It's been almost two years since the last Disrupt record, 1997's Foundation Bit, a killer head spinning mix of old school 8-bit Atari sounds and bass heavy dub and dubstep. A pretty potent combo for sure, and that record still gets lots of play, so we were pretty psyched to discover there were not one, but TWO new Disrupt discs, the other one, The Bass Has Left The Building, we'll review on a future list, but this one is the one that has been driving us nuts, forcing us to listen to it over and over and over. The MO is pretty much the same, but somehow, the dub is even deeper and bassier, and the video game sounds are way more pronounced, which makes for some seriously fun and funky shit.
Album opener "Bauhelm Tracker" sounds like a video game soundtrack remixed by some dub sound system, before the follow up track which is a straight dub version, complete with soulful vocals, groovy and dark and smoldering, which leads right into the dub version, which is awesomely spaced out and druggy, snare cracks careening all over the place, effects swirling and swooping, head spinning and so good.
And the rest of the record follows a similar pattern, with the 'tracker' version being the eighties video game soundtrack version, then the straight up vocal version, and sometimes a super spaced out dub version. Thankfully, Disrupt and Marley are loose enough to let diverge from that pattern whenever the mood strikes them, so a dub version will be laced with some bloops and bleeps, or a video game jam will get all dubby.
Such an incredible palette of sounds, and these two have such a deft hand at arranging, that things never sound cheesy or silly, playful maybe, fun and a little ridiculous here and there for sure, but overall these are just some seriously deep dubby grooves, that just so happen to be laced with some 8-bit bleep, which as far as we're concerned is not a bad thing at all.
One of the most highly anticipated records of the year (at least for AQ staff and customers alike) is *finally* available. And Geodaddi is not a disappointment, although the record breaks no new ground. For those of you who love the Boards of Canada mellow
Until we run out, we've got the limited cd in a hardcover book-like package, and also the limited triple lp. If you order this, make sure to specify your desired format, and let us know if the regular jewel case version (which we also have, at $17.98) is ok if we're out of the special ones. PS: triple-lp vinyl back in next week, hopefully...
Reissued once again! Hi-Scores is the first EP that Boards of Canada produced for the exemplary electronica label Skam. "Turquoise Hexagonal Sun", a track that later appeared on the acclaimed debut album Music Has The Right To Children, is featured in a slightly more skeletal form. The other five tracks retain their signature rainy-day electronica (albeit a bit dirtier than their later more nuanced sound) grounded by softened hip-hop breaks and post-Eno ambience. As always, Boards of Canada makes for a very pleasant if often slightly unsettling listening experience!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is a reissue of the first Boards of Canada single for Skam. The song "Turquoise Hexagonal Sun" that later appeared on the acclaimed "Music Has The Right To Children" album is also featured here in a more skeletal form, with the remainder of the album taking on a dirtier, beat heavy approach to their trademark bedroom-electronica melancholia.
Reissued once again! Hi-Scores is the first EP that Boards of Canada produced for the exemplary electronica label Skam. "Turquoise Hexagonal Sun", a track that later appeared on the acclaimed debut album Music Has The Right To Children is featured in a slightly more skeletal form. The other five tracks retain their signature rainy-day electronica grounded by softened hip-hop breaks and post-Eno ambience. As always, Boards of Canada makes for a very pleasant listening experience.
Brand spankin' new four song ep from Boards of Canada. Sounding much like the material from their full length "Music Has The Right To Children", "In A Beautiful Place..." is full of morose, minor key, down-tempo electronica. Lots of grainy synth and organ melodies that pensively meander over simple beats, much like the early ambient works of Aphex Twin.
Long-awaited vinyl reissue of one of the dreamiest and influential records of the nineties has finally arrived! We were sure we must have written a review sometime back in the day, but its 1998 release long predated the list, and whenever there was a subsequent reissue, we only mentioned what an essential and classic album it is, never really needing to quantify why it was so, because basically we have to assume everyone knows about it, right? But fifteen years on, let's try to put it in words how much we love this record and what it means when we have said in so many following reviews since this came out about that ubiquitous Boards of Canada "sound".
Having released a couple of obscure singles and a hard-to find full length, Boards of Canada seemed to have come out of nowhere when they made their major-label debut. Named after and inspired by the seventies documentary film company The National Film Board of Canada, this band of Scottish brothers Marcus Eoin and Mike Sandison created one of the first IDM outfits that built off the futuristic electronic and downtempo beatscapery of genre pioneers Autechre and Aphex Twin while infusing their music with a warm, nostalgic and sun-dappled melancholy. It was hard at first to pinpoint what created that distinct nostalgic feeling, because back then not many folks were as clued into the world of library music (essentially instrumental soundtrack music made by private companies for use in commercial and industrial films including the educational-minded National Film Board of Canada) as we are now. Many of the melodies and themes on Music Has the Right to Children seem to be lifted straight from those elementary school educational films, the type that inhabited our childhoods as well. The music gives off a warbled lilting pastoral vibe that prismatizes into a sunburst of kaleidoscopic reverie, evoking memories of hip educational graphics of basic science concepts like geometrical forms, color spectrums and weather patterns that would allude to a larger sense of wonder that we, as adult listeners, no longer seemed to have. How it was made, whether through instrumental musicianship, a sophisticated sampling and filtering process, or a combination of both remains mysterious today. A few years back when the philosophic concept of Hauntology (a past premonition of a future that never was, to put it very simply) was being bandied about a lot with groups like Broadcast & The Focus Group and The Caretaker, many have spoken of this album as a key musical touchstone. It does indeed have a strange quality of being both of and beyond its time, a quality in turn that continues to bedazzle, beguile and bewitch. Essential!
Over the past decade, there has been much speculation about the myth, meaning, and men behind Boards of Canada. Aside from a very few interviews (most recently in the October, 2005 issue of The Wire), Boards of Canada have remained quiet. Perhaps it's better that way, as their music is the sole reason why they have been catapulted from being an obscure electronica project with a couple of singles under their belt to being the flagship band for Warp. As a result, there's not much for us to really say about Boards of Canada. There's no juicy gossip to salivate over, no heavy-handed concepts that preclude any listening experience, no convoluted band geneology. Campfire Headphase is simply another great Boards of Canada record, filled with a dreamy ambience that flickers between a digital clarity and the warbled drag from dirty tape heads. These cozy electronic drone phrases wrap around the same set of slow breakbeats that defined their classic debut Music Has The Right To Children. What sets The Campfire Headphase apart from the earlier Boards Of Canada recordings are the sparse melodies plucked on guitar and then spun through their liminal DSP effects. They've not entered the indie-tronica field of The Postal Service and The Notwist, but instead, they've taken the pastoral warmth of the guitar and made it their own.
It's been eight long years since we last heard from this much loved but mysterious electronic duo and every new release always seem to bring a lot of fanfare and debate. It's always a difficult proposition to have a highly anticipated release from a band with a devoted, perhaps even cultish, following, as it seems that everyone wants it to sound different enough from their classic sound yet still retain the same qualities that endeared you to that band in the first place. And of course, if it leans too close to either side of that spectrum, division occurs. Folks either find comfort in the familiar, or are completely indifferent. Or are thrilled by the new direction, or angered by it. Case in point, the last My Bloody Valentine record.
Boards of Canada have never deviated much from what they're best at: well composed and structured melodies that have a worn, warm and warbled sense of nostalgia. Aged library sounds, abstract organic design and educational nature film scores were often the heart of the bands reference points. On 2005's Campfire Phases they added more folk music atmospheres with delicate guitar work, but it wasn't significantly different from their most heralded and beloved release 1998's Music Has The Right To Children. Both records even had similar cover art, which of course had some fans crying foul!
So it's 2013 and we finally have a brand new record and it's definitely their most mature and complex record to date. We're also happy to report that it's fast becoming one of our favorite releases this year. While it has certain touchstones that make it sound distinctly like a BoC record, the feel overall is much darker, tense and moodier, reading like a score to some environmental science fiction film like Idaho Transfer or Phase IV (or more recently, Beyond The Black Rainbow!). Just check out some of the song titles: "Reach For the Dead", "Cold Earth", "Sick Times", "Come To Dust". Even the album title and the cover shot (of San Francisco, taken from the Alameda Naval Shipyards) gives off a Soylent Green vibe. The nostalgic quality that permeates the band's sound has a more toxic feel this time around too, as if hearkening back to a place now poisoned, a kind of daylight horror dread.
The opening track, "Gemini" starts out with a crackly filmstrip fanfare like from some old seventies educational film, and that sort of faded, gristly, sci-fi vibe pervades throughout the first track, a dark, blurred, fuzzy field of pulsing synths and ominous atmospheres, it's immediately evident, that the new BoC is a much darker beast than the group who brought us the pastoral, autumnal Music Has The Right To Children. Even when the second track kicks in, the sound remains shadowy and sinister, the pulsing rhythm wreathed in a field of crackle. The sound does eventually lighten a bit, processed voices drift in (reminding us of The Conet Project!), rumbling bass melodies surface from below, until eventually some of the old BoC returns, big beats, a churning propulsive rhythm, locked into a disjointed, but weirdly hypnotic groove. But almost as soon as it gets going, the track ends, leading directly into another haunting cinematic sprawl of swirling synths, and pulsating melodies, sounding like an alternate soundtrack to the aforementioned recent throwback surreal sci-fi art house film Beyond The Black Rainbow, conjuring up all sorts of lysergic images and psychedelically induced fever dreams. And so it goes, BoC fusing the old loping, meandering beat driven dreaminess, to something a shade darker. Some tracks locked into tranced out smoldering grooves, draped in chiming softly distorted melodies, others, brooding menacingly, some peppered with creepy processed voices, only adding to the seventies creepy sci-fi/horror flick vibe, and still others blossoming into time-lapse slow motion sprawling expanses of experimental rhythmic textures, shifting dreamily, tonal colors bleeding into each other, woozily prismatic, like the music from some old crumbling, planetarium show. While the old BoC sound surfaces throughout, Tomorrow's Harvest, definitely exists in a much bleaker soundworld, where Tomorrow's Harvest is perhaps meant as a cautionary tale, these sounds the score to a future world scorched and barren, a world of faded memories of what once was, and what could have been, had it not all gone terribly wrong...
Through their refined sensibility of unspecified nostalgia and willful obscurantism squeezed into a succinct form of ambient electronica, Boards Of Canada have been nothing if not consistent in what they've produced over the past decade. Even when there's been huge gaps between recordings when the currents of electronica may move this way or that, they still mine the same electric beatitudes cultivated on their still impressive album Music Has The Right To Children. So with the release of Trans Canada Highway EP, Boards Of Canada offer yet another facet of their signature sound -- you know, airy breakbeats swaddled in delicate warbles of hazy ambience and melodic interplay between synthetic patches and warm 'n' fuzzy acoustic guitars. The opening track, "Dayvan Cowboy," can also be found on the previous recording The Campfire Headphase and gets reprised at the conclusion of the EP by way of a pleasantly wandering Odd Nosdam remix.
Now that the world has fallen love with Boards of Canada's languid, pastoral instrumentals, 'tis high time for a re-release of their first ultralimited album Twoism, recorded in 1995. The original vinyl of this record goes for hundreds of dollars but you can have the disc for a normal price (and it comes with a sticker too). BoC's sound features warbly synth tones plucking out almost childishly simple melodies -- the duo's skill is more in conjuring up their trademark warm, organic fuzzy sound, a mix of shuffling arty breakbeats tapped out on the snare and mixed with early Mo-Wax-style doped out whooshing layers of atmospherics. It's really, really beatuiful, although after three full length releases I am begininng to find the melodies a trifle same-y, as if one keeps hearing the same three notes over and over, only slightly varied for each track. The Boards' peak remains their Music Has the Right to Children album, their least predictable ad most artistically inspired record. However Twoism is a fine, and previously virtually unheard by most of us, debut. Worth a listen.
Sometimes we find ourselves reviewing music that we don't necessarily have the vocabulary to describe in a way that properly references all the sonic touchstones, but in a lot of ways, those sorts of the reviews are the ones we dig the most, where the comparisons are not the ones from right off the label's onesheet, or borrowed from some other reviewer who is an expert in whatever genre is being discussed. Which is appropriate since we know very little about EBM, or electronic body music, a strain of electronic music popular in the late eighties, which is how Body 11 would most likely be classified, alongside more well known bands like Nitzer Ebb, Front 242 and labels like Wax Trax and Nettwerk. The label does mention Skinny Puppy, which definitely gets more to the heart of why we dig this so much, and we DO.
If those above bands mean nothing to you, don't despair, cuz to these ears, the sound of Body 11 is more proto-grebo, 'grebo' being shorthand for greasy bastard, a phrase coined to mean a group of bands that included Pop Will Eat Itself, Gaye Bykers On Acid and the like. And that's actually more what we hear in the music of Body 11. Super dramatic vocals, crooned, howled, drenched in reverb and delay, the vibe swaggery and almost glammy, the pulsing electronic backdrop, peppered with super distorted percussive blurts, and the occasional slash of crunchy fuzzed out guitar, which is why we'd do the musical math for Body 11 like Sigue Sigue Sputnik meets Suicide? Or Pop Will Eat Itself fronted by Gary Glitter, via the aforementioned Skinny Puppy?
Of all the Medical reissues, this is the grittiest, and grimiest of the bunch we think, and we're digging it like crazy, the first four tracks, culled from Body 11's original 1988 single are untouchable, swarthy and swaggery, creepy and crunchy, slithery and groovy, snarly and pulsing, like early Depeche Mode demos roughed up and transformed into something altogether more misanthropic. Way worth it just for those 4 tracks for sure. The bonus tracks are cool too, but are missing some of that attitude, and are a bit more polished, and thus less grimey and grungey, definitely a fun listen, but we find ourselves listening to those first four over and over and over...
LIMITED TO 650 COPIES!! Pressed on heavy 180 gram milky clear vinyl. Includes a printed insert with extensive liner notes!
We're not entirely sure where we first heard about Body Hammer, we're not really sure if it's a band or a guy, what we do know, is that this is some seriously fierce and fucked up hypergrind / math metal / black drone weirdness. 18 songs, all but 6 less than a minute long, some of those as short as a matter of seconds, every one an awesome chunk of sonic mayhem. The 1:41 opener is all creep and creak, moan and drift, downtuned guitars and tinkling melodies, some sort of Wolf Eyes / Goblin hybrid, which leads right into 31 seconds of ultra technical, super distorted, gnarled and chaotic noise drenched metallic grind, that should hit the spot for Discordance Axis fans and anyone who digs all that drummachinegun grind. The 14 second follow up is a brief white hot squall of harmonized guitars and malfunctioning drum machines, which leads directly into another industrial drone drift.
The first 2/3 of the records pass in a blur, lurching from haunting droney ambience to chugging churning grinding metal madness and back again, stopping for brief forays into blacknoize, dreamy lo-fi ambient drift, as well as some under 20 second hypergrind workouts, all tweaked FX and lightspeed blast beats, high end feedback laced dronescapes, and rumbling guitardronebuzzandblur.
With 5 songs to go, Body Hammer lets the songs sprawl, and pushes the sound in even more fractured and fucked up directions, a super distorted in-the-red, lurching black doom trudge through a haze of glitched out distortion and howled vokills, thick crumbling post industrial dirgescapes, all reverbed clank and clatter, thud and pound and crunch, hypnotic static guitar drifts built from layered drones and laced with clean guitar twang, warped bass, and buried vox, until the final 7+ minute track, a harrowing blackened doomic dirge, groaning guitars, and distant vocals, which leaves 5 minutes of silence, before a minute or so of white noise hiss and intercepted voices from the ether.
Fucked up and fucking awesome. Packaged in a dvd case, with a printed insert, and while they last we have the super limited deluxe version that comes with a bunch of extra goodies and is wrapped in a sumo cloth and sealed with a sticker.
Another archival bit of lost sixties synthesizer music from the very mysterious Urusula Bogner. Or is it? We made the Ursula Bogner full length our Record Of The Week a while back, a collection that purported to be the music of a British housewife, who was basically a secret one woman BBC Radiophonic Workshop, spending her time at home during the day, collecting and building analog synthesizers, constructing soundproofed recording studios, inventing strange instruments, and most importantly, creating some incredible spaced out, subtly psychedelic electronic music. But the catch is, she just might not be real, and in fact, might just be the construct of Jan Jelinek, whose Faitiche label 'discovered' Bogner and assembled that collection. You can read more about Mrs. Bogner in our review of the full length, but as far as we were concerned, it hardly mattered, if she was in fact real, it's an amazing discovery, if it is actually a hoax, then it's an incredibly and meticulously pulled off hoax indeed, and after all, it all comes down to the music, which in either case, is absolutely fantastic.
This super limited 7", was released to coincide with a show / exhibit of music and drawings by the mysterious Mrs. Bogner, the sleeve features what we would assume is a photo of the lady herself, as well as a drawing of hers on the backside, as well as some postcards, the music though, is again, awesome, sci fi new age, primitive space music, analog synth explorations, a gorgeous starscape of squiggly high end shimmer, flurries of warbly black hole muted melodies, streaks of hiss, everything wreathed in reverb and echo, primitive FX, even some super stripped down robotic drum machine, total Lost In Space otherworldly cinematic sixties sci fi space wave bliss. So whether it's archival and historical, or modern and a bit cheeky, we'll still happily proclaim Mrs. Ursula Bogner our favorite sixties sci fi synth pioneer!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
So when you were a kid, what do you think your Mom got up to while you were at school, or out playing with your pals? Doing laundry? Cleaning the house? Doing the dishes? A little gardening? Or maybe playing bridge? Canasta? Going to the grocery store? How about collecting and building analog synthesizers? Building a soundproof recording studio in the extra room? Recording strange space-y minimal electronic music on reel to reel tapes? Or building an 'orgon accumulator' in the backyard? Such were the activities of a mild mannered housewife named Ursula Bogner, who in addition to being a pharmacist, as well as a loving wife and mother, just so happened to also be obsessed with electronic music and analog synthesizers, but unlike others with similar interests (were there other 30 something housewives so obsessed?), Bogner didn't just read about electronic music, she attended seminars, followed the activities of various groups and musicians (even apparently sharing her children's enthusiasm for new wave pop!) eventually deciding to create music herself.
She never released any recordings, didn't even really make public her hobby, instead, she simply spent her free time, creating, composing, recording, experimenting, for over 20 years, amassing an incredible body of work. All of that wouldn't merit anything but a cursory glance and maybe a chuckle, if the music weren't amazing, but it is, fantastical and inspired, primitive and raw, playful and childlike, but also, haunting and mysterious, otherworldly, and so incredibly varied, from spare academic sounding minimalism, to Perrey & Kingsley style playfulness, to super stark click and skitter that would be right at home on Raster-Noton, to swirling fantastical spaced out soundscapes that could have been sixties sci-fi soundtracks. The sounds are so evocative, so mysterious, it almost seems impossible that they were recorded by a Mom in a spare room in a house in the suburbs.
The collection opens with "Begleitung Fur Tuba", which indeed features tuba-like tones, locked into a playful grove with a bleepy bloopy rhythm, which is eventually joined by streaks of static, and a warbly main melody. From there, highlights include "Proto" which is kaleidoscopic and groovy with a super minimal click-track rhythm. "2 Ton" is almost like space age lounge music, with it's reverbed guitar like shimmer, and slithery tempo. "Speichen" is another playful number, the burbles and bloops, and definitely predicts groups like James Bong, Luke Vibert, Boards Of Canada and the like. "Punkte" is another minimal groover, with a hissy static rhythm, a bloopy bassline, and all manner of descending and ascending electronic tones, as well as pizzicato bleeps that almost sound like an alien thumb piano. The longest track is "Soloresonanzen" and is maybe the dreamiest, taking the minimal click of Raster-Noton, and draping it over slowly shifting layers of electronic whir and buzz, peppered with bits of click and glitch, textural hiss, woozy melodic fragments, very dreamlike and meditative. And finally the record finishes with a brief burst of tangly scribbly electronic whir and skree, all mad scientist machines gone haywire, but deftly arranged into a pretty alien lullaby, weird and wonderful.
Bogner's music was discovered via some pretty incredible happenstance, Jan Jelinek, who runs the Faitiche label, met Bogner's son on a plane and the two got to talking, Jelinek was an electronic musician, so was Bogner's deceased Mother Weirdly enough, and well, the rest is history. Or is it? There has been much talk that this is all a massive hoax, or more correctly, the ultimate concept album. Carefully crafted down to the tiniest details, photos, back story, Bogner's artwork, everything. In some ways it doesn't really matter, in fact, it's almost more impressive if the whole thing was in fact fabricated, but you know what, fuck it, it's so much more fun to just go along with it...
The cd is gorgeously packaged in a thick book-like digipak, with extensive liner notes from Jan Jelinek, notes on each song, lots of photos, as well as various reproductions of Bogner's various outer space linocuts.
Several years ago, we made the first archival release from housewife turned experimental electronic musician Ursula Bogner our Record Of The Week, even knowing full well, that there probably is no Ursula Bogner. On the surface it definitely seemed like the find of a lifetime. The story involved someone's casual interaction with a man on a plane, discovering that this man was the son of a virtually unheard experimental electronic musician, a mom and pharmacist, who had built a recording studio in their home, and who had recorded for twenty years, those recordings proving to be impossibly prescient, the sort of sounds that would stand up to similar recordings at the time by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. That initial release was filled with all manner of documentation, photos, notes, like we said, it seemed like the real deal. But it also seemed like an ingeniously perpetrated hoax. The man in question who supposedly ran into Bogner's son on a plane, was none other than Jan Jelinek, whose music is not all that dissimilar to Bogner's. Perhaps we're just the suspicious types, but there seems to be little or no information about Bogner, other than that provided by the label, which could just speak to her absolute obscurity, but could also speak to the fact that it's all a put on. To be honest, we want to believe it. How cool is that story? But that said, as we mentioned in the review of that first release, if it IS a hoax, we like it even more. So meticulously planned, photos, hand written notes, then the music� Similar to those funereal violin cds we carried a while back (that guy not only recorded all the cds, he also wrote a whole book about the history of funereal violin!), it would require a whole other level of creativity, but enough about all that, it is ultimately about the music, as much as we love the story, true or not, and like the first record, this is another fantastic collection of 'early' primitive recordings, these newly unearthed tapes featuring a focus on the voice, which was not present before, and our first actual exposure to the voice of Bogner, who supposedly passed away in 1994. Opening with piano and vox, the sound fluctuates as the tape speed falters, the sound is murky and definitely sounds old, plenty of spaced out effects, female voices processed into mysterious melodies, percolating rhythms, primitive and very low fidelity. Some of the tracks feature kitschy sounding organs and snippets of looped pop music, but they are transformed into cool sixties style tape music, occasionally lush and lovely, other timeshaunting and austere, there's one track in particular which finds Bogner reciting numbers over a backdrop of hiss and static and blurred melody, that most definitely is a nod, intentional or not, to the perennial aQ fave The Conet Project.
As with the other record, there are expertly penned liner notes, translations of original texts that Bogner wrote to accompany the pieces (especially the boxed cd version which features a massive 100+ page book of liner notes and artwork), all very cryptic and Eno-esque, tons of photos, of installations, of the reel of tape these tracks were discovered on as well as Bogner herself (again, especially in the book that accompanies the cd!). Very recommended of course, for fans of vintage sixties experimental music, of Jan Jelinek, and of impeccably crafted musical hoaxes.
Boards of Canada fans take note! Outside of solipsistic IDM circles, Bola has, for the most part, been forgotten due to the overwhelming popularity of Boards Of Canada -- an electronica duo just as good as a Bola who got the fortunate break of landing on
Also, a word about the cover art -- it's so beautiful that several of the AQ-staff bought it on vinyl just cos it's so gorgeous. Since the designer is not credited, we'll just assume it's the Bola folks who put together these incredibly detailed, full color illustrations of fantastical insect-like creatures that have been created by careful collaging of imagery seemingly lifted from under the sea or inside the body. Just great looking!
We will soon have two versions of this album on vinyl -- both are nice gatefolds holding two lps. The cheaper one is black vinyl, the $24 one features two gorgeous pictures discs. You may reserve copies.
With Autechre abandoning the tropes of the Intelligent Dance Music genre they helped originate back in the early '90s and Aphex Twin currently in hibernation, there are few options in the current IDM community for new and exciting discoveries. While not new per se, Darrel Fitton's Bola project has been a staple of the Skam label, and has consistently provided almost all of those choice IDM moments as of late. With a preternatural gift for somber lullaby melodies and an unwavering appetite for skittering broken breakbeats, Fitton encapsulates everything good about the IDM electronica sub-genre. Bola's third album Gnayse follows the pun-as-title trend found on all of his records, as when you compress his name with the title, you get something that sounds close to bolognese. This follows Bola Soup (Bowl o' Soup), Bola Mauver (Bowl 'em Over), and Bola Fyuti (which according to a Bola fansite is footie-baller). Yeah, its stupid; but the music more than makes up for the silly titles. Darker and more melodramatic than Boards of Canada, Gnayse meshes complex yet mid-tempo polyrhythmic skittering beats with vast minor chord seascapes and compelling synth melodies. Certainly as good as its excellent predecessor Fyuti.
Three years have passed since we have last heard from Daryl Fitton and his Bola project. It seems that many of his contemporaries in the IDM community have also been enjoying lengthy sabbaticals. Boards Of Canada and Autechre have both been laying low for the last couple years, and Aphex Twin has kept a low profile too, well at least as Aphex Twin. Needless to say, after a hiatus as long as three years we could surely expect some noticable changes to the seemingly stalwart Bola sound; and yes, the dark veneers of jetblack melodies, spiralling electronic algorithims, and midtempo breakbeats do lighten up considerably. Fitton has always stated that his origins stand as a jazz drummer; and perhaps more than any of the other records do those jazz sensibilities express themselves here. The electronica grooves of Kroungrine have a jaunty spring to their collective step, and the mood is much more playful than before. A very nice listen through and through.
After a long absence, finally repressed!!! Here's what we said when this was first released: After a brilliant single and a fantastic contribution to the "Mask 100" compilation, Bola has released his debut album. Fitting right along side fellow Skam residents Gescom (aka Autechre) and Boards of Canada, Bola offers an unmistakable ambiance of freefloating synths and delicate breakbeats while retaining an alian sensibility to rhythm, form, and development. The end result has been qualified as "chill-out music for the non-emotionally handicapped."
Release number ten from local label Time Released Sound, a one man operation that produces some of THEE most extravagantly packaged micro releases we have ever laid eyes on, with every element of every release meticulously assembled by hand, or built, or drawn, or collaged, or whatever it takes to realize these miniature works of art. Which is precisely what these are, they are records obviously, and the music is fantastic, but that steep price tag is because this music is paired with the perfect packaging, that both represent the sounds within, the unique and ephemeral nature of sound and of music, and these works of art offer a visual analogue to the music, thematically linked in a way that's not always super obvious.
Needless to say, every release is fantastic, sonically, visually and aesthetically, and we're lucky to even get any of these considering how ultra limited they are.
Which brings us to this, the latest piece of musical art from Time Released Sound, which comes to us from musician / field recordist Will Bolton, who here indulges in his interest in the industrial revolution in the UK, by setting his miniature epics in the Quarry Bank Mill, one of the largest and most important textile mills in the UK, and is again an actual functioning mill. Bolton made repeated trips to the mill to capture the sounds of manufacture, of looms and machines, all manner of industrial whir and clatter, rumble and hum, around which he weaves lush and lovely drones and drifty bits of soft focus psychedelic folk. We're reminded a bit of Rameses III, a sort of pastoral folk, but performed on the floor of some old functioning factory.
Little bits of acoustic guitar shimmer, shards of melodic filigree, looped and fragmented, layered and woven into the sounds of machinery, Bolton's own drones deftly blurred into those of the mill, until it's impossible to tell what is field recording and what is music, until the music gradually fades leaving just the sound of the mill, which is surprisingly musical on its own. A deft application of effects, and of manipulate samples, sound reversed and layered, truncated and stretched out, creating these darkly delicate lullabies, rife with music box tinkles and folky flutter, laid out in dreamlike swells, and draped over the sounds of that aged mill. So lovely.
And as always, the packaging is top notch, a printed, hand distressed, 6" square cloth bag, made from raw unfinished cotton, at the actual Quarry Bank Mill, there's also a hand distressed, printed and numbered tag, while inside, the disc is in a full color digipak, and is accompanied by a hand worked and sewn textured paper booklet, with liner notes, as well as images from and photos of the mill. So fantastic, and SO LIMITED. JUST 100 COPIES. We have a dozen and will most likely not be able to get more.
Oh my god! This label continues to astound. These kids forsake the dancefloor entirely by creating insane, broken grooves, barely audible beneath the distortion, shredded by sound collages and spoken samples. More likely to make you bang your head than shake your ass. Domesitc version of the full length by one of Digital Hardcore's most intense (and youngest) groups...
It's such a formula. I'm finding it hard not to scoff. [1] ALBUM COVER: blurry photo of wall, stairwell or Eames chair (graphic designer friend happens to have a pair in living room). [2] MUSIC: endlessly repeating rhythms resembling depressed heartbeat, overlay arty record crackle. [3] INNER SLEEVE: not there to convey information; must be totally blank except for more blurry photos of horizons and shit. [4] LABEL: must be German or Austrian; if you release it on an American electronica label no one will pay attention to you. Et voila. Electronica-by-numbers.
We've never really reviewed any records by either of these cats, even though they've both been causing quite a stir in the electronic underground and have a bunch of releases under their belts. But what better way to induct them into AQ land than with this two way split.
Dutch mash up master Bong-Ra presents a massive forty minute mix, dumping in everything and the kitchen sink, HI NRG techno, nineties rave music, reggae, drum and bass, gabber, two step garage, even some Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. We barely recognize any of it, but it's all so good, and the mix is so perfect, it -almost- sounds like all of these bits and pieces were meant to be together. Gloriously schizophrenic, super manic and relentlessly fun and funky. Some essential dance party music for sure.
But never one to be outdone, Belgian dancefloor destroyer Sickboy offers up his own 30 minute megamix, another dizzying swirl but this one is HEAVY on the hip hop, lots of killer rappers and classic joints all tangled up with manic drill and bass, European house music, dancehall and pretty much everything else under the sun. The rhythm stays pretty constant, a relentless techno throb peppered with bits of Sean Paul, soul and RnB and lots of stuttery synth stabs, hiccuping beats, chopped and screwed vocals, and tons of random samples. Phew. We don't even dance and we're exhausted.
As The Books third full length begins it immediately offers a darker, more somber atmosphere than its two quirky, playful predecessors. The first track drifts along with a seeming frailness as though there's barely enough energy to raise a finger to a guitar string. Single notes are struck and left to hang in the air, and the already brittle spoken-sung vocals strain to reach the audible level. From there things get a little more edgy and unstable with layers of processed vocals and insistent clickety-tappity typewriter-esque rhythms, but then it all promptly subside into a more typical post-rock infused pop breeziness for the very-Pinback-ish third song "Smells Like Content". The rest of the album continues in this slow, hazy contemplativeness with occasional outbursts of rounded propulsion. Actually, Lost And Safe sounds much like something you might imagine those Bedhead brothers Matt & Bubba Kadane composing for a road movie soundtrack (if you take their film score for the documentary Hellhouse as a jumping off point). Would probably make for a fine late night of thinking, driving album... that is if your vehicle was a quiet, dimly lit room.
From the very first few notes of Thoughts For Food, you get an inkling that The Books aren't going to take you on a straight ahead, sensible musical journey, and your inkling would be right! The Books may slightly puzzle with their stylistical and structural meanderings. Layering in dialogue samples and field recordings amid this laidback fray adds to the raw, roaming feel of this album. Much like their absurd titles (of the album itself as well as the songs), the music - a contorted, eccentric, folky blend based around acoustic guitars, fiddle, bass and some fragments of beats - twists, flips and folds back onto itself. Engagingly unpredictable, you never know what mood The Books will be in - solemn, frisky, or ??? Choosing excerpts for you to give you more of an idea of this release was difficult, so from the twelve songs you get a snippet from the first song (which is also the title track) and one from the tenth. If they pique your interest, well then you'll simply have to check out the complete cd to find out where they rambled to and fro in between those points.
Boom Bip's third and best album to date. Hands down. Well, at least to me. Boom Bip (aka Bryan Hollan) seems to have learned from his explorations in hip-hop leaving a song-kraft that has transcended into a beautiful pop-bathed electronic wonderland. Synthy leads into songs. Composed and respected beats. Hints of analog instrumentation everywhere. It's great!
Excellent! Now this is the sort of stuff Mo'Wax should be putting out, this is what those yuppie lounge bars should be playing instead of fuckin' Kruder and Dorfmeister. Boom Bip may be familiar to you through his Four Tet remix and collaborations with Dose One (Them, cloudDead), but you'd be forgiven for thinking he might be on Mo'Wax -- this record's got all the trademark spacious open wide sonic vistas, echoey breakbeats, movie dialog samples, hip hop reverence, and melody galore. A different take on the whole rock meets electronica thang that only a few bands can pull off well (Fridge, Tarwater, DJ Shadow when he's sampling guitars), Boom Bip mixes space rock with electronica absolutely perfectly, and grounds it with hip hop, lest the thing get too cerebral. There are slow breakbeats, sweet chamber strings, throbbing epic bass, dubby echo, unabashedly rock-based chord progressions, and eccentric scratching. Plus lots of dynamic changes -- the record never gets boring. There's even a finishing track that makes use of Felt-like or Durutti Column-ish tinny guitar. Now, it's not a "weird" record, not even ultra challenging, but it does what it does perfectly. I am very impressed!
Oh, it must also be said that this disc has got artwork we're fairly wetting our pants over -- brown coffee cup stains on neutral cardboard, with gold foil pressed graffiti logo, and a die cut thru which shows the barcode. And then the insert incorporates the barcode stripes into all these pretty loops spelling out Boom Bip. Wow.
Latest chunk of electronic weirdness comes by way of 21 year old producer Boothroyd (aka Peter Boothroyd), and whose debut for Tri Angle is fantastically dreamy and druggy and sounds like some mutant strain of shoegaze grime. A dizzying collision of swirling psychedelic sampling, murky, loping beatscapery, spidery melodies, a hazy, lo-fi, almost witch house-y sprawl laced with industrial clatter, distorted swaths of crumbling noise, it's all super atmospheric, a bit cinematic, but also darkly propulsive, and in constant flux, the sound drifting through murky morasses, and into sun dappled expanses of crystalline shimmer, pelted throughout by all manner of glitched out noise, and fractured FX, in places buried voices writhe in garbled tangles beneath robotic beats that stutter and sputter, a sound laced with strange little squelches and squeaks. The production is super dubby too, lots of echo and reverb, the sound mutating from dense and dizzying to spare and hypnotic, often within seconds, crunching cascades of blow out beats dissolve into lush, layered ambience, warped grooves undulate over gristled glitches and cascading un-funky beats, while below, fragmented melodies, and all manner of sonic detritus flit and flutter, billowing clouds of soft noise, that coalesce into dreamy, heaving smears of chordal thrum, and sometimes just as quickly dissolve into confetti like sheets of decaying sonic crumble. A new favorite for sure, and one of the cooler, weirder Tri Angle releases in a while...
Includes a huge, full color poster too!
Our biggest Gui fan wasn't into it so much, sorry.
New tracks from one of our favorite colorful electronic music makers. His 12"s tend to be a bit more techno sounding then his proper albums, but still always good stuff.
We had almost given up on the current state of electronica when all of a sudden we started getting some pretty amazing electronic albums, of all different varieties in the last few months. Whether it's killer Dubstep from Boxcutter, the glitchy laptop stutter of Tuk, or Lindstrom's infectious Nordic beardo-disco, our electronic section has gotten a much needed face-lift and a serious boost of exciting energy! Now thanks to Kompakt (one of our all time favorite labels, home to the Pop Ambient series of course) we've got two more electronic gems to fall in love with. The Field's From Here We Go Sublime (also highlighted on this list) and this debut by Brazilian producer/sound architect Gui Boratto. Possessing a punch and vibrancy not usually associated with Kompakt, who are known more for their dreamy soundscapes and simple house-y pulses, Chromophobia is one of those records where the music inside matches the cover art perfectly. Rich bright colors in all sorts of pleasurable shapes, clean and smart and stylish. Proving that dance minded music doesn't need to be dumb, this has us thinking quite a bit of Double Figure era Plaid, or the perfect left-field microhouse of Isolee's We Are Monster. Throw in some rich sonic textures that had Andee thinking of Fridge for a moment, and the gorgeous sole vocal track "Beautiful Life" and you have all the right ingredients for one of the best electronic records of the year!
It's been a pretty great month for electronica here at the store with brand new releases from our favorite artists on Kompakt. Last list we raved about new outings by The Field and Walls, and this time we get to gush about the third album by Gui Boratto. It took us a couple listens, but we now can say we deeply dig this record so much, as Boratto really strikes such vivid moods and sounds on each track. His debut album, Chromophobia has become a total classic in our books, ranking as one of our favorite electronica albums of the last decade. While we for sure liked his follow up, we would be lying now if we said it was as great as that debut. And while III might not erase the fact that Chromophobia is still our favorite, we got to say that we are getting way more into this than the last outing and remembering why we fell so hard for Boratto in the first place. And lots of that is due to a single song, "The Drill", which first showed up on the recent Total 12 comp and has to be the best thing we've heard from him. A heavy bassy low slung groove, all fuzzy and distorted, with a weird woozy synth melody and some cool handclap snares, the drums wreathed in effects, a little bit of backwards whhhhoooo, and then suddenly the bass gets even more distorted sounding crumbling and fuzzy and almost metallic, and then it does it AGAIN, getting more weirdly effected and distorted, only to slip right back into the more muted groove, and so it goes, that super catchy bassline synthgroove, constantly changing tone and timbre, the sound following suit, slipping from groovy and slithery, to super blown out and crackly, distorted and in-in-the-red, and right back to that moody sorts of housey skitter. Someone needs to make us an hour long mix of just this song, cuz we'd set out cd player on repeat and listen to nothing else.
But even beyond that track, the sounds Boratto creates have such bright colors and lush warmth, and at the same time he's also has really introduced a newfound tension into his songs, reminding us of the heyday of IDM, combining elements of folks like Plaid and Aphex Twin into something all his own!
Gui Boratto's debut Chromophobia helped us fall in love with electronica all over again a couple years back. It really marked a resurgence in quality and creative electronic sounds after several stagnant years. It's a record that some of us here have probably listened to more than almost any other electronic record since we first laid ears on it. The way he so effortlessly creates shapes and colors with his sounds made Chromophobia a record that kept unfolding on repeated listens, offering more and more as we fell deeper and deeper in love. The way Boratto is able to make melodic electronica sound so warm and bursting with color is exactly what had, and has, us so smitten.
So here we are two years later and the follow up to that great debut, has finally landed, it's called Take My Breath Away, and of course our expectations were kind of crazy high. We have to say now, having listened to the record several times, Boratto has indeed created another total winner! On first listen, while it sounded pretty good, we weren't totally blown away, but then we remembered how Chromophobia took a little time to grow on us and truly sink in, but once it did, we were fully addicted and totally obsessed. The same is the case for Take My Breath Away. What makes Boratto so special is his keen sense of melody, that's probably why so many folks who aren't usually that into electronica end up asking what's playing when we have this on in the store. He's able to bring song structure and rich melody to the world of techno and minimal house. There are some moments on this outing that find him leaning towards a bit more traditional techno but luckily those moments are way outnumbered by his more imaginative explorations. Songs that find themselves as at home on the dance floor as much as on a twisty turny beautiful long road trip, the music energizing, and offering up a wide array of sonic color to help you stay alert as you soak it all in.
Not many folks are able to make music that is so pleasurable for both the body and the mind but Gui Boratto has found a way, and we're tapping our toes and thinking all sorts of deep thoughts and dreamy dreams at the same time...
Available as a cd, or on double vinyl packaged with the compact disc as well.
Gui Boratto's full length Chromophobia came at such a perfect time. For a while we had been a bit unimpressed with the current state of electronica when it showed up. Along with records by The Field, Lindstrom and Burial, Chromophobia reminded us that there was in fact a renaissance of creative and rewarding electronica being created in a myriad of styles. But no doubt about it Chromophobia has become a unanimous AQ favorite, a record that we listen to in the store all the time. The fact that Boratto has a background in architecture sorta makes sense with all the in the amazing shapes and colors that his sounds and songs suggest. Teamed up with Martin Eyerer on this 12", the duo have a firm grasp on crafting unforgettable melodies within the music they make. Much more rich and bold than most minimal tech-house yet sharing nice parts of that sensibility. Nice to see the Brazilian Boratto and German Eyerer joining forces to show that a thread of forward minded electronic music runs across the globe.
Electronic musical pioneer David Borden might not be as famous as a name as Robert Moog, or Don Buchla, but he was in all the same right places at the same right times, beta-testing Moog synthesizer prototypes, taking them apart, blowing them up and repairing them repeatedly in an effort to perfect patching techniques. He formed the first all synthesizer ensemble, Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company, in 1969, and headed the one of the first record labels devoted to New music and Minimalist composition, Earthquack, that inspired later more prodigious labels such as Lovely Music.
Music for Amplified Keyboards is his 1981 unsung masterpiece made from solo recordings made in the late seventies after the ensemble had called it quits. Long unavailable and remastered from a once thought lost safety master recording, it is great to see this unheralded composer finally getting some recognition. The RVNG label had done a Freakways installment with Borden that included modern synth purveyors such as James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin and Laurel Halo, but it's nice to hear his original compositions on their own. On par with the works of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich, the four long tracks on this release contain a minimalist repetition that is both fluid and continuous, but there is also a pastoral landscapular ennui that has touches of the romantic and human, chilly but not at all cold or distant. Incredibly performed and executed. Another fantastic archival release from Spectrum Spools!
AKA UNKLE meets the Boredoms "Dysfunctional Monster Jam". This is a one track continuous megamix by James Lavelle and Richard File of UK Mo'Wax electronica act UNKLE, with scratching by the Nextmen (?). Due to the high import cost, perhaps not entirely necessary for anyone but the Boredoms completist, as UNKLE simply dips their hands into the Boredoms' back catalogue, speeds it up, slows it down, and ring modulates it. (Yeah, I bought one!) Actually it's a pretty great mix, especially for fans of the "new" Boredoms style. Rebore Vol. 2 is apparently in the works, don't know who's doing the remixing on that one...
This is volume 2 in the Boredoms remix series, and continues in much the same manner as volume one (which was an an U.N.K.L.E. mix), with a crazy, seamless 40 or so minute continuous mix of Boredoms mania. This mix is by Ken Ishii, and is quite nice, though it basically sounds like a Boredoms mixtape, which is not a bad thing. Can't wait to hear volume three though, mixed by DJ Krush!
At long last, a new release from the elusive and mysterious Borful Tang (for his head scratching back history, please refer to our reviews for his Root cd and On The Back Of A Dying Beast 2cd-r). A mischievous sound collagist, he's like some peculiar sonic macrame'd synthesis of Negativland, John Oswald's Plunderphonics, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the Sun City Girls / Sublime Frequencies camp... but he doesn't stop there! He then can match immersive wits with the best of the dronologists too. At times Herd And Unherded is languidly lulling, at others it's a barrel of percolating loopiness, while still at others sinisterly possessed. Mr. Tang is clearly something of an obsessive collector of sound sources. He's amassed a vaultful of tapes and vinyl - field recordings, video game soundtracks, religious AM radio broadcasts and other disembodied voices to name just a few. He consults with them, meticulously pares and processes 'em, and the pieces are then refashioned into something which is altogether new, yet haunted by the eclectic phantoms of the past. Add to this sonic palette an arsenal of a homemade electronic gadgets, and you have something festooned with mad scientist goggles and soldering goo. Go on, give your ears a wild feast to munch on. Recommended!
Who or what is Borful Tang? Well, according to the website of the delightfully named Snurp (the folks who released this cd), the mysterious 'it' is a 'he', and outcast from a distant place and time. Legend has it that Borful Tang was a hill herder who moved hills with sound. Still with us? Okay then, if you'd like to discover his lengthy full story for yourself you can find it where we did, but in the meantime here we have his cd Root -- his wildly eclectic music apparently having been transmitted to us via the conduit known as Dominic Cramp -- quite a multi-faceted gent in his own right (also recording under the monikers of Qulfus, Amazing Colossal Man and Modular Set). Borful Tang's music is trippy, out there, and particularly in the early part of this album, very NoMeansNo-ish in its propulsive tech-y bass lines. Heck, the first track is titled "Borful Tang Loves NoMeansNo"! And we think NoMeansNo samples may be the secret. The latter tracks feature collaged computer voice conversations (sourced from what we guess were English speech lesson tapes) and burbly analog electronics. We'll bet quite a broad range of strange music lovers will dig this... if the names Plunderphonics, Negativland, NoMeansNo, BBC Radiophonic Workshop tickle your aural funnybone!
Borg is a suitably anonymous project based out of Brooklyn, which has released two albums to date on Phaserprone. This is the first album, which was originally released back in 2007 and was thought to be out of print until Phaserprone uncovered a small (and we mean small!) stash of these for Aquarius. Dark, very dark techno that sounds like Chain Reaction heroin house as played through the Wolf Eyes suitcases of analog electronics and industrial stomp rhythm machines. Spooky atmospheres and really creepy samples from horror movies seem to emerge behind every bassbin crushing beat and every stalking bassline. This one is even better than Borg's 2009 I:A album, due to the shroud of darkness that envelops Borg's electronics. Just buy it. You won't regret it.
