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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To Rococo Rot composed this album to cohabitate with the architectural forms found within the "Kolner Brett" building designed by the Cologne architectural firm b&k+. As the building held the grander notions of blending living and working in each of its single units (or so we've been told, but the pictures of the building indicate that it's as advanced as anything in Wallpaper), To Rococo Rot has configured each of the twelve tracks in this album to fit within an architectural grid (each track is exactly three minutes long) and a distinctly architectural discourse of merging form and function within a sleek but utilitarian style. With such a condensed timeframe, To Rococo Rot offers uniform techno pulses behind pleasant electronic percolations, occasional glitch whimsy, and Fridge-like guitar strum, sounding like "Future Days" era Can playing the MicroHouse of Andreas Tilliander.
We've always thought there was something special about To Rococo Rot, we've heard moments on their records that really show they can reach next level brilliance in their ability to merge such a pronounced feeling and mood with their deep grooves and beats. Before dubstep and any of the other new electronic subcategories, To Roccoco Roc were already making super rich, moody and nuanced sounds that didn't conform to one single style. Speculation is their first album in many years and it finds the Berlin trio in top form. The album opens with Cluster-like pulsations and as it organically moves forward with a post-kraut-rock sensibility, the sounds shift and sway, going back and forth from a tense and haunting sensation to something more free and exploratory. There are moments where they tap into the kind of sound we imagine Tortoise and Mouse On Mars might create if they collaborated, yet there is something a bit more sinister and seething just under the surface of To Rococo Rot's sound. Their sonic versatility really sets them apart from so many of their peers. So nice to have them back!
It's been so cold here lately (well you know cold for us California types) and there is something about To Rococo Rot's warm electronic sounds that hits the spot right about now. While so much of the melodic electronica that has come out since they burst onto the scene has gotten quite stale and predictable there is something always so consistent and perfect about what To Rococo Rot produce.
The kind of record that's so nice to have on while you linger in thoughts, half awake and in your pajamas not really wanting to leave the comfort of your bedroom or face the cold outside.
Lovely, unassuming, appealing electronica along the lines of a quieter Mouse On Mars. Fans of Tortoise, Fridge, and Boards of Canada will like it too. You may recall that Schneider TM of To Rococo Rot was responsible for one of the prettiest, most artistically successful remixes on the recent High Llamas remix album.
More wonderful burbling electronica from the lauded German quartet To Rococo Rot, of whom solo artist Robert Lippok is a member. Undercurrents of throbbing yet very gentle bass rhythms augmented with chattery percussion and serene melodies. Fans of Boards of
More entrancing downtempo mellow electronica from Dusseldorf's wonderful To Rococo Rot, who boast solo artists Robert Lippok and Schneider TM as members. There are 5 tracks, here -- 2 previously unreleased, and 3 that are reworked, very different versions
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The UK's "D" (Darryl Moore, Soul Static Sound producer) collaborates on this ep with German dub/electronica/modern krautrocking band To Rococo Rot, resulting in a mix of their "electronics, samples, and live instrumentation" with his minimalist techno "grit".
Brand new remix ep (featuring a clutch of new jams as well) from Tobacco, the weirdo psychedelic synth electro hip hop side project of long time aQ faves Black Moth Super Rainbow, on which a handful of past Tobacco jams get reworked and revved up, and handed over to some of the world's weirdest and most warped MC's: Anti-Pop Consortium, Doseone, Rob Sonic, not to mention some rappers we've never heard of: Serengeti, Height, Icicle Frog, Zackey Force Funk.
The new tracks kill, the old tracks sound new, a dizzying, over the top, twisted avant hip hop blowout, synths buzz and twist and get all tangled up, the beats skitter and stutter, guitars crunch and shimmer, samples are chopped up and looped and layered, sounds buzz and crunch and whir, a swirling ever shifting backdrop for some seriously out there flows.
"TV All Greasy" buzzes and warbles while Anti-Pop go nuts over the top, the vocals riding on the undulating synths, "The Injury" sounds like an eighties educational film soundtrack wedded to crunchy fuzzguitar, the beats primitive, Doseone's whiny flow perfectly balancing Tobacco's shimmery vocodered croon, "Lick The Witch" is classic old school hip hop slathered in synth buzz and swirling effects, and Rob Sonic's bad ass versery, "2 Thick Scoops" is a dirgey almost metallic bit of shoegaze doompop hip hop freakiness, with some slithery flow and some woozy synth filigree, and so it goes, the rest of the record playing out in similarly blown out, synth heavy fuzz guitar drenched stumbly outsider hiphop radness.
Makes us think how cool it would be if all the boring radio rappers who shell out thousands of dollars for boring beats, got Tobacco to whip up some of his weirdness instead. We can't help but imagine Jay-Z or Eminem spitting rhymes over some of this stuff. If only!
Features some disturbing Tobacco style basketball headed milky cereal garish colored eye popping artwork on a 12" picture disc!
Yay! Put on your favorite monster mask and pour a big bowl of sugary breakfast cereal, Black Moth Super Rainbow's possibly groovier, more "hip-hop" alterego is back! Tobacco in the house!! And when we say possibly groovier, what we mean is that this is VERY groovy, about as groovy as it is distorted, and 'delic. Thick, fuzzy, flangey synths colorfully pulsate everywhere, amidst handclap-laced "Unholy Demon Rhythms" (as one song title here puts it)... and it seemingly never ends, hypnotic, head nodding, foot tapping, one track after the next, grooving out with laidback sunshiney good vibes and DayGlo exploding weird noize-energy, all at the same time. A lot of it's instrumental, and when vocals do appear, they're dreamily delivered, heavily treated with spacey electronic effects, the stoned flow far more like blissed out chant than regular "rap", although Tobacco's debut Fucked Up Friends did feature a cameo from rapper Aesop Rock, and this new one boasts guest rhyming on a couple cuts by none other than Beck, who is the godfather of druggy indie-tronic hiphop, right?
The lyrics, when there are lyrics, are usually brief (if not to-the-point), containing cryptic poetry and good advice (?), for instance from "Constellation Dirtbike Head", the lead-off track: "Feel the day, the hottest day / Don't eat the berries around you / Don't eat the berries around you / Burn all your things". Them's all the words. Tobacco returns to the themes of burning and eating later in the disc, but you'll grok just as much sense from the song titles (several of which sound like they'd fit nicely on a NWOFHM album by Steel Mammoth or somebody, e.g. "Lick The Witch", "Motorlicker", "Nuclear Waste Aerobics", etc.).
Basically, if you liked Fucked Up Friends (and why wouldn't you?), you'll like Tobacco's sophomore effort too, it's cut from the same cloth, another sixteen tracks of his friendly, freaky soundz. And same thing goes, if you like BMSR, Tobacco's for you too, but we explained that already when we reviewed the first one (which we made a Record Of The Week by the way, and maybe shoulda done the same this time too). Compared to BMSR, this is pretty similar, Tobacco just steps a little harder, funkier, totally rockin' the bells, with the ever-present, almost skweee-ish synths being even woozier and soooooo wonderfully distorted! Along w/ BMSR, this makes us think of what it might sound like if Fuck Buttons got Daft Punk'd...
One last thing to say, obvious, but we're on a deadline: Tobacco IS addictive! But that's ok, while this might get a Surgeon General's warning, it gets our recommendation!
And fyi, for the next two weeks, we've got this on a special $2 off sale deal, so it's $11.98 instead of the regular $13.98, until 7/4/10!
Smoke 'em if you got 'em. It's the return of Tobacco, the vaguely-hiphop-ish electro-weirdo alter ego/side project of the quite similar really Black Moth Super Rainbow. We're big fans of both, though Tobacco tends to take things to even more of a bizarre extreme even than BMSR, and Ultima II Massage pushes all the buttons, flips all the switches, turns all the knobs, etc., we were hoping for this time out. Totally trippy, effects-damaged synth shuffle, overdosed on DayGlo distortion, some tracks with processed pop vocal hooks, others all about the glitchy grooves, like we said before, its like Fuck Buttons got Daft Punk'd, or M83 going all skweee.
Tobacco brings the noise here, but also doesn't neglect the melodic side of things either, in kicking out these fuzzy, funky jams, perverse party pleasers for sure - at a party we'd imagine features strobe lights, LSD spiked punch, and a sweaty, shambolic dancefloor. Well, there's tracks here for the dancers, and others for the partygoers passed out on the carpet. Good stuff!
This is an ep with but one new non-album track and a couple remix versions each of '4 Ton Mantis' and 'Saboteur' from his "Supermodified" album. Hip hoppier than the full length. Coolness. Still one of the best sampler technicians in electronica (and by far the most interesting for drum & bass), Amon Tobin brings a few more big beat breaks to the rich collages of filmic orchestral tension, Brazilian jazz grooviness, and monstrous drum & bass rhythmic diversity. Never, ever boringly repetitive or predictable, Tobin weaves in his source material with a masterful sophistication that heavy-handed Moby only wishes he could do so smoothly.
First album by Amon Tobin after shedding the Cujo moniker. Excellent drum & bass with hand-lifted beats from jazz to old bachelor pad lps to soundtracks. All impeccably reworked, recomposed and produced by Mr Tobin. Everything this guy has released is crucial. Very highly recommended!
Through no fault of his own, some of weren't all that excited when we saw a new Amon Tobin release had arrived (some of us have remained HUGE fans, of EVERY record, but we digress). Not sure why, but maybe in our minds we just kind of associated him so much with the sound of Ninja Tune in the '90s. But damn that lack of excitement was thrown out the fucking window once we put this on the stereo. We were reminded right quick that Amon Tobin is for real. Not just a relic of some bygone electronica era, but instead someone who continues to explore, experiment, and soar with new ways of approaching sonic velocity. This is without a doubt the most intense and harrowing release of his career. In fact a few of us thought this was the new Ben Frost when this was first playing. A record that is made to be played LOUD. It's like watching some awesome nature documentary in 3D with a soundtrack by Pan Sonic blasting out of the THX speakers. In an age when so much electronic music is so specific in its genre focus (dubstep, micro-house, witch house, etc) it's so nice to be reminded that electronics can be used for something on a much larger scale. Tobin is like an experimental composer using electronics to create massive blasts of sonic glory. The album is frightening, compelling and awe inspiring all at once. Tobin demonstrates that IDM is not dead, it just got bigger, badder and better!
Brand new, fifth full length album (including the one he did as Cujo) from Amon Tobin. I recently raved about the pre-release cd single Verbal (that fucking great song appears here too), so I'll papraphrase a bit: Tobin's music, as typified by his two most recent albums Supermodified and Permutations, which are deeply beloved by just about everyone who works here at AQ, not to mention many many AQ customers such as yourself, takes samples of the most wildly diverse material -- no programmed beats for this Brazilian-turned-Briton -- and recombines them into a style utterly his own. That might not sound like much of a feat, and yeah sure everyone's doing it, but like fellow vinyl sampler DJ Shadow, Tobin really does make irrelevant the fact that the source material is sampled, so seamlessly and proficiently does he distill his own style. In fact, when Cup heard this record, even though the *elements* of the "Verbal" track -- cartoonish speed rapping courtesy MC Decimal R, flamenco-ish guitar -- weren't typically Tobin fodder, she correctly pointed out that the *sound* of the music made it nonetheless totally recognizable as his own. There's film noir-ish tension, thundering big beats, tumbling tomtoms, itchy chatterings and menacing flutterings amidst the jungly energy. So interesting, never repetitive or predictable.
If you're already into him, you know you need to get this now, and if you're new to Amon Tobin, start right here. You won't be disappointed, promise!
Mr. Tobin continues to meticulously develop his sounds beyond his previous releases into this great album. Really sophisticated and an absolute joy to listen to. Here he fuses lounge with his usual jazz-infested drum'n'bass. Everytime we play this album in the store, someone buys it. Highly recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Slowly building through some strong batacuda beats fixed with the archetypic amen break, Amon Tobin hits the monstrous intensity found on his epic "Bricolage" album and "Mission" 12". The disc has one more track than the vinyl.
"Supermodified" is the fourth album from Amon Tobin (including the one album recorded as Cujo). Still one of the best sampler technicians in electronica (and by far the most interesting for drum & bass), Amon Tobin brings a few more big beat breaks to the rich collages of filmic orchestral tension, Brazilian jazz grooviness, and monstrous drum & bass rhythmic diversity. Never, ever boringly repetitive or predictable, Tobin weaves in his source material with a masterful sophistication that heavy-handed Moby only wishes he could do so smoothly. Fans of Tobin already know the high musical standards he sets himself, and won't be disappointed, but may we also recommend this album to people who haven't yet found anything appealing in electronica. You can't do much better than starting with what so far seems like Electronica Record of the Year.
Yes!! The long awaited new Amon Tobin cd ep / 12" is totally killer. Tobin's music, as typified by his two most recent album Supermodified and Permutations, which is deeply beloved by just about everyone who works here at AQ, not to mention many many AQ customers such as yourself, is to take samples of the most wildly diverse material -- no programmed beats for this Brazilian-turned-Briton -- and recombine them into a style utterly his own. That might not sound like much of a feat, and yeah sure everyone's doing it, but like fellow vinyl sampler DJ Shadow, Tobin really does make irrelevant the fact that the source material is sampled, so seamlessly and proficiently does he elicit his own style. In fact, when Kup heard this record, even though the *elements* of "Verbal" -- cartoonish speed rapping courtesy MC Decimal R, flamenco-ish guitar -- weren't typically Tobin fodder, she correctly pointed out that the *sound* of the music made it nonetheless totally recognizable as his own. There's film noir-ish tension, thundering big beats, tumbling tomtoms, itchy chatterings and menacing flutterings amidst the jungly energy. So interesting, never repetitive or predictable.
If you're already into him, you know you need to get this now, and if you're new to Amon Tobin, start right here. You won't be disappointed. Note: The 12" has just the "Verbal" track, plus an a capella and an instrumental version. The cdep has 3 other non-album tracks that are very worth picking this up in addition to the upcoming album.
When this AQ-fave electronica artist makes music, he rarely disappoints, having released four stellar albums of music -- never boring, always innovative and instantly recognizable as his own. So it stands to reason that the same care and no-filler attitude would follow for any remixes or collaborations. And that's mostly true here, thank goodness.
Five brand new collaborative tracks (with Steinski, Kid Koala, Doubleclick, Bonobo, and P-Love) although with the exception of Kid Koala's, where plucked strings make one woozy with Koala's trademark seasick style of turntablism, none sound all that remarkably different from your normal high-quality Tobin tracks.
The four "Verbal" remixes fare a lot better ("Verbal" being the stellar, manic hip hop flavored second track on Tobin's recent full length Out From Out Where), each participant enhancing the track with their own sound. Prefuse 73 turns in an even more cut up, yet somehow surprisingly smoothed out, lounge-ified version -- very good. The Bay Area's own Kid606 exhibits great love for dancehall. And Philly producer Boom Bip somehow makes the track serene with the use of floaty Aphex-ambient-y chords.
Definitely worth your money if you're a big fan. But if you don't at least have a couple of Tobin's other full lengths, get those first.
Been trying to list this for AGES, but our distributors were constantly out of stock, it's been out for a while, but we only just now actually got enough to review and list. Tokimonsta is a female beatmaker from Los Angeles, who was the first female to join Flying Lotus' crew, and whose sound is a warm and scratchy, sorta laid back, sweet and soulful electronica, she mixes old records, live instruments, plenty of effects and loops, and weaves them into swoonsome grooves that shift freely from pop ambient shimmer, to murky late night funk, to big beat crunch, often all together in different measures.
And while we tend to lean toward the dark and the ominous, there's something about Midnight Menu that's totally captivating, sure she occasionally dips into wicked dubstep, making it obvious that if she was so inclined she could rule the dubstep scene, all spiralling minor key synths over burbling synth buzz and a killer stuttery beat, or unfurls woozy washes of muted slo-mo soul that's moody and mysterious, but for the most part, her sound is sun dappled Sunday afternoons, and warm washed out expanses of hazy crackle drenched records spinning slowly over stripped down rhythms, there are a couple tracks with vocals, and sound like hip-hop/pop radio jams, but a little bit warped and twisted, eventually settling back into Tokimonsta's abstract dreamlike electronic sound world. We've all been digging this like crazy, and are psyched to finally get it listed.
Fans of Flying Lotus, Blue Daisy, Zomby, Mount Kimbie, J Dilla and others of a similar sonic stripe will dig this lots...
You might recognize Tomo if you're in the Bay Area and have seen the dance party Hey Willpower. He's their boogie woogie trackmeister. Prior to that, he was in the angstful post-punk SF band The Boy Explodes. It might be said that both of those groups brought out the wild side of this quiet, unassuming fellow. His solo work on the other hand strikes quite a different chord. Whereas his other projects are right at home cutting loose in a bar or basement rec room, this seems like it'd be more at home in a science lab (perhaps inspired by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop?). Definitely much more controlled, methodical and brainy, For Many Birthdays is his second glitchy electronica album. Whereas his self-titled debut was a light effervescent affair, this is still quite woozy and bloopy, but darker and occasionally more abrasive -- revealing yet another facet of Tomo! Very cool!
This reserved young Japanese fellow can also be seen and heard in a number of local bands (two that spring to mind are the raucous postpunkish The Boy Explodes and Willpower, the new wave-y side project of Imperial Teen's vocalist Will Schwartz). This is his first solo release, and it sounds like neither of the above. No, it's a playful array of electronic, sample-laden tracks -- sometimes light and ticklish, sometimes stuttery drum'n'bass-y, sometimes downright funky, sometimes chiming and musicbox-y. The latter forms the basis for one of the album's brightest points, the giddy fifth track "Ritual Of Bubble" which incorporates some very Cornelius-esque chopped up vocal samples. Tomo's music bears a striking resemblance to a slumber party / wrestling match between a bunch of tipsy arcade games. Absolutely delightful!
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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Tone Language is the collaboration between Lee Norris, Ichiro Taniguchi, and Kenji Taniguchi. Norris has made a number of electronica genre-jumping albums as Metamatics and as Nacht Plank, while the Taniguchis have recorded as the drum & bass duo Reflection. With a trio of laptops streaming a blurred clatter of warm glitchpopmuzik, Tone Language exactly replicates the sound of Oval from the seductive ambient salves to the nebula bass pulses. Pretty shocking how much this sounds like "Szenariodisc."
Tone Rec (a band that's been called "electronica's This Heat") now present a remix album, mostly abstracted rhythmic patterns which often have their origins in tense live percussions. Tone Rec remixes four of their own tracks, with To Rococo Rot, DAT Politics (Tone Rec alter-ego), and Fennesz contributing to the fun.
With roots going all the way back to the Japanese Fluxus movement in the early '60s, Yasunao Tone remains one of Japan's more adventurous new music composers. Beginning in the early '80s when commercially available digital technology was hitting the market, Tone began experimenting with overriding the error-correction systems on consumer CD players in order to generate complex streams of digital errata. Tone furthers the process with a self-decribed method of 'wounding' the discs themselves with transparent tape, physical abrastions, and pinhole punctures. Despite his numerous grants, fellowships, installations, and awards, Tone has only a handful of recordings, including this new eponymous release through Asphodel. The resultant album of skipping CDs and noxious digital skittering certainly recalls the work of Oval, Disc, and most things on Mego.
MPEG Download: "Track 02" [/audio/yasunaotone02.mp3]
Wow, is this record ever bizarre, not at all what you might expect from the same label that released the record of Pajo Misfits covers or Paz Lenchatin's gorgeous country drone folk record, but like those records, Tonetta's 777 is truly unique and weird and to some ears perhaps also wonderful. Incredibly strange music for sure...
Some folks might recognize the name Tonetta (or Tonetta 777) from his various videos on YouTube, and no doubt some of you were probably forwarded them as they are truly truly odd and were becoming a sort of sensation. So we were trying to find a simple succinct way of describing Tonetta, and decided to turn to the online source for all things freaky, Freakipedia (oddly enough there was no entry for Tonetta on Wikipedia) where Tonetta's entry described him as "an incredibly gay older man on YouTube who dances half naked to songs he pre-recorded. While most of the music sounds the same in his videos, his lyrics largely differ dealing with sexual fetishes such as pissing and pooping, larger women and men, and ass to mouth." Which does pretty much sum it up. Tonetta dresses in strange ripped Flashdance style outfits, g-strings, torn sweatshirts, bustiers, weird masks, sometimes pantyhose over his head, wigs, dresses, whatever, sometimes he's practically nude, he shimmies and shakes, in a diamond shaped frame surrounded by trippy colors, in front of a backdrop that looks like it's probably in his basement, white curtains, a black sheet hung on the wall, a bunch of balloons, and we haven't even gotten to the music yet, simple primitive drum machines, looped disco basslines, blown out guitars, everything in the red and blown out and distorted, the vocals either a deep croon, or a weird almost falsetto trill, the sound warped and warbly alternatingly funky, groovy, and/or psychedelic, sometimes the music sounds like some underground post punk lo-fi disco, other times it sounds almost like Ariel Pink or John Maus, and then there's the song tiles and lyrics, which as the Freakipedia entry alludes to, are subversive and sexual and bizarre and problematic and pretty goddamn funny: "My Bro", "Still A Slave", "A Really Big Cock", "Toronto Is Starting To Stink", "Metal Man", "Peeping Tom", "Drugs Drugs Drugs", "God Treats You Right", "I'm Gonna Marry A Prostitute", and on and on. Fucked up and freaky, but weirdly addictive, and as skeptical as we may have been about a whole album of this stuff, after seeing a bunch of his videos, we find ourselves digging this a whole lot, and listening to it more than we ever thought we would, which pretty much says it all!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, pressed on 140 gram vinyl, housed in a super nice thick cover, adorned with a 2 color serigraph, and comes with a cd version of the record as well.
One of our favorite analog electronic prog-hippie jazz-psych records from the magic year of 1971 has finally been given the reissue treatment, and it's a doozy! TONTO stands for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra", the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world. Created by Malcom Cecil and Robert Margouleff, the duo's first outing with their new creation was originally released on jazz flautist, Herbie Mann's Atlantic Records sub-label, Embryo.
The album was so influential that Stevie Wonder collaborated with the duo on several of his most essential recordings of the seventies including Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale. It was also the instrument featured on screen and used by Paul Williams character in Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise! The machine later became a key player in lots of eighties RnB, seemingly miles away from the soundscapery on this first record.
While Zero-Time acted largely as a showcase for what the TONTO could do, it's still a pretty killer record of synthetic cinematic prog groove, subterranean alien library funk and spacey folk electronic ambience. Over six tracks, there are several varying moods from sexy (there's a song called "Jetsex" after all), to blissfully solemn. The opener "Cybernaut" sounds like a movie theme for a sci-fi crime thriller, all foreboding and mysterious, while our favorite track is the floating space raga, "Riversong" which has strange treated vocal modulations that are completely sublime. Recommended!
Subtitled "Music for Mondophrenetic". Writer/musician Toop (you know him from The Wire and the various books and cd compilations he's done, as well as his own music) presents his latest piece of obtuse ambient / electronica. It begins with a series of inquisitive little sounds that could easily appear as the sonic punctuations in a drug commercial in the '80s -- Heartburn? (ping) Gastro-intestinal failure? (pling) Sweaty-palms? (plong) Try Xylatol! Not the most exciting way to start an album; but after this brief introduction, Toop's "37th Floor at Sunset" really gets interesting with long passages of sterile drones, topped with various communication tones (fax machine protocol announcements, data streaming, and assorted digital clicks) that ends up sounding like a more benevolent John Duncan or Hazard.
If all of the customer queries and requests we've been getting about this cd are any indication, Ms Martina Topley-Bird is perhaps most known for her personal and professional ties to Tricky -- she sang on a number of his albums -- but on Anything her voice definitely overrides the gossip-mongers and stands on its own merits. Actually this material on this new release is not really technically new. It's a reworking of her 2003 album Quixotic which was never available domestically and which featured the likes of Mark Lanegan, David Holmes and Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme (on the song "Need One"). In fact, it's fairly unrecognizable from its predecessor -- different running order, three omitted songs, etc. If you've already got Quixotic, you'll probably find this to be quite an altogether different listening experience. If you're unfamiliar with those Tricky albums and haven't seen the sultry album cover photo, you'll be forgiven if you deduced (as some of us did) from Ms Martina's wonderful surname that this might be something akin to the neo-folk of Joanna Newsom or Faun Fables. It's not remotely close! No, this is as far from the pixie-dusted woodlands as you can get, think 'cosmopolitan' and more in the vein of lush smoky trip hop a la Massive Attack or yes, Tricky.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Having thoroughly enjoyed her 2000 album Love In The Time Of Science, we were looking forward to Ms Torrini's newest offering. Sad to report though that apparently she's gone though some sort of transformation in those five years. She's shed her 'Bjork meets Portishead' tendencies in favor of a more 'Tori Amos at the piano' elegant, womanly approach. Very vanilla and adult contemporary. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Emiliana Torrini really sounds a lot like Bjork, and it can't be entirely 'cause she's from Iceland too (her dad is Italian, hence her non-Icelandic name). Indeed this is released via Bjork's One Little Indian label... Her voice has all of the breathy cracked beauty and enthusiastic mystery that the Icelandic pop star employs, although not the full range of wonder and eccentricity possessed by Bjork. Their music is a close comparision though, this is kinda like a Portis-bjork, you could say, with some of the even more commerical gloss pop of the Cardigans or Garbage. While not super original, there's no denying her ability to capture these sounds, and fans of the aforementioned will find this difficult to resist. As a result, this will be huge and you'll soon be seeing her name EVERYWHERE. Strangely, we first saw her name on currently ongoing series of Fat Cat remix 7"s, where Emiliana meets up with the decidedly less "pop" sounds of the likes of V/VM and Process! (We have a few of these in stock as well.)
Over the years Smalltown Supersound has released some of our favorite creative dance minded records from folks like Tussle, Kim Hirothoy and Lindstrom. And in the last year they have shown a really cool widening of their scope putting out the beautiful kosmiche sounds of Arp and the charged driving and druggy excursion that was Sunburned Hand Of The Man as envisioned by Four Tet. While they do release records from artists across the globe they are best down for flying the flag of the electronic music scene of their home turf of Norway so it makes perfect sense that their latest release is from one of the pioneers of the minimal house/creative dance scene in Norway. We are kind of late to Torske, only recently discovering him as we loved his remix on the latest Lindstrom ep. But we've come to find that he is actually a huge influence on folks like Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, and Feil Knapp demonstrates exactly why.
This is seamless and wonderfully playful and smart electronic music. Managing to mix elements of down tempo, disco, dub and video game sounds into songs that bubble over with rich melody and infectious rhythms. We love how Torske makes it all sound so calm, cool and collected. In lesser hands the worlds he mixes together could sound haphazard or annoying but his unique touch gets it all so right. An early contender for electronic record of the year!
Wow, 2010 really turned out to be an amazing year for electronic music. And not just one style or passing trend. We loved the resurgence of truly creative artists making such varied and dynamic sounds in the world of electronica, reminding us of those special times in the mid '90s when we really fell for this music so strongly to begin with.
From Demdike Stare and Pantha Du Prince to Luke Abbott and Actress, there has been so much awesome and varied and super unique sounds to get lost in during this year.
And now comes yet another major contender for electronic record of the year courtesy of Norway's Bjorn Torske. For all the attention his Norwegian peers like Prins Thomas and Lindstrom have received, we really hope this amazing album starts getting him the wide praise he so rightfully deserves. On Kokning, Torske demonstrates an amazing ability to create graceful and elegant sounds while also still allowing those sounds to be playful and exploratory. The album really does flow so perfectly from beginning to end, exploring many different sounds and soundscapes in the process. Like the electronica we will always love most, Torske is not just a one note artist, he can create the most tender and beautiful of songs while also traveling though left-field dancemusic brimming with African drum rhythms and ecstatic cosmic revelations. We're deeply addicted to this record right now and we've got a strong feeling you will be too!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
SORRY.
The second remix 12" from Tortoise's TNT album.
Those Kruder & Dorfmeister gents - both individually and in tandem - do what they do exceptionally well. And what they do is make ultra sleek, mellow grooves always packaged in an exquisite fashion. Case in point, this Dehli9 double disc offering from Tosca. For those unfamiliar, Tosca is a collaborative effort between Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber which predates K+D by a wide margin. Actually the title of this release was the name of an early (highschool!) Huber/Dorfmeister project.
Disc One is filled with what they're known and loved for... enveloping, downtempo jazzy electronic tracks often with guest vocalists. It's the perfect soundtrack for a long, smoooth'n'groovy night of sipping incredibly steep and stiff cocktails in haute couture fashion. Disc Two comes as something of a surprise - a pleasant one - as it's an altogether different affair. You'd never guess it was Tosca... really. It's a dozen of Huber's piano compositions skillfully produced by Dorfmeister. Totally hushed and minimal!
The first cd will certainly please their old fans, and the second just may garner them some new ones.
Following their splendid Delhi9 double disc from 2003, here's a new one from Tosca... also known as Rupert Huber and the 'D' in the K&D (uh, Kruder & Dorfmeister!)... and to his mum, Richard Dorfmeister. Definitely a name you can trust when seeking finely crafted, sophisticated downtempo music. J.A.C. offers sweeping tracks graced by an occasional French female vocals ("Heidi Bruehl") and a more occasional thumpin' beat ("Superrob"). Ultra elegant and groovy, J.A.C. makes the perfect sonic backdrop for upscale cosmopolitan restaurants, boutiques and lounges.
Richard Dorfmeister (as in Kruder & ...) joins Rupert Huber for his Tosca side project. Downtempo trip-hop anthems for fans of Air or the aforementioned Kruder & Dorfmeister.
Tosca is the solo electronic project of Richard Dorfmeister of Kruder & Dorfmeister who is joined not by Kruder, but Huber! Rupert Huber, that is. Of course, Peter Kruder has his own solo endeavors under the moniker Peace Orchestra. This is the dubbed out mix
Okay, seriously, how could we resist? The band is called Totally Radd. That's Radd with two D's. That's like the rad version of Hott with two T's. The record is called Shark Attack Day Camp, and features eye poppingly garish artwork depicting two kids playing video games in an arcade full of bloody zombies, including one who has been pushed head first through the monitor of another game. Oh and that game just happens to be called Hammer Hamsters. Inside the illustration is of kids in full Lord Of The Flies mode, wearing animal skins and heads, also covered in blood, in a grassy field peppered with dead elks and bears not to mention a huge pile of dead bloody rabbits, not sure how any band would expect to live up to the promise of all this ridiculousness, but somehow Totally Radd do, delivering totally over the top eighties soundtrack, NES, 8-bit keytar, glam rock, dork pop cheesiness that is hilarious and totally dumb, but crazy fun and way catchier and funnier than it has any right to be. But the second we threw this on in the store, we were immediately obsessed, and have been playing it non-stop, much to the chagrin of some people no doubt, but fuck 'em!
If you've been paying attention to the aQ list lately, you may have noticed us referencing eighties training montage music, several records we've gotten in recently have sounded inexplicably like that music, from cheesy VHS tapes, the sort of inspirational RAWK that always accompanies training for the big fight, or the big race, well, this stuff REALLY does sound like that. It also sounds a bit like metallized video game music, it also sounds like a brain damaged Sparks, falsetto vox slip into monstrous demonic vokills or screamo shrieks, total Legend Of Zelda 8-bit sputter collides with chugging metal guitars, super catchy punky pop becomes wild video game music and vice versa, the lyrics are completely silly, about cross dressing, and video stores, and all kinds of random stuff. There are songs named after video games, and we originally assumed those would be covers, but instead are simply songs ABOUT those video games! And speaking of covers, our favorite part might be the bonus 7" that comes with the lp, which starts off with a killer version of Phantom Planet's "California", given a sort of bubblegum synth / electro pop makeover, with vocodered vocals and squiggly synths, wrapped around a Weezer-ish power pop core. Then there's a cool, goovy, broody chunk of ballady electro-pop, a sort of video game Weezer slowdance number, before the awesomely titled "2 8-Bit 2 Quit", which is the most 8-bit of the bunch, sounding like Perry And Kingsley by way of Donkey Kong...
The B side of the 7" starts off with a jam that almost sounds like nineties era black metal, via 8-bit pop nerd dorkiness, brooding and dramatic, with Rob Zombie vocals, which goes right into a cover of Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" with a very misleading intro that's essentially a pitch perfect take on beginning of "Just What I Needed" by the Cars, before slipping into a dangerously straight ahead version of the Soul Asylum original, with extremely overly dramatic vocals, and a swirly psychedelic synth solo in the middle, but otherwise, a pretty straight rock (piss?) take...
It's all dumb and fun, and falls somewhere on the sonic spectrum between Steven Schultz and that MSG Songs From A Gated Community lp we reviewed a while back, but with more Mario Brothers, more pixie stix, more gratuitous violence, more blood thirsty zombies, more after school specials, more boobs, more masked serial killers, more BMX bikes, more gleaming the cube, more lost boys, more revenge of the nerds, more� well, you get it. GET IT!
