Special on the wonderful Evelyn Morris aka Pikelet this evening, among other things.
Evelyn experienced the unimaginable a few days ago, when her entire gear setup was stolen from her locked car in Preston, VIC. You can support her efforts to rebuild at this GoFundMe while it’s still up, or by purchasing music direct from her Bandcamp.

LISTEN AGAIN on the podcast here or stream on demand at FBi.

Really Pikelet needs no introduction on this show. I’ve been playing her since her first album was released in 2007, from inventive songs based around loop pedals to full band extravaganzas to drum machine & sampler experiments and extraordinary piano and voice works. If her brilliant music wasn’t enough, Evelyn is also the initiator and driving force behind the website, label & publisher LISTEN, which was conceived of two years ago (to the day, apparently) in a deep & passionate Facebook thread borne of a frustration with the marginalisation and mistreatment of women (and non-cis-het-white-males) in the Australian music industry. It’s an essential resource for everyone.
Tonight we hear tracks from all Pikelet’s albums but also a few more esoteric works, including a couple of demos from CDR releases, and a loping, looping remix of American intuitive folk artist Diane Cluck.

Susanna Wallumrød has been releasing music under her first name and as Susanna and the Magical Orchestra since 2004, often on the Rune Grammofon label but more recently on her own SusannaSonata. She’s known for her interpretations of other people (including Dolly Parton and AC/DC, and the Norwegian poet Gunvor Hofmo), and for her very pure, clear voice. She’s approached jazz-inflected pop and folk in the past, but has close connections with the Norwegian experimental and free improv scene, and we heard some pretty heavy sounds on her collaboration with Jenny Hval a couple of years ago, Meshes of Voice. Her new solo album Triangle explores the theme of spirituality, or perhaps a desire for some kind of spirituality from the perspective of an outsider… With 22 tracks, running to over 70 minutes, it probes its theme quite deeply, and mixes piano ballads with cello, violin, tuba, double bass and other instruments, along with distortion & electronic processing. It’s a major work.

About a month ago I played a couple of tracks from the remarkable collaboration between Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, Kim Myhr & Jenny Hval. Filigree guitar (and perhaps harp?), wonderfully odd orchestral jazz arrangements and Jenny Hval’s poetic vocals combine into something very unusual, challenging and quite beautiful.

Dublin duo Lakker have been going from strength to strength in the last few years, having started as something of a bedroom IDM project around 2007. Now based in Berlin and signed to the legendary Belgian label R&S Records (with a history that goes back to the early days of ambient techno and rave), they’re at the forefront of the Berlin industrial techno sound, with tough beats and wind-swept synth beauty. Following last year’s album which featured female and choral vocals on more than half the tracks, Struggle & Emerge comes out of a commission from The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision’s RE:VIVE initiative, asking for a work focused on The Netherlands’ relationship with water, using field recordings and samples of broadcasts.

I’m not sure what to make of the new Andy Stott album just yet. I felt like 2012’s Luxury Problems and the EPs that preceded it were masterpieces of sonic alchemy, and I enjoyed Faith in Strangers‘ step sideways in 2014 into postpunk electric bass combined with his raw jungle experiments with Miles Demdike as Millie & Andrea. But somehow the even rawer sound here, using simple samplers, distorted grime and ’80s electronic pop, doesn’t seem as cohesive and the deliberate lo-fi production values can grate a little. It’s a shame, as there’s still some compelling stuff at the track level, including some lovely as ever contributions from Alison Skidmore on vocals. Hopefully it’ll grow on me!

Pikelet – dear unimaginables [Chapter Music]
Pikelet – Bryson [self-released]
Pikelet – A Bunch [Chapter Music]
Pikelet – Take Off The Face Paint [self-released]
Pikelet – Swooping Buzzards [Chapter Music]
Diane Cluck – “Love Me If You Do” Cluck Cluck remix by Evelyn Morris [Pikelet Bandcamp]
Pikelet – Peephole [Chapter Music]
Pikelet – Darwin Heat [Listen Records]
Pikelet – interface dystopia [Chapter Music]
Susanna – Holy / Sacred [SusannaSonata]
Susanna – This / Phenomena [SusannaSonata]
Jenny Hval & Susanna – Dawn [SusannaSonata]
Susanna – This Place [c/o Wire Magazine]
Susanna – Burning Sea [SusannaSonata]
Susanna – The Fire [SusannaSonata]
Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, Kim Myhr & Jenny Hval – Me, You, Me, You [Hubro]
Lakker – Maeslantkering Gating [R&S Records]
Lakker – Coal Bath [Candela Rising]
Lakker – Milch feat. Eileen Carpio [R&S Records]
Lakker – Fierljeppen [R&S Records]
Andy Stott – Waiting For You [Modern Love]
Andy Stott – Selfish [Modern Love]

Listen again — ~187MB

Lots of UFog-stylee sounds this evening, with glitchy postrocktronica, ambient, experimental dancefloor beats, industrial beats, post-industrial collaborative works and experimental Americana…

LISTEN AGAIN because once is not enough… podcast over here, stream on demand over there!

So great to have some new music from Bob Streckfuss aka 0point1. I thought he was originally from the Blue Mountains, outside of Sydney, but he’s certainly now based in Melbourne. His style hasn’t changed much in the last few years – incredibly intricate electronic production, often with manic drill’n’bassy beats or edited drums; in fact, everything glitchily edited, sometimes including his vocals, but as often as not his vocals float over the rest in Sigur Rós style, making for a lovely amalgam of blissful postrock and idm.

The Sounds are Sounds label from Sydney mostly releases different aliases of the work of Jacques Emery, as far as I can see. Which is a good thing, mind you. The latest release as golden window house has him in ambient mode, with varispeed string samples, or slightly unsettling field recordings with sparse, clattering piano and percussive sounds… Well worth your while checking it out.

Melbourne’s Wabz aka Nick Wuksta produces prodigious amounts of music, but his actual releases are a little few and far between (as of now). He did a great jungle-influenced remix of Dylan Michél on Feral Media‘s recent Strain of Origin comp, and his latest EP is a moody, experimental, revisionist take on UK Garage. It’s really one long piece in 5 tracks, so I played the first three as a block tonight. One you shouldn’t miss!

Berlin’s Gainstage put out an EP last year that I really enjoyed but for some reason it never made it on to the show. So tonight we’ll hear tracks from their two releases so far. While it’s quite heavy and noisy, it seems of a piece with some of the other “industrial techno” coming out of Berlin at the moment (e.g. These Hidden Hands, even expat Dubliners Lakker), but the distorted electronic beats are, I believe, augmented with live drums. Alongside these tough, tricky beats are sometimes surges of electronic noise, but also delicate, lonely melodies, reminiscent of similar juxtapositions from two decades earlier from the likes of Seefeel and Mark van Hoen‘s Locust. It feels to me that these guys don’t quite have the nororiety they deserve, next to some of their compatriots in messed up, beautiful electronics.

Italian experimental composer & electronic producer Teho Teardo first teamed up with Blixa Bargeld on a soundtrack in 2010, but they ended up putting out a whole collaborative album in 2013. Clearly I wasn’t the only one to adore its combination of post-industrial experimentalism with Teardo’s soundtrack-influenced strings and the pair’s love of sentimental Italian songwriting. Their second duo album Nerissimo has just come out on Teardo’s Specula Recordings, and it’s just as lovely. I thought I’d go back and play a few of Blixa’s colalborations through the years – mostly more recent ones including the duo with alva noto as anbb and an appearance with avant-garde metal/punk/rock supergroup Book of Knots. But it was also cool to revisit the epic darkwave drum’n’bass remixes by Darkus, an alias of classically-trained composer/producer Mark Rutherford who, as well as working with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Mike Oldfield, was an original member of jungle/drum’n’bass pioneers Metalheadz.

I played some tracks off the new album by René Gonzalez Schelbeck aka Western Skies Motel a few weeks back; it’s a great fit for Lost Tribe Sound, and as their press suggests, surprisingly “American”-sounding for a Danish musician. Schelbeck is adept at fingerstyle guitar, and can produce perfect Americana-styled folk pieces; but he also loves washing things out with droning guitarscapes and field recordings. I was pleased to discover a wealth of earlier work from the last couple of years, available on his own Bandcamp, as well as on the sadly now-defunct Perth label Twice Removed and the excellent Polish experimental/ambient label Preserved Sound.

0point1 – Sleep rebuilds machine [0point1 Bandcamp]
0point1 – Animal magnetism [0point1 Bandcamp]
0point1 – Bedroom universe [0point1 Bandcamp]
golden window house – method actor [Sounds are Sounds]
golden window house – holding on to an object [Sounds are Sounds]
Wabz – NightRider [Solitaire Recordings]
Wabz – Bells Ring Out [Solitaire Recordings]
Wabz – Melrose Park [Solitaire Recordings]
Gainstage – Light Change [Portals Editions]
Gainstage – Sun Burnt Cloud [Portals Editions]
Gainstage – Four Pipes [Portals Editions]
Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld – DHX 2 [Specula Records]
Einstrürzende Neubauten – NNNAAAMMM (The Dark Welcome Mix by Darkus) [Mute]
anbb – ret marut handshake [raster-noton]
The Book of Knots – Drosophila Melanogaster (feat. Blixa Bargeld) [Ipecac]
Teho Teardo – Nemmeno Io [Specula Records]
Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld – Axolotl [Specula Records]
Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld – The Empty Boat [Specula Records]
Western Skies Motel – Myraids [Lost Tribe Sound]
Western Skies Motel – Here and There [Western Skies Motel Bandcamp]
Western Skies Motel – Through the Branches [Preserved Sound]
Western Skies Motel – Black Sea [Twice Removed]

Listen again — ~190MB

Tonight we have another in the series of UtiLADYFog, focusing solely on new(ish) music from women artists. As usual we’ve got an embarrassment of riches, from Melbourne and overseas.

LISTEN AGAIN via podcast/download here, or stream on demand from FBi.

We start with some possibly exclusive samplers from the wonderful new album from Evelyn Morris aka Pikelet. Evelyn is a big inspiration for me, both because of her amazing music (loop-based pop songs, expanding to full band, now wide-ranging genre-agnostic gems) and because of the LISTEN movement she founded in frustration with the experience of “marginalised people in the music industry” – women’s voices, as well as LGBTQ+ (an inadequate acronym but there you go). Given the gender focus tonight, I urge you to connect to LISTEN in some way, and perhaps widen your awareness… But meanwhile, I sincerely believe that Evelyn is an Australian musical gem… So very pleased we have a new album to savour this coming week!

Medicine Voice is a new project for Sydney artist Sar Friedman, who’s played in various bands for some time and previously released music as Heartswin on the Wood & Wire, a precursor to the Provenance label that she is helping to launch, her album being the debut release – it’s the latest project of Stu Buchanan of various FBi radio shows and the New Weird Australia compilation series. Friedman’s music is a ritualistic trip with krautrocky guitars, drums and electronics from Oren Ambarchi, Joe Talia and James Rushford accompanying her harmonium, piano and other instruments. From the sounds of this (for now, exclusive) preview it’s going to be compulsory listening.

Melbourne’s Carla dal Forno connected with the rad English postpunk/post-industrial label Blackest Ever Black with her trio F ingers (with Sam Karmel and Tarquin Manek, the latter once of Pikelet when it had expanded to be a full band). Her debut single features deadpan vocals and desolate drum machine & instruments, in keeping with the label’s feel.

Faith Coloccia’s music as Mamiffer has been the focus of a previous feature not long ago on this show. Mamiffer has existed for some time, as an outlet for gothic rock and sometimes metal, mostly in collaboration with her partner Aaron Turner of ISIS, Old Man Gloom, SUMAC and countless other projects. Last year she debuted a totally solo project called Mára, highlighting her exquisite piano and vocals but also sound manipulation… There’s plenty of drones and distortion on the new album, although less “metal” as such, and there are also some excellent strings from Eyvind Kang on there. It’s some of Coloccia’s best work yet.

It’s actually the first time I’ve played Chelsea Wolfe on the show tonight. Like Coloccia she has connections to the metal world (and is released on Sargent House), but her music is more gothic rock and dark folk in its roots. However, the last couple of albums (or more) have also featured some heavy-duty electronics on some tracks, adding an exciting new layer of grit to the procedings. I’m jealous of anyone who gets to see her at Dark Mofo this year.

I discovered the work of electronic artist Aleksandra Grünholz aka We Will Fail via a compilation from Wire Magazine put together by the Unsound Festival. Despite its connections to Adelaide Festival, Unsound is based in Poland, and that is where Grünholz hails from. The track in question, full of distortion and heavy bass and twitchy beats, appears on her new double album under the name “Unlightening”, and it’s the last track we hear tonight. Elsewhere the beats and sounds are less abrasive, but equally bass and rhythm-oriented. Uncompromising, head-nodding, excellent stuff.

Experimental electronic musician Kyoka, part-based in Tokyo, part in Berlin, has been making awesomely weird sounds since at least 2008. Her first two releases, ufunfunfufu and 2 ufunfunfufu showcased extremely detailed editing of tiny samples and distorted electronic sounds, chopped into idm, jungle and techno-influenced glitchtronica… It’s no surprise that she ended up pricking up the ears of the legendary Berlin label raster-noton, who focus themselves on microsound, although usually (if not exclusively) in a more minimal techno context. Kyoka’s music has perhaps become a bit more refined since the early chaotic experiments, but it’s still intense and complex stuff. The new EP SH is a continuation of the sounds on her last releases for raster-noton, hinting at being more straight-edged, but still pretty out there (yay)!

Pikelet – interface dystopia [Chapter Music]
Pikelet – Toby Light [Chapter Music]
Pikelet – harder heart, harder [Chapter Music]
Medicine Voice – aham / realm of the wild woman [Provenance]
Carla dal Forno – fast moving cars [Blackest Ever Black]
Mamiffer – we are united in spirit, we will be happy forever [SIGE Records/Daymare]
Mamiffer – domestication of the ewe – part III (divine virus) [SIGE Records/Daymare]
Mamiffer – parthenogenesis [SIGE Records/Daymare]
Chelsea Wolfe – Feral Love [Sargent House]
Chelsea Wolfe – Carrion Flowers [Sargent House]
We Will Fail – Third [MonotypeRec]
We Will Fail – V.02 [MonotypeRec]
We Will Fail – V2.06 [MonotypeRec]
We Will Fail – All Ideas [MonotypeRec]
We Will Fail – Unlightening [MonotypeRec]
Kyoka – Hovering [raster-noton]
Kyoka – jungleme [onpa)))))]
Kyoka – moiz [onpa)))))]
Kyoka – Piezo Version Vision [raster-noton]

Listen again — ~189MB

Jam-packed show of goodness for you tonight!

LISTEN AGAIN via podcast/download here, or stream on demand from FBi.

Starting with the scintillating sounds of Dutch musician/producer/inventor Wouter van Veldhoven, who creates sounds from hand-made constructions, toys, found tapes, broken radios etc. Check out his tumblr for some mind-bending examples of how he constructs his music. In a way, though, this is almost a distraction from the music itself, which is just immersively, often heart-rendingly lovely. Acoustic instrumentation (sampled and automated sounds of strings, zither, acoustic guitar, piano, voice, and found sounds) are imbued with wow and flutter, or slowed to a crawl, embedded in hiss and crackle. It sounds remarkably like glitch and drone works, but is created without a computer in sight.

It’s a bit of an honour to have a radio exclusive preview of the new album from Bracken, aka Chris Adams, once of the beloved, iconoclastic indietronic/postrock band Hood. Chris’s first Bracken album came out on none other than Anticon back when it was surprising to hear them releasing music that wasn’t weirdass indie hip-hop. But the hip-hop influence was there (and Hood had already worked with doseone and Yoni Wolf/Why? some years earlier), along with dubstep and drone. I discovered Chris Adams’ solo work possibly earlier even than Hood, with his mind-blowing proto-breakcore and drill’n’bass music as downpour, a project recently re-formed for a couple of Bandcamp EPs exploring classic jungle & drum’n’bass sounds. The new Bracken album backs away from the dubstep but draws on hip-hop, bass-heavy techno and contemporary electronic sounds along with Adams’ indie roots. Couldn’t be more pleased to have him back. I’ll have a substantial feature on all the aforementioned projects in a few weeks – album’s out on May 20th.

Iranian musician Ashkan Kooshanejad aka Ash Koosha has released his fantastic debut album I AKA I on Ninja Tune after a massively exciting “mixtape” release called GUUD last year on Olde English Spelling Bee. He has been based in the UK since seeking asylum with his band Take It Easy Hospital in 2009 when they got into some political trouble because of their activities (including simply having a female member performing live). His music combines heavy beats and bass with melodies and harmonies drawing from the long and illustrious history of Persian music, with plenty of tasty glitchy processing on everything. It’s wonderful to hear so much boundary-pushing, creative music out of Iran despite quite oppressive conditions (about which I am in no way qualified to talk).

After a bit of a break, “post-world” bass artist Filastine is back with a quarterly series of “video singles” for 2016, starting with “Miner”, for which Javanese indie artist Nova Ruth returns as vocalist (and the video is based in Borneo & Java, Indonesia). Hopefully I’ll get a reminder when the next single comes out, as Filastine’s work is always quality.

Andy Stott‘s new album takes him further from his bass & techno roots, apparently taking cues from Yellow Magic Orchestra and other ’80s music. The previous album already exhibited some postpunk influences, and one of tonight’s tracks makes that clear from its title, “New Romantic”. With lithe bass guitar from Scott and lovely vocals as always from Alison Skidmore, it’s got a clear lineage back to English new romantic postpunk songs, but with post-dubstep/grime production, while “Selfish” is very much on the distorted grime tip.

Roots Manuva‘s Bleeds album from last year was a massive return to form, with the Jamaican and grime influences coming to the fore… It’s awesome to hear one of the tracks remixed here by Kode9 into a footwork/jungle monster. Shame it’s only a SoundCloud stream for now.

When Alan Myson released his first Ital Tek 12″ on Planet µ in 2007, the combination of classical-influenced choral pads and dubstep beats was an immediate hit. A second 12″ followed, with the Radiohead-indebted piano-led “Deep Pools”. Tracks from both 12″s appeared on his debut album, but Myson wouldn’t stick to the dubstep template for too long. Indeed, a collection of earlier tunes on Bandcamp as well as some compilation tracks show his earlier idm & breakcore influences (that Acidsamovar compilation is breakcore gold). He edged into that purple Jamie Vex’d/Joker dubstep style briefly, but then found new energy, like so many, from footwork. He produced some of the best footwork/electronica/jungle crossover tunes along the way, including the gorgeous “Jupiter Ascent” which we heard tonight. But his latest album, a couple of years in the making, sees him creating his magnum opus: lush ambient electronic orchestrations meet skittering hi-hats abstracted from footwork, and juddering bassline bouncing around with or without beats. Pretty deep stuff, an artist at his full potential.

Wouter van Veldhoven – Part1. Sings of Safety: 03 Four Further Steps in Hanging or Drowning [Wouter van Veldhoven Bandcamp]
Machinefabriek – Stofstuk (Wouter van Veldhoven Remix) [Machinefabriek Bandcamp]
Wouter van Veldhoven – Ons dorp [Morc Tapes]
Wouter van Veldhoven – Sketch / First Failure AE 10-2008 [Umor Rex]
Wouter van Veldhoven – a head stuck in tapes b.2 [secret bonus track via the artist]
Wouter van Veldhoven – Part1. Sings of Safety: 01 A Start [Wouter van Veldhoven Bandcamp]
Bracken – Ravenser Odd II [Home Assembly Music]
Ash Koosha – Snow [Ninja Tune]
Ash Koosha – XXXL [Olde English Spelling Bee]
Ash Koosha – Harbour [Olde English Spelling Bee]
Ash Koosha – Needs [Ninja Tune]
Filastine – Miner (feat. Nova) [Post World Industries]
Andy Stott – Selfish [Modern Love]
Andy Stott – New Romantic [Modern Love]
Roots Manuva – Crying (Kode9 Remix) [Big Dada, stream on SoundCloud]
Ital Tek – Teminus [Planet µ]
Ital Tek – Dry Spell [Acidsamovar]
iTAL tEK – White Mark [Planet µ]
iTAK tEK – Deep Pools [Square Records/Planet µ]
Ital Tek – Gonga [Planet µ]
Ital Tek – Jupiter Ascent [Planet µ]

Listen again — ~185MB