Utility Fog

A few important albums came out this week, so we’re doing that Utility Fog thing of multiple tracks from the same artist/release. And it’s allll great. Of course.

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Kim Gordon x Model Home – razzamatazz [Matador/Bandcamp]
Less than six months after her album The Collective came out, Kim Gordon‘s back with a new single that’s just as crunchy and weird as the last 2 albums. This time it’s a collaboration with weird rap duo Model Home, whose collab with Wolf Eyes from last year is excellent too. Gordon’s speak-singing fits well with Model Home’s rapping.

Patio – Inheritance (Mandy, Indiana Remix) [Fire Talk]
One of my favourite bands of last year, Manchester’s Mandy, Indiana, here deliver a beefed up, noisier version of the song “Inheritance” from their label-mates Patio. The New York band use the tag “pastel post-punk” on their Bandcamp, although equally they fit well into the ’80s/’90s all-female indie rock space. The original song is from their second album Collection, which comes recommended if you’re into that kind of stuff (think Throwing Muses, The Breeders etc).

Seefeel – Multifolds [Warp Records/Bandcamp]
Seefeel – Lose The Minus [Warp Records/Bandcamp]
Coming a mere 13 years after their last release, which itself came some 14 years after their first run, Everything Squared is immediately utterly Seefeel. The “band” is now pared down to Mark Clifford’s production, with mailed-in vocal samples from Sarah Peacock, who’s now based in Berlin. It’s really just an EP, but an absolute pleasure to have them back anyway, with pulsing fragments of vocals, dubwise bass and micro-melodies. As I said a few weeks ago, they’ve always had a temporally displaced sound – constructed entirely through digital technology but somehow analogue, even organic sounding. They could just give us… more?

Christopher Chaplin – The Feathered Girl [Fabrique Records/Bandcamp]
British composer Christopher Chaplin‘s music works contemporary classical elements into experimental, post-industrial and krautrock-influenced spaces. His latest EP Door 1 Door 2 is out later this month, exploring how myths are part of collective memory, with spoken word by Carmen Alt-Chaplin.

Chelsea Wolfe – Dusk (Ash Koosha Remix) [Loma Vista/Bandcamp]
Chelsea Wolfe – Whispers In The Echo Chamber (Forest Swords Remix) [Loma Vista/Bandcamp]
The latest album from Chelsea Wolfe, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, found her in her most electronic setting yet, albeit still with her usual gothic metal vibes. Six months later comes the Undone EP, with remixes from the likes of ††† (Crosses), Justin K Broadrick, Full of Hell and Boy Harsher, to give you an idea of the breadth. But tonight I played a glitchy take by Ash Koosha and a deconstruction by Forest Swords, both of which play with slow-fast beats.

Flower Storm – World’s Creator Is My Ally (Aceed Mix) [Flower Storm Bandcamp]
Disapora Iranians (like Ash Koosha above) Sepehr (NYC) and Kasra Vaseghi (London) formed Flower Storm in 2023 with the aim of recontextualising the sounds of their culture with the club styles they love. Together they created a huge sound library with traditional Persian percussion and string instruments, sampled vocals and more, which they cast into techno, house, drum’n’bass and so on. Do O Nim collects three mutated versions of tracks from their first 2 EPs, with the “Aceed Mix” here taking “World’s Creator Is My Ally” into skittery junglish acid.

gyrofield – Lagrange [XL Recordings/Bandcamp]
With previous releases on drum’n’bass labels like Critical Music and Metalheadz as well as more experimental works, Bristol-based Hong Kong producer gyrofield lands on XL Recordings with a bang with their four-tracker These Heavens. It’s drum’n’bass with ambient and hyper-pop influences, continuing pushing the trajectory of d’n’b into uncharted waters.

Reeko – Urmah 2 [Samurai Music/Bandcamp]
The most unexpected forays into drum’n’bass/170bpm in the last 2 years have come from longtime techno mainstay Reeko, aka Architectural, aka Spanish producer Juan Rico. The Berlin-based Samurai Music has already been exploring the space where minimal drum’n’bass meets techno, and perhaps for that reason Rico sent them a demo which became his first EP for the label, Confront the Serpent, last year. This was followed by Tomorrow Doesn’t Exist earlier this year, and now the incredible six-track mini-album Urmah. There’s a lot of dub techno in these head-nodding tunes, but also explosive percussion and breaks. It really is a hybrid style like no other, dazzling at its best.

Tigran Hamasyan – The saviour is condemned [naïve/Project website]
Tigran Hamasyan – The curse (blood of an innocent is spilled) [naïve/Project website]
Tigran Hamasyan – Postlude after seven winters [naïve/Project website]
The new album from Armenian jazz piano virtuoso Tigran Hamasyan is a whole project, featuring the stunning artwork of Khoren Matevosyan. Yes, it’s a double album (double CD and somehow fitting on 2 vinyl records), but it’s also an online video game and multimedia stage production and film. Titled The Bird of a Thousand Voices, it reworks an old Armenian legend called Hazaran Blbul, and so the album follows the story from start to completion. Musically it’s everything Tigran always offers – insane time signatures, bewitching melodies, those gorgeous Armenian harmonies, incredible piano playing and incredible supporting musicians on drums, bass, violin and vocals, with heavy metal and electronic influences. I played a couple of energetic early tracks plus the beautiful coda.

Laurie Anderson – This Modern World [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – To Circle the World [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – I See Something Shining (feat. ANOHNI) [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – Take-off [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – Aloft (feat. ANOHNI) [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – Road to Mandalay [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Laurie Anderson – Lucky Dime [Nonesuch Records/Bandcamp]
Only four years after Landfall, her album with Kronos Quartet about the the flooding of New York City by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Laurie Anderson returns with another concept album. Amelia follows the doomed last flight of the pioneering airplane pilot Amelia Earhart, whose plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean three-quarters of the way through her attempt at circumnavigating the globe. It’s taken 25 years to be completed in this final form, performed by Anderson in her speak-singing style, playing violin & viola and some electronics, while ANOHNI takes care of the more melodic singing, with a band featuring Marc Ribot and Kenny Wollessen, plus Rob Moose, Nadia Sirota and Gabriel Cabezas’ Trimbach Trio on strings and the Filharmonie Brno on orchestral duties. Despite this loaded crew, it’s a surprisingly low-key, un-showy album, with passages depicting the peaceful monotony of Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan’s travel. The sound of the motor, and its imitation by sliding strings, returns throughout the piece, which is bookended by the words “It was the sound of the motor I remember the most”. It’s a masterful work, at times joyous, often soothing, and more than a little haunting.

Lia Kohl – Ice Cream Truck, Tornado Siren [Moon Glyph/Bandcamp]
Lia Kohl – Tennis Court Light, Snow [Moon Glyph/Bandcamp]
Chicago cellist and sound-artist Lia Kohl has built up a gorgeous catalogue of odd, inquisitive and considered sound works over a very short period of time, with releases on Skeletons’ Shinkoyo, Longform Editions and American Dreams. Her new album Normal Sounds is released by the adventurous Portland (Oregon) tape/vinyl label Moon Glyph, and the album title is a nice description of Kohl’s practice (as are the track titles). As well as field recordings and the sounds of “normal” human activity, Kohl likes to incorporate the randomness of a radio scrolling through frequencies and settling on whatever happens to be on the airwaves. And of course there’s her cello, which along with electronics can slip into the mix and transform everything. It’s not always clear even from the titles what we’re hearing (“Tornado Siren”?) but Kohl is second to none in melding these real-world “normal sounds” with her layered, processed instrument and synths. Another beautiful work from a unique artist.

Daniela Huerta – Fondo [Elevator Bath/Bandcamp]
Daniela Huerta – Seqvana [Elevator Bath/Bandcamp]
Long-lived Texas label Elevator Bath encompasses musique concrète, electroacoustic sound-art, noise and drone… at least. Label boss Colin Andrew Sheffield has kindly shared the debut solo album from Berlin-based Mexican artist Daniela Huerta, which comes out in late October. Huerta is one half of Huerta Ensamble with Concepción Huerta (I think no relation!) and DJs as Baby Vulture at venues like Berghain and CTM. Soplo bears some aural indicators of contemporary experimental electronic, but draws as much from musique concrète and electroacoustic music. The album opens with the dripping and flowing water of “Seqvana”, which is combined with muted, pinging synth tones and clanging sounds. There’s always a clear sense of space. Water sounds percolate through the whole album, joined with blurred voice, trembling organs, reverberating choirs and more. So when we reach “Fondo”, the album’s seventh track, it’s a surprise to hear an almost march-like two-note bassline underscoring lurching synth horns (and bubbling water). Halfway through the bassline disappears and the synth tones are engulfed in increasingly resonating pink noise. Soplo is an artful album of sonic illusions, concrète music as it was always intended.

Andrew Tuttle & Michael Chapman – At Seventy-Three Miles [Basin Rock/Bandcamp]
Michael Chapman – Untitled #7 [Basin Rock/Bandcamp]
Andrew Tuttle & Michael Chapman – A Third Revision (Or Evolution) [Basin Rock/Bandcamp]
British guitarist and singer-songwriter Michael Chapman worked across many genres up until he passed away in 2021 aged 80. His latter-day following was confirmed in the Tompkins Square-issued compilation Oh Michael, Look What You’ve Done: Friends Play Michael Chapman, featuring Lucinda Williams, Meg Baird and Thurston Moore among others. One Australian fan was Brisbane’s Andrew Tuttle, who’s made a career around electronically-mediated banjo and acoustic guitar-picking soundscapes. By luck, Chapman’s partner Andru had been enjoying Tuttle’s album on Basin Rock, Fleeting Adventure, in the years after Chapman’s passing, and so Andrew Tuttle has had the privilege of expanding on and reworking the unfinished final instrumental recordings of Chapman. The album Another Tide, Another Fish is out through Basin Rock and features the original recordings on a second disc, allowing us to hear just how sensitively Andrew has transformed the original works. Each of Tuttle’s track titles contains numbers that allow us to reference them to the originals, so I played “Untitled #7” after Tuttle’s “At Seventy-Three Miles”. Chapman already takes his beautifully assured fingerpicked guitar into spacey electronic waters, and Tuttle dives deep into the currents with granular processing, timestretching and other techniques, as well as adding his own banjo. A pretty remarkable project altogether.

Loop Year – Heel Turn [Loop Year Bandcamp]
Tim Koch this week alerted me to Loop Year, a new ambient/IDM project from Adelaide’s Cailan Burns, who was one half of seminal Aussie electronic experimentalists Pretty Boy Crossover with Jason Sweeney. Sweeney appears here on “Bass guitar noodles”, which Tim suggested makes this an ersatz Pretty Boy Crossover revival, and Tim added cymbal splashing and mixing know-how. It’s lovely electronic (g)loopiness as per the original PBXO.

Connor D’Netto – Witness [Room40/Bandcamp]
Last week when I played some material from the brilliant duo release Material from Connor D’Netto x Yvette Ofa Agapow, I mentioned that a composition of D’Netto’s was caught up in a controversy recently. Pianist Jayson Gillham has been performing a series of concerts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and at a recent MSO concert, as an encore he performed D’Netto’s composition “Witness”. The piece is dedicated to the journalists of Gaza, although the work more generally refers to the idea of recasting doom-scrolling as “bearing witness” to the horrific images we are seeing not only from Gaza, but “from Ukraine, Congo, Sudan, the riots in Bangladesh, school shootings in the USA, and closer to home the treatment of First Nations People in incarceration”. When Gilham performed the piece a couple of weeks ago he drew the audience’s attention to the appalling number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel in Gaza (a number already far too high before October 7th). In response, the MSO management (it’s not clear who) immediately cancelled the remaining performances by the orchestra. There was widespread outrage, and a campaign by my union, MEAA, who represent both Australian journalists and Australian musicians, called for the decision to be reversed. Surprisingly, this did happen – the MSO claimed “a mistake” was made, and now there will be an independent review into the orchestra’s decision-making, led by Peter Garrett(!) Nevertheless, this speaks to the horrendous censorious situation in the arts and beyond, worldwide, when it comes to any speech sympathetic to Palestinians. So it’s pleasing to find D’Netto’s touching piece – performed by Gillham – now available via Room40, with all proceeds to be donated to PARA – Palestine Australia Relief and Action.

Saoirse Prince – Earthy flavours envelop my tongue and slide down my throat [Saoirse Prince Bandcamp]
We finish tonight with another piece of delicate piano music, from new Sydney artist Saoirse Prince, whose debut album Late Winter is her personal take on the “neoclassical” piano genre, drawing pleasingly from the likes of Sophie Hutchings as much as any of the big international names. I’m particularly attracted to the pieces that complicate the piano sound with electronics, such as the persistent delay throughout this track, mushrooming into distortion before petering out.

Listen again — ~201MB

There’s quite a lean towards ambient sounds tonight – not all peaceful, mind. There’s some shattering noise and many glitchy loops and sound-beds. But there’s also hip-hop, skittering IDM, stripped-down grime, and re-imagined acoustic folk.

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Dealers of God – Thundercloudz [Dealers of God Bandcamp]
But… what does it all mean? I admit I’m not the most attentive to lyrics when I’m listening to music, but when Naarm/Melbourne hip-hop group/cartel/gang Dealers of God sent me their forthcoming album Flesh Bill Clinton Humanoid Skeleton, and after I’d signed the necessary NDAs and read the heavily-redacted FBi file, I was still almost entirely in the dark about whatever sinister truths of the Deep State had been uncovered here. All other questions aside, the band genuinely have collaborated with Roger Eno, Brian’s pianist brother. All other identities are hidden (although I’m sure I’ve heard Johnathan Citizen’s name before). The music is equally hard to pin down – sudden punk onslaught, extended ambient crunk passages etc. “Thundercloudz”, previewed exclusively for you tonight, is more straightforwardly hip-hop than much of the rest, and also quite melodic. The blissful piano & synth loop takes me back to early ’90s Oz indie electronic bands like Single Gun Theory somehow…

B Dolan – “Turn A Mill” (Unnatural Entities Remix) [B Dolan Bandcamp]
It’s been a long time since the last album proper from poet & underground hip-hop activist B Dolan. Emergency spinal surgery 4 years ago derailed his life and healing from that is central to the album he put out earlier this year, The Wound Is Not The Body. Dolan has also run a Discord server for a while, where among other things, fans can submit remixes, and out of that community comes this really nice remix of “Turn A Mill” with a heavy bass beat from Digital Monster & Mr. Bombcamp who together are Unnatural Entities.

Herbert – Fallen (feat Momoko Gill) [Accidental Records/Bandcamp]
Back in the mid-1990s, some of the earliest releases from Matthew Herbert under his Herbert moniker were the Parts EPs, 1-5 (digital reissues can be found on Herbert’s Bandcamp). In 2014, the series returned with Part Six, followed by Part Seven, and then Part Eight in 2015. So it’s about time for Part 9! These releases are avenues for Herbert’s jazzy r’n’b-inflected deep house, always a delight. On the first single from Part 9, vocals come from singer/songwriter/drummer Momoko Gill.

SHATR Collective – Salim [Ruptured Records/Bandcamp]
From the always forward-thinking Beirut/Montréal label Ruptured Records comes a challenging, moving album of poetry and modular synthesis from SHATR Collective, with music by Sarah Huneidi and voices/poetry from Theresa Sahyoun (mostly in English) and Nadine Makarem (in Arabic). These pieces are visceral responses to the genocide in Gaza, indeed referencing the killing of Palestinian poets – Sahyoun’s “Salim” is about Salim Al Naffar. The emotion in the spoken words is palpable, and along with the stark electronics it can be difficult listening – as it probably should be. 100% of proceeds go to ULYP (Unite Lebanon Youth Project) Gaza Student Emergency Fund.

ENDON – Time Does Not Heal [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
In “Salim”, Theresa Sahyoun speaks of how the numb, desperate feeling during this ongoing genocide is not – precisely – grief. The new album Fall of Spring from Japanese noise band ENDON grapples directly with grief, coming 4 years after the death of Etsuo Nagura, brother of vocalist Taichi Nagura. After the departure of drummer Shin Yokota as well, the remaining three members decided to continue without replacing those members, and Fall of Spring is – well… in some ways it could be described as less aggressive, but still noise and harshness is the dominant mode of the four tracks; it’s just cut through with a little more beauty, and in service of anguish. The 6-minute “Time Does Not Heal” is the album’s emotional and musical centrepiece, with torturous noise doused in massive, rumbling bass, tumbling synth-percussion and buried melodies, mostly subsuming Nagura’s pained howls.

Dal:um – Cracking [Glitterbeat/Bandcamp]
Hamburg-based label Glitterbeat has put out three remarkable albums from South Korean musician Park Jiha, and in 2021 released the first album from the duo Dal:um, made up of Ha Suyean on the gayageum and Hwang Hyeyoung ongeomungo, two Korean stringed instruments. Their follow-up, Coexistence, is coming out soon, with second single “Cracking” finding the duo at their most rhythmic and percussive.

Chloe Kim 김예지 – Bonus Track I: Bass Dance [People Sound]
Chloe Kim 김예지 – Movement I: When We Foresee [People Sound]
After embarking on her 100 Hours project, in which she performed drums for 10 hours straight on 10 consecutive days, Sydney-based Korean musician Chloe Kim 김예지 was looking for something different, and her love of double bass led her to the idea of multiple double basses playing together. Initially she’d conceived of a double bass quartet, and the music was premiered in that configuration with Helen Svoboda, Harry Birch, Oscar Neyland, and Paddy Fitzgerald as the double bassists in question. But the final recorded form grew into Music For Six Double Bassists, with two Sydney double bassists added: Sydney jazz stalwart Jonathan Zwartz and Jacques Emery, whose label People Sound released the album. These are compositions in the jazz style, leaving room for improvisation for the musicians – the credits on Bandcamp list the soloists on each track, except Movement I – but even here, the piece begins with a chaos of plucked rhythm & melody and low drones. Just before the minute mark, the whole ensemble coalesces on a righteous bassline, with individuals adding rhythmic ornamentation around it. The album is full of body-pulling basslines the equal of Johan Berthling’s work in Fire! and elsewhere – high praise! – while also capitalising on the instrument’s expressiveness, including Helen Svoboda’s patented floating stopped harmonics. There’s also a secret pleasure in hearing all those slaps of finger and string on the instruments’ fingerboards. Glorious.

Holy Tongue meets Shackleton – Ancient Model [AD93/Bandcamp]
Originally the duo of powerhouse drummer Valentina Magaletti and UK bass music producer Al Wootton, Holy Tongue last year added Magaletti’s Vanishing Twin bandmate Susumu Mukai on bass, and together they forge a path through arcane postpunk dub. Add to that trio the music & production of Sam Shackleton and you basically get a different angle on the same influences – Shackleton first became famous for his dubstep & post-dubstep productions on Skull Disco with Laurie Osborn aka Appleblim (see below), but for years has created bizarre & idiosyncratic post-psych-folk-techno(?) on his “label” Woe To The Septic Heart! – an aesthetic that gels with the new-old nature of many of Valentina Magaletti’s collaborations. Suffice to say, The Tumbling Psychic Joy of Now is even better than the sum of these parts.

gi – knots [Absorb]
The follow-up to her late-2023 EP Orange Chorus Blonde Reveal continues the utterly original quasi-organic, textural IDM created by Eora/Sydney artist gi aka Gigi De Lacy. I hesitate to say “jungle” as any sampled drum breaks are ground into fine dust, but there are skittery drum’n’bass and footwork influences here, as if performed by an ensemble of cicadas and marsupial mice gathered round a faulty transistor radio. I can pretty much guarantee you’ve never heard anything quite like this, in the best possible way.

KASHIWA Daisuke – Green [Virgin Babylon]
Only a couple of months after his latest album Ice mixed up his classical, postrock, glitch and IDM influences, KASHIWA Daisuke is back on Virgin Babylon Records with a single track of glitched, nervous micro-beats, foghorn bass tones and piano chords, a track that Ryuichi Sakamoto would’ve been proud of. Lovely.

Trinity Carbon – Lost Everything [forthcoming self-released EP]
Low End Activist – Self Destruction [forthcoming on Sneaker Sound System]
Well, I did mention Laurie Osborn above. The man known as Appleblim has had a low-key collab with Jamie Russell (aka “Patrick Conway” aka Low End Activist) called Trinity Carbon. They have a couple of EPs under their belt going back as far as 2018, and an album from 2021, but they will shortly launch a series of self-released 12″s of skeletal grime/dubstep, distilled to its essence and in keeping with the minimalist approach Appleblim employed from the start with Skull Disco. Low End Activist also has another album coming, this time on his own Sneaker Sound System, which is also on a highly minimalist tip with ambient bass and deconstructed hardcore. Municipal Dreams evokes his younger years growing up in the Blackford Leys estate, learning first-hand the effects of inequality on working class lives.

Brian Gibson – Melting Menace [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]
Lightning Bolt bassist Brian Gibson has for some time been involved with video games, currently Puddle with Mike Mandell. Thrasher is Gibson’s second video game soundtrack to be released on Thrill Jockey, a distillation into 12 tracks of the generative music heard in the game. It’s made up of old-school synth patterns and driving beats, and while it doesn’t have the noise-punk thrash of Lightning Bolt, it’s got a lot of energy and tense apprehension.

Hidden Orchestra – Broken (Edit) [Hidden Orchestra Bandcamp]
Joe Acheson’s Hidden Orchestra has worked recently on video game soundtracking too, but in 2023 released a wonderful album of his imaginary orchestra’s typical sounds: live trip-hop/jungle beats, strings, bubbling clarinet and other acoustic instruments invisibly edited by Acheson. “Broken” is a new EP taking the album track and rebuilding a couple of versions as well as providing instrumental sources including some of the foley sounds that went into the original. As usual the music is sumptuous and timeless.

Khrystyna Kirik – Phantoms Of Perception [Flaming Pines/Bandcamp]
The third in Flaming Pines‘ Ukrainian compilations, curated by Igor Yalivec, is out in October, titled Resistance. As usual it features experimental musicians from Ukraine, with earnings passed on to the musicians and to charitable causes in the country that is still resisting Russia’s invasion. Tonight’s preview track is from sound-artist Khrystyna Kirik, a slow surge made up of electronics and detailed sounds from self-made instruments, objects and possibly voice and double bass.

Meemo Comma – The Poet [Planet µ/Bandcamp]
Lara Rix-Martin aka Meemo Comma continues their inexorable musical growth, having mastered deconstructed and reconstructed rave and IDM over their last few releases. Decimation of I is structured after the philosophical science fiction novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, famously adapted for film by Andrei Tarkovsky as Stalker. Both works explore a world transformed by alien visitors who are never seen. The album’s title refers to the “ego-death” experienced by the story’s protagonists. While the album promises a variety of musical styles, the first single “The Poet” is a minimalist classical piece for clarinets.

Laura Cannell – See the Moon and the Stars [Brawl Records]
Laura Cannell – Everything is Hidden in You [Brawl Records]
The latest album from the indefatigable British multi-instrumentalist Laura Cannell interrupts her year-long “Lore” series (latest is MAMMOTHLORE and there will be an August one alongside this album, no interruption!). On The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined, Cannell applies her historically-informed part-improvised, part-composed chops to the music and life of 12th-century composer, scholar and nun Hildegard von Bingen. On bass recorders and a 12-string knee harp, both at times played through a delay pedal, Cannell’s always-atemporal music creates a bridge to one of the few female creators and scholars whose works have, in some form, survived to the present. Inspiring as well as inspired, the music here is more Cannell than von Bingen, but a fitting tribute.

Ex-Easter Island Head – Magnetic Language [Rocket Recordings/Bandcamp]
Although there’s no hint on Bandcamp and I don’t think it was announced originally, Rocket Recordings have released a limited CD version of UK quartet Ex-Easter Island Head‘s Norther – which is great as it gives me an excuse to play an album I criminally missed when it came out earlier this year. The band are a quartet now thanks to longtime collaborator & sound engineer Andrew PM Hunt, whose Dialect project has an album coming on RVNG Intl. Each track takes a different approach to sound, with the band’s experimental guitar techniques never far away. Throughout, there are gorgeous scintillations of guitar harmonics, weird pitch slides, guitar strings played as percussion… as well as bass and drums, an aeolian harp (played by the wind), and on this track, sampled syllables of their own voices replayed through guitar pickups and rebuilt into a perfect encapsulation of post-folk-rock-tronica. Gorgeous.

Andrew Tuttle & Michael Chapman – Five and Twenty Days For Lunch [Basin Rock/Bandcamp]
I’ll repeat some of what I wrote from this album’s last single here:
British guitarist and singer-songwriter Michael Chapman worked across many genres up until he passed away in 2021 aged 80. His latter-day following was confirmed in the Tompkins Square-issued compilation Oh Michael, Look What You’ve Done: Friends Play Michael Chapman, featuring Lucinda Williams, Meg Baird and Thurston Moore among others. One Australian fan was Brisbane’s Andrew Tuttle, who’s made a career around electronically-mediated banjo and acoustic guitar-picking soundscapes. By luck, Chapman’s partner Andru had been enjoying Tuttle’s album on Basin Rock, Fleeting Adventure, in the years after Chapman’s passing, and so Andrew Tuttle has had the privilege of expanding on and reworking the unfinished final instrumental recordings of Chapman. The album Another Tide, Another Fish is out through Basin Rock just this coming week and features the original recordings on a second disc. On this second single, Andrew’s fingerpicked banjo is slowly subsumed under evocative, drawn-out and reversed guitar tones.

Michael Scott Dawson – Mono Lake (feat. K. Freund) [We Are Busy Bodies/Bandcamp]
K. Freund – How, On Earth [Soda Gong/Bandcamp]
Trouble Books – Aggregate [Lejsovka & Freund Bandcamp]
K. Freund – Buzzy on Accelerants [Soda Gong/Bandcamp]
Coming out on September 6th from Toronto label We Are Busy Bodies is an album from Canadian sound-artist/producer Michael Scott Dawson called The Tinnitus Chorus. It’s an album of “wide-eyed” collaborations, pitting his field recordings, tape loops and instrumentation against the contributions from mostly-fellow Canadian friends. One such friend is fellow experimentalist K. Freund, who I know from two stunning albums of composition & glitchwork by himself and Linda Lejsovka as Lejsovka & Freund, and their trio Trouble Books with Talons’‘s Mike Tolan. Freund’s piece with Dawson has the characteristic white noise fuzz and stuttering glitch found on many K. Freund works, set in a kind of drone-folk Americana context. I discovered that Freund only just released a new solo album, Trash Can Lamb, in March this year, from which we heard two pieces of some kind of glitch-jazz made from rough loops, tenor sax, piano and other sonic detritus. I cannot recommend strongly enough that you check out the two Lejsovka & Freund albums Mold on Canvas and Fatal Strategies, but while you’re there, the subtle indietronica of Trouble Books’ Balance is absolutely lovely too.

Listen again — ~205MB

Vale Dean Roberts 😢 Plus minimal folktronica; loop-gaze; bass, techno, jungle, doped trip-hop; industrial drone; and variants of contemporary classical.

LISTEN AGAIN, I beg you. Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here.

Dean Roberts and the Black Moths – the fake and detached [Ritornell/Staubgold/Bandcamp]
Dean Roberts – smash the palace and what nerves you’ve got [kranky/Bandcamp]
It was with incredible sadness that I read Lawrence English’s tweet on Dean Roberts‘ death a few days ago. The New Zealand experimental songwriter, guitarist & sound-artist hadn’t released an album since 2000’s Not Fire, but there was no sign that he was ill, as far as I know. He was a year younger than me. I won’t speculate on his passing, but he’s someone who, in his gentle way, touched many in the experimental music scene, from the free noise band Thela (with Dion Workman and Rosy Parlane, two other NZ experimental iconoclasts) to the glorious glitched postrock of Autistic Daughters (with Austrian experimental stalwarts Martin Brandlmayr and Werner Dafeldecker, and our own Chris Abrahams as a frequent guest), and with his solo sound-art/noise/experimental song as White Winged Moth and under his own name. Randomly choose music from his discography and you might hit some granular drone work or hushed, skeletal songs draped over sparse guitar tones and scattered kraut-jazz drums. In tribute – since we’re not going to have any new music from this important figure any more – I chose two solo works from my earliest encounters with his music. 1999’s Dean Roberts and the Black Moths Play The Grand Cinema was originally released on Mille-Plateaux sublabel Ritornell, and re-released by Staubgold in 2004. Here the “song” elements are mostly buried in more freeform noise/postrock/sound-art gestures. In 2003, postrock/ambient label kranky released be mine tonight, an impossibly fragile collection of songs drawing Talk Talk’s postrock into a more freeform jazz world, still with the glitch elements he’d picked up in the late ’90s. Vale Dean.

Lucy Sissy Miller – Horse Girl [Mêtron Records]
Lucy Sissy Miller – The Lighthouse [Mêtron Records]
It feels like the techniques of abstraction and alienation of form used by the likes of The Books, Lucky Dragons and others a couple of decades ago have been absorbed by younger music-makers (whether through Japanese computer games and the outer reaches of J-pop, PC Music’s gleeful repurposing of IDM, and the general destruction of genre boundaries) so that the bio for French-British singer-songwriter Lucy Sissy Miller‘s minimalist folktronica album Pre Country comfortably namechecks Laurie Anderson and Imogen Heap without mention of any of the artists or movements mentioned above. And while I can hear elements of soccer Committee’s collaboration with Machinefabriek and others, ultimately Lucy Sissy Miller’s gorgeous abstracted, electronically processed take on country or folk music is all her own, and I’ll be very cross with you if you don’t check it out.

Seefeel – Hooked Paw [Warp Records/Bandcamp]
Back in 2010 & 2011, shoegaze/electronic pioneers Seefeel released a new EP & album after some 14 years’s absence. Now after almost the same length of time the core of Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock have put together a new album (albeit only 6 tracks – surely an EP), with the familiar sampled & looped vocals of Peacock pulsing through through dubwise electronics. They’ve always had a temporally displaced sound – constructed entirely through digital technology but somehow analogue, even organic sounding. It’s a pleasure to have something new, and we’ll hear the rest of Everything Squared in a week and a bit!

I7HVN – Chains of Bronze [YUKU]
Bangalore-based producer I7HVN (which stands for Ishan) lands on YUKU with his Innate Needs EP after an album released last year on Indian label Qilla. It’s dark and fittingly bass and breakbeat-oriented for YUKU.

Or:la – Chant (Midland‘s ‘Arpeggiate Me’ Remix) [fabric Originals]
Irish producer Orlagh Dooley aka Or:la is the founder of the experimental house/techno/bass label céad (Gaelic for hundred). Her new album Trusting Theta is out on fabric Originals on September 20th, and in the meantime UK producer Midland has taken the very minimal funky electro tune “Chant” and overlaid lavish pulsating synths – a real winner.

Braille – Cost Of Living [Hotflush Recordings/Bandcamp]
NY musician Praveen Sharma was one half of Sepalcure with Machinedrum between 2010 and 2016, releasing the bass music of the time, inspired by UK garage, dubstep and house. With Benoît Pioulard in Praveen & Benoit he explored more ambient & folky terrain as well, but his solo moniker for some time has been Braille, under which he explores garage, house and ravey breakbeat. Following a string of singles & EPs with Hotflush Recordings, Scuba’s label has now released the Triple Transit album, an unrelentingly sunny collection of breakbeat synth bangers. Lovely really.

Hassan Abou Alam – Mesh Mafhoom [Nerve Collect/Bandcamp]
Hassan Abou Alam – Khalsana ft Ziad Zaza [Nerve Collect/Bandcamp]
Out August 30th through Nerve Collect is the latest album from Cairo-based producer Hassan Abou Alam, whose Bandcamp bio says he’s been making tunes since 2008. I’ve certainly been following him for a few years, with releases on Banoffee Pies and YUKU among others. His music’s an electrifying amalgam of UK & US bass styles with fidgety North African percussion and thunderous sub bass. On a couple of tracks here he’s joined by fellow Egyptian rapper Ziad Zaza adding an extra energy.

Muadeep – La Branco [YUKU]
German producer Patrik Schmidt aka Bobby Kudlicz is clearly a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune, given his project Muadeep‘s similarity to “Muad’dib” and a previous EP named HARKONNEN. He’s also collaborated last year with Amon Tobin under his Two Fingers alias. His new album Connected comes via YUKU, a collection of mid-tempo rollers with a lot of African & Middle Eastern samples throughout. Tasty stuff.

Callum Asa & 140 – Drips (Low End Activist Drizzle Remix) [Earful of Wax]
“Drips” is a collaboration between London electronic producer Callum Asa and the nearly-ungoogleable grime MC 140, originally featured on Earful of Wax‘s EARFUL OF WAVS Vol. 1. Now Earful of Wax have released Low End Activist‘s skeletal remix on a limited 7″ dubplate, with proceeds to Palestinian families.

Mantra – Schemes and Dreams [System Music]
V.I.V.E.K‘s System Music, like his own music, tends towards 140bpm, primarily dubstep, so it’s interesting and excellent to hear key jungle DJ and RuptureLDN co-founder Mantra collaborate with the label on her forthcoming 4-tracker, simply titled SYSTEM EP. Dubstep tempos, held down by the sub-bass, but with some nimble breakbeat action. Boh!

The Person – Dub23 Flight1058 [Acroplane]
Defcon – Astropolitique [Acroplane]
Belfast label Acroplane has been around since the early netlabel days, and nowadays they’re again a “netlabel” because aren’t we all now, in the age of Bandcamp? They’re celebrating their 18th birthday with a compilation called XVIII, released 13th of September, with all proceeds for the first year to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Meanwhile a few tracks are available, including the one from The Person (another almost-ungoogleable artist!) – it’s kind of breakcorey jungle that slips into dub reggae halfway through. When it’s out you’ll also get Defcon‘s track which is a crisp amalgam of jungle and footwork with flittery synths. There’s lots of great stuff on here, acid and IDM and techno and breakcore as well.

Ehye אֶהְיֶה – Symphonic [Woodland Creatures]
Ehye אֶהְיֶה – Durge [Woodland Creatures]
Shmuel Hatchwell appeared on Utility Fog earlier this year with a release under his hoyah moniker for Low End Activist’s BRUK label. On the 6th of September, Hatchwell’s Ehye אֶהְיֶה will release his Forgot My Password album on Skwirl‘s Woodland Creatures label. While “hoyah” is an esoteric feminine form of “to be” in Biblical Hebrew, “Ehye” means “I am”. The vibe here is a beat tape of dope-addled instrumental hip-hop filtered through a contemporary bass lens, with pitched-down voice samples, each track based around a few samples, drum machine beats and sub-rattling kick’n’bass. It’s low-key brilliant and I’ll be coming back to it a lot. Fans of Odd Nosdam, DJ Food, DJ Screw or Kenny Segal’s productions with billy woods take note.

Lilacs & Champagne – 144 York Way [Temporary Residence, Ltd/Bandcamp]
Lilacs & Champagne – Dr. Why [Temporary Residence, Ltd/Bandcamp]
Speaking of minimalist, self-aware hip-hop… Alex Hall and Emil Amos are both members of the excellent experimental/instrumental rock band Grails. Their new album as Lilacs & Champagne comes 9 years after their last, and if Grails are instrumental psychedelic rock, this is a kind of instrumental psych-hip-hop. It’s not so interested in the contemporary bass music that permeates Ehye’s beats, but for head-noddin’ beats and musical collage it’s up there with the best.

Connor D’Netto x Yvette Ofa Agapow – Material IV – dopamine deficit [A Guide To Saints/Bandcamp]
From Room40 sublabel A Guide To Saints comes a stunning album from two Meanjin/Brisbane-based musicians: composer Connor D’Netto and sound-artist/noise artist/vocalist Yvette Ofa Agapow. Calling the album Material is a statement in itself, as the two musicians build roiling drones, rattling anti-rhythms and swooping bass from pieces of metal, tape, natural fibres and other objects as well as voice and electronics. The first track is an imposing, droney beginning that I encourage you to press through as no one track is representative of the whole.

Laurence Pike – Mountains Of The Heart [The Leaf Label/Bandcamp]
We’ve heard the opening “Introit” from Laurence Pike‘s album The Undreamt-of Centre a few weeks ago, in which his usual drums, samples and keyboards are augmented by the Sydney Philharmonia Choir‘s VOX choir (made up of 18-30 year olds), suggesting the gravitas of a requiem. “Mountains Of The Heart” re-centres the music on Pike’s percussion, so that when the voices enter near the 4-minute mark it’s an unexpected opening-up of the sound-field. The voices merge into synth drones, which subtly slide downwards as the piece concludes. I’m looking forward to hearing these pieces in context, and might bring you a sneaky preview of some album tracks in the next week or two.

Family Ravine – Part Chance [Death Is Not The End]
Kevin K.W. Cahill runs the Power Moves Label & Library (also a label), releasing not only his music under many monikers but also other artists of an experimental bent, somewhat ambient, somewhat lo-fi. His Family Ravine seems to focus on folky guitar that mingles with field recordings and weird found-electronics. It’s truly hard to pin down, and that’s what’s so beautiful about it. On (I​’​ll) waltz in and act like (I) own the place, released on entirely eclectic London label Death Is Not The End, the guitars – acoustic and electric – are joined by thumb pianos, mandolin and radio static, for freeform music that’s too active to be drone, but too formless to be folk. Whatever it is, it’s gorgeously beguiling.

Amy Brandon – Intermountainous (2017) [New Focus Recordings/Bandcamp]
Canadian composer Amy Brandon was a performing guitarist for many years, and wrote many works for herself on classical guitar with electronics. More recently she’s retired from performance, and composes endlessly rewarding music for a variety of instruments, encouraging extended techniques on flute, string ensembles, a duo of cellists and more, drawing the musicians through ghostly sussurations to wild scratching and screeching – as well as lyrical passages. Rather than strings or flutes, however, I’ve chosen the one guitar work on her new album Lysis, performed here by Julian Bertino. The 10-string guitar here creeps through disquietingly microtonal lines until spectral electronics join and the guitar begins some softly rhythmic fingerpicking passages, with those strange micro-detunings catching the ear. The fingerpicking builds into a passage of fast, repeating phrases that are almost overwhelmed by windy white and pink noise, before dying down to microtonal phrases and shimmering electronics.

Listen again — ~208MB

A lot of moody music tonight, some different types of “jazz”, music from Norway, Japan, the Netherlands, UK, Germany, Canada and of course Australia.

LISTEN AGAIN, it’s a mood. Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here.

ØKSE – Amager feat. billy woods [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
ØKSE – Amar Økse [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
Starting tonight with a record that literally came out today. It’s odd to find essentially a free jazz record on billy woods‘ great underground hip-hop label Backwoodz Studioz, but here you have it. ØKSE are a Norwegian-American quartet, as far as I can see, featuring the great Norwegian saxophonist Mette Rasmussen and Norwegian bassist Petter Eldh whose Koma Saxo we heard earlier this year. Eldh plays synths and sampler as well as holding down some wicked bass, and Haitian composer, percussionist & turntablist Val Jeanty adds scratches and other sounds (she’s credited as “sound chemist”), while NYC-based Setter Harris pounds out live free-jazz breakbeats. So it’s pretty out-there stuff already, and the rhythm section is heavy and nimble. On their self-titled debut record, half the album (four tracks) has guest appearances from NYC hip-hop vocalists, including both billy woods and his Armand Hammer other half ELUCID. The word “alchemical” may be overplayed in music writing, but there’s definitely some kind of magical transmutation going on here – from this afternoon’s listen this is shaping up to be a 2024 highlight already!

Coppé – My Funny Valentine (Sonny-Boy Anderson & GIZAT Rework)* [Mango + Sweetrice Records/Bit-Phalanx Music]
Coppé – Fever [Mango + Sweetrice Records/Bit-Phalanx Music]
Coppé – Cry Me A River (DJ Kensei Remix) [Mango + Sweetrice Records/Bit-Phalanx Music]
A few weeks ago I previewed the new album from Japanese chanteuse and experimental electronic pop veteran Coppé, someone who’s worked with the likes of Plaid, Atom™, Terminal11, Georgia’s Nikakoi and many others. Aside from IDM & experimental electronica, she is well-versed in jazz and classical music, and in 2022 decided to do a “pure jazz” album – albeit still with an interesting sound. *​(​Un​-​)​tweaked featured mostly covers of jazz standards, with one or two originals, and of course the “un-” implies *( -​)​tweaked, which is now here in the form of a remix album. It’s all great, with some admirably radical reworkings. Having selected the first track, I then went searching and discovered that Sonny-Boy Anderson is none other than the son of The Designers Republic™ founder Ian Anderson, whose cartoonish, typeface-obsessed designs defined Warp Records, Pop Will Eat Itself and more from the beginning of the ’90s. Sonny’s drum’n’bassy rework of Coppé’s “My Funny Valentine” cover is a collaboration with young UK artist GIZAT. And then we have a brilliant deconstruction of her “Cry Me A River” by DJ Kensei.

MAREWREW – Etukuma Kara (M.RUX Remix) [Pingipung Records/Bandcamp]
Staying in Japan, but heading north, we find MAREWREW, an a capella quartet of women keeping alive the musical tradition of the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido and other northern islands of Japan. The Ainu’s culture has long been suppressed, and the “Ukouk” singing here is incredible: repetitive canon structures (rounds) in which the singers move the reptitions slightly out of phase – live! MAREWREW’s original album Ukouk. Round Singing Voices of the Ainu 2012-2024 was released earlier this year by Pingipung Records, and I plan to dive in soon, but in keeping with the musicians’ desire to keep this tradition alive, the label have commissioned a series of remix EPs. From Ukouk Remixes Pt. 1, today we heard the lovely melodic techno of Berlin’s M.RUX.

WaqWaq Kingdom – Hado [Phantom Limb/Bandcamp]
To me, WaqWaq Kingdom‘s new album is their best yet. The duo of Kiki Hitomi (who’s worked with The Bug in early King Midas Sound, Goh Nakada aka Gorgonn in Dokkebi Q and many others) and Shigeru Ishihara (aka DJ Scotch Egg aka Scotch Rolex, who has indeed also worked with Goh Nakada) are both known for heavy bass projects, but with WaqWaq Kingdom they’ve brought an unhinged psychedelic approach to reggae influences along with Japanese traditional musical styles and dance styles from all over. On Mind Onsen, there’s a slight reduction in manicness (slight!) and a re-affirmation of BASS, especially on the second track, “Hado”.

b0t23 + inoperative system – Simplo (Roel Funcken Remix) [From Roel’s Bandcamp subscription/original here]
I subscribe to the Bandcamp of Roel Funcken, which includes the music he & his brother Don made as Funckarma. Since the late ’90s they flew the flag of IDM high, incorporating dubstep and bass music and ever-increasing technological advances. Roel’s output has slowed of late, but every month we still get something exclusive – there’s a huge amount in the archive! This month is a remix of US artist b0t23 + Spain’s inoperative system, a track from their recent Reticle EP reworked in Funcken’s trademark glitchy, low-slung funk.

samwho – St Elmo’s Fire [Intercept Records/Bandcamp]
Staying in the Netherlands, young Rotterdam artist samwho has made a name for himself DJing in his hometown (a place with a long fabled history in techno and rave music). His new EP is Gaea’s Good Grace for Dutch label Intercept Records, two tracks of energetic percussive bass techno.

Modern Norman – The Frogs [Suitably Bizarre]
MastaGlow – We Wanna Roll [Suitably Bizarre]
Louis Hubris Nooz – Dunrobin Stobie [Suitably Bizarre]
Last week I played the first track I could find of “hit em”, the genre that sprung up out of a dream Drew Daniel related on Twitter a mere two weeks ago: it’s in 5/4 time at 212bpm with super crunched out sounds. Drew is one half of highly-beloved experimental electronic duo Matmos with his partner M.C. Schmidt, who played a hilarious, memorable and beautiful hour and a quarter show at Phoenix Central Park on Friday night. Sorry if you missed it. Also on Friday, Drew woke up to the bizarre fever-dream of not just some partial joke tracks on Twitter, but a whole compilation of hit em. Disposable Heroes of Hit Em was conceived by Adrien 75, who in a bizarre coincidence I met in 1999 at a Matmos gig in NYC shortly after he had a hand in one of my favourite IDM compilations ever. Adrien asked a few friends including Adelaide’s Tim Koch and NZ’s Michael Upton (the three have a project together called Takamu), and along with a couple of other friends they put the compilation together in a few days. It’s a lot of fun, only occasionally acceding to the breakcore/jungle temptation found elsewhere, while also covering melodic IDM, skittery ambient and frenetic Dave Brubeck sampling (I mean, of course). Tonight’s three tracks are from Adrien, Michael and Tim in that order, FWIW.

Mattr – Amaranthus [Mattr Bandcamp]
Out now also is a single new track from Birmingham IDM producer Mattr. Amaranthus follows the album Pheno released a few months ago, and it’s his lovely twinkly ambient-melodic synth work with a clattering drill’n’bass beat. Joyous.

Meat Beat Manifesto – Into The Sun Pts 1&2 [Yellow Machines]
Jack Dangers’ Meat Beat Manifesto was there at the beginning of jungle, arguably presaging UK hardcore and jungle with the 1990 breakbeat masterpiece “Radio Babylon“. “Into The Sun Pts 1&2” is Meat Beat Manifesto’s side of a split 12″ on London label Yellow Machines, who appropriately focus on hybrids of IDM, hardcore and jungle, and that’s very much what we get here, flitting through various styles of breakbeat accompanied by NASA samples I think. It’s a corker, if not quite as intense as MBM’s recent collaboration with Merzbow, Extinct.

Boris Hauf – hw26 om [Shameless Records/Bandcamp]
The one track I played tonight can only show a portion of what’s in store on German musician Boris Hauf‘s album CLARK3 – from the edges tongues grow. It’s the third in his CLARK series, the previous two of which came out on vinyl & digital and focused more on minimal techno and ambient sounds. The third continues Hauf’s meditations on humanity’s current state – digitally divided, heading towards climate collapse – and looks to a “futuristic interstellar co-existence”. The music here varies from glitchy post-industrial ambient to technoid experimentation and faster-paced IDM. Oh, and “CLARK3 is produced AI free”.

o’summer vacation – 宿痾(Shuku-a) [Alien Transistor/Bandcamp]
Although courtesy of The Notwist‘s Alien Transistor label, our next selection veers into noise punk with Japanese trio o’summer vacation. The riff-heavy sound is produced only with bass, drums and voice, the bass screaming and heavy with effects, and vocalist Ami slathering herself in delays. Brilliant.

Stick In The Wheel – A Thousand Pokes [From Here Records/Bandcamp]
Somehow segueing perfectly out of o’summer vacation are Stick In The Wheel, English folk duo of Nicola Kearey & Ian Carter who in the last more than a decade have revived raw, acoustic traditional folk (with various cohorts) and simultaneously taken folk into strange electronic climes (Ian Carter was a founding member of dubstep iconoclasts Various Production, and makes music solo as EAN). But you can also find them making distorted punk-folk like on the title track for their forthcoming album A Thousand Pokes, which takes a satirical look at the current age from their unique standpoint.

Clark – Green Breaking [Throttle Records/Bandcamp]
Also forthcoming is Chris Clark‘s expanded soundtrack to Naqqash Khalid‘s award-winning film In Camera – which incidentally I can’t wait to see. Clark’s abilities as a classical composer of great sensitivity are combined with his electronic production – seemingly on everything he does – so this comes highly anticipated.

The Smile – Don’t Get Me Started [XL Records/streaming links]
Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood’s “not-Radiohead” project The Smile, with jazz drummer Tom Skinner, already put an album out this year, but now they’re back with a moody electronic single, great enough on its own but further augmented by the trippy (as usual) music video created by Aphex Twin collaborator Weirdcore.

Robag Wruhme – CDV feat. Bruno Pronsato (Remix-Edit) [Kompakt/Bandcamp]
In the late ’90s and early ’00s, Gabor Schablitzki was one half, with Volker Kahl, of one of my favourite IDM groups, Beefcake. Their material is mostly out of print but you can hear their three albums on YouTube here, here and here – drill’n’bass and acid madness, post-Aphex melodies, glitchy processing and all. Then in the early part of the new millennium Schablitski started to find success as a techno DJ with Wighnomy Brothers and making remixes and original music both under that name and as Robag Wruhme. I was really not attuned to tech house or 4/4 techno at the time, so it wasn’t until years later that I realised the brilliance of this new phase… Now Robag Wruhme is a favourite, and he’s still a bit of a larrikin – weird things always happen somewhere in his tracks, but there’s also a lot of heart and melody. This track features Berlin-based Bruno Pronsato aka Steven Ford, purveyor of microhouse, minimal techno and also rather experimental sounds at times – in fact I think it’s Robag’s “Remix-Edit” of a live set of Pronsato at Club Der Visionäre .

Severin Black & Owen Pratt – I (Vulcanised Types) [Archaic Vaults]
Here’s some visceral industrial-noise with a direct connection to the physical world. Severin Black runs the Archaic Vaults label, whose releases are usually mastered by France-based sound-artist Owen Pratt. After an excellent untitled cassette a few years ago, their debut album is simply titled Duet. Many of the tracks are derived from field recordings and feedback – self-propelling “duets” such as one between bass amp feedback and an open snare drum, for instance. “I (Vulcanised Types)” may or may not feature hardened rubber, but it’s one on which the drones are set back a little, driven by primitive industrial rhythms. This is richly grimy music.

Lawrence English – ShellType [Room40/Bandcamp]
For his forthcoming EP ShellType, Room40 boss Lawrence English has been thinking about the blurring of our selves as we become dependent on, and augmented by, technology. This blurring is found in the four tracks too, where field recordings and human-created sounds are conflated into sculpted drone, whether the gamelan hiding somewhere in the winds on all four tracks or the drawn-out voices reverberating through the title track, while sub-bass looms like distant foghorns and mysterious sounds crackle at the edge of hearing. This is one to listen loud on your stereo late at night, or lying on the floor with headphones on: 25 minutes of immersion.

Erik K Skodvin – A dark escape [Miasmah Recordings/Bandcamp]
Erik K Skodvin – Prayer [Miasmah Recordings/Bandcamp]
Miasmah Recordings is the remarkable label created by Berlin-based Norwegian musician Erik K Skodvin, a home to certain types of dark experimental music that often fit the moniker “acoustic doom”. Skodvin is a cellist, guitarist and producer (often releasing music as Svarte Greiner), and is extremely adept at creating engrossing, troubling atmospheres from very minimal sources. The new digital EP Afterwar is music made for the docu-fiction film of the same name by Danish director Birgitte Stærmose, shot over 15 years to document the lives of four survivors of the Kosovo war. Skodvin’s music is moody and moving.

Mark Hjorthoy – A Heart Full Of Hollow Wounds [Unexplained Sounds Group]
Italian musician Raffaele Pezzella curates the Unexplained Sounds Group, a group of record labels covering industrial and experimental music from all over the world. One of their great achievements is the “Anthology of Experimental Music From…” series, which has covered experimental music from regions like Latin America and the Balkans as well as specific compilations from Iran, Lebanon, China, Indonesia, Finland and beyond. The latest is Anthology of Experimental Music from Canada, featuring mostly artists I’ve never heard of. Tonight we have one of the less abrasive offerings, a beautiful piece of pulsating synths, Fender Rhodes (I’m guessing), crackles and tape hiss from Vancouver-based Mark Hjorthoy.

Gregory Paul Mineeff – Advancement [whitelabelrecs/Bandcamp]
Wollongong composer Gregory Paul Mineeff‘s latest album is a slight departure from his usual ambient/post-classical piano & synths. Released on English label whitelabelrecs, the album adds quiet, minimal drum machines and nostalgic electric guitar throughout. A lovely closer for tonight.

Listen again — ~210MB