Tonight we celebrate the long-awaited return of µ-Ziq, and enjoy some other electronica, drone and post-classical sounds among… other things.

As usual listen again by streaming on demand at FBi or downloading here!

Well, it’s been a very long time since we had a solo album from Mike Paradinas, whether as µ-Ziq or under one of his many other aliases. He’s been busy bringing amazing music to the world with his Planet µ label, with some ultra-important dubstep releases followed in the last few years by the cream of Chicago juke/footwork producers (and some more experimental juke-influenced releases as well).
It looks like a µ-Ziq take on dubstep is never to be heard – perhaps he felt it was too distant from his own sound, or it never quite fitted with his production style (not surprising) – but it’s nice to hear some juke influences in the hi-hats and flow on a few tracks from this new album Chewed Corners. There’s also plenty of classic Paradinas melodicism, and his penchant for beautiful melodies & chords juxtaposed with noisy, distorted beats – something we hear very clearly in one of the tracks from his multiple-remix mini-album from 1994 µ-Ziq vs The Auteurs (far more Paradinas than Luke Haines!). I also slipped in an incredible drill’n’bass tune from his much-loved 1997 album Lunatic Harness, one of the peaks of idm in my oh-so-humble opinion.

In the middle there we heard a VIP remix from this year of key drum’n’bass producers Fracture & Neptune by Planet µ alumnus Machinedrum, in a kind of hybrid d’n’b/juke style – dance track of the year I daresay.

Next up, Dutch artist Julien Mier has a new EP on Lowriders Recordings called Jane’s Junkyar, which we’re told derives (some of?) its sounds from non-musical sources. It sounds to me a bit like the ridiculously obtuse and completely-made-up liner notes that Aphex Twin wrote for the first µ-Ziq and Squarepusher releases on Rephlex many years ago, but that’s OK because there’s plenty of Rephlex braindance to this stuff too. Skittery beats, pretty melodies and even some (also pretty) vocals from Mier on a couple of tracks. I came across him via Memotone, who contributes a quite dark, minimalist remix to the EP, and Mier’s beats share a bit of the sortof leftfield post-bass/techno feel of Memotone too.

After the most dubsteppy of Mier’s tracks we head back to Sydney with Moving Ninja, aka Farj, sometime of FBi’s own Garage Pressure, with a rare new track found on the new Aquatic Lab compilation.

And while it’s not dubstep at all, the ultra, well, analogue Winduptoys remix of Melbourne/UK duo Tiatto on their new EP for Clan Analogue shares about the right tempo. Even more interesting is the latter track, which closes their EP: it’s a subtle and beautiful interplay between piano and electronic noises.

Also out now from Clan Analogue is a new EP from Actual Russian Brides, 3 years after their debut album. Elle Knox’s performance art belies the fact that she’s actually a beautiful singer when she wants to be (cf the last track I played), and behind the relentless puns and slightly-bad-taste jokes (I’ll leave the analysis to you, dear reader) are some touching themes and beautiful music. Really, I’m very excited that there’s a new release from this duo, and equally excited to be able to revisit their 2010 album. Highly recommended, both.

Also very highly recommended are the new EP/mini-album and remix release from Moon Zero out from Futuresequence. Moon Zero’s music seems at first glance to be the usual grainy drone stuff, but it actually sits somewhere slightly different – repetitive for sure, but with the sense that these are very long, very patient songs we’re listening to, with actual vocals buried in the mix on one track. Attentive listening uncovers some kind of devastating distorted performance on not-quite-recognizable instruments. The remixes are remarkably sympathetic to this sound, some just overdubbing additional elements, some deconstructing the tracks but augmenting the sonic palette rather than going somewhere different. An excellent pair of releases.

The news that Neurosis side-project Scott Kelly and the Road Home will be touring in November with none other than Jarboe, once of Swans, prompted me to play this incredible opening track from the unbelievable collaboration between, yes, Neurosis & Jarboe. It’s absolutely chilling. I’m not sure whether we’ll be treated to some of this 10-year-old recording at the show, but needless to say attendance is essential (except, d’oh, I’ll be overseas at the time).

µ-Ziq – Twangle Melkas [Planet µ]
µ-Ziq – Tickly Flanks [Planet µ]
Fracture & Neptune – Clissold (Machinedrum VIP) [Astrophonica]
µ-Ziq vs The Auteurs – Lenny Valentino 3 [Astralwerks/Hut]
µ-Ziq – Brace Yourself Jason [Virgin/Planet µ]
µ-Ziq – Mountain Island Boner [Planet µ]
µ-Ziq – Tambor [Planet µ]
Julien Mier – Ever Lonely [Lowriders Recordings]
Julien Mier – Flakey Backdrop (Memotone Adaptation) [Lowriders Recordings]
Julien Mier – Here’s The Blur [Lowriders Recordings]
Moving Ninja – Saw [Aquatic Lab]
Tiatto – Full Moon (Winduptoys Underwater Mix) [Clan Analogue]
Tiatto – Ruben’s Docadahedron [Clan Analogue]
Actual Russian Brides – Colonel Panic [Clan Analogue]
Actual Russian Brides – Puppet [Brigade Music]
Actual Russian Brides – Gathering Dust [Clan Analogue]
Moon Zero – Endless Palms [Futuresequence]
Moon Zero – Endless Palms (MHVA Remix) [Futuresequence]
Neurosis & Jarboe – Within [Neurot Recordings]

Listen again — ~ 58MB

Another huge week in which I’m not able to fit everything in. Lots of great stuff anyway!

Don’t forget that you can always listen back to the shows by streaming on demand at FBi or you can download/subscribe to the podcast right here!

It’s great hearing Sydney’s Seaworthy collaborating with long-time friend and 12k label boss Taylor Deupree, who is also the mastering talent behind many of the drone, folktronica and experimental electronic releases you hear on this very show. It’s just as you’d expect – very subdued guitar phrases, electronics and field recordings. Deupree’s preference with collaborations is to work with the other artist in person, and Cam Webb has been very interested in site-specific works of late, so this album is “Inspired by the Ward Pound Ridge nature reserve, Poundge Ridge, NY”.

From the very excellent Sixes and Twelves compilation of Australian guitar music which we heard from last week, we have another highlight from Hinterlandt, showing us a pretty different face from his recent musical travelogues.

It’s always great to receive an excellent demo from a complete unknown, and last week we received an EP of bedroom recordings from Sydney’s North Shore courtesy of Hazey Daydreams. Showing huge potential, it’s got lo-fi MBV-style shoegaze as well as twisty electronic beats and songwriting. Hopefully you’ll be able to pick these tunes up for yourself soon.

Canberra’s Spartak continue their self-reinvention as masters of indietronica with their latest single on their own hellosQuare recordings. Foregoing their previous post-punk guitar, drones and jazz-influenced drumming for drum machines, synths, glitches and… vocals!, they continue to prove they’re at the top of the game. And it’s great to hear Japanese singer/producer Cokiyu on the remix duties rather than being remixed herself!

In 2011 Melbourne’s I’lls put out a little EP that made a huge impression and basically reinstored by faith in Australian indietronica, avoiding the anodyne in its beats and production, allowing long and unusual song structures and experimentalism. If I was worried that their new EP, 2 years later on Yes Please, was to be more pop-orientd, I needn’t have. There are some pretty (FBi-)radio friendly tunes on there, but without sacrificing what made the first EP so special, and the closer that I played first is another classic of their genre.

Still in Australia, but only now courtsy of the label, we join Aquatic Lab in the second of their Sessions volumes, featuring the best dubstep sounds collected by Farj & Paul of FBi’s own Garage Pressure. Tonight we heard New Zealand’s Truth along with Dutty Ranks.
Farj is also Moving Ninja, which originally was a collaboration with Jabba, aka Paul Jebanasam, who moved to Bristol a few years ago to work on music and joined the Tectonic label. Since then, however, he’s started his own label, the amazing Subtext, on which he’s releasing ambient/drone/noise music still with a real connection to the Bass pressure of dubstep – including a fantastic album of his own which we featured a few weeks back. We didn’t hear anything from Subtext this week, but as well as Aquatic Lab Sessions Vol. 2 coming out this week, Tectonic released their Tectonic Plates Volume 4, and coincidentally I chose to play the quite demented track by Armour, which turns out to be a new beats-based pseudonym for Roly Porter, once of the mighty Vex’d and the man behind two marvellous releases on Subtext. Connections, hey?

And so the bewildering array of post-and-pre-dubstep genres in the hardcore continuum lands us with Zomby, who likes to dabble in early-’90s-style jungle and hardcore, grime, dubstep, trap, and even some ambient stylings (and I’d love it if anyone can identify the track I keep recalling when I hear the beginning of “Reflection In Black Glass”). The new album With Love continues his penchant for very short tracks with little in the way of intros or outros, not always even mixed into much of a flow on the albums – although especially the 2nd disc of the newie is very listenable as essentially one long track. Also in there was “The Lie” from 2008, which samples a Sizzla vocal from “I Was Born (In a System)” that also features in a house track which I think I’ve tracked down as being Ricky L feat. M:CK’s “Born Again“. Anyway, now you know I guess?

Moving on with the electronica, away from the dancefloor, we join one of myriad monikers of the genius Justin K Broadrick, this time with his electronic shoegaze as Pale Sketcher. A Warm Sunday it has not been in Sydney today, but this 2-track single helps us float away blissfully anyway.

The excellent Futuresequence bring us a cassette & digital release from London’s Moon Zero – an EP plus this week an EP of rmeixes by some Futuresequence luminaries, including Sun Hammer who drops some beats rather than his usual drones and deep-bass emanations. Moon Zero’s original tracks are just as worth checking out, though – freakishly warped melodies and noises.

And finally, for his latest digital release, Dutch artist Michel Banabila has teamed up with his compatriot Radboud Mens for some sort-of dance remixes of recent sound works, along with a few new Banabila tracks, reminding me a little of recent Jon Hopkins perhaps, but strangely also of something like Jean-Michel Jarre’s forward-looking Zoolook album (almost 30 years old!) – not to say that it’s dated-sounding in any way. It’s hugely recommended, as always with Banabila’s work.

Seaworthy + Taylor Deupree – Wood [12k]
Seaworthy + Taylor Deupree – February 21, 2013 [12k]
Hinterlandt – Tired Of This [New Weird Australia]
Hazey Daydreams – Cicada [demo]
Hazey Daydreams – Assam Bold [demo]
Spartak – Consistence [hellosQuare recordings]
Spartak – Nightshift (Cokiyu remix) [hellosQuare recordings]
I’lls – Mine’s Here or My End’s Here or Ninetee [Yes Please]
I’lls – To Not Second Guess Oneself [I’lls Bandcamp]
I’lls – Plans Only Drawn [Yes Please]
Truth & Dutty Ranks – Only Me [Aquatic Lab]
Armour – Skylark [Tectonic]
Zomby – Overdose [4ad]
Zomby – Reflection In Black Glass [4ad]
Zomby – The Lie [Ramp Recordings]
Zomby – Shiva [4ad]
Zomby – With Love [4ad]
Pale Sketcher – Warm Sunday [Pale Sketcher Bandcamp]
Moon Zero – Shadow Den (Sun Hammer remix) [Futuresequence]
Moon Zero – Endless Palms [Futuresequence]
Michel Banabila – Interference [Michel Banabila Bandcamp]
Michel Banabila & Radboud Mens – In Other Words (Radbound & Bilaa mix) [Michel Banabila Bandcamp]

Listen again — ~ 106MB

Not quite as concentrated a show tonight, even though we fitted in a couple of aritst specials!

Listen again or for the first time, on the podcast, downloadable below, or in stereo on your mobile or computer streamed on demand from FBi.

Starting tonight with a little special on These New Puritans, whose new album has raced up the best-of list for 2013. I’m still not sure it eclipses their incredible Hidden, which saw them turn their sound around for a sortof art-punk-disco into an amalgam of 20th century British classical influences (Benjamin Britten in particular), a particularly English strain of postrock, and dancehall’s Bass children. The new album moves further into the quiet Talk Talk side of things and the classical choral and wind arrangements, further damping the beats and percussion. No surprise that it’s produced with Graham Sutton of Bark Psychosis. There’s some true beauty here, and a languid structure that rewards attentive listening and works better as one work. Still, the epic “V (Island Song)” that we opened with fits in most of what this album is about, although we didn’t get to hear the beautiful vocals of Portuguese singer Elisa Rodrigues who appears on a number tracks, smoothing out Jack Barnett’s awkward (yet effective) tones.

I have no proof that the title “Fragment Two” is a reference to Robert Wyatt‘s track “Fragment” (featuring Brazilian singer Monica Vasconcelos) from his Comicopera album. It has no real musical connection that I can find, but I like the idea that there’s a connection, and any excuse to play Robert Wyatt…

It’s always worth a mention when New Weird Australia drop a new compilation, and their latest, a collection of experimental guitar music from around the country, is a doozy. Collected by Andrew Tuttle (soon I’ll be able to stop saying “ex-Anonymeye”), it’s arranged as two sides to a mixtape, and features many well-known names and many new ones. Instant highlight is the gorgeous opener from Kris Keogh (ex-Blastcorp etc), who does to his guitar what he did to his harp for New Weird Australia a little while ago, a touching piece of processed indie songwriting. Meanwhile Kristian Roberts mangles his guitar in a way reminiscent of the extremes of James Plotkin‘s work.
Meanwhile, Chippendale’s most favoured son Christian Moraga contributes a pretty fabulous piece of shimmery crunchy drone.

And then here we are with the second special of the night. This time it’s Melbourne’s Skye Klein, whose Terminal Sound System we’ve been hearing on the show for many years. Also known for doom rock with HALO, as Terminal Sound System Klein has been deconstructing drum’n’bass for over a decade, but more recently he has been adding back rock elements and even song structures. I hope, though, that it was revelatory to explore a small part of his back catalogue, which features some truly indispensable beat-mangling and minimal glitchy textures, almost all of which you can now find at his Bandcamp – although you’ll have to look elsewhere for his The Rectifiers remix (which comes from a magnificent EP, so do go looking!)

Finally, Matthew Collings has released a new six-part composition called Elysia on his own Bandcamp, which represents the sound he’s developed in his recent live shows. It’s great to hear something different from the man behind one of our favourite albums of the year, Splintered Instruments. Featuring his clarinet among the grainy drones and noise, it’s quite a trip and deserves your ears all the way through.

These New Puritans – V (Island Song) [Infectious]
These New Puritans – Organ Eternal [Infectious]
These New Puritans – Swords of Truth [Angular/Domino]
These New Puritans – We Want War [Angular/Domino]
These New Puritans – Fragment Two [Infectious]
Robert Wyatt – Fragment [Domino]
Kris Keogh – Stowaway [New Weird Australia]
Kristian Roberts – Start-Start-Finish-Finish [New Weird Australia]
Christian Moraga – Hyperreal [New Weird Australia]
Terminal Sound System – Oceans [Denovali]
Terminal Sound System – Uncalm Shudder [Embryo] {also available at the Terminal Sound System Bandcamp}
Terminal Sound System – Note Two [Embryo] {also available at the Terminal Sound System Bandcamp}
The Rectifiers – What You Can’t See Will Hurt You (Terminal Sound System remix of Last Days of the Sunseeker) [Sensory Projects]
Terminal Sound System – 722 [Extreme] {also available at the Terminal Sound System Bandcamp}
Terminal Sound System – Run, Just Run [Denovali]
Terminal Sound System – Clearlight [Denovali]
Matthew Collings – Elysia Parts Three, Five & Six [Matthew Collings Bandcamp]

Listen again — ~ 109MB

Hey kids, Boards of Canada! And hey, Jon Hopkins!

Listen again or for the first time, on the podcast, downloadable below, or in stereo on your mobile or computer streamed on demand from FBi.

So, the bulk of tonight’s show was taken up by a massive retrospective on Boards of Canada. I’m not embarrassed, no I’m not. Sure, they’re not the only group I’m obsessed with, but what better way to spend over an hour of your Sunday evening? I tried to cover a whole lot of ground and gave you a few obscure-ish numbers, although nothing specifically from the so-rare-they’re-practically-unreleased Closes, A Few Old Tunes and Boc Maxima cassettes — some of which are rumoured to be getting the re-release treatment soon (don’t quote me on this kidz)
So BoC’s new album came out surprisingly quickly after an insanely hyped lead-up which I’m not going to recount here. The key is that it’s a really magnificent new album. I’m not one to denigrate 2007’s The Campfire Headphase: it’s not their best, but “Dayvan Cowboy” is up there with my favourite of their songs, with sun-kissed guitar strums, electronic beats meeting live drums, and then this glorious synth melody floating above it that’s just pure Boards of Canada magic.
And maybe that should be our focus when discussing the Scottish brothers… we could discuss their production, the sound of cassettes left on the hot backseat of a car, the head-nodding b-boy beats they love, the children’s voices and the slightly disquieting edge even to their most happy-sounding tracks, and the overwhelming, warm air of nostalgia that floats through it all: but this is all underpinned by their unerring ear for melody, for unlikely lines snaking through strange but perfect chord progressions, in tracks that take breathtaking 90° turns 2/3 of the way through…
There’s nobody like them. Let’s celebrate it.

So, we started with their earliest EPs. I heard the so-called Hi Scores when it first came out on vinyl, and my tiny mind was blown by the beats and synths, and most of all by the beauty. The track it’s colloquially named after is still one of my faves, other-worldly and seemingly not of its time. Around the same time, their first home of Manchester’s SKAM Records teamed up with Funkstörung’s Musik Aus Strom for a series of compilation EPs called MASK, on which the artists were named but not explicitly attached to the songs they produced. They were ultra-limited and I confess I’ve never owned any myself, but they feature an amazing techno tune by BoC and also an appearance under the alter ego Hell Interface, in which they dabbled in their own special way with mashups, twisting soul, folk and even Christmas music into spectral Boards of Canada-style productions.
Also before their first album even came out, they produced an incredible remix for Funkstörung’s Michael Fakesch, one of those aforementioned twisty tracks that start in one spot and end up, through some minimalist evolution and melodic gymnastics, somewhere else entirely.

In the middle there I wanted to sneak in something else special — so in the place of “In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country”, we heard Mira Calix‘s beautiful cover with Oliver Coates — strings replacing their synths, along with field recordings of children.
And Boards of Canada’s later remixes shouldn’t be ignored either, including work for Boom Bip and a rather lovely rework of a Beck track, but I’m partial to their Beatlesque version of a cLOUDDEAD track — the Anticon guys a longtime fans, Odd Nosdam in particular.

On the new album, “Reach For The Dead” is of course an instant classic, a slow grower which could easily last twice as long (cf DJ Food’s 10 minute extension). I could’ve played much more, but the history lesson took up too much time, so we just had the extraordinary, loping 3/4 beat of “Jacquard Causeway” to finish up the BoC special.

It’s not unreasonable that the other artist to share tonight’s special is Jon Hopkins. When Insides came out it was a revelation. Such incredible flow, silvery melodic mastery, glistening piano, and devastating bass & beats. So I can’t help expressing my disappointment in a new album in which all that beauty is compartmentalised into divisions of 2, the barlines and 4/4 kicks of house in the vein of recent Four Tet. No question, Hopkins’ wonderful musicianship shines through, and within its own confines it’s lovely stuff, but there’s so much missing in comparison to that previous album.
I couldn’t help also playing the stunning remix by string duo Geese, one of their classic re-fixes with ricochet-bow beats and ostinati. Awesome.

Boards of Canada – Reach For The Dead [Warp]
Boards of Canada – Sixtyniner [Warp]
Boards of Canada – hi scores [SKAM]
Boards of Canada – turquoise hexagon sun (excerpt) [SKAM]
Boards of Canada – Korona (excerpt) [SKAM/Musik Aus Strom]
Hell Interface – Trapped (excerpt) [SKAM/Musik Aus Strom]
Michael Fakesch – Surfaise (The Trade Winds mix by Boards of Canada [Musik Aus Strom]
Boards of Canada – aquarius [Warp]
Boards of Canada – Happy Cycling [Warp]
Mira Calix with Oliver Coates – In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country (Boards of Canada cover) [Warp]
Boards of Canada – sunshine recorder [Warp]
cLOUDDEAD – Dead Dogs Two (remixed by Boards of Canada) [Big Dada/Mush]
Boards of Canada – dayvan cowboy [Warp]
Boards of Canada – Jacquard Causeway [Warp]
Jon Hopkins – Vessel [Domino]
Jon Hopkins – We Disappear [Domino]
Jon Hopkins – Second Sense (feat. Imogen Heap) [Just Music]
Jon Hopkins – Insides [Domino]
Jon Hopkins – The Low Places (Geese Remix) [Domino]
Jon Hopkins – Breathe This Air [Domino]

Listen again — ~ 108MB