Here we are at the end of the second-last month of the most insane year in a long time… and for all the upheaval and the people who’ve died, at least there’s been lots of great music coming out this year.

LISTEN AGAIN to keep the spark alive… stream on demand at FBi, podcast here.

For the last few years the Subsequence Radio show on Canberra community radio station 2XX, hosted by Michael Norris and Reuben Ingall, has released a fundraiser compilation of local experimental & electronic music. This year’s is as great as ever, and we heard a bit of guitars & electronic beats from Canberran solo artist Fossil Rabbit.

Perth postrock band Original Past Life put out an excellent album on hellosQuare earlier this year, and have now collected a bunch of remixes on their Bandcamp. Local Perthian Ghost Drums does the duties tonight.

Adelaide artist Jason Sweeney has been making music in a plethora of styles since the ’90s, including some iconic idm as one half of Pretty Boy Crossover. His somewhat ambient electronic music (often with piano) has been coming out under the Panoptique Electrical name for a while now, and the last couple of years have seen some his best work. Disappearing Music For Face actually came out on Sweeney’s own Bandcamp earlier this year, but it’s seen a welcome physical edition (beautifully-packaged CDR) from Greek label Sound In Silence.

Cassette label Tandem Tapes, run out of Indonesia by Canberran Morgan McKellar, have released their latest batch of split cassettes. This one features some excellent tracks from Indonesian artist Jurumeya, which I will play on a future show – but tonight we heard a little epic of dark ambient sounds from Sydney’s Jwpaton.

British duo Demdike Stare were known for years for their dark ambient English folk dub explorations. They always had an interest in early rave, jungle & techno, but it wasn’t until 2013 when they started their Testpressing series of 12″s that this surfaced in an incredible explosion of mashed-up beats and electronics. Over seven 12″s, they explored jungle, grime & techno in their own special way, finishing up last year, so it’s awesome to have both an album in the same style and also a 3CD edition which collects all the 12″s on CD for the first time.

Black Manual is a collaboration between Jan St Werner of Mouse on Mars and three Brazillian percussionists – Valdir Jovenal, Juninho Quebradeira and Leo Leandro – mixing fractured electronics with voodoo percussion. The Berlin label Portals Editions have just released a remix EP, and we heard a gorgeous sunken cathedral from Yair Glotman as KETEV and then his sometime collaborator James Ginzburg in his new incarnation as Bleed Turquoise.

Bleed Turquoise also crops up on a remix EP from brutal hardcore/post-metal trio SUMAC, fronted by Aaron Turner of ISIS, Old Man Gloom, Mamiffer et al. This one will see you safe from any anguished metal howls, but repurposes some of the riffs & rhythms of the original into something quite otherworldly.

Moscow trio Fogh Depot combine a chamber classical aesthetic with jazz influences and electronics on their second album for Denovali. It’s a beautiful, rich combo of clarinet, double bass, drums and electronics, reminding me a little of The Notwist’s soundtrack work. Recommended.

In a different direction, but also on a classical-meets-electronic tip is the new collaboration between two brilliant English composer/performers, Mica Levi & Oliver Coates. Levi is best known for her bent electronic pop as Micachu, but also won accolades & awards for her soundtrack to the movie Under The Skin a couple of years ago, and is a classically trained composer & musician. Coates is a contemporary classical cellist and also uses his cello in his electronic productions. So the collaboration was always going to be very interesting. Beautiful clean & processed cello sounds – melodies, fluttery riffs and percussive sounds – co-habit with chopped & screwed samples and occasional vocal fragments.

Unexpected collaboration of the year comes from ambient/indie/post-classical group dakota suite with weirdo-metal/postrock/post-classical band vampillia. It certainly leans to the more classical and/or postrock end of Vampillia’s spectrum, although it’s a little more freaky than Dakota Suite tend towards. As always with both artists, it’s a true collaboration and worthwhile if you like either artist, or classical-tinged postrock!

Finishing up with the Subsequence Radio compilation we started with, we heard a beautiful piece of piano and field recordings from Canberran pianist & sound artist Millie Watson. I can’t really find a web presence for her, so this video will have to do for now. I really hope to hear more from her as this is gorgeous.

Fossil Rabbit – Knife Edge [Subsequence Radio]
Original Past Life – Bear Hotel (Ghost Drums Remix) [Original Past Life Bandcamp]
Panoptique Electrical – First betrayal [Sounds In Silence]
Jwpaton – Kaspar [Tandem Tapes]
Demdike Stare – Overstaying [Modern Love]
Demdike Stare – Rathe [Modern Love]
Demdike Stare – Sourcer [Modern Love]
Black Manual – Mordendo (KETEV Remix) [Portals Editions]
Black Manual – Mordendo (Bleed Turquoise Remix) [Portals Editions]
SUMAC – Clutch of Oblivion (Bleed Turquoise Remix) [Thrill Jockey]
Fogh Depot – Turmalin [Denovali]
Fogh Depot – Svetly Prazdnik [Denovali]
Mica Levi & Oliver Coates – Barok Main [Slip]
Mica Levi & Oliver Coates – County H [Slip]
Mica Levi & Oliver Coates – Dragon In The Mist [Slip]
Mica Levi & Oliver Coates – Mob of Waters [Slip]
dakota suite | vampillia – the sea is never full (part 1) [Karaoke Kalk]
Millie Watson – Where I Happen To Be [Subsequence Radio]

Listen again — ~192MB

Evening all. Eclectic selection for you tonight…

LISTEN AGAIN because art is our solace. Stream on demand from FBi, or podcast here.

Starting with the new mixtape from BV (the boys formerly known as Black Vanilla), Sydney trio of producer (and talented photographer/artist) Jarred Beeler and vocalists Marcus Whale and Lavurn Lee (both brilliant producers in their own right). It’s r’n’b with production influences from uk garage, trap, and other bass heavy genres. Brilliant as ever.

Also from Sydney, Elsen Price makes extraordinary soundscapes and quirky compositions on double bass. His jazz background comes through frequently, but the track I chose only nods at jazz through some of the melodic phrasing heard in and around the beautiful shimmery layers of bowed double bass. Elsen is playing in Katoomba at Hotel Blue this Saturday if you’re in the area.

Moving one level up the string instrument ladder, we join Hatian-American cellist (and singer and banjo player) Leyla McCalla for a couple of gorgeous mostly-acoustic pieces. Her music is derived from the folk & roots music of the American South and from Haiti, with the unusual touch of her cello along with violin and more typical instruments in the arrangements. She has a beautiful straightforward vocal delivery and sings settings of the black American poet Langston Hughes on her first album, and her own songs along with Haitian folk songs in the Haitian French dialect on her new one.

From Belgium, Oathbreaker are sometimes referred to as hardcore punk, which is probably where they began, and we did hear some screamed vocals in the third track I played from their new album tonight. But they’re a band with great breadth as well as depth, and prior to this I played two tracks from a triptych on the new album: “I’m Sorry, This Is”, “Where I Live” and “Where I Leave”. The first is mostly instrumental, a spacey dirge which, by track 3, gradually ascends into heavy riffing and straight vocals from Caro Tanghe. They’re a really exciting new musical discovery for me this year.

the body are not such a new discovery, but are very much working at the forefront of what metal, noise and industrial music can do. After releasing one of the most stunning albums of the year, they’re back with a new single for the 2016 Adult Swim Singles Program, and while it doesn’t have the beautiful vocal contributions of Maralie Armstrong, Chrissy Wolpert et al, it’s simultaneously beautiful & brutal, one of their more electronic tracks.

Somehow moving in the other direction – from electronic towards rock & noise music – are Snow Ghosts, the first Houndstooth artist we’re hearing tonight, albeit not from the #savefabric compilation, about which more later. Snow Ghosts have just collected their two recent EPs into one mini-album which comes blessed with this incredible 12 minute Prurient remix of “Lied”, with expansive techno elements and pretty disturbing elements in there too.

Dominick Fernow as Prurient also crops up on the new 12″ from Nathan Fake, due soon from Ninja Tune. Here we have Fernow’s trademark low-pitched muttered vocals sitting sinisterly in the background as his is wont, but accompanied here not by his own intense techno or extreme noise, but Nathan Fake’s melodic, albeit dark work.

And finally, Fernow also shows up on the compilation that the Houndstooth label has put together to help #savefabric. Fabric, of course, is one of the most important nightclubs in London and had its licence revoked recently, to a chorus of uproar from the electronic music community. Houndstooth is a label run in-house from Fabric, and is home to an immense amount of pretty ground-breaking music, so it’s appropriate that Rob Booth and Houndstooth have compiled a massive 111 track compilation as part of the efforts to save the club – or at least as a way to raise awareness and some funds for the legal & promotional battle. There are signs that they may have come to an agreement with the Islington council, but in the meantime we’re fortunate to have a huge number of otherwise-unreleased tracks from some excellent artists.
So, Dominick Fernow is here in his Vatican Shadow alias, collaborating with Telefon Tel Aviv (the connection may be via their connections with Nine Inch Nails). We’ve got Akkord doing some premium jungle-meets-techno hybrid magic, Lakker with chopped vocals and tech pressure, and London-based Portuguese producer IVVVO working with vocalist/producer Aïsha Devi.

Silkie‘s last album took him at times far from the 140bpm range with purple synth-funk, so it’s nice to have him back on Deep Medi making his take on core dubstep: extremely jazzy, heavy beats, perfect basslines and on this track, horns a’plenty. It’s infectious and, yes, deep. Welcome home, Silkie!

And finally, Sydney producer Scatterbrain is once again joined by Kiri Cantle on vocals for the new EP on his Milke Thistle Records. It’s r’n’b but informed by his love of footwork, jungle and early hip-hop.

BV – Huh [BV Bandcamp]
BV – Up In The Flesh [BV Bandcamp]
Elsen Price – collapsing atmosphere [Elsen Price Bandcamp]
Leyla McCalla – A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey [Jazz Village]
Leyla McCalla – Heart Of Gold [Music Maker Relief/Leyla McCalla Bandcamp]
Oathbreaker – I’m Sorry, This Is [Deathwish]
Oathbreaker – Where I Leave [Deathwish]
Oathbreaker – Second Son of R. [Deathwish]
the body – The Know and To Hide [Adult Swim Singles 2016]
Snow Ghosts – Lied (Prurient Remix) [Houndstooth]
Nathan Fake – DEGREELESSNESS feat. Prurient [Ninja Tune]
Vatican Shadow & Telefon Tel Aviv – Rejoice [Houndstooth]
Akkord – Scalar Wave [Houndstooth]
Lakker – Tuc Tuc [Houndstooth]
IVVVO & Aïsha Devi – Eros Plexus [Houndstooth]
Silkie – It Wasn’t You [Deep Medi]
Scatterbrain – Quatre Bras (feat. Kiri Cantle) [Milke Thistle Records]

Listen again — ~182MB

Everybody knows that the good guys lost… Oh, Leonard.

LISTEN AGAIN and dance me to the end of love. Stream on demand from FBi website, podcast here.

Well, it’s been an… eventful week. For my own sanity I have to believe that the USA isn’t about to sleepwalk into fascism, although the less said about post-Brexit Britain and pre-Le Pen France the better…
In any case, the not unexpected news of Leonard Cohen‘s death was a bit of a twist of the knife this week. Many of us have been pointing out the pertinence of so many of his lyrics to this week’s events (“Democracy is coming to the USA” anyone?), and ultimately “Everybody Knows” is also one of my favourite songs, appearing notably in the cult 1990 movie Pump Up The Volume (one of those “Christian Slater as the cool kid” films) for extra credit points. Leonard, we do want it darker… but we didn’t want the darkest timeline.
Cohen has of course been covered by just about anyone you can name, and I don’t need to go into the details here – but Nick Cave has done justice to many a Leonard Cohen song in his career, and tonight we go way back to the first Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album, only just post-Birthday Party, sinister and very, very dark, covering the opening track from Songs of Love and Hate.

Sydney composer Andrée Greenwell has been walking the line between contemporary classical composition and other genres for a long time. Her new album Gothic, which will be launched on Friday the 25th of November at Giant Dwarf in Sydney, explores the gothic in all its forms, from the postpunk goth pop of The Cure to a setting of Edgar Allen Poe. She also collaborates with the likes of Alison Croggon, Felicity Plunkett and others. The combination of folk, classical and electronic tendencies is very interesting in this work – by no means are the classical elements watered down, but nor are the glitchy beats and sound design elements.

I discovered classically-trained Sydney artist Lupa J in the support slot at a Marcus Whale gig earlier this year, so it’s appropriate to find him, in fine form, on her new remix EP. Imogen Jones aka Lupa J is not long out of school, and already has a number of EPs and singles under her belt of polished, highly accomplished electronic pop that melds electronics with her violin and vocals. She carries this off live effortlessly with a couple of mates too. The remixes here range from club-focused beats to more glitchy abstract sounds. Land Systems is somewhere in between with some nice crunchy techno.

This week saw the death of one of the great poets of the songwriting world. For my money Leonard Cohen was far more deserving of a Nobel Prize than Bob Dylan, but then I’m more of a fan of his music & singing than of Dylan’s.
I feel that Kate Tempest is one of the great poets of our current age. She draws strongly on a background involved with some great hip-hop poets of the UK and no doubt the USA, but she does something quite special on her two recent albums, chronicling the day-to-day lives, inner thoughts and fears of an interlocking set of characters. On Let Them Eat Chaos all her characters are awake at 4:18am, and their experiences give Tempest various ways to explore and deconstruct working class life, queer life, gentrification, corporatization and more. In the last two segue’d tracks Tempest brings all her characters together in almost Shakespearean fashion for a shared experience of humanness…

Fred Warmsley has appeared a lot on this show over the last few years, with his post-junglist/idm/hip-hop sounds as Lee Bannon and then ¬b, and now Dedekind Cut. He’s released ambient music in the past (there’s a bewildering amount of stuff out there by him in his various guises) and the new one is about as genre-ambivalent as ever, with post-club sounds leaking in around the ambient edges.

Along with Dominick Fernow’s Hospital Productions (and Warmsley’s own Bandcamp where it features a few excellent bonus tracks), the new Dedekind Cut album is co-released by the extraordinary label NON, which started operation only a year or so ago. The subject of a feature in the December issue of The Wire, the label showcases innovative and challenging electronic music from Africa and the African diaspora, including African American artists, artist from the UK, Mexico, South Africa and Egypt among others.
From last year’s NON WORLDWIDE COMPILATION VOLUME 1 we heard Egyptian artist Amr Al-Alamy aka 1127 with a piece of propulsive percussion-heavy techno. Then we hear from one of the founders of NON, South Africa’s Angel-Ho, with a track from his EMANCIPATION EP from earlier this year, grime built from cocking and firing guns…
Also from South Africa are the duo Faka, with a form of gqom. Faka represent queer South African youth, and it’s fair to say that the queer experience is central to a lot of what NON do. There’s an amazing 18 minute track in the minute of Faka’s Bottom’s Revenge EP – check the whole thing out on Bandcamp.
Mexican artist Mya Gomez recently put out her Inmate EP on NON, which is about the experience of England’s detention centres for immigrants. It’s harrowing stuff, and while the final track which we heard tonight is titled “Released”, the emotional and musical release is juxtaposed with a piercing high-pitched noise which reminds us that traumatic experiences ring through people’s lives long after they’re finished.
Finally we hear from Chino Amobi, Virginia-based with Nigerian roots and another co-founder of NON. His latest EP Airport Music For Black Folk puns on the Brian Eno ambient classic while commenting on the often fraught experience of flying while black. Spooky ambient sounds, computer vocals, and again trap/grime-inspired beats maybe from gunshots make for unsettling listening.

Berlin-based Yair Elazar Glotman has appeared on this show under his own name close-mic-ing his double bass or creating beautiful electro-acoustic sound design, and making deep, immersive bass techno as KETEV. He now unveils his new moniker, Blessed Initiative, for a self-titled release on the Bristol-based Subtext label. In some ways it’s a continuation of his first solo album on Glacial Movements – but as the titles suggest, it’s a little more paranoid and freaky, with some heavy bass and hints at glitchy beats here and there. It’s billed as ambient, but at most that’s only in contrast to the techno work as KETEV. Compulsory listening in any case.

And finally we have one track from the new LP by Brisbane’s Mirko, released on Room40 in a week or two. There’s a lot of ambient synth work on this album, but here it’s augmented with glitch textures around acoustic piano. It’s a lovely album altogether.

Leonard Cohen – Everybody Knows [Columbia Records]
Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker [Columbia Records]
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Avalanche [Mute]
Andrée Greenwell – A Forest [available from Bandcamp and iTunes]
Andrée Greenwell – Maria Walks Amid The Thorns [available from Bandcamp and iTunes]
Lupa J – Teeth and Loud Talk (Marcus Whale Remix) [Lupa J Bandcamp]
Lupa J – Game (Land Systems Remix) [Lupa J Bandcamp]
Kate Tempest – Perfect Coffee [Lex Records]
Kate Tempest – Breaks [Lex Records]
Kate Tempest – Tunnel Vision [Lex Records]
Dedekind Cut – bonus {3} “Ayahuasca binary 0|0” [NON/Hospital Productions/Dedekind Cut Bandcamp]
Dedekind Cut – Maxine [NON/Hospital Productions/Dedekind Cut Bandcamp]
1127 – It Never Drops [NON]
Angel-Ho – CLOCCCC [NON]
Faka – Isifundo Sokuqala [NON]
Mya Gomez – Released [NON]
Chino Amobi – LONDON II [NON]
Chino Amobi – MALMO [NON]
Blessed Initiative – as cyber shaming may be [Subtext]
Blessed Initiative – Borderling Spamming [Subtext]
Mirko – Cloud Chain [Room40]

Listen again — ~185MB

Thanks to Jordan Sexty for filling in on the last few shows while I’ve been away! He’s played you a great array of sounds that overlap nicely with what I’d select, but with his own unique take.

LISTEN AGAIN! Stream on demand at the FBi website, podcast right here.

The king of Australia, Oren Ambarchi, is back with a new album on Editions Mego! It flows on nicely from his last couple of albums, with driving, interlocking krautrocky rhythms and drones both lovely and noisy – although this time it’s apparently his take on disco (I guess you can hear a Giorgio Moroder pulse in part 1, which we hear tonight in all its 22-minute glory). He’s assembled a substantial list of guests as per usual, including regulars like Jim O’Rourke and Joe Talia, and special guests from the techno realm like Mark Fell and Ricardo Villalobos, and indeed Keith Fullerton Whitman. It’s trance-inducing and very Oren.

It’s fantastic to have a new album from Austrian postrock/krautrock masters Radian, who’ve been around since 2000 and have a long relationship with the Thrill Jockey label. Although they’re basically guitar-bass-drums, everything is mediated by computer and electronics – live breakbeats on drums, gitar stabs, bass holding it all down. If you like that electronic, live beats and experimental sound end of the postrock spectrum, you’ll love this – it’s one I know I’ll be listening to a lot.

The Swifter have a couple of low-key releases on some other labels, but their debut on Sonic Pieces brings them a little more into view (with a gorgeous vinyl package designed by Erik K Skodvin). Simon James Phillips on piano, Andrea Belfi on drums and BJ Nilsen on electronics create a skittering music that’s part jazz, part drone, part electronica.

Melbourne’s Kane Ikin is creating a techno/bass music which feels quite organic – I’m sure there’s electric guitar in these recent tracks. He’s had a big year, with 3 album/EP releases of his own plus a new album for his duo Solo Andata. The new one is on Greek label Echovolt Records, and is a little more sedate than the last couple, but equally essential.

Kane’s Melbourne-based now, but he’s originally from Perth, which is also where postrockers Original Past Life come from. Featuring members of the legendary Radarmaker, they’ve just recently released their debut album on hellosQuare, and now on their own Bandcamp they’ve put out a bunch of remixes. I can’t tell you who C.S.K.A. is, although you may be able to work it out from the context.

It’s been a while since Markus Popp set the world on fire (ha) with the original Oval releases, scratching up CDs and creating ambient beauty from the stuttering, glitching results. These days he works with primitive PC software to produce glitchy music of a different sort – rather than the aleatoric effects of CD destruction, it’s meticulously constructed micro-sampling. The new album is titled Popp which is half tribute to the sound sources, and half a pun on the artist’s name. Weirdly, the music he started making in the early 2010s after a period of silence is itself something of a throwback to ’90s electronica in the beats and sampling, but the pop sampling also puts it in sync with current vaporwave sounds.

One half of post-jazz duo Piano Interrupted, Franz Kirmann has released two albums of ambient techno/house, but for his latest solo release he’s moved into quite different territories – ambient sound design is there, but also some skittering, syncopated micro-samples and sonic detritus, and pulsating synth textures. It’s quite evocative and unsettling.

You might know Andrew Broder better as Fog, a project which has phased through alt hip-hop, indie rock and weird orchestrated free jazz, and in its latest incarnation draws from all of that with a heavy electronic backbone. Broder secretly released an EP of electronica as Wertheimer a couple of years ago on Lex Records, and he returns to that project now under his own name, using Wertheimer as the title for the EP. It’s off-kilter electronica in an idm style, almost hinting at drill’n’bass, and the track we heard layers almost classical-sounding vocals from GABI into the mix. Quality EP.

Speaking of stunning vocals, Iceland’s SiGRÚN released an EP earlier this year which I just discovered. She’s contributed vocals with Sigur Rós, and interestingly you can hear the connection more in the heavy, crunchy elements in the most recent material from those guys. This stuff is fantastic anyway, with her multi-tracked vocals giving way to surging bass and stuttering, heavy beats. I hope to hear more from her soon.

If you hadn’t been paying attention, you’d be pretty shocked at what John Frusciante, former Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist, is doing nowadays. But if you’d noted his collaborations with Venetian Snares as Speed Dealer Moms then it may make more sense. He’s actually been doing electronica for a while now, and I played some interesting idm/drill’n’bass style stuff earlier this year. This new EP references acid quite heavily, and apparently is also influenced by footwork. I like the combination of his rock songwriting-influenced vocals and the acid/breakbeat production on the title track.

And finally… it’s been 20 years since DJ Shadow released his incredibly influential Endtroducing album. I’d be lying if I claimed it hadn’t made a huge impact on me in the mid-’90s too, possibly further back than 20 years even, given the first instrumental EPs for Mo’ Wax were maybe ’93 or so. There was a 2CD set a few years back that included the previously very rare Excessive Ephemera compilation, collecting alternate mixes and some favourite remixes from the ’96 era. For the anniversary, the album has now become a 3CD set, and while the previous release had re-edits with some samples removed, this version re-instates the full versions thankfully. Still, I never understood why the Peshay remix of “What Does Your Soul Look Like?” was chosen over the flipside of that 12″, which featured DJ Die remixing the same track. Peshay’s is ’97-style proto-tech-step, and while it’s got some cool horns and good ideas, the lumbering martial beat drags it down. Die’s junglist take seems the perfect setting for Shadow’s soul samples, skittering along and then toughening up when the bassline drops.
In any case, that remix is a genuine rarity, so I finished up with it. Meanwhile, the third disc sees contemporary artists doing their takes on the classics, and there’s some pretty nice stuff on there. You can check it out for Lee Bannon, Daedelus, Kuedo, Clams Casino and others… I liked Hudson Mohawke‘s reverent version which basically just updates some of the beats, and footwork reworking from the great DJ Spinn of Teklife, which is really nice juxtaposed against those drum’n’bass remixes of the same track.

Oren Ambarchi – Hubris (Part 1) [Editions Mego]
Radian – Pickup Pickout [Thrill Jocey]
Radian – Scary Objects [Thrill Jockey]
The Swifter – Travelling Angle [Sonic Pieces]
Kane Ikin – Soft Gloss [Echovolt Records]
Kane Ikin – Surrounded [Echovolt Records]
Original Past Life – Son of Neck (C.S.K.A. Version) [Original Past Life Bandcamp]
Oval – fu [Oval Bandcamp]
Oval – co [Oval Bandcamp]
Franz Kirmann – wasteland condo [Denovali]
Franz Kirmann – hypertrance [Denovali]
Andrew Broder – NJoise (feat. GABI) [Lex Records]
SiGRÚN – Gervihnöttur [Sigrún Bandcamp]
SiGRÚN – Vitahringur [Sigrún Bandcamp]
John Frusciante – Foregrow [Acid Test]
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4) (Dj Spinn Teklife Remix) [Mo’ Wax/Island]
DJ Shadow – Midnight In A Perfect World (Hudson Mohawke Remix) [Mo’ Wax/Island]
DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like (DJ Die Remix) [Mo’ Wax/Island]

Listen again — ~208MB