Shannon O’Neill kindly filled in for me this Sunday while I was playing at a festival in Fairbridge, WA.
Here’s what he played:

Wish Mountain – Royal Wedding
Igorrr – Unpleasant Sounds / Tendon
DOOM – Lightworks
Retina.It – Tetsub
James Blake – Postpone
Puzahki – Reverse Anthology – Reverse Anthology
Gumsneaker – – Tripping Staccato / Hellektro
Seefeel – Making / Dead Guitars / Faults
The Legends – Always the Same
The Magnetic Fields – Famous
Scorn – Soon Come (Version Beat)
Igorrr – Very Long Chicken / Cruciform Dachsund
Coil – NASA Arab
The Bug – Run (feat Flowdan)
Rhythm & Sound – Poor People Must Work
Scientist – Dematerialise
Sherriff Lindo and the Hammer – Fatal Dub
Nurse with Wound – She and Me Fall Together in Free Death
When – Peer Gynt and the Herd Girls
CraigLP – Forever Learning / Gristle
Speedy J – Beam Me Up!
Spanky – Cheese Saloon
Jean Michel Jarre – Blah-Blah Café
Trancendental Headache – Ssppkk
Aphex Twin – Tamphex (Headphuq Mix)
Leonard Emanuel – Field Call and Answer – Distress Call / Calling Hogs, Cows and Dogs
Nudge – Sickth
Zoviet France – Look Into Me
Zoviet France – White Dusk
Negativland – Negativland (Track 9)
The New Pollutants – Online Celebrity
iNsuRge – Political Prisoners

Hope you’re enjoying this long long weekend!
Note: I’m away again next week, playing at the Fairbridge Festival in WA, so Shannon O’Neill’s stepping in again to keep you entertained.
LISTEN AGAIN to this week’s show after the playlist.

Starting once again with the amazing sax of Colin Stetson, from his second album. One of the albums of the year, multiphonic rhythmic live saxophone manipulation, and on this track the spoken words of Laurie Anderson and the beautiful singing of Shara Worden.

And then the first of a few samplings tonight from what I’m certain will be another of the albums of the year, jenny hval’s first under her own name, viscera. Released on the iconic Rune Grammofon label in her home country of Norway, it’s another step forward from the material she released as Rockettothesky. Uncompromising on all fronts – lyrics, production and arrangements, songwriting, vocal approach. It ranges from quiet folk and experimental musings with half-spoken words to full-on shoegazey/gothy rock. Wonderful.

Grails are continuing to explore the somewhat psychedelic throwback rock they’re known for, and it’s always excellent. We took the first track from their new album, and it’s riff-tastic.

Next up in the rockologue, Italian postrocker ensemble Stearica Invade Acid Mothers Temple. Recorded at the end of a tour by the Japanese psych-rockers, it sounds like Stearica had a lot of fun re-tooling the AMT sound to their own purposes.

And it’s not all that much of a jump from there to the heavy, heavy d’n’b/breakcore of Submerged. Fresh from his Blood of Heroes collaboration, the Ohm Resistance boss features some of those collaborators on his new album, which as usual is extremely loud and heavy, with lashings of rock guitars. From his first album we heard squalls of free jazz trumpet over his beats.

And then another sampling from DJ Hidden’s excellent Semiomime side project. Not-so-heavy drum’n’bass with a quasi-classical tilt.

And it’s always awesome to hear new tunes from Icarus. In the lead up to their new album coming out this year, this is from a split EP with Danish nano-jazz group Badun. The bands swapped synth samples and ended up with a very cohesive sounding EP with two tracks each. Icarus maintain the fucked-up drum’n’bass basis with some nice warm synth pads in the background of the chaos.

Continuing the theme, perhaps, of dance/electronic music reinterpreted, the new Hauschka album sees Volker Bertelmann using his prepared piano and strings in a more rhythmic way than usual. It doesn’t exactly sound like techno (let alone house), as the promo sheet suggests, but it’s clearly influenced by music from that direction as much as the post-classical world he usually inhabits. Lovely stuff.
In between, I played the fantastic Vert remix from a long way back.

I played a couple of tracks from the new epic45 album last week. It’s up there with their best releases, pastoral indie/postrock/shoegaze, with electronic touches. I wanted to give them a little feature as they’ve never really gotten the attention they deserve, and as we heard, there’s plenty of meat to their back catalogue.

You might not have heard much of the new album from restream, and that’s because it’s four tracks, each around 10 minuts long. But that’s no challenge for Utility Fog, and with tracks this good it’s a must: guitars and electronic beats make for blissed-out shoegaze. His previous album was shoegazey too, albeit less epic.

There’s a certain amount of shoegazeyness to the new Underlapper, along with their usual postrock and electronic outbursts. My cello’s on about 5 tracks on the album (including the one I played tonight), but I’ve been a fan even of these very songs longer than that, and I can say objectively that it’s a wonderful release.

For Record Store Day, Radiohead released a limited 12″ with two exclusive tracks. It’ll apparently get wider release later in the year, which is good because these are adventurous tracks that any fan shouldn’t be without. Not much in the way of melody, but if you find that off-putting at this point then maybe Radiohead’s not your band?

More wondrousness from jenny hval leads into the last two artist specials of the night: south of Norway we find Sweden’s Tape, whose first album in a few years finds them in pretty recognizable territory, as indeed the older tracks demonstrate: but it’s the kind of place you’re always happy to visit — easygoing postrock with occasional biting noise to keep you on your toes.

And Deaf Center deserve a little of their older material to be heard too. The Helios remix is just lovely, and we had one track from 2005’s Pale Ravine. I do feel, though, that their new album Owl Splinters is an amazing step into the vanguard, growling cello and sparkling piano creating something pretty unusual for the drone world. Ben Frost is perhaps a point of comparison. The album’s a grower — give it the attention it requires and it’s all-immersing.

Colin Stetson – Fear of the unknown and the blazing sun (feat. Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden) [Constellation]
jenny hval – portrait of the young girl as an artist [Rune Grammofon]
Grails – Future Primitive [Temporary Residence]
Stearica Invade Acid Mothers Temple – Warp Lag [Homeopathic]
Submerged – Dead (feat. Justin K Broadrick and many other guests) [Ohm Resistance]
Submerged – Last Gasp of the Shitbat [Sublight]
Semiomime – Stalactite / Theorem [Ad Noiseam]
Icarus – Sparkly Bear [Not Applicable]
Hauschka – Ping [Fat Cat]
Vert – Rocket Man (remix of Hauschka‘s “Traffic”) [Karaoke Kalk]
Hauschka – Cube [Fat Cat]
epic45 – the village is asleep [Make Mine Music]
epic45 – (Re)Sculpted By Winter [Make Mine Music]
epic45 – england fallen over [Make Mine Music]
epic45 – daylight ghosts [Make Mine Music]
epic45 – washed up [Make Mine Music]
restream – Sunshine State [lofly]
restream – Centrefrequency [lofly]
Underlapper – choking ibis [hellosQuare/Feral Media]
Radiohead – The Butcher [Ticker Tape Ltd.]
jenny hval – milk of marrow [Rune Grammofon]
jenny hval – engines in the city [Rune Grammofon]
jenny hval – blood flight [Rune Grammofon]
Tape – Companions [Häpna]
Tape – Sand dunes [Häpna]
Tape – Dripstone / Altamira [Häpna]
Deaf Center – Dial (Helios remix) [Type]
Deaf Center – Loft [Type]
Deaf Center – The Day I Would Never Have [Type]

Listen again — ~ 174MB

So much good musics for you tonight…
You can LISTEN AGAIN, just grab the link at the bottom of the playlist.

We start with the band with their own genre, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble. Their new album was a slow grower but I’m now totally sold. This track is one of the most upbeat (don’t read that emotionally, just in terms of tempo), and lacks vocals, but has wonderfully emotive string lines.

Next up, an uncharacteristic track from FaltyDL, taking its time to get going, combining some really classic IDM type sounds with (eventually) some very contemporary breaks, for the new 2CD set on Hotflush, Back And 4th. We heard a number of tracks from this compilation, which has one disc of new material and one of Hotflush classics.
From the second disc, a fantastic track from label boss Scuba, and then a remix of his of Fink from last year’s amazing Ninja Tune XX compilation/box set.
Back to the first disc, we have a new breaks tune from Boxcutter, and then what’s truly one of the greatest tunes of the last few years, James Blake’s remix of the iconoclastic Mount Kimbie tune “Maybes”.

We also heard a couple of tunes from the very fine new Kryptic Minds album, the first of which is a very subtle number. In between, one last Hotflush classic, from Pangaea.

Paul Elam aka fieldhead recently sent me some new tunes, and his remix of Spokes somehow fits in nicely with the dubstep, with its grainy drone and squashed beat. And you can download it from Soundcloud right now!

And moving us out of dubstep into something a bit more hip-hop, albeit nice and heavy, is Sydney’s Roleo on The Frequency Lab.
This leads us into the amazing sound of musSck. It’s premier glitch-hop, highly influenced by Japanese culture, fast-moving and freaky. There was a fair bit of stuff like this about 10 years ago (or so), but musSck’s updated it to a very contemporary post-dubstep/wonky sound. Check him out on Soundcloud too.

And then we’re back to Australia, with the sci-fi sounds of “death by white lies”, one of many standouts from the new Underlapper album Softly Harboured, finally out in Australia on CD from hellosQuare and vinyl from Feral Media. They’re launching the album this Thursday, the 21st of April at the FBi Social and I expect you all to be there. I’ll be playing cello on a few tracks too.

Next amazing album from a very strong week for amazing albums is epic45’s newie, Weathering. Based around the evocation of their home in pastoral Staffordshire, it’s a real beauty, with moments of edginess and noise in there too. The first track I played is like a cross between Hood and Talk Talk, maybe.

Tied+Tickled Trio are one of the most venerable artists on the Morr Music label, a post-jazz ensemble featuring The Notwist. On their new album they team up with jazz/improv drummer Billy Hart for an excursion into exotic jazz and dub.

In between their two tracks, we had the amazing “Warda’s Whorehouse” by Philip Glass & Foday Musa Suso, which was sampled by dj BC in a track I played last week on the show. Suso is a famous Gambian musician, and he collaborated on a score for a stage play with Glass. It’s incredible music.

After Tied+Tickled, we had a bit of a classic from Gary Clail & the On-U Sound System’s 1991 album The Emotional Hooligan. ’91 was my HSC year, so needless to say, music from that era means a lot to me. Still, I think this track has enduring value, as does the album in general – digi-dub, sample-heavy and dub-heavy, with a real pop edge to it.

Daedelus also loves his weird and wonderful samples. He’s one of the great musical collagists of our time, and also an inveterate collaborator. It’s nice to hear fellow LA artist Baths on this track, singing in French, no less!

…and back to Underlapper, singing and howling in Australian English.

It should be no surprise that Guildhall-educated Mica Levi, aka Micachu, would team up with The London Sinfonietta. Fiercely talented, she’s got a number of singles, an album, and a few mixtapes under her belt already, along with at least a couple of orchestral works. Here she combines the indie-crunk of her band The Shapes with those orchestral arrangements, for something woozy and really chunky.

Equally heavy and string-laden is the incredible music of Deaf Center. This is their first album in a number of years. Cavernous production yet close recording ensures we get immense cello drones and booming piano, which tinkles beautifully on other tracks. Pretty stunning, don’t miss it.

Totally stunning, but you’ve probably already missed it, is the Mort Aux Vaches set from Peter Broderick & Machinefabriek. These sessions are recorded for the Dutch radio station VPRO, and gorgeously and uniquely packaged by Staalplaat. On the third and final track Broderick & Zuydervelt are joined by frequent collaborators Kleefstra/Bakker/Kleefstra and Nils Frahm for a 25-minute odyssey incorporating piano, strings, processed guitar, glitchy drones and Dutch spoken word.

I’ve been playing Motion Sickness of Time Travel quite a bit on the show, and tonight we have another recent release featuring analogue synths and disembodied vocals.

And finally I was able to slip one track in from Emanuele Errante’s new album: blissful pulsating ambient music; more next week.

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble – Cotard Delusion [Denovali]
FaltyDL – Regret [Hotflush]
Scuba – Tense [Hotflush]
Fink – See It All (Scuba remix) [Ninja Tune]
Boxcutter – LOADtime [Hotflush]
Mount Kimbie – Maybes (James Blake remix) [Hotflush]
Kryptic Minds – Fade To Nothing [Black Box]
Pangaea – Bear Witness [Hotflush]
Kryptic Minds – Can’t Sleep (feat. Alys Be) [Black Box]
Spokes – Give It Up To The Night (fieldhead remix) [download from Soundcloud!]
Roleo – Future 3.9 [The Frequency Lab]
musSck – Happiness is the Best Facelift [Nihon Kizuna]
musSck – Death Note / Hidden In The World Equal [Car Crash Set]
musSck – I will protect my ninja ways [Global Vortex Records]
musSck – The Girl Who Fell From The Sky [Global Vortex Records]
Underlapper – death by white lies [hellosQuare/Feral Media]
epic45 – the village is asleep [Make Mine Music]
epic45 – the weather is not your friend [Make Mine Music]
Tied+Tickled Trio + Billy Hart – the three doors pt 3 [Morr Music]
Philip Glass & Foday Musa Suso – Warda’s Whorehouse [Point Music]
Tied+Tickled Trio + Billy Hart – lonely woman / exit la place demon / the electronic family [Morr Music]
Gary Clail & the On-U Sound System – Magic Penny [Perfecto]
Daedelus – French Cuffs (feat. Baths) [Ninja Tune]
Underlapper – pause box [hellosQuare/Feral Media]
Micachu & the Shapes / The London Sinfonietta – Low Dogg [Rough Trade]
Micachu & the Shapes / The London Sinfonietta – State Of NY [Rough Trade]
Deaf Center – Divided [Type]
Deaf Center – New Beginning (Tidal Darkness) [Type]
Peter Broderick & Machinefabriek w/ Kleefstra/Bakker/Kleefstra and Nils Frahm – Mort Aux Vaches Session II [Staalplaat]
Motion Sickness of Time Travel – Moons Through A Telescope [self-released] {available from her Bandcamp}
Emanuele Errante – counterclockwise [Karaoke Kalk]

Listen again — ~ 166MB

Tonight featured another compilation to add to the mix from last week, plus little overviews of Low, John Chantler, dj BC and Various, and new music from Evelyn Morris aka Pikelet.
LISTEN AGAIN as per usual by jumping to the bottom of the playlist!

We’ve got Low past and present, including one track from their most experimental and wonderful Drums and Guns album and one track going all the wack to 1996, with a beautiful bit of slowcore.

Hannah Peel is a new artist I know of from Static Caravan. Fantastic string arrangement for a 1 minute track! Later on we had a number more tracks from the Minute Papillon comp (see last week), including Jasper TX, whose forthcoming album sounds fantastic…

Evelyn Morris aka Pikelet has been putting a bunch of new tracks up on her Bandcamp each month this year, so you should go and grab them, from $0 to $5. Very interesting seeing her experiment in some new musical approaches, including drum machines (if not full-blown electronica) and almost noise/drone.

And in a drone vein, some transcendental synth sequences from Motion Sickness of Time Travel, with her trademark submerged vocals in the mix from a new cassette release that you can find on her Bandcamp.

Marina Rosenfeld‘s track is the first from ROOM40‘s 10th birthday compilation, a 40-track download release that you can get for free from their online store. It’s a stunner of a track, piano and processing, and the later tracks I played are also notable (I await the Andrea Belfi album on ROOM40 with high expectations).

And from last week’s other featured compilation, Benefit for the Recovery in Japan (even longer than the ROOM40 one at 64 tracks!), we had Oren Ambarchi seemingly sampling some orchestral recording, a lovely bit of indiefolk-almost-tronica from Bear In Heaven (checking more of them out now) and some kind of woozy funk-hop from Leb Laze.

Bringing us to Daedelus, whose new album is just out now on Ninja Tune. He’s a highly eclectic artist and fits uncomfortably, perhaps, into the LA scene where holds something of a venerable position. He’s used experimental electronica, drum’n’bass, hip-hop, electro and whatever else comes to hand to underpin his madcap sampleadelic collage style. And he’s collaborated with Busdriver before, along with Radioinactive, on the brilliant album The Weather. Great to hear Busdriver singing on his track; lots of awesomeness on this album.

One track from Melbourne’s Hugo Frederick showcases yet another brilliant Australian talent in the making. Reworking Mary J Blige’s “Family Affair” into a chopped-up 2step affair a la James Blake, she’s slowed-down but jittery. It’s a production that bodes well for Australian electronic music in general.

Also awesome to have a new dj BC mashup album available (briefly, probably). As you can see from the below playlist, his prior efforts include two brilliant Beastie Boys/Beatles albums, Wu Tang Clan reimagined with New Orleans swing jazz backings, and Philip Glass used as beds for hip-hop remixes. This time it’s Jay-Z vs Brian Eno, and I’m not familiar enough even with Eno’s work to fully appreciate it. But musically it’s spot-on.

Back to the dubstep styles, a couple of weeks ago there was a new download release from Various (previously Various Production), nice and dark as is their wont. Check out the latest series of releases at their website and join their mailing list to keep up. I played a couple of much-loved older tunes as well.

And finally I got around to playing one of the Burial + Four Tet + Thom Yorke collaborations from a month or so ago. I wasn’t that sold on the new Burial, which just seems like more of the same but with a more 4/4 beat… much like the latest Four Tet to be honest – I hope he gets the four to the floor out of his system soon :) But these tracks are lovely, aided by Thom’s vocal delivery.

Low – try to sleep [Sub Pop]
Low – Belarus [Sub Pop]
Low – Pissing [Sub Pop]
Low – Over The Ocean [Vernon Yard]
Low – try to sleep [Sub Pop]
Hannah Peel – But If I Glance [Second Language]
Evelyn Morris – Letter From The Past [Pikelet Bandcamp]
Motion Sickness of Time Travel – Everything Must Die [Sweat Lodge Guru] {also available from MSOTT Bandcamp}
Evelyn Morris – Respect and Moccasins [Pikelet Bandcamp]
Jasper TX – Requiem [Second Language]
Marina Rosenfeld – Sweetest Sensation [ROOM40] {free download comp from ROOM40 for their 10th birthday!}
John Chantler – Autu [ROOM40]
John Chantler – Sunburning [Piehead Records]
John Chantler – …No Sad Songs Tonight [hellosQuarerecordings]
John Chantler – The Luminous Ground tk A3 [ROOM40]
Roll The Dice – Six-Ten [Second Language]
Andrea Belfi – Paoaofbp [ROOM40] {free download comp from ROOM40 for their 10th birthday!}
pimmon – Limited E Country [ROOM40] {free download comp from ROOM40 for their 10th birthday!}
Steinbrüchel – Same [ROOM40] {free download comp from ROOM40 for their 10th birthday!}
Pete Astor – Buddha Said [Second Language]
Oren Ambarchi – Merely A Portmanteau [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Bear In Heaven – The Days We Have [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Leb Laze – Da Plane Da Plane [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Daedelus – Penny Loafers (feat. Inara George) [Ninja Tune]
Daedelus – What Can You Do? (feat. Busdriver) [Ninja Tune]
Hugo Frederick – Family Affair (Hugo Frederick remix) [Hugo Frederick Soundcloud]
dj BC – Worlds Of Success (Jay-Z vs Brian Eno) [self-released] {download free from dj BC}
dj BC as The Beastles – Watcha Want, Lady? [self-released] {The Beatles vs The Beastie Boys of course}
dj BC – Bogalusa Shimmy [self-released] {from Wu Orleans; this is Old Dirty Bastard vs Chris Burke and His New Orleans Music}
dj BC – How Many Whores? [self-released] {from Glassbreaks; this is The Fugees vs Philip Glass and Foday Musa Suso}
dj BC – Fallin Into Green (Jay-Z vs Brian Eno) [self-released] {download free from dj BC}
Various feat. Mc Vex – Drink It [Various]
Mr Lager – Kailis [Various]
Various Production – Hater [XL Recordings/Various Production]
Various Production – The World Is Gone (feat. Chan Marshall) [Various Production]
Burial + Four Tet + Thom Yorke – Mirror [Text Records]
Evelyn Morris – Stuck There [Pikelet Bandcamp]

Listen again — ~ 172MB