Challenging minimal pop, experimental beats, eclectic improv tonight…
Take up the challenge by LISTENING AGAIN, via on-demand streaming at FBi’s website, or podcasting here.
Richard Youngs – Modern Sorrow [Black Truffle]
When the show was broadcast, an uploading error of mine meant that most of this track was missed. Luckily on the stream-on-demand and podcast you can hear it from the start (or just go to Bandcamp and grab it!) Richard Youngs is a legend of UK experimental music, active since the beginning of the 1990s both solo and in many collaborations (notably with Simon Wickham-Smith) making very challenging experimental sound. But Youngs also has an extraordinary voice, strong & emotive, that featured on a string of brilliant albums for Jagjaguwar – anything from raw a capellas to incredibly stripped-down folk and weird effects. He’s also done weird takes on electro-pop, with smashed, scattered drum programming that deliberately doesn’t line up with the vocals. And that’s just a small glimpse (the man is prolific!), to give some context for this remarkable release on Oren Ambarchi’s Black Truffle label. The title track of “Modern Sorrow” is 17 minutes of what might either be pure agony or pure bliss – for me it’s certainly bliss. A stripped-down pattern begins, with a snatch of piano and a tiny blurt of voice, before a drum machine rhythm joins, and a good while in, we get the… “song”… The slow-moving chord pattern has already been established, and now Youngs’ voice warbles quasi-melodically with intense auto-tune effects, utterly artificial and yet strangely moving. The coda is stripped back to where we were at the beginning, again patiently carrying on for about as long as you can bear. It’s pure Youngs, gorgeous and grotesque.
Chewlie – Flood Me [BRUK]
Berlin-based BRUK gives very little away on its mostly-unused social media let alone on Bandcamp. I’m told it’s one of the labels that Low End Activist has a hand in (in fact it’s right there on his Discogs page), and that’s a stamp of quality given Sneaker Social Club and his own multifarious productions. It’s also no surprise that BRUK is also focused on soundsystem music, albeit mixed in with a little more cerebral sound-design tendencies. Latest from the label is an EP from Swiss artist Chewlie, aka Julia Häller, who’s been active for only the last couple of years. Her Diagon EP moves through bass music of various BPMs, with attention to sculping the atmosphere as well as the beats. Her earlier EP from this year can be found on Czech label YUKU.
On Man – Worse Than It Seems feat. Tailor (Ana Quiroga Remix) [Houndstooth/Bandcamp]
On Man – Squares and Triangles feat. F-M-M-F (Katie Gately Remix) [Houndstooth/Bandcamp]
Last year’s self-titled album from On Man was one of the most “pop” directions the Houndstooth label has taken, albeit resolutely “left-field”, as the label puts it. But if some of the production there wasn’t enough, the artist & label have assembled a phenomenal cast of artists to remix the album, including UFog faves Wordcolour, The Bug, Joe Rainey & Andrew Broder(!) and more. The now London-based Ana Quiroga‘s deceptively straight remix stood out before I realised she was one half of Spanish duo LCC, who had some fantastic released on Editions Mego some years ago. Her remix starts off with a simple beat and Tailor‘s original vocal, but then we’re treated to a beatless soundscape with reversed vocal abstractions, and a lovely cathartic return to the song to close. Meanwhile, Katie Gately preserves London rapper F-M-M-F’s vocals but in her idiosyncratic way constructs an entire new song from On Man’s building blocks, singing her own lyrics and layering & chopping like only she can do.
Boofy – Boomer Technology [Boofy Bandcamp]
Bristol dubstep mainstay Boofy has run or co-run the Sector 7 label for about a decade, but has released solo tracks separately in recent times. His Bandcamp holds mostly single tracks, two from 2021 and two from 2022, but his latest single comes with a remix by New Zealand’s Epoch. It’s a 140bpm track that crosses dubstep with 4/4 music, sampling a discussion about the problems with big tech.
Peverelist – Pulse III [Livity Sound/Bandcamp]
Speaking of Bristol, dubstep-hybridisation pioneer Peverelist hasn’t had a solo release for over 5 years, and returns to his own Livity Sound to mark their 60th release with the Pulse EP. None of this is dubstep, but that was to be expected. It’s four variants on 4/4 bass music. I particularly liked the forward momentum from the hi-hats on “Pulse III”, which is nothing like jungle but has that nice interaction between the drums and the bass yo.
ShrapKnel ft. billy woods – Mescalito Remix (prod. by DJ Haram) [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
billy woods‘ Backwoodz Studioz would be a legendary underground hip-hop label purely for his music & that of his duo Armand Hammer with ELUCID, but in fact it hardly ever falters in quality. Their new High Bias compilation showcases their talents with a selection of unreleased tracks and alternate versions from many of their key artists. ShrapKnel – the duo of Curly Castro & PremRock – is a case in point in terms of quality, but how about we add billy woods himself into the equation, and then hand it over to DJ Haram on the version? DJ Haram released an incredible album last year from her duo 700 Bliss with Moor Mother, and is in fine flight here, with creepy hip-hop beats shifting in & out of clattering amen breaks.
nickname & Tim Shiel – Druidz [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Heading to Naarm/Melbourne now on our jungle quest. Young producer nickname released a couple of great EPs last year mixing up genres with bass & breaks and syncopation galore. This single track “Druidz” is possibly the furthest into jungle that the good Mr Shiel has headed, but it’s equally sweet on those jungle-techno 4/4 kicks. Whatever it is, it’s a whole lot of fun.
BAMBII – One Touch [BAMBII Bandcamp]
Toronto DJ BAMBII is joyously gregarious in the sounds she pulls together for her DJ sets, and for her own music. She wrote a fantastic essay for Dazed last year on her experiences becoming a DJ – and a successful DJ – within scenes that marginalised blackness and queerness despite the obvious roots of the music. Her own Jamaican roots inform her music as much as footwork, r’n’b, techno and the like – and reggae & dub are fused into jungle on her latest single, “One Touch“, with sampled and pitch-shifted vocals and tasty breaks.
DJ Sofa – Ready Set Go [Future Retro]
Kia Súmen aka Finnish producer DJ Sofa, also offers some reggae-infused jungle on her single-artist 12″ for Tim Reaper’s Future Retro, featuring hardcore-leaning sounds as well as jungle, and a remix from breakcore veteran Pete Dev/Null.
Foxconn Suicide – Advena [A Flooded Need]
Italian experimental/industrial label A Flooded Need introduce us to Italian duo Foxconn Suicide, who have jungle beats creeping into their cut-up, disorienting industrial sound. Their self-titled EP (not heard tonight) is a bit more explicit in the jungle aspects on a couple of tracks – both releases are recommended.
µ-Ziq – Mesolithic Jungle [Balmat/Bandcamp]
µ-Ziq – Asda [Balmat/Bandcamp]
After a huge year for Mike Paradinas last year, here’s ANOTHER new album from him, this time straying from his own Planet µ to the relatively new Barcelona-based Balmat, an imprint of Lapsus run by Lapsus founder Albert Salinas and prolific & influential music writer Philip Sherburne. This album is wildly different from the drill’n’bass/idm/jungle nostalgia/renewal of 2022. 1977 suggests a more distant nostalgic focus, although Paradinas turned 6 in 1977, so I’m not entirely sure of the significance. But by mostly abandoning beats, Paradinas is content to salt the melodic ambient bliss with an oft-abrasive miasma – distorted drones, out-of-focus detuned pads, crunching beats, all reminiscent of his beloved early years. Even the breaks of “Mesolithic Jungle” are distorted and half-buried. And it couldn’t be more µ–Ziq – celebrate!
Nondi_ – Nondi Shadow [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Nondi_ – Healing Rain [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Tatiana Triplin, once Yakui, now Nondi_, runs the netlabel HRR, which is in fact immediately intriguing. Who runs a netlabel these days? I mean, the point being, everybody does. Sure, some still do physical releases, but there are so many Bandcamp labels. Following this, HRR continues to intrigue by focusing on Web Folk, Nightcore and Dubst, absolutely made-up genres but they all make absolute sense – and they do make sense when listening to Nondi_’s debut album on Planet µ, Flood City Trax. There’s a dusty dub feel to these sounds, a late-night feel, and it’s utterly online. “Flood City” provides more context: Triplin lives in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, one of those cities built by capitalism and then abandoned by capitalism to poverty, and it’s a place that’s prone to floods and never quite recovered from its big ones. The Wikipedia page points at more recent cultural initiatives, but Triplin’s description of her hometown suggests decay and despondency. Her music is dusty and decayed, dance music styles like footwork and breakcore heard through tinny speakers and iPhone ear buds at low bitrates, and filtered through with beauty and yearning. It’s wonderful to hear her on Planet µ, and very interesting hearing her approach alongside Mike Paradinas’ own mulched beats.
Tim Koch – Drungums [DataDoor/Bandcamp]
The Tourbillon EP was first released on CPU Records back in 2021 by Adelaide IDM impressario Tim Koch (I just put “impressario” there because it sounded good, but Tim is very impressive). The restless fellow has now made an extended (“étendue” en français) version on his own DataDoor label, adding three similar crunchy electronic tracks and extending all four originals too. The music here has a long-limbed organicness to it, recognizable as IDM evolved. “Drungums” particularly suited the theme of distorted buried beats preceding it.
Tim Hecker – Total Garbage [kranky/Bandcamp]
Tim Hecker – Sense Suppression [kranky/Bandcamp]
In the time since 2018’s Konoyo and its 2019 sequel Anoyo, Canada’s king of glitchdrone Tim Hecker has had two scores released – for the TV show The North Water starring Colin Farrell, and for the film Infinity Pool by Brandon Cronenberg. Now No Highs brings him back to music-for-music’s-sake, with an album that mostly cleaves to its promise of, well, no highs. It’s anti-feelgood music, anti-euphoric, frequently creepy and anxious, making good use of (fellow soundtrack composer) Colin Stetson’s otherworldly sax tones as well as pulsating synths and gurgling granular processing. It’s not that this music in any way wallows in self-pity and sadness, but rather that it refuses to provide (false) comfort or soothe nerves.
MultiTraction Orchestra – Reactor One, Part I [Superpang/Bandcamp]
MultiTraction Orchestra – Reactor One, Part V [Superpang/Bandcamp]
The prolific Rome-based label Superpang‘s 154th release since its formation in 2020 as a kind of response to the coronavirus pandemic comes from a lockdown ensemble. Formed by Kraków-based guitarist & producer Alex Roth also originally in 2020, the elastic lineup features, on debut album Reactor One, many members of the improv scene in his previous hometown of London, as well as Sweden-based Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen. Henriksen’s bewitching trumpet graces two tracks, including Part I, and the cello of Kate Ellis (heard throughout 2021 in collaboration with Laura Cannell) grounds all but one. Despite being collaged from remote recordings, the pieces were composed together, with Roth at the centre, and exhibit the intuitive interactiveness of experienced improvisers. Post-jazz indeed!
James Holden – Four Ways Down The Valley [Border Community Records/Bandcamp]
10 years ago, James Holden released his shockingly good second album The Inheritors, which took the dancefloor-filling techno that he was known for, and transmuted it into something organic, mulchy, craggy, natural. The just-released Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities shares a lot with that album, while also having kinship with the intervening album The Animal Spirits‘s strange folk feeling. It’s described in the label copy as a kind of pastoral rave album, and there are indeed many references to rave & techno, despite it being neither. It’s certainly a journey, strange and joyous.
haddocks’ eyes – miasma [haddocks’ eyes Bandcamp]
haddocks’ eyes – dumb as a picture [haddocks’ eyes Bandcamp]
Some years ago, I was introduced to the music of Sydney-based (ex-Adelaide) musician Benjow aka Douglas MacKay, member of cult band The Bedridden during the ’90s, through the strange, anonymous sound of Haddocks’ Eyes. Much of the material was written with Dave Wiffler and Baterz of The Bedridden, some even before that band existed, and songs from that period have been reworked & repurposed multiple times through the cycle of Haddocks’ Eyes’ quasi-existence. To me these sounds were exciting because of the way they combined guitar-based indie songwriting with electronic effects, but also because there were some incredibly touching songs. Versions came and went as MacKay struggled with his mental health, but to my knowledge Benjow finds himself in a much better place these days, and the “new” release mute with fury (2015-2023) works as a kind of clearinghouse of old works – many of which I actually have because he snuck them out track-by-track on his Bandcamp. And many of the works actually date from much earlier, including “miasma” here, and songs like “twenty two” and “dumb as a picture”, which probably date back to the ’90s. Here, MacKay uses the beautifully affecting, alienating device of pitch-shifting the vocals to both commemorate and undermine these fragile songs about depression and self-alienation. With these songs (re-)released, I hope there’ll be new songs to share soon!
Mücha – Spectral Interference [Frequency Domain/Bandcamp]
Amanda Butterworth’s 2021 album Fall was a striking introduction to her work as Mücha, shoegazey songs embedded in IDM/jungle/techno beats. This year the Frequency Domain label is releasing two albums from Mücha, the first of which is Hello Caller, out now. There was a minimalist aesthetic to Fall, despite the business of the beats, and that’s deepened here with the pallette of one vocal loop and one piano loop along with some standard electronic devices (sub bass drops, crickety beats) and plenty of processing. Each song iterates through these elements in different ways, from ambient to minimal techno to jittery IDM, and the wonderful glitchy, slow-fast dub of “Spectral Interference” – not a million miles from the hard-chopped backing that Richard Youngs gave himself at the start of the show.
Penelope Trappes – The Bitterness Of Parting [Nite Hive/Bandcamp]
Penelope Trappes – Entangled [Nite Hive/Bandcamp]
Australian musician Penelope Trappes released three self-titled albums since being based in London, the first through JD Twitch’s eclectic Optimo Music, and the following ones through the forward-looking Houndstooth. But the idea of her own label, run by women for women and non-gender-conforming artists, is one that I believe has been on the burner for a while now, and thus Nite Hive is inaugurated with Trappes’ new album Heavenly Spheres. The trilogy of Penelope albums already established a practice of ethereal songwriting with ambient backings and beats, and 2021’s Mother’s Blood Edition further stripped back those songs, dissolving and suspending the original works, removing the lyrical content and any vestiges of rhythmic backing. Heavenly Spheres takes a similar aesthetic into a new realm, creating music with just an upright piano and a reel to reel tape machine supporting her voice. The tape is used as a substrate for beds of noise and sound manipulation, saturating and distorting the material in the fashion of Ian William Craig. This is a beautiful progression for Trappes, and a great start for her label, which will soon feature releases from Patricia Wolf, Pefkin, Karen Vogt, and Madeliene Cocolas.
Listen again — ~201MB
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