It's been a while since we heard from our noisy pal Campbell Kneale. When we last checked in, he had retired the Birchville Cat moniker, and had rechristened himself Our Love Will Destroy The World, but then after a Birchville-worthy torrent of releases with OLWDTW, sort of just disappeared for a bit.
So we were super excited to get a missive from the man, informing us of a new release, the first on his Don't Fuck With Magic imprint in ages, and so ordered a bunch, and are one of the only (if not the only) places in the US carrying it. We were of course curious what this latest name change meant, going back to his given name, we made a guess, but we were wrong. We had sort of expected something pretty and tranquil, but instead, Kneale as Kneale explodes right out of the gate with a face melting, ear shredding barrage of caustic Japanoise style crunch, cascades of grinding high end, and swirling shards of jagged skree. As always, Kneale is a master noisemaker, so while a glancing listen reveals and army of blends and vacuum cleaners set to stun, dig deeper, and beneath the surface, lurk all manner of moaning low need melodies, deftly stylized textures, but that said if your tolerance for noise is low, this might be a bit much for you. The first track does go through multiple permutations, drifting through a field of shrieking feedback, before emerging on the other side as a murky, albeit still crunchy, noisy jumble, before eventually blossoming into a strange psychedelic skree, that sounds like multiple Sunroof! records spinning at once.
The second track flirts with nuance in the first few seconds, but quickly splinters into another furious flurry of white/grey/black/pink noise, more buried voices and sounds, swirls of glitched out grind, and malfunctioning electronics, whipped up into a fervor, and sent spinning in some sort of soul shearing sonic whirlwind, pocked with weird moaning metallic howls, before sputtering out into something a bit more restrained, a lush textured bit of gristly, muted soft noise, a comparatively dreamy comedown to a record that is definitely one of Kneale's fiercest.
Crazy limited as always, and in the usual swank Don't Fuck With Magic packaging, an oversized full color sleeve, adorned with original Kneale artwork.
This Swedish duo had all the cool kiddies' panties in a delirious knot at their recent totally sold-out show here in SF. Hot stuff! So needless to say, it's a more than perfect time for this reissue!
Last time we carried this cd, we had this brief summation: If you dig Miss Kittin or Adult., well here's The Knife! Electro-punky tunes with punchy female vocals seemingly very inspired by Debbie Harry / Blondie.
That having been said, we'll elaborate a bit: If you happened to start your love affair with The Knife with their Silent Shout album, it'll surely continue to burn hotter than the sun with Deep Cuts. This brother and sister team combine the detached chill of electro and techno with the engaging catchiness of pop with a childlike musicbox wonder. Ultra tweaked and strange. Includes a dvd!
The hip kids have been all a-buzz about this album for weeks already, and it's no wonder. Silent Shout is the bestest electro-party record around right now. Super super fun from Sweden that treads the shadowy perimeter of goth industrial (think: WaxTrax Records circa early '90s My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult). The brother and sister duo Olof and Karin Dreijer have really come into their own on this one. We've heard some comparisons to Ladytron, and we can certainly hear some similarities in the softer synth pop tracks, but The Knife are looser, edgier, more gregarious, more... strange! So if you dig Ladytron, but you maybe want something that struts with more attitude and ambition, give The Knife a go! Silent Shout is packed with a variety of juicy jaunty beats, sputtery'n'swooopy synth lines and the vocals... ah, the vocals! In particular, Sister Karin's are a bit like Bjork in their cooing expressiveness but a lot more tweaked, petulant and sauced up. Brother Olof provides a complementary smooth deep croon and downright weird guy delivery. Right around the time your feet get tired from all the dancin' (or other involuntary body movements), The Knife deftly insert a little down time in the form of the sweet lilt of "Na Na Na" and the beautiful euro-cabaret stylings of "Marble House". Then they pick it up again for the delightfully bizarre stomp of "One Hit". Recommended!
Not sure what to say about Knifehandchop that we haven't said before. Big dumb noisy fun. Splattery break core, with throbbing gabber four on the floor thumps, breakbeats chopped beyond recognition, jungle and drum 'n' bass and hardcore thrown in a blender with heaps of funny/catchy top 40 song fragments. From his own twisted take on the mash up (Destiny's Child mixed with Eminem over impossibly damaged and hyper distorted beats) to DJ Scud-ish hardcore dancehall to hyper silly chaotic noise. Good fun stuff.
MPEG Download: "Sunjammer Is My Favorite Pokemon Trainer" [/audio/knifehandpokemon.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Sunjammer Is My Favorite Pokemon Trainer" [/audio/knifehandpokemon.m3u]
MPEG Download: "Tutti Fruity Booty" [/audio/knifehandtutti.mp3]
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Gabber-tech madness invades pop culture for the Playstation generation from Canadian whizkid Billy Pollard, aka Knifehandchop! Pounding beats clash with a hilarious aural juxtaposition of Destiny's Child, Eminem and those Eurodance sensations, Vengaboys. Assertive female independence, aggressive misogyny and purely apathetic bubblegum dance join forces to rock yr ass! Totally ridiculous, but really smart and catchy as fuck. And the smartass is only nineteen! Brilliant!
Yeow! The highly anticipated US debut (via Kid 606's Tigerbeat6 imprint) from twenty-year-old Canadian bootylicious whizkid Billy Pollard aka Knifehandchop! Seven new dancefloor scorchers - mashing hip hop, hardcore dancehall, gabba techno and straight up rave while incorporating and referencing mass pop culture (Outkast etc). Super catchy and poppy, though still hard and way ahead of the
Not sure what else to say about this crazy motherfucker. Another, fun and funny and funky splattery mashup of classic hip hop, caustic breakbeats, four-on-the-floor techno, booty bass, cut and paste chaos, goofy synths, and manic drum programming. But as we're all still crazy for dancehall around here, those are the tracks where this record really shines, with a brutal mix of toasting, classic pounding jungle beats buzzing rave-y techno and thick, wall-shaking bass synths. Another party-ruling dancefloor-filling masterpiece from Mr. Chop.
It's definitely a good thing that adulthood doesn't follow the bully / wimp social dichotomy of high school; but if it did, everybody on Tigerbeat 6 would have received a number of serious beatings by now, starting with the Kid, then Cex and followed by Canadian laptopper Billy Pollard aka Knifehandchop. "TKO From Tokyo" mashes up vocals from Dancehall toaster Bounty Killer and RZA's Bobby Digital persona on top of big dum-dum Rotterdam techno beats, and also features remixes from Venetian Snares, Kid 606, Noize Creator & DJ Aneurysm, and Joseph Nothing. Very stupid yet very infectuous.
It's hard to believe we're on volume 22 of this long running series of DJ mixes from the venerable UK radio station (online and terrestrial) Rinse FM. It might be even harder to believe that of those 22, we've only previously reviewed ONE, the recent Roska installment. Which is crazy, cuz we're all big fans of these mixes, and previous installments have featured a who's who of the modern electronic/garage/dubstep scene, including Skream, Skepta, Plastician and loads more. And while our favorites in the series were definitely heavy on the dubstep, that is after all the genesis of this series, the individual mixes are all over the map, mixing in everything from house music to techno, dub to electro. Obviously when we discovered the new one was curated by Hyperdub label head honcho Kode9, we knew we had to hear it. And we were not disappointed. Just a quick flit through the tracks here, jams by Burial, Kode9 himself, Theo Parrish, The Bug, Rustie, Terror Danjah, and even RP Boo (whose new full length on Planet Mu is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). So yeah, heavy on the dubstep, and of course plenty of Hyperdub artists, past, present, and we're presuming future, not to mention some seriously rare dubplates and sneak peaks of new up and comers.
It starts off super string with Burial's "Turant", perfectly setting the mood with the murky slo-mo soul, sinister and skittery, but after that, pretty much all bets are off, playful super melodic house music collides with shimmery, prismatic electro pop, which bleeds right into some Kompakt style house-dub, which in turn leads into a killer dubstep groover, with rad sped up soul vocal samples, and a killer bass drop. And that's just the first 10 minutes. It's a DJ set after all, so similar sonics come in clumps, our favorite, of course are the Hyperdubby dubstep stretches, like the one that starts with Jam City's "Her", a dizzyingly stuttery hip hop dubstep mash up, which mutates into Kode9's ominous "Uh", or later when Faze Miyake weaves strange theremin like melodies, and what sounds like barking dogs into a sultry sprawl of dubbed out skitter and stutter, which blossoms into Cashmere Cat's weirdly Eastern synth heavy lurching stutter-groove "Aurora", big beats, and weird chooped vocals, like a revved up Burial sort of, but definitely wanna here more from him (her? them?).
Still later, we're treated to one of the best songs we've heard from Rustie, sick ribcage rattling bass, distorted and laced with siren like high end squiggles, a crunked out beat, and some epic almost M83 sounding flourishes. That launches a killer dubstep stretch, with Terror Danjah, S-type and Kode9 offering up variations of that low slung dubbed out groove we can't seem to get enough of.
The Bug pops up too with some of that supercharged dubbed out dancehall, and then some wildly funky and maddeningly repetitive footwork from RP Boo, a strangely perfect fit with some of the other dubstep jams here.
The last ten minutes or so is mostly DJ Rashad and friends, who spin a whirling web of revved up garage, stuttery techno-house breakdowns, sliced and diced vocals, recontextualized into twisted melodies, and stuttering free form vocal freakouts, draped over and wrapped around chaotic rhythmic skitter, swirling soft focus synth pads, some tracks slow burn electro-soul, some laced with little blurts of jungle, others stretched out into some seriously hypnotic dancefloor mesmer.
Bunch of killer stuff on this installment we'd never heard (or even heard of) before, here's hoping more of that stuff will be coming out on Hyperdub in the near future...
It's been YEARS, exactly FIVE in fact, since the last Kode 9 and Spaceape record, Memories Of The Future, which at the time was one of the darkest dubstep records we had heard yet, it was like a more grim, less soulful Burial, with Spaceape's growled slo-mo toasting adding a whole 'nother level of darkness. Slithery and sinister and haunting, it was exactly what we wanted from dubstep.
But much has changed in the last 5 years, so we were curious what this new record would sound like. We wouldn't have been disappointed at all if it was the same thing all over again. But while many of the elements are still present, much has changed here too. Most distinctly, the record is not nearly as dark. Beyond that, the dubsteppiness is not nearly so pronounced, and the sound and sounds are surprisingly varied, slipping from electro to house to dub, but still all wound together by Kode 9's distinctive production and of course Spaceape's vocals, which sound more sung this time around, less growled.
Opening track "Black Smoke" uses some Burial like dubstep as a stepping off point, but then adds all sorts of rhythmic skitter, not to mention swirling synths, and some soaring percolating 'choruses'. It's strange, but definitely cool. "Promises" is all backwards loops, and muted thrum, but then some shimmery synth sneaks in, and the beat, more like a pulse, with a looped vocal carrying the main melody, sounding a bit like How To Dress Well, with Spaceape toasting over the top. "Am I" sounds like it could have been an M.I.A. jam, but here, it's more stripped down and skeletal, but with some ominous synths, and clipped handclappy beats, and here Spaceape actually sings. "Love Is The Drug" is almost house-y, like some weird dark Kompakt jam, and so it goes. From slow motion soul, to clipped RnB skitter, minimal slice and dice dancehall, to hazy dubbed out electro, warped and woozy droned out synthscapes, to jittery reggae flecked techno, washed out electronic dreamdrift, to crackling cinematic synth heavy buzz ballad. Cool stuff for sure. Dubstep purists might be bummed out, but anyone whose been digging How To Dress Well, Dirty Beaches, Hype Williams and other left field electronica will dig this big time.
A few lists back we made Burial record of the week. An incredibly dense, super spare black hole of blissed out utterly bleak dub. Creepy and queasy, a black rhythmic crawl under a midnight sun. Like Massive Attack or Portishead slowed way down, and with all the skin removed, leaving a gorgeously spare skeletal grimey dub.
Here we have release number two from the Hyperdub label, the first full length from label head Kode9, after a handful of legendary vinyl only eps. In fact, Memories Of The Future is actually more of a singles collection then a proper full length, collecting some of the early long out of print tracks as well as a few newer 12"s.
Kode9's sonic world is a seriously dark and dangerous place. A world of low end subterranean throb. A low slung mutant strain of modern dub. The rhythms slither through a thick haze of murk and grime. Bits of reggae guitar surface here and there, but jangle just once, and are then sent spinning off into oblivion. Basslines are like slow moving rivers of black tar, all wound up into a creeped out druggy droney dubscape, so fucked up and laid back it makes Spectre sound like C+C Music Factory.
Most tracks also feature the lugubrious haunted house flow of Spaceape, a seriously ominous, skin crawling, killer growled ragga toasting, like some dancehall DJ pitchshifted all the way dooooooown. A demonic flow that sounds like Tricky chopped and screwed. Some slow motion sound system rolling slowly through town, broadcasting through a set of 15 foot woofers, sending out seismic basswaves as the townspeople shutter up their houses and cower in terror.
Speaking of Tricky, we still remember the first time we heard Tricky way back in the day. It was still dance music, sort of, but it was so slow, so creeped out and ominous, so sexy and deep and dark. It was hard to imagine that that kind of music could ever get any scarier. This Kode9 disc makes us feel the same way. At some point, grime or dubstep or whatever, when slowed down and blissed out any further would just lose all of its rhythmic cohesion and break into pieces and drift away. Which only adds to the inherent musical tension.
A few tracks skitter into more grime territory, or dancehall, or a more cohesive digital dub, but the majority of Memories Of The Future is spent bathed in darkness, slithering through some pitch black wasteland, sparse rhythms spread out all the way to the horizon, an endless abstract framework, the bass throbs like thunder in the distance, pianos tinkling and glistening like nighttime rain drops, vocals drifting above it all like the ominous refrain of some fallen band of angels, a deliriously disembodied demonic dancehall growl slowed down to a mumbled murmur, the whole thing a blackhole glacier drifting in slow motion across a blackened dancefloor.
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By now most folks probably don't need to know much more than the fact that this is a DJ mix from aQ beloved dubstep producer Kode9, and not only features some of his own jams, but tracks by folks like The Bug, Zomby, Ikonika, Digital Mystikz, Terror Danjah, Ramadanman and loads more. And the fact that it rules. But fair warning, this is not at all a straight dubstep mix, there are some serious dubbed out jams, some thick bass warble, and all that jazz, but there's mostly plenty of seriously non dubstep stuff, that's just as cool. The first half of the mix is definitely more danceable and less dubby, the first two tracks are dreamy and housey and melodic, even Kode9's "Blood Orange" ditches dubstep for something more fuzzy and skittery, his "You Don't Wash (Dub)" is also more groovy and late night disco-y than dubby. It's not until the Ikonika track that things get dubby, but even there, it's almost more electro and 8-bit crunchy, Sticky's "Look Pon Me" is a driving, almost grime style groove, with some awesome female toasting, dramatic strings, an irresistible house-pulse, and some cool twisted production, in fact so far, this sounds more like something you'd here on Kompakt, albeit with more bass, and more synth buzz, and less of that 4 by 4 throb.
The second half starts off with a similarly weirdo vibe, Zomby's jam is an awesomely retro slab of video game skitter, swirling electronics, skeletal basslines, tripped out effects, which leads right into a short blast of Kode9 spaced out weirdness, which leads into some serious dubsteppery, Digital Mystikz unleash some super stripped down dubbed out crunch, Terror Danjah, chops up some vocals and adds some fragmented metal guitar, Zomby sprinkles the proceedings with some sparkly electronic fairy dust, before things slip right back into some pulsing grooves, and the mix continues on its curious electronic journey, again only dipping toes into dubstep instead opting for a more free form assemblage of modern electronic music, from house to electro to 2 step to garage, finishing off with a killer dubbed out dancehall jam from The Bug, all low slung bass, streaks of record crackle, spare minimal rhythms, woozy effected ambience and some fierce toasting from Flo Dan. Awesome stuff for sure, although dubsteppers and Kode9 fans should approach with caution, even though you'll probably dig this anyway... and anyone into recent joints from Zomby, Ikonika, Martyn, Ital Tek and other leftfield dubbed out electronic alchemists, grab this NOW!
The Kompakt debut from German dance musik veteran Justus Kohncke. In Kompakt's newfound direction toward releasing records that transcend the dancefloor (through use of vocals and a strong "pop" sensibility), Kohncke attempts just that, but unfortunately falls a bit short of our expectations. While there are many interesting moments throughout, "Was Ist Musik" ultimately falls into dreaded adult contemporary territory. Features odd covers of tracks by Barbara Morgenstern and J�rgen Paape.
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The first in what seems to be a very promising series from the already exceptional Noton label. Packaged in an odd slimline case looking more like something to put birth control pills in rather than a CD, this series will consist of limited edition releases from twelve of minimalists, each composing 20 minutes of music for the end of the millenium. In theory, all of these will be released before this deadline...
Komet's contribution is one of the best examples of 'bleep blip minimalism' we've encountered in a while. While barely audible on one level, it is exquisitely dynamic...
Audio.NL was an offshoot of the stalwart avant-garde label Korm Plastics, which released an impressive catalogue of adventurously minimalistic techno from 1998 - 2007 from the likes of Taylor Deupree, Motor, Goem, Tomas Jirku, and Komet. The label was at the forefront of the blossoming 'clicks + cuts' aesthetic of jittery electronica built almost one electron at a time; and that reputation was solidified through the two singles that Komet produced for the label. Komet, of course, is the work of Frank Bretschneider, one of the principals behind the seminal label Raster-Noton. While he's probably not as well known as his partner Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), Bretschneider has a similar knack for injecting the blip and bleep with as much of a slippery grooviness as one could muster from sine-tone pulses and phase patterns. This cd compiles all of the material that Bretschneider produced for Audio.NL, including those two singles and a compilation track. Everything has been out of print for years, so to have it all in one place makes a considerable amount of sense. On these 9 tracks, Bretschneider laces subtle glitchiness upon his reductive techno rhythms - little more than a drum machine high-hat and kick gliding at a metronomic pace. That digital errata is bent and twisted through delay patterns, flanging metallic gleams, EQ-fluctuation, and time suspension tricks, giving each of the tracks an unmistakable, if muted slinkiness that keeps the tracks from becoming dehumanized. Sterile, this may be; but Bretschneider makes all of the surgical tools dance on the operating table.
The third installment in Raster-Noton's exquisitely designed Raster. Post series features Komet aka Frank Bretschneider, weaving a fuzzy pulsing perfectly pastoral electronic dreamscape. Equal parts Oval's fuzzy glitch, Chain Reaction's subterranean throb, and Boards Of Canada's warm melancholia, this is gorgeous stuff. We've been so burned out on "electronica" lately, tired of hearing the millionth completely sterile chunk of icy minmal techno that could just have well been made without human intervention, but we're also tired of hearing Boards Of Canada ripoffs spewing moody mediocre downtempo pap. But this Komet manages to incorporate both minimal clinical chill and warm fuzzy moodiness into a throbbing, hypnotic wash of late night electronic bliss. The only distraction is the occasional random spoken word sample, similar to the ones that mar some of my favorite BoC songs. But a small complaint, considering how good this sounds. Fans of Oval, Boards Of Canada and of all things Raster-Noton should definitely pick this up.
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Full length release from Raster-Noton head, and Signal collaborator Frank Bretschneider. Still working from a palette of aseptic beeps and clicks, but composing pieces that are surprizingly catchy in an utterly minimal way. Without stepping into the dubby, and almost (I said "almost") organic ballpark of Stefan Betke (Pole) and steering clear of the borderline housey territory of Thomas Brinkmann, Bretschneider none the less harkens the works of both in his own way. The tracks on this disk even have a slowly evolving quality, starting with very minimal pulse beats and short tones (typical of Raster-Noton) and developing to the point where, by the time you reach the end of the disk, you convince yourself you're hearing pop songs and hooks. Bretschneider has the knack of making the sterile swing.
There are a handful of purposeful mispellings of this project's moniker. For the sake of simplicity, we'll just go with the spelling on the cover. Konstruktivist was essentially the solo project of Glenn M. Wallis, who had been affiliated with Throbbing Gristle as something of a bouncer / heavy, given the rather suitable title in some texts as their "control agent." Would you really think that Genesis P-Orridge could take and/or throw a punch? No, Glenn Wallis did that for TG. After their mission was terminated in 1980, he began to explore the darker regions of electronic music and deconstructed minimal wave under those variously spelled Konstruktivist recordings, as well as maintaining an artistic relationship with Chris & Cosey and moonlighting as one of the revolving door members for Whitehouse on stage and on record. A languid synth melody introduces the record with a deathly pall resembling that of a Tibetan thighbone horn (whose eerie bleats graced Lustmord's Heresy album), that slides into a deliciously turgid piece of DIY garage-electronica for creeping drum machine and distorted basslines sounding like those great tracks by Cabaret Voltaire from way back when. A slippery piece of step sequenced synths on "Karnage" much more of a darkly kosmische vibe taking up the sci-fi electronica of Conrad Schniztler. The plodding "Karnal" follows the murky, abstractions that TG created with a distant, heavy drum machine, atonal guitar formations, and subliminally suggestive media collages. Wallis mostly fashioned his disenchanting rhythms and electronics to be instrumental, and when vocals did creep into the mix they tended toward a bleak monotone. The three bonus tracks on this cd seamlessly blend into the dour, DIY electronics of the original album; but sadly this cd reissue is also limited, to just 300 copies.
This is the first we've heard from Konx-Om-Pax, aka Tom Scholefield, a video director whose made videos for all sorts of folks, as well as having toured with Mogwai as a DJ, we weren't sure what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised by these shortform abstract beatless soundscapes, displaying a sound that falls somewhere between the blissed out minimal drift of Pop Ambience, and the cinematic synthscaping of the current crop of Carpenter / Goblin worshippers, the difference being, that the jams here are not at all overtly retro, or really synthy, instead, each is a self contained sonic vignette, some gentle and pastoral, others layered and dense and dark, still others soaring and symphonic, all woven together into an ever changing tapestry of mini soundtracks. We can definitely hear the Orb in plenty of these songs, and KLF's chill out record, and a few tracks definitely display a similar sonic palette to folks like Umberto or Zombi, but Scholefield definitely has his own thing going on, the sounds blurry and crumbly, shimmery and blissed out, pulsing kosmische throb one second, tripped out primitive synth musique concrete the next, displaying a definite flair for crafting earworm melodies, and weaving lush lovely textures. In some ways it's tempting to point to his filmmaking as an influence on these purely audio sounds, and really, how could it not be? And the thing is, these songs and sounds here are truly evocative, definitely cinematic, evoking all sorts of sights and memories, colors and sensations, it's easy to imagine him moving from pairing his visuals with other folks' music to just doing it all himself.
As it is, this is some fantastic stuff, equal parts retro synth, minimal soundscaping, pastoral ambience, and blissed out beat free techno shimmer, the perfect collection of soundtracks for whatever your subconscious can conjure up.
This record is so goddamn beautiful. Hard to know how to describe it. It reminds me of the sonic equivalent of those time lapse films where you watch the seasons pass in a matter of minutes, sunrise, sunset, plants slowly unfurling and blossoming, before wilting and falling to the ground, snow and then rain and then sun, everything moving at an accelerated pace, but blending and merging into a completely mesmeric and hypnotic fugue. Sort of like that. The tag on the cd mentions Godspeed and the Rachel's, and while those are the easiest comparisons (Godspeed because it's so epic, and the Rachel's because it's sort of chamber music) they don't at all hint at the complexity and depth of this Kopernik record. Thick and throbbing, undulating bass is the foundation, cellos, and upright basses, double basses, bowed and plucked, create a viscous and dense bed of rumbling, pulsing low end over which delicate, glistening melodies are sprinkled. This is ambient music, but so rich with layer after layer of delicate sound, that form an impossibly complex and challenging and beautiful listen. While rooted in this bass heavy, epic classical ambience, these songs do stretch in all sorts of improbable directions. Gorgeously lush chamber music, with digital glitches and hiccups, reminscent of Oval's Diskont, but instead of sounding underwater it sounds like it's floating in midair. A medieval court music, sort of grand and pompous, but also a bit forboding, like a much more GRIM Penguin Cafe Orchestra with burbling bass and loping melodies. Dark and cinematic, suspenseful and harrowing noirscapes with thick walls of lower register thrum with heavily affected backward vocals. Lonely and desolate, but so sincere and emotional. A perfect late night record of soothing dreaminess and nocturnal mesmer, but unlike many similar records, it can stand up to serious listening, offering even more when time is taken to explore its rich mysteries.
Squealing drones make by electronics and processed reeds from this Japanese duo (members of psychededic rock group Overhang Party). Quite beautiful. Similar to Keiji Haino's hurdy-gurdy pieces or free saxophonist Evan Parker's recent electronically-enhanced works.
"Universal Indicator" is loaded with seriously hard acid house tracks from Mike Dred's Kosmik Kommando persona that were recorded back in the day, and may have been slotted for release on Rephlex back in the early '90s. Beta Bodega has been purposefully vague on the true facts about this release, but this is nevertheless a fine reminder of the nastier face of rave culture.
What might one expect from a band called Kosmonaut, and a record called Future Machines? Some serious psychedelic space synth obviously. A kosmiche songsuite beholden to the early masters: Froese, Schnitzler, Pinhas, etc. And aligned with present day practitioners like Umberto, The Slasher Film Festival Strategy, Zombi, Majeure, Expo 70, M. Geddes Gengras, Roll The Dice, etc., as well. But for all the sonic similarities Kosmonaut shares with his space synth brethren, he's managed to conjure up a sound that is nothing like any of them. Sure there are pulsating arpeggiated synths, shimmery celestial swirls, motorik rhythms, but Kosmonaut's sounds are dirtier, gristlier, noisier, opener "City Deterioration", is like a crumbling Carpenter score, especially part way through when the sound shifts and becomes a churning low end buzz, laced with swirling faux strings and jagged melodic shards. And that's just the beginning, the albums trajectory swinging wildly from the furthest reaches of deep space ("Prime Meridian"), to a 2am chase through rain slicked back alleys in some seedy big city ("Haus Maschine"). The synths employed get totally abused, and often instead of dreamy cosmic shimmer, the sounds are garbled and crunchy, distorted and dirty, check out "Wings Of The Sun", the first two minutes of which, sound like Sun Ra going apeshit on the synths, and trying to conjure up some celestial deity, that is before in swoop the shimmers, but even then the shimmers are soon swallowed up, but layer upon layer of sci-fi zoner synth buzz and roiling rhythmless pulses. For all the more 'easy listening' synth music out there, the music of Kosmonaut is actually quite challenging, dark and twisted, off kilter and experimental, avant and abstract, the various space/synth tropes utterly subverted and transformed into something urgent, dangerous and dark, at times frantic and frenetic, and at others brooding and wreathed in shadow, and only occasionally bathed in the prismatic glimmer of deep space starlight.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. Housed in screen printed fold over sleeves, includes a printed insert, as well as a download card, that includes not just a digital version of the whole record, but also six download only bonus tracks. Warning to anal record collector nerds, all of the sleeves came slightly damaged, mostly just rumpled corners, and there are no more sleeves in existence with which to replace them, thus, all the copies we got, have slightly bumped / rumpled corners, so if that sort of thing bothers you, steer clear, if not, grab one of these beauties before they're sold out and gone for good!
As much as we love so much of the noisier and heavier psychedelic sounds that come out of the Japanese underground, we have to say lately it's been some of the more blissed out and dreamy records from Japan that have been moving us the most. Folks like Fuqugi, Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, and Eddie Marcon have shown us that just as so many Japanese bands have mastered blown out psychedelic madness, others know how to conjure an equally entrancing sound, but replacing the all out assault with a gorgeously tranquil and languid state of sound.
We loved what we heard last from Koss, his 2008 outing Four Worlds Converge As One, but we're even more entranced and deliriously lost at sea with Ancient Rain. Such tender and delicate movements of sound, that maintain an element of melodicism while still capturing an overall mood and ambience. For sure in line with the great Pop Ambient sounds out of the Kompakt camp, like Gas and early Klimek, as well as the more washed out and ethereal sides of Fennesz, Murcof, Jan Jelinek, The Fun Years and Colleen.
Majestic and flowing, evoking deep sleep, dark drifts, set to the sounds of the waves on an ocean. Tapping into a feeling of lightness and ease with subtle undertones of something a bit darker bubbling just below the surface, Koss creates a sound that throughout the entirety of Ancient Rain manages to feel so honest and organic, lush, rich, and otherworldly, a soundtrack to the perfect daydream...
From Japan, the artist/producer known as Koss (real name: Kuniyuki Takahashi) has apparently been around for a while, involved in the electronic scene since back in the '80s, dabbling in everything from electro body music to dub to hardcore noise to chillout techno to deep house. This, however, is the first album of his we've heard. Well better late than never. Four Worlds Converge As One is lovely, lovely, calm, and lovely. It starts with the soothing, beatless ambient drift of "Water", the first of four tracks on the disc and at 29+ minutes the longest. Hissing, humming, with field recordings of obvious watery origin worked in, this track is like the sound of a white mist rising from the shore of a gently lapping lake, with a wind softly blowing. A relaxed, melodic drone piece. That could have been the whole disc right there and we'd be sold. But there's three more parts, each over a quarter of an hour in length, representing the other elements of fire, air, and earth...
Track two, "Fire / M Point (40N42-34N33 Mix)" is immediately more active than "Water", with pleasantly creaking noises, eventually joined by shuffling electronic beats, and glitchy clicks worked into the washes of more feedbacky drone. Following that, "Air / MW Point (137E35 Mix)" is back to the blissful shimmer of the first track, but with the addition of minimalist Reichian (Steve, not Wilhelm) pulsations. Looping, layered sounds from some classical stringed instrument. Utterly hypnotic of course. And then, Koss brings us down to "Earth / S Point", wrapping this disc up with a surprising mix of forest-at-night nature sounds and percolating, processed tribal percussion, with echo and effects. It gets denser and denser, but remains quite soothing, the sort of "exotica" you might expect from, say, one of Eye Yamataka's remixes... though perhaps a little "rainstick-y" for some. But the more "Pop Ambient", droney-synthy explorations that mostly fill this album are enough for us, so good, reminding us of Eno and Budd (Harold, not the Aussie grunge band) and Tangerine Dream and even composer John Luther Adams.
And by the way, the "converge into one" idea of the title has a special meaning - apparently Koss intends that if all four tracks/elements on this disc were to be played simultaneously (you could buy three extra copies of the cd... or make them yourself), a whole new song will emerge. Hmm...haven't tried it, we're happy with the four just by themselves so far. Recommended!
There's not a lot to Kotai's bleak electronica, as a measured recombination of Chain Reaction's heroin house, Georgio Moroder's cyber-disco synth arpeggiations, and Suicide's relentless monotony; but along with Adult., Fisherspooner, and Miss Kitten, Kotai's Goth-inflected New Wave revivalism is pretty seductive. Amongst all of those aforementioned references, Suicide stands out most prominently due to Klaus Kotai's vocal similitude to Suicide's Alan Vega. Each of Kotai's songs sound like updated versions of "Frankie Teardrop," transposing Suicide's dystopian theatricality with a hollow, but studly swagger indicative of the title "Pretty Men Wear Pretty Clothes." Kotai is Euro-trash at its finest.
Having earned an MFA under the tutelage of Fred Frith at Mills College, Gregg Kowalsky landed his debut album on Kranky, a perfect home for his polite and pleasant swatches of ambient music. Kowalsky blurs all of his diverse source material (i.e bowed acoustic guitar, sounds he composed for the Mills Ensemble, and even samples from Isis!) into a twinkling mass of harmonically aligned tones. Furniture Music for the 21st Century.
We had never heard of Kowton before, aka producer Joe Cowton, and picked this up initially for the Andy Stott remix (more on that in a second), but were pleasantly surprised to discover that Kowton trafficked in a strain of dark minimal techno we can't seem to get enough of. Fans of Function, Shed, Raime, Terrence Dixon, Andy Stott obviously, and even Demdike Stare will immediately feel right at home. Or as home as one can feel when surrounded by bleak, abstract, sinister skitter and raspy rumbling low end crunch.
The A side is all spare hauntological stutter, peppered with strange shards of industrial clatter, bell like tones, distant swirling strings, fuzzy synth squelch and thick bass blorps, all dubbed out and super minimal, with headphones the sound sucks you right into its creepy sonic maw. The B side starts out all murky and washed out, a bit of a Caretaker vibe, all hazy and faded, but then Cowton crafts a brittle metallic beat, sounding like struck metal and super processed crunch, woven into a looped dubby breakbeat, that sounds a bit like some old jungle beat slowed way down and stretched out, all the whole those murky sounds in the background continue to swirl and pulse. And then finally, the A side gets reworked by Andy Stott, and it's just as good as you might expect, all blurred and smeared, laced with thick bass pulses, and super sharp shards of glitch and buzz, it's a sort of disembodied dub, one that doesn't really get going until almost 4 minutes in, at which point the beats get super skittery and chaotic, the bass do rumbles and buzzes ominously, the whole thing transforming into some sort of avant spectral minimal avant house music, the sort of sound that should have fans of Stott (and Demdike) freaking out big time...
"Dedicated to Ralf & Florian" it says, and though it seems like this should sound like a Kraftwerk tribute/ripoff, actually what you get is quite fine dancey electronica more in the vein of something like James Bong.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Restocks of the first two Kraftwerk records, the ones with traffic-cone covers. Both are electronic masterpieces, melodic Krautrock classics, and while far more challenging than the popular later Kraftwerk albums, all the more lovely.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Restocks of the first two Kraftwerk records, the ones with traffic-cone covers. Both are electronic masterpieces, melodic Krautrock classics, and while far more challenging than the popular later Kraftwerk albums, all the more lovely.
The requisite remix single of Kraftwerk's comeback last year's single features Orbital, Francois K, DJ Rolando, and Underground Resistance. Maybe if you really dig UR records, this would do it for you.
If you witnessed a Kraftwerk performance during their 2004 worldwide tour, you may want this 2-disc live recording as a token reminder of your experience. Especially if you attended a show in Warszawa, Ljubljana, Riga, Moskwa, Paris, Berlin, London, Budapest, San Francisco, Tokyo or Tallinn -- the cities from which these virtually perfect live performances are culled. The first eight songs from disc one are absolutely incredible live recordings, most notably "The Man-Machine", "Planet Of Visions", and "Vitamin". The clarity and bombacity of its sound is impressive. Would you pay the extra money it would cost if this came with an implantable chip that would project their video at one meter in front of you while walking around listening? Hmmm, I would. Unfortunately, this is not available. Simply listening to this, however, will help you to recall your live Kraftwerk experience.
Speaking personally, I attended their concert in Amsterdam. At the Heineken Arena. So imagine how many people fit into an "arena". Now imagine, of all those people, about 50 are women. The remaining thousands, all men. And not just regular Dutch dudes out to see a show, but men outfitted in one of two styles of dress: 1. in affected Kraftwerk/Sprockets ensemble -- black leather pants with combat boots and a black turtleneck, or 2. in Classic Man-Machine Kraftwerk -- black suit with sharp red tie. Oh how I wished I had my little minidv cam for filming Kraftwerk Parking Lot. No matter how fascinating the crowd was, the show was somehow even better. From the three 30 meter x 30 meter video panels displaying their minimal but powerfully effective video accompaniment (much of which is available to view on their website), to the actual robots backlit behind a scrim, then exposed and moving, to the mind-blowing clarity and depth of sound (which is hard to do right in a large space like that) the aural and visual orchestration reeked of utter Kraftwerkian perfection.
And of course, if you did NOT get a chance to see them last year, here's your chance to pick up an incredible aural document of some of their best performances from all over the world!
This 1975 follow-up to their internationally successful Autobahn LP pays tribute to the mechanical catalyst that helped create that success, the radio and the power of broadcast communications. While more obtuse and less successful than its predecessor, the songs on Radio-Activity utilize more concrete forms than ever before with sounds of static, Geiger counters, oscillators and Cage-ian moments of silence to recreate the sense of radio transmission. This also marks the first time Kraftwerk recorded vocals in English and made use of robotic voices that would come to the forefront in subsequent releases.
It's about time. Dusseldorf's most famous export, the Godfathers of electronic pop music, Kraftwerk, finally see their classic albums remastered and reissued for the 21st century (although, unfortunately, not yet their EARLIEST classics, the ones with the traffic cone covers). Given the group's notoriety for demanding nothing but absolute perfection, you can safely bet that these sound AMAZING after years of tireless mixing and mastering in Kling-Klang studios. That's probably the main selling point here, as Kraftwerk was never really a "bonus material" kind of band, and there is none of that here; if it was released, it pretty much meant it was labored upon until being deemed suitable for public exposure. These reissues have also got some pretty fancy expanded artwork, with simple but bold slip covers housing the actual cds. Of course, if you don't already have these albums in some form or another, you should probably do yourself a favor and purchase every single one of them immediately.
The Man-Machine was originally released in 1978, a year after the artistic and commercial triumph of Trans-Europe Express. Obviously there was a lot to live up to following TEE, and Kraftwerk had little difficulty doing so. The Man Machine is likewise a genre-defining masterpiece, containing at least two of their most well known songs with "The Robots" and "The Model". It also features one of their strangely overlooked songs, the too-awesome-for-words "Spacelab". The cold, mechanical approach Kraftwerk had been striving for is perfected on this record, also expertly conveyed from a visual standpoint on the cover, where the group appears all angular and unsmiling in their matching red shirt/black tie getup. It's pretty crazy to imagine the reaction this must have received right in the middle of the punk explosion. As the rest of the world reveled in sloppy, wide-eyed rock n' roll, Kraftwerk became more precise and jettisoned the most recognizable traces of human emotion usually reserved for the pop market. Still, though the most noteworthy traits here bring to mind a glum, dystopian future, like on the title track and the ominous "Metropolis", there is also a good deal of humor and an implied human warmth, as Kraftwerk themselves, more than anything, take the role of detached observers in a world that defines itself more and more through technological progress. Sound familiar?
Oh, and a note to vinyl obsessives, these reissues will be coming out in that format next month, we're told!
