LISTEN AGAIN via the link below the playlist.

Tonight started with an excellent cello-pop tune from Melbourne artist Gareth Skinner, who I was lucky to have a talk to a bit later on in the show. His new album Looking For Vertical is out now on Rubber Records, in very limited physical copies, and available also for download. Recommended!
Next, Sufjan Stevens’ Castanets cover from compilation of the year Dark Was The Night — I was given the excuse because I just got hold of the as always fascinating new Castanets album.
Also out with a new album is Oliver Barrett (another cellist) aka bleeding heart narrative. If you’ve been following Utility Fog for a little while you’ll know that bhn’s debut album was one of my top albums of last year. The new one features more vocals and a bit less noise and experimentation. Heaps of depth to this one, and you can expect more cuts appearing in the next while on the show.
More Gareth Skinner followed, and a few insights into his background and approach to music-making.
Another string player in the indie music world is Lisa Germano, whose violin is featured all over her new album of exquisite chamber pop songs on the ever-reliable Young God Records.

This week’s recommended gig is Feral Media’s double CD launch — the latest two releases in their POWWOW series. It’s at St Petersberg, a semi-secret warehouse venue at 21 May St, St Peters. OK, not that secret ;)
We heard another track from afxjim’s excellent Blackout Music, combining postrock, folktronica and an evident delight in music.

Phoenix probably wouldn’t usually find their way into a Utility Fog playlist, but with Animal Collective remixing them, they’re a shoe-in. We followed them up with dragging pianos, revelation of the week. They’re from Townsville, where they have connections with The Middle East, and they make a beautiful brand of indietronica all to their own.
Speaking of which, Telafonica have a new EP out, a song that we were playing in demo form on FBi a little while ago. Karoshi is typically detailed in his sympathetic remix.
If you happen to be reading this before midday on Monday the 12th, it’s strongly recommended that you tune into FBi to listen to Paul’s Playlunch, where Paul Gough will be featuring the amazing retrospective Severed Heads box set, and talking to Tom Ellard. Essential listening. I didn’t have anything quite that early available from Severed Heads, so we had a track from 1984’s City Slab Horror, and one from 1994’s Gigapus – both instrumentals, and a little bit different from the standard (and no less brilliant) post-industrial electronic “pop” Tom’s known for.
Ben Frost has a new album out in a couple of weeks, and those who know his previous, Theory of Machines, will have high expectations. And those expectations will be ably met – it’s as incredible as it should be. Postrock strings, acoustic guitar and piano are subsumed by raging distorted bass drones and crunching beats, and everything, from the bowed double bass to the heavy riffage, is recorded in wondrous high fidelity.
Ben was originally based in Adelaide, where I met him in about 2001 (introduced, as I mentioned on-air, by Mark “Clue to Kalo” Mitchell). His first EP clearly pointed to the greatness to come. Next week I’ll spin a track from, I guess, his last “Australian” release – 2004’s school of emotional engineering, as well as some more newness.
Ben’s track “Theory of Machines” appeared on Mary Anne Hobbs’ Evangeline compilation last year, and we followed it with Mark Pritchard’s analogue ode “?”, with which she chose to open this year’s Wild Angels.
Atlas Sound’s new album, just out now, features a lovely krautrocky number with Laetitia Sadier on vocals. For some reason of late I’ve expected Deerhunter and Atlas Sound to tedious and lacking (perhaps having been blown away by their volume and inspiration in Montreal in 2007) — yet when I sit down to listen to the new releases, they’re invariably excellent! So it goes…
As all the Warp20 box sets arrived on Friday, we went into a little Warp zone for a while. While the 2 CDs of (Recreated) have their fair share of filler, there are also any number of artists willing to take their chosen tracks into new directions. Jamie Lidell is appropriately respectful of Grizzly Bear’s gorgeous “Little Brother”, while simultaneously making it his own. And Tim Exile certainly makes Lidell’s “A Little Bit More” his own. John Callaghan, on the other hand, takes an almost-forgotten Autechre track from the Cichlisuite EP, adds vocals, and creates something wonderful – utterly English, still Autechre, but with another layer of loveliness, especially in the chorus.
Autechre’s contribution to the (Unheard) set follows, clearly from the early days, around 1993. The melody consistently recalls an element from the classic “eutow”, from Tri Repetae for me — so I had to give it a spin too.
Finally, we heard an “Unheard” track from Boards of Canada — this time potentially from the geogaddi days, or even later. Lovely regardless.
And to finish, another preview of fieldhead’s fabulous forthcoming album.

Gareth Skinner – Amateur Hour [Rubber Records]
Sufjan Stevens – You Are The Blood [4AD/Red Hot]
Castanets – No Trouble [Asthmatic Kitty]
bleeding heart narrative – a dialogue [Tartaruga Records]
…interview with Gareth Skinner…
Gareth Skinner – Vernon, Florida [Rubber Records]
Lisa Germano – To The Mighty One [Young God Records]
Gareth Skinner – Looking For Vertical [Rubber Records]
afxjim – The T in Tchina [Feral Media]
Phoenix – Love Like A Sunset (Animal Collective Remix) [Glassnote] {download from Stereogum!}
dragging pianos – the food chain #3 [self-released]
Telafonica – The Quest For Karoshi Aboard The Belafonte [4-4-2 music] {free download release!}
Severed Heads – We Have Come To Bless This House [Ink Records, now available direct thru Sevcom]
Severed Heads – Nighttime Falls [Volition, now available direct thru Sevcom]
Ben Frost – Killshot [Bedroom Community]
Ben Frost – hiding in the ether [self-released and long out of print!]
Ben Frost – Theory of Machines [Bedroom Community]
Mark Pritchard – ? [Planet µ]
Atlas Sound – Quick Canvas feat. Laetitia Sadier [4AD/kranky/Remote Control]
Jamie Lidell – Little Brother [Warp] {cover of Grizzly Bear}
Tim Exile – A Little Bit More [Warp] {cover of Jamie Lidell}
John Callaghan – Phylactery [Warp] {cover of “Tilapia” by Autechre}
Autechre – Oval Moon (IBC Mix) [Warp]
Autechre – eutow [Warp]
Boards of Canada – Seven Forty Seven [Warp]
fieldhead – he’d found the sea [home assembly music]

Listen again — ~263MB.

So tonight was a bit of schlemozzel from my end, as I’d been at TINA since Friday night and hadn’t prepared to my usual level of insane meticulousness. Seemed to go alright though, but forgive the excess babble.
As usual, LISTEN AGAIN via link below playlist.

Started with a replay from last week, one of the tracks of the year without a doubt!
I only managed one of Terror Danjah’s Gremlinz this week, but next week I’m sure I’ll play the excellent junglist track that finishes his album. It’s high-quality instrumental grime, even if his trademark cackle and fairly similar beats get a bit much over a whole album – there’s some true gems there.
I’ve played Paul Elam, aka fieldhead, a fair bit on the show and he always garners a reaction. His debut album is finally coming out soon, and I have a preview copy that I’ll be pushing at you for the next few weeks – a wonderful amalgam of drone/noise, 2step-inspired beats and folktronic bits, appropriate for his other life as a member of the declining winter. As with all releases on the fabulous home assembly music, initial copies of the album come with a bonus remix CD, and Paul’s lined up some excellent names (see the label’s site for a rundown – and pre-order the album while you’re there!). Machinefabriek does a splendid job on tonight’s sampling.
I love pretty much everything Lucky Dragons do. They’re not quite as jagged and cut-up as their stunning early works any more, opting for a more organic and tribal sound, but it’s still very processed and bizarre. Their new CD on Japanese label Moamoo collects tracks from their last three vinyl releases, plus a few bonuses. I took the opportunity to play the blissed-out “honeycomb house parts 1-3”, which I’d happily have on repeat for hours. Dig it.
My first purchase from Newcastle came next. The Spanish Magic folks (aka Castings) have setup a shopfront called Vox Cyclops as part of Marcus Westbury’s fantastic Renew Necastle project – taking the empty shopfronts and warehouses that litter Newcastle and filling them with creative ventures of all sorts. I grabbed a number of weird & wonderful (mostly) Aussie releases there.
I’ve been reading about Perth artist Craig McElhinney but hadn’t heard any of his work. It’s lovely guitar-loopy stuff on the whole. Thumbs up.
Taswegian Keith Mason (whose CD is stocked by Vox Cyclops if you’re looking for it) does some pretty grotesque things to a guitar, synth and some vocal chords. I’m not sure why Craig reminded me of Keith but anyway, one led to the other.
90 degree handbrake turn takes us next to Why?, from his/their latest album, with the song with that great refrain (see below). More cascading piano lines from Doug McDiarmid.
Gareth Skinner’s wonderful chugging rock celli come next. I’m very much looking forward to chatting with Gareth next week, and hopefully y’all will be inspired to grab his album Looking For Vertical afterwards.
New this week is a compilation called Crayon Angel, which features covers of the folk singer Judee Sill. I have to be upfront that Sill’s songwriting doesn’t really do it for me – and the religious undercurrent is a bit of a turnoff. Nevertheless there are a few great pieces here, particularly the two I played tonight: Daniel Rossen cannot do a thing wrong, and he’s been known to turn utter dreck into pure gold before (see here). Similarly, Owen Pallett is famous for his live cover versions, and his track is a thing of beauty.
Dan Rossen takes us to Grizzly Bear, and thence we find ourselves with our other “feature album” this week, the Warp20 (Recreated) comp, celebrating Warp Records’ 20th birthday in style, with Warp artists covering other Warp artists. Sydney’s Pivot bring us their take on the Grizzlies’ “Colorado”, with Richie Pike on vocal duties, recorded by Cornel Qua at his new studio Electric Dreams. They’ve done a lovely job.
We also heard Clark’s manic drill’n’bass take on the Milanese classic “So Malleable”, and Milanese’s own “cold mix”, still an astounding piece – starkly minimal, but referencing jungle and hardcore as well as dubstep and techno.
One of the best tracks by far on this comp comes from Mira Calix, teaming up with cellist Oliver Coates to remake a Boards of Canada tune. I couldn’t help but play the BoC classic “Hi Scores”, which is one of my favourite pieces of music, I dare say – and at least a couple of correspondents agreed :)
Another fieldhead cut kept us in the zone, after which we were blindsided (I hope) by Christoph Heemann’s gorgeous contribution to the Melvins remix album – which only bursts into hardcore punk for the last 30 seconds. This album, Chicken Switch, makes for interesting listening – and fuck anybody who says remix albums are gratuitous! There’s some great creativity flowing from the artists assembled here, from noise maestros to glitch pioneers, the latter being of course none other than Farmers Manual, from whose iconic Explorers We I excerpted about 10 minutes of controlled chaos.
Who better to follow that than our own pimmon, who not only played some fine sets at his shows with Ensemble Offspring this week, but also dazzled those of us lucky enough to witness his set at the Renew Newcastle Church on Saturday evening at TINA. I picked up his very limited self-released CDR the sounds of Perth at that gig, from which we heard Gosnells (postcode 6110).
And another sparkling take from sparklehorse + fennesz’ In The Fishtank collaboration.
Perth’s Stina Thomas has put out only a few tracks over the last few years, but it’s of such high quality that anything new should be highly sought after. I grabbed her new split 7″ with The Tigers (whose delightfully-named track was heard directly afterwards) direct from the Love Is My Velocity folks at the TINA zine fair, where I also picked up a bunch of excellent comics (hi Ben! Hi Pat!) and some crazy breakcore shit (hi Guy!)
The Tigers were followed with some more top-quality postrock type stuff from afxjim, an all-too-unassuming bloke whose album Blackout Music needs to be trumpeted to the world, so marvellous it is. Come on people, go listen on the MySpazz and you’ll be grabbing that shit right away.
Strangely, Ramona Falls segued perfectly from the previous track (nah, it’s just my programming genius). I had an early promo of this and missed that it had already come out in the USA. OH MAN this is great! It’s got everything that makes Menomena (of whom he is a member) so fine – catchy melodies, glowing piano lines, big drums… Essential.
And yes, that Final Fantasy Judee Sill cover is something else, isn’t it?

Tranqill – Payroll (Paul White’s Clean Dub) [Planet µ]
Terror Danjah – Splash [Planet µ]
fieldhead – this train is a rainbow [home assembly music]
fieldhead – songs well known (Machinefabriek remix) [home assembly music] {unmastered – the album with bonus remix cd can still be pre-ordered from home assembly music and comes out on the 2nd of November!}
the declining winter – fieldhead remix [home assembly]
Lucky Dragons – honeycomb house parts 1-3 [Moamoo]
Craig McElhinney – The Kavorka (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the beast) [Meupe]
K Mason – VTR [K Mason]
Why? – Even The Good Wood Gone [Anticon] {NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY!}
Gareth Skinner – Amateur Hour [Rubber Records]
Daniel Rossen – Waterfall [American Dust]
Pivot – Colorado [Warp]
Clark – So Malleable [Warp]
Milanese – So Malleable (cold mix) [Planet µ]
Mira Calix with Oliver Coates – In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country [Warp]
Boards of Canada – Hi Scores [SKAM]
fieldhead – of october [home assembly music]
Melvins – Emperor Twaddle Remix by Christoph Heemann [Ipecac]
Melvins – disp_tx_skel_mach_murx by Farmers Manual [Ipecac]
Farmers Manual – extract from Explorers_We [OR]
pimmon – Gosnells [self-released album the sounds of Perth]
sparklehorse + fennesz – Music Box Of Snakes [Konkurrent]
Stina – Only two [Love Is My Velocity]
The Tigers – Now that I am old whatever shall I do with my whimsical hardcore tattoos? [Love Is My Velocity]
afxjim – Love For Juan [Feral Media]
Ramona Falls – Melectric [Barsuk]
Final Fantasy – The Donor [American Dust]

New! Listen again — ~264MB.

Tonight on Utility Fog we heard some astounding pioneering electronic music from over 50 years ago, during an interview with Damien Ricketson, co-artistic director of Ensemble Offspring, talking about their performances of this iconic work on Thursday night (at the Sydney Opera House – quote “fbi” for a special deal when booking!) and Friday night (at Electrofringe – free!) – also featuring a collaboration with pimmon!
LISTEN AGAIN link below…

We started with a thing of beauty from Heather Woods Broderick, sister of Peter Broderick, who worked with her on the arrangements for her debut album, on the fantastic Sydney label Preservation. Expect an interview with her in the next few weeks, as well as one with Aaron Martin, who gave us another track from his new album.
A couple of pimmon tracks bookended our interview with Damien – as one of Sydney’s most important electronic musicians, it’s only fitting that he’s working with these musicians.
Tyondai Braxton has a background that spans classical composition, free jazz, math rock and electronica. A few tracks on his new album manage to cross just about all of those at once, although a few others are still testing my patience.
We had a couple of tracks from Mary Anne Hobbs’ latest compilation on Planet µ, Wild Angels, including another beauty from Sunken Foal, all acoustic guitars and lovely beats. The other track was Paul White’s astounding remix of Tranqill’s “Payroll”, with a brilliantly scary intro (listen on headphones & you’ll know what I mean) and brilliantly wonky beats with disturbing gaps…
LA & the Bay Area are a houthouse of fantastic dubstep & wonky sounds at the moment, and Mimosa is the latest offspring of that scene I’ve discovered, collaborating here with MC Souleye.
More hip-hop/Bass music next from Two Fingers, with a really dirty remix from The Bug, followed by the duo’s original collaboration from 2003, and a track from their still-hard-to-find Instrumentals album.
Sydney’s Danimals, mostly an electronic psych-pop (um, something like that) project for Jonti Danielwitz of Sherlock’s Daughter. As well as hearing a track from Sherlock’s Daughter’s lovely EP, we heard a couple of tracks from their singer Tanya Horo with producer Jono Ma, whose indietronic gems I used to play back around 2005.
Danimals are supporting Why? at the Annandale in December, and as the new Why? album has just hit the CD racks, I thought we’d better hear a few tracks from his/their history. Although recorded in the same sessions, Eskimo Snow isn’t a patch on last year’s brilliant Alopecia. Nevertheless, it has a few excellent tracks, and I admit it’s growing on me.
Shadow Huntaz keep it hip-hop with their latest album produced by Funckarma, from whom we heard possibly their most drum’n’bass track ever. And Silkie’s “Quasar” is dubstep with a drum’n’bass influence.
We had two tracks from the latest pair of releases in Feral Media’s POWWOW series – Broken Chip’s ambient electronica and afxjim’s folky postrock.
One of the best releases in the last few months is Sparklehorse + Fennesz’s entry into Konkurrent’s In The Fishtank series, of which I’ll be playing plenty more in coming weeks. It’s all you could hope for and more from a collaboration like this.
And Sydney’s Psychic Date keep the guitar effects going strong for our last track.

Heather Woods Broderick – For Misty [Preservation]
Aaron Martin – Lightning in Meadow Grass [Preservation]
pimmon – %macro.end [Fallt]
Stockhausen – excerpt 1 from Kontakte
…interviewing Damien Ricketson, co-artistic director of Ensemble Offspring…
pimmon – the sacred dance of Mimi Lush [Tigerbeat6]
Tyondai Braxton – Dead Strings [Warp]
Sunken Foal – Of Low Count and Light Pocket [Planet µ]
Tranqill – Payroll (Paul White’s Clean Dub) [Planet µ]
Mimosa – Delivery (feat. Souleye) [Muti Music]
Two Fingers feat. Ce’Cile and Sway – Bad Girl (The Bug remix) [Ninja Tune]
Doubleclick & Amon Tobin – 0wnage [Ninja Tune]
Two Fingers – Twelvses (Two Fingers remix) [Ninja Tune]
Danimals – Cyclic Love feat. Otayo Dubb [forthcoming]
Tanya Horo & Jono Ma – toadmobile [unreleased classic Sydney indietronica from 2005!]
Soma For Kinder – spooked [unreleased – this is the band they became]
Sherlock’s Daughter – Sons and Daughters [via Inertia] {Tanya’s band now, produced by Jono…}
Why? – This Blackest Purse [Anticon]
Why? – you’ll know where your phone is… [Anticon] {produced by Odd Nosdam, and originally from their Split EP}
Why? – Act Five [Anticon]
Why? – These Few Presidents [Anticon]
Shadow Huntaz – Then Again [Porter Records]
Funckarma – Bion Glent [Sublight]
Silkie – Quasar [Deep Medi]
Broken Chip – Argo Buoys [Feral Media]
afxjim – Arequipa [Feral Media]
Sparklehorse + Fennesz – If My Heart [Konkurrent]
Psychic Date – Reflections [self-released]

New! Listen again — ~258MB.

Tonight featured an interview with the fabulous Caethua, whose 2CD release on Sydney’s Preservation has received many a spin on this show already.
LISTEN AGAIN – see bottom of playlist! Or download the Caethua interview separately.

Started with a couple of tracks from the amazing Dominick Fernow aka Prurient, the first in collaboration with Chicago guitarist Kevin Drumm. Fernow runs the Hospital Productions label and is a centrepiece of the US noise scene. The Kevin Drumm collaboration covers quite a spectrum of sound, as does all of Prurient’s recent stuff, but listen to too much in one go and your brain starts shutting down.
So next up we had Lawrence English from his beautiful new album, second in his set of seasons. This one (A Colour For Autumn) featured New Zealand guitarist/vocalist/genius Dean Roberts’ vocals stretched and slowly decontextualised.
NikaSaya is a new act on Lawrence’s Brisbane-based Someone Good label, a spin-off from the lovely Tenniscoats, with charming folky songs.

Next, we talked with Clare Hubbard aka Caethua about her life and music – a fascinating conversation with an important new artist. I strongly recommend downloading the interview.

Label-mate and fellow American Aaron Martin followed, showing his immense multi-instrumental talent, and in particular his cello playing, which seems to have come a long way. The new album is out on Preservation soon.
We followed this with a remix by Melbourne’s Part Timer of a recent track on the Under The Spire label, itself to be released on that label in the not-too-distant future.
More string playing multi-instrumentalists followed, with Peter Broderick’s 4-track tape recordings, and then Ian Hawgood’s slowly evolving drone.
Hawgood’s alias Koen Park took us into electronic territory. Scuba’s album always struck me as highlighting the crossover between idm and dubstep, and led into a similarly head-nodding bassline from Silkie. Two of the best dubstep albums of the last two years.
On the Planet µ label, Burnkane’s debut 12″ combines a dubstep lurch with r’n’b’s obsession with auto-tune…
More hip-hop followed, with a cut from the new Shadow Huntaz album, once again produced by the formidable brothers Funcken aka Funckarma. We had a bit of nostalgia with some older Shadow Huntaz tracks which I do recall playing the arse off 5 or so years ago.
Courtesy of this month’s Wire Tapper compilation from Wire Mag, we heard Italian postrock band Stearica collaborating with experimental noise-hop group Dälek (who are idolised in these quarters).
The noise connection gave us license for one final Prurient track, an immense text-sound piece on the Cold Spring label.
An epic track from England’s Ecka Liena almost rounded out the show. 16+ minutes of drone, riffs, processing and marching beat, quite wonderful stuff.
Finally, two tracks from Sydney psych-prog-ambient group Psychic Date, whose very fine sounds will get an earlier showing next week.

Prurient & Kevin Drumm – On This Slab [Hospital Productions]
Prurient – Cocaine Death [Hospital Productions]
Lawrence English – Droplet [12k]
NikaSaya – Pandooman [Someone Good]
Caethua – Day Break [Preservation]
…interview with Caethua, feat
Caethua – Post mortem lines [Saxwand]
Caethua – Lament [Preservation]
Aaron Martin – New Madrid [Preservation]
Aaron Martin vs Part Timer – Climbing Into Water (Drowned) [forthcoming on Under The Spire]
Peter Broderick – a low end rumble [Type]
Ian Hawgood – Specks Then Flakes [Dragon’s Eye Recordings]
Koen Park – Isle Of Sheppey [Acroplane] {free download!}
Scuba – Suck [Hotflush]
Silkie – Head Butt Da Deck [Deep Medi]
Burnkane – You Will Forget (feat. James J K Hughes) [Planet µ]
Shadow Huntaz – Lock, Stock & Barrel [Porter Records]
Shadow Huntaz – figure of speech [SKAM]
Shadow Huntaz – fasho [SKAM]
Stearica – Occhio (feat. Dälek) [Homeopathic Records]
Prurient – Rose Comet [Cold Spring]
Ecka Liena – Paralysis [Dead Pilot Records]
Psychic Date – Shaker [self-released]
Psychic Date – Monks [self-released]

New! Listen again — sticking with one big file, ~257MB.