A range of electronic music from piano-led post-classical/kraut, IDM/techno hybrids, and delicate field recording constructs.

LISTEN AGAIN to the forces of nature… stream on demand from FBi, or podcast here.

Malcolm Pardon – Beneath The Surface [The New Black/Bandcamp]
Roll The Dice – Axel [Digitalis Recordings/Bandcamp]
Malcolm Pardon – The Blindspot [The New Black/Bandcamp]
Stockholm duo Roll The Dice released a steady stream of electronic music since their debut self-titled album came out through experimental label Digitalis Recordings in 2010. Peder Mannerfelt is well-known for his gregarious club music under his own name, his involvement with Fever Ray, and for releasing fellow Swiss electronic artists on his Peder Mannerfelt Produktion. But the other half, Malcolm Pardon, has stayed more in the background, making music for film & TV, so his debut solo album is a very welcome occurrence. Hello Death doesn’t take its title too seriously – it’s more about the acceptance of the inevitability of death than anything more maudlin, with peaceful, enveloping piano and analogue synths echoing his work with Roll The Dice. A rather jaunty number from their debut album reminds us that this combo of very acoustic, organic piano next to synths and electronics has always been a core part of the duo’s sound too.

Cale Sexton – The Smell Of Dirt [Heavy Machinery Records/Bandcamp]
Last year, Melbourne cellist & beatmaker Bridget Chappell released her album Undertow on Heavy Machinery Records, composed around the sound of the Federation Bells, an installation in the parklands next to the Yarra, just south-east of Melbourne’s CBD called Birrarung Marr. The bells play compositions via MIDI that ring through the park, and as well as inviting the public to submit MIDI files to play on the bells, the City of Melbourne has commissioned a series of works based around their sound and location. After Chappell’s work, next up is Melbourne electronic musician Cale Sexton, whose new album Sustain embeds the ringing bells in warm, melodic synths. It’s quite nostalgic music, utterly likeable, and I thought the longest track, just over 9 minutes, was the best way to enjoy the sound.

Vladislav Delay – Ranno [Cosmo Rhythmatic/Bandcamp]
Vladislav Delay – Rakkine [Cosmo Rhythmatic/Bandcamp]
Vladislav Delay – Raaha [Cosmo Rhythmatic/Bandcamp]
From analogue to very digital, we join Finland’s Sassu Ripatti with his second album in as many years under his prolific alias Vladislav Delay. His earliest releases saw him grouped with the Basic Channel/Chain Reaction minimal techno artists, and a stripped-down ambient dub aesthetic is found throughout his over 2 decades of work – but shimmering, shuddering digital cut-ups and granular processing have been central to what he’s done for most of that time too. Later this year there’ll be an album as Ripatti for Planet µ, a continuation of a vinyl & digital project from 2013-14 with frenetic dancefloor beats and pop references; the two albums released last year & now on Cosmo Rhythmatic, while referencing dance music, are monolithic forces of nature. For Rakka, Ripatti drew from the raw power of the Finnish wilderness, and on Rakka II he draws again from this power but channels it into something a little more structured towards dance music. Phenomenal, intense stuff.

Microcorps – JFET [ALTER/Bandcamp]
Microcorps – XEM w/ Gazelle Twin [ALTER/Bandcamp]
Frenetic, glitchy dance music also makes up the sounds on the latest album from English musician Alexander Tucker, who we first encountered making yearning psychedelic folk and rock under his own name, and psych-rock-noise with Daniel O’Sullivan as Grumbling Fur. That duo, and other projects including more recent solo Tucker have become increasingly electronic, but it makes sense that this new album, released by Luke Younger’s ALTER label this week, receives a new name – Microcorps – as it is quite a left turn all the same. At times Tucker’s voice appears, thoroughly splintered, and his processed cello (once you know it’s there) scythes through many of the tracks, but by and large it’s the jackhammering beats and electronic treatments that define this music. There are some high-profile collaborators here, including the great Simon Fisher Turner on one track, and the distorted voice of Gazelle Twin joins Tucker on one highlight. If you didn’t know Tucker’s previous work with guitars, strings, and songforms, you’d never know he wasn’t a “digital native”.

Eomac – Falling Through The Cracks [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Eomac – Resist All Dogma [Eotrax]
Eomac – Prophetess [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
After living in Berlin for some years, Dublin’s Eomac, aka Ian McDonnell of club deconstructionist duo Lakker, repaired to rural Ireland to make his new album Cracks for Planet µ. In these lockdown times, he was freed from the need to consider the dancefloor – although a lot of this is thoroughly danceable all the same. And the rural setting hasn’t quite removed the angst and darkness – the cathartic screaming found on tracks from his 2018 album Reconnect appear here too, but so do beautiful choral vocals. The title “Cracks” is a reference to Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”, where he suggests that “There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in”. So this is an album of hope, and a very enjoyable one too.

Andy Stott – Answers [Modern Love]
Andy Stott – Dont know how [Modern Love]
Also released this week is another of Andy Stott‘s occasional albums, but this one sees him reuiniting with singer Alison Skidmore, who appeared on his great Luxury Problems album and the EPs that preceded it 10 years ago. For what it’s worth, Stott is continuing with his 2019 album’s very lo-fi aesthetic, so the beats on these tracks have that hissing, moist sound of low-bitrate mp3s. It’s odd, but there’s certainly some moving music on here which I’ll be giving some more listens in the next few weeks.

Kentaro Hayashi – Peculiar [Opal Tapes]
Kentaro Hayashi – Arrowhead [Opal Tapes]
Osaka-based mastering engineer and electronic musician Kentaro Hayashi released his debut album Peculiar initially on CD last year through the Japanese label Remodel. It’s now been given an expanded release and vinyl edition through UK label Opal Tapes – we heard one of the new tracks tonight. His work with Merzbow is evident across many of these tracks, but the noise element is more in service of beats and other more familiar structures. Hayashi covers a lot of ground, from minimal techno to various UK bass & club styles, including some hints and drum’n’bass on new track “Arrowhead”. Any lover of experimental electronic music, IDM or the far end of the dancefloor should get a lot out of this album.

Armed With Bow – Heavy Handed [MFZ Records]
Armed With Bow – I-WILL-NOT-GIV [MFZ Records]
London cellist Will Langstone did not expect the debut album from his Armed With Bow to sound quite like this. As many of us found, the weight of extended lockdown made him emotionally alienated from his usual art, and it was only through eventually getting deep into his electronic music interests that he found his way back to music-making. There’s a bit of processed cello in here, but mostly it’s cheeky and clattering experimental beats, and very well done.

Alexandra Spence – Bell, Fern [Room40/Bandcamp]
The second album from Sydney sound-artist Alexandra Spence on Room40 is as captivating as her last. She deals with very personal sound recordings, including field recordings and also everyday objects brought to sonic life through attention to detail and a deep understand of musical communication. The way these sounds blend with electronic tones and singing over its 15 minutes is like a magical spell. A Necessary Softness is not to be missed.

Listen again — ~206MB

Electric folk in a regional French language, mysterious microtonal contemporary classical, covers of 4AD classics, electronic post-grindcore and more – that’s Utility Fog tonight!

LISTEN AGAIN to a world of sound… Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here!

Sourdure – La Rupture [Les Disques du Festival Permanent/Pagans/Murailles Music]
Sourdure – L’Escribòta [Les Disques du Festival Permanent/Pagans]
Sourdure – Na Festa [Les Disques du Festival Permanent/Pagans/Murailles Music]
Ernest Bergez, of experimental electronic duo Kaumwald and various bands in various genres, continues his Sourdure project with his new album De Mòrt Viva, which modernises arcane pagan themes through the Auvergnat dialect of the regional French language Occitan – which is closer to Catalan than French, and was the traditional language of many troubadors in ages past. The music features weird & wonderful instruments like the hurdy gurdy, various ancient trumpets, and the daf, a Persian frame drum. As much as it draws on the folk music of central France, there are Arabic melodies flowing through these songs, and electronic pulses and tones. We can see Bergez was already on this path with his 2018 album L’Espròva (and indeed earlier). A singular music, worthy of your time.

anrimeal – I Am Not [anrimeal Bandcamp]
anrimeal – Vertical [anrimeal Bandcamp]
Last week we heard a lovely new song from Ana Rita de Melo Alves’s anrimeal – captivating freak-folk on the Object 10 compilation from Objects Forever. So I sought out more music from Alves, and her album Could Divine is equally great – as you can hear on these samplings, there’s acoustic folk, with guiar, violin, vocals and piano wrapped up in field recordings and electronic cut-ups, unimpressed and unimpeded by genre constraints. I’m so glad to have discovered her.

Leider – Human Error [Beacon Sound]
Leider – Human Error (Tegh Version) [Beacon Sound]
Broadly describable as “songs” project of Berlin-based Malaysian composer Rishin Singh, Leider features Singh himself on trombone alongside viola, cello and flute, with the other musicians doubling on voice or sparse percussion. The songs thus far revealed from their debut album A Fog Like Liars Loving are haunting works with close harmonies and at times piercing microtonal tuning. If that wasn’t enough (and it is – they’re stunning songs), the pre-order from Portland’s Beacon Sound comes with a set of remixes, including one from Persian sound-artist Tegh.

Sasha Scott – Shapeshifer [Nonclassical/Bandcamp]
From the latest Outside the Lines compilation from UK label/org Nonclassical, violinist/composer Sasha Scott brings us a work of splintered piano, distorted drones and frenetic beats. A perfect example of how classical/non-classical hardly means anything anymore, particularly to those of us trained in the classical tradition…

Sweeney – Kid [sound in silence]
Sweeney – Skin [sound in silence]
Adelaide’s Jason Sweeney‘s career has encompassed many musical genres – from various indie bands to the IDM duo Pretty Boy Crossover and the ambient piano styles of Panoptique Electrical. His emotive voice has appeared as often as it’s stood aside, and for the latest surname-only work from Sweeney, Misery Peaks, doom-laden piano and vocals echo in at times heavy electronics and beats – a surprising choice for the Greek label sound in silence, but I’m grateful they’ve brought these songs to our ears. It’s often beautiful and challenging work, recalling at times the late Scott Walker, and is my favourite recent work from Sweeney.

Balmorhea – Night Falls In Your Left [Deutsche Grammophon]
Balmorhea – Vent Pontian [Deutsche Grammophon]
Balmorhea – The Myth [Deutsche Grammophon]
Rob Lowe and Michael A. Muller’s Balmorhea have made the kind of postrock-meets-folk-meets-classical that sits perfectly with this show for well over a decade. It’s a rather nice surprise to find them on Deutsche Grammophon for their latest album, The Wind – the label is finding its own way to stretch into that “neo-/post-classical” world that seems strangely lucrative now, especially in Europe. It’s also nice to see that Balmorhea’s sound is not particularly changed for appearing on this label, albeit having already arrived at a quieter approach than their earliest releases. There are electronic distortions at times, some field recordings, and also soft piano along with acoustic guitar textures.

Efterklang – Postal [4AD]
Bradford Cox – Mountain Battles [4AD]
Although it’s not out on CD & LP until July, 4AD‘s 40th birthday compilation Bills & Aches & Blues has now appeared digitally via a set of EPs. It includes myriad contemporary 4AD artists covering music from the legendary label’s 4 decades, with The Breeders strangely featuring quite heavily (they’re awesome of course!) including tonight’s extraordinary avant-garde cover by Deerhunter‘s Bradford Cox. There are many, many highlights – don’t be cynical about this, just check it all out, honest! But I was so, so delighted and surprised to hear the glorious “Postal” by the beloved Piano Magic, reworked in style by Efterklang.

Genghis Tron – Great Mother [Relapse/Bandcamp]
Genghis Tron – Warm Woods [Crucial Blast/Bandcamp]
Genghis Tron – I Won’t Come Back Alive (Ulver Remix) [Relapse]
Genghis Tron – Colony Collapse (Justin K Broadrick Remix) [Temporary Residence]
Genghis Tron – Single Black Point [Relapse/Bandcamp]
It was quite a surprise to hear late last year that electronic/grindcore/post-metal band Genghis Tron were releasing a new album after over a decade’s silence. Singer Mookie Singerman is no longer with them, and that’s not the only big difference – their earlier incarnation shunned live drums for glitched-up IDM-style drum programming, but for this album they’re joined by powerhouse drummer Nick Yacyshyn of SUMAC (among others). Tony Wolski’s singing is clean in comparison to the various guises of Singerman, and original members Michael Sochynsky and Hamilton Jordan have created sweeping synth & guitar songs which are equal parts postrock, post-metal and kosmische. It’s epic and great – but I wanted to remind us of the crunchy IDM-meets-metal of their earlier days, and of the phenomenal five remix 12″s on five different labels released after their Board Up The House album in 2008, featuring IDM, indietronic and metal artists from the likes of Anticon, Temporary Residence and more – here represented by the orchestral & electronic sounds of shapeshifting tricksters Ulver, and the ever-versatile industrial metal pioneer Justin K Broadrick.

Dolphins of Venice – Mars Roaster [DataDoor/Bandcamp]
Here’s the second EP from the duo of Adelaide’s Tim Koch & US IDM/ambient producer Adrien75. Dolphins of Venice are enamoured of extreme Unicode, and their music is equally outlandish – seemingly blissful strummy rock melted & fried with electronics, garnished with crunchy beats. An album is on its way.

Erik Griswold – Girraween – Spring 3 [Neuma Records/Bandcamp]
We finish with a beautiful piece from the Brisbane-based American composer Erik Griswold, who we often hear performing his own rhythmic and hypnotic works on piano. Here, three of the Four Places in Queensland are performed by other pianists. “Spring” and “Rain” feature in two of the locations; the piano is called upon to evoke natural phenomena in each place, and plays delicately, and occasionally forcefully. At times it sounds like the nimble prepared piano works on Griswold’s Room40 albums, but it’s natural piano for natural settings. Beautiful stuff.

Listen again — ~208MB

Tonight we have some incredible genreless music from around Australia, and around the world, touching on folk, rap, noise, techno, footwork and drum’n’bass. We also have an interview with the brilliant Kcin.

LISTEN AGAIN to the words and music that you need – stream on demand from FBi or podcast right here.

Nika Mo – The Singing Bone [Tone List/Bandcamp]
Nika Mo – Landscape: longing [Nika Mo Bandcamp]
Nika Mo – Dance of the Cloven Hoof [Tone List/Bandcamp]
Annika Moses is a Perth-based composer, sound-artist, radiophonic sound artist and weird-folk singer/songwriter, whose album is one of a number of releases Perth’s Tone List are putting out as part of their Audible Edge Festival of Sound. Working here as Nika Mo, Moses composed the songs on Of Cloven Hoof in Honey inspired by the very weird, primal storytelling found in the lesser-known tales from the Grimm’s Fairytales (and even the more famous ones have been heavily sanitised in their familiar forms). Often characters undergo radical bodily transformation, or wish to escape their current forms, and the cloven hoof, a motif in many of the stories and traditionally a symbol of deceit or devilishness, comes to signify rather something like changeability or tangled, unknowable complexity. Into this critical framework, Moses has created a collection of beautifully strange, evocative and uncompromising songs, with her own instrumental and vocal performances augmented by a large cast of singers & musicians from Perth’s experimental & folk scenes. It’s powerful stuff worthy of her remarkable range of talent. Check out her wondrous piece of poetry/composition/sound-art “Amazing blissful moment (fearful receiver)” from last year while you’re at it.

anrimeal – Brush My Teeth [Objects Forever]
Pallas Athene – Gimme Gimme [Objects Forever]
Kristen Gallerneaux – Are You An Animal Or Are You A Person? [Objects Forever]
Three tracks from the excellent, wide-ranging new compilation put together by members of The Leaf Library (who I cannot recommend highly enough – check out their last album). Object Ten is a cassette & digital collection of artists from all around the world, ranging from experimental folk & dreampop through skittering electronics and heavy drones. We started with London-based Ana Alves aka anrimeal, whose found sounds, bell-like guitar and violin accompany her voice in a way that echoes Nika Mo above; Toronto’s Breanna Johnston aka Pallas Athene brings frenetic beats behind her jaunty dream pop, while US sound-artist Kristen Gallerneaux takes things to an even darker, bass-heavy space.

Taraamoon – Dayjoor (Daygard x Taraamoon) [Low-Zi Records]
Taraamoon – Nebrās (Roody x Taraamoon) [Low-Zi Records]
The debut album Bādbān from Paris-based Persian duo Taraamoon follows two beautiful singles from last year, but it also follows a substantial collection of work under the name 9T Antiope, which has featured frequently on this show, representing their more experimental, freeform challenging work, and featuring words mostly in English from singer Sara Bigdeli Shamloo. Taraamoon is exquisite electronic pop with lyrics entirely in Farsi, with the electronics of Shamloo and partner Nima Aghiani, along with Aghiani’s noisemakers and violin, turned to somewhat more directly accessible purposes – shorter songs, beats and basslines etc. The decision to write in Farsi comes from a deep desire to connect with their homeland, as they’ve been Europe-based for some time, and on Bādbān they take this connection further by collaborating with a selection of Iranian rappers, each of whom weave their raps in amongst the rich vocals of Shamloo, co-creating a narrative about characters spread across the ocean after a shipwreck – metaphorically seeking unity for Iranian communities scattered across the globe over the last few years. Daygard‘s evocative spoken lyrics merge in the end with Shamloo’s melody over loose-limbed beats and Aghiani’s floating violin, while Roody, the one female rapper featured, takes a more rhythmic, aggressive approach with her verses.

Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Aubergine feat. Fielded [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – God’s Feet [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Peppertree [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
The underground rap duo Armand Hammer, made up of billy woods and Elucid, continue to turn out some of the most inspired & inspiring hip-hop of the moment. On new album Haram we find them working with in-demand producer The Alchemist, which has led some to infer that they’ve sold out, what with Alan Maman’s high profile work with Mobb Deep, Anderson .Paak, Freddie Gibbs and other big names in rap – including Eminem. But if he should need to prove himself, The Alchemist does so with uncompromising backings which blend perfectly with woods & Elucid’s own style – long, out-of-context spoken samples, bizarre mid-track left turns, chopped & glitched samples etc. The lyrics as as vital as ever, and yes, woods & Elucid are at times coaxed into some oddly catchy tunes that could find purchase outside the underground, but this is exactly the advanced, challenging work we’ve come to expect from the duo.

Kcin – Salt Ghost [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
…interview with Kcin including…
Kcin – Blood In The Water [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin – Moon (Part 2) (under interview) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin – Distance From The Sea Of Sorrow feat. Elizabeth Fader (excerpt under interview) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin – Colonist Reprise [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Listeners to UFog over the last few years will have become familiar with Nick Meredith aka Kcin‘s dark sound, that melds percussion, found sounds and electronics in a way both familiar and unique. It was a pleasure to finally get to interview Nick on the occasion of his extraordinary debut album proper, Decade Zero, seeing release next week via Spirit Level. Listening to this album, it’s clear why it’s given this special status – it’s not just cohesive in sound, but a deeply accomplished work, compulsory listening for anyone with an interest in deconstructed club sounds, industrial techno, Ben Frost’s sonic destruction and Utility Fog-style sounds in general. In our conversation, Nick outlines his workflow, in which sounds are sourced and created, built up in the digital world, blasted through vibrating air and re-recorded, further deconstructed and rebuilt. Check it.

Shoeb Ahmad – Double Checks Against The Corner (d) (Peter Knight Version) [New Weird Australia/Bandcamp]
DroomData – Stoeptegels [New Weird Australia/Bandcamp]
Noom – Deep Dark Dance Bubbles [New Weird Australia/Bandcamp]
Infinitely pleasing that Stu Buchanan has turned his attention back to his New Weird Australia project, uncovering strange sounds from around the country for adventurous ears. New compilation Space Between Space sees its contributors expressing the liminal experience of our current situation, and all proceeds will benefit First Nations artists & community affected by the COVID-19 crisis. To start up, we heard Melbourne jazz/electronic musician Peter Knight pushing a forthcoming track from Canberra’s Shoeb Ahmad into the red. Then NT-based DroomData dissipates their drones halfway through to give way to touching spoken word in Dutch, and finally the Narrm/Melbourne-based Michelle Nguyen’s Noom gives us squelchily warm bouncing rhythms.

The Future Sound Of London – Zen Jenny [FSOL Digital]
Each year for some time now, legendary rave/ambient techno pioneers The Future Sound Of London have released a “calendar” for the year as a progressive album, one new or archival track per month, each exclusive to the album. From FSOL Calendar 2021, tonight I played the March track, melding their organic ambient textures with IDM-ish, almost drum’n’bass rhythms.

Brain Rays & Quiet – Creeps (Coco Bryce Remix) [SEAGRAVE/Bandcamp]
The collaborative work of Brain Rays & Quiet was one of my top discoveries from great UK label SEAGRAVE in recent times – IDM-tinged jungle and footwork of complexity & style. Seagrave now bring us a new EP with a couple of new tracks and a couple of excellent remixes. Notably Dutch producer Yoël Bego aka Coco Bryce, who’s on a jungle tip of late, does suitably complex breakbeat juggling on his remix here.

Double O feat. Sheba Q – God Is A Woman (Coco Bryce remix) [Western Lore]
D’tch – Reparation Dub [Western Lore]
Speaking of Coco Bryce, he appeared on Western Lore‘s Blunted Breaks Vol 2 LP Sampler a few months ago with a lush remix of Double O feat. Sheba Q‘s track “God Is A Woman”. I was under the misapprehension that the 4 tracks on this LP Sampler were excerpted from the Blunted Breaks Vol 2 compilation which was just released a week or so ago – but you’d better take care, because it turns out those are flips & alternates from the tracks featured on the new comp. The original (also lovely) of “God Is A Woman” appears there, among many other great new jungle/hardcore tunes, and I love the half-time head-nodder of “Reparation Dub” from Bristol’s D’tch – swapped for “Re-reparation” on the sampler!

Listen again — ~193MB

We’ve got a triumphant post-classical return, a sad goodbye, strings with electronics, indetronica, kabbalah-cyberpunk, metalheads doing drum’n’bass (pun intended) and more tonight!
Thanks to Krishtie Mofazzal for her fantastic selections as always, filling in while I was away last week!

LISTEN AGAIN to the mystical machinery… Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here.

Bell Orchestre – Opening [Erased Tapes/Envision/Bandcamp]
Bell Orchestre – House [Erased Tapes/Envision/Bandcamp]
Bell Orchestre – Bucephalus Bouncing Ball [Arts & Crafts]
Bell Orchestre – All the Time [Erased Tapes/Envision/Bandcamp]
Starting tonight with a Toronto troupe who we haven’t heard from for over 10 years. Bell Orchestre formed during the recording of the first Arcade Fire album, and feature that band’s Richard Reed Parry on double bass (among other things), and of course the wonderful Sarah Neufeld on violin, who has played on their albums and toured with them since the beginning. To these instruments add the excellent drummer Stefan Schneider (not the German musician!), trumpeter Kaveh Nabatian, French horn player Pietro Amato and pedal steel guitarist Michael Feuerstack (all of whom play other instruments, contribute electronics, and occasionally sing) and you have this marvellous ensemble, who straddle postrock and a kind of post-classical folk tendency, while drawing also on electronica, dub and much more – check that Aphex Twin cover in the middle there from their second album! 12 years after that second album comes House Music – recorded in every part of Sarah Neufeld’s house in rural Vermont during lockdown, it really is a maturation of their original sound, an absorbing, single long work broken into separate tracks, tightly edited but preserving the spontaneity and joy of the 2-week recording session. The electronic influences can be heard in the overdriven bass drum and clattering beats, or the motorik ostinati provided by violin or guitar, while Parry’s warm double bass notes ring out under expansive horn parts. A delight.

Tomaga – More Flowers [Hands in the Dark/HITD Bandcamp/Tomaga Bandcamp]
Tomaga – The King Of Naples [Hands in the Dark/HITD Bandcamp/Tomaga Bandcamp]
Usually I wouldn’t think of Tomaga and Bell Orchestre sitting easily together, but the drumming of Valentina Magaletti draws on the locked-down complexity of krautrock, much like Schneider, around which Tom Relleen’s bass, synths and other instruments (and Magaletti’s percussion) are always deeply musical. Tragically, in August last year Relleen passed away from stomach cancer, making Intimate Immensity the last album from this remarkable duo. It’s as good an overview as any of their singular sound, melding the aforementioned krautrock with postpunk propulsion and freedom, nostalgic genreless electronic influences and a certain je ne sais quoi. I was thinking earlier that I’ve heard Magaletti’s playing in many different contexts – from the psych/noise UUUU to the dread minimal post-club postpunk of Raime and more free music – and none of it sounds much like Tomaga. I’m not sure anyone could replace the contributions of Tom Relleen, so do head to their Bandcamp, where the duo’s entire output can be found and savoured.

pleasure – MISTY 191012 [pleasure Bandcamp]
pleasure – SUBLIMATION 191014 [pleasure Bandcamp]
Not a million miles from Tomaga’s sound is Sydney trio pleasure, with the muscular and detailed drumming of Jonathan Boulet alongside the synths of Hugh Deacon and Adam Connelly, producing together a music of deceptive simplicity. Recorded over a few days on a farm in St Albans, a beautiful area north-west of Sydney, these pieces capture a spontaneity that can only be achieved through deep collaboration and great musicianship. Don’t let this slip you by.

Happy Axe – Growing In The Ground [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Wonderful to have new music – if only a single for now – from Canberra’s Emma Kelly aka Happy Axe. With rhythms and melodies initially based around her violin, eventually augmented with beats & electronics, this song celebrates a beautiful experience with walls of glow worms during a bushwalk with a friend.

Erlend Apneseth Trio – Impedans [Hubro/Bandcamp]
Erlend Apneseth Trio – Linjer [Hubro/Bandcamp]
The Norwegian Erlend Apneseth Trio finds Hardanger fiddle player Apneseth joined by the excellent drummer Øyvind Hegg-Lunde (quite recently found in these playlists) and sound artist & guitarist Stephan Meidell. All appear frequently in various groups on the great Hubro label, and this ensemble in particular bridges the divide between folk, postrock and electronics. New album Lokk mixes samples from around the world in with the musicians’ exceptional playing. It’s not straight folk music by any means, and is all the better for it.

Dntel – Fall In Love [Morr Music/Bandcamp/Les Albums Claus/Bandcamp]
Dntel – Umbrella feat. Chris Gunst [Plug Research/Sub Pop/Bandcamp]
Dntel – Don’t Get Your Hopes Up [Morr Music]
Dntel – Yoga App [Morr Music/Bandcamp/Les Albums Claus/Bandcamp]
Jimmy Tamborello’s Dntel is immensely important to this show, having started with a couple of albums of lovely intricate IDM before dropping the amazing Life is Full of Possibilities in 2001 – glitchy ambient textures of indie guitars, spare crunchy beats, and guest spots from various indie greats (including Benjamin Gibbard, with whom Tamborello would form The Postal Service, short-lived but much-loved). That album’s aesthetic sits smack bang in the middle of what Utility Fog wanted to be about. Since then Dntel and Tamborello’s music has moved in all sorts of directions, not all of which I’ve been as excited by, but I’m always keen to check in, and I’m pleased to say The Seas Trees See, his first full album on Morr Music (co-released with Belgian outfit Les Albums Claus), is a deep, unsettling beauty – and even better, it’s the first of two albums he’ll be releasing this year! Strange, disembodied loops and very buried beats float and pulse, joined at times by heavily processed vocals. It’s abstract but not formless. As well as the opening track from Life is Full of Possibilities (which featured vocals Beachwood Sparks‘ Chris Gunst), I played the adorable IDM-pop of “Don’t Get Your Hopes Up”, released almost 2 decades ago on the one & only Morr Music on a split picture 7″ with Styrofoam.

Glume & Phossa – Sunken [Deep Medi]
Deep Medi keep hitting home runs – here with the latest 12″ from young Bristolian duo Glume & Phossa, featuring wobbly basslines and deep melodies. While this is core dubstep, the beats at times take a jazzy turn, beautifully done.

Meemo Comma – Merkabah [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Meemo Comma – Neon Genesis: Title Sequence [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Lara Rix-Martin formed Heterotic with husband Mike Paradinas (head honcho of Planet µ and of course aka µ-Ziq) in 2013, and released a few albums as Lux E Tenebris and more recently Meemo Comma (a name bestowed by her daughter). Rix-Martin also runs the Objects Limited label, formed to promote the music of musicians of under-represented genders. Rix-Martin’s recent solo work sees them drawing on their Jewish heritage, melding their exploration of Jewish mysticism (the kabbalah and the “Merkabah” of our first track) with cyberpunk ideas from anime and gaming. Notable on this release is not only Rix-Martin’s command of their hardware & software, but also the use of voice throughout – at times drawing on Jewish liturgical song, but also casting a wider net. It’s a really interesting release, worthy of all the attention it’s seen.

Slikback – RUE [Slikback Bandcamp]
Slikback – OPS [Slikback Bandcamp]
Slikback – TOWER [Slikback Bandcamp]
While brilliant Kenyan producer Slikback has been released on labels as far & wide as Berlin’s PAN, Shanghai’s SVBKVLT and Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Tapes, in 2021 he’s followed up two massive drops on his own Bandcamp with two more self-released EPs. February’s SHOTOTSU was just followed by ARATTA, four tracks of trap, jungle & footwork-influenced stuff – but whatever Slikback does is filtered through his incredible talent for beats, bass and sound manipulation.

Low End Activist – Look Up [Sneaker Social Club]
Oxford(?) bass producer Low End Activist has covered UK bass & “hardcore continuum” genres from dancehall & dub through grime and garage on Seagrave, and on his new EP Engineers Origins (back on Sneaker Social Club) it’s breakbeat and drum’n’bass. It’s dark & deep stuff, with “Look Up” recalling for me some of the genre-melding experimental sounds in the late ’90s, when mainstream drum’n’bass had by & large gone hard & unyielding. Great stuff.

Tech Level 2 – Suspended [Avalanche Recordings Bandcamp]
Fitting in very well with the late ’90s techstep scene, but with complexity around the tough exterior, was Tech Step 2, the drum’n’bass alias of Justin K Broadrick (grindcore & industrial metal pioneer of Godflesh, Jesu and JK Flesh fame, as well as half of Techno Animal, Ice & Zonal with The Bug). Only a few 12″s were released, so it’s great to have four unreleased tracks from that era available now on Broadrick’s Avalanche Recordings Bandcamp. These are at least as strong as any of the other material, and while I love the dub-influenced but hard techno he’s releasing these days as JK Flesh, it leaves me wishing he’d return to some of this stuff at some point.

Manslaughter 777 – Do You Know Who Loves You [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
MSC & The Body – PKK [MSC Bandcamp/The Body Bandcamp]
Manslaughter 777 – No Man Curse [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Speaking of metalheads doing, er, “Metalheadz”, Manslaughter 777 feels like something that’s been a long time coming – the work of The Body drummer Lee Buford and longtime collaborator Zac Jones of MSC/Braveyoung, it’s stripped entirely of the metal trappings, focusing on live and manipulated beats & samples, drawing on their love of dub, hip-hop and drum’n’bass/jungle. Working with engineer Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets, they’ve created something that’s dark but less harsh than their usual work (although the building blocks were there in many albums of The Body, and in particular last year’s MSC & The Body collaboration I Don’t Ever Want To Be Alone), perfect for those who find harsh vocals a bit much to deal with.

Kcin – Moon (Part 1) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin – Salt Ghost (Ambient Mix) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Next week on the show I’ll be talking to Nick Meredith aka Kcin about his new album Decade Zero. It’s out very soon, but in the meantime we have a few tracks, including the oceanic ambient mix of album track “Salt Ghost”. Myriad percussion and other instruments are fed through effects, played through amps and re-recorded, and processed more to create a visceral sound like no other.

Listen again — ~207MB