Indie/folk/rock takes us into some beautiful crunchy indietronica, shoegazetronica and contemporary out-rock, before we move into dub & bass-oriented beats, some first class contemporary drum’n’bass, glitchy ambient/idm and decentred ambient of various ilks. There’s also some industrial post-club spoken word weirdness, and later some newer & older approaches to post-classical, as they probably don’t call it.

LISTEN AGAIN and oppose duality! Stream on demand at fbi.radio, podcast here.

Ned Collette – Little Hans [Ned Collette Bandcamp/Poison City (Aus-based vinyl)/ever/never Bandcamp (US-based CD & cassette)/Sophomore Records Bandcamp (US-based vinyl)]
Naarm/Melbourne musician Ned Collette has been with us since almost the beginning of Utility Fog. The much-beloved indie/postrock band City City City put out two legendary albums between 2003 & 2005, with Ned on guitar and also eventually singing, and the great Joe Talia on drums. Ned’s music has floated between avant-garde and classic rock/folk/pop for those 2 decades too, with a few great albums with Wirewalker, his trio with Joe Talia and another City City City alumnus, Ben Bourke. Ned’s been based in Berlin for a while, but I’m pretty sure he’s around Oz quite a bit too. His latest album Our Other History continues with his catchy songs and melancholy delivery, always recalling Leonard Cohen but I also see Roy Harper namedropped, and Nick Drake – as well as the subtly-avant-garde-informed pop of Jim O’Rourke. The album’s released in various formats through various peeps as you can see in the listing above.

Glen Rey. – coming out of coles [.jpeg Artefacts/Glen Rey. Bandcamp]
empress – homeward sounds (remixed by styrofoam) [555 Recordings of Leeds, UK and then Flagstaff, Arizona]
styrofoam – i will try if you need it [styrofoam Bandcamp]
Mitch Reynolds has released music as Bluetung for a while, but has just renamed himself as Glen Rey. The Eroa/Sydney musician is inaugurating this moniker with a small single on Naarm’s great .jpeg Artefacts, one live collaboration with Luke De Zilva and one low-key gorgeous cover. “Coming out of Coles” is originally by the partially-Aus-based UK duo New North Wales, aka Nicola Hodgkinson and Chris Coyle, who were previously the core of the fragile, minimalist indie/tronic empress. This enabled a nifty segue, because I wanted to play something from the “new” release by Belgian indietronica artist Arne van Petegem aka styrofoam. The titled of The lost album (previously unreleased recordings 2000-2001) is slightly misleading, since some of the tracks were previously released, between 2000 & 2003 or so, so I know a few of the tracks. But a few were on very obscure vinyl releases – “I will try if you need it” was originally titled “This Is All Wrong”, from a split 7″ with Dntel in 2002, and it’s a lovely slab of melancholy melody and glitch-beats. The connection? The great 555 Recordings of Leeds (later Flagstaff, AZ), run by Steward Anderson, released the legendary (to me) compilation chihuahuas and chinese noodles in 2000, with indie/postrock/idm/experimental artists remixing each other, and Styrofoam did a beautiful, minimalist, glitchy remix of Empress’ “Homeward Sounds”. Pure crunchbliss.

Belong – Crucial Years [kranky/Bandcamp]
In 2006, artist/producer Michael Jones and electronic producer Turk Dietrich released their first album as Belong. October Language has gone into some kind of legend, possisbly because of scarcity, and a few years ago it was re-released on vinyl by Spectrum Spools. I knew of Dietrich from his connections with Joshua Eustis & Telefon Tel Aviv (with whom he’d later form glitch/techno duo Second Woman). Belong always adopted the shoegaze aesthetic, even if in a more granular/ambient vein, and their third album (in 18 years) Realistic IX is explicit in its major 7th chords and whammy-bar guitar bends at times. But it does also like its granular, digital deconstruction, as heard in the vignette here.

Good Sad Happy Bad – Shaded Tree [Textile Records/Good Sad Happy Bad Bandcamp]
Previously Micachu and The Shapes, Good Sad Happy Bad named themselves after their last album under that name. Now Raisa Khan takes on lead vocals as well as keys, while Mica Levi is still in the band along with Marc Pell aka Suitman Jungle on drums, and CJ Calederwood on sax, vocals etc. They have an album called All Kinds of Days coming in November from French indie label Textile Records, and the lead single shows that the mix of jangly indie, homemade beats and genre-plasticity of Micachu’s original material still drives their new material. Can’t wait!

Party Dozen – The Righteous Front [Temporary Residence Ltd/Bandcamp]
It’s fair to say that Party Dozen are a force unto themselves. The multi-talented Jonathan Boulet plays drums and samples, while Kirsty Tickle’s saxophone roars (even when she’s not yelling through it). Their latest album, Crime In Australia, focuses on the dire time in Australian politics when the corrupt Joh Bjelke-Petersen government ran QLD – but in an instrumental band, what is the music really about? Well it has heaps of energy and it does sound quite dark. The track I’ve chosen has an almost trip-hop feel, but still brings the noise.

Jay Glass Dubs – Blue Plate Special [Digital Edition on Bandcamp, extended CD available from yr favourite retailers]
Dimitris Papadatos has made highly idiosyncratic music as Jay Glass Dubs since 2015, spread across various interesting labels. DJ Humble was a project from last year that claims to be influenced by jungle and drum’n’bass, although heavily filtered through the Jay Glass Dubs approach to decentred dub. There are certainly rhythms that suggest drum’n’bass, albeit sitting more in a 4/4 space – and there are drum breaks scattered throughout. There’s now an extended CD edition with more tracks in this strange vein. Music for alien dancefloors.

Pearson Sound – Twister [Hessle Audio/Bandcamp]
As one of the co-founders of Hessle Audio, David Kennedy has had a substantial influence on the UK bass music scene. To my ears, both as Ramadanman and as Pearson Sound, he never fitted comfortably into dubstep, and you’re more likely to hear 4/4 kickdrums with unusual basslines and squiggly synths – but he started off DJing drum’n’bass, and the jungle influences are up-front in the two preview tracks from his new Which Way Is Up EP. “Hornet” had programmed broken beats and that insectile buzz, while “Twister” mixes jittery drum machine breaks with a constantly moving bassline and insistent kicks at an almost-d’n’b 165BPM.

Ocean Dawn – Wax Cool [Future Retro]
Damon Kirkham is best known as Jon Convex, one half of autonomic d’n’b pioneers Instra:mental, and also Kid Drama. Ocean Dawn is his new moniker for expansive jungle, and he has a new EP on Future Retro, the label of jungle’s most enthusiastic proponent Tim Reaper. Just a very nicely done piece of contemporary jungle.

John Rolodex – Seeing Around Corners [Over/Shadow/Bandcamp]
Canadian d’n’b hero John Rolodex has released a lot on his own Machinist Music (which also releases other artists, mind you), but he’s recently had a digital release and then one vinyl/digital on Metalheadz. He can craft a pure d’n’b tune with machined tech-step beats and basslines, but there’s usually also some crazy beat-fuckery going on too, which brings us to the title track of Seeing Around Corners, his new EP for Over/Shadow. Pure darkness Arcon 2 style. If you like the moodiness of dark drum’n’bass but the complexity of jungle, this EP’s a must.

Objekt – Ganzfeld (Djrum Remix) [Kapsela Records/Bandcamp]
When Objekt‘s first 12″s came out in 2011, they were among the most creative music in the post-dubstep world, electro/techno full of gnarly syncopation, weird edits, great basslines. As he’s continued, at times sporadically, his music has spread out into sound-designy territory, at least on the albums, but his music is still closely attached to the dancefloor. The early 12″s were self-released, and his two albums came out through Pan, but now he’s returning to self-releasing in a slightly different way, with a label called Kapsela. The first release revisits an obscure track from ten years ago, one side of a split 12″ with electro heroes Dopplereffekt. His track is reprised here, along with a few new remixes. I’m intrigued to hear the one from Ulla, but who better to kick things off than the extraordinary Djrum, who as is his wont encompasses quasi-classical faux-jazz, drum’n’bass, halftime and more, all while maintaining a tenuous hold on the original. Another mind-bender from the man.

KASHIWA Daisuke – Infrared [Virgin Babylon]
Only a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about being surprised that KASHIWA Daisuke had a new track out, only a few months since his latest album Ice came out. That track, “Green“, is very much of a piece with this new one, “Infrared” – both have minimalist piano with skittering glitchy beats. I love this sound, so here you go!

Ran Slavin – Dawn Four [Nocturnal Rainbow Recordings]
Here’s an electroacoustic soundscape that falls somewhat into the “fourth world” ambient aesthetic. Tel Aviv-based Ran Slavin is known for his creative film work as well as experimental audio works that have been released by Crónica among others. Following Oolong: Ambient Works, released by Mille-Plateaux earlier this year, New Dawns takes a different approach to “ambient”, with acoustic bass walking through granular samples and the detritus of easy listening music.

Murcof – All These Worlds Part. II [InFiné/Bandcamp]
When his first albums appeared in the early ’00s, Mexican producer Murcof was at the forefront of a new generation deconstructing classical music through minimal techno or micro-house. Many years later, he’s abstracted his sound further into ambient and sound-art, but the micro-grooves are still there in this first single from Twin Color Vol. I, out on Nov 15th through French electronic label InFiné. Those warm, crisp bass tones are delicious.

Comatone – Carpenters Towers (2012) [Feral Media]
Celebrating 20 years since his debut release, Katoomba’s Greg Seiler aka Comatone has been releasing a series of C-TONE 20 EPs featuring mostly-unreleased music from across his history. There’s a lot of tasty IDM, broken beats, basslines and the like. The 6th and last EP (they’re currently only available on streaming services) looks more to the ambient side of things, but that’s not to say it’s devoid of beats. This 2012 cut bubbles murkily with pitched-down loops until the beats straighten things out halfway through. Cyberpunk vibes. As we’re at the end of this Comatone celebration now, I’ve got to mention the incredible dubstep/trip-hop remix he did of my band FourPlay String Quartet some years ago – listen here.

Rita Revell – Pretty Ugly [Nice Music/Bandcamp]
Rita Revell – Persus [Nice Music/Bandcamp]
Great to have something new from Melbourne’s Rita Revell, a couple of years since her Depozit. As usual, it’s hard to pigeonhole these strange electronics, which draw emotion from crackling old tech: lo-fi samples stretched into new shapes; shuddering distorted beats and pretty synths; weathered choral tapes struggling through static; sparse drones and echoing bass guitar samples. Gorgeous stuff, and Nice Music have kindly done a limited CD edition too.

EPRC – DARK RED [Stray Signals/Bandcamp]
Deep listeners to this show will know I’m a huge fan of Elisabetta Porcinai‘s duo Aperture with her brother Emanuele. When I heard the two tracks on SOMETIMES from her duo EPRC with Roberto Crippa I immediately connected it with Aperture, before realising it is in fact Elisabetta’s voice. A visual artist, her spoken word adorns both groups, along with industrial-leaning electro-acoustic audio. EPRC’s debut album BODIES is out now, and the two tracks from their debut SOMETIMES appear here in slightly different form. Desolate synths, pummeling industrial electronics, and Elisabetta’s spoken and occasionally half-sung words. A winning combination.

claire rousay – ily2 (Maral remix) [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
When I heard claire rousay‘s touching, self-alienated confessional album Sentiment earlier this year, I never expected it to be followed with a remix album. With the likes of more eaze and Patrick Shiroishi featured, it’s released in early November. The first single sees Iranian-American beat-maker Maral setting rousay’s answering machine & vocoder pop to a kind of trip-hop beat, keeping it as off-kilter as the original.

Razen – Lazy Lazy Eye [TAL/Bandcamp]
Ameel Brecht and Kim Delcour have formed the core of Belgian minimalist troupe Razen since 2010. Both play multiple acoustic instruments, and augmented by players of hurdy-gurdy, Ondes Martenot and other unusual instruments, they’ve created uncategorizable, hypnotic works that feel plucked out of time – ensembles from centuries past puzzling their way around post-industrial, post-club musical forms. Every album is different, so on Rain Without Rain, their first on Stefan Schneider’s TAL label, wheezing recorder melodies rise up out of guitar amp noise, primitive electronics and the natural reverberation of an abandoned pedestrian tunnel in Düsseldorf, where it was recorded late one night. An evocative story for evocative music.

Laurence Pike – The Undreamt-of Centre [The Leaf Label/Bandcamp]
Laurence Pike – Orpheus In The Underworld [The Leaf Label/Bandcamp]
I’ve played a couple of previews from the new album by Eora/Sydney drummer/percussionist/producer Laurence Pike, and it’s now out in its entirety. In The Undreamt-of Centre, Laurence’s usual drums, samples and keyboards are augmented by the Sydney Philharmonia Choir‘s VOX choir (made up of 18-30 year olds), with the gravitas of a requiem – which it kind of is, memorialising his father-in-law’s decline and death during the Covid lockdowns. But the texts are drawn from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems inspired by the myth of Orpheus & Euridice – hence we have here “Orpheus In The Underworld”, where he goes seeking his lover. The blending of the choir’s harmonies with electronics, set apart from Pike’s drums, makes for a poignant, otherworldly experience.

Max Richter – A Colour Field (Holocene) [Decca Records/Online Store]
Max Richter – Life Studies IV [Decca Records/Online Store]
Max Richter – Only Silent Words [Decca Records/Online Store]
Max Richter – Life Studies V [Decca Records/Online Store]
I first played Max Richter on this show in *ahem* 2004, when his second album The Blue Notebooks was released on Fat Cat’s 130701 imprint. That album was re-released in 2018 with bonus tracks & remixes, and as it now reaches 20 years old, Richter has returned to the contemplation of, well, books, but also to a series of dualities: acoustic sounds & electronics, classical music & electronica, the human & the natural world, and ultimately life’s big questions juxtaposed with the small pleasures of life. Thus each of the album’s compositions, which do range from classical strings & piano to Enoesque electronic studies, are separated by a series of “Life Studies”, incorporating field recordings found sounds, including crackly old recordings. It’s lovely, thoughtful, and genuinely unpretentious.

Listen again — ~202MB

A few important albums came out this week, so we’re doing that Utility Fog thing of multiple tracks from the same artist/release. And it’s allll great. Of course.

LISTEN AGAIN for your soul’s sake. Stream on demand at fbi.radio’s new home, podcast here.

Kim Gordon x Model Home – razzamatazz [Matador/Bandcamp]
Less than six months after her album The Collective came out, Kim Gordon‘s back with a new single that’s just as crunchy and weird as the last 2 albums. This time it’s a collaboration with weird rap duo Model Home, whose collab with Wolf Eyes from last year is excellent too. Gordon’s speak-singing fits well with Model Home’s rapping.

Patio – Inheritance (Mandy, Indiana Remix) [Fire Talk]
One of my favourite bands of last year, Manchester’s Mandy, Indiana, here deliver a beefed up, noisier version of the song “Inheritance” from their label-mates Patio. The New York band use the tag “pastel post-punk” on their Bandcamp, although equally they fit well into the ’80s/’90s all-female indie rock space. The original song is from their second album Collection, which comes recommended if you’re into that kind of stuff (think Throwing Muses, The Breeders etc).

Seefeel – Multifolds [Warp Records/Bandcamp]
Seefeel – Lose The Minus [Warp Records/Bandcamp]
Coming a mere 13 years after their last release, which itself came some 14 years after their first run, Everything Squared is immediately utterly Seefeel. The “band” is now pared down to Mark Clifford’s production, with mailed-in vocal samples from Sarah Peacock, who’s now based in Berlin. It’s really just an EP, but an absolute pleasure to have them back anyway, with pulsing fragments of vocals, dubwise bass and micro-melodies. As I said a few weeks ago, they’ve always had a temporally displaced sound – constructed entirely through digital technology but somehow analogue, even organic sounding. They could just give us… more?

Christopher Chaplin – The Feathered Girl [Fabrique Records/Bandcamp]
British composer Christopher Chaplin‘s music works contemporary classical elements into experimental, post-industrial and krautrock-influenced spaces. His latest EP Door 1 Door 2 is out later this month, exploring how myths are part of collective memory, with spoken word by Carmen Alt-Chaplin.

Chelsea Wolfe – Dusk (Ash Koosha Remix) [Loma Vista/Bandcamp]
Chelsea Wolfe – Whispers In The Echo Chamber (Forest Swords Remix) [Loma Vista/Bandcamp]
The latest album from Chelsea Wolfe, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, found her in her most electronic setting yet, albeit still with her usual gothic metal vibes. Six months later comes the Undone EP, with remixes from the likes of ††† (Crosses), Justin K Broadrick, Full of Hell and Boy Harsher, to give you an idea of the breadth. But tonight I played a glitchy take by Ash Koosha and a deconstruction by Forest Swords, both of which play with slow-fast beats.

Flower Storm – World’s Creator Is My Ally (Aceed Mix) [Flower Storm Bandcamp]
Disapora Iranians (like Ash Koosha above) Sepehr (NYC) and Kasra Vaseghi (London) formed Flower Storm in 2023 with the aim of recontextualising the sounds of their culture with the club styles they love. Together they created a huge sound library with traditional Persian percussion and string instruments, sampled vocals and more, which they cast into techno, house, drum’n’bass and so on. Do O Nim collects three mutated versions of tracks from their first 2 EPs, with the “Aceed Mix” here taking “World’s Creator Is My Ally” into skittery junglish acid.

gyrofield – Lagrange [XL Recordings/Bandcamp]
With previous releases on drum’n’bass labels like Critical Music and Metalheadz as well as more experimental works, Bristol-based Hong Kong producer gyrofield lands on XL Recordings with a bang with their four-tracker These Heavens. It’s drum’n’bass with ambient and hyper-pop influences, continuing pushing the trajectory of d’n’b into uncharted waters.

Reeko – Urmah 2 [Samurai Music/Bandcamp]
The most unexpected forays into drum’n’bass/170bpm in the last 2 years have come from longtime techno mainstay Reeko, aka Architectural, aka Spanish producer Juan Rico. The Berlin-based Samurai Music has already been exploring the space where minimal drum’n’bass meets techno, and perhaps for that reason Rico sent them a demo which became his first EP for the label, Confront the Serpent, last year. This was followed by Tomorrow Doesn’t Exist earlier this year, and now the incredible six-track mini-album Urmah. There’s a lot of dub techno in these head-nodding tunes, but also explosive percussion and breaks. It really is a hybrid style like no other, dazzling at its best.

Tigran Hamasyan – The saviour is condemned [naïve/Project website]
Tigran Hamasyan – The curse (blood of an innocent is spilled) [naïve/Project website]
Tigran Hamasyan – Postlude after seven winters [naïve/Project website]
The new album from Armenian jazz piano virtuoso Tigran Hamasyan is a whole project, featuring the stunning artwork of Khoren Matevosyan. Yes, it’s a double album (double CD and somehow fitting on 2 vinyl records), but it’s also an online video game and multimedia stage production and film. Titled The Bird of a Thousand Voices, it reworks an old Armenian legend called Hazaran Blbul, and so the album follows the story from start to completion. Musically it’s everything Tigran always offers – insane time signatures, bewitching melodies, those gorgeous Armenian harmonies, incredible piano playing and incredible supporting musicians on drums, bass, violin and vocals, with heavy metal and electronic influences. I played a couple of energetic early tracks plus the beautiful coda.

Laurie Anderson – This Modern World [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – To Circle the World [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – I See Something Shining (feat. ANOHNI) [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – Take-off [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – Aloft (feat. ANOHNI) [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – Road to Mandalay [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – Lucky Dime [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Only four years after Landfall, her album with Kronos Quartet about the the flooding of New York City by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Laurie Anderson returns with another concept album. Amelia follows the doomed last flight of the pioneering airplane pilot Amelia Earhart, whose plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean three-quarters of the way through her attempt at circumnavigating the globe. It’s taken 25 years to be completed in this final form, performed by Anderson in her speak-singing style, playing violin & viola and some electronics, while ANOHNI takes care of the more melodic singing, with a band featuring Marc Ribot and Kenny Wollessen, plus Rob Moose, Nadia Sirota and Gabriel Cabezas’ Trimbach Trio on strings and the Filharmonie Brno on orchestral duties. Despite this loaded crew, it’s a surprisingly low-key, un-showy album, with passages depicting the peaceful monotony of Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan’s travel. The sound of the motor, and its imitation by sliding strings, returns throughout the piece, which is bookended by the words “It was the sound of the motor I remember the most”. It’s a masterful work, at times joyous, often soothing, and more than a little haunting.

Lia Kohl – Ice Cream Truck, Tornado Siren [Moon Glyph/Bandcamp]
Lia Kohl – Tennis Court Light, Snow [Moon Glyph/Bandcamp]
Chicago cellist and sound-artist Lia Kohl has built up a gorgeous catalogue of odd, inquisitive and considered sound works over a very short period of time, with releases on Skeletons’ Shinkoyo, Longform Editions and American Dreams. Her new album Normal Sounds is released by the adventurous Portland (Oregon) tape/vinyl label Moon Glyph, and the album title is a nice description of Kohl’s practice (as are the track titles). As well as field recordings and the sounds of “normal” human activity, Kohl likes to incorporate the randomness of a radio scrolling through frequencies and settling on whatever happens to be on the airwaves. And of course there’s her cello, which along with electronics can slip into the mix and transform everything. It’s not always clear even from the titles what we’re hearing (“Tornado Siren”?) but Kohl is second to none in melding these real-world “normal sounds” with her layered, processed instrument and synths. Another beautiful work from a unique artist.

Daniela Huerta – Fondo [Elevator Bath/Bandcamp]
Daniela Huerta – Seqvana [Elevator Bath/Bandcamp]
Long-lived Texas label Elevator Bath encompasses musique concrète, electroacoustic sound-art, noise and drone… at least. Label boss Colin Andrew Sheffield has kindly shared the debut solo album from Berlin-based Mexican artist Daniela Huerta, which comes out in late October. Huerta is one half of Huerta Ensamble with Concepción Huerta (I think no relation!) and DJs as Baby Vulture at venues like Berghain and CTM. Soplo bears some aural indicators of contemporary experimental electronic, but draws as much from musique concrète and electroacoustic music. The album opens with the dripping and flowing water of “Seqvana”, which is combined with muted, pinging synth tones and clanging sounds. There’s always a clear sense of space. Water sounds percolate through the whole album, joined with blurred voice, trembling organs, reverberating choirs and more. So when we reach “Fondo”, the album’s seventh track, it’s a surprise to hear an almost march-like two-note bassline underscoring lurching synth horns (and bubbling water). Halfway through the bassline disappears and the synth tones are engulfed in increasingly resonating pink noise. Soplo is an artful album of sonic illusions, concrète music as it was always intended.

Andrew Tuttle & Michael Chapman – At Seventy-Three Miles [Basin Rock/Bandcamp]
Michael Chapman – Untitled #7 [Basin Rock/Bandcamp]
Andrew Tuttle & Michael Chapman – A Third Revision (Or Evolution) [Basin Rock/Bandcamp]
British guitarist and singer-songwriter Michael Chapman worked across many genres up until he passed away in 2021 aged 80. His latter-day following was confirmed in the Tompkins Square-issued compilation Oh Michael, Look What You’ve Done: Friends Play Michael Chapman, featuring Lucinda Williams, Meg Baird and Thurston Moore among others. One Australian fan was Brisbane’s Andrew Tuttle, who’s made a career around electronically-mediated banjo and acoustic guitar-picking soundscapes. By luck, Chapman’s partner Andru had been enjoying Tuttle’s album on Basin Rock, Fleeting Adventure, in the years after Chapman’s passing, and so Andrew Tuttle has had the privilege of expanding on and reworking the unfinished final instrumental recordings of Chapman. The album Another Tide, Another Fish is out through Basin Rock and features the original recordings on a second disc, allowing us to hear just how sensitively Andrew has transformed the original works. Each of Tuttle’s track titles contains numbers that allow us to reference them to the originals, so I played “Untitled #7” after Tuttle’s “At Seventy-Three Miles”. Chapman already takes his beautifully assured fingerpicked guitar into spacey electronic waters, and Tuttle dives deep into the currents with granular processing, timestretching and other techniques, as well as adding his own banjo. A pretty remarkable project altogether.

Loop Year – Heel Turn [Loop Year Bandcamp]
Tim Koch this week alerted me to Loop Year, a new ambient/IDM project from Adelaide’s Cailan Burns, who was one half of seminal Aussie electronic experimentalists Pretty Boy Crossover with Jason Sweeney. Sweeney appears here on “Bass guitar noodles”, which Tim suggested makes this an ersatz Pretty Boy Crossover revival, and Tim added cymbal splashing and mixing know-how. It’s lovely electronic (g)loopiness as per the original PBXO.

Connor D’Netto – Witness [Room40/Bandcamp]
Last week when I played some material from the brilliant duo release Material from Connor D’Netto x Yvette Ofa Agapow, I mentioned that a composition of D’Netto’s was caught up in a controversy recently. Pianist Jayson Gillham has been performing a series of concerts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and at a recent MSO concert, as an encore he performed D’Netto’s composition “Witness”. The piece is dedicated to the journalists of Gaza, although the work more generally refers to the idea of recasting doom-scrolling as “bearing witness” to the horrific images we are seeing not only from Gaza, but “from Ukraine, Congo, Sudan, the riots in Bangladesh, school shootings in the USA, and closer to home the treatment of First Nations People in incarceration”. When Gilham performed the piece a couple of weeks ago he drew the audience’s attention to the appalling number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza (a number already far too high before October 7th). In response, the MSO management (it’s not clear who) immediately cancelled the remaining performances by the orchestra. There was widespread outrage, and a campaign by my union, MEAA, who represent both Australian journalists and Australian musicians, called for the decision to be reversed. Surprisingly, this did happen – the MSO claimed “a mistake” was made, and now there will be an independent review into the orchestra’s decision-making, led by Peter Garrett(!) Nevertheless, this speaks to the horrendous censorious situation in the arts and beyond, worldwide, when it comes to any speech sympathetic to Palestinians. So it’s pleasing to find D’Netto’s touching piece – performed by Gillham – now available via Room40, with all proceeds to be donated to PARA – Palestine Australia Relief and Action.

Saoirse Prince – Earthy flavours envelop my tongue and slide down my throat [Saoirse Prince Bandcamp]
We finish tonight with another piece of delicate piano music, from new Sydney artist Saoirse Prince, whose debut album Late Winter is her personal take on the “neoclassical” piano genre, drawing pleasingly from the likes of Sophie Hutchings as much as any of the big international names. I’m particularly attracted to the pieces that complicate the piano sound with electronics, such as the persistent delay throughout this track, mushrooming into distortion before petering out.

Listen again — ~201MB

There’s quite a lean towards ambient sounds tonight – not all peaceful, mind. There’s some shattering noise and many glitchy loops and sound-beds. But there’s also hip-hop, skittering IDM, stripped-down grime, and re-imagined acoustic folk.

LISTENING AGAIN is medically proven to promote mental acuity. Stream on demand from FBi, podcast right here.

Dealers of God – Thundercloudz [Dealers of God Bandcamp]
But… what does it all mean? I admit I’m not the most attentive to lyrics when I’m listening to music, but when Naarm/Melbourne hip-hop group/cartel/gang Dealers of God sent me their forthcoming album Flesh Bill Clinton Humanoid Skeleton, and after I’d signed the necessary NDAs and read the heavily-redacted FBi file, I was still almost entirely in the dark about whatever sinister truths of the Deep State had been uncovered here. All other questions aside, the band genuinely have collaborated with Roger Eno, Brian’s pianist brother. All other identities are hidden (although I’m sure I’ve heard Johnathan Citizen’s name before). The music is equally hard to pin down – sudden punk onslaught, extended ambient crunk passages etc. “Thundercloudz”, previewed exclusively for you tonight, is more straightforwardly hip-hop than much of the rest, and also quite melodic. The blissful piano & synth loop takes me back to early ’90s Oz indie electronic bands like Single Gun Theory somehow…

B Dolan – “Turn A Mill” (Unnatural Entities Remix) [B Dolan Bandcamp]
It’s been a long time since the last album proper from poet & underground hip-hop activist B Dolan. Emergency spinal surgery 4 years ago derailed his life and healing from that is central to the album he put out earlier this year, The Wound Is Not The Body. Dolan has also run a Discord server for a while, where among other things, fans can submit remixes, and out of that community comes this really nice remix of “Turn A Mill” with a heavy bass beat from Digital Monster & Mr. Bombcamp who together are Unnatural Entities.

Herbert – Fallen (feat Momoko Gill) [Accidental Records/Bandcamp]
Back in the mid-1990s, some of the earliest releases from Matthew Herbert under his Herbert moniker were the Parts EPs, 1-5 (digital reissues can be found on Herbert’s Bandcamp). In 2014, the series returned with Part Six, followed by Part Seven, and then Part Eight in 2015. So it’s about time for Part 9! These releases are avenues for Herbert’s jazzy r’n’b-inflected deep house, always a delight. On the first single from Part 9, vocals come from singer/songwriter/drummer Momoko Gill.

SHATR Collective – Salim [Ruptured Records/Bandcamp]
From the always forward-thinking Beirut/Montréal label Ruptured Records comes a challenging, moving album of poetry and modular synthesis from SHATR Collective, with music by Sarah Huneidi and voices/poetry from Theresa Sahyoun (mostly in English) and Nadine Makarem (in Arabic). These pieces are visceral responses to the genocide in Gaza, indeed referencing the killing of Palestinian poets – Sahyoun’s “Salim” is about Salim Al Naffar. The emotion in the spoken words is palpable, and along with the stark electronics it can be difficult listening – as it probably should be. 100% of proceeds go to ULYP (Unite Lebanon Youth Project) Gaza Student Emergency Fund.

ENDON – Time Does Not Heal [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
In “Salim”, Theresa Sahyoun speaks of how the numb, desperate feeling during this ongoing genocide is not – precisely – grief. The new album Fall of Spring from Japanese noise band ENDON grapples directly with grief, coming 4 years after the death of Etsuo Nagura, brother of vocalist Taichi Nagura. After the departure of drummer Shin Yokota as well, the remaining three members decided to continue without replacing those members, and Fall of Spring is – well… in some ways it could be described as less aggressive, but still noise and harshness is the dominant mode of the four tracks; it’s just cut through with a little more beauty, and in service of anguish. The 6-minute “Time Does Not Heal” is the album’s emotional and musical centrepiece, with torturous noise doused in massive, rumbling bass, tumbling synth-percussion and buried melodies, mostly subsuming Nagura’s pained howls.

Dal:um – Cracking [Glitterbeat/Bandcamp]
Hamburg-based label Glitterbeat has put out three remarkable albums from South Korean musician Park Jiha, and in 2021 released the first album from the duo Dal:um, made up of Ha Suyean on the gayageum and Hwang Hyeyoung ongeomungo, two Korean stringed instruments. Their follow-up, Coexistence, is coming out soon, with second single “Cracking” finding the duo at their most rhythmic and percussive.

Chloe Kim 김예지 – Bonus Track I: Bass Dance [People Sound]
Chloe Kim 김예지 – Movement I: When We Foresee [People Sound]
After embarking on her 100 Hours project, in which she performed drums for 10 hours straight on 10 consecutive days, Sydney-based Korean musician Chloe Kim 김예지 was looking for something different, and her love of double bass led her to the idea of multiple double basses playing together. Initially she’d conceived of a double bass quartet, and the music was premiered in that configuration with Helen Svoboda, Harry Birch, Oscar Neyland, and Paddy Fitzgerald as the double bassists in question. But the final recorded form grew into Music For Six Double Bassists, with two Sydney double bassists added: Sydney jazz stalwart Jonathan Zwartz and Jacques Emery, whose label People Sound released the album. These are compositions in the jazz style, leaving room for improvisation for the musicians – the credits on Bandcamp list the soloists on each track, except Movement I – but even here, the piece begins with a chaos of plucked rhythm & melody and low drones. Just before the minute mark, the whole ensemble coalesces on a righteous bassline, with individuals adding rhythmic ornamentation around it. The album is full of body-pulling basslines the equal of Johan Berthling’s work in Fire! and elsewhere – high praise! – while also capitalising on the instrument’s expressiveness, including Helen Svoboda’s patented floating stopped harmonics. There’s also a secret pleasure in hearing all those slaps of finger and string on the instruments’ fingerboards. Glorious.

Holy Tongue meets Shackleton – Ancient Model [AD93/Bandcamp]
Originally the duo of powerhouse drummer Valentina Magaletti and UK bass music producer Al Wootton, Holy Tongue last year added Magaletti’s Vanishing Twin bandmate Susumu Mukai on bass, and together they forge a path through arcane postpunk dub. Add to that trio the music & production of Sam Shackleton and you basically get a different angle on the same influences – Shackleton first became famous for his dubstep & post-dubstep productions on Skull Disco with Laurie Osborn aka Appleblim (see below), but for years has created bizarre & idiosyncratic post-psych-folk-techno(?) on his “label” Woe To The Septic Heart! – an aesthetic that gels with the new-old nature of many of Valentina Magaletti’s collaborations. Suffice to say, The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now is even better than the sum of these parts.

gi – knots [Absorb]
The follow-up to her late-2023 EP Orange Chorus Blonde Reveal continues the utterly original quasi-organic, textural IDM created by Eora/Sydney artist gi aka Gigi De Lacy. I hesitate to say “jungle” as any sampled drum breaks are ground into fine dust, but there are skittery drum’n’bass and footwork influences here, as if performed by an ensemble of cicadas and marsupial mice gathered round a faulty transistor radio. I can pretty much guarantee you’ve never heard anything quite like this, in the best possible way.

KASHIWA Daisuke – Green [Virgin Babylon]
Only a couple of months after his latest album Ice mixed up his classical, postrock, glitch and IDM influences, KASHIWA Daisuke is back on Virgin Babylon Records with a single track of glitched, nervous micro-beats, foghorn bass tones and piano chords, a track that Ryuichi Sakamoto would’ve been proud of. Lovely.

Trinity Carbon – Lost Everything [forthcoming self-released EP]
Low End Activist – Self Destruction [forthcoming on Sneaker Sound System]
Well, I did mention Laurie Osborn above. The man known as Appleblim has had a low-key collab with Jamie Russell (aka “Patrick Conway” aka Low End Activist) called Trinity Carbon. They have a couple of EPs under their belt going back as far as 2018, and an album from 2021, but they will shortly launch a series of self-released 12″s of skeletal grime/dubstep, distilled to its essence and in keeping with the minimalist approach Appleblim employed from the start with Skull Disco. Low End Activist also has another album coming, this time on his own Sneaker Sound System, which is also on a highly minimalist tip with ambient bass and deconstructed hardcore. Municipal Dreams evokes his younger years growing up in the Blackford Leys estate, learning first-hand the effects of inequality on working class lives.

Brian Gibson – Melting Menace [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Lightning Bolt bassist Brian Gibson has for some time been involved with video games, currently Puddle with Mike Mandell. Thrasher is Gibson’s second video game soundtrack to be released on Thrill Jockey, a distillation into 12 tracks of the generative music heard in the game. It’s made up of old-school synth patterns and driving beats, and while it doesn’t have the noise-punk thrash of Lightning Bolt, it’s got a lot of energy and tense apprehension.

Hidden Orchestra – Broken (Edit) [Hidden Orchestra Bandcamp]
Joe Acheson’s Hidden Orchestra has worked recently on video game soundtracking too, but in 2023 released a wonderful album of his imaginary orchestra’s typical sounds: live trip-hop/jungle beats, strings, bubbling clarinet and other acoustic instruments invisibly edited by Acheson. “Broken” is a new EP taking the album track and rebuilding a couple of versions as well as providing instrumental sources including some of the foley sounds that went into the original. As usual the music is sumptuous and timeless.

Khrystyna Kirik – Phantoms Of Perception [Flaming Pines/Bandcamp]
The third in Flaming Pines‘ Ukrainian compilations, curated by Igor Yalivec, is out in October, titled Resistance. As usual it features experimental musicians from Ukraine, with earnings passed on to the musicians and to charitable causes in the country that is still resisting Russia’s invasion. Tonight’s preview track is from sound-artist Khrystyna Kirik, a slow surge made up of electronics and detailed sounds from self-made instruments, objects and possibly voice and double bass.

Meemo Comma – The Poet [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Lara Rix-Martin aka Meemo Comma continues their inexorable musical growth, having mastered deconstructed and reconstructed rave and IDM over their last few releases. Decimation of I is structured after the philosophical science fiction novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, famously adapted for film by Andrei Tarkovsky as Stalker. Both works explore a world transformed by alien visitors who are never seen. The album’s title refers to the “ego-death” experienced by the story’s protagonists. While the album promises a variety of musical styles, the first single “The Poet” is a minimalist classical piece for clarinets.

Laura Cannell – See the Moon and the Stars [Brawl Records]
Laura Cannell – Everything is Hidden in You [Brawl Records]
The latest album from the indefatigable British multi-instrumentalist Laura Cannell interrupts her year-long “Lore” series (latest is MAMMOTHLORE and there will be an August one alongside this album, no interruption!). On The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined, Cannell applies her historically-informed part-improvised, part-composed chops to the music and life of 12th-century composer, scholar and nun Hildegard von Bingen. On bass recorders and a 12-string knee harp, both at times played through a delay pedal, Cannell’s always-atemporal music creates a bridge to one of the few female creators and scholars whose works have, in some form, survived to the present. Inspiring as well as inspired, the music here is more Cannell than von Bingen, but a fitting tribute.

Ex-Easter Island Head – Magnetic Language [Rocket Recordings/Bandcamp]
Although there’s no hint on Bandcamp and I don’t think it was announced originally, Rocket Recordings have released a limited CD version of UK quartet Ex-Easter Island Head‘s Norther – which is great as it gives me an excuse to play an album I criminally missed when it came out earlier this year. The band are a quartet now thanks to longtime collaborator & sound engineer Andrew PM Hunt, whose Dialect project has an album coming on RVNG Intl. Each track takes a different approach to sound, with the band’s experimental guitar techniques never far away. Throughout, there are gorgeous scintillations of guitar harmonics, weird pitch slides, guitar strings played as percussion… as well as bass and drums, an aeolian harp (played by the wind), and on this track, sampled syllables of their own voices replayed through guitar pickups and rebuilt into a perfect encapsulation of post-folk-rock-tronica. Gorgeous.

Andrew Tuttle & Michael Chapman – Five and Twenty Days For Lunch [Basin Rock/Bandcamp]
I’ll repeat some of what I wrote from this album’s last single here:
British guitarist and singer-songwriter Michael Chapman worked across many genres up until he passed away in 2021 aged 80. His latter-day following was confirmed in the Tompkins Square-issued compilation Oh Michael, Look What You’ve Done: Friends Play Michael Chapman, featuring Lucinda Williams, Meg Baird and Thurston Moore among others. One Australian fan was Brisbane’s Andrew Tuttle, who’s made a career around electronically-mediated banjo and acoustic guitar-picking soundscapes. By luck, Chapman’s partner Andru had been enjoying Tuttle’s album on Basin Rock, Fleeting Adventure, in the years after Chapman’s passing, and so Andrew Tuttle has had the privilege of expanding on and reworking the unfinished final instrumental recordings of Chapman. The album Another Tide, Another Fish is out through Basin Rock just this coming week and features the original recordings on a second disc. On this second single, Andrew’s fingerpicked banjo is slowly subsumed under evocative, drawn-out and reversed guitar tones.

Michael Scott Dawson – Mono Lake (feat. K. Freund) [We Are Busy Bodies/Bandcamp]
K. Freund – How, On Earth [Last Resort/Bandcamp]
Trouble Books – Aggregate [Lejsovka & Freund Bandcamp]
K. Freund – Buzzy on Accelerants [Last Resort/Bandcamp]
Coming out on September 6th from Toronto label We Are Busy Bodies is an album from Canadian sound-artist/producer Michael Scott Dawson called The Tinnitus Chorus. It’s an album of “wide-eyed” collaborations, pitting his field recordings, tape loops and instrumentation against the contributions from mostly-fellow Canadian friends. One such friend is fellow experimentalist K. Freund, who I know from two stunning albums of composition & glitchwork by himself and Linda Lejsovka as Lejsovka & Freund, and their trio Trouble Books with Talons’‘s Mike Tolan. Freund’s piece with Dawson has the characteristic white noise fuzz and stuttering glitch found on many K. Freund works, set in a kind of drone-folk Americana context. I discovered that Freund only just released a new solo album, Hunter on the Wing, in March this year, from which we heard two pieces of some kind of glitch-jazz made from rough loops, tenor sax, piano and other sonic detritus. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you check out the two Lejsovka & Freund albums Mold on Canvas and Fatal Strategies, but while you’re there, the subtle indietronica of Trouble Books’ Balance is absolutely lovely too.

Listen again — ~205MB

Vale Dean Roberts 😢 Plus minimal folktronica; loop-gaze; bass, techno, jungle, doped trip-hop; industrial drone; and variants of contemporary classical.

LISTEN AGAIN, I beg you. Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here.

Dean Roberts and the Black Moths – the fake and detached [Ritornell/Staubgold/Bandcamp]
Dean Roberts – smash the palace and what nerves you’ve got [kranky/Bandcamp]
It was with incredible sadness that I read Lawrence English’s tweet on Dean Roberts‘ death a few days ago. The New Zealand experimental songwriter, guitarist & sound-artist hadn’t released an album since 2000’s Not Fire, but there was no sign that he was ill, as far as I know. He was a year younger than me. I won’t speculate on his passing, but he’s someone who, in his gentle way, touched many in the experimental music scene, from the free noise band Thela (with Dion Workman and Rosy Parlane, two other NZ experimental iconoclasts) to the glorious glitched postrock of Autistic Daughters (with Austrian experimental stalwarts Martin Brandlmayr and Werner Dafeldecker, and our own Chris Abrahams as a frequent guest), and with his solo sound-art/noise/experimental song as White Winged Moth and under his own name. Randomly choose music from his discography and you might hit some granular drone work or hushed, skeletal songs draped over sparse guitar tones and scattered kraut-jazz drums. In tribute – since we’re not going to have any new music from this important figure any more – I chose two solo works from my earliest encounters with his music. 1999’s Dean Roberts and the Black Moths Play The Grand Cinema was originally released on Mille-Plateaux sublabel Ritornell, and re-released by Staubgold in 2004. Here the “song” elements are mostly buried in more freeform noise/postrock/sound-art gestures. In 2003, postrock/ambient label kranky released be mine tonight, an impossibly fragile collection of songs drawing Talk Talk’s postrock into a more freeform jazz world, still with the glitch elements he’d picked up in the late ’90s. Vale Dean.

Lucy Sissy Miller – Horse Girl [Mêtron Records]
Lucy Sissy Miller – The Lighthouse [Mêtron Records]
It feels like the techniques of abstraction and alienation of form used by the likes of The Books, Lucky Dragons and others a couple of decades ago have been absorbed by younger music-makers (whether through Japanese computer games and the outer reaches of J-pop, PC Music’s gleeful repurposing of IDM, and the general destruction of genre boundaries) so that the bio for French-British singer-songwriter Lucy Sissy Miller‘s minimalist folktronica album Pre Country comfortably namechecks Laurie Anderson and Imogen Heap without mention of any of the artists or movements mentioned above. And while I can hear elements of soccer Committee’s collaboration with Machinefabriek and others, ultimately Lucy Sissy Miller’s gorgeous abstracted, electronically processed take on country or folk music is all her own, and I’ll be very cross with you if you don’t check it out.

Seefeel – Hooked Paw [Warp Records/Bandcamp]
Back in 2010 & 2011, shoegaze/electronic pioneers Seefeel released a new EP & album after some 14 years’s absence. Now after almost the same length of time the core of Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock have put together a new album (albeit only 6 tracks – surely an EP), with the familiar sampled & looped vocals of Peacock pulsing through through dubwise electronics. They’ve always had a temporally displaced sound – constructed entirely through digital technology but somehow analogue, even organic sounding. It’s a pleasure to have something new, and we’ll hear the rest of Everything Squared in a week and a bit!

I7HVN – Chains of Bronze [YUKU]
Bangalore-based producer I7HVN (which stands for Ishan) lands on YUKU with his Innate Needs EP after an album released last year on Indian label Qilla. It’s dark and fittingly bass and breakbeat-oriented for YUKU.

Or:la – Chant (Midland‘s ‘Arpeggiate Me’ Remix) [fabric Originals]
Irish producer Orlagh Dooley aka Or:la is the founder of the experimental house/techno/bass label céad (Gaelic for hundred). Her new album Trusting Theta is out on fabric Originals on September 20th, and in the meantime UK producer Midland has taken the very minimal funky electro tune “Chant” and overlaid lavish pulsating synths – a real winner.

Braille – Cost Of Living [Hotflush Recordings/Bandcamp]
NY musician Praveen Sharma was one half of Sepalcure with Machinedrum between 2010 and 2016, releasing the bass music of the time, inspired by UK garage, dubstep and house. With Benoît Pioulard in Praveen & Benoit he explored more ambient & folky terrain as well, but his solo moniker for some time has been Braille, under which he explores garage, house and ravey breakbeat. Following a string of singles & EPs with Hotflush Recordings, Scuba’s label has now released the Triple Transit album, an unrelentingly sunny collection of breakbeat synth bangers. Lovely really.

Hassan Abou Alam – Mesh Mafhoom [Nerve Collect/Bandcamp]
Hassan Abou Alam – Khalsana ft Ziad Zaza [Nerve Collect/Bandcamp]
Out August 30th through Nerve Collect is the latest album from Cairo-based producer Hassan Abou Alam, whose Bandcamp bio says he’s been making tunes since 2008. I’ve certainly been following him for a few years, with releases on Banoffee Pies and YUKU among others. His music’s an electrifying amalgam of UK & US bass styles with fidgety North African percussion and thunderous sub bass. On a couple of tracks here he’s joined by fellow Egyptian rapper Ziad Zaza adding an extra energy.

Muadeep – La Branco [YUKU]
German producer Patrik Schmidt aka Bobby Kudlicz is clearly a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune, given his project Muadeep‘s similarity to “Muad’dib” and a previous EP named HARKONNEN. He’s also collaborated last year with Amon Tobin under his Two Fingers alias. His new album Connected comes via YUKU, a collection of mid-tempo rollers with a lot of African & Middle Eastern samples throughout. Tasty stuff.

Callum Asa & 140 – Drips (Low End Activist Drizzle Remix) [Earful of Wax]
“Drips” is a collaboration between London electronic producer Callum Asa and the nearly-ungoogleable grime MC 140, originally featured on Earful of Wax‘s EARFUL OF WAVS Vol. 1. Now Earful of Wax have released Low End Activist‘s skeletal remix on a limited 7″ dubplate, with proceeds to Palestinian families.

Mantra – Schemes and Dreams [System Music]
V.I.V.E.K‘s System Music, like his own music, tends towards 140bpm, primarily dubstep, so it’s interesting and excellent to hear key jungle DJ and RuptureLDN co-founder Mantra collaborate with the label on her forthcoming 4-tracker, simply titled SYSTEM EP. Dubstep tempos, held down by the sub-bass, but with some nimble breakbeat action. Boh!

The Person – Dub23 Flight1058 [Acroplane]
Defcon – Astropolitique [Acroplane]
Belfast label Acroplane has been around since the early netlabel days, and nowadays they’re again a “netlabel” because aren’t we all now, in the age of Bandcamp? They’re celebrating their 18th birthday with a compilation called XVIII, released 13th of September, with all proceeds for the first year to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Meanwhile a few tracks are available, including the one from The Person (another almost-ungoogleable artist!) – it’s kind of breakcorey jungle that slips into dub reggae halfway through. When it’s out you’ll also get Defcon‘s track which is a crisp amalgam of jungle and footwork with flittery synths. There’s lots of great stuff on here, acid and IDM and techno and breakcore as well.

Ehye אֶהְיֶה – Symphonic [Woodland Creatures]
Ehye אֶהְיֶה – Durge [Woodland Creatures]
Shmuel Hatchwell appeared on Utility Fog earlier this year with a release under his hoyah moniker for Low End Activist’s BRUK label. On the 6th of September, Hatchwell’s Ehye אֶהְיֶה will release his Forgot My Password album on Skwirl‘s Woodland Creatures label. While “hoyah” is an esoteric feminine form of “to be” in Biblical Hebrew, “Ehye” means “I am”. The vibe here is a beat tape of dope-addled instrumental hip-hop filtered through a contemporary bass lens, with pitched-down voice samples, each track based around a few samples, drum machine beats and sub-rattling kick’n’bass. It’s low-key brilliant and I’ll be coming back to it a lot. Fans of Odd Nosdam, DJ Food, DJ Screw or Kenny Segal’s productions with billy woods take note.

Lilacs & Champagne – 144 York Way [Temporary Residence, Ltd/Bandcamp]
Lilacs & Champagne – Dr. Why [Temporary Residence, Ltd/Bandcamp]
Speaking of minimalist, self-aware hip-hop… Alex Hall and Emil Amos are both members of the excellent experimental/instrumental rock band Grails. Their new album as Lilacs & Champagne comes 9 years after their last, and if Grails are instrumental psychedelic rock, this is a kind of instrumental psych-hip-hop. It’s not so interested in the contemporary bass music that permeates Ehye’s beats, but for head-noddin’ beats and musical collage it’s up there with the best.

Connor D’Netto x Yvette Ofa Agapow – Material IV – dopamine deficit [A Guide To Saints/Bandcamp]
From Room40 sublabel A Guide To Saints comes a stunning album from two Meanjin/Brisbane-based musicians: composer Connor D’Netto and sound-artist/noise artist/vocalist Yvette Ofa Agapow. Calling the album Material is a statement in itself, as the two musicians build roiling drones, rattling anti-rhythms and swooping bass from pieces of metal, tape, natural fibres and other objects as well as voice and electronics. The first track is an imposing, droney beginning that I encourage you to press through as no one track is representative of the whole.

Laurence Pike – Mountains Of The Heart [The Leaf Label/Bandcamp]
We’ve heard the opening “Introit” from Laurence Pike‘s album The Undreamt-of Centre a few weeks ago, in which his usual drums, samples and keyboards are augmented by the Sydney Philharmonia Choir‘s VOX choir (made up of 18-30 year olds), suggesting the gravitas of a requiem. “Mountains Of The Heart” re-centres the music on Pike’s percussion, so that when the voices enter near the 4-minute mark it’s an unexpected opening-up of the sound-field. The voices merge into synth drones, which subtly slide downwards as the piece concludes. I’m looking forward to hearing these pieces in context, and might bring you a sneaky preview of some album tracks in the next week or two.

Family Ravine – Part Chance [Death Is Not The End]
Kevin K.W. Cahill runs the Power Moves Label & Library (also a label), releasing not only his music under many monikers but also other artists of an experimental bent, somewhat ambient, somewhat lo-fi. His Family Ravine seems to focus on folky guitar that mingles with field recordings and weird found-electronics. It’s truly hard to pin down, and that’s what’s so beautiful about it. On (I​’​ll) waltz in and act like (I) own the place, released on entirely eclectic London label Death Is Not The End, the guitars – acoustic and electric – are joined by thumb pianos, mandolin and radio static, for freeform music that’s too active to be drone, but too formless to be folk. Whatever it is, it’s gorgeously beguiling.

Amy Brandon – Intermountainous (2017) [New Focus Recordings/Bandcamp]
Canadian composer Amy Brandon was a performing guitarist for many years, and wrote many works for herself on classical guitar with electronics. More recently she’s retired from performance, and composes endlessly rewarding music for a variety of instruments, encouraging extended techniques on flute, string ensembles, a duo of cellists and more, drawing the musicians through ghostly sussurations to wild scratching and screeching – as well as lyrical passages. Rather than strings or flutes, however, I’ve chosen the one guitar work on her new album Lysis, performed here by Julian Bertino. The 10-string guitar here creeps through disquietingly microtonal lines until spectral electronics join and the guitar begins some softly rhythmic fingerpicking passages, with those strange micro-detunings catching the ear. The fingerpicking builds into a passage of fast, repeating phrases that are almost overwhelmed by windy white and pink noise, before dying down to microtonal phrases and shimmering electronics.

Listen again — ~208MB