Well hey… at least we’ve got music.

LISTEN AGAIN to the music because it’s everything – stream on demand from FBi, or podcast here.

Nmesh – White Lodge Simulation [Orange Milk Records/Orange Milk Bandcamp]
Nmesh – White Lodge Simulation (Odd Nosdam Remix) [Orange Milk Records/Orange Milk Bandcamp]
Alex Koenig has made music much longer than the “vaporwave” wave has been around, but as Nmesh he’s come to both represent and transcend that genre. His new cassette on vaporwaver & visual artist Giant Claw‘s Orange Milk Records covers bewildering ground, including a lot of grainy YouTube samples layered into ambient fauxstalgia, and also this insane Deadelus-style sample-laden drum’n’bass track… This very track is also blessed with a lip-smackingly good remix from Anticon don Odd Nosdam, with massive head-nodding beat, perfect Twin Peaks references, and, of course, that flute breakdown.

FOREVR – On A Wire [Tym Records/FOREVR Bandcamp]
FOREVR – Petrichor [Tym Records/FOREVR Bandcamp]
FOREVR – Stellar [Tym Records/FOREVR Bandcamp]
Brisbane shoegazers FOREVR have this week released not one but TWO full albums, digitally and also on vinyl. The vinyl editions come via Brisbane label Tym Records, which is run out of a guitar shop interestingly enough – because these albums do feature whammy-bar-lovin’ shoegazer guitar, but they’re actually extremely heavy on both synths and studio cut-ups and production tricks, which is super great. Also super great are their lead singer’s vocals, and indeed the actual songwriting. It’s the full package, folks. And I’ve only played you tracks from one of the two albums! Check ’em both.

Scattered Order – SO Mufflings [Scattered Order Bandcamp]
Scattered Order – Before (the art of…) [Scattered Order Bandcamp]
Scattered Order – How I hated that man [Scattered Order Bandcamp]
It’s been a long journey for Scattered Order, stretching back to proto or postpunk noisemaking in 1979, through their work with various acts under the banner of their Surry Hills studio M-Squared, running perhaps in parallel to the ’80s industrial scene, and incorporating sampling from the mid-’80s probably. Now in their second incarnation since around 2010, they’re pumping out the music, with their new delightfully-titled album A suitcase full of snow globes coming out as a double CD and digital release on their now long-running *ahem* Rather Be Vinyl label. This is 100% electronic, sample-based beat-based music, but it’s still plenty freaky and charmingly chaotic at times.

Pan Daijing – Act of The Empress 皇后之作 [PAN]
Pan Daijing – Phenomenon 现象之间 [PAN]
Berlin-based Chinese musician Pan Daijing‘s music is situated somewhere between noise and techno, classical and concrète, and all of this somehow surfaces in her new album Lack ??, released coincidentally enough on the PAN label. It’s her take on opera, whether Chinese or Western, and there are operatic soprano vocals in amongst clanging & scraping, avant-garde composition, insides of pianos and so on. Amazing stuff.

Sam Amidon – Ghosts [Nonesuch]
Nico Muhly – The Only Tune III (feat. Sam Amidon) [Bedroom Community]
Sam Amidon – How Come That Blood [Bedroom Community]
Sam Amidon – Warren [Nonesuch]
Earlier this year I was fortunate enough to see Sam Amidon appearing in a strange & lovely performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra incorporating his folk song adaptations of “Murder and Redemption” alongside various classical works on a similar theme. It was strange for me to see Amidon featured but treated as really just part of the program, because for a decade or so now he’s been an ever-rising star. His renderings of American folk tunes are simultaneously exquisitely authentic, and utterly modernised, recontextualised and restructured through his adaptations along with Nico Muhly‘s orchestral arrangements, Shahzad Ismaily‘s multiple instruments and processing, etc. His albums for Nonesuch have at times brought him into more radio-friendly folk waters, but also see him bringing in aspects of free jazz, like on the 11-minute closing track to his new album (which I wish I’d had time to play tonight!)

Blood Language – Springshots [SoundCloud]
From an album still, I believe, looking for a home, this is a great new piece of postrocky indie music from a pair of Scottish artists, Euan Millar-McMeeken aka Glacis, and Ben Chatwin, maker of postrocky drone and psych stuff who used to be known as Talvihorros.

William Ryan Fritch & Matt Finney – All That Lives Will Sour [Lost Tribe Sound]
William Ryan Fritch – We Fear Change [Lost Tribe Sound]
Two new pieces from the still prolific William Ryan Fritch, from the latest batch of releases from Lost Tribe Sound. One album finds him working with spoken word artist Matt Finney, whose laconic mumblings I find about as hard to get through as Mark Kozelek’s it has to be said, so the track I chose only has some hummed melodic vocals. The other album is an extended re-release of the ravishing soundtrack The Old Believers. You know what you’re going to get with William Ryan Fritch – reverberant world-music-inspired quasi-orchestral stuff, and sometimes gentler folky numbers. This stuff is particularly pretty.

Enrico Coniglio & Matteo Uggeri – Open To The Sea feat. Francesca Amato / Comaneci, Lau Nau & Andrea Serrapiglio [Dronarivm]
Enrico Coniglio & Matteo Uggeri – Allarme feat. Francesca Stella Riva – trombone [Dronarivm]
Italian sound artists Enrico Coniglio & Matteo Uggeri pair up here on a stunning album for Dronarivm that takes unidentifiable field recordings, acoustic samples and many guest performances to create a kind of ambient, droney form of folktronica. It’s truly lovely stuff that’s seemingly formless yet well-constructed.

Crewdson – Waterflow [Slowfoot]
Crewdson – Saxbell [Slowfoot]
UK artist Crewdson mostly inhabits something of a more familiar variant on “folktronica” – influenced by the glitchy self-sampling of Matthew Herbert (with whom he’s worked extensively), as much as by the pioneering folk-meets-electronic-production of Tunng, Minotaur Shock et al. His second album Toys sees him working with homemade hybrid acoustic/electronic instruments as well as with detailed sampling and studio choppery. Check out some of his weird audio tech – wearable music controllers etc – at his website. There’s a lot of folk-influenced songwriting to back up the processed acoustic instrumentation, but then in the middle this rather beautiful ambient piece appears, with layered sax lines. It’s quite a hard album to pin down, and all the better for it.

Listen again — ~108MB

Quite a lot of electronic sounds coming your way on this show…

LISTEN AGAIN get it in your face… stream on demand is a good way to do it, or podcasting could work.

phile – Deadzone [Deep Seeded Records]
phile – Found in Blood [Deep Seeded Records]
Starting with the Sydney duo of phile, producers Hannah Lockwood and Gareth Psaltis, who’ve just released their debut EP on their label Deep Seeded Records. Elsewhere on the release there are some hardcore punk vocals from High Tension‘s Karina Utomo, but on most tracks the energy and darkness comes through the industrial techno production and some bass guitar. It’s a scarily strong first release.

Somali Extract – Locked [Ascetic House]
Somali Extract – Cradle Song [Ascetic House]
Orgonon Pit – Mukoid Flex [Ascetic House]
Ascetic House have their entire aesthetic and marketing worked out perfectly. Their twitter is home to totally on-point politics – kudos for that – as well as words on music & art. Their new vinyl editions are housed in stunning artwork from the House’s own JS Aurelius, and are mastered by Telefon Tel Aviv/Second Woman‘s Joshua Eustis. Some of the music is more straight-ahead house stuff in terms of beats – although nothing they release is “straight-ahead” by any means – but there’s also gaseous ambient, grime/trap-influenced experimental bass, like Somali Extract tonight, and dense, complex percussive idm from Orgonon Pit.

Philippe Hallais – Angela (Square) [Modern Love]
Low Jack – Six In The Morning [Modern Love]
Philippe Hallais – Fantasy (4U) [Modern Love]
Parisian producer Philippe Hallais is perhaps best known as Low Jack, under which name he’s released various more club-oriented releases as well as some pretty experimental sounds on labels like Trilogy Tapes, and, last year, on Modern Love. In keeping with Modern Love’s aesthetic of recent times, that was bass-influenced grime/techno, highly saturated to the point of distortion. Now he’s released an album for the same label under his own name, and the change in moniker indicates something a lot further from the club. There are still slowed down samples in a choppped-and-screwed fashion, and some dizzying repetitive glitches, but it’s more vapory and nebulous.

Eazykill – transgression [UNM.1rtj] [Tandem Tapes]
Eazykill – gygeros.2316] [Tandem Tapes]
Ugliest Man – Sour Clocks [Tandem Tapes]
Indonesia-based cassette label Tandem Tapes, run by expat Aussie Morgan McKellar, continue on their roll of superb noise & experimental split releases with two ’90s idm/breakcore-influenced artists. Philadelphia, USA-based Eazykill is very clearly on an Aphex Twin tip here, from the bouncy melodic stuff through to the child’s voice-sampling drill’n’bass. German producer Ugliest Man also goes into all-out early ’00s-style breakcore or drill’n’bass on tonight’s selection. Reminds me of the early years of Utility Fog :)

Agency x Designer – transmogrify i [Agency Bandcamp]
Released on Friday in support of Bandcamp‘s highly laudable day of action, giving their entire revenue share of sales to the Transgender Law Centre, this little single sees Canberra punks Agency handing their sounds over to feted ex-Chicago producer/masterer Casey Rice in his rarely-seen Designer guise for some glitchy dub-techno reworkings.

Reuben Ingall – You Must Chill (Bonus Coffee) [Chemical Imbalance]
Reuben Ingall – money [Reuben Ingall Bandcamp]
Reuben Ingall – Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! [Eden Again Bandcamp]
Reuben Ingall – fog [Reuben Ingall Bandcamp]
Spartak – Catch/Control (Reuben Ingall remix) [hellosQuare Recordings]
Reuben Ingall – Eyelids [Feral Media]
Reuben Ingall & David Finnigan – Australia 2050 [Clan Analogue]
Reuben Ingall – Falconer St Daymare [Chemical Imbalance]
Reuben Ingall – Open The Windows [Chemical Imbalance]
We’re hearing a bunch of music tonight from Canberran producer/singer/songwriter/broadcaster Reuben Ingall tonight because I think he’s rad and needs more recognition. His new Fibre EP is out now from the great Sydney label Chemical Imbalance, and it sees Reuben taking on minimal techno and some kind of folktronica as well as his high-tech lo-fi songwriting. A lot of his past work found him casually slamming beautiful lo-fi songwriting into glitchy, random-seeming micro-sampling and field recordings. Random-seeming, but somehow everything is just so. It’s no surprise, then, that his remixes tend to be creative and sensitive too, as we heard in his dark, glitchy cabaret punk take on fellow Canberrans Spartak‘s indietronic gem “Catch/Control”. He’s also produced a fair bit of what you’d call conceptual work, whether his Eden Again project with Paul Heslin remixing a videotape of Christian evangelical rock, his performance pieces of drone music generated from microwaving a pie, or his mostly club-based soundtrack to David Finnigan‘s play Kill Climate Deniers, whose rather Orwellian finale we heard tonight…

9T Antiope – Seagulls Feast [9T Antiope Bandcamp]
Iranian duo 9T Antiope have featured a few times on this show, with Sara Bigdeli Shamloo’s beautiful melodic vocals juxtaposed against Nima Agiani’s violin and their often heavy and absrasive electronics. This single track was released on their Bandcamp on Friday and takes a somewhat more laid-back approach, with field recordings and some rasping violin.

Ekin Fil – Like a Child [Helen Scarsdale Agency]
Ekin Fil – With the Birds [Helen Scarsdale Agency]
Turkish dreamgaze artist Ekin Fil has releases on some of the best shoegaze/experimental labels around, and has now released her second album through the Helen Scarsdale Agency. Working predominantly with piano, keyboard and vocals, she covers her sounds with reverb and other effects, creating beautiful blurred, emotive sound art.

Listen again — ~1958MB

Everything from jazz to electro-pop to power ambient tonight…

LISTEN AGAIN because there’s a quiz later. FBi always has the stream on demand, or podcast here.

Alister Spence Trio – As true [self-released]
Alister Spence Trio – caught in light [Rufus Records]
Alister Spence Trio – neon and rain [Rufus Records]
Alister Spence Trio – Seventh Song [Rufus Records]
Alister Spence Trio – Room 13 [Rufus Records]
This program often leans towards jazz-like genres, but it’s always nice to have something that’s pretty fairly situated within the jazz genre yet suits Utility Fog to a tee. I’ve always felt Alister Spence‘s music with his trio fits that bill perfectly – there’s drifty electronic sound processing, perfect breakbeat drums from Toby Hall, and expressive double bass from The Necks‘ Lloyd Swanton. The new album is called Not everything but enough, a sweet sentiment, and it’s one disc of composed jazz and one disc of guided improvisations. It’s being launched at the Sound Lounge at Seymour Centre this Saturday the 5th of August. We also heard two shimmering tracks from the 2009 album fit, and a pretty one from 2012’s Far Flung.

Ben Frost – The Beat Don’t Die In Bingo Town [Mute]
Ben Frost – All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated (Lotic Remix) [Mute]
Although he’s been based in Iceland and Europe for over a decade now, Ben Frost is an Aussie and you can still hear it in his accent. Not that he sings or speaks in his work. For some time now much of his musical output has centred around soundtrack work – or his very own opera – so it’s nice hearing something that’s purely studio music. This time he’s worked with Steve Albini, although I’m not sure how to tell from what we’re hearing. The remix by Berlin wunderkind Lotic appropriately eviscerates its beats over Frost-like bass surges.

Thet Liturgiske Owäsendet – Mineral Point [Forwind]
Thet Liturgiske Owäsendet – Iron Ridge [Forwind]
The new release from Swedish duo Thet Liturgiske Owäsendet sees them travelling to Wisconsin Mining State, with some beautiful desolate drones and some heavy industrial machine-beats on one track. It’s very descriptive music despite being quite abstract, RIYL folks like Ben Frost above, or Tim Hecker.

Isnaj Dui – Loop Two [Courier Sound]
English artist Katie English can be found with her group Littlebow producing flute-led folk and postrock-like music, but as Isnaj Dui things get even stranger. Her flute and cello are harnessed into loping, looped forms which can often sound like the more freaky tracks on Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II. This minimalist new EP comes from sessions from a new album, so expect more soon.

fieldhead – how much i love the sea [Home Assembly Music]
fieldhead – this train is a rainbow [Home Assembly Music]
Winter North Atlantic – The Maid (Fieldhead Remix) [Boltfish]
fieldhead – a correction [Gizeh]
fieldhead – accents [Home Assembly Music]
fieldhead – ton [Home Assembly Music]
I first discovered Paul Elam’s music as fieldhead when a preview EP was bundled with an album from the Hood-related band The Declining Winter, who he was also a member of over in Leeds, UK. I loved the glitchy sounds of Paul’s solo music and played it on this show, and it garnered a strong reaction, enough that one or two listeners ordered his music from halfway across the world, much to his surprise and pleasure. That album was they shook hands for hours, from which our second selection comes tonight, drones sidechained against a 2-step beat, and it was released on the Home Assembly Music label, to which he’s returned in 2017 for a lovely new album mixing droney postrock and minimal house beats. On previous releases, Brave Timbers‘ Sarah Kemp features on violin, a position taken by Elaine Reynolds on the new album.

Ametsub – Mbr / Ajisai [nothings66]
Japanese producer Ametsub has long surfed the edges between ambient and dance music, with glitchy piano processing, melodic synths and idm beats. His new EP is on the whole one of his more ambient releases, focused on his love of the mbira, the African thumb piano.

Qeei ft. Catnap – O Secos [SISTER]
Mx World – We’ve Helped Each Other Grow [SISTER]
Anna VR – R O M E [SISTER]
A few selections now from the debut comp from the SISTER collective, promoting music by women and non-gender conforming artists from all around the world producing electronic music of all genres. It’s an absolutely fantastic compilation to debut with, a hugely diverse lineup of mostly unknown artists, although Melbourne’s waterhouse appears, as does footwork name of the moment Jana Rush. Tonight we heard from Argentinian producer Tatiana Heuman aka Qeei, London-based Mx World, both with unusual beats and vocals, plus Berlin-based producer Anna VR with piano and heavy electronics.

Constant Light – Young Trucks [Constant Light Bandcamp]
Constant Light – Lie Of The Lands [Constant Light Bandcamp]
As Constant Light, Sasha Margolis and James Dean tread a thin line between the more experimental reaches of krautrock and their more indiepop leanings, nicely expressed on the lovely second song I played tonight. This is actually a filler album before a proper new release coming soon, but it’s all quality, and surprisingly wide-ranging.

Listen again — ~195MB

I had the privilege of filling in for the awesome Brooke Olsen and Scarlett di Maio on Ears Have Ears tonight. Not podcast, but you can stream it on demand here.

T. Morimoto – Ascent [SoundCloud]
Sydney producer Tom Smith has been releasing bent hip-hop and other sample-based music for over a decade as Cleptoclectics, Thomas William and now T.Morimoto. Broken club forms and ambient loops.

Enderie – Stopped Memory [Room40]
Enderie is Brisbane native, now based in Sydney, Andrew McLellan. He’s played in Cured Pink and various other bands, and this solo moniker is using primitive loops and techno cut-ups as a way of exploring the industrial reality of city living. Hi-tech meets lo-tech, taking us into the uncanny…

Fabulous Diamonds – John Song [Chapter Music]
Jarrod Zlatic and Nisa Venerosa made up Melbourne duo Fabulous Diamonds, who made a number of well-regarded experimental pop albums before breaking up. Nisa went on to form Bushwalking with Sydney’s Ela Stiles and Karl Scullin of Kes Band.

Anton Kubikov – Mintnight [Kompakt]
This is the first solo album from Russian producer Anton Kubikov, released on the venerable Kompakt label. He’s best known as one half of SCSI-9, and has an expert ear for ambience.

waterhouse – echoes [SISTER]
Melbourne’s jade foster is no stranger to this show, having contributed a soundtrack to Ears Have Ears in the past. Her track here is from a compilation debuting the SISTER collective. Made of up women and gender non-conforming producers, both professional and enthusiast, it aims to make the music industry a more equal place.

Wolf Eyes – Undertow [Lower Floor Music]
Literally the 100th release from the long-lived noise act Wolf Eyes, now describing their music as “trip metal”. Primitive electronic pulsations and spoken word.

Saira Raza – Ama [SISTER]
Atlanta, Georgia-based artist Saira Raza uses many instruments including vibraphone, guitar, bass dilruba, found sounds, synths and cello in her beautiful ambient music.
This is the second cut tonight from the SISTER Volume One compilation.

Anna Caragnano & Donato Dozzy – Parola [Spectrum Spools]
The album Sintetizzatrice sees the vocals of Rome-based singer Anna Caragnano layered and processed by venerable Italian techno producer Donato Dozzy.

Lifewater Oasis – Facts [Healthy Tapes]
Debut album released on Healthy Tapes from Melbourne duo Faith Bolton and Simon Gardam, making ambient electronic sounds. Look forward to a soundtrack from Lifewater Oasis on Ears Have Ears next week!

phile – Deadzone [Deep Seeded Records]
First track available from the new self-titled album from Sydney duo of Hannah Lockwood and Gareth Psaltis. Available now when you pre-order the album from Bandcamp. Industrial ambient and techno sounds, beautifully constructed.

Siavash Amini – The Dust We Breathe [Hallow Ground]
Epic album on Hallow Ground from Iranian composer Siavash Amini, combining his classical composition chops with drone and experimental electronics. Features two other Persian experimental musicians, Nima Aghiani on violin (to be heard on our next track in his duo 9T Antiope) and Pouya Pour-Amin on electric double bass.

9T Antiope – Prophase [Eilean Records]
Iranian duo 9T Antiope are made up of Nima Aghiani on violin & electronics, and Sara Bigdeli Shamloo on vocals. The experimental nature of the drones, field recordings and electronic noises are juxtaposed with melodic and emotive vocals.

Ekin Fil – Like A Child [The Helen Scarsdale Agency]
Turkish singer & drone-pop expert Ekin Üzeltüzenci has releases on various respected labels like Root Strata, Students Of Decay, and has now released a second album on The Helen Scarsdale Agency. Muted piano, bubbling electronic keyboards, soft vocals and a sense of something under the surface…

Motion Sickness of Time Travel – Let-down [Adversary Electronics/MSOTT Bandcamp]
Georgia, US-based musician Rachel Evans has been releasing cassettes and other limited editions in vast quantities since 2009. Most of it is available from her Bandcamp – arcane New Age-influenced synth explorations and weird-folk, sometimes with vocals. Highly atmospheric and patient stuff. She’s also one half of Quiet Evenings with her husband Grant Evans.

Stellfox – Hatiku Hitam [Tandem Tapes]
20th release for the Indonesian-based cassette label Tandem Tapes run by ex-pat Aussie Morgan McKellar, a 50 track digital compilation full of many gems, raising money for the Australian youth mental health organisation Headspace.
Stellfox is an American musician based in Jogjakarta, Indonesia. You can hear the influence of Javanese gamelan along with the droney industrial electronics.

Adderall Canyonly – Sinner Get Thee Ready [Tandem Tapes]
Mysterious internet noise/electronic artist with a few releases out on cassette labels and the like. This one’s from a split cassette on Tandem Tapes.

Shoeb Ahmad – “unwoven – mp version” [Shoeb Ahmad Bandcamp]
First single from Canberran musician Shoeb Ahmad’s album quiver, set for release early next year, sees them exploring questions of gender and identity. The single also features remixes of album tracks we haven’t heard yet, including the electronically harmonised vocals, drones and drum machines of MP, aka Mino Peric of Melbourne band No Sister.

Dedekind Cut – The Expanding Domain [Dedekind Cut Bandcamp/Hallow Ground]
Having started his career producing for Joey Bada$$ and producing various hip-hop mixtapes as Lee Bannon, Fred Welton Warmsley III then explored his love of drum’n’bass and experimental electronica as well as ambient, and has now settled on Dedekind Cut as the moniker for all his music. He’s been gravitating towards the noisier end of the spectrum, and both Prurient and Zach Hill contribute percussion to this track (Elysia Crampton appears elsewhere on the EP).