Warped, theory-laden hip-hop, industrial sounds a’plenty, electronic pop, jungle and dubstep, glitched folk from black-metal, African ragga and IDM tonight.
LISTEN AGAIN and your head will explode (in a good way). Podcast here, stream on demand @ FBi.
MSRMNT – Substance is Subject [MSRMNT Bandcamp]
MSRMNT – Fantasy [MSRMNT Bandcamp]
Starting tonight with something unique. You could call this industrial hip-hop, but we can’t ignore that the lyrics are drawing on some pretty high-concept theory, from Hegelian dialectics to Marxist politics to Lacanian psychoanalysis. This is all done, mind you, with sardonic humour, with entertaining spoken word samples, and Australian-accented rapping alongside noisy, ramshackle beats made from hardware and homemade found-sound samples. The closest thing I can think of is Curse ov Dialect, but MSRMNT comes in on a different tangent of his own. It’s a pseudonym of a member of a well-loved Aussie indie rock band, but that’s all I’m sayin’.
Terrificus – Tylex’s Decadent Sitcom [self-released]
Shaggy and Tyler are Terrificus, making industrial garage, as they call it, out of Eora/Sydney. It’s insane in the best way, especially when they take to the stage, but during lockdown Tyler took it upon himself to learn production in his garage. Both members have been active in the Sydney scene for a while – you can find Shaggy around Utopia Records, and both are part of Face Command as well as MC Filth Wizard. The more aliases the better, the more insanity the better!
Penny – Crucial [Thanatosis/Bandcamp]
“Crucial” is the debut single of Stockholm-based Penny Elvira LoftĂ©en, once a child actress, who co-produced this song with fellow Swede Anton Toorell with extra synth from busy experimental musician Alex Zethson, who also runs the Thanatosis label. The glitchy vocals and throbbing bass express the idea of “crucial” words from someone to bring a person back from a paralysing state of anxiety.
Aphir – Pomegranate Tree [Provenance Records/Bandcamp]
Aphir – Equinox [Provenance Records/Bandcamp]
The new album from Becki Whitton’s Aphir is more long-awaited than it may seem. Although Whitton released a collection of improvised, processed vocals last year called Plastichoir, and the wonderful album Republic of Paradise in 2020, the latter album actually replaced the original release of Pomegranate Tree, which Whitton considered at the time not to reflect the strange feeling of that early pandemic time. The album has thus spent three years being overhauled and has benefited for Whitton’s epic vocal experimentation which resulted in Plastichoir, as well as her ever-growing experience mixing and mastering work of her musician colleagues. Whitton draws from the choral masses of 17th century composer William Byrd, a connection between her current songwriting and the church experiences of her youth. The album is about her eventual loss of faith, the resulting disconnection from the community around her Christian church – and the continued need for connection and community.
Jessica O’Donoghue – Awakening [Art As Catharsis/Bandcamp]
Jessica O’Donoghue – Good Grief [Art As Catharsis/Bandcamp]
We follow immediately with another powerful album from an Australian woman, Jessica O’Donoghue. The classically-trained O’Donoghue combines moving folk songs, drones, electronic beats, string arrangements and transcendent vocals to tell stories of female resilience, from the legendary to the very personal. The album captures her unique talents, with help from the brilliant creative (and family) partnership of Alyx Dennison and David Trumpmanis.
Liturgy – संसार [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Hunter Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix has often been a controversial figure in black metal, with her band Liturgy not just straying from whatever “real black metal” should be, but often doing so in a structured way that Hunt-Hendrix theorised and proselytised about in essays. At this point, nobody expects a Liturgy album to be anything except whatever complex vision Hunt-Hendrix has, often influenced by her theological studies, and musically drawing from classical composition, folk, and glitchy production techniques. Liturgy have just announced double album 93696 to be released in March 2023 – quite a long wait! In the meantime, the 15-minute title track has been released on a new EP As the Blood of God Bursts the Veins of Time, split into three continuous tracks but also accompanied by the highly contrasting “संसार” (“world” in Hindi), in which acoustic guitar and kind-of clean vocals meet stuttering digital edits.
Senyawa, Lawrence English, Aviva Endean, Peter Knight, Helen Svoboda, Joe Talia – Perjamuan (The Supper) [Room40/Bandcamp]
Collaborative work is the bread & butter, the soul of what Indonesian metal duo Senyawa do. Wukir Suryadi constantly creates bizarre instruments to make industrial noises with, while Rully Shabara has a highly powerful, instantly recognizable voice in any context. Last year, with the pandemic doggedly refusing to go away, Room40‘s Lawrence English, in Brisbane, was discussing the regional effects of the pandemic with Melbourne sound-artist & trumpeter Peter Knight. They reached out to Rully and Wukir and started exchanging recordings. Along with various other Australian-based musicians – clarinettist Aviva Endean (also on harmonic flute), double bassist Helen Svoboda (also contributing vocals), and drummer Joe Talia – they made music via a kind of deconstructed improvisation. Knight also manipulated sounds on a Revox tape machine, and English played organ as well as corralling the sounds into completed pieces. What results is an often dark and foreboding work, but also quite moving; different from whatever a “normal” Senyawa recording might be, and different from the individual work of any of the artists.
clipping. and Speaker Music – Say the Name [_] Something Underneath (Speaker Music – Longsuffering Remix) [Sub Pop/Bandcamp]
clipping. and Stazma – Say The Name (Stazma‘s Driller Bees Remix) [Sub Pop/Bandcamp]
And clipping.‘s REMXNG onslaught continues, with 2.3 out of four parts released this week. DeForrest Brown, Jr’s Speaker Music chops up Daveed Diggs’ voice because this is clearly irresistable, along with his scattershot drum machine beats. And French breakcore producer Stazma aka The Junglechrist aka Repeater Eater brings not just jungle breaks but guitar riffs to the table with his version of the much-remixed “Say The Name”.
Djinn – Tempest [RuptureLDN/Bandcamp]
Appropriately enough for a tour of the solar system, London drum’n’bass label Rupture‘s “Planets” series has taken a while to get to the big gas giants, but this week both Saturn and Jupiter are covered. Each 12″ is a mini-compilation, with some artists taking more directly to the planetary theme than others. Manchester’s Djinn references the storm that powers Jupiter’s Great Red Spot with her absolutely storming track “Tempest”.
Alan Johnson – Stillness [Sneaker Social Club]
Tom Neilan and Gareth Kirby adopted the very normcore name “Alan Johnson” to release bass-heavy music sporadically over the last 9 or 10 years. Their latest EP Stillness comes courtesy of Sneaker Social Club, sitting somewhere around dubstep-land, and the title track makes use of the legendary Poem by Count Ossie from 1972, while muscular beats drop in & out across its 5 minutes.
Hippoflip – Assif [FKOF/Bandcamp]
French producer Hippoflip turns in only his second release via FKOF (Fat Kid On Fire), a digital EP that leans nicely on the “dub” aspect of dubstep.
Commodo – Widebody [Mysterious Trax]
Commodo – cclarity [Mysterious Trax]
After the brilliant Deft 1s for Black Acre earlier this year, Commodo inaugurates his new Mysterious Trax imprint with an EP that follows suit with a collection of tracks that owe clear allegiance to his dubstep/grime roots, but are built from postpunk bass guitar riffs and weird jazz-inflected stabs. For the last few years Commodo has been following a path all his own, taking UK bass into strange noir TV soundtrack lands – you’re missing out if you’re not following.
Second. – Rasuba [TemeT Music/Bandcamp]
More French bass music next, from Simo Cell‘s TemeT Music. The Rasuba EP is the first solo work from Victor Paud as Second., better known as one half of techno duo Society of Silence. Much like the label boss, Second. is not tethered to any particular tempo or genre except for bass and infectious rhythm. There’s a bit of IDM in there and some ambient textures along with syncopated beats, all very fun.
SLIKBACK X SWORDMAN – 22GAZA [Slikback Bandcamp]
The latest drop from Kenya’s Slikback on his Bandcamp finds him joining with Ugandan dancehall-influenced master rapper Swordman Kitala, showing how versatile Slikback is – always an experimental edge, but always with hard-hitting rhythms, comfortably supporting Swordman here, who himself works comfortably with pretty experimental beats much of the time.
Clark – Re-Scar Kiln [Warp/Bandcamp]
Clark – Herzog [Warp/Bandcamp]
There was a time when Clark was a youngster playing in the venerable Warp stable – when he joined as Chris Clark around 2001 with some early albums that showed bright talent combining Aphex-style quasi-classical piano and, well, Aphex-style melodic IDM. But in 2006 Clark came out with the extraordinary Body Riddle, certainly still IDM but with incredibly organic, physical-feeling drums and chiming melodies that seemed like electronic music come to life. Around that time, there were a series of surrounding releases, including 3″ CDs, EPs and download tracks, and some of that material is now compiled on 05-10, along with some unreleased contemporaneous material – also released with the remastered original album as Body Double. “Re-Scar Kiln” comes from the 3″ Throttle Furniture, the point at which Clark lost the “Chris” and became mononymic. There’s some great stuff among the extra material, although none of it quite reaches the genius of Body Riddle.
Tim Koch – Nocturne [CPU Records]
Tim Koch – Vowelstwo [CPU Records]
Adelaide’s own Tim Koch has been on the IDM tip since before young Chris Clark – his excellent Isolated Rhythm Chock came out in 1999. Out on Sheffield’s Central Processing Unit in a couple of weeks is his latest IDM release – as meanwhile he’s stretched into granular ambient, electronic shoegaze, glitched folktronica and more. On Volplaning the melodies are sweet and the beats are crunchy, and all is well in the world.
Listen again — ~204MB
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