Tonight was dominated by two excellent big compilations, but we also had a variety of sounds, from insane solo saxophone to heavy dubstep.
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom kidz!

We started with the genius Colin Stetson (see last week), whose solo saxophone never fails to get comments. His new album Judges is out now and is like nothing else in the music world — absolutely essential.

From the Second Language label comes an amazing hour-long compilation of 60 one-minute tracks entitled Minute Papillon. The tracklisting demonstrates how impeccably compiled this is, and many of the artists turn in really unusual and ingenious tracks, a number of which we heard tonight.
First off the bat is Heather Woods Broderick, with a lovely vignette with all her talents on display – vocals, strings, piano…

Also on the strings tip is Nat Baldwin, who’s unusual in playing the bowed double bass. His vocal style has always echoed his mate Dave Longstreth (Dirty Projectors) but the double-bass indie songwriting is all his own.
This is the first track of the night from the Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation which I also featured quite a bit tonight. With 64 tracks, this download comp is great value at USD$15, and in any case it’s a good cause for sure. The immense tracklisting encompasses an astonishing array of Utility Fog heroes, many of whom turn in really great tracks. Some are just okay, but that’s fine; they’re also all exclusive, to the best of my knowledge. Net effect: you need this.

Another online compilation with a bit of a string connection is Cloud 11 on Rena Jones’ new Cartesian Binary Recordings. I found out via the brilliant Dutch IDM brothers Funckarma, whose deep electronic sound is augmented by Jones’ cello here — a welcome new twist to the Funcken sound!
Also on the cello is Danny Norbury with his one-minute contribution.

Continuing the string theme, The Bronx’s Wires Under Tension give us a track from their new album Light Science. Keyboards and percussion join with violin for a joyful post/mathrock number. See the excellent video here.

Back to the Japan compilation, a track from Brookyln-based harpist Shelley Burgon, a member of long lost UFog faves Stars Like Fleas. Ultra-pretty.

Also oh-so-pretty are the violin flourishes on Wintercoats’s “Overture”. He’s from Melbourne and has a bunch of tracks up for free at Bandcamp.

Last week I played a track from DJ Hidden’s new Semiomime project, and I thought we should feature it a bit more this week, along with some of his dark and heavy drum’n’bass tracks as DJ Hidden. The Semiomime alias sees him exploring quasi-classical soundtrack sounds, albeit still with a hefty slice of d’n’b-style programming, a bit more along the IDM lines. The arrangements, which are excellent, suffer a bit from being rendered in electronic form — if he’d had access to a mini-orchestra it could’ve been something amazing, but as it is I’m very fond of this album indeed.

And ex-Hood member Gareth S Brown’s one-minute track is a crazy post-baroque bit of controlled chaos.

Next little “special” focuses on Tokyo Bloodworm’s Lost Tribe Sound label, and remix albums of theirs (forthcoming) and Vieo Abiungo’s, a digital release available now from the label.
Manyfingers contributes brilliant remixes of both artists, and I’m pleased to hear that he’s got new material on the way as well. He has two albums of folktronic goodness, and also a long history working with Matt Elliott’s Third Eye Foundation. These mixes, particular the Vieo Abiungo, lean heavily towards the 3ef sound, which is a fabulous thing.
Always in on the remixing is Melbourne friend-of-‘Fog Part Timer, who last year sent me a number of remixes of both artists, some of which remain unreleased. I love his “Upbeat” remix of Vieo Abiungo, and discovering the Vieo remix of Part Timer on hard drive was a nice surprise. I must have missed it the first time round!

After a subtle track from the Tokyo Bloodworm album proper, we had a one-minute piece of pianotronica from d_rradio, very pleasing to me as I hadn’t really taken to their more recent ambient leanings.

Back to the Japan comp, pianist Sylvain Chauveau sounds an awful lot like an almost namesake, David Sylvian, on his glitchy piano and vox number. An absolute beauty.
We extended the beauty another 60 seconds with Fieldhead’s one minute of glitchy bliss.

Zelienople have carved out a space for slowed-down Talk Talk influenced drone-country. Or something. It’s a distinctive sound and I’m happy to listen to it for hours. A worthy addition to the Japan comp, one of the highlights.

More delightful one-minute sounds come from Ark of Noise, whose website does not exist, but it’s the best I can do. It’s Jérôme Tcherneyan, a member of Piano Magic, whose Glenn Johnson runs the Second Language label. A simple glitched-up female vocal line, it’s the sort of thing that Curd Duca was doing over a decade ago, but it’s still a great idea for a one-minute vignette.

A less disembodied female vocal comes from Finland’s Lau Nau, who fits right in with the amazing Finnish experimental scene. An artist to look out for. This is (one of the reasons) why I love compilations!

From a different compilation comes Italy’s Obsil, and I’m very keen to hear more of his electronic/folktronic sounds too. This is from the latest Wire Tapper comp from Wire Magazine, whose regular bonus discs (sometimes subscriber-only, sometimes download editions) make subscribing a no brainer every year.

Also turning in a welcomely unusual one-minute offering is Machinefabriek, who can’t exactly produce a sustained crescendoing drone piece.
For the Japan comp, Prefuse 73 contributes an out-take from the forthcoming The Only She Chapters, a Prefuse album I’m actually really looking forward to, with assorted female guest vocals, and an enveloping production approach.

And next up, Denmark’s Opiate, who after a long absence in his solo guise contributes a cute (probably old) one-minute track to Minute Papillon. While in Japan last month I picked up his first album from 1999, so we heard a piece of classic IDM from that one, and then one from one of my favourite Morr Music releases, his EP from 2003.
Opiate is Thomas Knak, who is a member of the pan-dub trio System, who’ve made all sorts of variants of digi-dub, and effortlessly incorporated dubstep into the works for their album on Rump Recordings last year.

One of the most exciting new Ninja Tune artists is Emika, whose album must surely be on the way — but meanwhile we’ve had a succession of excellent dubstep pop singles, with dusty English vocals and various dubstep (and other) masters on the remix duties.
The latest features a not-so-radical reworking from Kryptic Minds, whose latest album is just out now too, and it carries on from their first in a similar max-minimal dark dubstep style. Highly recommended.

A bit more dubstep to round out the show: Pacheko’s always a winner, and this acid dubstep party tune from the Murder Channel compilation is no exception. Courtesy of last month’s Japan trip, of course.
And Mick Harris has been plumbling the most minimal and heavy dub furrows for more than a decade now as Scorn. He’s apparently somewhat scornful of dubstep, but nevertheless has managed to incorporate the sound into this aesthetic over the last couple of albums, and further with this new EP. Heavy as it gets.

Colin Stetson – The Stars In His Head (Dark Lights Remix) [Constellation]
Heather Woods Broderick – Gold, Limited [Second Language]
Nat Baldwin – In the Hollows [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Funckarma ft Rena Jones – The Magnetic Flip (8D) [Cartesian Binary Recordings]
Danny Norbury – Untitled [Second Language]
Wires Under Tension – Electricity Turns Them On [Western Vinyl]
Shelley Burgon – Let It Be New [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Wintercoats – Overture [via their Bandcamp]
Semiomime – Parade [Ad Noiseam]
Dj Hidden – The Ignorance [Ad Noiseam]
Dj Hidden – The Traveller [Ad Noiseam]
Semiomime – The Exquisites [Ad Noiseam]
Gareth S Brown – Spectral Fist [Second Language]
Tokyo Bloodworm – Blind Daughters of Gaza (Manyfingers remix) [Moteer]
Vieo Abiungo – Fugue (Manyfingers remix) [Lost Tribe Sound]
Vieo Abiungo – Furious (Part Timer’s Upbeat mix) [unreleased]
Part Timer – Where We Used To Go (Vieo Abiungo remix) [unreleased]
Tokyo Bloodworm – Mergers and Occupations (Part Timer remix) [Moteer]
Tokyo Bloodworm – People Do It To Each Other [Moteer]
d_rradio – Descend In One Minute [Second Language]
Sylvain Chauveau – Colours in Darkness [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Fieldhead – Keefer [Second Language]
Zelienople – Stone Faced About It [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Ark of Noise – Autre Language [Second Language]
Lau Nau – Oi Kuolema [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Obsil – Snow Days In March [Psychonavigation, courtesy Wire Mag]
Machinefabriek – Gehakketak [Second Language]
Prefuse 73 – The Only Climactic Dissonant Hums [fina] {from the highly worthy Benefit for the Recovery in Japan compilation}
Opiate – Some Birds Are Bigger Than Others [Second Language]
Opiate – PK 50 [April Records]
Opiate – amstel [Morr Music]
System – Well Blank [Rump Recordings]
Emika – Count Backwards (Kryptic Minds remix) [Ninja Tune]
Kryptic Minds – Just After Sunset [Black Box]
Kryptic Minds – Organic [Black Box]
Pacheko – 9:30 Dub [Murder Channel]
Scorn – Piper [Ohm Resistance]

Listen again — ~ 184MB

Another action-packed show, and as usual I didn’t get to play everything I intended to.
LISTEN AGAIN as per usual – see link at the bottom of the playlist.

First cab off the rank is also the first to miss out on extended play – I will definitely get to DJ Hidden and his new Semiomime guise next week, as the new album is quite brilliant, and I’ve always enjoyed his dark and hard drum’n’bass. As Semiomime he explores an electronic facsimile of classical music, with the beats toned down, although by no means gone altogether.

I had an impressive amount of new and almost-new Australian music to play tonight, starting with the first album from Kris Keogh under his own name. Previously Blastcorp, and also one half of Red Plum & Snow, Keogh here drops the vocals once again, and takes his music into a far more abstract realm, although the album title is as literal as you can get: Processed Harp Works is what these are. Very pretty. I did want to play one more track though, so roll on next week!

Another track from Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s Colophon (see last week), again with scratchy piano samples, and then on to the extraordinary turntable+guitar duo the fun years. Ghostly International have a new compilation series entitled SMM, and from the first release under that banner we heard a new track from the duo, as beguiling as ever. I had to play something from one of their own albums afterwards.

And Perth’s Stina Thomas contributes a fragile piece for piano and other acoustic instruments, one of the closing tracks from an otherwise rather electronic album. It’s a lovely album, but I can’t help wishing the whole thing was more like this.

The piano continues with the even more sparkly and pretty collaboration between Sweden’s Tape and Scottish musician Bill Wells, with double bass, piano and guitar combining with organ and subtle electronics. The new Tape album is out now and winging its way to my place, so in a few weeks we’ll get to hear from that too.

Contrasting with the prettiness of the last few numbers is the extraordinary saxophone of Colin Stetson. The title track from his new album (and first on Constellation) demonstrates his technique to full effect — rhythmic gutteral sax figures are modulated by a melody from his voice in an all-enveloping tour de force of breath and reeds and metal and vocal chords. It’s pretty metal, actually.

Coming at repetitive figures and noise from a different perspective, Leeds’ Ashtray Navigations appear next with a typically limited release (I have #61 of a mere 100 copies), and it’s the sort of analogue synth exploration that should be getting as much attention as Emeralds & co.

Also on the analogue blissnoise tip is ex-pat Aussie John Chantler, holding the fort in the UK for Room40. There’s still a lot to digest with this vinyl and digital release, but suffice to say it’s well worth your attention and $$.

A little examination of Rhode Island’s area c follows. Preservation artist and previous interviewee on this show, Erik Carlson’s music can move from eerie cassette drone (probably my favourite) to NASA-commissioned lunar ambient to live collaborations. His second-last album comprises four half-hour performances over 2 CDs, and we heard an excerpt from the fourth, featuring Jeffrey Knoch’s harmonium along with Carlson’s guitar and electronics.

Next up, another couple of samplings from Melbourne/USA postrock outfit Beaten By Them, both featuring the cello quite prominently. They’ve recently initiated a project called BBT TV, for which they are asking the visually creative to create videos for their work (right now, the very track I played from their new album), with a cash prize as well as good publicity. Their music is indeed rather cinematic, so it should turn up some cool results.

Also with the cello and rock thing going on is Brooklyn duo Live Footage, with their second appearance on these airwaves. The cello takes from seat for a lot of this track, often pitched up with effects, and it’s not until the end that the drums let loose. These guys would no doubt be great live, and they manage to get that across in their recordings.

Back to Australia, and it’s finally possible to start to play you restream’s new (mini-)album (EP?). Completed some time ago, it’s finally mastered and on its way to the public, and anyone who loves shoegaze, electronica and noise is going to love it. All four tracks weigh in at 10 minutes or over, and all are epics. The guitar takes centre stage, but there are beats in there, and more, including occasional vocals. You’ll want to check this out, and I’ll be playing more next week.
His first album, back in 2005, explored similar territory but in shorter form.

Sydney’s Seekae start their album with a feint towards guitars — a cheeky move as a minute or so into track 2 the wonky, glitchy beats come tumbling in and it all makes sense. I actually love the whammy bar guitar and sheen of the start of the album, one of a slew of great new Sydney electronic releases for this year.

Karoshi’s long-awaited debut album is no doubt going to turn some heads too, with a couple of true pop songs, processed beats and folktronic sensibility. FBi liked it enough to make it album of the week, and deservedly so.

Previously album of the week was the debut from UFog protégés Collarbones (please note my tongue is firmly in cheek). It’s hugely impressive, and no surprise considering the talent leaking out of the pores of this diminutive young duo. Their remix of Sydney electro-punk star Simo Soo is all witch-house style cut-ups; from back in 2009 their first EP already exhibited a lot of their familiar sounds, and I couldn’t resist playing the “Closer” from their album again tonight.

Finally tonight, two tracks from the Lost Tribe Sound stable, both releases which I’ll explore in greater depth next week. Forthcoming on the label is the remix album from Vieo Abiungo, slated to be one of my albums of the year. An anyway excellent line-up of remixers are inspired by William Ryan Fritch’s worldbeat sound to turn in uniformly top-of-the-line work.
Along with our own Part Timer (aka Scissors and Sellotape), Between The Pine is represented with two remixes, and we heard the less ambient of the two tonight.

Label heads Tokyo Bloodworm have their new album Palestine coming out on the wonderful Moteer label soon. Based around mainly acoustic sounds, it’s got a world influence too, but its construction bathes the whole experience in mystery. It’s one worth listening to in the dark.
Tune in next week for more from both these releases!

Semiomime – The Exquisites [Ad Noiseam]
Kris Keogh – As we said goodbye to everything we knew [New Weird Australia]
Kris Keogh – Your eyes said we were never coming back [New Weird Australia]
Colophon – First Day Back From Brooklyn/Fingers Through Your Hair [flau]
the fun years – Cornelia Amygdaloid [Ghostly International]
the fun years – auto show day of the dead [barge recordings]
Stina – Lune [Someone Good]
Tape & Bill Wells – Fugue 3 [Immune Recordings]
Colin Stetson – Judges [Constellation]
Ashtray Navigations – Secretaries of the Future [memoirs of an aesthete]
John Chantler – The Luminous Ground (side A track 2) [Room40]
area c – Darkens The Mind Part 1 [Sloow Tapes]
area c – lake of dreams [Handmd]
area c / eyes like saucers – lesser dog, greater still (excerpt) [sedimental]
area c – Map of Circular Thought [Preservation]
Beaten By Them – Nusla Nif [Logicpole]
Beaten By Them – Pioneer 10 [available from their Bandcamp] {free download of their first album!}
Live Footage – Willow Be [self-released]
restream – Nature Archives [lofly]
restream – Herehaveatrophy [lofly]
Seekae – Go [Rice is Nice]
Seekae – 3 [Rice is Nice]
Karoshi – Reanimate Me [Other Tongues]
Simo Soo – I Smashed My Face (Collarbones rmx) [Lesstalk Records]
Collarbones – Weatherman [Internet Archive – free download!]
Collarbones – Closer [Two Bright Lakes]
Vieo Abiungo – Parading on Broken Glass (Between The Pine remix) [Lost Tribe Sound]
Tokyo Bloodworm – Mergers and Occupations [Moteer]

Listen again — ~ 168MB

More wondrous sounds from Japan tonight (see earlier posts — purchased in Japan, much of it also made in Japan), along with some select local delicacies.
If you’re as distressed and hopeless-feeling as I am, following the enormous upheaval and loss the country has experienced in the last week, you may get a little solace from this beautiful blogpost: Japan is OK. It rings true to me: they’ve suffered great pain and nothing will be the same again; but they’re coping, and Japan is still Japan.
LISTEN AGAIN as usual, via the link at the bottom.

I started tonight with a much-loved soundtrack tune by Ryuichi Sakamoto, simply because it conveys my affection for Japan, my sadness and hope for a beautiful country of beautiful people (generalisations are GOOD). This version, for classical piano trio, is just exquisite.

And just before I got too much further, a really great new track from Here We Go Magic, which is promoting a new EP due out soon. It’s probably his/their best track since the unbearably catchy “Fangela” from the first album.

One little track-from-Japan crept in before our interview tonight: Colophon is Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, who co-runs the Root Strata label and plays in Tarantel. This release on the flau label (see discussion in last week’s playlist) features tracks from 2003-4, many based around short, crackly loops. It’s not the most fully-formed of releases, but there’s a lot of emotion embedded in these sounds.

I deliberately chose some piano sounds to lead into tonight’s feature interview, with Adrian Lim-Klumpes of 3ofmillions. One of Sydney’s most creative and unfettered groups, they’re ostensibly a jazz piano trio, but backgrounds and interests in postrock, noise, electronica, punk and more tend to override the jazz genre markers. Adrian’s an articulate speaker as always.
3ofmillions launch their brilliant new album Abstruction at 505 on Cleveland St, this Wednesday the 23rd of March, and at Owls Cafe/Gallery in Wollongong on the 24th. See their site for further gigs (April 1st and 9th).

Sydney/Adelaide duo Collarbones finally release their new album this week. Residing somewhere between pop, r’n’b, witch house and <insert genre here>, Collarbones are the perfect twenty-teens band, and of course they’re still ultra-young (I’ve been playing Sydney member Marcus’ music since he was a precocious Yr 10 student making drone/noise). The production’s rough around the edges, but that’s sortof what it’s about — digitally-mediated, genre-agnostic, infectious and uncompromising.

Among the releases I picked up in Japan was a 2CD set by sadly defunct Oxford post-rock/punk/prog/tronica band Youthmovies, previously Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies or YMSS. Marcus has been known to be a Youthmovies fanboi, so I thought it appropriate to play a couple of their tracks next. The release in question collects most of their EPs and spurious other tracks, and while I had all of the newer disc, the other one filled in most of the blanks in my collection, with epic unhinged angular rock songs (often hardly songs at all). I’ve had the 65daysofstatic remix for many years courtesy of 65dos, and it’s brilliant to finally hear the original song and discover just how much it was remodelled by their contemporaries from up north.

Another remix I knew some time before the original is the remix of matryoshka by one of my favourite Japanese acts, world’s end girlfriend. It’s vintage weg, string quartet rubbing up with breakcore and glitch-beat, lush electronica and punk rock attitude. I finally found not only the CD of the remix disc but the original album as well, and it turns out matryoshka (a Japanese duo) do a great turn themselves in experimental electronic pop. A new album is apparently in the works for sometime this year. The remix disc is uniformly fantastic, by the way.

Speaking of remixes, we head back to flau head aus, and a pastoral remix by postfolkrock duo State River Widening. I was indescribably excited to find SRW’s third album, Cottonhead, at a Disk Union in Tokyo. I’ve had low quality mp3s for years and it’s proven hard to track down. It’s a mortal sin that this album has been out of print for so long — any fans of Mice Parade, Fridge, Steve Reich or The Pentangle ought to love it.

I told this story on-air, but anyway: at the second Spartak gig I saw in Tokyo, presented by the aforementioned Yasuhiko Fukuzono (aka aus), I was expecting excellent in-between set music from Osamu from Linus Records/Preco. But after the gig, there was a girl DJing and she played a fantastic tune based around rapidfire piano in odd time signatures, and I had to hop up and ask her what it was. Unfortunately her Japanese accent got the better of me, and I could only make out a Japanese word starting with “N”, and the fact that one of the bandmembers was at the gig.
So I did some digging back at the hotel, and discovered the DJ was Elly from Wonderyou; from there I went searching for bands, and was only slightly perturbed to discover the “Japanese word” I’d heard was “Networks“. A YouTube sample confirmed it was them, and their record was uncovered with only a little difficulty at the still-awesome Tower Records the following day (Japanese releases appear under J-Pop, J-Club etc, and Japanese alphabetical order starts with the vowels and then follows with consonants in the order reflecting hirakana… and some sounds are not differentiated, so B, P and F are all mixed together). Still, persistence paid off, and you got to hear the fruits of my labour tonight!

Another favourite Japanese artist in Utility Fog Towers is Himuro Yoshiteru, of whom we’ve heard plenty even prior to this trip. Among my aims was finding Himuro’s back catalogue, and also collecting as much as I could of the Murder Channel label.
Interestingly, neither of these goals was fulfilled at all until I rediscovered Tower Records. The various amazing Japanese indie stores, and even Disk Union, turned up scads of esoteric finds, Japanese as well as international, but it was Tower that provided for recent local releases. There I found the two main Himuro albums I was missing, and the majority of the Murder Channel catalogue once I understood the alphabet and filing system.
Himuro endlessly delights me, with supple, nimble beats and an ear for melody to match µ-Ziq and Luke Vibert.

The rest of the evening was Murder Channel’s. I had asked myself before we left whether Japan had produced any native dubstep artists. Stupid question – Japan is one of the homes of breakcore and idm/drill’n’bass, and the breakcore scene took to dubstep like a duck to water. Before the dubstep, though, we keep it drill’n’bass with Unuramenura, whose Underground Works 1999-2005 are so accomplished in their beat-juggling and heavy-weight hardcore that it’s hard to understand where he was hiding all that time.

Cardopusher’s “Fighters Unite” is an old favourite from a split 10”. It’s one of my fave breakcore-dancehall tracks of all time (OF ALL TIME), and it’s gratifying to find it on CD courtesy of the 2CD+DVD Murder Channel Compilation.

Cardo, a Venezuelan now based in Barcelona, released an album on Murder Channel, who are more than willing to cast their net outside of their home country. But the home team hits hard: Freezer also combines dubset with breakcore, evoking hardcore nostalgia.
Dokkebi Q, well this is incredible — a brash cross-breeding of dub, dancehall, dubstep and breakcore (with Middle Eastern influences thrown into the melting pot), it’s all held together by Kiki Hitomi’s punkish vocals, filtering Jamaican and East London styles through a Japanese lens. I can’t believe I missed this last year; it won’t happen again, I promise.
You may know Kiki Hitomi from collaborations with Kevin Martin’s groups The Bug and King Midas Sound. They also have a duo a Black Chow. She’s the perfect fit for Martin’s industrial and Jamaican-derived sound, but Dokkebi Q seems very much her native environment.

Finally, DJ 100mado is making heavy, wobbly, but technical and detailed dubstep. His Murder Channel release was a split with Cardopusher’s Venezuelan compatriot Pacheko, who I’ve played here before, but 100mado’s also irresistible. Japan’s the future, y’all.

Ryuichi Sakamoto – Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (piano trio version from 1996 with Jaques Morelenbaum, cello, Everton Nelson, violin) [Milan]
Here We Go Magic – Hands in the Sky [Secretly Canadian] {via Pitchfork}
Colophon – Prospect Park [flau]
3ofmillions – Glaciation [Rufus Records]
…interview with Adrian Lim-Klumpes from 3ofmillions…
3ofmillions – golden calf [hellosQuare] {played under interview}
3ofmillions – Nebuchadnezzar [Rufus Records]
3ofmillions – What Are You Gunna Do? [Rufus Records]
3ofmillions – conscription [hellosQuare]
Collarbones – Snatch [Two Bright Lakes]
Collarbones – Berlioz [Two Bright Lakes]
Collarbones – Closer [Two Bright Lakes]
youthmovie soundtrack strategies – the if works [Quickfix Recordings]
youthmovie soundtrack strategies – spooks the horse (65daysofstatic remix) [Quickfix Recordings]
matryoshka – Sink Into The Sin (remixed by world’s end girlfriend) [Novel Sounds]
matryoshka – Viridian [Novel Sounds]
aus – Headphone Girl (State River Widening Remix) [Preco]
State River Widening – Crown [Vertical Form]
State River Widening – Desertesque [Vertical Form]
Networks – Ab-rah [Wonderyou]
Himuro Yoshiteru – unwind and rewind [Murder Channel] {available through his Bandcamp}
Himuro Yoshiteru – oh jesus [File Records]
Himuro Yoshiteru – i wanna show you waht i’m seeing [Murder Channel] {available through his Bandcamp}
Unuramenura – Mad Lolita [Murder Channel]
Cardopusher – Fighters Unite [Murder Channel]
Freezer – Prowler(s) [Murder Channel]
Dokkebi Q – Hardcore Cherry Bon Bon [Murder Channel]
Dokkebi Q – English Weather Boy [Murder Channel]
DJ 100mado – Side Life (Murder Channel Exclusive mix) [Murder Channel]

Listen again — ~ 171MB

Tonight, I’m back from Japan, and returned just left a few days before a mindboggling disaster struck this beautiful country. The earthquake and tsunami have left thousands dead and many tens of thousands more lives affected forever. Tokyo survived incredibly well due to brilliant engineering and architecture, but nevertheless, apartments were absolutely turned upside down by the quake and its many aftershocks. Tonight and next week (at least) will feature a lot of the music I bought and was given while over there (it literally took a small suitcase to bring it all in tonight).
LISTEN AGAIN as usual via the link at the bottom.

While in Japan I go to see my friends (and one of my favourite bands in Australia) Spartak playing a couple of gigs in Tokyo, and thus a few excellent like-minded Japanese bands as well. The shows were organised by Yasuhiko Fukuzono of flau, a fantastic record label that I’ve known for a long time since they released Part Timer‘s second album. But I hadn’t quite made the connection, and so when I was introduced to Yasuhiko by Shoeb I didn’t quite know who he was — but he instantly said “Peter… is that Peter Hollo? We’re friends on Facebook!”
I was floored. We are Facebook friends, and I hadn’t even worked it out. Yasuhiko makes incredible electronic/folktronic music also as aus, and I managed to find a few albums from his back catalogue while I was over there too.

Throughout tonight’s show we heard a lot of music from flau — some found in Japan’s many superb record stores, and a pile give to me by the very lovely Yasuhiko.
I started with a beautiful track from Kanazu Tomoyuki, with horns/woodwinds and very sensitive piano from the artist himself, along with some electronic contributions by Yasuhiko.

Next up, the first of a number of tracks by aus — see later for more, this one sourced from the original Lang album. I’ve had the remix CD for some time (see the extraordinary Bracken remix below; I’ll be playing something else from that next week!) and have only just now discovered what a piece of genius the original album is. Released on Preco, the label run by Osamu of the very excellent online store Linus Records.

At one of the Spartak gigs, the first support came from cuushe. She was joined by a guitarist and sax player, with the rest of the backing off laptop. The album itself features aus doing a fair bit of electronic production and processing, and some lovely songwriting in that Japanese vocal style.

el fog had a release on the moteer label and I hadn’t picked up that he’s Japanese. Yasuhiko passed the album on and it’s brilliant and subtle – vibraphone and minimal electronica/dub.

Fragmented though the beats are on el fog’s album, it’s nothing compared to the nano-jazz of SJQ (Samurai Jazz Quintet). This is like Atom™ if he was a free jazz quintet on copious amounts of caffeine. Insane as only the Japanese can be.

I latched onto kangding ray‘s Pruitt Igoe EP last year because of the Ben Frost remix, and knew I had to find his earlier material. In Kyoto I found two excellent record stores — Art Rock #1 and Parallax Records, the latter of which had not only two walls of contemporary classical, sound-art and classic musique concrète, but also impressive back catalogue of raster-noton, Mego and other labels. PLUS heaps of Japanese labels and experimental artists, and nicely-curated electronica and postrock sections.
As you can see from tonight’s playlist, the kangding ray lived up to all expectations.

Quick jump to a new track which appeared on the internets just after I got back. The new Prefuse 73 will involve some impressive guests, among them Shara Worden aka My Brightest Diamond, who turns everything she touches to gold (or is it diamond?) Beautiful work.
Apparently the late, lamented Trish Keenan from Broadcast also appears on the album, and it’s embarrassing that it was only after hear untimely death that I sought out Broadcast past the (many) compilation appearances I had from them. A couple of songs exhibit their ear for perfect pop as well as their love of analogue synths and live drums that somehow sound simultaneously very contemporary and very retro.

Also perhaps retro are Belgian indie-postrockers Bed. Their second album, Spacebox, was a masterpiece of post-Talk Talk songwriting. I had heard the follow-up was a lot more upbeat, but thought I’d give it a go anyway. The songs are just as great, fortunately, and the ony I chose tonight was as close to the earlier sound as it gets.
I was reminded of the sound of the latest ensemble album, one of my favourite releases of the year so far, which carries Olivier Alary from his early incarnation as glitchy electronic artist (accompanied by female vocals) to European indie/postrock songwriter. The skittery aus track I followed with harkens back a little to the early days of ensemble.
Then we have something almost drill’n’bassy from Lang, and the famous remix by Bracken.

It turns out that Chris Adams of Bracken has been writing some new material under yet another alias, this time a collaboration with Andrew Jonson, who played with Chris in Hood for some time, and went on to form The Remote Viewer, who run the excellent moteer label. On Fell are set to release a series of three untitled 7″s on Moteer, and the first dropped with no warning just before I left for Japan. It was waiting for me, courtesy of Norman Records, when I arrived home. It’s definitely a blend of Bracken and The Remote Viewer, and I hope I’ll be able to hear it in a better format than flimsy (albeit pretty) vinyl eventually.

Japan is famous for its exclusive releases, made available because (I believe) the Japanese tax on CDs makes it frequently cheaper to import releases than buy them locally. Thus bonus tracks and discs to make the local releases more attractive. On my very first day in Kyoto, at the aforementioned Art Rock #1, I found a Japanese version of the second album by vitaminsforyou, with an entire bonus disc of material I’d never heard. Exquisite indie/folktronica — shame his last album was woeful techno-pop.

Finally we pop back to Sydney for an important event that’s happening on this Wednesday (March 16th) at the Red Rattler in Marrickville. Edwin Montgomery will be performing a live re-scoring of Werner Herzog’s classic experimental movie Fata Morgana. He kindly sent me the recording already, and it’s as cinematic as ever — multi-tracked strings, lonely guitar, possibly field recordings. Should be a beautiful night.
In between, something equally epic from the new Kronos Quartet album, in collaboration with two insane Fins: Kimmo Pohjonen and Samuli Kosminen. Accordion and electronics rub up against dramatic strings; it’s typical Kronos and works a treat.

Second-last segment features Ukrainian ambient/experimental artist Andrey Kiritchenko on Japan’s spekk label, with the self-effacingly touching album Mysterrious. Eschewing most of his computer processing in favour of bare piano, guitar, field recordings and other instruments, along with two very fine guest drummers on some tracks, Kiritchenko creates a sound-world evocative of naïveté but without being precious or folksy. It’s quite lovely and is worth frequently returning to.
In between, Colleen‘s entry into the Mort Aux Vaches series has her playig live in between her music box sampling stage and her live performance (with loop pedals) stage. Raw and beautiful.

And just quickly, the one disc from Boredoms that I’d been looking for for some years; EY∃‘s remixes of Vision Creation Newsun. FOUND in Shimokitazawa, and I’ll probably play another track next week. This one has no beats, just scintillating sped-up guitars (pretty much).

Finally, I didn’t get a chance tonight to get through all the great Japanese dubstep and breakcore I picked up, so two tracks from the 2CD compilation Mosaic – Volume One on dBridge‘s Exit Records. It’s an unusual drum’n’bass compilation, fusing dubstep and minimal techno aesthetics with d’n’b tempos and production techniques, with some big-name dubstep artists in the mix. It makes for the most progressive-sounding drum’n’bass I’ve heard since Critical Music‘s compilations of the previous years, although Rockwell, Sabre and the like don’t appear.

Dan HabarNam‘s track keeps it downtempo, hinting at drum’n’bass fury but never quite letting up the tension. Abstract Elements do let loose, and live up to their name. This is a pretty exciting time for dancefloor music as well as experimental music, so check it out.

Kanazu Tomoyuki – April [flau] {track title via the flau site, where English names are available, as opposed to the artwork itself (fair enough!)}
aus – Beyond The Curve [Preco]
cuushe – Simple complication [flau]
el fog – Broken [flau]
el fog – Flip and Dub [flau]
SJQ (Samurai Jazz Quintet) – qi [Headz]
kangding ray – automne fold [raster-noton]
kangding ray – downshifters [raster-noton]
kangding ray – the distance [raster-noton]
Prefuse 73 – The Only Hand To Hold (feat. Shara Worden) [Warp] {via Stereogum}
Broadcast – Come On Let’s Go [Warp]
Broadcast – Message From Home [Warp]
Bed – memories of you [Ici D’Ailleurs]
ensemble – Envies d’Avalanches [FatCat]
aus – IHI w/ Takafumi Tsuchiya feat. cokiyu [flau]
aus – Headphone Girl [Preco]
aus – Moraine (Bracken remix) [Preco]
On Fell – Untitled A [Moteer]
vitaminsforyou feat. snailhouse – Luxury and Hope [intr_version/Moor Works]
vitaminsforyou – Nothing Never Is (In Two Parts) [intr_version/Moor Works]
Edwin Montgomery – Aeroplanes Landing [self-released]
Kronos Quartet/Kimmo Pohjonen/Samuli Kosminen – Plasma [ondine]
Edwin Montgomery – Waterfalls/Flying [self-released]
Andrey Kiritchenko – sparkling early mornings [spekk]
colleen – the cello song [staalplaat]
Andrey Kiritchenko – unexpected raylets [spekk]
Boredoms (Vision Recreation by EY∃) – 77 [Warner Music Japan]
Dan HabarNam – Nu Este Roz [Exit Records]
Abstract Elements – Essence of Time [Exit Records]

Listen again — ~ 174MB