Utility Fog

Many crunchy, glitchy sounds tonight, voices submerged in beds of audio soup, folktronica, post-classicism and uneasy ambient.

LISTEN AGAIN and experience the glory. Stream on demand via FBi, podcast here.

Richie Culver – Swollen ft. billy woods [Participant/Bandcamp]
Richie Culver – Say 4 sure [Participant/Bandcamp]
Conceptual artist & poet Richie Culver collaborated with Blackhaine in 2021 on a provocative pair of tracks before releasing his autobiographical album of spoken word and heavy electronics, I was born by the sea in late 2022. This year we’ve heard an incredible remix collection from that album, as well as a harrowing piece about sleep paralysis for Drowned By Locals (with its own remixes), and he now rounds out the year with another full length album, Scream If You Don’t Exist. Again his spoken word is centred, but often swamped by industrial drones and sometimes crunching beats. The connection with underground hip-hop is made explicit here with guest spots from billy woods, Moor Mother and MOBBS, who contribute further to the oppressive atmosphere. I don’t exist, but I must scream.

BAYANG (tha Bushranger) – Bioluminescent [Prod. Ryan Fennis] [CONTENT.NET.AU/Bandcamp]
Sydney’s finest purveyor of underground hip-hop BAYANG (tha Bushranger) has a mixtape out this week called Antarctica, with many guests on mics and production duties. Ryan Fennis gives post-rave vibes to “Bioluminescent”, in which BAYANG (the Bushranger) meditates on choosing light over darkness.

General Magic – g1000 [GOTO Records/Bandcamp]
General Magic – Nervoesnigg [GOTO Records/Bandcamp]
Way back in 1995, the duo of Andi Pieper and Ramon Bauer collaborated with Peter Rehberg on a series of Fridge Trax, under the name General Magic & Pita. These strange, clicky, frigid pieces were ostensibly based around the buzz of an old fridge, and their focus on malfunctioning material kicked off the Viennese strand of “glitch” music, with samples cut to emphasise sharp discontinuities, granular processing turned to the max, digital clipping celebrated. The trio ran the influential Mego label for many years until it was dissolved and turned into Editions Mego, enthusiastically run by Rehberg until his untimely death in 2021. Pieper and Bauer’s General Magic was always one of the most playful and varied of the Mego acts, incorporating rhythm and beats more than most (other, perhaps, than Farmers Manual), and injecting humour even when at their most abstract. Their Bandcamp showcases music made over the last few years, including multimedia collaborations with Tina Frank, who was responsible for the distinctive collaged art of the Mego releases. After the very short Softbop last year, Nein Aber Ja (“No But Yes”) is the first album of new material from the duo in many years, released on CD and cassette by GOTO Records. Never ones to sit still, Pieper and Bauer here traverse viciously crunched techno, ersatz krautrock and some kind of mashed & mulched-up hip-hop. It’s a very different paradigm from the current crop of high-fidelity deconstructed club and experimental producers, a reminder that everything new is old again, and vice versa.

Water From Your Eyes – True Life (Nourished By Time Version) [Matador Records/Bandcamp]
Water From Your Eyes – Structure (The Cradel Version) [Matador Records/Bandcamp]
A few weeks ago I played Mandy, Indiana‘s remix of Brooklyn indie pop duo Water From Your Eyes, one of the first cuts from Crushed By Everyone, a collection of remixes of their 2023 album Everyone’s Crushed. I’ve always had a soft spot for remix albums – even for artists or albums I’m not familiar with – because I guess the concept of the remix is so close to the heart of what Utility Fog’s mission has been: music recontextualised, taken out of normal standards of genre and presentation, hybridised, de/reconstructed. That’s all present on Crushed By Everyone, where strong original material is turned inside-out. There’s everything from noise to black metal to folk-ambient here, but all with the DIY-punk-dance thing going on. And perhaps because the artists are almost all touring friends, a lot of care has gone into making these well-rounded tracks.

Clark – Silver Pet Crank [Throttle Records]
Clark – Pumpkin [Throttle Records]
Earlier this year, Chris Clark added a new string to his bow, having dived right into perfected IDM, birthed it anew with saturated live drums, filled dancefloors, and then turned his hand to soundtracks, complete with orchestra and choir. On Sus Dog elements of all this were gathered in service of songs, gently sung by himself. While waiting for the album to come out, he couldn’t sit still, and created a series of interstitial, looser pieces for social media. Cave Dog is that music developed into a full companion album, with orchestral and other contributions gleaned from Sus Dog‘s collaborators, and tbh it’s as enjoyable as the “album proper”. There are more songs, there’s more IDM, and the processed piano on “Pumpkin” is super pretty.

Fairie – Jillian [Provenance Records/Bandcamp]
Following three impressive singles, Melbourne’s Fairie, aka Lucy Li, has now released her full-length debut album Nastic Appeal. It’s likely the last single-artist release to come from Provenance Records, who will concentrate on regular compilations from the collective’s musicians – and if it is, it’s a high note to go out on. Li’s songs bear the influence of Kate Bush (of course a groundbreaking, multi-talented composer and performer), and also of the club music that Li has previously released. Throughout this entirely self-produced album there are snippets of everyday life and moments from the recording sessions that contrast nicely with the often dense electronic production. “Jillian” dispels the denseness, with gentle piano, layers of vocals and lots of field recordings and chatter threatening to overwhelm the song, all lending a touching delicateness to the work.

Niecy Blues – U Care [kranky/Bandcamp]
Delicate is one word that could be used to describe the unique music of Niecy Blues. Living in Charleston, North Carolina, she draws in the gospel music of her youth – but slowed down into a heavy-lidded miasmah, mixed with contemporary r&b, and slung through arrangements that are often closer to ambient and slowcore than what you’d expect from r&b. It’s beautiful and surprising and enveloping.

Massimiliano Cerioni – Kickin’ In [Elli Records/Bandcamp]
Massimiliano Cerioni – Inner Landscape III – Angst Vor Dem Trail (Feat. Function Store) [Elli Records/Bandcamp]
Massimiliano Cerioni – Ritualistic [Elli Records/Bandcamp]
The ever-reliable Elli Records, run out of Marseilles but with deep connections to Italy as well as France, presents a concept album from Amsterdam-based sound-artist & composer Massimiliano Cerioni. The opening, title track of Inner Landscape was created first, with a looped piano melody as a through-line within various electronic sounds, whether glitchy or percussive. Cerioni then shared the stems with three fellow musicians, but rather than remixes, these versions are collaborative reworks. Maybe most interesting then are the interstitial tracks, which are his own extensions from those collaborative sessions into shorter studies. Tonight we heard the version created with Berlin’s Function Store, which its preceding interlude, and then another short, experimental interlude.

Sully – Stop [Uncertain Hour]
In 2014, Jack Stevens aka Sully, who had heretofore made grime and 2-step-inspired music, released the extraordinary double EP Blue on Keysound, in some ways kickstarting the jungle revival. This year there have only been a few split releases from Sully, until now with the third 12″ on his Uncertain Hour label. Proving again what a master Sully is of jungle beats and pacing, these are both killer tracks worthy of dancefloors anywhere & everywhere.

Chimpo & Dub Phizix – Skyward [EQ50]
Everybody loves Chimpo. If you don’t, you just need to get into Chimpo, Manchester’s charming jungle & bass-music lover. Anyway, here he is collaborating with Mancunian d’n’b bod Dub Phizix, with their contribution to EQ50 Presents 4GAZA, a big (but not unweildy) compilation of drum’n’bass music of all stripes, which will send all profits to Anera and Decolonize Palestine. It’s a great collection of, as far as I can see, exclusive tracks from across the gamut of drum’n’bass & jungle, even though the mastering between different tracks is a bit patchy – a minor complain in any case!

PYUR – Intersections [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
Following a debut on Scuba’s Hotflush Recordings, Sophie Schnell’s PYUR released a big, ambitious album on Subtext Recordings in 2019 called Oratorio for the Underworld, mixing the experimental and industrial ends of bass music & techno into classical composition, including violin and cello. It was intensely complex, and brilliantly executed. Her follow-up comes over 4 years later with Lucid Anarchy, to be released in January 2024. Eschewing the classical elements, it also replaces beats with rhythmic pulsing electronics – although this should come with caveats, as there are mangled classical samples groaning and flittering through the tracks, and some percussive elements. The whole album is rad, but in the meantime check the throbbing single “Intersections”.

HUUUM – Chapi [Accidental Meetings/Bandcamp]
Rojin Sharafi is a Vienna-based Iranian sound-artist and composer, who I was first introduced to through Ata Ebtekar’s Zabte Sote label. Her uncompromising spirit and musical depth is confirmed here in the trio HUUUM, which features the voice of Omid Darvish, a singer & musician with Kurdish roots born in Tehran, and is rounded out by the expressionist reeds of Astrid Wiesinger (along with a few guests). Many streams of avant-garde, including free jazz and noise, unite with folk forms from Iran and beyond, in what HUUUM call “folk futurism”. It’s a unique and moving offering that I can’t recommend highly enough.

WSR – Flatwound [WSR Bandcamp]
WSR – Aria [WSR Bandcamp]
Earlier this year we received the unexpected gift of a second album from Berlin-based Italian brother-and-sister duo Aperture. In Aperture, musician and acoustician Emanuele Porcinai is joined by his sister Elisabetta Porcinai, whose spoken and whispered poetry and visual art adorn their releases. When Aperture’s brilliant debut Threads came out in 2018, I initially didn’t realise that I’d been following Emanuele since his second EP Chambers, released under the name WSR. Now, three years after the last WSR release, Dicasmia showcases a similar aesthetic to the earlier releases: close-mic’d acoustic instruments – notably cello – are moulded into dark, heavy masses of sound, seamlessly mutated into industrial electronics. The juxtaposition of acoustic and electric instruments with digital sound-design is very much what WSR is about, and as you know it’s very much what Utility Fog is about too, so I couldn’t be happier to have this new work alongside Aperture’s album from earlier this year.

Jérôme Noetinger, Anthony Pateras – Coruscation 2 [Penultimate Press/Bandcamp]
Jérôme Noetinger, Anthony Pateras – Coruscation 4 [Penultimate Press/Bandcamp]
15 Coruscations is the second duo album of Jérôme Noetinger and Anthony Pateras on Mark Harwood’s Penultimate Press. Harwood is originally from Melbourne, as is Pateras, a powerhouse modern composer and performer on piano and other keyboard instruments. Noetinger is an electroacoustic composer based in France, who’s often found at Cafe OTO in London, which Harwood was associated with for a long time. The pair, who have worked in different configurations together since 2009, will sometimes perform with Pateras on piano and Noetinger on his tape machines, but here they are both working with concrète sound manipuation and electronic noisemakers. Even at their most abstract these coruscations are rich with compelling mystery.

Alexander Tillegreen – Re-Orientate (Intermezzo) [raster/Bandcamp]
In Words is the debut album for Danish artist Alexander Tillegreen, who has hitherto created visual art and installation works while also study psychoacoustic phenomena. Many of the pieces on the album are based around manipulated voices, manipulated with granular synthesis into glitchy swarms of phonemes, in keeping with raster-media‘s place in purist post-club experimental electronics. Through the album there are also beautiful tectonic ambient works of synth pads and sub-bass rumbles, but the glitched vocals are the heart of it.

Toada – Duet [Toada Bandcamp]
Portuguese producer Valdir da Silva aka Toada looks to early ’90s folktronica on his new EP Slow-Paced Tangents. There’s a delicateness to the fidgety melodic and rhythmic sounds that harken back to the UK garage and hip-hop-inspired early sounds of Four Tet and Caribou (then Manitoba), with a welcoming breeziness.

Adam Coney – Seal Sands [Trestle Records/Bandcamp]
To judge Adam Coney‘s album from one track would be a mistake. Coney’s pure electric guitar intertwines with a synth and swishes of cymbals, only for us to switch to a kind of angular kraut/post-rock bass-and-drums-driven groove, and then a pentatonic guitar melody over a skittering snare pattern. If we thought we understood what we were hearing, the next track gives us another bass-and-drums groove, this time with a slightly unhinged distorted guitar solo/melody. Central to all of this is Coney’s guitar, and when we reach the gorgeous closing track “Seal Sands”, the guitar is is either acoustic or gently amplified, playing through arpeggiated chords that softly pull at the emotions, joined a minute in by Coney overdubbing simple cello lines, while a half-speed echo of the guitar provides a subtle low-end undertow. Ashwin & Above is an album whose logic unfolds from careful listening, and it certainly rewards repeat plays.

Sophie Hutchings – Into The Wild [Mercury KX]
I’ve been playing cello with Sydney pianist Sophie Hutchings for over 13 years now, but when I first played her on this show, we’d never met. She’s a dear friend and I played a little bit on her new album A World Outside, but I’m also a fan, and on this new album she’s raised the bar, working with composer/producer/violist Nick Wales to build rich arrangements, incorporating sounds from remote areas in the north of this continent, and collaborating with the extraordinary Yolŋu songman Rrawun Maymuru and young Larrakia singer Lena Kellie. The album is accompanied by amazing visuals filmed on location: I recommend watching the video for “Into the Wild”, which I played tonight. It’s a song that’s unmistakeably Sophie, albeit driven forward by pattering drums and low-end synths, and expanded outwards by beautiful vocal drones.

IKSRE – dawn in a foreign city [Constellation Tatsu]
Steven Ramsey’s Constellation Tatsu is a wonderfully-curated label from Oakland that focuses on ambient and experimental fare. So it was great to hear from Melbourne’s Phoebe Dubar that her next IKSRE album abundance will be coming out on the label early next year. Her music is a blissful kind of theraputic ambient driven by electronics and her layered voice. The first single, “dawn in a foreign city”, is streaming everywhere now.

Martyna Basta – Diaries [STROOM.tv]
Martyna Basta – Beneath [STROOM.tv]
In a scant couple of years since her stunning debut Making Eye Contact With Solitude, Polish artist Martyna Basta has become compulsory listening. This year a follow-up album was released on Slovakian label Warm Winters, Ltd., and she closes out the year with the EP Diaries Beneath Fragile Glass via Belgium’s STROOM.tv. From her first release, her modus operandi has been to use field recordings and domestic sounds along with voice and various acoustic instruments including the zither, seemingly recorded while they weren’t looking. The music feels effortlessly casual, but is meticulously constructed with affecting tenderness. Not many have such a talent for emotive sound-art.

JWPATON – Aunty [Room40/Bandcamp]
Joshua William Paton aka JWPATON is a Yuin artist and musician currently living on Darug Country, Western Sydney. His interest in the intersection of rural and urban environments is palpable in his work, which can be both highly electronic and very naturalistic. Aunty (which is completed by a gorgeous video) is a case in point, with field recordings of rain and nature seemingly transforming into semi-rhythmic white noise like free jazz brushed snares while processed guitar bubbles over it, at times blooming into distortion. Even without the video these pieces tell a story about the natural world and the world created, for better or worse, by human cultures.

Listen again — ~199MB