The return of this minimal bleep-glitch super group, or maybe super duo would be more accurate. Cyclo is Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), and for their second record, they've upped the ante conceptually, as the project was already focused on the visualization of sound, on Id, this is taken to its logical extreme, where the duo focused on the actual images of the sound, using stereo image monitoring equipment, and these pieces are the results of creating sounds, by manipulating their visual components, there is a forthcoming book of the images, but THIS is what those images SOUND LIKE. It's pretty awesome. We're fascinated by wave forms as well and had actually often wondered about reverse engineering sound, but these two have done it, and the results are pretty amazing. And as always, not that far removed from the Raster-Noton aesthetic, extreme lows, impossible highs, sine wave tones, rumbles so low you can almost feel them more than hear them, skittery glitches, and abstract squelches, rhythmic, but not seemingly purposefully so, just a result of crafting particular sonic shapes. Headphones are definitely required, but be careful, even at low volume, some of these sounds seem to bore right into your skull, especially the low tones, the opening few seconds is a field of static and barely there dog whistle tones, but when the bass comes in, it rattles your brain, and might hurt your ears if you have it cranked. We couldn't help but imagine blasting this in a lowrider with a massive booming system, it would probably level everything for blocks.
Minimal, austere, haunting, clinical, weirdly lovely, some of the tracks crafted into actual grooves, but strangely alien robotic hyperminimal clean-room click-buzz grooves, some of the sounds super thick and buzzy, these guys could definitely give Justice and Daft Punk some pointers, in fact, a few of these tracks are ready to be sampled, and transformed into dancefloor destroyers.
As always fantastic stuff, and simultaneously the most groovy, and most sonically extreme sounds we've heard from these two, and we're digging it like crazy.
Cylob's new three-track single has caused a bit of a stir here at AQ. Not 'cause of the title track, a catchy electronic pop-dance ditty a little safer than similar efforts from Aphex and Squarepusher ("My Red Hot Car" comes to mind, but this is less edgy, more
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Former Aphex Twin prodigy Cylob has taken an irony-laden approach to early '80s top-40 synth-pop with lots of vocoder vocals about sex and how cool it was to live in the '80s.
So Cylob are kind of a gimmicky band. Once in a while they come up with a great electro pop gem, like the (admittedly love-it-or-hate-it) sea shanty on their Cut the Midrange ep we review also in this list. But now they've bestowed this silly,
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Can's Czukay teams up with Dr. Walker (of Air Liquide) for two discs of live-recorded (on tour in the USA and in Cologne) "techno" jamming. This is a little better than we thought it would be, but it's still pretty bad. Thick rhythmic throbbing, utilizing dictaphone, shortwave radio, samplers, and an 808.
Pleasant, soundscapey abstract electronica from Soul Static head honcho Darryl "D" Moore (who we admire for his collaboration with To Rococo Rot). Nice, but a bit short for a purported "full-length": 5 tracks, 20 minutes.
Another slab of awesome eighties style electro new wave digital funk dreaminess, from a mysterious Canadian, released by the label that brought us Games and White Car. Layered synths, pulsing minimal beats, all drifting beneath reverbed soulful vox, a bit like a more electro/new wave How To Dress Well (a recent AQ Record Of The Week), the music leaning more toward the Goblin/Carpenter/Zombi axis, sort of futuristic retro sci-fi soundtracky, slipping from droning electronic psychedelia, to pounding big beat to almost '80s MTV style electronic pop, the vocals drawing it all together, and weirdly enough, reminding us quite a bit of Peter Gabriel, as if someone took those old classic Gabriel records, and time machined them into the body and soul of some modern music maker, who created the same music, but filtered through a slightly cracked, modern avant electronic music lens, the result a psychedelic electronic retro pop, equal parts new wave, old soul, eighties pop, synth wave and dream pop. Nice!
PHTHALO 18. D84 is the work of local powerbook technician Blevin Blechtum (one half of Blechtum From Blechdom along with Kevin Blechdom... just to keep everything straight). For another non-CDr release from Phthalo (keep 'em comin' Dmitri!), D84 massproduces percolating electronic rhythmic inventions culled from lots of expressive sample manipulations. Layers of buzzing electrostatic droning flange nervously next to
references to the stochatic electronics of academic circles (after all both Blechtum & Blechdom did go to Mills). Fans of Matmos are requested.
Deutsch Amerikansiche Freundschaft (German American Friendship) or better known as D.A.F. were one of those key early electronic groups that provided the missing link between Cold Wave Minimalism and German Industrial Techno. They, themselves called it EBM or Electronic Body Music. Formed in 1977, out of weirdo art music outfit, Der Plan, D.A.F. started out as a five piece group pioneering the new wave of German Industrial music two years before Einsturzende Neubauten. But after their first two albums, the group quickly slimmed themselves down into the efficient two man sequencer team of Robert Gorl and Gabi Delgado. Playing up themes of Nazi fetishization and hardcore homosexual sex, with the spare and sometimes brutal production of krautrock pioneer, Conny Plank, D.A.F.'s songs were massive underground club hits in the early eighties. If anyone remembers John Dwyer's shortlived "fauxmosexual" industrial-electro joke band, Zeigenbock Kopf, he pretty much ripped D.A.F. off wholesale, if somewhat poorly! This "best of" covers the three records D.A.F. made for Virgin between 1980-1982, Alles Ist Gut, Gold Und Liebe, and Fur Immer, altogether ignoring their Industrial beginnings (sadly), as well as their later 2006 incarnation (thankfully). But it is this fertile period that D.A.F. became famous for, and it's probably a more consistent listen as a whole than if all periods of the group were represented. Fans of groups like Cold Cave, Cut Copy or any of the coldwave / post-punk comps from Belgium, France and Germany, should definitely check this out!
This collaboration between Howie B and Naked Funk is surprisingly good, reminding us of Two Lone Swordsmen-style melodic expansive electronica.
Daedelus has such great taste! From the cover art (a frame borrowed from Winsor McCay's classic Little Nemo In Slumberland comic strip) to the wide range of influences, you can these all shape his amazing and eclectic blend of uber smart and sharp post modern electronica/hip-hop. While some folks like Scott Herren (Prefuse 73, Savath & Savalas, etc) need many side projects to fit the needs of a particular sound & style they want to explore, Daedelus has mastered bringing it all together under one colorful umbrella. Brazilian mamba meets warped out glitches meets post rock momentum meets anything and everything. From start to finish this album has lifted us into the air and into a world where you keep moving and the colors keep changing and somehow it always makes perfect sense. This is for sure the most assured and coherent album in an already impressive back catalog. Daedelus has proven with this release that he is a creative musical mind fresh in his prime.
L.A. native Alfred Weisberg-Roberts is Daedelus, and he apparently wasn't as sure about the success of this project as was Dimitri from the Phthalo label, who claims he had to pry this out of Weisberg-Roberts fingers in order to release it. "Her's Is> [sic]" is a dark electronic narrative riddled with strange answering machine recordings from a dosed-up raver girl who thinks she's a poet. Rapid rhythmic cuts and muddled electronic calliope melodies mutate into the harsh, almost industrial aesthetic of the early Rephlex catalogue. For an electronic record, this has the uncanny lo-fi feel, as if this album's originated on a 4-track rather than a computer. Odd to say the least. We haven't yet decided who (Alfred or Dimitri?) was right about the merits of this recording...
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We all loved Donnie Darko. And apparently so did Boom Bip and Daedelus, who decided to get together and make a couple tracks inspired by and perhaps borrowing from the film. Boom Bip's side is a throbbing ambient wash, like listening to Crash Worship scoring a love scene from Sixteen Candles. Propulsive tribal drumming underpins huge shifting slabs of new wave-tinged ambience, minor key and melancholy. Sounds like it could have been lifted wholesale from the actual score! Daedelus' track is a skittery moody, down tempo late night electronica workout. Hip hop infused soundscapes, dreamy and dark with gorgeously mournful piano (sampled from the film) sounding like a track Shadow could've come up with in his prime. Limited to 2000 copies, never to be repressed.
It's been over 6 months since Daft Punk played in San Francisco but anyone who was there will never forget it. Daft Punk proved they are one of the greatest live experiences on the planet. From an immaculate trance inducing light show, to a futuristic pyramid shaped console that they were housed in and then of course the loud, supremely danceable songs that they blasted through the amphitheater as thousands of people grinning wildly, completely let themselves go, dancing with ecstasy and an adrenalized joy that we rarely ever get to experience. Alive 2007 captures that show (and that recent tour) perfectly. It's pretty much the same set they played here as they morph many of their songs into one new track which gives a new life to many of their already well known songs from their three albums.
We're sure that at least one Daft Punk record has found its way into your subconscious (Discovery will always be our favorite!) as they are a duo who have discovered an amazing way to be accessible to such a wide range of people (ravers, metal heads, hip-hop kids, gay club scene, indie rockers, ordinary joes, etc) yet create music with such charged and creative energy. They manage to bring elements of disco, prog, house, psychedelia, funk and rock to a level of ecstatic heights rarely reached in popular music. Long live Daft Punk!!!
Ha! Ha! Ha!!! It comes with a fucking credit card! A credit card, forsooth! What a bunch of scrubs.
Man, what is it about Daft Punk that makes me want to take my clothes off and freak out like a retarded art-school girl?! Actually, I kinda wish this record, their third, was as dynamic as their last album, Discovery. Some of the tracks on Human After All, however, quickly get into their perfectly produced ironirock/electro groove, then just kind of sit in em for a while, then it stops and a new song begins this process again. But whatever, HAA maintains that awesomely big, totally sexy, electrorockified sound. Robot Rock might be my fave, like a perfect blend of Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue and Def Leppard. Oui c'est bon!!!!
Our French duo, Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter, obviously enjoy what they do and make music for the sake of making music, sorta like post-modern musical-pharmacists. So tune-in, turn-on and drop-out man.
The future funk robots are back and they brought with them an arsenal of legendary guests: Electronic euro-disco king Giorgio Moroder, Phantom of the Paradise and AM Gold madman Paul Williams, and Chic's Nile Rodgers who reigns over what will definitely be THE summer jam this year, "Get Lucky" with Pharell. Panda Bear of Animal Collective and Julian Casablancas from The Strokes round out the special guest roster.
In the eight years since their last effort, the duo decided to eschew the computer technology of today and instead recorded the whole album in analog direct to tape, rewiring modern dance music with a fresh prog-disco retro sheen. Basically, school's out kids, here's your candy. Bright, delicious, electric candy.
Vinyl is 180 gram, includes digital download; the cd is not quite so thick and is its own digital download.
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It's kind of hard to review this objectively. As of right now, we're exactly 17 hours away from seeing a movie we've been waiting more than 20 years for, and we can barely write reviews, except for the fact that if we don't get the list done early, we won't get to go see TRON, and we know it's gonna be amazing. Some of us already have plans to see it 3 times, once in 3D, once in a normal theater, and once on the IMAX, the previews look incredible, and the music we'd heard sounded incredible. What a great idea, who better to do the music for the new Tron than a couple of guys who look like they just stepped straight out of the movie anyway. Helmeted and futuristic, makes sense that they play DJs in the movie as well. But we digress.
We'd heard nothing but complaints and gripes about Daft Punk's score for Tron Legacy, most directed at the fact that it sounded more like a soundtrack than a Daft Punk record. Which makes sense, but that's just us.
To be fair, much of the soundtrack, doesn't sound like Daft Punk at all, so for sure, folks after a Daft Punk record, you may just be disappointed. But Tron obsessives, well, shit, you either already bought this, or didn't even get this far cuz you already tossed it in your cart. For everyone else, Daft Punk have crafted a pretty excellent score, instead of Daft Punking all the music, they actually worked with a real orchestra, and tried to create a classic score, a la John Williams, or Hans Zimmer, and to these ears, it sounds pretty great, soaring and epic and lush and evocative, and there's plenty of electronics, sometimes melded to tense strings, othertimes wrapped around orchestral swells, and occasionally left alone to create John Carpenter like synthscapes. It's not until about halfway through that it gets remotely Daft Punky, "End Of Line" is a brooding, moody, bit of propulsive sci-fi synthery, "Derezzed" is THEE jam, the one that you've no doubt heard by now, and the only REAL Daft Punk sounding track, but it's killer. Can hardly wait to see what's going on in the movie during this song, and finally, the end titles, which sound like Daft Punk doing their best eighties straight to video sci-fi VHS video jam and it rules, but beyond that, it's way more soundtracky, than Daft Punky.
We've been listening to this like crazy, and digging it big time, even removed from the movie, it sounds great, but more than anything, it has us DYING a little bit more every minute to finally see the movie!
Comes in super futuristic reflective Tron style packaging!
Not purely hip hop nor dub nor electronic, Dalek might be right at home on Mike Patton's similarly genre-leaping label Ipecac. You may have heard Dalek rapping on top of Techno Animal's "Dead Man's Curse" track, a big favorite of Windy's from 2001. This full length is ferocious and powerful, full of threatening silences and massive bursts of noise. I like it. Dalek's epic, incantatory vocal stylings are pushed right up against apocalyptic, doom-laden instrumentation: high pitched squealing feedback that sounds like air raid sirens, abandoned machine bleeps, paranoid dub-heavy beats, crashing cymbals and other live drumming, shimmering guitar. There's even a psychedelicky track called "Forever Close My Eyes" that's got staticky record hiss, tabla, ethereal organs, melancholy melodic guitar strumming, even (what sounds like) sitar. Very well done! There's comparisons to be made with the DefJux (El-P, Cannibal Ox, Company Flow) sound -- scary hip hop with lots of noisy bits -- so if you like DefJux you'll porobaby get into this. Also definitely for fans of Spectre, Sensational, Techno Animal. Look for an upcoming split with Kid606, and there's even a collaboration with krautrockers Faust that'll hopefully get released by someone.
After recently making two recent offerings on the Medical Records label into Records Of The Week (Axxess and Lou Champagne System), we figured we oughta review a couple other kick ass Medical releases that somehow slipped under our radar. There's the Guyer's Connection, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, a collection of lost tracks from a Swiss teenage synth / electro-pop duo, and this one here, another oddly named outfit, called Dalek I, short for Dalek I Love You, a UK duo, whose equally oddly named debut, Compass Kumpass, was originally released in 1980, and is available again on vinyl for the first time in thirty years!
If you need a quick thumbnail of Dalek I's sound, it might be easiest to list the bands that members of Dalek I would go on to play in, most notably, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and the Teardrop Explodes.
Dalek I offer up a glorious world of classic new wave and gloomy moody electro pop, dramatic and a little bit gothy, with post punk flourishes here and there, hand clap rhythms, skittery programmed beats, warm fuzzy synths, indie pop guitar jangle some of the tracks here sounding like total classic old school eighties electro pop, like the opener "The World", which sounds like Tears For Fears or Icicle Works, while others do get darker, and more haunting, like the brooding, droney "A Suicide", but for every sonic shadow, there's something bouncy and playful and super melodic, just check out "The Kiss" which is the impossibly peppy track that comes right after "A Suicide". They even do a cool (and pretty far out) cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me", with a woozy echo drenched abstract intro, that leads into a super taut angular almost Devo-esque sounding version that we find ourselves playing over and over.
For the most part, this stuff steers well clear of the whole Carpenter / Goblin side of the synth spectrum, in favor of something much poppier, a lot more twee, but at the same time, way catchier. If you dig OMD, Tears For Fears, Icicle Works, Talk Talk and other eighties indie poppers / electro-poppers, definitely give Dalek I a listen...
Pressed on 180 gram hot pink vinyl, housed in super eighties looking new wave jackets, LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered, and also includes a flexi-disc single, featuring two B-sides!
Got two new releases this week on the Ge-stell label, run by aQ pal Cameron, who before this also masterminded the Merzbild and Merz Tapes labels, one of which is this new 12" from Dalglish, aka Chris Douglas, formerly O.S.T., a big aQ fave back in the day, and whose last lp on Pan we reviewed not too long ago on list #442. Like that lp, Dorcha Aigeann continues to move away from the Douglas's old beat oriented sound, toward a more sound designed ambience and layered layered textural atmosphere, the opener here sounds like Oval, the same sort of orchestrated glitchery, but where Oval created smooth, almost liquid sounds, here, those glitches remain rough around the edges, a bristled, tangled landscape of keening longform tones an dense metallic shimmer. But the sound of Dorcha Aigeann is not so easily defined, stretches of grinding, sci-fi plunderphonia dissolves into cascades of crumbling static, and garbled alien transmissions, soft noise drift blossoms into haunting, field recording flecked dubbiness, sliced and diced into wild stuttery pulses, and clouds of truncated melodies, wound tight into ping ponging blurts and squelches, woozy kosmische thrum evolves into wild skitters across some alternate universe FM band, staticky squiggles and fractured samples, crumbling loops and malfunctioning FX, all woven into surreal, lysergic landscapes of damaged, disembodied electronica.
Both sides also finish with some killer locked grooves, which, if you're not paying attention, you might find yourself listening to for quite a while before realizing they are in fact not a weirdly repetitive track proper...
Pressed on 150 gram transparent vinyl, mastered by Rashad Becker, housed in a silkscreened PVC plastic cover, with die cut slit, along with a printed transparent insert.
We'd been hearing about this new Dalglish for a while before we realized that Dalglish was in fact none other than Chris Douglas, formerly of San Francisco, and formerly known as O.S.T back in the day, who was responsible for some of our favorite weirdo electronica of that era, his sound falling somewhere between Autechre, Aphex Twin and Coil. But on Niaiw Ot Vile, his first for the Pan label, Douglas displays a much different sound than we remember, less about beats, and more about texture and ambience, displaying a deft hand for sound design, immediately evoking Ben Frost, or Roly Porter, a sort of twentieth century modern minimalism filtered through a cracked avant electronic filter. Sounds ooze and sprawl and drift, the opener almost sounds like a deconstructed Godspeed jam, languid guitars (at least they sound like guitars) unfurl amidst a sea of blackened shimmer, and muted melodic fragments, all suspended in a slow motion swirl. The following track adds some propulsion, but instead of straight ahead beatscaping, it's more a jumble of tangled anti-rhythms, a field of glitch and squelch, gristly and dizzying, all draped over a darkly melodic landscape of chordal swells, and moody minor key thrum, and so it goes, the whole record an homage to a friend of Douglas' who passed away, that sort of threnody vibe present throughout, shadowy and wistful, melancholic, but also strangely dreamy, and subtly academic, slipping easily from gristly crunch, to dreamy blurred ambience, to abstract fields of layered, textured dronemusic, to swirling flurries of Oval like organic shimmer.
Pressed on 140 gram vinyl, mastered by Rashad Becker, and housed in a black and white sleeve wrapped in a super striking silk-screened PVC jacket, with the usual Pan style abstract geometric style artwork.
First we've heard from Mark Dall, aka Dalhous, who on his second record, delivers a gorgeous collection of wistful electronica, and darkly textured soundscapes of blurred samples and haunting synthesized sounds. We're immediately reminded of Boards Of Canada, but Dall's sound is even more human, and organic, just check out the one-two punch of opener "First Page From Justine", a hazy smear of hushed shimmer, and slow shifting melody, dreamy and drifty, and "A Communion With These People", which expands on that ethereal thrum, letting it blossom into something haunting and lovely, almost like a more IDM version of DJ Shadow, a simple beat, wreathed in crackle and hiss, all over a bed of minor key shimmer and swirl, soft slow-motion swells of sound, peppered with fragmented melodies, and lushly textured layers, one of those tracks that could have stretched out for two or three times its length, and we would have remained utterly mesmerized. "Function Curve" foregoes the rhythm, and instead unwinds a swirling skyful of kosmische glimmer, that sounds like stumbling upon the ruins of some old planetarium show, where impossibly, ghostly music plays on, even though the ceiling that once displayed projected stars and planets, has crumbled, the soundtrack now accompanying the actual cosmos.
The whole record plays out like that, like sound out of time, music from another world, or another plane, the sound modern, but at the same time, reminiscent of so many sounds of the past, the best moments, when the sound seems to crumble and fall apart, the sonic decay present throughout, as if the record were constantly struggling against the ravages of time, and the fading of musical memories, hints of the Caretaker abound, as well as Pye Corner Audio, and even Demdike Stare in places, but the vibe is not nearly so dark, instead it's wistful and melancholy, the beats and rhythms, instead of the focal point of the record, almost seem like bridges between the ambience, rhythmic passages connecting the strange synthscapes and hushed shimmerscapes, sometimes sounding like a lost soundtrack, other times like vintage new age, and other times like the music from some strange educational filmstrip from the seventies, but throughout, it's gorgeous, fantastic, dreamy electronica that seems like it was brought here from somewhere, or some-when, far far away.
Record number two from the mysterious Ms. Dalt, a Spanish chanteuse, whose newest record, like her last, conjures up a wildy witchy and hauntingly otherworldly sound that incorporates some of our favorite sonic elements. A gauzy ethereal drift a la Grouper, a brooding gothiness a la Chelsea Wolfe, as well as reminding us of a whole slew of other modern practitioners of that sort of blurred, washed out psychedelia we can't seem to get enough of (US Girls, Valet, Inca Ore, Juliana Barwick, Fursaxa, Noveller, etc.). But Dalt continues to push that sound and make it very much her own, adding a way more experimental / avant / electronic element that ends up defining her sound. Her vocals not the focal point at all, instead it's the darkly delicate soundscapes she creates, woozily percussive, swirly and totally dreamily druggy, the opener sets the tone with a flurry of arpeggiated melodies, what sounds like weirdly effected piano, then maybe xylophone, the cascades of notes layered into a warm undulating backdrop, driven by buried electronic pulses, deep bass swells, and strange shards of high end skree, wall wrapped around her breathy vox. Imagine a WAY more tripped out and ultra subdued Bjork and you'd be in the ballpark.
The second track takes some darkly twangy guitar, and drapes that over an ominous synth tone, whispered vox, and distant cavernous reverb, not to mention a barely there Morricone melody, it all adds up to a warm and woozy, slow-core dream-dirge creep, that is so quiet at times it threatens to fade out completely, but strap on headphones and crank the volume, and the song reveals itself as something strange and lovely, and indeed very very mysterious. The rest of the record plays out similarly, the dynamics differing from track to track, some unfurling like primitive electronica, wrapped around pastoral folk ("Soliloquios"), others murky and atmospheric, warped and dementedly processed, but then sculpted into something dark and delicate and truly beguiling ("Vitti"), while others weave creaking, skeletal doom folk, from dubbed out percussion, Bernard Hermann strings, moaning cellos, reverbed industrial clatter, and insectoid clouds of electronics ("Volaverunt"), and some even edge into near techno territory ("Mirage"), but even then, it's a spare spaced out electronic sprawl of plink plonk pulses, lush lovely vocal harmonies, and fields of static charged tones and distant organ thrum. Fantastic stuff.
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Funk - It's a tricky thing. In the wrong hands it can be some of our least favorite music in the world (think cheesy bass slapping bro's in dorky outfits, you know that scene) but the few who really possess TRUE FUNK can move us like no others.
Of course there is the old school pantheon of funk pioneers like Parliament-Funkadelic, The JB's, The Gap Band, The B.T. Express, Cameo, Betty Davis, Rick James, Zapp, Con Funk Shun, and Prince, but when it comes to modern day funk it's really rare to get the real deal. Folks either be faking the funk so hard it hurts, or they rely so heavily on being retro copy cats that they don't really bring any new flavor to the funk legacy they so want to be a part of. Which brings us to Dam-Funk, who has most definitely got the true funk special spirit running through his veins. We had heard his amazing mixes over the last couple years and knew the guy had talent but it wasn't until this proper full length of his own songs that we totally realized just how damn special and full of the real funk this man is.
While of course taking inspiration from many of the above mentioned funk pioneers, Dam-Funk is no mere retro act, as he knows that one of the major defining forces of true funk is how it should always be injected with a sense of very modern/future minded vision that's always a bit left of center. While folks like Outkast, Sa-Ra, and Gnarls Barkley have gotten close to entering that realm, Dam-Funk really lives, breathes and exudes the true funk aesthetic. He's able to bring in his futuristic electronic stylings informed by everyone from Kraftwerk to Cybotron/Model 500 and inject such natural soul into his beats and grooves.
Everything about this record kills, all the elements come together so perfectly, the production, the vocals, the actual songwriting, it's all there and it all just oozes real funk! There's also a second all instrumental disc, which helps keep Dam-Funk's amazing party of a record going on and on and on and we STILL really can't get enough. No joke, every single time we've played this in the store someone has bought a copy, and even if you're a bit funk-shy we think you should give this a chance! Funk jam of the year contender for sure!
A sixteen-piece "mixtape" created by Dan the Automator. While there are plenty of tracks that he himself originated or remixed (like Deltron 3030, Gorillaz, Lovage) there are also personal favorites of his that he's messed with in typical cool Automator
R.L. Crutchfield is best known as one of the pioneers of no-wave in his band DNA as well as a forefather of cold-wave with his first few outings as Dark Day. What lots of people don't know is that Crutchfield has continued to make and release records under the radar without pause for the better part of three decades. His newer recordings, including Strange Clockwork, find him working in an almost miniature style. Short tracks that have a music box fragility but also incorporate sort of renaissance fair elements, all transformed into sonic stop motion experiments. Primitive sounding drum machine beats under electronics heavily influenced by baroque classical music. In many ways reminiscent of some of the more recent work of another electronic music pioneer, Wendy Carlos.
Synth punk at its best! Here is the long overdue reissue of Dark Day's homage to the Luis Bunuel film of the same name. Dark Day was the project spearheaded by R.L. Crutchfield who first worked with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori in the earliest incarnation of the seminal No Wave band DNA in the mid '70s. By 1979, Crutchfield was striking out on his own as Dark Day; and at first, this band was an intentional reversal of roles within the trad-rock band with two women playing guitars and drums and a man behind the keyboards. The ladies for that incarnation were Nancy Arlen of Mars and Nina Canal of Ut; and they managed a few gigs and one hell of a great single - "Hands In The Dark" - which appeared many years later on a Soul Jazz No Wave compilation and has been covered spectacularly by the Chromatics. Canal and Arlen weren't terribly interested in continuing in the project, leaving Crutchfield to find likeminded folks to work with.
On Exterminating Angel (originally released in 1980 on the Lust/Unlust imprint Infidelity), Crutchfield recruited Phil Kline and Barry Friar to flesh out the Dark Day sound. At the time, Kline was an emerging composer who had worked with Glenn Branca and at least here, he styles himself after Mark Ribot or Arto Lindsay with his expressive shards and bends of guitar melody; and Friar follows the tom-heavy patter that Nancy Arlen brought to Dark Day on the "Hands In The Dark" single. But Dark Day is truly Crutchfield's vision, with his heavily syncopated synth chords, elliptical repetitions, and spiral staircase ascensions in lieu of the traditional verse-chorus song. Crutchfield preferred to keep a very restrictive use of synth tones and filters, all the while crafting a very claustrophobic, horror-laden atmosphere. The inventiveness of his minimalist melodies and twisted lullaby-like structures are all the more impressive, perhaps only matched by Young Marble Giants or Suicide. Motorik yet stumbling, Dark Day's songs are stark and bold in their poetry about freaks, suffocating anxiety, and the toxic life of contemporary society circa 1980. "Trapped" was a strange song to be the single for the album, as it's an epic, spiralling number with those ominous synths and siren-like blurts from a distant saxophone. Many of the other songs on the album were short and condensed, jabbing the grimly simple melodies deep into the ear-canal and then moving on. Like "Trapped" the album's finale - "No, Never, Nothing" - is another lengthy track, appropriating a Moroder like disco-syncopation to a sinister, nihilistic collage of texts taken from a children's book about raising unusual pets such as squirrels and chimpanzees. The more the song spins through it's punchy chords the creepier it becomes.
Exterminating Angel is the high-point of Crutchfield's recorded works, and stands also as one of lost gems of the No Wave era. This should have been released long ago, so we have to commend Dark Entries once again for their reissue campaign.
The Hermetic Drone is the first release from Dark Matter Halo, the most recent project of Monte Cimino, aQ pal, and head honcho of brooding twang flecked heavies Burial Tree, as well as the man behind BT ambient offshoot Time Spent. Dark Matter Halo has more in common with Time Spent, but pushes the sound even further into the kosmische drift, ditching all of the rhythmic elements that drove Time Spent, barring the subtle pulsations caused by the ever shifting overtones, these two lengthy tracks, sprawling expanses of dreamlike shimmer, lush layered tones infused with a warm energy, softly undulating chordal swells, wreathed in a soft halo of gauze-y blissed out blur. The first track, "A.M.", definitely has a sun dappled morning vibe, bleary slowly unfurling melodies, a time lapse exploration of tonal color, a grey landscape gradually taking on color, the tones here seeming to fill the sky with a prismatic palette of warm sonic hues, gorgeously mesmerizing and dreamily meditative.
The second track, appropriately titled "P.M." reverse engineers the first, effortlessly conjuring up a world in hibernation, a sky full of darkened blue, casting lengthening shadows, a lush crystalline expanse of low tones, woven into a gloriously textured backdrop, for the glimmering, glistening ghostlike melodies that hover above, spectral streaks of somnambulant mesmer, gliding lazily toward the dark, a soundtrack for drifting off, a sonic gateway to what lays beyond the veil. So lovely.
AQ buddy Ian Christe is DARK NOERD, who so far has only made one recorded appearance, on the awesome 'Gummo' soundtrack. When Christe is not writing a comprehensive history of heavy metal or DJing, he's making black metal electronica unlike anything you've ever heard. This 12" splits its time pretty evenly between straight up drum 'n bass ala Photek and noisy black metal. On a couple
The self-titled debut cd by the oddly monikered Dark Side Of The Cop (aka Marco Panella) is a super sweet and buoyant affair. Despite his name's nod to Pink Floyd, this one man band certainly wears his Brian Wilson influences on his sleeves in many ways. For one thing he has one of those soft wistful boy singing voices that occasionally brings to mind the abovementioned Wilson or David Gates. The disc opens with what sounds like a somber procession of tin toy trains, and robots, but they're just the tip of Panella's own personal mini orchestra. Warm guitar and piano soon join the fray along with some softly prickly programmed rhythms. So nice.
Nobody does suave, sleek, atmospheric electronic pop better then Air, so it's no surprise that this solo outing from one half of the French duo, hits the same spot pretty much dead on. Jean-Benoit Dunckel took time in between Air's follow up to Talkie Walkie and their work on Charlotte Gainsbourg's upcoming release to make his first solo record. This definitely leans toward the more song orientated pop leanings of Air. Still so lush, dreamy and sensual but with melodies and vocals that find their way into your head and don't ever go away. Catchy and inviting, this has bedtime romance written all over it. One of those great records to lounge around in the morning to, or to use as a secret weapon when you want to put the moves on that special someone. THE make-out record of 2006.
In case the album's title and cover art didn't clue you in already, the music sure will... Dat Politics aren't one to take themselves seriously. Man, it's almost admirable that these folks can let out a peep from under the weight of all that irony! Lots of crudely executed indie electronic dorkery with silly, snotty vocals yelped over top -- fits like a glove on the Tigerbeat6 label. Are Oui Phony alternately makes you wanna try to dance and makes you wanna smash your stereo. We dub thee 'brat-tronica'!
Formed in the discreet industrial town of Lille, France, DAT Politics -- a former side project of Sub Rosa post rock outfit Tone Rec -- has evolved into a full-time labor of love. For four years, the trio (formerly a quartet) have been transforming
Another fine disk of shrill and annoying 8-bit, high pitched noise-fuckery from Dat Politics. Not quite as "melodic" as some of their other releases, methinks. Those AQ customers who choose to come in near to closing time to shop have the greatest likelihood of hearing this disk in the store, as it may soon become our new "Hello, Aquarius is now closed" cd.
This is the second reissue of Dat Politics' "Tracto Flirt," originally reissued through A-Muzik. The side project of Tone Rec specializes in excessive high-end squealiness, digitally distorted Nintendo crackle, post new-wave electronica (a la Cheap Records) and Mouse on Mars abstract techno wackiness.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Released on A-Musik, known mostly for releasing whimsically abstract electronica (I seem to think there's a Mouse On Mars connection to the label), Dat Politics' "Villager" album is a fanciful exploration of rather clever timestretched melodic bits thrown in the blender of electron bending and digital glitchery. Dat Politics is also the all-laptop alter-ego of Sub Rosa post-rock/electronic band Tone Rec.
Vinyl only ep teaser to Datach'i's upcoming full-length of tweaky electronica. And now the magic words: features remixes by Mogwai and Kid 606! oh, and by Bogdan Raczynski too.
