elli Records/Bandcamp]
I really enjoyed the lockdown EP Eight Variations from UK algorithmic musician Ben Peers on Elli Records last year, and this new one does not disappoint. Titled auto-mátiqa, it contains four tracks produced from the same hardware setup and Max/MSP patches, performed live. But unlike last year’s variations, which were clearly études from the same source, these tracks have much more breadth. “mátiqa” happily floats along on its melodic synth motif for almost 3 minutes before it’s joined by bass drops, clicky beats and wonderful swoops of melodic fragments. Like the best electronic music, it’s evocative of alien landscapes, sand dunes under unfamiliar constellations…

Coil – The Dreamer Is Still Asleep [Chalice/Dais Records/Bandcamp]
Never letting an opportunity go past to play something from an album as glorious as Coil‘s Music to Play in the Dark, I’m very glad that after years out of print, it’s now been masterfully remastered by Josh Bonati, and released on CD and vinyl by Dais Records. Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and John/Jhonn Balance were monumentally important figures in industrial music, alongside the other members of Throbbing Gristle, of which Christopherson was a founding member, and their music as Coil combined English folk mysticism with queer themes and cutting-edge electronics. By the late ’90s their music had moved through Nine Inch Nails collaborations and ambient & glitch explorations, and they were ready for these two extraordinary revelations, working with Drew McDowall & Thighpaulsandra to create sumptuous, mystery-laden songs with acoustic instrumentation alongside the electronics. While both Sleazy Pete & Jhonn Balance have now passed away, and there is in some ways a glut of Coil rarities cash-ins (as ever), MacDowall & Thighpaulsandra oversaw this new release and it beautifully showcases this extraordinary music. Hopefully the equally great Music to Play in the Dark² will follow soon.

Listen again — ~203MB

Here we are in 2021, and things are weird. But then, it’s a weird ol’ world! So here’s some weird ol’ music for it.

LISTEN AGAIN before you gotta keep up! Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here.

downy – adaptation [Rhenium Records/Bandcamp]
downy – 酩酊フリーク (Meitei Furi) [Felicity]
downy – 時雨前 (Before Shiguremae) Taigen Kawabe remix [Felicity]
downy – 角砂糖 (Sugar Cube) [Rhenium Records/Bandcamp]
I’ve been a fan of the uncategorisable Japanese band (a common refrain!) downy for some time, but I think the way I discovered them and eventually sourced their back catalogue on CD meant that I haven’t played them here before. They have roots in a kind of angular hardcore, but are also quite postrock/math rock, and have increasingly incorporated electronic elements into their music – especially after they reformed in 2013 after a long break. In 2014 they released a remix album, from which we heard a track reworked by Bo Ningen‘s Taigen Kawabe. Singer Robin Aoki sounds strangely like Thom Yorke, and sometimes sings in English, but often evoking a strange sensation of hearing English but not understanding it. His brother Yutaka Aoki, the band’s guitarist, tragically passed away 2 years ago from cancer. In 2020 they released their 7th album (as usual named 無題, i.e. “Untitled”), with a familiar mix of interlocking riffs, punk-funk basslines, weird rhythmic samples and textural elements.

vvhy – Interstellar Sync [The Collection Artaud/Bandcamp]
The latest release on Berlin-based Yu Miyashita (aka Yaporigami)’s label The Collection Artaud is in some ways the usual idm-influenced jittery electronic music, but it also incorporates vocals. With little info to go on, I’m assuming vvhy is a female Japanese producer – or it could be a duo. Both tracks are really nice anyway.

deftones – RX Queen (Salva remix) [Reprise Records]
deftones – Pink Maggit (Squarepusher remix) [Reprise Records]
Who would’ve thought that I’d be playing the deftones on Utility Fog? Not me, but then again they’re actually great. Still, with the 20th anniversary of their excellent White Pony album comes a remix album, Black Stallion. Apparently back in the day they’d wanted DJ Shadow to remix the whole thing, but if never came to pass. Shadow is indeed on here, along with artists old & new – it’s great to see Clams Casino turn up, noisemeister Blanck Mass, and major deftones influence and self-remixer Robert Smith of The Cure. But I found Paul Salva Jr’s remix one of the standouts, with heavy beats and all sounds majorly messed with. And then there’s ol’ buddy Squarepusher, remixing my favourite track. At first it’s like, is this a remix at all? And then the vocals are glitched and then everything stutters for a while, and we get some fine Jenkinsonian drill’n’bassism, followed by nearly 3 minutes of blissed outro. This is good, very good.

Skeletons – THE EDGE [Shinkoyo]
Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities – Hay W’Happns? [Ghostly International/Skeletons Bandcamp]
Skeletons – L’il Rich [Shinkoyo/Crammed]
Uumans – When U Coming Out? [Shinkoyo/Uumans Bandcamp]
Skeletons – World Famous Original [Shinkoyo]
It’s lovely to welcome back Skeletons to Utility Fog’s playlists. Mostly the work of Matt Mehlan, it’s a project that’s morphed over the years in various ways, sometimes as Skeletons & the Girl-Faced Boys, or Skeletons and the Kings of All Cities – but always around weird, epic, ramshackle songwriting from Mehlan, with arrangements ranging from freak folk and indie to quite electronic, especially with the fantastic side project Uumans around 2014. There was a Skeletons album in 2016, and a soloish Mehlan album recently too, but then in late 2020 came If The Cat Come Back, in which Mehlan weaves strange songs around the homemade instruments of Shinkoyo-label associate Peter Blasser, particular the Shtar, an electronically-augmented Persian tar. Hence the strange tunings – it’s based around a 17-tone equal temperament scale, which makes for awkward listening at times, but Skeletons have never been ones for compromise. There’s a lot of brilliance all through the back catalogue!

Alister Spence Trio with Ed Kuepper – And Set the Sun [Alister Spence Bandcamp]
Alister Spence Trio with Ed Kuepper – Not a Leaf in Any Forest [Alister Spence Bandcamp]
Such an interesting combination here – Alister Spence Trio features not just the great jazz pianist Spence but also fantastic drummer Toby Hall and the one & only Lloyd Swanton (The Necks) on bass. Hearing them team up with Ed Kuepper on guitar is not as surprising as it might seem – Kuepper’s career has spanned punk, post-punk and indie rock, but there’s been a lot of jazz throughout, whether the raucous energy of the Laughing Clowns or the expansiveness of a lot of his solo work (sometimes joined by The Necks’ Chris Abrahams). The music on this new double CD Asteroid Ekosystem has the melodic magic of Spence’s writing, some great basslines, and drones and riffs. It melds together in a very satisfying way.

Candlesnuffer – Opal Walls, Pumice Chin [Room40/Bandcamp]
David Brown is an essential member of Melbourne’s experimental scene, whether under his own name in various combinations, or in his unique guitar mangling as Candlesnuffer. This recent album Eggs from a Varnished Chest on Room40 was recorded with Melbourne producer Myles Mumford, whose touch can heard throughout, but still the solo sounds coaxed and layered from his guitar are quite astounding across the various tracks on this release.

Gregory Paul Mineeff – On Beginnings [Cosmicleaf Records]
2020 was a big year for Wollongong pianist Gregory Paul Mineeff, with an album of synth & tape manipulations and various singles of post-classical piano and electronics. He finished the year with this single track, “On Beginnings”, very pretty musings on where he’s gotten to, and promises another electronic album soon I believe.

Mondrian Forgery – The Wind And The Noise [4-4-2 Music]
Mondrian Forgery – That Dream Celebration In Your Eyes [4-4-2 Music]
This cheeky music is the second from the artist calling himself Mondrian Forgery – actually the very real visual artist Adrian Elmer, also boss of 4-4-2 Music and a core member of the great Sydney indie/folktronica band Telafonica. As Mondrian Forgery he joyfully plunders a century of jazz music – previously into 4/4 house patterns, but here it’s hip-hop, from old school trip-hop to more contemporary-sounding skittery 808 beats. On the first track tonight Chet Baker bumps up against Public Enemy & Anthrax, while the second has a stack of samples including Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Madlib and more.

Muqata’a – Dirasat ‘Ulya دِراسات عُليا [Hundebiss Records/Muqata’a Bandcamp]
Palestinian producer Muqata’a is part of the Ramallah Underground Collective and member of the multimedia group Tashweesh, and his beats are fantastic glitchy concoctions of Arabic samples and electronics. His new album Kamil Manqus is coming out in February on Italian label Hundebiss, including a limited vinyl edition, and uses the voices of his ancestors through the Arabic alchemical science of Simya’. The title hints at the idea of perfection through imperfection. Can’t wait for the rest of the tracks!

3Phaz – babababababawar [Nashazphone/Bandcamp]
From December 2020, Egyptian label Nashazphone released a fantastic, noisy compilation called This is Cairo Not The Screamers in which the cream of Cairo electronic musicians (There’s Nadah El-Shazly! And ZULI!) remix Egyptian Shaabi tracks in full-on fashion. It’s really great – here I’m showcasing 3Phaz, who I’ve encountered on a few compilations – heavy, crunchy bass overdrive.

Raed Yassin – The Cyber Oracle [Akuphone/Bandcamp]
In strangely similar fashion, here’s the Raed Yassin, a key figure in the Lebanese musical underground, creating new music from old on his album Archeophony. Here the source material is old ethnomusicology recordings made by Westerners between the ’50s and ’80s, a sincere but colonialist endeavour divorcing the music from its cultural setting, and its creators from their own work… Yassin is in a way reclaiming this music, albeit while further anonymising the source material, and adding his own performances on top on double bass, zither, synths and turntables. It’s hallucinatory, noisy at times, and beautiful.

Listen again — ~209MB