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Here's Forced Exposure's apt description:
Debut release on a new CA-based IDM label, focusing on that sparkling electronic machine crinkle that can sound just right. OST's track, "August" is a legitimate classic, that could easily fit somewhere within the Warp "Artificial Intelligence" series. Many other tracks are of similar vintage & emotional quality. The CD features obscure US artists such as: Solenoide (aka Office Products, aka Mr. Pharmacist; currently been doing work with Mark Hosler of Negativland, while having escaped an earlier life of hacking, sits behind the door and thinks about asthetic pranks'), Lillianthal (Arrow Kleeman, NYC, has performed with the Silver Apples, before becoming Lillienthal, "hoping that his search for sound found and personal mood will set him aside from the even flow of contemporary electronic dance music, this is his debut'), If.Then.Else. ('playing bass, playing jazz, discovers the synthesizer all hell break loose; not to be seen until now, he hides with the machine in attempts to beat it at it's own games'), Sybarite (aka Xian Hawkins, who has also performed and recorded with Simeon of the reformed Silver Apples), O.S.T. (aka Rook Vallade, has recorded on Switch Records, Plug Research, Worm Interface, remixed Spacetime Continuum, etc.). [/cat/compilationsplit40.html]
Beautiful compilation of minimal / ambient / drone music. Exclusive tracks from AQ faves Troum, Dual, Ultrasound as well as tracks by a bunch of unknown-to-us-until-now artists including Moljebka Pvlse, Srmeixner, Cats Of Tel Aviv and Ure Thrall. Beautiful and serene, shimmery and dreamy. Fans of Hudak, Basinski, Coleclough, Troum and the like should definitely pick this up.
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Volume one of the amazing (read: no filler material) Lo recordings series, finally on cd. With Wagonchrist, Omni Trio, David Toop, MLO, Jonah Sharp, Scanner...
We can't remember the last time a compilation so captivated everybody here, but this collection is really something else. A gorgeously compiled cd-r of tracks sourced from Japanese lps circa the years 1980-1986, featuring at least a few names we'd heard, like Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Inoyamo Land, but so so many we hadn't: Mkwaju Ensemble, Yasuaki Shimizu, Seigen Ono, Masahide Sakuma, Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Danceries, Dip In the Pool, we could go on, but we're guessing these are all new to you too. It's a single 74 minute continuous mix, that slips dreamily from synth and percussion minimalism, to mysterious electronic laced rhythms, from new agey krautrock to dreamy clouds of percussive melodies, from playful childlike toy piano melodies to synthy sci-fi drones, haunting electronic flecked Asian ballads to fluttery flute folk, from mesmerizing vibraphone melodies underpinned by haunting drones to loping jazzy almost prog, from hazy washed out kosmische electronics to lush layered chorales and on and on and on.
The tracks are so perfectly combined, and so seamlessly mixed, it almost sounds like it could be the coolest, weirdest record ever by some impossibly brilliant single artist, who somehow crafted one epic sprawling sonic exploration, a series of sounds that manage to be at once warm and familiar, yet also strange and mysterious, strange looped birdsong lays atop distant choir like vocals, and a strangely mechanical rhythm peppered with strange symphonic bursts melts into soaring strings, chamber music devolves into some fantastically dada-ish assemblage of voices and sound effects, thick sitar like buzz underpins deep foghorn like melodies, the vibe strangely melancholic, deep, dense new age swirls hover above a super minimal dripping faucet rhythm, warm, muted melodies unfurl over distant bells and deep reverberating tones, vibraphone melodies are layered atop a groovy, almost jazzy rhythm, and a mournful brass melody before gradually disappearing in a washed out woozy sonic haze
So fantastic, and so cheap too! Besides being just about the best mix/comp/collection we've heard in forever, odds are it'll have you trying to track down records by all the artists, which is always the sign of a good mix. The entire list of artists (some with more than one track): Yellow Magic Orchestra, Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mkwaju Ensemble, Mariah, Yasuaki Shimizu, Mkwaju Ensemble, Seigen Ono, Masahide Sakuma, Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Yasuaki Shimizu, Danceries, Yukihio Takahoshi, Dip in the Pool, YMO.
So great! And so utterly and unequivocally and whole heartedly RECOMMENDED!!
LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Packaged with full color covers in plastic mini dvd-style sleeves. And nicely priced! We're one of only two places in the whole world where you can get these, and we're guessing they're gonna go fast, so grab one quick before they're gone.
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Fals.ch is Viennese label Mego's MP3 only online sublabel run by Florian Hecker and Oswald Berthold. This cute little 3"cd-rom contains hours of abraisive noise, subtle drones and clinical cuts from the best of the first twentyfour releases thus far. As this is a cd-rom, it will not be compatible with most consumer electronics, and is best experienced through a personal computer with an MP3 player (software is not included here) so as to view the accompanying notes and art provided in each artists' folders. Featuring the usual Mego and OR Records suspects: Pita, Karkowski, Haswell (with Masami Akita as Satans Tornade), Shirt Trax, Voice Crack, Pimmon, Oval, CD Slopper, Kim Cascone, Massimo, Christoph De Babalon, et al.
In 2002, Gallery 16 here in San Francisco exhibited The Bowie Show, which collected art, writing, and music that takes David Bowie as inspiration. This is an arty, spiral bound, full color, glossy-paged book with a cd and nicely embossed cover. Contributors include Rick Moody, Jason Mecier, Michelle Tea, Doug Coupland, Cliff Hengst, Scott Hewicker, Ann Magnuson, etc. And the (all exclusive!) tracks on the cd are each covers of a song off Bowie's Low album. The music runs the gamut from Matmos' slinky electronics on "A New Career in a New Town" to Troll's simmering Talk-Talk-meets-Nina-Simone take on "Warszawa". Other musical participants include Glenn Donaldson of local faves Thuja), Wayne Smith of Aero Mic'd, The Sadnesses, Tom Recchion and more.
If the guitar has been overthrown as the dominant sound of youth culture in favor of vinyl and Cubase, it has simply created yet another territory where women artists are overlooked. This then leads to uncomfortable documents like this, which at once seek to balance the scales, but also feels like opportunistic tokenism. Buy it not for its politics but because this is a great collection of diverse experimental electronica. It certainly one-ups the Avantgardism compilations (also on Law & Auder) in terms of weirdness and sonic brutality. Particularly stand-out is the Kaffe Matthews track. Wow. Recommended.
One on one showdown remixes from some of the top fighters in Tigerbeat6's roster. Kid 606 vs. Adrien75, Stars As Eyes vs. Lusine Icl, Cex vs. Com.a, Lesser vs. Kid606 (as heard on the Mensa Dance Squad disc), knifehandchop vs. Meccaknifehandchop (!) and Cex vs. gamers in exile. Dreamy mid-nineties Autechreish atmospherics on side A. In Your face raggadancehallmashup on the B side. Boys only? How about a girlfight!
We know Lucky Kitchen as a kind of home-brew electronica label that's fascinated with things like childhood recordings, videogames, and other everyday sounds. This compilation is a sort of remix of their first ever release, featuring as participants the likes of Lucky Kitchen masterminds Alejandra and Underwood ("known for dynamic electronics and humorous anthropological explorations"), Pimmon, Sachiko M, To Rococo Rot, Jansky Noise, Matmos, and Hrvatski, among others. The idea? For these electronic artists to essentially do "cover versions" of field recordings! Interesting...
"The Fire This Time" is an unnervingly prescient release with the current US foreign policies that find the US attempting to bully the United Nations into accepting the US draft of a Security Council resolution, which would inevitably lead to another war with Iraq. Compiled by maverick British journalist Grant Wakefield, "The Fire This Time" is a detailed audio collage, deconstructing media events of the Gulf War within a political context that is encapsulated in the following statement: "it is morally necessary to be opposed to Saddam Hussein, but simultaneously to be equally, perhaps even more, opposed to the continued imposition of sanctions on Iraq. The two positions are not mutually exclusive. You can be anti-sanctions and anti-Saddam." While the recontextualization of media samples is far from novel (see Negativland, Illusion Of Safety, Tape Beatles, and even Steinski & Mass Media for the pinnacle of post-Burroughs' cut-ups in the late '80s and early '90s), Grant Wakefield's presentation is in a far more spectacular form, as a detailed argument that spans a full 72 minutes with a running soundtrack that Wakefield mixed together from Orbital, Pan Sonic, Aphex Twin, Bola, the Higher Intelligence Agency, and other electronica darlings. Even if you don't care for the politics found within, Wakeford had enough sense to produce "The Fire This Time" with an 'instrumental' disc featuring just the electronica soundtrack.
A collection of covers of Depeche Mode songs from The Cure, Monster Magnet, Meat Beat Manifesto, Rammstein, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.... But the two that take the cake are the brilliant interpretations by Hooverphonic ("Shake the Disease" a wistful noirish trip hop track that recalls Portishead) and Locust ("Master & Servant" smooth dark basslines that sounds more like Barry Adamson than the electronica shards normally constructed by Locust).
This disc is pretty much Force Inc's answer to Richie Hawtin's "DE9: Closer To the Edit", method-wise. Guest producer Algorithm was commissioned to create this album, using a series of digitized loops from Force Lab's catalog of singles as well as some
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You may recall a couple of AQ lists back (#114) we were raving about Adult., and named it one of the records of the week. Well, Adam Miller (one half of the Detroit duo and Ersatz Audio label mastermind) has many more electro gems up his lab coat sleeve and on his label. He shares a sampling of them with us on this dark, kinetic compilation which documents the music on Ersatz Audio from 1995-99. Included are a handful of tracks from each of his own projects LeCar, Adult. and Artificial Material, as well as notable cuts from Platex, Third Electric and G.D.Luxxe. Pulsating beats and thick synths prod your boogie mechanism as spartan synthetic voices seep through to the inner reaches of your ears.
Unauthorized remixes of Missy Elliot's "Get Ur Freak On" by Kid 606, Kevin Blechdom, Max Tundra, Posterboys of the Apocalypse, Mortal & Chemist and Kid 666 (uh, Kid 606 again). Sure to go out of print quickly, if not destroyed by Miss E and Elektra's lawyers first. The Kid's "Take The Piss On" humorously plunders in the melody of A-Ha's "Take On Me".
On October 29, 2000, the United States Supreme Court ruled against the appeal of Mumia Abu-Jamal who, unjustly convicted of murdering a policeman, has been on death row for 18 years. This means the governor of Pennsylvania can sign the execution order at any time. The case against Mumia is completely fucked, if you hadn't already heard. Four witnesses said they saw someone else shoot the cop and flee the scene; two witnesses at the trial came forward and said they'd been forced by the police to lie under oath; the obviously-biased judge that has overseen his case from the beginning has sentenced twice as many people to death than any other judge in the country; the list of travesties goes on and on.
If Mumia's life has ever depended on a public, international outcry of support, it's right now more than ever. So this benefit cd is one form of that: an impressive, internationally assembled roster of musicians all contributing tracks, most of them exclusive and composed specifically for and about Mumia. It's really, really excellent music -- a scintillating survey of utterly contemporary grooves -- from wailing reggae to downtempo triphop, righteous and fiery hiphop, dub, and jungle. Contributors include Roni Size, Primal Scream (with Augustus Pablo), Asian Dub Foundation, Fun-Da-Mental, Third Eye Foundation, Zion Train, Smith & Mighty, the Rootsman, Chumbawumba, and so many more.
Double cd with fat booklet containing details of the case, quotes from the Declaration of Independence, Martin Luther King Jr, Rage Against the Machine, Amnesty International, and Mumia himself. And fascinating sections on the Black Panthers, the fucked up US prison system, other political victims like the Rosenbergs and Leonard Peltier, tons of contact and web-related info, and more.
See here for more Amnesty International's detailed and complete report [http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/reports/mumia/content.html].
New all-American installment in this electronica compilation series, with contributions from Yankees like Tipsy, DJ Spooky, Sub Dub, DJ Wally, Thievery Corporation and others. Studio K7, by the way, is Kruder and Dorfmeister's new domestic imprint, so it's all stuff they like.
Another in the series featuring Tipsy, Kreidler, Andrea Parker, Pan Sonic and Alan Vega, Ryuichi Sakamoto and many more.
Another double disc jetsetter extravaganza compiled by the one and only DJ Tom Thump. This one is infused with the influences of Latin and African sounds and features a mix of familiar faces and newcomers -- Ocote Soul Sounds as remixed by Thievery Corporation, Romanowski, Aloe Blacc, John Beltran, Patato Valdes, Do featuring Omar Sosa and Greg Landau, Bobi Cespedes, Dtek, Zeb, 4Hero with Hector Calderon, Osunlade, Combo Moderna with Gerardo Frisina, Fort Knox Five with Mo'Horizons and many more!
Brand new Lo Records compilation, this time for an unbelievably low price of $6.98. Exclusive tracks from the likes of Kid 606, The Remote Viewer, Hrvatski (excellent track), Rothko, Ceefax, and much more. At 21 tracks in length, the price is right.
A rare occurrence happened the other day when LA producer and promoter Andrew Lojero came by the shop selling this collection he put together of underground L.A. artists from the hip and difficult-to-classify hybrid genres of soul, jazz and electronica. We recognized a few of the artists such as the Madlib produced Yesterday's New Quintet and Sound Directions as well as Flying Lotus and Georgia Anne Muldrow, so we bought a couple and when we put it on in the store, two people came up and immediately bought both copies we had. Sensing a hit on our hands, we called Andrew up while he was still in town and ordered a bunch more and it has been selling rather steadily without much assistance from us. But we're listing it anyway, because it's really, really good.
Not so much a compilation as it is a collection of specially made tracks that showcase the sunny multifaceted vitality of the urban LA scene. Tripped out broken beats, lounge-y interludes, jazzy R&B inflected grooves, sometimes edgy, sometimes mellow and all sounding remarkably fresh. Along with each track, Lojero asked contemporary LA artists to design a unique piece of art, all of which are featured in the accompanying booklet. 17 tracks of blissful awesomeness awaits you. Don't hesitate.
One can always count on Johnny Trunk of the amazing Trunk records for making a mix that is as hilarious and head-scratching as it is beautifully listenable. When asked by strangers what kind of music his label releases, Trunks's response is usually, "you know, funny old shit", which if you think about it is the perfect response to describe the kinds of audible curiosities he reissues, from long forgotten children's TV show soundtracks to obscure novelty records and forgotten jazz greats. A few of the tracks included here are from earlier out of print reissues in the Trunk catalog such as Leona Anderson's wonderfully awful Music To Suffer By, but many of the tracks are from Trunk's private record collection, likely highlighting the best tracks on perhaps otherwise less interesting albums. You get a full gamut of styles and genres from novelty calypso songs from Robert Mitchum and Bernard Cribbins, space-lounge jazz from Alain Romans and Sergio Mihanovich, musique concrete from Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaffer, the punk dub of The Jellies, classical piano from Glenn Gould, ethnic music curios and warped kid songs. So great and for a real nice price, you'd be foolish not to pick this up! (And sorry, the more expensive vinyl version is now gone it seems.)
Another killer Soul Jazz compilation, this one focused on a new genre they've decided to call 'Future Bass', but which is essentially the next step in the evolution of dubstep. Some of the names here are recognizable, as already having made a serious splash in dubstep circles: Ginz, Coki, Ramadanman, LD, but then there are some wild cards, like aQ faves Four Tet, who seem to stick out, but who have actually been making their own sort of 'future bass' for a while now when you think about it, and of course there's a whole mess of names we've never heard before, but somehow, all of these random jams and disparate soundmakers do manage to fit together, into a sound that's definitely futuristic and definitely big on the bass, but beyond that, manages to sprawl in all sorts of incredible and unexpected directions.
The record begins with Mala's "Don't Let Me Go", a stripped down bit of techno skitter, wreathed in chirping electronics, and blurred cascades of space-y shimmer, but the coolest part, is this peripheral rhythm that seems to be constructed from that weird stuttering cell phone interference you sometimes get, that and some softly wheezing dubby melodica, so nice. Four Tet lock into a clipped loop right off the bat, then add their own little shuffling rhythm over the top, and then keep on adding, weird little fragmented melodies, little bits of squelch, thick buzzy synths and playful little bursts of bloop and bleep, a few moments can all synthy and swirly and ambient, but for the most part it's awesomely and endlessly motorik and mesmerizing.
The dubstep contingent definitely push the genre boundaries, Ginz takes a playful melody, and adds a WICKED, crumbling buzzy synth bassline that is SO KILLER, and a strange juxtaposition with the rest of the light airy sounds in the track, Coki's jam might be the most typically dubstep, but that bass warble here is way more brittle and percussive, and a little sci-fi, and it's chopped up a bit so it's a little glitch, sometimes stuttering, other times buzzing, while the rest of the track creeps along ominously in the background, Ramadanman's jam sounds like a sample of "White Lines" sped way up and layered, a throbbing rumbling warbly bassline beneath some dubbed pout ambience and a super skeletal rhythms, the whole thing warped and wonderfully warbly.
Elsewhere the sound slips from playful and party-ish, jittery and bumping, to dark and washed out and almost Portishead-y, all grainy and gristly, like some slowed down electro ballad, to super spare Raster Noton style click and glitch, but even then the bass rumbles and buzzes, to late night almost bossanova sounding shuffles and piano driven half tempo jungle jams that sound downright cinematic, it's all pretty great, big beats, buzzing bass, anyone who's been digging the last few Soul Jazz comps, or all the killer weirdo electronica of late, especially all the variants of the dubstep sound will dig this big time.
When we first got this in, we were really just expecting some sort of crappy house music comp flecked with bits of Latin music, we find we're often misled by titles promising 'future sounds' and other similarly enticing hyperbole, but all it took was about a minute of the first track, and we found ourselves inexorably drawn in, and it only got better with every track, this being the rare sort of comp that truly delivers on its promise, a twisted futuristic hybrid of new electronic experimentalism and rural South American musical styles, the opener taking a sort of samba style rhythm, and wreathing it in all sorts of squiggly synths, rough rumbling buzz, sci-fi FX, some sampled loops vocals, a killer beat, some buzzing almost dubsteppy bass, we would have been perfectly happy if the whole record sounded just like that, but in point of fact none of it does, even remotely.
The second track is all clipped skitter, super distorted buzz drenched melody, woozy stuttery beats, loping and hypnotic, eventually wrapped in some swirling guitar melodies, the vibe dark and epic and sort of post rocky, but more post-electronica, the next track switches gears again, taking South American accordion music, and distorting it to hell, adding some crunchy dirty beats, some buried looped vox, and sending it careening through clouds of soft psychedelic noise. And so it goes, a dizzying barrage of super inventive, most definitely psychedelic, South American avant electronica, that manages to be both experimental, but also groovy, abstract and at times WTF?, but crazy catchy, and almost always with a wicked beat. Carnivalesque melodies are wrapped around some tongue twisting vocalizing, Flamenco guitars are wreathed in echo, and draped over shuffling looped grooves, 8 bit video game sounds become vocodered future-style calypsos, brooding guitar strum blossoms into barely electronic South American folk music, before exploding into a wildly inventive skeletal mad scientist Latin dub, which in turn leads directly into some glitch flecked pop vocal electronica, before one last blast of super distorted beat heavy synth squelch and finally a super buzzy, warbly, robotic groove, that sounds like some classic South American jam performed by one of Pierre Bastien's strange machines, and sung by androids. So great!
We got two different records from the Medical label for Record Store Day, and got enough extra to list for all you far away folks who couldn't make it to aQ in person, a killer Alexander Robotnick collection, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this one, part two in the ongoing Electroconvulsive Therapy series, which collects rare new wave singles, this second volume focusing on a label called Fuzz Dance, gathering up 3 super rare, iconic Italo disco 12"s (along with a couple bonus tracks), from a handful of bands we had never heard before, Trophy, ZED, Mya & The Mirror, Mon Bijou and NAIF Orchestra, but that's kind of the joy of these sorts of comps, and Medical in general, who manage to dig up some crazy cool rarities.
So yeah, Trophy meld some classic eighties new wave pop with their Italo Disco, pulsing synths, strummed guitars, Teutonic vocals, plenty of squelch and echo drenched handclaps, offering up both versions, a vocal and a weirdly electro-dubbed 'instrumental'. ZED give us "Plastic Love" which sounds like it could have been a hit in the eighties, sort of Berlin meets Human League, pulsing synths, dramatic female vox, the instrumental version super stripped down, and sans vocals, sounding surprisingly like a slightly discoier Kraftwerk!! Mya & The Mirror offer up more of the same, sultry electro-disco new wave, the vocals heavily accented and sultry, with some weird horns (!), the "Reflex" version, essentially instrumental, but with way more horns and wilder eighties percussion. Crazy stuff. The extra tracks include Mon Bijou's "Just A Lover", which again, sounds like some could/should have been eighties new wave electro pop hit, while NAIF Orchestra's "Check Out Five" adds some funky guitar strum to pulsing synths, and some super loopy vox, the vibe playful, a little goofy, but super catchy, and like the rest of the tracks here, sounds like it was yanked straight out of some alternate universe eighties new wave hit parade.
No liner notes this time, but comes in a super striking, very Italo-disco looking cover, the vinyl on heavy 180 gram Italian flag colored vinyl (!), and as always, very limited...
No longer vinyl only, G-Spots is now on cd. We didn't know it would happen so soon, but it's boon for all the turntable-deprived amongst you. And it's got six extra tracks on it, as well! Here's more or less what we said about this collection when we highlighted the LP version:
Aside from the eye-popping cover art, the first thing you might notice about this record is its intriguing title - G-Spots: The Spacey Folk Electro-Horror Sounds Of The Studio G Library. But what does it all mean, and how could the music live up to such a ridiculously awesome yet difficult to parse description? Well, check the sound samples to find out, or read on...
Some of you may remember the equally great, SUPER limited (not to mention uber-pricey) Electrosonic record from a few lists back, featuring library music from esteemed BBC Radiophonic Workshop composer and titan of early electronic experimentation, Delia Derbyshire. Much in the vein of that long gone gem, G Spots contains selections from the somewhat mysterious Studio G, a production company started by one John Gale, whose work in advertising inspired him to up the ante on the music we either take for granted or generally find annoying as shit. Rather than approaching this work as mere background music, Gale wrangled in a number of composers to bring his vision to life. Things kicked off with a series of 7" records before moving on to lps. Gale claimed to release the first collection of library music to feature actual artwork, and you are advised to go to Trunk's website to view some stellar examples of Studio G's visual aesthetic.
The music, of course, is pretty dang great as well. The songs basically set out to mimic the popular trends of the time, resulting in a sound that is at once familiar, yet strangely distant, as they were produced in a laboratory-like setting with studio musicians. Of course, that kind of thing happened all the time, but it's much more intriguing to imagine this as some sort of parallel reality interpretation of pop music in the '60s and '70s, made by chain smoking guys in their thirties with thick horn-rimmed glasses and neckties. Aside from song titles, the 20 spacey folk electro-horror tunes collected here are identified only by their catalogue numbers and composers, most (all?) of whom you will not recognize. This lack of information only adds to the mystery, in the best way.
It is possible, based on the 4 digit catalogue numbers, to piece together some sort of loose history, not only of Studio G's evolution, but of musical trends in general. Opening with the moody organ piece "Icicles", many of the other songs on the first side are fun, lightly psychedelic pop that would have fit perfectly in any number of party scenes in any number of 1960s movies. Airy acoustic guitars mesh with the occasional spacey weirdness, the songs are at times accompanied by live drums, but sometimes feature early, primitive rhythm machines. The final song on side one of the vinyl (track 15 here), however, the perfectly named "Deformed Theme", is an anti-melody that ventures into darker territory, a creepy synthscape setting the mood for much of the rest of the disc, where ominous, surprisingly heavy Goblin-esque songs like "Cosmic Dust" and "Cosmic Blues" rub elbows with "Freak Blues", which would not sound too out of place on Bruce Haack's The Electric Lucifer. Then there's the hilarious "Dangerous Voyage", a funky, tropical-tinged piece that would sit well in your favorite '70s porn film, with its lead harmonica, fretless bass, and hi hats galore. Other songs feature flutes, more synths, weird tape effects, and random elements of percussion. Throughout it all, things flow perfectly, all part of the style that John Gale created with Studio G.
These days, the phrase 'electronica compilation' sends shivers down our spines. And not in a good way. Especially when it's the same people, doing the same thing for the umpteenth time. So we were pleasantly surprised by this particular electronic compilation, even though it features many of the same folks -- they've all decided to put us to sleep. On purpose this time! (Ha, just kidding.) This is a gorgeous collection of warm and gauzy, wispy, dreamy, electronic minimalism. Soothing and droney, thick and lush, beautifully late night sounding. And I actually HAVE listened to this going to sleep and it's perfect! Features the ubiquitous Kid606 as well as Stephan Mathieu, Kurt Ralske, Electric Company, Main, Pimmon, Tim Hecker, and Oren Ambarchi. Both discs also feature movies playable on your computer by Kurt Ralske, Electric Company and Pimmon. Our favorite Tigerbeat6 release in a while!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. [/cat/compilationsplit45.html]
Killer three way split from three local modern hip hop / electronica outfits, one of which, the awesomely titled Lazer Sword, just so happens to include our very own Antaeus. So let's start with the Lazer Sword, who of the three are probably our favorites, and we're not just saying that cuz of Antaeus, nope, we're saying that, cuz of the three, LS are the hardest and the grittiest, with fierce beats, and crazy hidden hooks, each of the three tracks are full on�looped, stuttering, skipping dancefloor fillers, with big beats that shuffle and pound, vocals chopped up into strange hiccuping rhythms, buzzing synths and throbbing bin rattling bass, angular alien melodies, everything sharp and grinding, but warm and thick at the same time. We�definitely hear some Justice in there, and boy would Lazer Sword be right at home on one of those Ed Rec comps. But just because Lazer Sword are our favorites, doesn't mean the other two bands don't 'rock' just as hard, cuz they do, only differently.�
Ghosts on Tape is a bit groovier, a little more laid back, "Mogadishu Night Life" has a definite dancehall vibe, with Eastern melodies, and rhythms chopped and looped into some strange circusy hip hop jam, "Port Moresby" is rife with more block rocking beats, weird swooping FX, robotic and machinelike, some cyborg freaked out future funk for sure, and their last track, "Scraped Up", is muted murky slither, complete with a super recognizable sitar sample, but smeared into a blur of fuzzy synths, thumping beats and blown out buzz.
Finally, Hours Of Worship deliver three tracks of swooshy fuzzy pop ambient techno, the beats simple pulses beneath dense clouds of looped vocal samples and swirls of dense FX, strangely propulsive chill out music, minor key melodies, and a bit of cinematic epic-ness, that over the course of their three tracks, drifts from four on the floor pound (but a soft and shimmering pound), two mumbly almost heroin house, to the closer, a dreamy, eighties style slab of New Order-y new wave, complete with rainy day melody and a blurry washed out M83 sheen over the whole thing. So good.�
All we have to say to dance music dorks is fuck Europe, people better start looking to the US (and maybe to SF in particular) for the new breed of dancefloor destroyers, cuz they're right here...
Essentially, "Grain" is the companion disc to the "Variable Resistance" compilation published by local arts group 23five for an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art about Australian sound art. This album features four artists -- Philip Samartzis, Pimmon, Darrin Verhagen, and David Brown -- who had come to San Francisco to perform in conjunction with a lengthy 'listening room' event of many other artists. Samartzis, who had curated the "Variable Resistance" show, opens this album with a tense collage of post-industrial musique concrete that rummages through terse electrostatic cracklings, mutated calliope melodies, indeterminant creakings, and psychoacoustic drone work that is not unlike the Hafler Trio's best work. Ghostly fluctuations of sound mark Pimmon's contribution as these loops are coupled with miniscule digital vibrations, for one of the most sedate compositions we've heard from Pimmon. Darrin Verhagen (perhaps better known as Shinjuku Filth and Shinjuku Thief) also offers a particularly quiet track of meditative tribal rhythms run through a number of quietly glitchy DSP filters. David Brown (who may in fact be Australia's unsung answer to Keith Rowe) scratches a choral number out of vibrating guitar feedback, dischordant orchestral samples, and nervous electro-acoustic tonal fluctuations. Nice stuff.
You know how it is with "next big things", everyone wants a piece of it, and where there were a few folks doing something new and weird, there are suddenly a hundred more trying to be new and weird in exactly the same way. It happened with Chapel Hill, it happened with Seattle. It happened with grunge. And now we've got grime. Grime is the new catch phrase for the scene/sound that spawned Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and a few others. Grime is basically two-step garage (pronounced GARE-ij), a simple and repetetive offshoot of drum and bass, with fuzzy synths, buzzing basslines, and occasionally tongue twisting toasting. We all loved the Dizzee Rascal record, and the recent ep from Wiley, so we had high hope for this sampler of new groups from the burgeoning UK grime scene. And while this comp does have its moments, it doesn't pack quite the same wallop as either of those two records. That's not to say it's not good, cuz it is. But part of the reason this doesn't hit quite as hard is that the tracks on here are mostly instrumental, and Dizzee and Riley added a whole lot to the sound, so without vocals, this stuff is is VERY repetItive and VERY simple. That said though, this shit is heavy and fuzzed out and is perfect for the dancefloor. And should definitely hit the spot for those of us who have been digging the retro sounds of Soundmurderer and Remarc lately and just can't get enough of any sort of big ol' distorted and speaker rattling jungle / drum 'n bass.
Ahhh, grime. The next big thing. The new sound that was supposedly gonna sweep the nation. But ummm, what happened? I mean, the UK grime scene did give us Dizzee Rascal and Wiley, but then nothing seemed to happen. Well, Rephlex haven't given up on grime, and neither have we. Grime 2 demonstrates yet again, that his grime stuff is pretty darn cool. Ostensibly some sort of variant of two step garage (pronounced gare-ij), itself a minimal variant of jungle, grime is about as simple as it gets. a bouncy, almost ragga rhythm, that lopps and loops endlessly, with fuzzy bass swells supplying a bit of melody, and random bits of sonic filligree, little bells, a clip from an old kung fu movie, a few extra rhythmic shuffles here and there. Good stuff, but very repetitive and relentless. So unless you're dancing, or chilling out, or are in the mood for some tranced out hypnotic rhythms, grime might be a little, um, uneventful for you. But for us, well, we're always in the mood for some tranced out rhythms and always on the lookout for some good chillout music. The cuts on Grime 2 are simple and mesmerizing, head nodding and hypnotic, and fall somewhere between the extended rhythmic workouts of Muslimgauze, the simple, spartan techno of Kompakt, and the minimal house of Chain Reaction, all with a bit of a ragga vibe. Sounds good to us.
Thanks in part to the movie "24 Hour Party People" there's been quite a revival in the last few years in curisoity about and reflections of the Manhester party/music scene of the late '80s/'90s. The center of all this dancing, drugging, and going on and on till the break of dawn was none other then the Nightculb Hacienda founded by New Order's Peter Hook. It was within the Hacienda's walls that much of the debauchery, indulgence, and fun/wasted times went down. This 3-disc box set put together by Hook himself compiles the sounds that were blaring out the speakers during its heyday. 808 State, Happy Mondays, Primal Scream, Jaydee, Eric B & Rakim, Candi Staton and of course New Order are just some the groups found on this here collection. For those of you who have been craving th sights and sounds and tastes more tastes of that wonderfully wicked Manchester club-scene then this is a party in a box for you. Sorry no purple pills included.
The great Public Information label releases another incredible collection of archival Library tracks, this time from the British archives of The Standard Music Library, recorded between 1970 and 2010. While many famous people recorded for Standard Library, including Delia Derbyshire, Tony Visconti, Michael Chapman, Sven Libaek, as well as Brian Eno and Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), this anthology focuses on the more obscure composers and electronic output released for industrial films, sci-fi television and commercials. You get the full range over 30 tracks from bloop-bleep abstractions, cosmic kosmiche and new age as well as eighties VCR funk and John Carpenter-like horror-synth jams. If you liked the last library survey Public Information offered, Tomorrow's Achievements - Parry Music Library 1976-86, then you'll certainly dig this. Top notch collection!!! Limited, import.
When we think of Bollywood, our minds instantly go to the golden era of Indian film music from the '60s and '70s, with classical sitars and tampuras set to thriller and noir themes and exotic pop, often forgetting that Bollywood has of course never stopped making films, and the film music has continually changed with the times. Even with the discovery of other flourishing filmmaking centers such as Lollywood in Pakistan and the Tamil-speaking Kollywood of South India bringing in the influences of synthesizers and eighties pop, we still weren't prepared for the amazing modern sounds of another fertile film and soundtrack music scene, this time located a continent away in Kano, the capital city of Nigeria - thus their thriving movie industry is called Kannywood. This compilation, brought to us by the folks at Sahel Sounds and Mississippi Records who have previously brought us those Music From Saharan Cellphone comps, is a great introduction to the sounds of popular film music made by the dominant Hausa culture of Nigeria from the past few years.
Bollywood music became more popular outside of India as the industry moved from films to television and the music began to be heard on the radio. While the Muslim culture of the Hausa people frowned on Hindi cinema, they began to see the advantages of taking the medium of music and film and crafting their own cultural take on the genre, often lifting the music and plotlines wholesale into their own language and cultural tropes. The music, in the beginning was played with traditional instruments, but the invention of the Yamaha PSR keyboard and the switch from video to digital has increased production into thousands of movies and songs of strangely charming and fluorescent dance pop.
For anyone who loved the strange hybrid of new wave dance pop of that Shangaan Shake compilation, or the Saharan Cellphone comps, this compilation carries the same global hybrid of tradition and new technology with most of the music utilizing digital synthesizers and auto-tuned vocals (mostly to imitate the high pitch of Indian Bollywood singers) that emphasizes the exotic side of global pop but yet remains so insanely catchy and infectious.
This just may be the best compilation ever. How's this for a concept? A bunch of electronic/noise bands make songs out of death metal drums. Just the drums. Brilliant. Maybe. Has the potential to be pretty amazing. So how does it actually fare? Pretty well surprisingly. Most of the bands don't fuck with the beats too much, just sort of do their thing around whatever their chosen blast beat happens to be. So what could have been a stupid mess becomes the weirdest, noisiest, most confounding death metal record ever. Light on the guitars, but heavy on the buzz and glitch and whir and skree and whatever chopped up, processed graaeeerrgggghhhh they could get out of their laptops. Think a death metal V/VM, or Dave Lombardo drumming for Wolf Eyes! AQ pal Lesser is on here, as is Bombadier and Panicsville, but the rest of the participants are new to us. It hardly matters though. The tracks all sort of fit together into a single, epic, demented "death metal" masterpiece.
I know we keep saying this but we LOVE grime! It's so frustrating how little of it makes it over to the states. Not sure if it's just too weird for hip hop kids or what, but it seems like something folks would eat up here. It's dark and fuzzed out, super aggressive, the beat is BIG, and the MC's flows are off the hook, rapid fire and tongue twisting, all garbled cockney flows that makes you head spin. It's everything we USED to love about hip hop, before it became just another bland corporate thing to fill up space on MTV. And we figured after Lady Sovereign and M.I.A. folks in the US would be clamoring for more and lables would be throwing money at all the big UK grime acts. But still no dice. Thus we're forced to make do with import comps and what few records make it here.
We've dug the recent Run The Road comps on Vice (a review of volume 2 coming soon) and even the Grime comps on Warp, but this comp is definitely the one that could turn people's heads around. This is rough and raw, really dark and fucked up and funny. The beat is pretty consistent, sort of the way dancehall is, so it's important what folks do with the beat, and this comp is all over the map. Huge thick buzzy synths shred the cones on your speakers, while the beats skitter and boom. It's a groove that's impossible to resist. It does the same thing to us that jungle does, we could listen to it forever, even if it was just a continuous loop. But thankfully the tracks here are super varied and the MCs are a fucking nutter bunch, like a madhouse of rappers and MC's, from growling dancehall style toasting, to whiney Eminem style flows, to muttered mush mouthed mumbling, but all of it SO FAST, and so impossibly dextrous, and the lyrics are really funny, and super snarky, hating on other MC's and talking all sorts of shit. Highlights include a bunch of tracks from Lethal B who is huge in the UK, but not even known over here, especially his "Kylie Freestyle", where, yep, you guessed it, he freestyles over a Kylie Minogue loop, some gues spots from Wiley, who DOES have a record out on Matador, if you missed it, check it out elsewhere on the aQ site, the fuzzed out stutter of Jon E. Cash, a killer rapid fire track from the More Fire Crew, the UK grime crew that both Wiley and Dizzee Rascal call home, a wicked track from female grime MC Shystie who sounds like she could definitely lay waste to Lady Sov and so many more. In fact it's a bit silly to try to pick out favorites. This is the rare comp where there is literally not a bad track. We listen to this everyday and never skip tracks, unless we're skipping back to hear that track again! So. c'mon, what the hell! Where's LETHAL BIZZLE, KANO, KLASHNEKOFF, ROLL DEEP CREW, let's go US labels, make your move, let's get all these records released over here. Would kill to see Lethal B or Dizzee on MTV instead of P Diddy or Fifty Cent! But for now we'll just rock this comp and dig all this godlike grime!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Krautrock legends get their props with this comp, featuring Michael Rother (ex-Neu!), James Plotkin, Autechre, Legendary Pink Dots, Dead Voices On Air, and others...but no Stereolab! What?
This one's for the lovers. DJ Cam compiles songs that reflect his vision of 'happines, love and harmony' (-gag-). Anyway, features Grover Washington, Phat Kat, Coldcut, DJ Matsuoko, Bahamadia, Mr. Scruff, Henry Mancini and more.
With the amazing resurgence and appreciation of the Disco era in the last several years this collection really serves as a kind of holy grail of the true sounds and soul of disco's heydey, as curated and mixed by one of the best disco minded DJ Collectives around, Horse Meat Disco out of the UK. They host legendary parties that channel that original free spirit of old school queer disco parties while manning the decks with some of the best and often most obscure disco gems from the golden era. Luckily Horse Meat Disco has made its way into the states and even to San Francisco, playing at parties with local kindred spirits Honey Sound System.
This two disc set is pretty much essential disco listening, having true disco diggers do the hard work for you and then you just get to sit back (or better yet shake your thang!) to the great jams they have unearthed. The first disc is a continuous mix which gives you a pretty good idea of what going to a Horse Meat Disco party would feel like, then the second disc gives you the songs in their original incarnation. There are some folks we know and love on here as well as many that are totally new to us. And even of the folks we DID know , most of the tracks aren't the total obvious ones we had heard before. Karen Young, Larry Levan, Tamiko Jones, Gino Soccio, Fern Kinney, etc. The impassioned liner notes (including a great piece written by Daniel Wang), give further proof to the lasting legacy and inspiration in these soulful disco sounds.
Horse Meat Disco have proven to be not only some of the best dance / disco DJ's on the planet but also such awesome ambassadors of preserving and celebrating the spirit and soul of classic disco for a whole new generation. Their compilation and mix from last year was one of our favorite collections of dance jams we'd heard in ages and with this second volume they continue to show that there is an endless vault of rare disco gems to be excavated and revisited, and we're so stoked they are putting their love and appreciation of that time, and sound, and making these awesome compilations.
This time out it's a collection of tracks by so many folks that have slipped under even the most disco loving of the AQ staff's radar as well as a few people we know and love (Stephanie Mills, Madleen Kane, Scherrie Payne). But damn what a rad schooling in so many unsung heroes of disco past as we've been moving with big wide smiles on our face to tracks by folks like First Love, Bravo, Electra, Nightfall, etc. If luck had been a little different for some of those artist's their names and songs would be as well known as folks like Gloria Gaynor, Thelma Houston, Gwen Guthrie, Donna Summer, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Labelle, Anita Ward, etc. Horse Meat Disco understands that true disco spirit is so much about the pure emotional energy that was bringing people together on dance floors in total bliss and unity, and it translates in the awesome parties they throw in the UK and with these compilations they have put together. Everytime we play this in the store it's awesome to see how everyone shopping immediately starts tapping their feet and getting in such a good mood. This is impossible music to feel dour while listening to, and as much as we love bleak and brooding sounds around here, we also know that it's important to also have the good stuff to go to when you want to get in a fun, physical dance state of mind, and when you do, it don't get much better then this. So awesome!
"House of Distraction" is the latest compilation of IDM elitism from Schematic - Miami's answer to Warp and Skam. This compilation appears to be a series of remixes / reinterpretations of older Schematic tracks by the current roster of artists, such as Jake Mandell contributing a track called "Plays With Devine's Balls." Push Button Objects' rehashing of Takeshi's "Gutta Percha" is one
Hard to believe the Hyperdub label has been going for a whole decade now, and what better way to celebrate than with this double disc, with one disc focusing on new stuff, and another on classics from the life of the label. In addition to commemorating 10 years, this comp is also meant to focus more on the label's dancefloor focused sounds, but even then, which is what's so great about Hyperdub, is that even the mainstream dance stuff, is still inherently experimental, sometimes to the point that it's hard to believe the level of popularity they've achieved, putting out some seriously challenging music, and for dance music, a lot of this definitely does NOT sound like it was designed to dance too.
The first disc starts with a new jam from DVA, which pretty much sets the template, a dizzying, constantly shifting groover, that flits from bass heavy electro skitter, to dubbed out jungle, to weird clipped vocal metallic beat driven hip hop, to warped dubstep, even dipping into what sounds like some cheesy eighties proto-hip hop, before lurching right back into more skitter and stutter. The sound on disc one is heavy on the footwork, a sound we've championed here big time, infuriatingly repetitive and totally mesmerizing, but amidst the new footwork tracks, there's plenty of other weirdness, from experimental dubbed out electro, to string-laden grime, creepy electro-soul, wild jungle-y exotica, to boomin' system bass music. And the footwork jams, so good, a whole bunch of new names, and potentially new records forthcoming.
The second disc is like a bad ass Hyperdub mixtape, starting out with Burial's classic "Spaceape" and hitting all the high points, killer jams from Ikonika, Cooly G, DVA, DJ Rashad, Terror Danjah, LV, and more, and even on the 'classics' disc, there are a handful of new (to us) tracks/songs, which had us scrambling for all the releases we missed...
A tribute to Antonioni's 1966 classic film "Blow-Up". Features a wide range of contributors including Matmos, Sun City Girls, Starfuckers, Dean Roberts, Richard Youngs, Arthur Doyle (!), Loren Mazzacane Connors, William Parker, Amy Denio, Dorgon, Mushroom and Birdsong's Air Force. Vinyl only.
As the distinct sounds of flutes, harps, bells, gongs, pianos and of course synthesizers fill the air, we realize it wasn't that long ago that we had to defend our love for early new age music as a kind of guilty pleasure. Basking in the soft-focus vibrational glow of long form minimal composition, packaged in naive hippie-ish spiritual conceits bordering on and often overstepping into cheesiness, it was hard to consider it a distinct D.I.Y. practice. In hindsight, new age music can be seen as an early form of the slow food movement or folk art. It was music meant for slowing down time, taking stock and increasing awareness, and we have since come to view it more influentially in terms of its antecedents in ambient and drone music. Yet, over the years new age music has made quite a revival inspiring a new generation of long-form music practitioners and spiritual outliers. Nothing proves that more than this incredible compilation of private press new age music from Light In The Attic that features some old faves and new discoveries across a 40 year span. We have written plenty on influential figures like Iasos, J.D. Emmanuel, Gurdjieff and Laraaji (all featured here), but there are many, especially women like Judith Tripp, Nesta Karin Crain, Constance Demby, Alice Damon and Joanna Brouk who are equally blowing our minds. Often pulled from rare cassettes and hard to find records, this is an incredible survey and the perfect primer for the uninitiated. Fantastic tripped out and dreamy stuff!!
Based entirely on how much a record gets played in the store, this double cd dubstep comp is probably just about the most popular record we have in stock these days. No matter who's working, it seems to get played practically nonstop, and every time it's on, we find ourselves going up to see what's playing. EVERY time. Makes perfect sense, this comp is jam packed with THEE JAMS, every single "hit" from the birth of modern dubstep, until NOW. Dubstep obsessives will still probably find tons of stuff here they're missing, especially considering that most of these tracks have never been on cd before now, and newbies, holy shit, you cannot do better than this as an intro to dubstep. Over two hours of stripped down dubbed out beats, every possible permutation of that dubstep warbly bassline, raga like toasting, murky mumbling vocals, fuzzed out synths, some tracks playful and fun, others dark and sinister, so much glorious glorious bass, buzzing and rumbling, throbbing, pulsing, pounding, all beneath skittery beats, and laid back grooves, abstract funk and dark moody ambience. Just have a look at the lineup: Skream, Caspa, Loefah, Benga, Distance, Headhunter, Pinch, Shackleton, Digital Mystikz, The Bug, Kromestar, 2562, Kode 9, Burial and loads more. We've raved about pretty much every dubstep record we've managed to get in, but of all of them, this one is definitely THE one to get. Even if you already have all the other ones, ESPECIALLY if. And if you're a big fan of classic dub, but have yet to check out this modern permutation, you owe it to yourself to give it a try, definitely pushes lots of the same buttons, but ups the lowend bigtime, making it darker, and heavier, much more physical, and WAY bassier, which is never a bad thing.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
