Rap to pop to shoegaze to dance to experimental… All happening tonight.

LISTEN AGAIN because you deserve it… stream on demand @ FBi, podcast here.

Ed Balloon – I Need This Cash [Deathbomb Arc/Bandcamp]
clipping. – He Dead (feat. Ed Balloon) [Sub Pop/Bandcamp]
Ed Balloon – Bad Gyal [Deathbomb Arc/Bandcamp]
Starting tonight with Boston-based rapper Ed Balloon, whose verses on clipping.‘s track “He Dead” last year absolutely stole the show… His new EP I Hate It Here, his second on Deathbomb Arc, seems to draw something from the more experimental side of clipping., with his dulcet vocals (comfortable singing, and rapping in both high and low register, his vowels a reminder of his Nigerian heritage) accompanied by distorted basslines and skittering electronics beats as much as r’n’b arrangements. It’s absolutely superb.

Aesop Rock – Marble Cake [Rhymesayers Entertainment/Bandcamp]
Aesop Rock – Pizza Alley [Rhymesayers Entertainment/Bandcamp]
When Aesop Rock released his last album back in 2016, I did a massive special on his work, such a towering figure is he in underground/alt. hip-hop. His lyrics frequently need a dictionary to unravel, and can be delivered at machine-gun speed, but particularly of late he’s a superb and touching storyteller too. Having collaborated with many great leftfield producers (notable Blockhead), Aes has become a truly talented producer in his own right too, and for me his beats are as much a joy to hear as his rhymes. His new album professes to be a Spirit World Field Guide and comes with a bunch of creative videos pushing that concept along. Always a pleasure, Mr Bavitz.

The God In Hackney – Non Zero Number [Junior Aspirin Records/Bandcamp]
Earlier this year I came across the new album by the English band The God In Hackney, via an appearance on a Wire comp, and it was love at first sight – unusual arrangements touching on krautrock, spiritual jazz, experimental electronic and more. Here we have a charming if non-specifically harrowing number with spoken words and experimental soundscapes. I strongly recommend checking out their Small Country Eclipse album from earlier this year too.

El Hardwick – Ration Without Reason [33-33/Bandcamp]
El Hardwick – Might Makes Right [33-33/Bandcamp]
For their new album simply entitled 8, London-based multidisciplinary artist El Hardwick has created a sci-fi epic from a narrative originally conceived of as a graphic novel. Twin themes of climate and digital justice combine, as technocratic solutions to climate change are challenged alongside the patriarchy and simple good-vs-evil oppositions. Musically it’s a thrilling ride, with high, layered vocals and advanced electronics – to these ears there’s a resonance with the work of Aphir, which is surely high praise. This album deserves plenty of attention, so check it out!

The Brazilian Gentleman – HYMN 3 [Internet & Weed/Bandcamp]
The Brazilian Gentleman – U SHOULD LIVE HERE [Internet & Weed/Bandcamp]
C Trip A – thought streams (jesu mix) [Translation Loss/Bandcamp]
The various projects of Christian McKenna can be hard to keep track of – End Christian being perhaps the primary one of late, but it’s hard to tell… He is frequently collaborating with the great Alap Momin these days, once the incendiary producer (as Oktopus) behind industrial hip-hop pioneers dälek, and with a few others the two have now made a few releases under the name The Brazilian Gentleman – each one entirely uncategorizable. The latest, released by Momin’s Internet & Weed label, is 808 Hymns, and indeed the distinctive 808 kick flows through all these tracks alongside processed guitars and occasional processed vocals. It is low-key yet strangely transcendent stuff. Meanwhile, McKenna (aided by Momin and others) has a true-blue hip-hop project with rapper Anthony Adams called C Trip A, released by metal label Translation Loss, and the legendary metal/shoegaze/electronic master Justin K Broadrick just remixed them under his Jesu guise – big rumbling bass and slow beats bliss!

jesu – consciousness [Avalanche Recordings/Bandcamp]
And yup, speaking of Jesu, following the awesome and quite electronic EP Never now comes new album Terminus, which mostly finds Broadrick’s vocals as clean and up-front as they’ve ever been. Except, I’ve gone and chosen the one track where they’re anything but – it’s not the hardcore howl, but rather heavily vocoded, akin to his earlier Pale Sketcher work.

SENS DEP – Bound [Sens Dep Bandcamp]
SENS DEP – Server hum, deep sleep [Sens Dep Bandcamp]
Speaking (marginally) as we were of experimental metal sounds, here’s some wonderful doomy stuff with shoegazey and electronic elements from new Melbourne band SENS DEP, who you may recognize as members of beloved postrock band Laura. Brothers Andrew and Ben Yardley are joined by Laura’s cellist Caz Gannell, with Skye Klein of Terminal Sound System (and a long time ago, doomers HALO) drumming on many tracks. Glorious, warm distortion is interrupted and complicated by studio edits, vocals enter occasionally, and Gannell’s cello surfaces at times. It’s beautiful and messed up, and it better not get lost in the end-of-year rush, so grab this marvellous thing now!

Happy Axe – Seven Sounds (Joalah Remix) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin & Tilman Robinson – Requiem for the Holocene [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
With the end of year in sight, Melbourne’s Spirit Level decided to drop their third label comp Kindred Spirits 3 with almost no warning this week. There’s everything from post-classical sweetness to various forms of electronic pop and dance music. It opens with a gorgeous remix of Canberran violin & electronics maestro Emma Kelly aka Happy Axe, and I’m not sure whether “Joalah” is the name of the remix or an unknown artist. Meanwhile Sydney’s Kcin and Perth-via-Melbourne’s Tilman Robinson memorialise our destruction of the ecosystem on their strangely pretty contribution! If you’re in Sydney, you can see Kcin aka Nick Meredith with Adrian Lim-Klumpes at SICKOfest at the Old 505 Theatre in Newtown along with some other amazing musicians.

Keleketla! – Papua Merdeka (Machinedrum Remix) [Ahead Of Our Time/Bandcamp]
Keleketla! – Swift Gathering (Skee Mask Remix) [Ahead Of Our Time/Bandcamp]
True “world” music here with a project involving Coldcut and musicians from South Africa, London, LA and elsewhere – including West Papuan independence campaigner Benny Wenda, whose moving story is the centrepiece of “Papua Merdeka”. Here the track is sensitively remixed by Machinedrum, keeping the spirit of the original but in his own style. There are a number of excellent African electronic producers on the remix tip, along with others from all around the world – and I love the jungle-techno feel of anonymous German producer Skee Mask here (also check his remix of Konx-om-Pax for Planet µ‘s 25th anniversary comp, from which we heard a couple of other tracks tonight!)

Krust – Negative Returns (Four Tet Remix) [Crosstown Rebels/Bandcamp]
You may have noticed I was blown away by the new album from Bristol jungle/drum’n’bass Krust a few weeks ago – a radical take on the genre, standing on its own but drawing deeply from the heritage and current state of a genre he had a lot to do with the growth of. It’s released on Crosstown Rebels, a label known more for house & techno, and thus the remixes have been quite unusual so far – but how could I resist Four Tet doing his first (according to his own self) proper drum’n’bass tune? It’s a damn fine effort, very Four Tet but with definitely call-outs to the original (as is Hebden’s style).

Meemo Comma – Tif’eret [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Bogdan Raczynski – tteosintae [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
So did I mention that the great Planet µ label has turned 25 years old? It seems like just yesterday they put out their book and compilation for 20 years, and now here we are (note: your perception of time may differ…) Their PlanetMµ25 compilation is a pretty low-key affair, but it’s good reason to celebrate a continually forward-thinking label that’s contributed so much to scenes from idm through drum’n’bass, dubstep and footwork. And through the influence of Mike Paradinas’ partner Lara Rix-Martin, the label has championed female and non-binary artists, including through its hosting of Rix-Martin’s Objects Limited label. Rix-Martin is a musician herself, and her music as Meemo Comma feels like it’s getting better & better all the time. Her new track here combines jungle breaks, 4/4 beats and samples of the Sh’ma, the most important Jewish prayer, along with choral vocals and more, in evocation of the balancing sefirah from the kabbalah. Meanwhile idm legend Bogdan Raczynski contributes one of the loveliest things he’s created, idm beats and purely beautiful synth pads – a wonderful surprise.

Adhelm – Swin [tak:til/Bandcamp]
Adhelm – Plume [tak:til/Bandcamp]
For tak:til, the experimental sub-label of German multicultural label Glitterbeat, English producer Beni Giles steps out on his own as Adhelm. His album Yasam Rose actual comprises two parts, following two ships in the waterways of London: the Yasam Rose plies the industrial upriver part of the Thames, while the Spek travels into the windswept Thames estuary. These settings are evoked through percussion scattered through the stereo field, supported and sometimes swamped by electronic drones and sampled vocals. In “Plume”, from the second half, the percussion itself is processed into crunchy textures. One of the most unexpected of recent releases, a small marvel.

Mutilomaquia – To live with it [Dream Catalogue/Bandcamp]
Mutilomaquia – You tell yourself it’s okay [Dream Catalogue/Bandcamp]
There’s not much to be found out about Mutilomaquia online, but they are responsible for a large catalogue of releases over the last few years. Courtesy of HKE‘s Dream Catalogue, which prides itself as the originator of the nascent “dreampunk” genre, Mutilomaquia’s latest album actually manages to be a bit less nebulous than much of their other work, with murky or at times muscular beats and a lot of movement, even though it’s quite dark and hazey stuff on the whole. Theirs is an impressive oeuvre altogether, but this album in particular is very fine.

Geins’t Naït + L. Petitgand – Bagd [Ici d’ailleurs/Bandcamp]
Geins’t Naït + L. Petitgand – Chut [Ici d’ailleurs/Bandcamp]
Finally tonight, the musical partnership of Geins’t Naït + L. Petitgand goes back many years. Laurent Petitgand is a well-known French actor and composer, who I would have first encountered on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders’ legendary Wings of Desire (better titled in German, Der Himmel über Berlin, from 1987) – and while he’s responsbile for the most melodic, classical-seeming themese there, you can see his association with postpunk and industrial music already. Geins’t Naït have been a band but it’s now the work of Thierry Mérigout on his own, with roots in industrial as well as experimental electronic music stretching back to the ’80s as well. Petitgand’s beautiful piano is a foil for the electronics and noises of post-industrial collage from Geins’t Naït, but mostly it’s a beguiling (and at times humorous) listen, searching for something – Like This Maybe, Or This.

Listen again — ~204MB

From delicate free jazz songs through glitched easy listening and soundscapes to various forms of bass’n’beats, it’s your Utility Fog for the week!

LISTEN AGAIN to the sounds of the past, the sounds of the present, the sounds of the future! Stream on demand @ FBi, podcast here…

Ashley Paul – Light Inside My Skin [Slip/Bandcamp]
Ashley Paul – Bounce Bounce [Slip/Bandcamp]
Ashley Paul – Lost Memories [Slip/Bandcamp]
London-based American multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Ashley Paul creates very strange, beautiful songs with ensembles of free improvisers, which somehow feel simultaneously free and composed – like Tom Waits’ right-in-their-wrongness arrangements. She’s released albums on many interesting labels including Important Records and Orange Milk, but as Slip have just released her new one, Ray, tonight we hear 2 songs from that album, plus an instrumental from her 2018 record on the same label, Lost In Shadows. Derek Bailey can be heard in her scrabbling guitar, Ornette Coleman in the screaming saxophone and clarinet swiftly switching into queasy or sweet harmonies – but the fusion of these techniques with affecting songwriting with fragile vocals is absolutely her own. This can be challenging to get a grip on, but listen in the right frame of mind and it will touch you.

curd duca – california [Magazine/Bandcamp]
curd duca – touch [Mille Plateaux/Bandcamp]
curd duca – nancy [Mille Plateaux/Bandcamp]
curd duca – quiet nights intro [Mille Plateaux/Bandcamp]
curd duca – quiet nights (feat. carin feldschmid) [Mille Plateaux/Bandcamp]
curd duca – avant org [Magazine/Bandcamp]
curd duca – oui [Magazine/Bandcamp]
Give or take a couple of odd appearances, it’s been the better part of 2 decades since we last heard from Austrian glitch musician curd duca. He released in the ’90s two different series of minimalist, simple, yet evocative cut-up music (all now available again at his Bandcamp): first a series of 5 easy listening albums, and then the 3 wonderful elevator albums through Mille Plateaux. Particularly on elevator 2 and elevator 3 (from which I played two tracks each tonight) he strikes an uneasy balance in his “digitalanalogue” “cut-up easy-listening” works, not quite trip-hoppy electro-lounge cheesiness, nor quite the austere, conceptual computer music Mille Plateaux could lean towards. I particularly adored the stuttering granular vocal processing on elevator 2‘s “touch” in 1999 – more revolutionary-sounding back then than it would be now. Now he has another series of releases coming, the first out now, the two early and late 2021. Called waves, the three albums are released through Cologne label Magazine – for some reason vinyl + CD together – maybe I can get the collection of three just on CD when they’re all released? In any case, it’s a delightful continuation of the elevator sound, including some new renderings of old pieces (“touch” gets revised in fact). As before, the cut-ups and shimmering granulation transform the sometimes-mundane source material into magical alternate worlds if you let them. I for one couldn’t be happier that we have this with more to come!

Jasmine Guffond – Ausland, 19th November, 2016 [Music Company/Bandcamp]
Matthew Hayes – Plein de Nuages [Music Company/Bandcamp]
Gail Priest – Stuttered unutterables [Music Company/Bandcamp]
Only a few months after their first Vector Fields compilation, this Friday Dec 4th sees Melbourne’s Music Company release Vector Fields 2, once again mixing up contemporary composition with various forms of electronic production. It’s a phenomenally strong collection of music, with plenty of great representation from women and non-binary artists too – aside from the people I played tonight, there’s excellent work from Madeleine Cocolas, Alexandra Spence, Shoeb Ahmad, Aarti Jadu (heard below), Lily Tait and many others. Following on from the return of curd duca, Sydney’s Jasmine Guffond has been mining glitch since her late ’90s and early ’00s releases with Minit. In the vein of her music from the last few years, her track here builds a vibrating sound space from granular samples of voice, violin, percussion and electronics. Melbourne jazz musician Matthew Hayes combines the processed residue of jazz drums with piano, guitar, strings and drones, into a thing of cinematic, folktronic beauty. And the fabulous Gail Priest, now based in the Blue Mountains, delivers as always with an evolving piece made of cut-up vocals, glitches and beats.

Minced Oath – Prison Issue Pillow [Countersunk Bandcamp]
Minced Oath is Dunk Murphy, best known perhaps as Sunken Foal, and half of Planet µ duo Ambulance. Over many years, Sunken Foal has been a reliable favourite at Utility Fog, with exquisitely surprising harmonic movements under melodic lines and intricate idm beats. With Minced Oath, he tones things down a notch: first album Supercede was pure floating ambience, but the just-released Supervene does incorporate minimal percussion and melodies, albeit at a more glacial pace than Sunken Foal.

Jakoby – Gate [Health/Jakoby Bandcamp]
Jakoby – Leine [Health/Jakoby Bandcamp]
UK-born, Berlin-based electronic musician Lee Bowden is Jakoby, returning this Friday with his second release on the Health label, run by Kirk Barley aka Church Andrews aka Bambooman. Generative rhythms, crunching bass, and little melodies combine in strange ways which seem well-suited to whatever the Health aesthetic is – maybe it’s only because I’m hearing it in the context of their last release, Barley as Church Andrews with the complex percussion of Matt Davies, but this music seems equally idiosyncratic, difficult to pin down, yet oddly zeitgeisty.

HAND – note to self [Elli Records/Bandcamp]
Sascha Bachmann’s new album as HAND brins us some quite wonderful processed cassette loops and found sounds, processed on computer. There are skittering half-remembered jungle breakbeats at times, but also drones and pulses, distant sub-bass thuds, spluttering drum machines and warbling klaxons. Really recommend grabbing a listen, especially as right now it’s Pay What You Can (with no minimum!) – from excellent French label Elli Records.

Hextape – Yubaba [Anterograde/Bandcamp]
Hextape – How To Walk Away From Something That’s Hurting You (Aarti Jadu Remix) [Anterograde/Bandcamp]
Hextape – Etude For Sword [Anterograde/Bandcamp]
Having recently heard from Melbourne musician Bridget Chappell under her own name, we’re now treated to her rave-nostalgia cut-up electronic alias Hextape, as Anterograde are re-releasing her excellent 2 Fast 2 Furious album from last year, remastered and with bonus remixes. On “Yubaba”, alongside chopoped-up vocals and beats we hear her cello near the end; “Etude For Sword” on the other hand swiftly crescendoes into jungle chaos. Fellow Melburnian Aarti Jadu brings out a glitchscape of vocals with flittering synths, bass drones and snatches of drum breaks.

Barking – Sham Paradise [Barking Bandcamp]
Sydney’s Gareth Psaltis made a brilliant EP with Hannah Lockwood as phile in 2017, and has released music as Barking for a few years. Currently based in Berlin, he put a few tracks out this year, and this latest draws on drum’n’bass and industrial in reflection of the personal & political.

E-Saggila – Cellygrin [Hospital Productions/Bandcamp]
E-Saggila – Slowland [Hospital Productions/Bandcamp]
The latest album for Iraq-born, Toronto-based musician Rita Mikhael aka E-Saggila comes from Prurient’s Hospital Productions label, which mixes in techno, ambient and more straightforwardly industrial music alongside the noise. All of this makes it quite an inspired home for an E-Saggila release, with her influences ranging from techno and jungle through forms of industrial and noise. Corporate Cross is impressively varied, and surprisingly not all dark either – “Slowland” sits at a dubsteppy tempo and its murky synth melodies echo the prettiest of ’90s Aphex Twin or early Autechre.

Commodo – Loan Shark [Black Acre/Bandcamp]
Commodo – Stakeout [Black Acre/Bandcamp]
Commodo – Procession [Deep Medi/Bandcamp]
It’s great to hear UK dubstep artist Commodo back on Deep Medi, nearly 10 years after his first release with them. We’re hearing the title tracks of all three 2020 releases – the first two were through Black Acre, each with a kind of cop/crime show vibe; now Procession finds him imagining a detective investigating some kind of Lovecraftian paranormal shenanigans. Commodo’s really good at this kind of thing, melding core dubstep bass-led dancefloor beats with evocative TV soundtrack vibes.

GILA – Energy Demonstration [Lex Records/Bandcamp]
GILA – Rider 1 (Darq Windows) [Lex Records/Bandcamp]
GILA – Aloe Drip [Lex Records/Bandcamp]
Having first encountered him in 2016, it was awesome to rediscover Kyle Reid’s GILA a few months ago, and now finally his debut album proper, Energy Demonstration is with us! It’s all about the low-slung bass and slippery, sparse, syncopated beats. Reid is from Denver, and as much as you can hear the influence of UK styles like dubstep and grime, it’s clear that trap and US hip-hop production is a big part of his music, as much as his own background as a drummer before his live career was hindered by rheumatoid arthritis. I absolutely love the head-nodding, deep yet sharp sounds here.

Listen again — ~202MB

Starts with narco-dancehall, goes to drum’n’bass, post-classical, glitch and industrial, ends with strings? That’s UFog!

LISTEN AGAIN to all the Utility Fogginess you can fit into two hours! Stream on demand from FBi or podcast here.

The Bug ft. Dis Fig – Take [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Dis Fig – Alive [Purple Tape Pedigree/Bandcamp]
The Bug – Politicians & Paedophiles feat. Daddy Freddy [Rephlex/Bandcamp]
The Bug ft. Dis Fig – Destroy Me [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Early last year I discovered the work of jazz-trained vocalist Felicia Chen as Dis Fig via her debut album released by Purple Tape Pedigree, entitled Purge. Drawing from her jazz and classical training as well as industrial and noise, it was broad-ranging and quite disturbing at times. So it’s quite excellent to find her now collaborating with one of my favourite artists, The Bug, with a full album of what’s described as “narco-dancehall”, combining Kevin Martin’s earlier dancehall distortions with his more recent dubstep/grime and the spaced-out dub & trip-hop of his King Midas Sound project. Dis Fig is only the latest in a string of female singers Martin has worked with, but this full album is an impressive collaboration, with Chen’s vocals leaning towards the melodic, trip-hop end of the spectrum, but injecting plenty of emotion and musical texture to the proceedings.

ASC – Intensity [Samurai Music/Bandcamp]
ASC – Cautionary Tales [Samurai Music/Bandcamp]
James Clements has been making drum’n’bass as ASC for over 20 years, as well as techno and other styles. He’s been strongly associated with the “autonomic” strain of dub-techno-infused d’n’b, and other more ambient stylings for a while, and it’s very exciting that Samurai Music have lured him back into hard-hitting jungle/d’n’b for an EP and now the Isolated Systems album this year – apparently with another release in this vein coming out early in 2021! Storming beats with complex programming recalling the legendary Arcon 2 (I said on air that he wasn’t on Bandcamp, but that’s recently changed – fuck yeah!) as well as the heyday of Photek, Paradox et al. What’s notable to me is that it’s not just nonstop beatfuckery and sub-bass – Clements pays attention to the need for harmonic movement, with falling synth pads that add just enough soulfulness to the proceedings, something which a lot of the harder & more complex jungle programmers today tend to not care about. Highly recommended!

Earl Grey – French Exit [Inperspective]
Earl Grey – Infinite Loop [Western Lore]
Jim Ehlinger has been making jungle as Earl Grey for just over a decade, mostly inhabiting that “drumfunk” subgenre which is somewhere between the idm kids’ drill’n’bass and the original jungle. His last 2 EPs feature here, both with the title tracks – for Inperspective it’s dark and jazzy, and for Western Lore it’s an unusual number which starts dubby and then gets carried by a 4/4 kick with jungle breaks, not quite jungle techno I think, but its own thing – a really cool feel.

Drexler – Ashes (Ruckspin Remix) [Rhodium Publishing/Bandcamp]
Drexler – Ghosts Have Arrived (DEEP LEARNING Remix I) [Rhodium Publishing/Bandcamp]
We heard some tracks from Drexler‘s debut album Handles earlier this year. The work of Adrian Leung, who’s Sydney-born, London-based, of Hong Kong Chinese background, and has spent time in Japan as well, all of which feeds into his creative take on the post-classical genre, with piano, strings, even choral vocals, touched with various electronic treatments. Those electronics come to the fore now with Handles Remixed (released later this week), which invites friends from Sydney and London to rework tracks from the album. London producer Ruckspin mixes breakbeats and basslines in with choral and string elements; meanwhile London-resident Sydney legend Richard Pike contributes 2 remixes under his DEEP LEARNING alias – I chose the beatless one with lovely glitchy treatments on the piano.

Vitor Joaquim – Stem [Vitor Joaquim Bandcamp]
Vitor Joaquim – End [Vitor Joaquim Bandcamp]
Granular processing is at the heart of the work of venerable Portuguese producer Vitor Joaquim. After a number of excellent releases on Portuguese label Crónica, new album The Construction of Time seems to be self-released. It’s as evocative and interesting as ever, with processed trumpet samples from João Silva and vocal snippets sourced from the periods of the two invasions of Iraq… The theme of perception, memory, transience and interpretation carries through these beautiful pieces.

Several Wives – An Intermission [Lost Tribe Sound/Bandcamp]
Several Wives – Mai Swarmer [Lost Tribe Sound/Bandcamp]
Memory and perception also thread through the music of mysterious UK(?) producer Several Wives, whose industrial-influenced collages fit in the darker end of the spectrum for the Lost Tribe Sound label. These tracks are apparently sourced from the artist’s archives, and while there’s a lot of difference between murky drones, floating acoustic guitar or occasional minimal beats, it all holds together surprisingly well as an intriguing, slightly disturbing album.

Gregory Paul Mineeff – Alone And Thinking Of You [Cosmic Leaf Records/Bandcamp]
Here’s another single from Wollongong composer Gregory Paul Mineeff – his emotive piano is tracked by billowing electronics as is often his style. Looking forward to another full album from him soon.

Ian William Craig & Daniel Lentz – Tasteful Gloss [RVNG Intl/Bandcamp]
Ian William Craig & Daniel Lentz – Fragrance [RVNG Intl/Bandcamp]
RVNG Intl‘s FRKWYS series brings musicians together in unique combinations. Their latest combines the angelic vocals and tape manipulation of Ian William Craig with the piano of American composer Daniel Lentz. Lentz’s piano is at times more straightforward than Craig’s usual style, but responds well to the saturated distortions, drop-outs and pitch-bends of IWC’s tape machines. I believe these pieces were recorded in real-time, and some real tenebrous beauty arose from the sessions.

Keeley Forsyth – Unravelling [Leaf/Bandcamp]
Keeley Forsyth – Stab [Leaf/Bandcamp]
Working with Trestle Records‘ Ross Downes as well as pianist and arranger Matthew Bourne has allowed English actor, writer & singer Keeley Forsyth to realise her Scott Walker ambitions in hideous, striking fashion on the Photograph EP. No other singer at the moment has quite the emotional depth or, dare I say, ambition to carry this off quite as well as Forsyth. Incredible.

Joana Guerra – Lume [Miasmah/Bandcamp]
Back to Portugal, cellist Joana Guerra debuts on Miasmah, the label run by another cellist of the “acoustic doom” persuasion, Erik K Skodvin. Other than a certain queasiness, there’s no great similarity with Skodvin’s work here though – Guerra works her cello into arrangements with violin, vocals and percussion, where peaceful pizzicato gives way to sawing sul pont bowing, see-sawing glissandi, dramatic vocals and more. It’s an idiosyncratic blend of contemporary techniques with traditional & non-traditional song. Another great unusual cellist to add to the list!

Vilde&Inga – Disc 1 III [Sofa music/Bandcamp]
Vilde&Inga – Disc 2 V [Sofa music/Bandcamp]
Vilde Sandve Alnæs and Inga Margrete Aas are two still-young Norwegian string players, who have now released three albums as Vilde&Inga on the Norwegian experimental label Sofa music. Their combination of violin and double bass results in surprising sonorities, with that gap between high & low becoming part of their character. New double album How Forests Think mixes in sylvan field recordings with extended techniques and melodic playing, for a magical tour of wood and catgut.

Toàn – ∞ [IIKKI/Bandcamp]
On Volta No Vento, UK-based French producer Anthony Elfort (aka Toàn, and previously Qiwu) combines field recordings, sampled recordings and various instruments into a mysterious sound-world. On a number of tracks cello can be heard, twisted & distorted through processing.

Elsen Price – BED 8 – I – NOW [Ripparecordings/Bandcamp]
Back to double bass for our last track of the evening, courtesy of Sydney mainstay Elsen Price, who as well as playing in bands like Eishan Ensemble and Ephemera, can be found performing contemporary compositions on double bass and also looping himself in creative solo performances. His new album sees his bass unadorned, in a series of live improvisations including this airy piece, which despite being for electric bass is more classical than jazz.

Listen again — ~199MB

A flood of jungle/drum’n’bass-related releases in the last 2 weeks make this a very bass/beats oriented show. You know it makes sense.

LISTEN AGAIN to the beat of the drum… via FBi’s stream on demand, or podcast here.

Pa Salieu – Informa (feat. M1llionz) [Warner]
Pa Salieu – Dem A Lie [Warner]
Pa Salieu – Bang Out [Warner]
Pa Salieu – Frontline [Warner]
2020 has been huge for Coventry-based UK rapper Pa Salieu. It’s UK drill, but a lot could easily sit as grime. Salieu’s voice is incredbily strong, bearing signs of his Gambian heritage as well as the British-Jamaican influence of the music, and his lyrics speak of the violence of systemic racism and the UK’s long-established class system. Of course for me the music itself is a huge drawcard, and I was introduced to him through the b-side of his massive single “Betty” – on “Bang Out” he samples liberally from the ever-influential “Ghosts” by Japan, with David Sylvian’s voice and the equally-identifiable synths weaving in and out of the rolling bassline and Salieu’s raps.

Gantz – Janky [Gantz Bandcamp]
Gantz – Hinges Creak [Gantz Bandcamp]
Istanbul-based producer Emi Rongun seems to sit just on the outside of dubstep’s mainstream, sometimes leaning into trip-hop influenced sounds, even joining in with the SoundCloud “jungle warz” years back. He’s been released on many labels including frequently on Deep Medi through the years, but his latest Krokodil EP just dropped on his own Bandcamp. There’s often something delicate & sensitive about his music, even when the beats and bass are heavy – always an artist to look out for in my book.

Krust – Space Oddity [Crosstown Rebels/Bandcamp]
Krust – Last Day [Full Cycle]
Krust – Coded Language (feat. Saul Williams) [Talkin’ Loud]
Krust – How To Mutate feat. Trudi Mosiamo [Full Cycle]
Krust – Hegel Dialect [Crosstown Rebels/Bandcamp]
Kirk Thompson is an absolutely central figure in jungle and drum’n’bass, from when the sound percolated out of East London into Bristol, home of so much bass-oriented UK music. Thompson, as DJ Krust, was part of Reprazent along with Roni Size, DJ Die, SUV and others, and while Roni Size was the big name out front, Krust’s production, orchestration, and sonic storytelling is next to none. His new album The Edge of Everything comes 14 years after the previous, and while there’ve been some really nice 12″s, remixes and such in the meantime, it’s wonderful to have his music at album length, with sumptuous 12-minute epics and weird little skits. Crosstown Rebels isn’t typically a drum’n’bass label, but while there’s bits of halftime and bits of ambient in there, it’s definitely all drum’n’bass at its roots, with some fiery break choppery and skittering drum machine programming, and plenty of punchy basslines. Krust’s debut album Coded Language, released in 1999 on Talkin’ Loud, was named after the groundbreaking song featuring Saul Williams (which incidentally appeared in identical form on Williams’ own debut album Amethyst Rock Star) – heavy techstep beats and hard-hitting spoken word about the black roots of rap and beat-splicing. In 2006 Krust released his second album Hidden Knowledge on Full Cycle Records, the label he co-runs with Roni Size and Chris Lewis, and a bonus disc collected a bunch of older tunes, including “The Last Day” from 1996; and the album features the drum’n’bass-funk of “How To Mutate” with Trudi Mosiamo on vocals. There’s no singing on Krust’s new one, but still plenty of fascination with philosophy, politics and art. It’s thought-provoking and body-moving in equal measures.

Origin Unknown – Valley Of The Shadows (Chase & Status Remix) [fabric/Bandcamp]
Hedex & Bou – Pub Grub VIP [Dubz Audio]
Also just recently released is the massive RTRN II Fabric mix from stadium drum’n’bass duo Chase & Status. It’s actually a lovely tribute to jungle and drum’n’bass, with classics going right back to the early ’90s, and updates like their own remix of Origin Unknown‘s beyond-classic “Valley Of The Shadows”, which they treat with much respect, updating the beats and leaving the original samples basically intact. Among the new tunes is one by Hedex & Bou, updating a tune from Hedex’s From The Rave album from last year – “Pub Grub VIP” tightens up the bassline and adds a little more junglist crunchy bits. I’ve had it on repeat all week.

Harmony – I Can’t Stop [Deep Jungle]
Lee Bogush’s Deep Jungle label has continued to release archival jungle tunes from many heroes this year, as well as a whole slew of stuff from the man himself as Harmony. After a fantastic album, here’s two more delights, with vocal snippets and rolling breaks.

Chimpo – Focused [Box N Lock]
Chimpo – Burn [Box N Lock]
Chimpo – Big Ed (Generation X Mix) [Box N Lock]
I’ve been meaning to play Manchester’s Chimpo for a little while – his HIA LP from earlier this year is a gem of songs and toasting over UK bass music of all sorts. Chimpo’s been comfortable in many different genres for ages, but does love his drum’n’bass, as evidenced in the second of his Now That’s What I Call Boxed N Locked collections that he’s got on his Box N Lock Bandcamp for a mere £5. After HIA was released he also put out an EP of Club Mixes from the album, which are quite literally tributes to various well-loved Manchester clubs. There’s drum’n’bass and also reggae and more.

Appleblim – Limbic Riddim [Sneaker Social Club]
Laurie Osborne aka Appleblim started off bringing dubstep and house/techno together, co-running the Skull Disco label with Shackleton (incidentally the two big Skull Disco compilations are now available on Bandcamp). There was quite a jungle influence on Appleblim‘s solo album from 2018, and it’s nice hearing that come out again on a track from the second half of Sneaker Social Club‘s Evident Ware compilation, in which contemporary artists revisit the sounds of UK hardcore as it was just mutating into jungle and drum’n’bass.

65daysofstatic – Renoiser [Light Entries]
In the early days of 65daysofstatic, they were compared to Squarepusher and breakcore artists as much as postrock, and the big yearlong collection of EPs they put out last year & this had a solid electronic bent. This new track comes from a compilation of “algorave” music called Compassion Through Algorithms II, raising funds for Young Minds Together, and organisation in Rotherham, UK, supporting young black girls with music & dance.

Speaker Music – Our Unfinished Sonic Revolution––Amiri Baraka’s Afro-American Lyric [Purple Tape Pedigree/Bandcamp]
Another EP from DeForrest Brown, Jr under his Speaker Music guise, mixing complex percussive electronics with hard-hitting words. Here we hear the late African-American poet Amiri Baraka – and speaking of words, purchasing this EP gets you a copy of Brown’s own essential essay for Mixmag, published in October this year, called “How the Dance Music Industry Failed Black Artists”.

Sig Nu Gris – Section 5 [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
This week also saw the release of the new EP from Melbourne’s Erin Hyde aka Sig Nu Gris. SALIVA is her tribute to rave music, and while she’s veered towards jungle beats in the past, this is more high energy techno ravers, all in her special shimmery style.

Murphy – Solitary Pleasures [Gravy Murphy Bandcamp]
It’s been a while since heard from UK ex-pat Jon Murphy on this show. Originally under the name Gravy Murphy, he was found in Perth and now Melbourne drawing on acid and idm templates, and his latest album pares it down to synths and some drum machines – but still very melodic. Even the quite distorted and drone opener I played here has something rather bright & breezy about it.

r hunter – he looks at the liver [.jpeg Artefacts]
r hunter – in retrospect (ft. ubu boi) [.jpeg Artefacts]
After previous releases on Nice Music and Prague’s Genot Centre, Melbourne musician R Hunter (aka Asher Elazary) has unleashed his latest slab of post-club unsettling ambient soundscaping via .jpeg Artefacts. It feels like this music’s time has come, a sound that hints at the body-moving sub-bass and rhythm of club music rather than unleashing it – the post-apocalyptic music of haunted dancehalls, augmented with the piano of fellow post-beatmaker Ubu Boi on a couple of tracks. The label are doing a limited CD edition, and whichever way you go, 100% of proceeds will be sent to the Djab Wurrung Protectors Fund.

Listen again — ~201MB