Good evening! Postrock central at the start of tonight’s show!
As usual, LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom.

Mogwai are a band I’ve neglected for most of their career. They’ve always felt too much along the lines of the quietLOUDquiet by-numbers postrock which they’ve inspired, bands like MONO who I really can’t stand… Nevertheless, they’re a bit more creative than that, and I probably ought to have given them more credit than I have — in any case, their new album has a number of genuinely melodic and powerful tunes on it, so colour me impressed.
We had two of them in the early parts of the show, along with two extremely excellent remixes from the extremely excellent remix EP and album that they put out in 1998. You’ll see that I chose two of my favourite bands there, but there were plenty of other great acts taking the digital scissors to the earliest works of the Scottish band. Hood keep the essence of the original but add some of their own instruments, and the dub and cut-up techniques they were into at the time. And µ-Ziq takes it into typical chopped-up drill’n’bass territory.

Also in there was one track from the lovely new album from Melbourne/San Francisco/New York postrock(ish) band Beaten By Them, from whom we must hear more next week.

But having played And µ-Ziq’s Mogwai remix, I was reminded of another of his indie band remixes from that period, taking on Yo La Tengo for a top-notch EP which also featured Tortoise and Kevin Shields remixes (Shields also turned up as My Bloody Valentine remixing Mogwai on the Fear Satan EP).

And this brought us to the terrifying talents of Himuro Yoshiteru, whose melody-filled beat mangling I first encountered on a turntable in Berwick St London’s greatest record store, Ambient Soho (RIP!). Released by Ambient Soho’s label (which lasted somewhat longer than the store), Worm Interface, the split 12″ featured Himuro’s “Tonoma Shock”, which has never been available elsewhere in that form, and which I played tonight with some nostalgia. But Himuro, under his full name, is still releasing music, and a few of the more recent releases are available from his Bandcamp. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
When I visit Japan in a couple of weeks (I’m missing the 27th of Feb and 6th of March shows for this trip), I’ll be on the lookout for more of his music.

On our way out of electronica-land to somewhere else, we hitch a ride with Leafcutter John, who once upon a time was signed to Mike “µ-Ziq” Paradinas’ Planet µ label. It’s still exhilirating hearing beats in amongst his acoustic audio processing, but they were always a rare occurrence. In the meantime he released a fantastic album on Staubgold, with arcane English folk rubbing up against sophisticated instrumental arrangements and electro-acoustic techiques.
He is also an accomplished live performer, and his new album Tunis is sourced from a live performance at a festival there (well before the extraordinary recent revolutionary events). It’s lovely hearing his lute’s strings emerging from digital detritus, and on other tracks he adds his voice to the mix, as well as field recordings from the area.

Speaking of processed acoustic instruments, Darwin’s own Kris Keogh (aka Blastcorp, etc) gave us a sneak preview of an album of processed harp which New Weird Australia will be releasing soon. Beautiful stuff.

On Friday night I’m playing a gig with the lovely Sophie Hutchings. I’ll be playing cello in her band, and also playing a solo set under my Raven guise. I played my favourite track from her album — solo piano with a little violin and some cymbals. Also supporting on the night is clarinettist Tony Gorman — a highly respected member of the Sydney jazz scene who, some years ago, woke up one morning with Multiple Sclerosis. You can read him tell the story of the enormous impact this had on his life in this excellent interview with Andrew Ford on the Music Show, but his response was to create a slowed-down beautiful music under the banner of Songs of Hope, from which we took a dark but calm number.

Speaking of ambient and drone, a number of the following tracks came from a compilation on the UK label Audio Gourmet called Hidden Landscapes. Available for a small price from the label’s Bandcamp and in very limited physical format here, it comes highly recommended, with an impressive array of sound art pieces in the Machinefabriek vein — and the procedes go simply back into allowing Audio Gourmet to release (most of) their music for free online.
As well as the aforementioned Machinefabriek, whose piece is a quiet rumination on a few (as always) exquisitely-recorded elements, there’s the burbly pastoral ambient of Maps & Diagrams, and later M Ostermeier’s minimalist electronics with piano, and Nicola Ratti’s lopsided rhythms and sub-bass pounces (a highlight on a consistently excellent disc).

In between these tracks, a couple of other items from Hibernate. Danny Saul runs the White Box label, and is something of a revelation. His 2009 album features voice and guitar, with elements from the drone and noise spectrum and very long tracks with loose structures — this ain’t pop music, even industrial or black metal or something.
Saul’s duo with cellist Greg Haines, Liondialer, explores similar territory, with fairly abstract, minimalist cello (mostly playing harmonics and sul pont when audible) and more electronics in the mix. Their Liondialer LIVE! album from 2009 rather gleefully incorporates uninterested audience chatter into the mix, and it’s surprisingly effective (rather than distracting).

Also recorded live (but sans audience noise) is the latest pair of releases (two short LPs which really should have been one album — extortionate much, Mego?) from glitch-laptop supergroup Fenn O’Berg. Christian Fennesz, Jim O’Rourke and Peter Rehberg have by now been doing the live laptop thing together for long enough that they instinctively fit together, or so it seems, and the first Kyoto piece is beguiling and fascinating.

And… argh. Akron/Family’s newie has been long awaited, what with a new label and some delay, and it seems that somebody close to them (probably) thought they’d have some fun and leak some very very odd versions in the 2-3 months before it came out. I only came upon them recently, but the “1/6” and “2/6” versions (see below for full titles) take the real album and send it through some extreme digital filters to create some mega-freaked-out dubs. Most people seem to think they’re not just the product of some internet wags, since nobody had the real thing yet when they came out; it’s possible their mate Greg Davis is involved in some way, although the effects on the whole seem a bit too off-the-shelf for Greg’s style. Still, there’s a lot of fun to be found in the free-noise versions of the new Akron album, complete with witch house-style versions of the track titles.
The album itself is mostly on the rock’n’roll end of their freak folk sound, and I could do with less guitar solos — but then I could also do with a bit less of the full-throated wailing they get into. I still love the guys, and I sincerely love the track I played tonight, which I remember from their ear-splitting live show at the Annandale when they were last in Sydney.

And finally, we join back with Olivier Alary’s Ensemble, on whom we focused last week. From way back in the ancient past comes a remix he did for Piano Magic, in his shimmery, skittery glitch-idm style. And then from the new album, it’s absolutely gorgeous French pop, with a little side of postrock and electronica hiding in the edges.

Mogwai – White Noise [Rock Action/Spunk]
Beaten By Them – Lost [Logicpole]
Mogwai – like herod (hood remix) [Eye Q (UK)]
Mogwai – Death Rays [Rock Action/Spunk]
Mogwai – fear satan (µ-Ziq remix) [Eye Q (UK)]
Yo La Tengo – Autumn Sweater (µ-Ziq remix) [Matador]
Himuro Yoshiteru – unwind and rewind [Murder Channel/Himuro Bandcamp]
Himuro Yoshiteru – start it [Murder Channel/Himuro Bandcamp]
Himuro – Tonoma Shock [Worm Interface]
Himuro Yoshiteru – I wanna show you what I’m seeing [Murder Channel/Himuro Bandcamp]
Leafcutter John – Khom?s [Planet µ]
Leafcutter John – Introduction in the Wrong Place [Tsuku Boshi]
Leafcutter John – let it begin [Staubgold]
Leafcutter John – Melimëlon [Tsuku Boshi]
Kris Keogh – Secretly Knowing We’d Never Be The Same [forthcoming through New Weird Australia]
Sophie Hutchings – Following Sea [Preservation]
Tony Gorman – Rivers of the Night [self-released]
Maps & Diagrams – Everybody’s Got Something to Hide [Audio Gourmet]
Machinefabriek – Toendra [Audio Gourmet]
Danny Saul – Clockwork [White Box]
Liondialer – Bay Horse [White Box]
M Ostermeier – Central [Audio Gourmet]
Nicola Ratti – Nordich [Audio Gourmet]
Fenn O’Berg – Kyoto 1 [Editions Mego]
Akron/Family – AAA <<<< O>>>>> A //////WAY\\\\\\ BMB [from the S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of <sbmb>Shinju TnT (2/6) bootleg]
Akron/Family – ++++ /\ Fuji 1 /\ ++++ [from the S/T II: The Cosmic Birth adn Journey of <gdbmb> Shinju TNT (1/6) bootleg] {the “gd” in “gdbmb” could possibly mean Greg Davis, but I haven’t confirmed this}
Akron/Family – A AAA O A WAY [Dead Oceans]
Piano Magic – There’s No Need For Us To Be Alone (Decomposed by Ensemble) [Morr Music]
ensemble – Excerpts [FatCat]

Listen again — ~ 175MB

Sometime in the past 6-9 months you may have tried to contact me via the utility_fog@fbiradio.com email address.
I only recently learned that it hasn’t been forwarding on to me for about that long, so if you feel I’ve been unjustly ignoring you, maybe that’s why!

The email on the site (at frogworth.com) will always work, but the fbiradio.com is now back up and alive, so drop me a line, send me promo, send me music. Preferably don’t put me on your email list without asking though.

Tonight, an interview with Preservation artist Area C, and lots more!
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom, as per usual.

We started with a handful of tracks from French artist ensemble, aka Olivier Alary, who’s been making music since at least 2000, when his debut was released by legendary (even then!) IDM label Rephlex. Featuring Chanelle Kimber’s vocals and skittery glitch-beats, it was understated and probably under-heard, but I think it still stands up pretty nicely now. In the interim between that and his second album, Alary worked quite a bit with Björk, remixing a bunch of tracks and ending up co-writing “Desired Constellation” with her too. In 2006 he finally released his second album, self-titled to perhaps denote a new beginning, and a number of singers guested on it, including Cat Power and Lou Barlow; but I rather like one of the tracks with Mileece.
Another 5 years on we’re treated to another album, Excerpts, which moves even further from the experimental electonic beginnings. With a string quartet and various other instrumentalists fleshing out the sound, and vocals from both Alary and Darcy Conroy, it’s beautifully arranged and features some assured songwriting. Wonderful stuff.

Next up, we had a chat with Erik Carlson about his solo project Area C, whose new album is out now on Preservation. He’s got a fascinating background in music, architecture and theory, and is making some very hypnotic and beautiful stuff based around effected guitar loops and keyboards.
You can download the interview separately here.

Piiptsjilling is a very interesting collaboration between Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek, Jan & Romke Kleefstra and Mariska Baars aka soccer Committee. It’s got the minimalist sound art of Machinefabriek, with tasteful bits of guitar, Barrs’ lovely vocals, and the evocative poetry (even if we don’t understand the words) of Jan Kleefstra. Beautiful listening.

I’ve never totally gotten into Tim Hecker, about whom other people go into spasms of ecstasy when discussing him… But the new album, Ravedeath, 1972 (excellent title) is indeed rather beautiful. I like the tinkly piano hidden behind the big organ drone in this one.

Konntinent has been putting out icy ambient electronic sounds, always with a sense of great space, for a couple of years. Nice to hear something new from him, and it comes recommended.

Rockwell, along with the Critical Music label, was one of the discoveries of last year: smart, different, dance-floor-oriented drum’n’bass. His new EP features a This Mortal Coil sample in the title track, but I decided to play two others: one with a first class bassline, and one slightly tougher remix of an earlier track, plus a track from last year with very tricky drum programming.

From Ulterior Motive’s Rockwell remix we head into even harder territory with Submerged, one of the drum’n’bass/breakcore producers behind The Blood of Heroes. We heard a track each from his 2007 & 2008 albums, both very hard and dark, plus a couple of remixes by the aforementioned supergroup, by two of the other members.

One of tonight’s random tracks comes from Himuro Yoshiteru, a wonderful Japanese producer whose track “Tonoma Shock” from from 1998 is one of my favourite idm/drill’n’bass tunes ever. I’d somehow missed his 2005 album on Zod and recently picked it up via the Ad Noiseam online store. This is a very friendly track with his signature hip-hop beats and melody.

Next up, those custodians of idm Funckarma, with a couple of new tunes: one from their latest Dubstoned EP, although only tangentially dubstep, and the other from a self-released EP which, like most of their new music, can be picked up digitally for a reasonable price at their site. Killer programming, like nobody else can do it.

Back with the FatCat label, and the label basically made its name in the 1990s with their split 12″ series; from the 2nd one, we heard a classic idm tune from Ad Vanz (Rob Hall from Skam) vs Gescom (in this instance almost definitely just Rob & Sean from Autechre). Slow-moving synth harmonies and busy, crunchy idm beat – just what you needed.

The youngest producer for tonight goes to Jordan Dorjee, whose music is built from turntable and laptop, but this ain’t DJ Shadow. Deconstructed and quite evocative, this is a mighty promising debut!

And then back to Brisbane’s AXXONN. To be honest, I love his/their non-album stuff better than Let’s Get It Straight, and “Drone Study 1” is hugely impressive, big crescendoing drones, with ultra-clear natural sounds interjecting across them near the end. But there are some great tunes on the album, once one gets over the expectation that it’ll be drone/noise. The vocals are appropriately far back in the mix, with drum machines and synths making for that noisesters-doing-electropop thing that’s happening nowadays. And Little Scout’s remix of the title track adds their female vocals and some lovely melancholy to the equation.

ensemble – Envies d’Avalanches [FatCat]
ensemble – sketch proposal 10 [Rephlex]
Björk – sun in my mouth (recomposed by ensemble) [One Little Indian]
ensemble – Summerstorm feat. Mileece [FatCat]
ensemble – Things I Forget [FatCat]
Area C – Twos [Preservation]
…interview with Erik Carlson aka Area C. “Ebbs to a Steady Burn” under interview…
Area C – An After Image [Preservation]
Piiptsjilling – Unkrûd (Ill Weeds) [Experimedia]
Tim Hecker – Hatred Of Music II [kranky]
Konntinent – New Neo Tokyo / From The Beach, Odaiba Bay [Debacle Records]
Rockwell – Live For The Moment [Critical Music]
Rockwell – Tribes [Critical Music]
Rockwell – Noir (Ulterior Motive Remix) [Critical Music]
Submerged – Ghosting [Sublight]
The Blood of Heroes – Salute to the Jugger (Bill Laswell Original Mix) [Ohm Resistance]
Submerged – Doctored Intelligence (Version) [Ohm Resistance]
The Blood of Heroes – Remain (Justin K Broadrick Remix) [Ohm Resistance]
Himuro – My Beats Your Beats [Zod]
Funckarma – Mepeche (w/ Phinx) [Thin Consolation]
Funckarma – Wack Spine [Funckarma]
Ad Vanz vs Gescom – Viral [FatCat]
Jordan Dorjee – Nothin’ But Wax [unreleased demo]
AXXONN – Drone Study 1 [AXXONN]
AXXONN – Choc Milk Addiction [Useless Art]
AXXONN – Let’s Get It Straight (Little Scout Remix) [Sonoptik] {free download!}

Listen again — ~ 170MB

Tonight featured live music and a pretty big range of tunes from indie pop to various electronic genres, drone and all sorts of remixy business.
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom.

Last week I played a couple of tracks that I didn’t hear live from a couple of Sydney Festival artists. Tonight I thought I’d do the same. Sufjan Stevens put on an incredible show at the Sydney Opera House on Friday night (and by all accounts Thursday too), featuring masterful playing by all, great sound, dancing and much theatrics. And hundreds of balloons falling from the ceiling. A delight.
But while he played many tracks from both last year’s album and EP, he didn’t play one of the highlights, “I Want To Be Well”, so I thought it an appropriate opening track for tonight.

Next up, a track from one of the best drum’n’bass albums I’ve heard in the last few years, Sabre’s A Wandering Journal. The reason? The MC on the track, Maxwell Golden, was participating in a fantastic cross-cultural collaborative hip-hop theatre piece at Carriageworks for SydFest, called East London West Sydney. An ambitious project, it brought spoken word and hip-hop into a narrative format of sorts, and succeeded to no small extent because all the artists were fantastically talented.

I know nothing of Objekt, except that he’s a German dubstep/techno artist, and also a record label. It’s fantastic stuff anyway, and a slightly different approach to this particular stylistic crossover than some other Berlin artists are taking.

Tidy Kid is a Brisbane artist who’s been around for yonks, and thus it’s embarrassing that I hadn’t heard of him. The EP he dropped in to us is fantastic electronic stuff, and I’ll be seeking out more of his sounds right away. Doubly embarrassing, I already had a track of his on Ian Hawgood aka koen park’s remix album from 2009, a great track too.

Miracle is a surprisingly pop electronic duo featuring Steve Moore from Zombi, and I probably wouldn’t have even paid them any mind except that luckily Fennesz did a remix for them. The second half is more Fennesz, and you can grab it for yourself via the Pitchfork link below.

All three of the the fun years’ last albums are still high in my playlists right now, and I’m still obsessed with them. This track is particularly awesome, building a couple of times with an almost krautrockin’ motorik guitar ostinato.

And here’s a little gem from Spartak’s recent remix cassette (and download): Adrian Lim-Klumpes adding his piano and beautifully de/reconstructing them.

Next up it was finally time to hear from Melbourne duo Constant Light, performing live in the studio on synthesiser, e-bow guitar and various effects pedals plus laptop. This was a kosmische ambient trip, a real beauty, and you can download it separately here.

We followed Constant Light with a couple of artists involved in Iceage Productions, run by Peter of Wolf 359, who put out a very fine Melbournian compilation called The Shape of Sound – Volume 1 (which we can only hope means there’ll be more down the track). Wolf 359 themselves/himself turns in a brief but tasty synth piece, and Zac Kieller brings effected guitar to the table.

Then we move to Perth, where Craig McElhinney has just released his latest album of guitar processing, and it seems like his best yet — everything from eastern-tinged straight guitar picking to long drones and sparkling layered effects. Often moving quickly from idea to idea, the album features a lot of shorter tracks along with a few longer ones, so we had a bunch in a row to give an idea of this.

On the other hand, the latest album from The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation, an improv/drone incarnation of The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, is one hour-long improvised live performance, split into four 15-minute tracks. It’s immense and quite amazing, with melodic cello and trumpet, and crescendos and decrescendos of noise. Beautiful.

Folk/ambient/post-classical/thingy website Fluid Radio is branching out and releasing a beautiful album, er, soon, by German multi-instrumentalist Christopher Berg aka Field Rotation. A stunning concoction of mostly violin, piano and electronics, it makes for deep listening. We heard two “Acoustic Tales” tonight.

I’ll be chatting with Area C in a coming ‘Fog, probably next week. Meanwhile, another of his hypnotic electronic pieces courtesy of Sydney’s Preservation.

I’ve only just gotten hold of Brisbane noise-pop act AXXONN’s album from late last year, so I won’t be able to play it till next week. Meanwhile, a couple of remixes which you can download free from here. Until I hear the originals, I can’t tell how much Monster Monster & Saint Surly and (later) The Sea Shall Not Have Them have tampered with them, but they seemed like highlights to me.

I was glad to also include a number more Congotronics remixes/reworkings from Crammed Discs’ excellent double CD Tradi-Mods vs Rockers. Two rather radical approaches to Konono N°1: Sylvain Chaveau’s characteristically wistful track swiftly abandons samples of the original for minimalist and mournful piano chords. And Parenthetical Girls’ Jherek Bischoff arranges them for string orchestra, managing to keep something of the original’s energy and verve while sounding authentically classical.
Londoner Bass Clef, on the other hand, works his dubstep/techno/electronica/drum’n’bass styles into the rhythms and harmonies of Kasai Allstars. It’s more what you’d expect of a remix, but no less successful for that.

Geoff Mullen’s on a roll. The only co-worker with Keith Fullerton Whitman at Keith’s Mimaroglu Music Sales, Mullen has been creating weird electronic emanations on various cassette and CDR editions for a while, and his latest is on the legendary Digitalis Ltd. Extra-lo-fi and fascinating.

I’ve loved the music of Dunk Murphy since before he was Sunken Foal, as he made some exquisite crunchy idm as half of Ambulance. His new mini-album on Acroplane again features his voice and guitar along with the electronics, and is as lush and off-kilter as ever.

And after reprises from Tidy Kid and AXXONN again, we have time for one track from last week’s incredible discovery, Motion Sickness of Time Travel — more shyly blurting rustic synthesiser lines and her mystic vocals; such beguiling stuff.

Sufjan Stevens – I Want To Be Well [Asthmatic Kitty]
sabre – leveling out pt. 1 (feat. Maxwell Golden) [Critical Music]
Objekt – Tinderbox [Objekt]
Tidy Kid – Gidget Controller 75 [demo]
Tidy Kid – fragments 1 (koen park remix) [i, absentee]
Miracle – The Visitor (Fennesz remix) [House Anxiety Records] {download from Pitchfork}
the fun years – the surge is working [barge recordings]
Spartak – Station Seven (Lim-Klumpes remix) [hellosQuare]
…live performance from Constant Light…
Wolf 359 – Urban Decay [Iceage Productions]
Zac Kieller – By Darkness & By The Moon [Iceage Productions]
Craig McElhinney – Burning Out [Grave New World]
Craig McElhinney – Green Flame [Grave New World]
Craig McElhinney – Everyday Slow Learner [Grave New World]
Craig McElhinney – Temple Pathworkings [Grave New World]
The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation – Form [Denovali]
Field Rotation – Acoustic Tale 5 [Fluid Radio]
Area C – Radio Basis [Preservation]
AXXONN – Let’s Get It Straight (Monster Monster/Saint Surly remix) [Sonoptik Bandcamp]
Field Rotation – Acoustic Tale 3 [Fluid Radio]
Sylvain Chaveau vs Konono N°1 – Makembe [Crammed]
Jherek Bischoff vs Konono N°1 – Kule Kule (Orchestral Version) [Crammed]
Bass Clef vs Kasai Allstars – The Incident At Mbuji-Mayi [Crammed]
Geoff Mullen – A Dust Futures Side 1: ADF 4 [Digitalis]
Sunken Foal – Gift Knee Pads [Acroplane]
Tidy Kid – Reject Fly Bot [demo]
AXXONN – Perfect For Acid (The Sea Shall Not Have Them remix) [Sonoptik Bandcamp]
Motion Sickness of Time Travel – The Alchemical Dream [Digitalis]

Listen again — ~ 168MB