Holy cow, that clipping. album is da shiz. But we’ve also got some amazing psych-kraut-electro-acoustic-improv, drone, idm & other beats comin’ atcha tonight… It’s a biggie!

LISTEN AGAIN and then buy all the music hey? Podcast here, stream on demand there.

What can I say about clipping. that I haven’t raved about before? The most exciting hip-hop group to appear in the last few years, they have a true heartthrob of a frontman in Daveed Diggs (recently starring in the unlikely hit musical Hamilton), and true noise cred with producers William Hutson (aka Rale, Tattered Syntax etc) and Jonathan Snipes (of Captain Ahab). The production is intricate and visceral, the lyrics and delivery are intense, complex and rapidfire. And frequently, kind of hilariously & terrifyingly given how many teenage girls must be obsessed with Diggs after his Hamilton tenure, there are extremely adult themes – from “body and blood” to the Whitehouse-sampling recent Wriggle EP. The new album is a tour de force of a concept album, an Afrofuturist space opera that follows the survivor of a slave uprising whose ship’s computer falls in love with him, shows him music from the past (including some stunning male gospel choir performances) and helps him find freedom in his travels through space. It’s had bafflingly middling reviews, but I’m of the opinion that it’s brilliant – despite leaning less on the noise than before, and pushing in different directions lyrically. There are references to many science fiction works, mostly literary, including authors like the recently-Hugo-Award-winning N.K. Jemisin, Octavia Butler, Ursula K Le Guin and M John Harrison.
I’m ecstatic that Stephen Goodhew has made this album of the week at FBi.

UK trio Leverton Fox surf the boundaries between jazz improv and experimental electronica, featuring Isambard Khroustaliov aka Sam Britton of Icarus on electronics, jazz trumpeter Alex Bonney on electronics and occasionally brass, and jazz drummer Tim Giles on drums and, yes, electronics. Although there’s a lot of “free jazz” (or free improv) and noise in there, it’s actually pretty accessible stuff if you enjoy your experimental electronics – it can be pretty melodic, and it’s got lots of lovely jazzy & dancey drums and a psychedelic sheen. The last 3 albums are all available from Not Applicable‘s Bandcamp.

Speaking of psychedelic, our next drummer Tomas Järmyr plays in the genre-straddling Italian psychedelic noise rock band ZU (despite being Swedish). Here he’s teamed up with Nadja guitarist and inveterate collaborator Aidan Baker for an album of psych rock jams called Werl. Out soon on Belgian label Consouling Sounds, it’ll keep your brain cells dancing.

Next up in the psychedelic electronic noise + drums field is a trio from Italy featuring Antonio Bertoni on electroncis, Alberto Boccardi on double bass and Paolo Mongardi on drums. In a varied four track LP from the excellent Italian label Boring Machines they explore propulsive beats, ambience, krautrock and almost-jazz to great effect.

The Adult Swim Singles Project (or Club? or whatever) continue to have their finger on the pulse and not care one whit for genre constraints, here commissioning a lovely new surging ambient track from ambient darling Tim Hecker. Great to have another new track from him after a stellar album earlier this year.

Melbourne artist Purr aka Peter Stone has released a few EPs over the last few years. It’s a guitar-based project, but there are swathes of grainy noise around the guitar drones, and although it’s quite ambient there’s a shoegazey sheen to it all as well as a slow melodic development which make for very immersive listening. The new release is appropriately titled Intimate and available with all the hiss you want on cassette as well as digital & even CD-R :)

Sydney artist Joel Pearson has been DJing drum’n’bass, footwork, dubstep and other styles for a few years now as well as presenting shows on various community radio stations including now FBi, but while he’s a trained producer and indeed a cellist, he’s been biding his time and honing his skills, only really releasing his first works this year. An excellent downtempo EP appeared on his own Milk Thistle Records earlier this year, and now ETCH _ MUSIC have released a second EP, this one entirely remixing the somewhat mysterious Australian artist modus op (well, I say released album ETCH don’t seem to want you to be able to buy their music?). All those genre influences are in there along with idm, classic hip-hop and computer game music. Hopefully we’ll be hearing lots more from him now!

clipping. – Wake Up [Deathbomb Arc/Sub Pop]
clipping. – Long Way Home [Deathbomb Arc/Sub Pop]
clipping. – Interlude 02 (numbers) [Deathbomb Arc/Sub Pop]
clipping. – True Believer [Deathbomb Arc/Sub Pop]
clipping. – Air ‘Em Out [Deathbomb Arc/Sub Pop]
clipping. – Interlude 03 (freestyle) [Deathbomb Arc/Sub Pop]
clipping. – Break The Glass [Deathbomb Arc/Sub Pop]
clipping. – Face [clipping. Bandcamp]
clipping. – bout.dat (feat. baseck) [clipping. Bandcamp]
clipping. – inside out [Sub Pop]
clipping. – Hot Fuck No Love (feat. Cakes da Killa & Maxi Wild) [Sub Pop]
clipping. – A Better Place [Deathbomb Arc/Sub Pop]
Leverton Fox – Salon Selecta [Not Applicable]
Leverton Fox – Le Tombeau de Monsieur Whippy [Not Applicable]
Leverton Fox – Strix Undercroft [Not Applicable]
Leverton Fox – Onglet [Not Applicable]
Aidan Baker & Tomas Järmyr – Werl VII [Consouling Sounds]
Bertoni Boccardi Mongardi – Vento Solare [Boring Machines]
Tim Hecker – veil scans [Adult Swim Singles Project]
Purr – InEx [Purr Bandcamp]
modus op – Fleeting (Scatterbrain Remix) [ETCH _ MUSIC]
Scatterbrain – The Great Northern [Milk Thistle Records]
modus op – Final Boss (Scatterbrain Remix) [ETCH _ MUSIC]

Listen again — ~195MB

Hey yo, 100% Aussie show coming at ya tonight!

LISTEN AGAIN and discover our national riches. Podcast here, stream on demand over there.

A supremely touching lo-fi song starts us off tonight’s with longtime Aussie underground character Benjow’s haddocks’ eyes project. His stuff ranges from distorted indie to electronically-processed vocals, drone, and hints of folk. It’s absorbing and singular.

Next up is the classical-meets-ambient sounds of Sydney pianist Sophie Hutchings. Full disclosure, I’ve played cello with Sophie for years and worked on the new album with her – but as per usual it would be sad to penalise wonderful artists just because I play with them! Her new album sees her developing her compositional craft further, and expanding her palette with organs and even wordless vocals. The album will be launched this coming Saturday, Sept 10th, at Glebe Justice Centre on St John’s Rd.

Next up is a feature with the common thread being Perth musician Adam Trainer. His new band Original Past Life make lovely postrock with a slight touch of noise & experimentalism, harkening back to the incredible Radarmaker, which he and bandmate Warwick Hall played in for most of last decade. He more recently formed Gilded with fellow Western Australian Matt Rösner, making engrossing electro-acoustic drone & folktronica of a sort, redolent with real-life surface noise. Adam’s solo work, mostly released on Canberra’s hellosQuare as with Original Past Life, is along the Gilded lines, albeit more electric & electronic. It’s safe to say I’m a massive fan of all these different projects.

In 2008, Melbourne musician Tim Condon released a mostly-solo album called Mirrored Silver Sea on the beloved (and very sadly defunct) Sydney label sound&fury. I was blown away by it and declared it to be one of the best releases of the year in my big retrospective. Tim moved to Toronto not too long after, and started the music stuff again nearly from scratch. He claims that my enthusiasm for his music helped convince him to keep producing more music, but I can’t imagine much would have stopped him, given the continuing quality and imaginativeness of his work with the musicians he began working with in Fresh Snow. Over the last few years they’ve gone from strength to strength, with three releases all effecively named the same – I, WON and now ONE. Maybe eventually they’ll finish releasing their debut album (haha). The noise and experimental elements of Tim’s earlier work are there, but it’s got more of a krautrock and psych feel – full band noise along with great basslines and grooves, passages of horn arrangements, strings (including *ahem* some of my cello somewhere in the middle EP) and a number of guest vocalists from local bands. ONE is out any minute now on Hand Drawn Dracula and will hopefully find them greater success around North America and beyond.

Our final artist for the night hails from Brisbane. Benjamin Thompson has been popping out incredible electronic experimentalism as Pale Earth since about 2013, and prior to that was best known for the indie/noise/drone band The Rational Academy. Although Pale Earth is much more of a glitchy, processed electronic project, there is still plenty of live instrumentation in there, and usually a fair share of crunchy beats. His latest album Always is really three albums in one: three parts entitled Dynasty, White Rainbow and Not Only Tell Tale. It’s a kind of dream journey through Benjamin’s travels and life over the last few years, and takes in chaotic quasi-beats & buried jazz solos, lots of detailed sound-art, drone and ambient. It’s amazing, you should check it out.

haddocks’ eyes – ghosts [haddocks’ eyes bandcamp]
Sophie Hutchings – Dream Gate [Preservation]
Original Past Life – Times of Ceylon [hellosQuare]
Radarmaker – Arm vs. Fiery Antenna [self-released, now available at Radarmaker Bandcamp]
Radarmaker – Balthazaar [self-released, now available at Radarmaker Bandcamp]
Adam Trainer – You Are an Ace Critter [hellosQuare]
Adam Trainer – South China Sea II [hellosQuare]
Gilded – Cluttered Room [Hidden Shoal]
Original Past Life – Bear Hotel (Tourist Kid Remix) [hellosQuare]
Fresh Snow – Three-Way Mirror [Hand Drawn Dracula]
Mirrored Silver Sea – Ghost Blossom [sound&fury]
Fresh Snow – Your Thirst For Magic Has Been Quenched By Death! [Fresh Snow Bandcamp]
Adverteyes – Open Wide (Fresh Snow Remix) [Adverteyes Bandcamp]
Fresh Snow – King Twink Rides Again [Hand Drawn Dracula]
Fresh Snow – I Am Smitten With Your Wrath [Hand Drawn Dracula]
Fresh Snow – Anytime Minutes (excerpt) [Hand Drawn Dracula]
Pale Earth – Sour Candy [Room40]
Pale Earth – Golden [Room40]
Pale Earth – Grass Moon [Room40]

Listen again — ~187MB

Electronic & experimental sounds coming at you tonight…

LISTEN AGAIN because it pays to be in the know… Podcast here, stream on demand there.

A cross-continental hookup starts the show: Sensaround is a collaboration between Canberran guitarist & electronic musician Shoeb Ahmad, Sydney pianist Alister Spence and Scottish saxophonist Raymond MacDonald. Their second album of improvised electro-acoustic work is out now on hellosQuare, featuring the best live performances from their last outings together; they are launching it this Wednesday, August 31st, at 107 Projects.

For the first time in a long while I’m playing one of my own bands on the show. It’s a bit unfair not to give Tangents an airing since 4/5 of the band don’t have a radio show on FBi. Along with me on cello & electronics, we’ve got the aforementioned Shoeb Ahmad on guitar/electronics and his Spartak cohort Evan Dorrian on drums, ex-Triosk piano/keyboard player Adrian Lim-Klumpes, and one half of Icarus, Ollie Bown, on laptop and production duties. Call it post-everything improv, or if that hurts, call it folktronica or postrock or post-jazz or whatever you like.
We’re launching our new album Stateless, which we’re proud to have released on the legendary US postrock/experimental label Temporary Residence, this Friday the 2nd of September at Glebe Justice Centre.

It’s been a long while, well over a decade, since The Necks‘ pianist Chris Abrahams released an album of solo piano. His solo releases in the meantime have been electro-acoustic wonders, but his musings on his main instrument have been recorded and kept, slowly growing in his private collection. Luckily for us, he’s now rummaged through all these recordings and selected some of the best to make up a new album, Climb, which is out in a couple of weeks’ time. It’s being launched at Venue 505 on Thursday the 15th of September.

Brutalist is a new duo made up of some shiny young Aussie electronic musicians – Seekae‘s John Hassell and LUCIANBLOMKAMP. It has plenty of Blomkamp’s piano, often processed or played electronically, along with plenty of basslines & beats Seekae-style. Very tasty, getting some international attention, so hopefully a continuing concern.

I’ve been a fan of UK-based Japanese singer & artist Kiki Hitomi for years now due to her work with Kevin Martin of The Bug, including as a member of King Midas Sound (and tonight we hear Hitomi singing over the “Skeng” riddim, turning it into something quite beautiful). Prior to this there was the insane dubstep-meets-breakcore duo Dokkebi Q with Japanese producer Gorgonn. But only now has her first solo album, under her own name, been released. Working with disrupt from digidub crew Jahtari she’s crafted a mix of Japanese ersatz-folk genre enka, digidub, reggae and more. It’s awesome and couldn’t have been created by anyone else.

Brooklyn Joseph Fraioli has been making music at the extremes of idm & breakcore since the late 1990s as Datach’i. It’s been 10 years since his last album, and System now finds him released through Venetian Snares‘ Timesig imprint on Planet µ. His earliest releases pushed idm & drill’n’bass to the limit with extremely wonky rhythms and processing on every sound – although his melodic talents would shine through when he let them. It’s evident that even back then he had a pretty singular approach to electronic music production. His new material sees him working entirely on the modular synthesiser, refusing to use any external gear for programming beats or sourcing sounds. Purchases from the Planet µ shop come with a second disc of bonus material, much of which is at least as good as the album proper, so we finish up our special with a couple of tracks from there.

One fine day about 20 years ago Mike Paradinas aka µ-Ziq & Richard D James aka Aphex Twin released a collaborative album on Richard’s Rephlex label under the name Mike & Rich. Featuring the two of them playing a kids’ game on the cover, and titled Expert Knob Twiddlers, it was never going to be anything but silly, but I recall being bitterly disappointed because at the time I wanted everything to be advanced drill’n’bass madness, and this was harkening back to the early melodic days of µ-Ziq and Aphex, complete with blatant hip-hop beats and silly samples and the like. But for all that, it’s very sweet and genuinely fun production (including some ear-splitting noises here and there because they’re oh-such-pranksters). It’s now being re-released, this time on Mike’s Planet µ label, with a bonus disc of material from the same period – unheard µ-Ziq and Aphex Twin collaborations ahoy!

Finishing up, Ninja Tune artists The Invisible have been remixed by modular synth expert Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who’ve turned their bright Afro-pop into something beautiful and almost choral. It’s a nice juxtaposition of approaches with the stuff Datach’i’s doing on modular synths.

Sensaround – Windeyer (b) [hellosQuare]
Tangents – N-Mission [Temporary Residence]
Chris Abrahams – Beach of Black Stones [Vegetable]
Brutalist – PSA [Good Manners Music]
Brutalist – Strep [Good Manners Music]
Kiki Hitomi – Yellow Story [Jahtari]
King Midas Sound – Earth a kill ya [Hyperdub]
Dokkebi Q – Black Vomit [Murder Channel]
The Bug – Catch a Fire (feat. Kiki Hitomi) [Ninja Tune]
Black Chow – Wonderland [Jahtari]
King Midas Sound – Aroo [Ninja Tune]
Kiki Hitomi – Every Time You Knock Me Down [Jahtari]
Kiki Hitomi – Nen Nen Korori (feat. Space Ape [Jahtari]
Datach’i – Margin Of Error [Timesig/Planet µ]
Datach’i – Leonard Park [Caipirinha Productions]
Datach’i – Free In A Box [Caipirinha Productions]
Datach’i – In Silence [Sublight]
Datach’i – Nebulae V2 [Timesig/Planet µ]
Datach’i – Irodotomy [Timesig/Planet µ]
Datach’i – Mutant Clap [Timesig/Planet µ]
Mike & Rich – Bu Bu Bu Ba [Planet µ]
Mike & Rich – Brivert & Muonds [Planet µ]
The Invisible – Love Me Again (Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Remix) [Ninja Tune]

Listen again — ~195MB

The world is full of great music and I’m here to bring it to you…

LISTEN AGAIN because you know it makes sense… Podcast right here, stream on demand at FBi.

Sydney singer-songwriter Jack Colwell is a classically trained musician, a multi-instrumentalist and singer who’s been touring with Sarah Blasko recently. He reached out to Christian Fennesz on his Australian visit earlier this year and managed to secure a remix from him on this new remix EP When the World Explodes, and Fennesz helped him compile a pretty stellar lineup of artists to remix his tracks, including Persian electronic artist Ash Koosha (released on Ninja Tune), LA noise-rockers Health and US experimental grime producer Rabit. Roly Porter contributed a widescreen post-classical-meets-electronic remake, while another classically-trained Sydney producer, Marcus Whale, takes Colwell’s music into the fractured, tough yet vulnerable zone of his brilliant Inland Sea album from this year.

John Chantler is a restless artist in terms of his home base as well as his musical interests. Originally from Brisbane, he’d already spent some time in Japan before releasing his first music on Room40. He spent a long time in London, for a while as the UK representative of the label and then also helping to establish and book the iconic experimental venue Cafe OTO. The last few years have found him in Stockholm, driven from London by its relentless gentrification. His music has gone from gentle glitchy beats & electronics to gradually more abstract work produced on modular synths, and more recently various types of organs. The new album seems to be modular synth-based, although there are some musique concrète touches and guest appearances from his wife Carina Thorén and master cellist Okkyung Lee (although I’m not sure on which tracks).

Stavrogin is UK artist Theo Darton-Moore, who also writes about electronic music for Stray Landings. Darton-Moore’s earlier releases as Stavrogin are more on a bass/idm tip, but this new EP finds him producing submerged techno and spare, glitchy hip-hop. It’s dark and very, very tasty. You need to get on this when it’s out on August 29th.

Dutch duo Funckarma haven’t released a lot under that name for a while, as Don Funcken has been busy mainly with his day job & “real life”. His brother Roel has mostly kept up the pace (Funckarma were legendary for pumping out releases under various pseudonyms in idm, electro and later dubstep…) Back in 2013, the US idm/electro label Schematic released Part 1 of the remixes of Roel’s Mercury Retrograde, from which we took a beautiful bouncy remix by Japanese artist Ametsub. The second part was due to be released on another label I believe, but never made it out, so now we are finally able to hear the remixes, including one by a massive influence on Funckarma, the one & only Plaid. These remixes come paired with a set of remixes of Don & Roel’s project with Dutch film composer & modular synth guru Cor Bolten, Legiac, and I decided to play BOTH remixes from beloved German ambient & idm artist (and Funckarma contemporary) Arovane, who turned in one windswept idm version and one ambient version with waves of drones and piano lines.

Gudrun Gut has been a mainstay in the German experimental music scene since the early ’80s, involved in early industrial music, punk bands, and since the ’90s, adventurous electronic music – not least through her Monika Enterprise label dedicated to releasing experimental & electronic music by women from all over the world. Her latest album sees her teaming up with the Heimatlieder aus Deutschland project (“folk songs from Germany”) which seeks to celebrate the folk musics of Germany’s immigrant melting pot. There are now-German-based artists from African, Middle Eastern and various other European countries featured here, including Trio Fado playing Portuguese fado, and Heide showcasing German-speaking music from Transylvania.

Legendary Italian experimental/postrock quartet 3/4HadBeenEliminated have been making music since 2004. Originally a quartet, they are (perhaps ironically given their name) now a trio, featuring three legends of the Italian experimental scene: Stefano Pilia, Claudio Rocchetti and Valerio Tricoli. Their albums are few and far between, so I was excited that Oren Ambarchi’s Black Truffle is releasing a new album from them, Speak To Me – now out. That LP has a 13 minute and 17 minute side though, making it a little unweildy for radio, so it was extra rad to discover another new track from them, released on a Berlin-based label called Sound of Cobra. The label’s Italian connections are clear from an awesome lineup of artists appearing on the compilation A Promise of Arrival, with Andrea Belfi, Massimo Pupillo and psych rockers Zu appearing alongside international artists like David Grubbs, Anla Courtis and Brisbane’s own Lawrence English. The compilation is donating all procedes to a number of organisations working to aid the plight of refugees around the world. “The promise of arrival dies way too often on the shores of selfishness. This collection of music offers a helping hand.”
The track from 3/4HadBeenEliminated is typically elliptic, with softly-spoken vocals over a slow-marching soundscape that gradually coalesces into a chugging krautrock-punk-glitch monster.

To finish up, we have a brilliant piece of minimalist drum machine beats and massive swamps of bass drone and bizarre samples from Indonesian artist Samsara Portal Holistik, released on the part-Aussie, part-Indonesian split cassette label Tandem Tapes. Their side is paired with a longform drone piece by Derek Piotr. This label is doing fantastic work – go grab all their releases on Bandcamp!

Jack Colwell – Far From View (Marcus Whale Remake) [self-released]
Jack Colwell – Coat: The End (Roly Porter Remake) [self-released]
John Chantler – Falling Forward [Room40]
John Chantler – I Feel Summer About It [Room40]
John Chantler – Sunburning [Piehead]
John Chantler – A2 (The Luminous Ground) [Room40]
John Chantler – The Long Shadow of Decline Pt III [1703 Skivbolaget]
John Chantler – Lesser Demands [Room40]
Stavrogin – State Trading [3BS Records]
Stavrogin – Blackcap [3BS Records]
Roel Funcken – Textures (Plaid rmx) [Funckarma Bandcamp]
Roel Funcken – BooseGumps (Ametsub rmx) [Schematic]
Legiac – Conazol Ketamind (Arovane rmx1) [Funckarma Bandcamp]
Legiac – Conazol Ketamind (Arovane rmx2) [Funckarma Bandcamp]
Trio Fado – Toma da la ca (Gudrun Gut remix) [Heimatlieder aus Deutschland]
Gudrun Gut – Move me [Monika Enterprise]
Gudrun Gut – Leaves Are Falling [Monika Enterprise]
Heide – Ein kleines Waldvögelein (Gudrun Gut remix) [Heimatlieder aus Deutschland]
3/4HadBeenEliminated – DimethylAtonalCalcine [Sound of Cobra]
Samsara Portal Holistik – Open Sesame [Tandem Tapes]

Listen again — ~192MB