This is so absolutely brilliant and bonkers, that when we first heard it, we thought it must be fake, some modern day Rephlex artist putting everyone on, taking the piss, with a "raga-techno" album supposedly from the early '80s. But, no joke, this is the real thing! In 1982, Charanjit Singh, a famous Bollywood composer (he was featured on Sublime Frequencies amazing Bollywood Steel Guitar compilation), had a plan to translate ancient traditional Indian classical ragas to the synthesizer. Using the very synths that would later define Acid House (Rolands TB-303 and TR-808!), Singh unwittingly created a proto-acid masterpiece, before the techno genre ever existed. Since only a hundred or less copies were made originally, this release was mostly a rumor since its creation. We vaguely remember Drew Daniel from Matmos talking about it on Pitchfork, a couple of years back, saying someone should reissue it, but we weren't ready for how incredible and ahead of its time it sounds. Imagine if Kraftwerk (or even Oneohtrix Point Never) started composing music for a Bollywood Rave. Or imagine a more raga-inspired take on another proto-acid classic, Manuel Gottsching's epic E2-E4. While the "disco" rhythms are fast and frenetic and don't really vary that much between tracks (they're not really disco beats per se, but more akin to acid's trancey bounce), the synth flourishes and squelches of the raga over the top are soaring and floaty, making the tracks deliriously hypnotic. Capturing acid house's lysergic transcendence but with an outsider's economy that refuses to date it specifically to the era. While we only have the double lp, there will be a cd release sometime in the next month or so. But don't sleep on the vinyl too long as it's highly limited, and we guarantee there is not another release quite like this one in your collection. Highest Recommendation!
Brand new Talvin Singh record. Follow up to 'OK' which everyone seemed to love. More of the same. Modern electronica laced with tablas and sitars giving it a very 'eastern chill out lounge' sound. Nice. Expensive import. No word on a domestic release yet.
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Singh's now legendary status is much deserved--reknown for his tablas playing skills, his production for other artists, and his dance club "Anokha" that brings the sounds of the Asian Underground to the dancefloor. His new release (for now, only in beautiful limited edition double vinyl packaging) proves that he is every bit deserving of his status. Part dance music (from anywhere between London and Bombay), and part film soundtrack (from anywhere between London and Bombay) this record takes you on an amazing journey with 23 guests artists, the Madras Philharmonic Orchestra and a whole choir along for the ride--includes notables Bill Laswell, Ustad Sultan Khan and Ryuichi Sakamoto. This is Marc's new favorite record. Out on cd November 3.
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One song from the famous Talvin Singh, one of the major forces responsible for the whole sitar'n'bass scene. This is one song from his upcoming album, along with remizes by 4Hero and Kid Loco.
The title of this album "Vira" translates to 'Brotherhood", and although these two men are not related by blood, they certainly are connected in music. These recordings are of a single completely improvised performance by Singh on tabla and Chaurasia on
Song title of the week: 'antlers! antlers! antlers!'
Single Unit is a Norwegian visual artist that also makes some truly freaked out electronic music. 'Family of Forces' is his exploration of hardcore, electronica, and metal! Well, sort of metal, at least moreso than most of the more recent Jester offerings (Garm from Ulver. Imagine a black metal record, a Mr. Bungle record, or even a Zappa record, chopped to pieces and reassembled into some sort of insane electronic video game music with sampled chugging metal guitars, industrial roars, and all manner of bleeping and blipping, that form hypnotically hiccupping plunderphonic metal or maniacal droned out washes of bells and hums and whirring feedback! Partially composed, partially improvised, Single Unit mixes buzzing chiming childlike lullabies with technical and impossibly unplayable experimental metal ala Melt Banana, Meshuggah or Strapping Young Lad. Weird and GREAT.
One of six records which were originally part of a multi part release from local label Time Released Sound, whose releases are initially presented as deluxe hand crafted art editions, which we carry when we can, but in the case of this series, dubbed the 'chocolate box' series, which found each record pressed onto 3" cd-r's and packaged in a mini chocolate box, every box hand assembled, and every one different, the set had a seriously hefty price tag, and sold out super quick anyway, so while we weren't able to get our hands on the deluxe versions, thankfully the records were also available as proper cds in more modest packaging. We already reviewed the first two installments on the last New Arrivals List, Taskerlands and David Newlyn, and this week, we have the other four.
One of which is this one, from Sinneplakken, a quartet who have crafted a gorgeous bit of electronic flecked ambient minimalism that is thematically focused on the history of the Frisian Islands (!), which comes in the form of a few spoken word passages which feature Frisian poetry (!), however, the music itself is quite compelling, rhythmic and spare, but somehow lush and lovely as well, deep pulsations, chiming bell like melodies, muted strummed guitars, spidery minor key melodies, lush swells, swirls of electronic shimmer, blurred effects and random bits of percussion, field recordings, delicate pianos, streaks of static, subtle bits of barely there drumming, wheezing organs, sitar-like buzz, and stretched out almost raga-like drones, soft squalls of psychedelic guitar buzz, shards of feedback, all woven into a strange series of soundscapes, that slip from barely there haunting abstract minimal folk drift, to almost post rock slow build smolder. Quite cool.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!
Not much to go on here other than a title scrawled in shaky pen as the artwork for this tour-only mixtape from Siobhan - the grimy techno-savant from Detroit. His studio work on Chondritic and Opal Tapes have mined the motor-city futurism that brought forth so many great producers of techno from that city; but he's also got ample chops with low-rent guttural noise. There's probably some cuts that from his other tapes on Nostivelo that are making their way onto this weird mix that features a chopped and screwed version of "Mystere Dans Le Brouillard" by Liaisons Dangereuse followed by some equally murky Houston sizzurp laden production. These are just two of the few things we could recognize in this post-Cabs, post-Aphex, post-witchhouse, post-everything confabulation of dark rhythms and smoldering noise. Very limited stock with an unlikely possibility of us getting any more copies.
On last week's list we reviewed a tape called Omega Stamp on Chondritic Sound, from an outfit called Siobhan. That outfit turned out to be one guy, called Travis Galloway, who just happened to be from Detroit, which made sense once you got an earful of his twisted take on classic Detroit techno, one that was far removed enough that it ended up sounding like some mutant strain of gothed out zoner-house, but by way of Skinny Puppy, which is pretty much right where this new 12" on Opal Tapes falls as well, although on the opening track, Galloway injects some serious John Carpenter style soundtrackiness into the proceedings. In fact, it almost sounds like two entirely different songs crammed together, one all sinister swirling synths, the other, a murky, stuttering techno loop, and that's not even mentioning the super creepy distort vox draped over the top. The second track almost sounds like Consolidated at the wrong speed, old school industrial, rife with strange sound effects, slowed down, sort of dragging, blackly groovy, before transforming into something approaching electro, but way more distorted and lo-fi, streaks of feedback, and glitchy electronics, all over another churning hypno-rhythm, underpinned by woozy, seasick synths.
The flipside gets super electro, and about as funky as anything we've heard from Galloway thus far (which admittedly is not much), but even here, it's JUST the beat, everything else is grim and sour, dark and broody, the occasional swoop of synth is the only counterpoint to the swirling sonic murk that threatens to overtake everything, and every time the the main high melody surfaces, emerging from the morass, it's SO distorted and in the red, it briefly explodes in an almost Merzbow worthy sonic flare. The final two tracks are brief, but both take some retro electro and wind it up tight, at first letting it unfurl and a loping, woozy, warble, and then a final burst of manic old school beatsmithery, wrapped in black ash, and looped into a twisted, tone-bent techno.
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This NON-cd-r release from the outsider electronica label Phthalo is the work of Vladislav Delay, recording here as Sistol. After his exemplary Chain Reaction releases, this Finnish technician tightens up his techno minimalism to terse glitchy noises within rigid beats, certainly for fans of Thomas Brinkmann.
We had thought that Sistol was more or less a one-off project for Sasu Ripatti, the Finnish electronic producer better known as Vladislav Delay. The pioneering label Phthalo released an eponymous album back in 1999 as one of the first properly replicated discs after a slew of hand-duplicated cd-r releases. But for whatever reason, Sistol has resurfaced with this reissue of that 1999 album, buttressed by a second disc of remixes. Where Vladislav Delay's work has been a rather painterly smear of granular abstractions dotted upon a loose definition of the Chain Reaction rhythmic sensibility, Sistol has all of its sprockets engineered for a finely tuned precision. It's a very skeletal techno sound here, with a 909 kick drum pulse driving every track without much use for snares or hi-hats. Within this monophunk pulsation, Ripatti scatters small patterns of wooden electrical clacks and pings that again eschew most everything that could be construed as a melody. The insistence of the rhythm and the accretion of the pixel points settles into some curiously infectious grooves, although we'd be hard pressed to find this working on a dancefloor given how incredibly minimal this stuff is. The more austere moments of Thomas Brinkmann definitely come to mind as do the Wolfgang Voigt productions as Studio One, recorded about the same time as these cuts.
The bonus disc of remixes features John Tejada, Mike Huckaby, DMX Krew, Sutekh, Alva Noto, and like-minded techno types fleshing out Sistol's hyperminimal tracks with smooth Detroit / Berlin syncopations and darkened cybernetics. Given how minimal Sistol's work was, adding anything else completely changes the complexion of the original. Nevertheless, there are some mighty fine techno cuts to be found here. The noted exception to the techno offerings can be found in the remix from Ike Yard (yes, the recently reformed bleak No New York band with zombified leanings towards Cabaret Voltaire sounding very much like an updated version of themselves).
It's been a little while since we heard from Sixtoo, and in the meantime he's somehow found his way on to Ninja Tune which considering his new direction isn't all that bad a match. Chewing On Glass is Sixtoo's attempt at making a real record, with composed and played music, using real players and real instruments. Sure it's all tweaked and chopped in the ol' computer, but this still definitely sounds sweetly organic. Gorgeously spaced out, laid back and slightly creepy downtempo hip hop flecked electronica ala Endtroducing. Warm and languid Rhodes piano, stuttering sleepy beatscapes, spy movie strings, big booming live drums, huge thumping basslines, occasionally late night and jazzy, but always dark and funky. Sounds a bit like a DJ Shadow record on Anticon. Tons of liner notes, all unfortunately very dry and technical and of very little interest to most of the headz who just want to throw this on and chill out. Guest vocals on one track from Can's Damo Suzuki, who whispers, and sort of speaks (apparently improvising in the studio) along with a fierce hiccupping, super-reverbed rhythm over a dark sultry backdrop of ambient fuzz and sinister buzz. So good.
Skapel are two electronic musicans from Poland who do an incredible sample/cut/paste job with some obscure and anonymous (to us) '70 Eastern European jazz LPs being used for their sound sources. This duo is right on in their constructions built from mellow bass grooves, funky drum loops, glistening vibes, horn vamps, snatches of soulful female vox, etc., generating a head-nodding, smokey, noir-ish atmosphere of breakbeat jazz plunderphonica. Imagine an extremely jazz-oriented DJ Shadow and you'd be close... DJ Shadow meets '70s Miles Davis or Herbie Hancock maybe. Throw some of David Shire's the Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3 soundtrack in there too. As with Shadow, these tracks are built from other folks' records but stand on their own, the edits all flowing, the samples (including some record crackle to hint at their origin) integrated seamlessly, such that you might be fooled into thinking you were listening to the product of a real live band of musicans actually all playing together at the same time and place... though some electronic manipulation and looping will clue you otherwise. Still, there's no wip-wip-wap turntablism going on to get in the way of the music and mood. Really nice (though you've gotta like jazz of course). And it certainly makes us wish that the Skalpel guys would put together a compilation of Polish '70s fusion so we could check out the originals too!
The cd version of this comes with a bonus remix disc entitled 1958 Breaks, featuring remixes by Skalpel and others (Quantic, Dr. Rubberfunk, Backini, Paradowski, etc.) of stuff from Skalpel's first album. It has its moments but I won't be listening to it as much as the main disc 'cause the more techno/hiphop/whatever mixes tend to detract from the "I can't believe it's not real live jazz" authenticity that Konfusion does so well.
Here it is... the long overdue, highly anticipated, never expected to actually happen new album from the reunited Skinny Puppy! Yes, the surviving bandmates' differences appear to have been set aside. So now, eight long years after their split and fifteen after their masterpiece, VIVIsect VI, what does the 'Puppy sound like? Well, one word that might be fitting is "reinvented", as thankfully this is not a memory lane trip. Actually, it seems as though The Greater Wrong Of The Right could have been called the third 'Ohgr' album rather than the return of Skinny Puppy. For one thing (much like on his solo albums) Nivek Ogre is mostly singing rather than vocalizing in gutteral gasps and inhuman hisses. Whereas the vocals used to often be another mysterious texture, they are now up-front and decidedly 'songy'. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the noses of hardcore Puppy fans might get a little out of joint when they also discover that their beloved band's former trademark unsettling / confrontational elements are for the most part absent from this album. Heavy and dramatic, yes. Sinister and atmospheric, no. Skinny Puppy with the lights on? Also gone are the soundtrack-style interludes which gave previous albums such an intense bad-dream setting. Nonetheless, Cevin Key's mastery of sound craft is in full effect, and he's given an excellent, detailed mix by long-time Puppy (and more recently I Am Spoonbender) collaborator Ken Marshall. Producer Mark Walk (Ohgr) is clearly responsible for the vocal range leap achieved here by singer Ogre, and demonstrates the most visible break between 'now' Puppy and 'then' Puppy. Not surprisingly, the results are huge, intricately detailed works. However, whereas this band's recordings used to be some of the most difficult, groundbreaking and influential mood music around -- somehow
both genre-defining and genre-defying -- on a vast number of these tracks they now sound more like 'one of the (nu-metal / modern rock) gang'. Very leather'n'latex, Matrix / Blade 2 movie soundtrack-ready, by way of the Schematics Records IDM camp. Still, quality stuff. Appropriately, guests include Otto Von Schirach and weirdly, members of Static-X, Tool, and Collide.
New full length of twisted, groovy, outsider Neanderthal dance rock post punk whatthefuckery from these Minneapolis knuckle dragging, dancefloor deviants, whose sound is a splatter of synth squelch and analog blurt over dubbed out Load-rock style grooviness. Think Butthole Surfers or Chrome, but via Foetus or ESG or something equally preposterous, someone here thought it sounded like a mash up of some obscure Nirvana Bleach demo and the soundtrack to Cafe Flesh (!), although the closest noise rock analogue would obviously be Six Finger Satellite.
Kryptonym Bodliak is all sci-fi eighties retro club music and raw post punk funkiness, roughed up a bit around the edges and flecked with subtle noise rockisms, the least subtle of which are the vocals, super fucked up and heavily processed, alternately barked and howled, moaned and garbled, apparently the result of a contact mic-ed gasmask, transforming the vocals into a stuttering, mush-mouthed speaking-in-tongues sort of alien Make-Up style testifyin', all draped over lo-fi drum grooves, skronky sax, junkyard percussion, primitive keyboards, and thick slithery basslines. The band definitely seem capable of pulling off some true old school style post punk funk, but they're obvious noiseniks at heart, so that stuff is wreathed in plenty of cacophony and crunch, the results surprisingly rad, and the sort of stuff that must get a crowd of sweaty punks to shake their rumps, which is never a bad thing.
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Five track ep that features the best (and only good?) track from the Mo'Wax Headz 2-B collection, 1998's crash. Mr. Skull is one of the great overlooked producers of downtempo hiphop/breakbeat excursions. Dark and murky stuff a la DJ Shadow, Spectre & DJ Vadim. The first track is almost a 'post-rock' instrumental, although we hate the term... "Snapz" is supremely listenable & enjoyable. Don't miss it.
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Local producer and musician Dave Biegel of Bugs. This new 12" goes in an epic darkstep direction.
Slag Boom Van Loon is of course the collaboration between electronica maven Mike Paradinas and Dutch DJ Speedy J. And they have a lot of friends, enough to fill a full length cd with remixes: Boards of Canada, Four Tet, Pole, Matmos, Coil, Leafcutter John, mu-Ziq (wait, that IS Mike Paradinas), and others.
The 12" version comes with fewer tracks, but if you fancy yourself the DJ, then this is for you.
The latest release on Pre-Cert, an ongoing label / project / collaboration between Demdike Stare and Andy Votel, which so far has consisted of two Anworth Kirk lps and an Applehead record, ostensible different artists, but we're fairly sure for all the smoke and mirrors, the same trio are responsible for all three. All four now counting this, the first release from Slant Azymuth, whose sound has much in common with both Anworth Kirk and Applehead (no surprise there), but seems to be the danciest of the bunch, or at least the most overtly and hypnotically rhythmic. Before we give you our take on the record, here's what the label had to say about it, apparently the music here explores "fake-loric nonlanguage/electric codes and forbidden information to create an archive of sonic and poetic commentary (evidence) concerning corruption in pre-war local industry, perverted belief systems and scientific invention. Part music concrete, part folklore, part-pulp-fictitious, part Neorealism - this indulgent patchwork of mechanical folk/pop and non-music combines essential influences of electric Smithsonian releases, sound poetry, Zden?k Liska, Ilhan Mimaroglu, basic Carnatic music, Lettrism, Pierre Henry, Oramics in Ardwick, Massiera, Lloyd M. Williams, Stella Crenshaw, Bruno Nicolai, Suzanne Ciani, Eastern European fiction, AgitProp, L.S. Lowry, J.G. Frazer, Gurdjieff, Kommune pop groups and futen theater."
Thankfully, you don't really need to know at all what the fuck they're talking about to enjoy this, a tripped out slab of ever shifting avant electronica, and hauntological psychedelia, which begins with chugging train-like rhythms, over which keening high end tones shimmer and drift, laced with disembodied female vox, all of which seems to melt into a sort of dark synthy groove, all low slung and druggily sinister. From there on out, the sound flits from BBC Radiophonic Workshop style bleeps and bloops, to chopped and looped voices, to warbly tape experiments and finally to a sprawling bit of deeeeep dubbed out minimalism, all murky and spacey, some seriously hauntological heroin house for sure, Chain Reaction but even more minimal and psychedelic.
The B side starts off with a looped heavy dirge, with blast of brass, and dense tribal percussion, swooping, swirling effects, the whole thing surprisingly droney and heavy, eventually dissipating into a mysterious field recorded percussion jam, before finishing off with another long side close, this one a similarly minimal looped groovescape, downtempo and dark, late night trip out drift off, all subtly warped and warbly. Cool weird stuff. Definitely recommended for fans of Demdike Stare and their various and sundry offshoots...
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Not sure how we managed to miss this one, with a name like that. Well, making up for last time, this one got sent to us a while back, and we finally gave it a listen and we were thoroughly blown away. And what's not to dig? The work of just one man, Christopher Ashley, aka The Slasher Film Festival Strategy, Crimson Throne is a stunner, trafficking in a sound similar to the current crop of retro synth wranglers, conjuring up lost scores to never-existed seventies horror flicks and lost art house giallos, and while that sound has been done to death recently, A) it's a sound we never get tired of, and B) this guy does it way better than most. The synth sounds are thick and gristly, the melodies sinister and ominous, the tracks laced with skeletal drum machines, and sweeping epic backdrops, as far as Carpenter / Goblin worship goes, it doesn't get much better than this. The opener sets the scene, a smoldering sprawl of gristly synth buzz, anchored by a low end bassline, a melody soon creeps in, it's not hard to imagine the credits rolling, a lonely figure walking through an abandoned town, strange shadows behind the darkened windows, is the figure a potential victim, or the person everyone fears? A pulsing throb surfaces, ominous synth swells add some emotional tension, and soon the song blossoms into a full on moody minor key synth dirge, the drums pounding, the various synths swirling, so sinister and creepy and so obviously sonic portent of impending doom!
And so it goes, every track here the potential soundtrack for some lost B movie classic, from the almost disco drums and groovy synth pulse of the title track, wreathed in sweeping swaths of keyboard shimmer, to the creeping kosmische swirl of "Weightless", which would no doubt score some 2001 A Space Odyssey type sentient computer / alien on board seventies sci-fi thriller, to the drum machine driven new wave-y grooviness of "Solar Winds", which sounds like the weirdly and creepily jaunty music that plays beneath the closing credits, over the last image freeze-framed, alternately, it also sounds like some lost cold wave gem that could be a Dark Entries reissue! And there's so much more. Rad synthscapery of every stripe, total retro, creep out, imaginary soundtrack, kosmische, new age, space drift bliss, peppered with blasts of disco-y grooviness, woozy psychedelic synth drift, and haunting woozy vocodered minimal wave (check out closer "Day Eighteen"). The whole thing dedicated to the Space Shuttle Ambition!? So good.
Essential listening for fans of Expo 70, Umberto, Blizaro, Zombi, Majeure, Xander Harris, Gatekeeper, Nightsatan, etc...
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Known by a variety of monikers such as u-Ziq, Jake Slazenger, and Kid Spatula, Mike Paradinas records the most accessible (in other words, don't be scared by the following word) techno music I have had the pleasure to recently hear. I've been informed that Paradinas falls into the sub-subgenre of techno called 'clown hop.' I can't remain seated while listening! One track on In Pine Effect samples Kristin Hersh even. Highly recommended.
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Mike Paradinas a.k.a. u-Ziq a.k.a. Kid Spatula with his second Slazenger album, as we've said before, this is some of the most accessible experimental techno around. For more info, read The Wire's 1996 article about him, Luke Vibert (Plug), Witchman, and Squarepusher. English import.
Despite the name, don't think parkas and scooters. Think, well, white rap. White rap by a pair of clever & cranky British blokes, who kinda sound like if Mark E. Smith from the Fall listened to a lot of Sensational or Kool Keith and decided to make a really WTF? electronic rap album of his own. Except there's two of him (seems to be one main guy, and a kind of a sidekick).
We got turned on to the Sleaford Mods thanks to a really cool record shop over in England, Norman Records, who put this album at the top of their Best of 2013 list, an apparently controversial choice even among the shop's own staffers. Some unconventional, outside of the box thinking there! So we figured we ought to check it out. And guess what? We can see why they picked it, though we can also see why it was a bold choice. Had we heard it last year, we might have been tempted too. It's addictive! And we don't always even understand half of what these geezers are on about, that's part of the charm - the thick accents (lots of "fookin'") and the British slang, only makes more wonderfully confusional their own weird brand of free-association wordplay, resulting in plenty of cryptic non-sequiturs that may or may not be intentional, though there's plenty of obvious witticisms too. The lyrics, near as we can tell, are mainly complaints about life and society and shitty music business stuff, full of references to wankers and "donkeys".
Here's some lines from the track "Shit Streets Runny" (that is, if we managed to transcribe it correctly): "Attention to detail / attention to detail / fookin' email / wap! mp3 / I need a fookin' bath / you ain't no roadrunner / you ain't no shoot shoot the runner / shit take on it / meanwhile back in the crap cave / I trod on my cape by mistake / and fell into the fridge mate / I fookin' hate Northern Soul / it's like Motown on the dole". Then the sidekick guy gets some good bits in too, like the one about "Brain Eno / what the 'ell does 'e know?"
And all that, their ranting and rhyming, and even a little bit of singing, sort of, comes on top of quite catchy minimalist hiphop backing tracks, with ticktocking drum machines and laid back grooves, simple and hypnotic, making for an oddly humorous and headnodding listen indeed, full of sing-song bits that will get stuck in your head, catchphrases too - we're all going "Wobble wobble wobble" ferinstance. Maybe it's even more amusing to us since we're American, and whatever we're lacking in context is made up for in sheer absurdity. Anyway, diggin' this a lot!
We're tempted to say this is a weird one, coming from local black metal tape label Acephale Winter, but then pretty much everything we've heard from them has been pretty weird, this one though, definitely takes the weirdo cake. For one, it's not black metal, not at all, for another, much of it was purportedly recorded while tripping on acid. What Sleep Deprived deliver, in fact sounds like sounds created via sleep deprivation, full of swirling ambience and dark motorik kosmische drifts. The opener lays down a barely there rhythm, beneath a field of murky pulsations, and keening minor key melodies, all hazy and washed out, like some sort of ghostly disembodied krautrock, that quickly transforms into some bleak, black ambience, before blossoming into a gauzy sprawl of swirling psychedelia. The rest of the tape plays out similarly, with long stretches of pulsating synths, murky, moody atmospheres, FX drifting in and out, what sound like disembodied voices, insectoid buzz, some tracks get downright symphonic, others remain hushed and whispery, moments remind us of super dramatic film music, others sink ever deeper into creepy minimal thrum. Imagine closing your eyes after days of no sleep, those patterns you see through your eyelids, fractals and slow shifting shapes, this is like THAT set to music, gorgeously mediative, occasionally ominous, super tripped out and hypnotic, a killer collection of druggy, synth-drone, cosmic-psych ambience.
Finally, we got enough of these to list, the darkly dreamy lp debut of Stefanie Franciotti's hazy and gauzy solo outfit, Sleep Over. A new light in the field of female-led synthesization, a la Laurel Halo and Maria Minerva, Sleep Over is a stunning mix of Grouper's washed out and oceanic distortion, Cocteau Twins-ish pop romanticism and uncanny gothic dream soundtrack. We've been fans of Franciotti since her days as singer in aQ faves, Silver Pines, but in Sleep Over she has found her true calling as an experimental sound composer, synthesizing voice and sound in chillingly bright sonic environments and ambient textures. Gorgeous!
Even though we have yet to review anything on the aQ list from this deep listening black ambient drone technician, most of the drone lovers at aQ were already big fans, how could we not be? Sleep Research Facility, aka Scottish soundscaper Kevin Doherty, specializes in an ultra minimal, spaced out black ambience, weaving sprawling landscapes of hushed thrum and sinister murmur, often manipulating field recordings and processing them beyond the point of recognition, assembling them into bleak, epic, haunting, somnambulant drifts. We were particular taken by this most recent missive, which finds Doherty working exclusively from a selection of field recordings, samples collected from a B-2 Stealth Bomber, at a US Air Force base in the UK, and if there was ever a more appropriate sound source for this sort of hushed sonic mystery, it's the military's most mysterious aircraft.
And while these recordings are obviously not the sounds of the aircraft in flight, it's easy to imagine that this modern marvel of technology was in fact THIS stealthy, emitting just a strange series of hushed rumbles, a deep shimmery thrum, laced with the telltale sounds of radio transmissions, tinny voices from the ether that sound almost like EVP recordings, ghostly and wraithlike. Doherty's manipulations are subtle, weaving the original sounds into gentle pulsations, layering multiple recordings into lush textures, weaving strange sine wave tones and staticky gristle into the proceedings, blurring and smearing everything into hazy, darkly psychedelic sonic shadows.
The mix of abstract low end ambience, and strange transmissions, can't help but remind us of all time aQ fave the Conet Project. It definitely has that same vibe, the clouded provenance of these sounds, the pure musicality of the distinctly non-musical, but Doherty does work his magic, adding subtle swaths of melody, and giving the tracks here, no matter how minimal, a sense of propulsion, beneath the murk and the droned out whir, a barely there rhythmic pulse, while at the same time sculpting the various sound sources into sprawling fields of moody mesmer, a tranced out minimalism that is at once, soothing and darkly tranquil, this record quickly becoming one our favorite records to drift off to in the evening, and yet at the same time, crackling with energy, infused with not just the sounds themselves, but the implied weight of those sounds, borne of this strange machine, one that was devised to inflict violence, the ultimate delivery system for our collective bloodlust, the sounds of which, when at rest, are strangely lovely, albeit rife with a tension implicit in the source, and speak to an alternate purpose, one where this machine, even in repose, becomes less a means of destruction, and instead is involved in the creation of something beautiful and darkly transcendent.
The record proper is accompanied by a second disc, which is the 'source' material Doherty used to create his dark droney vision, and the most interesting thing is how musical that material already is. And while these aren't the raw unedited recordings, they are the 'pre-mix' versions, which are meant to represent those source sounds, and while they are definitely much less processed, they still possess a dark musicality, with much of the grit and gristle of the finished record stripped away, leaving just deep tones, and long shifting layers of thrum and hum and whir, like the record itself, occasionally the true source sounds do reveal themselves, whether it's the clang and clatter of work in the hanger, or the squelched blurts of radio static, but ultimately, the source disc is simply another version of Stealth, one that we actually find equally enthralling. Essential modern dronescaping from this master of the dark sonic arts!
Pronounced "slepthhhh", meaning "blind man" in their native tongue, this Polish duo cranks out ear splitting noise coated breaks that lie along streaming rivers of distorted symphonic strings. This is pummeling dancefloor destruction for the end of the world.
This is a Slicker remix record. Slicker is John Hughes III Son of *the* John Hughes. But don't expect any of that 'don't you forget about me' Breakfast Club pap - instead Slicker and the remixers enlisted here traffic in a sort of intellectual electronica. Richie Devine and Delarosa collaborate to provide slow moving IDM plod with Devine's trademarked electronic plateux of algorithmic clatter. Super ESP - the work of Chicago uber-producer Casey Rice - turns in a downtempo Squarepusher jazz / jungle hybird. Matmos - San Francisco's electronica kings - recalls the best Coil pieces from "Love's Secret Domain" - with obtuse tongue in cheek funkiness and lots of damaged electron quiggle. Savath / Savalas - vibe oriented summery electronic bubbliness. Miceparade's remix starts out as a twee version of Disco Inferno but regresses to typical Chicago post-rock irrelavance. Today, hyphens are a good thing - maybe not tomorrow - but certainly today ---.
2nd album. AQ-fave mc Sensational guest raps on one track. Definitely for fans of Spectre and the dark, dubby, bass-heavy WordSound "sound" in general.
Windy's new favorite record. After a slew of singles and remixes for a variety of respected labels including Cheap and Mego, the Swedish duo Sluta Leta release their American debut on Miami's trustworthy Chocolate Industries label. Man, there's only four songs on this EP but they're SO GOOD it makes me wanna get everything Sluta Leta has released. Their sound has been described as Throbbing Gristle meets Cibo Matto. I don't really hear the Cibo Matto part of it except in Sluta Leta's irreverent inclusion of sounds suggesting such disparate influences as noir gangster thrillers to entire-car-throbbing heaving bass and lounge music. In fact, it's in the way that Sluta Leta fucks with genres that makes the music sound so good. Abstract low end rumbles. Weird horns and sleazy ice queen vocals. Shuffling staticky digital breaks make for a lot of on-the-beat stops and starts, done so seamlessly and rhythmically that you find yourself unconsciously moving to beats that *aren't there*, that they've dropped out of the mix. Yeah, it's that good.
It's been simply ages since we last heard from Sluta Leta. 'Twas way back in 2000 when If You Like Champagne On Ice? came out and pleased our ears (it was a particular fave of Windy's). Now four years later what are these folks up to? Very much the same dynamic, eclectic multipersonality music!
A sampling of just how wide Sluta Leta's stylistic pendulum swings? Track 9 "Super Swede" swoons along with super sultry female vocals atop accordion and electronic allsorts. Then, on the following track called "Wirbla" Sluta Leta delights with bouncy playful yet severely squidgy digital goo.
Yet another pseudonym for the insanely prolific Matt Wand, one half of Stock, Hausen & Walkman and Hot Air head honcho. Small Rocks is a bubbly squeaky beat monster that just might send Mouse On Mars, Atom (tm) and even Blectum From Blechdom running home
In spite of the fact that over the last few years, minimal techno has become an increasingly bloated, boring, and pretentious genre, Scotland's own Alex Smoke manages to create beautiful and thoughtful tracks. We just hear so music made by artists that seem as if they have nothing else in their record collection other than just more techno, so it's an encouraging breath of fresh air when someone steps in and revitalizes what's happening. And even though it's true, we slept on this record for a while, it's better late than never, right? European clubs have recently been packed full of tight-lipped, scarf wearing DJs spinning record after record of filtered plug-in synths with deep kicks and way too much reverb on the snare. Almost like someone wrote a half-ass bassline, paired it down to the essentials, and threw some other effected shit on top. Bleh. Tracks have begun to feel as formulaic and stale as a Britney Spears track. What Smoke brings to the table is akin to Steve Reich's understanding of arrangement and flow, the starkness of minimal wave, and a dark, melodic understanding on par with groups like Depeche Mode. If it made sense to call something a linear phase composition, this would be it. Time signatures weave in and out of each other, each piece of the track eq'd just so that no piece of the spectrum is left untouched, while everything has ample room to breathe. Not just as a producer, although he is exceptional, but as a bizarre kind of songwriter, Alex Smoke excels. Completely recommended.
