Utility Fog

Lots of shimmery, shuddery, clattery electronic music tonight, with side quests into indie and postrock and even post-classical…

LISTEN AGAIN if you dare! Podcast here, or stream on demand at the FBi website.

Saajtak – Mightier Mountains Have Crumbled [American Dreams/Bandcamp]
Saajtak – Theres a Leak in the Shielding [American Dreams/Bandcamp]
From improvising and experimental roots, and a series of self-released EPs, the Detroit/Brooklyn quartet Saajtak now release their debut album For the Makers on the experimental label American Dreams. These are elastic songs, sometimes almost conventional, then ducking off into escapades of incendiary live-drum’n’bass drumming from Jonathan Barahal Taylor or electronics or chamber jazz. Alex Koi’s vocals can recall the melodic invention of My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Nova (with whom she has worked), so that even the most unconventional tracks have a catchiness to them that makes the experimental approachable. Hopefully this album helps the band take off.

Aquarian – pPPRISM [Dekmantel/Bandcamp]
Aquarian – If U Wanna [Dekmantel/Bandcamp]
The first Mutations EP from Berlin-based, Canadian-born Aquarian was a joyful amalgam of jungle, idm, techno and electro – and Mutations II: Delicious Intent follows swiftly on its footsteps. Complex beats and skitter and bounce, phat basslines snarl and pounce. High recommendation for both these EPs.

Subjects – Alone [Deep Jungle]
Lee Bogush aka DJ Harmony‘s Deep Jungle label has specialised in releasing quality vinyl (and digital) of rare and unreleased jungle tracks from the ’90s, remastered off artists’ original DATs. But they also release new jungle from old and new artists, and Subjects have been one of the most consistent purveyors of well-produced dancefloor fillers. No exception with this latest, killer beats on both sides.

Kode9 – Torus [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Hyperdub boss-man, influential writer and DJ Kode9 only sneaks his own music out every few years, but despite his wide-ranging interests, there’s something about the sound that’s quite distinctive: computer game bleeps and a kind of highly strung jitteriness, and a strange (and effective) focus on the high end considering the bass-heavy genres he tends to work in. “Torus” is the first single from new album Escapology, which apparently is club-oriented reworks of a soundtrack to a piece of audio-fiction coming out on a Hyperdub sub-label soon, so we’ll see what that’s all about – but this track is a nice mix of footwork influences in a dubstep framework, thereabouts.

Dome Zero – Gut Rot [All Centre]
Oskar Jeff is a music writer based in the UK, and as Dome Zero, Chewing the Scenery is his first solo release, an EP out through the excellent London label All Centre. Each track is at a different tempo, but it all draws from the jungle/dubstep/techno continuum, with nicely technical beats and a body-moving momentum.

NORA DRUM – Rek [early reflex]
diessa – Day After the Last Day [early reflex]
Turin-based label early reflex, run by Alec Pace, has a similar focus to All Centre on experimental UK club/bass styles, and their Flex003 is an opportunity to feature a bunch of young artists across genres from techno to dubstep to jungle. And there’s a distinct Australian connection there, so we get a rad jungle/techno crossover from Brisbane’s NORA DRUM, and then something like dubstep with jungle breaks from Sheffield-based diessa.

V.I.V.E.K – COLOURS [System Music/Bandcamp]
Speaking of dubstep, V.I.V.E.K has been in the game since back when dubstep broke, and reliably drops core dubstep on the reg, but for his new EP COLOURS, while it’s not exactly not dubstep, he’s freed himself up for syncopated jazzy influences a la Silkie, and broken beats a la uk garage as well. Vibrant and emotional.

Kenji Araki – Nabelschnurtanz [Affine Records/Bandcamp]
Kenji Araki – Matter ft. Thomas Mertlseder [Affine Records/Bandcamp]
Leidenzwang, the debut album from the Austria-based artist Kenji Araki, shares a little of Araki’s Japanese heritage in its refusal to settle into any genre expectations. Although post-club experimental electronics are at the fore, there are tracks with an almost pop aesthetic, distorted guitars and double bass, glitchy piano and more.

Orson Hentschel – Antenna Window [Denovali/Bandcamp]
Orson Hentschel – Heavy Light [Denovali/Bandcamp]
Four albums in on the Denovali label, German composer Orson Hentschel continues to be fascinated by flickering light and flickering audio, albeit this time inspired by the emptiness of Berlin during Covid lockdown. His shuddering synths and skittering beats are all present and correct here, but the release is also accompanied by a short film by Hentschel in which dancer Michelle Cheung moves around the empty streets and tunnels of Berlin.

Glass House Mountain – Perspective I [self-released]
Speaking of visuals with music, the debut by Melbourne duo Glass House Mountain is a great piece of motorik synth-postrock, but it’s enhanced further by the excellent video, recorded in Covid lockdown by the two members separately and outside. The video’s conceit is clever and beautifully executed – go watch!

Pheno – Shadow in the Water (Nick Wales remix) [self-released]
Canberra-based musician Jess Green is jazz-trained and has played guitar with many diverse groups & musicians like The catholics, Deborah Conway, Renee Geyer and many others, as well as recording music for TV and dance productions. Her alter-ego Pheno is an outlet for alt-pop singer-songwriting, and here she’s remixed by Sydney composer/violist/producer Nick Wales of CODA, into a nice slab of acid-house indiepop. These acts are taking part in a multi-day VIVID Sydney-affiliated event called Happenings this Friday to Sunday 10-12 June, featuring queer artists in classical/electronic crossover.

Alessandro Baris – Nival (feat. Lisa Papineau) [Otono/Bandcamp]
Alessandro Baris – Last Letter to Jayne (feat. Lee Ranaldo) [Otono/Bandcamp]
Italian-American musician Alessandro Baris‘ new album Sintesi starts with a slight misidrection: the muted piano & gentle electronics of “Unheard” might suggest a polite post-classical opus. But it’s followed by the touching collaboration with Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, speaking and singing over drawn-out electronic pads, then low-key synths underscoring the emotive vocals of Emma Nolde. Things get even more upbeat & hectic on the following track, and then Lisa Papineau‘s doubled vocals are accompanied Jon Hopkins-style with gentle electronics – and Baris closes the album with big live drums and his own rhythmic vocals.

Jim Perkins & Leah Kardos – The Menagerie – Rework [bigo & twigetti/Bandcamp]
UK post-classical label bigo & twigetti‘s founder Jim Perkins released his solo opus Immersed in Clouds last year – a collection of solo violin works performed by Anna de Bruin. Following it is a selection of four remixes, Immersed in Clouds Reworks, and the highlight for me is from ex-pat Aussie Leah Kardos, which builds out of an almost imperceptible drone into a kind of illusory orchestra and fluttery glitches.

Kris Keogh – Inimitate [Muzan Editions/Bandcamp]
Kris Keogh – Envolve [Muzan Editions/Bandcamp]
Northern Territory-based Kris Keogh used to make fun breakcore & IDM stuff under the name Blastcorp, but for some time now his primary output, under his own name, has been Processed Harp Works. It’s literally what it says it is, and has tended towards the impressionist, with sparkling harp pieces sent through granular processes to produce glitchy clouds of sound. Processed Harp Works, Volume 3 is released through boutique Japanese label Muzan Editions, and seems to me his best work yet – genuinely touching compositions and judicious use of processing. Well worth immersing yourself.

Listen again — ~207MB

Experimental sounds from hip-hop to folk.

LISTEN AGAIN to the sounds of now. Podcast here, stream on demand @ FBi’s website.

700 Bliss – Nothing To Declare [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
700 Bliss – Bless Grips [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Finally, Moor Mother & DJ Haram‘s debut album as 700 Bliss, Nothing To Declare, has arrived from Hyperdub. The Philadelphia musicians are a great pairing. Moor Mother is comfortable in her usually gruff raps with hip-hop, punk, free jazz, metal and no doubt more; DJ Haram merges her Middle Eastern roots into club sounds, lo-fi hip-hop, noise and whatever else takes her fancy, and raps as well at times – e.g. on “Bless Grips”, which turns the macho aggression of Death Grips on its head. I’ve played a couple of the collaborations earlier this year – guests adding r’n’b tinges, angelic autotuned melodies and glitched breakbeats – but the talents of the duo are such that there’s hardly any repetition here, and no slackening of pace or interest, even in the tongue-in-cheek skits.

Eks – Swerve on It (feat. Sensational) [A Flooded Need/Bandcamp]
Ex-Kamotàa – Untitled [A Flooded Need/Bandcamp]
Italian label A Flooded Need was co-founded by two friends in Naples (one of whom is experimental electronic producer Nocturnerror) a few years ago, releasing a mix of skittery IDM beats, industrial sounds and uneasy ambient. That’s very much the go on their new compilation Tedium, curated by the label along with fellow Neapolitan Eks. The album’s spread is neatly summed up in Eks’s track with experimental rapper Sensational, which goes from crunchy IDM-hop to industrial noise to crackly soundscaping. Meanwhile I have no info on Ex-Kamotàa, but their lovely Untitled track closes the comp with classical vocals, sub-bass thrums and grainy tones.

Stick In The Wheel – Jon1st x SITW – Let No Man Steal Your Thyme [Stick In The Wheel Bandcamp]
Stick In The Wheel – Nabihah Iqbal x SITW – The Milkmaid [Stick In The Wheel Bandcamp]
Currently described on their Bandcamp as “Medieval Kraftwerk”, Stick In The Wheel are equally able to recreate English folk with raw acoustic authenticity, or turn that rawness in directions of punk, or members’ roots in dubstep and club/IDM music. In between albums proper, if they can be divided up that way, are mixtapes where they are free to reach further afield, and the collaborative aspect of those is at the fore for their latest, Perspectives on Tradition. The tracks here come from a creative/research project in the folk music library/audio archive at Cecil Sharp House in London, with three artists chosen to guarantee leftfield approaches: DMC scratch DJ Jon1st, versatile producer/musician/broadcaster Nabihah Iqbal and Metronomy member Olugbenga Adelekan. Iqbal’s treatment of the traditional tune “The Milkmaid” features her sensitive piano with the touching, straightforward vocals of SITW’s Nicola Kearey, while Jon1st turns “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme” (famously covered by ’60s folk-revivalists Pentangle) into glitchy frenetic techno.

Tullis Rennie – A Response [Accidental Records/Bandcamp]
Tullis Rennie – Gnapback [Accidental Records/Bandcamp]
Matthew Herbert’s Accidental Records is already home for like-minded musicians making experimental sounds with glitchy samples and leftfield pop sensibilities. For Accidental Jr they focus on techno, house and dance gear of an off-beat nature, but now comes “Room 2”, which takes the Jr aesthetic away from the dancefloor. Tullis Rennie is a trombonist and electronic producer, but also a writer, academic, field recordist and composer. His Fixed Freedoms mini-album uses slice-of-life field recordings in amongst emotive electric piano/synth works and crunchy beats.

General Magic – I was no [generate and test/Bandcamp]
Ramon Bauer and Andi Pieper were really pioneers of the European glitch music, the experimental electronic music centred around the Mego label they founded with the late Peter Rehberg. Together with Rehberg as General Magic and Pita, they created Fridge Trax, and nothing was ever quite the same. I’m deeply fond of their debut album Frantz, recently reissued on vinyl, but it’s a nice surprise to find Farmers Manual‘s generate and test releasing some genuinely new music from them in the form of Softbop, a little EP of very glitchy beats. Please let there be more.

Lakker – PLUR [Lakker Bandcamp]
The monthly rave-influenced EPs from Dublin duo Lakker continue with LKRTRX005. I particularly enjoyed the breakbeat techno of “PLUR” this time round.

Mako – Raisuma [Samurai Music/Bandcamp]
Mako – Flip It [Metalheadz/Bandcamp]
Mako – We Can Love All [Samurai Music/Bandcamp]
Bristol’s Stephen Redmore aka Mako runs drum’n’bass label Utopia and is at home on Metalheadz, with album Oeuvre released in 2020, and another for that label on the way. Meanwhile he’s just also released an album on the Berlin-based Samurai Music, and it’s very much tailored to the Samurai sound – stripped back, with focus on tribal, syncopated beats, at most slivers of melody, and occasional storms of breaks. It’s a dark trip.

Brandon Juhans – Gradually [Embalming Lately]
The last album from Brandon Juhans (fka HANZ) was in 2020, but this track from NYC tape label Embalming Lately’s backward el.egy compilation shows he’s still up to his usual tricks: dizzying fragments of beats and samples compete rhythmically/arrythmically in the soundstage. Sincerely strange.

Match Fixer – smiling ii [Match Fixer Bandcamp]
Melbourne’s Andrew Cowie used to be Angel Eyes but he’s been making esoteric electronica as Match Fixer for a little while name. New EP smile ii follows on from the dub techno of smile, balanced between more ambient textured work and beats that jitter around the edges.

Various Asses – Kotse [Nice Music/Bandcamp]
Various Asses – Sa(Da)Klub [Nice Music/Bandcamp]
Since their debut in 2016, Raquel Solier has built a lot of love and admiration for their heavy-hitting productions as Various Asses, as well as working with various other prominent names in dance and rap-adjacent genres. Their new album continues the “-ón” series with La Adoración and there’s still a lot of club signifiers in there, with heavy beats and bass, lots of swagger and swing, all without compromising the experimental edge.

The Diish – Scaffold [MFZ Records]
The Diish – A Good Soul and a Mad World [MFZ Records]
Italian producer Giancarlo Trimarchi is The Diish. His album Slaps Combo on Italian label MFZ Records takes its cues from various forms of techno, from head-nodding breakbeats through to minimal, twitchy 4/4 patterns. It’s machine music with just enough funk.

Valentina Magaletti – A Queer Anthology of Drums [Cafe OTO Takuroku/bié Records/Bandcamp]
Valentina Magaletti – Rumours of Bread [Cafe OTO Takuroku/bié Records/Bandcamp]
There can hardly be a more bewilderingly busy, brilliantly broad-spectrum drummer and percussionist than Valentina Magaletti. I first became aware of her as one half of the duo Tomaga, although I’d previously heard her drumming with Raime (who she later joined in off-shoot Moin). Magaletti also plays in various other combos, including postpunk/postrock/krautrock supergroup UUUU, psych-pop band Vanishing Twin, psych-dub duo Holy Tongue with Al Wootton and more (see below). It has, however, been more unusual to find Magaletti letting loose solo, so the album A Queer Anthology of Drums, originally released as part of London venue Cafe OTO‘s home recorded download series Takuroku last year, is particular welcome. It’s now receiving a vinyl release through Bejing label bié Records, bringing it also to Bandcamp. It’s actually rather reminiscent of Magaletti’s work with the late Tom Relleen as Tomaga, each track an étude on a limited set of percussion, with occasional obtuse samples and drones, and retro recording techniques. It’s very evocative in its self-contained way.

Better Corners – Cosmic Debt [The state51 Conspiracy]
Better Corners – Ease of Brain [The state51 Conspiracy]
Magaletti is joined by her UUUU bandmade Matthew Simms and mastering engineer/musician Sarah Register in new band Better Corners. Their debut album Modern Dance Gold, Vol. 1 is as uncategorizable as the rest of Magaletti’s work, with a kind of arcane out-of-time feel drawing from the more experimental corners of postpunk, postrock, krautrock and psych. Here droning riffage piles into free improv ambience and back again – but that makes it sound more forbidding than it actually is. If only state51 deigned to have anything like a Bandcamp, but you can find the release in various digital retailers with good taste, as well as on vinyl.

Lucrecia Dalt – Her Throat [Invada/Bandcamp]
Lucrecia Dalt – Scattered Mysteries [Invada/Bandcamp]
Lucrecia Dalt – How Many Lydias [Invada/Bandcamp]
It feels inevitable that Lucrecia Dalt has ended up writing scores for horror TV shows. Her career started with solo indie songwriting (under the name Lucrecia or The Sound of Lucrecia) but those songs quickly mutated into more experimental forms – benefiting from various collaborations undertaken while she was still in her native Colombia. Over a number of albums now, Dalt has worked an elusive, elided magic with her idiosyncratic take on modular synth composition, generally short experimental pieces often sliding into each other, and an eerie beauty. Last year she collaborated with Aaron Dilloway on an extraordinary album of free weirdness, and this year Invada have released two albums (so far?) of soundtrack work. The Seed is relatively familiar soundtrack cue work; for the HBO horror-comedy The Baby, which has some pretty high-profile up-and-coming names attached, Dalt has managed to sneak in a collection of very characteristic experimental sound, with weird quasi-percussive loops, electronic sounds and processing, and a surprising amount of her own vocals.

Gordon Li – Be Gentle Be Warm [Music Company/Bandcamp]
Gordon Li – Egg Pt.2 [Music Company/Bandcamp]
Naarm/Melbourne-based jazz bassist, composer and educator Gordon Li has crafted something very special for his new album A View from the Bungalow released by Music Company. They’re a label known for challenging ambient music ranging across many genres, and on this album Li manages to cover granular ambient soundscapes, field recordings, and multi-instrumental jazzy postrock, mostly played by himself, with Tim Cox on extra percussion and sax from Flora Carbo. It’s an album rooted in the landscapes around Melbourne, an exudes a rare peacefulness.

Linus + Økland/Van Heertum/Zach – conway [Aspen Edities/Bandcamp]
Speaking of peaceful (and challenging), this fifth album from Belgian duo Linus is the second to find guitarist Ruben Machtelinckx and sax/clarinet/synth player Thomas Jillings joined by fellow Belgian trumpet/euphonium player Niels Van Heertum and two brilliant Norwegian musicians: hardanger fiddle player Nils Økland and percussionist Ingar Zach. There’s a pastoral openness to the proceedings, evoked through an improvised approach to folk music, mixing in jazz and minimalist composition, with electronic ostinati pulsing and vibrating behind glorious fiddle runs and mournful euphonium melodies. Like a lot of Swedish and Norwegian acoustic music, there’s a Scandinavian take on Bill Frisell’s Americana and chamber jazz here, but by and large it’s sui generis in the best way.

Listen again — ~207MB

Experimental music for a new government! Things are looking better for the climate, the arts, a Federal ICAC and much more today in Australia.

LISTEN AGAIN because who’s gonna stop you? Podcast here, stream on demand there.

Joe Rainey – jr. flip [37d03d/Bandcamp]
Joe Rainey – ch 1222 [37d03d/Bandcamp]
I’ve been looking forward to this album since I first heard “No Chants” back in February. Ojibwe singer Joe Rainey has collected and made recordings of Pow Wows from his Native American culture for many years, and on this album his powerfully moving vocals are combined with heavily distorted percussion and spoken word from his archives, filtered through the incredible production of Andrew Broder, whose Fog project started as lo-fi hip-hop and migrated through free jazz indietronica to post-IDM bass music. These stunning songs are probably unlike anything you’re going to hear anytime soon, both due to the tradition Rainey’s preserving here, and through his inspired collaboration with Broder.

Marina Herlop – abans abans [PAN/Bandcamp]
Marina Herlop – lyssof [PAN/Bandcamp]
Barcelona-based singer and pianist Marina Herlop is classically trained, and lists Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Béla Bartok and Aram Khachaturian among her influences. But then you notice Holly Herndon, Venetian Snares and Plaid in there too and you start to see how her latest album is released by PAN. Aided by James Ginzburg on the mix, the songs here shift and scatter with technological interventions, while retaining the classically-trained vocal precision and pianistic technique. Piano lines are glitched and stuttered while experimental beats drop in & out, and Herlop’s vocal style draws from Southern Indian Carnatic traditions, Jewish cantorial singing, Eastern European folk choirs and of course r’n’b and pop as well as classical. There’s a lot of joy in this work, a lot of emotion and a lot of that acoustic/digital slipperiness that Utility Fog loves so much.

Cult of Luna – Beyond I feat. Mariam Wallentin [Metal Blade/Bandcamp]
Cult of Luna – Into the Night [Metal Blade/Bandcamp]
It might seem strange to move now to Sweden’s post-metal legends Cult of Luna, but their “post-” status and influences from industrial and experimental music are a good fit for UFog, even without the excellent guests on their new record The Long Road North. On a few tracks, Colin Stetson‘s multiphonic circular-breathing saxophone features, and one particularly calm piece is adorned with the vocals of fellow Swede Mariam Wallentin, aka Mariam The Believer, of Fire! Orchestra and Wildbirds & Peacedrums. There’s a deep emotiveness to this music, with guests or not – as found in Kristian Karlsson’s vocals on “Into the Night”, with its chromatic harmonies and gradual postrock crescendo.

Aidan Baker – Dramatic Illumination I [Cruel Nature Recordings]
Aidan Baker – Done [Improved Sequence]
Another versatile metal legend, Aidan Baker of Nadja, kept himself busy during lockdowns creating album after album of solo music. While Baker collaborates far and wide, he’s also prolific on his own, whether it’s drone guitar, krautrock grooves with free jazz drums or drum machines, undistorted minimalist songs or epic shoegaze metal. So just this year, along with a solo bonus with Nadja’s Nalepa album on Midira Records, and a host of compilation appearances, there was the great experimental book soundtrack The Sheep Look Up (which I’ve already featured), ambient/drone on Cloud Chamber, drone also on Slow Tone Collages, and tonight’s entries: Tenebrist on Cruel Nature Recordings is a selection of free rock pieces with jazz-influenced drums that morph into krautrock jams or psych noise freakouts. Meanwhile Songs of Undoing on Improved Sequence collects slowcore and deconstructed grunge songs, although tonight’s slow piece is an instrumental.

Zeno van den Broek & Otto Kokke – Cloud Chamber [Moving Furniture Records/Bandcamp]
Gemma Bass & Coen Oscar Polack – Happenstance [Moving Furniture Records/Bandcamp]
Kay Stephen & Production Unit – I Played With Everyone [Moving Furniture Records/Bandcamp]
This is release MFR100 is the self-referential title of – you guessed it – the 100th release from Dutch experimental label Moving Furniture Records. And, as well as raising money for Dutch suicide prevention organisation 113, it’s a powerful overview of the kind of experimental music the label presents, through 25 duo collaborations, all clocking in at 4 minutes precisely. There’s an emphasis on Dutch artists, but contributions are found from Canada, Scotland, Turkey, Norway, Greece, Italy, and no doubt other places I couldn’t identify. Tonight’s selections give an idea of what’s to be found: Dutch sound-artist Zeno van den Broek & saxophonist Otto Kokke of Dutch noise duo Dead Neanderthals present a beautiful, disturbing soundscape of smeared sax and field recordings; British violinist Gemma Bass plays expressive violin fragments over percussive found sounds (maybe glass?) from Dutch musician Coen Oscar Polack. And the viola of Scottish musician Kay Stephen competes with lurching spoken words glitched beyond recognition from fellow Scot Production Unit.

nightports w/ tom herbert – lumin [Leaf/Bandcamp]
nightports w/ tom herbert – hydrodynamica [Leaf/Bandcamp]
The latest album from UK duo Nightports‘ series on The Leaf Label, each based purely on the sounds of their collaborator’s instrument, has as its subject the double bass of Polar Bear‘s Tom Herbert. At times Herbert’s playing is seemingly untouched, with long bowed melodies and drones, sawing tremolo and rhythmic bowed ostinati, pizzicato basslines, but all these and percussive sounds from the instrument’s resonant wooden body contribute to tracks which echo IDM and minimal techno. It’s a worth addition to Nightports’ previous work with pianist Matthew Bourne and percussionist Maxwell Hallett.

YOUTH – Nuclear Winter [YOUTH]
Manchester label YOUTH specialise often in an overdriven, ultra-compressed form of dubstep & UK bass music, and that’s well represented on this uncredited 12″. “Nuclear Winter” is so compressed that its waveform hardly varies, held down by an almost droning bassline while a broken post-garage/dubstep beat drops in and out.

Walton – Rush [Sneaker Social Club]
Walton – Detach [Sneaker Social Club]
Also from Manchester, Walton also resides in a post-dubstep/grime/uk garage/uk funky club-adjacent world generally, and his short album on Sneaker Social Club highlights these uk bass forms, with the title track “Rush” a particular hard-hitting highlight. But interludes like “Detach” let the ambient synths do the talking, until a simple kick and bass hit underline dancing synth lines.

Jurango – Concrete Blossom [[re]sources]
Meanwhile, over in Bristol, Livity Sound-affiliated Jurango returns to Paris label [re]sources with an EP that blends his dancehall influences with uk bass and techno… leading us into…

Deena Abdelwahed & Basile3 – Alpha GPC [InFiné Music/Bandcamp]
Toulouse-based Tunisian producer Deena Abdelwahed here teams up with French producer Basile3 for three tracks of bass-inflected techno on InFiné Music. It’s infectious stuff.

COH – Gear Chill Spell [Noton]
COH – Fear into Dust [Noton]
Russian musician Ivan Pavlov’s CoH (or sometimes COH) reads as “SON” in Cyrillic script, and is convenient in its ambiguity – it means “dream” or “sleep” in Russian, and he’s punningly titled an album CoHgs (combine the two scripts to read “SoNgs”). Many of his albums are themed, around his love of postpunk or doom metal or ’80s electro-pop or industrial pioneers, around voice (including a whole album with Throbbing Gristle’s Cosey Fanni Tutti), or indeed around Strings (specifically piano strings, guitar strings, and those of the oud and saz). So to his latest album, from Alva Noto’s Noton, which is entitled WYFF (While Your Guitar Gently) and it is indeed all guitar, from soft walking basslines and pulsating glitched fragments to IDM & shattered techno and estranged riffage. Whatever the influences and whatever the source material, CoH’s minimal glitch core is retained, producing in total an impressively wide-ranging yet consistent ouevre.

Matmos – Cobra Wages Shuffle / Off! Schable w gurę! [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Matmos – Flight to Sodom / Lot do Salo [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Baltimore duo & couple Matmos are also consistent in their techniques of sonic estrangement and collage, exploring a vague terrain of IDM, glitch, folktronica, contemporary classical and avant-garde over 3 decades now. Regards/Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer finds them in Poland, where they were given access to the entire catalogue of Polish avant-garde composer (and musicologist and graphic artist) Bogusław Schaeffer. As always with Matmos, this is no literal interpretation or remix of Schaeffer’s work. Fragments from many compositions are sampled, edited and rearranged by M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, interpolated with additional performances from Schmidt and various other collaborators. Few people outside of Poland are familiar with Schaeffer’s work, so this is quite a cryptic tribute. Nevertheless, Matmos never fail to entertain, and the source material was provided much grist for their technological mill, whether in more abstract form or with glitchy, crunchy IDMish beatforms.

Carl Stone – Wat Dong Moon Lek [Unseen Worlds/Bandcamp]
LA/Japan-based computer music pioneer Carl Stone has seen a renaissance since the Unseen Worlds label released two archival albums of his a few years ago. Active since the mid-1908s, Stone developed a technique to time-slice through existing recordings using granular synthesis to produce garbled yet musical live remixes & mashups. On his last couple of albums this has resulted in strangely rhythmic stuff that’s like dance music as interpreted by 19th century robots(?) – and on the title track of his latest, Wat Dong Moon Lek (all his titles come from the names of Asian restaurants), a Thai lounge jazz track is the source, smeared and sliced for 5 minutes, while the intro and coda are charmingly left untouched.

Listen again — ~210MB

We got jungle-hip-hop; gqom; various experimental electronic forms with jungle, dubstep & techno influences; international sound-art; Haitian-American folk; and cello!

LISTEN AGAIN as if your very life depends on it! Podcast here, stream on demand from FBi.

They Hate Change – Who Next [Jagjaguwar/Bandcamp]
They Hate Change – Screwface [godmode/Bandcamp]
They Hate Change – Coded Language (Interlude) [Jagjaguwar/Bandcamp]
Discovering the jungle-loving rap duo They Hate Change was one of the great moments of 2020. Dre and Vonne grew up in Florida’s Tampa Bay, and courtesy of the internet became immersed in UK club music, especially jungle & grime. Their rapping is as American as it comes, with Vonne’s gender fluidity an important part of the mix. Despite their non-conforming status, it was still surprising to find them signed to indie/experimental label Jagjaguwar last year, after EPs on smaller labels like godmode, but all power to them, and now we have their debut full length Finally, New, with their signature sound intact. Oh – and I can’t help think of a classic jungle/US hip-hop crossover with “Coded Language” (Krust & Saul Williams) but, like all with They Hate Change, it’s very much its own thing. Bigups!

Phelimuncasi – Wazini Ngo Qoh (prod DJ MP3) [Nyege Nyege Tapes/Bandcamp]
Phelimuncasi – Ngavele Ngagaxela (Prod by DJ Scoturn) [Nyege Nyege Tapes/Bandcamp]
Phelimuncasi – I don’t feel my legs (prod DJ Nhlekzin) [Nyege Nyege Tapes/Bandcamp]
More cause for celebration: A whole new album from Durban gqom crew Phelimuncasi, following 2020’s 2013-2019 collection. Here the beats come from various locals including frequent collaborator DJ Scoturn, some bouncy productions from DJ MP3, and newcomer DJ Nhlekzin as well, while the three members (two men and one woman) rap & sing in isiZulu and English. While gqom is thought of as a South African form of house music, it’s unique, and there are hints of UK funky, dancehall and African traditions in there, with deep bass and a minimalist aesthetic. Exciting stuff.

Slikback – SEQUENCE [Bandcamp]
Way up the coast in Kenya is Slikback, still pumping out at least one EP a month on his Bandcamp. May brings us almost junglist IDM with pop samples, while the third track is a rare near-ambient beauty.

x/o – Cyclone Scream [Precious Metals/Bandcamp]
x/o – Mirror Shard, Phoenix Down [Precious Metals/Bandcamp]
x/o – Chrysalis Wrath [Precious Metals/Bandcamp]
Proving that the jungle & trip-hop revival is in full swing is the debut album Chaos Butterfly from Vietnamese-Canadian producer x/o aka Veron Xio. Xio’s pop-inspired vocals appear (perhaps hyperpop? I couldn’t say), but often buried in glitchy production and breakbeats. The sweeping neon-rain of vaporwave synths inhabit these tracks, and the general approach is very ’20s rather than ’90s, but it’s still striking hearing those signature sounds here, and definitely worth giving a listen.

TSVI & Loraine James – Awaiting [AD 93/Bandcamp]
TSVI & Loraine James – Observe [AD 93/Bandcamp]
The juxtaposition of twinkly ambient, including piano, with jungle and rave beats is shared with the new duo release from London-based Italian TSVI (co-founder of percussive electronic label Nervous Horizon) and the always-brilliant Loraine James. Released by AD 93 – who’ve also released TSVI under his percussive house alias Anunaku, including a collab with our own DJ Plead – 053 surprises with choral samples as well as piano, veering between TSVI’s percussion and Loraine James’ IDM breaks. As great as you’d expect.

Air Max ’97 – Paroxysm ft. TSVI [DECISIONS/Bandcamp]
Air Max ’97 – Coriolis [DECISIONS/Bandcamp]
TSVI also gives us a nice segue into our next artist. In 2019, TSVI featured on a track from Australian (but also UK/Holland/New Zealand) experimental club hero Air Max ’97. The latest EP from Air Max, Coriolis, is also released on his DECISIONS Records, with precision-engineered beats syncopated just right.

Glass – Appointment Scheduling System [OOH-Sounds/Bandcamp]
Glass – crY (Klahrk Remix) [OOH-Sounds/Bandcamp]
Air Max ’97 is always near but never quite drum’n’bass, or dubstep, or garage… French duo Glass are somewhat breakcore-adjacent, definitely draw on jungle, and have a vaporwave hue to them. Last year they released crY on the eclectic OOH-Sounds, and it’s just been augmented – with a CD edition, no less – as crY Remixed. The original deconstructed jungle/IDM tracks are all there, along with a live cut and some choice remixes. UK IDMster Klahrk keeps things in place with mysterious sound design and sparse mashed amen breaks.

Atsushi Izumi – Nos [Opal Tapes]
Anode – Multiplex [Anode Bandcamp]
Atsushi Izumi – 12G2 [Opal Tapes]
Between genres though this may be, Atsushi Izumi started off producing intense drum’n’bass, neurofunk by my reckoning, as Anode. Under his own name, he’s slowed things down a little, bass-heavy techno with dubstep inflections and occasional more open sounding sound-art. His new album for Opal Tapes, Houzan Archives, is a stunner from start to finish, techno sometimes with a drum’n’bass tinge. I can’t get enough of it.

Atom™ – Hartcode [Raster/Bandcamp]
Just a couple of weeks ago, Uwe Schmidt aka Atom™ released a four-track EP of mysterious quasi-ambient called Golden Real with little fanfare on his NN label. Now this Friday came the surprise release of Neuer Mensch (“New Human”) on CD & digital through the legendary glitch/minimal electronic label Raster. It follows his drill’n’bassy faux-idoru album <3 and various attached EP/singles, and it’s jittery minimal techno, evoking human-machine hybrids. Being Atom™, it’s genius in its own special way.

Michel Banabila – Toy Shop [Michel Banabila Bandcamp]
Michel Banabila – Map Symbols [Michel Banabila Bandcamp
Dutch musician Michel Banabila is a frequent visitor to these playlists, often in a very “fourth world” vein. You could hear his latest, Monochromes, through that stylistic pigeonhole, but I enjoyed how weirdly & rightly “Toy Shop” blended out of Atom™’s minimal techno, with its tumbling percussion. “Map Symbols” is ambient layers of pitch-shifted clarinet and watery field recordings, slightly uncomfortably discordant rather than peaceful. Excellent sound-art.

Adam Badí Donoval – Birdsong In The Car Park [The Trilogy Tapes/Bandcamp]
More excellent sound-art here from Adam Badí Donoval, whose Warm Winters Ltd has presented some beautiful music in the last couple of years (e.g. Martyna Basta, who appears on this album). On his debut album for The Trilogy Tapes, titled Sometimes Life Is Hard And So We SHould Help Each Other, Donoval blends field recordings and looped acoustic instrments with electronic treatments with highly varied intent, from the folktronica acoustic guitar cut-ups on this track to extended subaquatic looped pulses. Quite captivating.

Leyla McCalla – Le Bal est Fini [ANTI-/Bandcamp]
Leyla McCalla – Nan Fon Bwa [ANTI-/Bandcamp]
From Donoval to Leyla McCalla could be a change of pace, except that the acoustic guitar and field recordings are all in place here. McCalla is a brilliant Haitian-American musician who plays cello as well as guitar, banjo etc, and sings beautifully both in French-derived Haitian Creole and in English. Her first album set the words of African-American poet Langston Hughes to music, and the second followed the musical template of bluegrass and Haitian folk, often played with strummed and bowed cello, sometimes in more traditional settings. A more recent album moved into more of a blues setting, but Breaking The Thermometer, her first for the ANTI- label, takes her back to Haitian folk territory, with a suite of songs derived from her stage work Breaking The Thermometer To Hide The Fever. This work saw her researching Radio Haiti, and the tragic, criminal colonial history of her homeland, and samples from interviews on that radio station as well as field recordings are interspersed through the album. I couldn’t help also playing the lively opening track, an instrumental led by her cello, and a nice segue into our last two tracks.

Adrian Copeland – No Heat No Light [Lost Tribe Sound/Bandcamp]
Adrian Copeland – Heir to the Ember Sun [Lost Tribe Sound/Bandcamp]
Montréaler Adrian Copeland is best known under his Alder & Ash moniker, under which he plays his cello through various guitar pedals, looping riffs and melodies in doom/sludge/drone style. His new album If This Were My Body, once again via Lost Tribe Sound, comes out under his own name with good reason: the distortion pedals are dropped in favour of beautifully-recorded acoustic cello, plucked, bowed, tapped and knocked (with some tiny additions on piano in one track). There are some gorgeous passages as things crescendo and relent. There are shimmering tremolos, tumbling broken chords, strummed chords, plucked basslines, and some passionate upper register soloing at times. While there’s a lot of turmoil and sadness here, there are also surprisingly positive and peaceful tracks. A very satisfying, very successful album.

Listen again — ~205MB