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A solid introduction for all those who have only seen the hip-hop approach to wax tricks. This covers almost every other conceivable area of turntablist sound-art from Christian Marclay, Otomo Yoshihide, Merzbow, Crawling With Tarts, Erik M, Extasis, Frank Schulte, George Budd, L?K?O, Martin Tetreault, Massimo Simonini, Mood Man, PFN, Rik Rue, Takeshi Fumimoto, and Tsunoda Tsuguto.
Fflint Central is a U.K. label run by two extraordinarily nice guys and darn fine hosts (good enough to befriend a sick and bedraggled on-tour Andee and buy him Cokes). Fflint specializes in experimental electronics and harsh abstract noise. One would think that there's enough, or too much of both, but the men from Fflint have that something special (fuck-you attitude? undefinable sound? sense of humor?) that makes these records way better and way more interesting than the majority of the 'electronica' we hear these days. Fans of VV/M, Lesser and other 'troublesome' electonica will dig this stuff. Affordable CD-Rs. Go ahead and take a chance. You may regret it...
Here is the ubiquitous 'label sampler', but in this case, it's almost better to treat it like its own release, since there is so much overlap/incest among the Fflint stable of artists. All unreleased stuff form almost everyone on the label. From ear-splitting noise to soothing drones to pounding distorted beats to hypnotic pulses. From calculated compositions to all out mayhem. A good overview of an awesome new label.
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Things have been rather quiet from the U.S. Pop Life camp for quite some time, but Contact Records ringleader Yoko Sawai bursts back with two new compilations (complete with visuals). A huge U.S. pop music fan, she moved to New York from Osaka a couple of years ago, and has been tirelessly releasing cds of diverse indie music with the intent to introduce Japanese kids to the American bands she loves. Basically each release is themed geographic or stylistic - whatever catches her fancy. Initially they leaned towards soft'n'twee pop, but over the years they've gotten progressively more abrasive and angstful. Oh, and don't be mislead by the titles! She does take quite a few liberties with band categorization. For example, this one, "Extension Of Electro" features few artists who fall under or near the genre "electro", but somehow Yoko's enthusiasm overrides any urge to be nitpicky. Volume 16 contains a dozen tracks including ones by Soviet, Yume Bitsu, Thievery Corporation, Andrew Duke and Ghost Orchids. Please note: many tracks are previously (or soon to be) released in the U.S. however it's her hope that her comps will turn some Japanese kids onto the bands' albums from which these songs came. On this side of the Pacific however, they're the equivalent of a nicely packaged comp tape from your friend Yoko.
Two tracks from Locust. One each from Mick Harris (Scorn), Lilith, and David Toop.
Another ear shredding, lung collapsing, skull crushing, hair raising, gut wrenching, ass kicking, soul soothing, spiritually devastating missive from out pals at Fflint (supplying us with some of the best experimental electronica in the world!) to tide you over until the results due from the even more unholy alliance between Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer and our own Andee's tUMULt label.
This here 'Unholy Trinity' collects tracks from Fflint regulars Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer and Cousin Silas as well as newcomer The Gideon Leeches. The 'Leeches start things off with some shimmery ambience, underpinned by a shuffling jazzy snare and lots of crystalline burbling and what sounds like the theme from the Partfridge Family, slowed down and transmitted from the bottom of a swamp. Track two finds the Leeches in more of a noisy mood, weaving together synth pulses, timestretched buzz and clattery mahinery into a drizzly doomy soundscape. Cool stuff. Look forward to more in the future. Tracks 3 and 4 come courtesy of Cousin Silas, who has one Fflint full length under his belt. Track three is a gently dreamy ambient wash of soothing tones and warm thrum. Track four is SCARY. Creepy castle ambience, with drones, and distant clanks and skittering insects in your headphones, threatening to find their way into your dark warm brain. Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer close things out with two tracks of ominous doom and gloom. Like the soundtrack to an Argento or Fulci film, this stuff is SINISTER to the nth degree. Gloomy ambient drones and ghoulish wails swirl through the abyss while people chant what sounds like 'Do it!' in the distance. Huge throbbing bass notes punctuate the grim atmosphere and the anguished (and heavily reverbed) voices of disembodied spirits reach from beyond the grave. By the final track, a thick granular drone is introduced adding tension to the already frightening proceedings, while Keith Emerson keyboards are dismantled and slowed down and spread in a thick paste over the whole damn thing until the whole thing finishes in a cacaphonous burst of desiccated samples and dismantled melodies. Another awesome release from the mighty Fflint central!
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Stellar, groundbreaking comp of strange electronica with Tortoise, Ui, Aphex Twin, Springheel Jack, Thurston Moore, Luke Vibert... all the tracks are great, no filler.
Ignore the stupid sticker on the cover of this cd ("a SPICED-OUT excursion..." --Hello! Asians are really fucking weary of the food comparisons! Can you say STEREOTYPE?) and check out the music contained herein. Psychedelic sitar and tabla drums mixed with easily digested electronica, kicking back in the chillout lounge. Everything from old school vibes-master Dave Pike to Ravi's brother Ananda Shankar to Ninjatunes' Up Bustle & Out to SF's own Better Daze. Every single time we play this record in the store, someone buys it.
Having greatly enjoyed the Rapid Transit compilation and the full length releases from While, Sluta Leta and Push Button Objects, I rejoiced at the sight of a new Chocolate Industries label compilation. Alas, while I know there are folks out there who'll like this, I have to admit it's not doing much for me. There are standout pieces from adventurous hip hoppers such as El-P and RJD2, Aesop Rock, Mos Def & Diverse, Aesop Rock, Souls of Mischief, and especially the mysterious, excellent Themselves, who cackle their verses in a way that must be heard to be believed. But the pieces in between these tracks are basically electronica filler, especially Prefuse-73's bland, jazzy groove that sounds like the trendy sort of mood music your local Urban Outfitters likes to play. Other disappointments include a Tortoise throwaway and stuff from Miho Hatori (Gorillaz, Cibo Matto), DJ Food, etc. Sigh. Get this for the smart hip hop (there's certainly enough here to make it worth it) and program out the stuff in between.
Man, oh man. A double disc sequel to the first Valis comp, again featuring some of the best in experimental dub/turntablist/hiphop/electronica. From the first Valis, Bill Laswell, Corporal Blossom, DXT, and Spectre return...with them, find Scanner, Eye Yamantaka, Scorn, Him, We, Praxis (with DJ Disk and Mix Master Mike of the Bay Area's beloved Invisible Scratch Picklz), Torture, Buckethead and more!
Opinion is split here over this one, but a look at the folks on this record should be enough for you to know whether it's your cup of tea or not. A bunch of electronic artists plunder the Rather Interesting (Atom Heart/Senior Coconut's label) tape vaults and do their worst. Pram, Plaid, Dropshadow Disease, Pole, Lisa Carbon, Fonosandwich, Fibia and more, take themselves, each other and then some (including Atom himself) on.
As the majority of abstract electronica / IDM is instrumental, Plug Research had commissioned a handful of artists to explore the voice in conjucntion with the electron twiddle. With tracks from Herbert, Phoenicia, Kit Clayton, Patrick Pulsinger, Ectomorph, and the rising star idiot-savant ironists Chicks on Speed, the compilation is a diverse mix of electron crackle sprinkled with house shuffle, with the additional vocals almost always ending up as Bjork impersonations. Originally this was released as a series of singles, now available on cd.
The respected Belgian label Quatermass here releases a new "vs" comp (a couple previous ones being remixes of the work on Atom Heart's Rather Interesting label and the Kompakt label). Here they ask five of their artists to remix five artists from the German
All in all a nice compilation, relaxing but illuminating, with a variety of electronica subgenres nicely sequenced and nicely messed-with.
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UK journalists have referred to 1988 as year zero for techno. A decade later, the Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, and Daft Punk may be hailed as more deft producers than the innovators of Detroit Techno and Chicago Acid House, but they've done nothing to alter the general structualism of techno, the tyrannical kick of an 808 or the alien modulations of a 303.
Warp records has created quite an historical document in the first of their "Warp Influences" releases... as all of these tracks dominated rave culture in the late 80s and early 90s, from the oft-quoted "Acid Tracks" by Phuture (from which came the term 'acid' in reference to the perpetually shifting frequency modulation of the Roland 303 drum machine) to Model 500's sci-fi techno epic "Off to Battle". Also present: Reese & Santonio, Rhythim Is Rhythim, Adonis, Fallout, Unique 3, 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, etc...
We now know that electronica's present progressives such as Aphex Twin and Autechre found their roots here, in the naivete of the compositions, the awkward nature of the melody, and the dark reverberating minimalism which would be overemphasised by any number of chemical stimulants.
As almost all of these tracks are impossible to find (either out of print or buried within the inscrutable logic of dance music distribution), this is a welcome collection into the origins of current electronica.
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The Sheffield sound was quite an interesting progression in the history of techno, that on occasion stands up to the test of time. The second of three simultaneously-released compilations from the Warp label collects their earliest singles (we're pretty sure they're all out of print) of bleep techno, characterised by minimal yet dynamic techno drum programming, layered sampling, and a signature use of simple pings in place of a snare.
LFO's earliest (and best) work was unabashedly Kraftwerk worship with complex melodic repetitions, speak'n'spell vocal samples, and even-to-this-day-pretty-exceptional drum programming. Before turning to trip hop, Nightmares On Wax lived up to their name with uncomfortably angular genetic mutations of diva house into something not all that friendly. Richie Hawtin's earliest guise F.U.S.E. makes an appearance but not with the devistating "Train Trac" single, rather with the hard to find collaboration with LFO. Also featured are lesser known crossovers from Industrial culture with Cabaret Voltaire's Richard Kirk working as Sweet Exorcist and Greater Than One's pseudonym Tricky Disco.
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If history is not your thing and you're looking for that now sound in electronica, then the third installment of the Warp compilations may be up your alley. Given free reign to remix anything from the Warp catalog, we are treated to such artists as Mogwai, John McEntire of Tortoise, Underdog, Labradford, Oval, Spiritualized, Richard Devine (who does an excellent remix of "Come To Daddy" by Aphex Twin"!), Jim O'Rourke, etc. remixing contemporary Warp classics by Autechre, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Broadcast, Squarepusher, etc... Pretty damn good. Recommended.
The lp version of the Warp remixes comes in a heavyweight, slipcase-style box.
One of three new cd reissues commemorating Warp Records' 20th anniversary, all culled from the super swank, and prohibitively expensive boxset the label released a while back. We reviewed the 'Unheard' disc recently, which featured a handful of rare tracks from some of our all time Warp faves, Broadcast, Boards Of Canada, Autechre, Plaid, Clark, Flying Lotus, Seefeel, and while this one isn't quite as essential, it is basically a hugely bad ass Warp mixtape.
Essentially a greatest hits, it's two discs, one chosen by the fans, and one chosen by Warp co-founder Steve Beckett. Most of these are tracks you know, there are definitely a handful of surprises, especially on Beckett's disc, but it definitely feels like a lovingly complied greatest hits, with the fans' disc continuing lots of hits, and Beckett's mixing hits with some obscurities. Both discs are great, and barring the overlap with records already in your collection, it's pretty essential listening. Want to introduce someone to electronic music, need an electronic music primer covering the last 2 decades, just need a killer mix for the car or a party, then this should do the trick. The first disc has Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker", Boards Of Canada's "Roygbiv", Squarepusher's "My Red Hot Car", Autchre's "Grants Graf, Luke Vibert's "I Love Acid", and a bunch more. And while the second disc contains some classics from Grizzly Bear, Broadcast, Squarepusher, Seefeel and others, it also includes less likely jams from Jamie Lidell, Mike Ink, Xeper (Black Dog Productions), Nightmares On Wax, and loads more. Needless to say, killer stuff.
One of three new cd reissues commemorating Warp Records' 20th anniversary, all culled from the super swank, and prohibitively expensive boxset the label released a while back. We reviewed the 'Unheard' disc recently, which featured a handful of rare tracks from some of our all time Warp faves, Broadcast, Boards Of Canada, Autechre, Plaid, Clark, Flying Lotus, Seefeel, and we review the 'Chosen' disc elsewhere on this week's list, featuring a two disc greatest hits compiled by both fans and the label, but this one is definitely the weirdest of the bunch. And maybe the most fun because of it...
Two discs of Warp artists, covering songs by other Warp artists. Born Ruffians, with their Pixies post punk jangle, tackle Aphex Twin's "Milkman", Maximo Park cover, Vincent Gallo's "When" and make it their own, giving it a synth new wave makeover, Clark reimagines Milanese's "So Malleable", and it gets even more gnarled and spastic and HEAVY, Hudson Mohawke transforms Jimi Tenor's "Paint The Stars" into a glimmering drift of sparkly ephemeral shimmer, Mira Clalix covers Boards Of Canada and turns it into chamber music bliss, Jamie Lidell covers Grizzly Bear, Seefeel covers Maximo Park(!) and creates a glutchy chunk of blurred new wave, Gravenhurst covers Broadcast and more more more. Some of the tracks are just gussied up a little, some are recreated with alternate shadings, subtly shifted sound palletes, while others are totally and wholly transformed. Cool.
Sure some of you music freaks managed to snag one of those crazy Warp boxsets, celebrating the label's 20th anniversary, and what a twenty years it's been, kicking our asses with amazing records from Boards Of Canada, Squarepusher, Autechre, Aphex Twin, Chris Clark, Chris Morris, Disjecta, Broadcast, Grizzly Bear, Flying Lotus, Maximo Park, Born Ruffians, Prefuse 73, Battles, we could go on, needless to say, few labels boast that sort of track record. So this box set was pretty thrilling, albeit a bit unaffordable for most of us. Which is where the cd versions come in. Three releases, one featuring Warp bands covering tracks buy OTHER Warp bands, another release featuring one disc of songs chosen by fans, another by Warp themselves, a sort of greatest hits, both of those we'll review soon, and this one, probably the one most folks were most excited about, featuring rare and previously unreleased tracks by Boards Of Canada, Seefeel, Broadcast, Flying Lotus, Plaid, Autechre, Clark and more! And it's just as good as we had hoped.
Broadcast do a Nico cover, all buzzy and moody and spacey, the first new Boards Of Canada music in 3+ years (since Trans Canada), and of course it's washed out and dreamy and divine, a killer old old Autechre track, the Plaid song is amazing and had us pulling out our old Plaid records, The Clark song is short, but oh so sweet, weirdly skeletal and glitchy and otherworldly, Flying Lotus go all abstract and ambient, and the Seefeel is dark brooding, warm and whirring pop ambient bliss, so good. Totally reminds us of why Warp were so important, and continue to be, and this comp is incredible, a perfect mix of future funk and old school electronica, dubbed out glitchy skitter, and lush electro dream pop. You definitely need this, and probably those other Warp20 collections as well, more about those on the next list...
Warp sampler of recent releases and releases soon to come. Including: Plaid, Autechre, Two Lone Swordsmen, Squarepusher, Mira Calix, Polygon Window, Blue Jam (Chris Morris), Nightmares On Wax and more. Cheap too!
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"Including only new and unreleased material" by Atom Heart, Seefeel, Japan's Bisk, and Directions (band of Bundy K. Brown, ex-Tortoise).
The 100th release for electronica giants Warp Records. Everyone here has pulled out all the stops as there are no weak tracks. With exclusive cuts from Squarepusher/AFX (yes they are collaborating!), Autechre, Red Snapper, Plaid... but Broadcast clearly steals the show with the best song we have ever heard from them.
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A myriad of intriguing San Francisco experimental sound artists are features on this expansive double lp. The cast of characters includes Subarachnoid Space, Not Breathing, Earwicker, Dead Air Supply, Mystery School, Content Provider, Property Of Thieves, and Kimosciotic. Runs the gamut of texture and atmosphere. Organic and synthetic. Skitterish rhythms and claustrophonic drones. Looming thuds and brittle shimmers. If you dig the artists on the Schematic label, you might wanna check this out too (especially the Dead Air Supply tracks on side A and the Not Breathing track on Side D). For a slower, gentler mood the space rock of SubArachnoid Space meld grooves with COntent Provider followed by Kimosciotic's vaporous, almost insectile layers (side B). The second disc begins with Earwicker's lightly abrasive repetitive beats, squeals and bleeps. Conversely Mystery School take us on a much more linear voyage, sticking with a rhythm and/or sample briefly before proceeding onwards. And the final side offers the aforementioned icy liquid electronics of Not Breathing followed by the dreamily drifting aquatic chimes and echoes from Property Of Thieves. Each side is beautifully self-contained, but all four together make for a very pleasing compilation. File under: tactile sound... very nice!
A gorgeous sounding and gorgeously packaged audio record of four separate exhibitions/installations in which the artists used diferent approaches to utilising the space and the manner in which sound affected or was affected by that space. The space in question was a cavernous art gallery in Chemnitz Germany and the event was curated by Raster-Noton head honcho Carsten Nicolai. William Basinski broadcast his gorgeous and gauzy short wave recordings into the space, letting the sounds resonate and reverberate and slowly mutate into new shapes entirely. One of the most gorgeous chunks of drone we've heard and alone, even at nine minutes, makes this well worth picking up. But the other tracks aren't so shabby either. Ronald And Robert Lippock offer up a wispy, ethereal, super minimal lull-scape of gentle tones and shifting textures. Lumen use film projectors to create clicking, beeping rhythms that warble and shift, delicate and unpredictable. And Errorsmith used the sounds of visitors to the installation to create stuttering computer generated sound images. The whole thing finishes off with a strange Kraftwerkian techno workout. Cool.
Two NYC labels - Minimal Wave and Wierd Records - have been at the forefront in energizing a resurgence in minimally sculpted synth pop that harkens back to the late '70s and early '80s of synthpunk, darkwave, and industrial sensibilities. Where Minimal Wave's focus has been on digging up the lost gems from that seminal time period, Wierd actively supports those working in the field today, with a weekly club in New York and with well-curated albums including recent releases from Xeno & Oaklander and Led Er Est. Back in 2006, Wierd released a massive 3lp set, showcasing some of the best and brightest who had passed through their doors. That first set was a magnificent find, filled with misanthropes in black leather making dirge-crusted ambience, grinding dark-disco anthems, and sexy goth electronics sporting uncanny melodies. Unfortunately that set is currently out of print, although we're hoping to secure some copies anyway.
This, the second set, was completed at the end of 2008 and took a slightly different approach than the first, as the curatorial direction was clearly to dovetail Wierd's tastemaking aesthetic of coldwave synth pop with the perpetually moving US underground of noise-induced powerdroning. In many ways, what Wierd was doing in this compilation parallels what Carlos Giffoni has been doing with his No Fun Festivals, but from the other end of the spectrum.
So what you get here is a beautifully packaged collection that brackets a darkly propulsive synth-pop number with an abrasive noise-drone piece, with the linking factor being that all of the sounds have been made on analogue synths. Xeno & Oaklander, Martial Canterel, Three To Forgotten, Tobias Bernstrup, and Epee Du Bois belong to the former camp; and Demons (featuring Nate Young of Wolf Eyes fame), Envenomist, Cadaver In Drag, and even the aforementioned Mr. Giffoni represent the latter. Sleep Museum, Charlie Draheim, and Wave Tank seem to be the artists that do their part to marry the two, especially Draheim's piercing synth Leather Nun-ish anti-tune "Guts On The Dancefloor." Oh yeah, all the tracks here are exclusive to the compilation. Great. Great. Great.
Yet another killer dubstep comp, this one focusing on the Bristol scene, which may not mean anything to you, until you get a gander of the folks on this comp: Pinch, Peverelist, Appleblim, Joker, Guido, RSD, Headhunter, Gatekeeper, names anyone into dubstep is familiar with, but a whole bunch of lesser knowns like Hyetal, Dubkasm, Gemmy, Jakes, Forsaken, Shortstuff, Wedge, Shadz, Dubboy, Komonazmuk, Atki2 and more.
There are extensive liner notes about the scene, and one of our favorite quotes, courtesy of Pinch,which pretty much sums up what's so awesome about dubstep, the Bristol strain specifically:
"I knew straight away that this was a sound that would fit perfectly in Bristol. There is a lot of tension in the music that carries a satisfactory darkness with it but it's also lazy music. You don't have to dance hard to move with it. It was born with a reefer in its gob."
No need to dance, just sit back, bliss out, and let the music wash over you. And this comp is full of the perfect sounds. Dark and minimal, skeletal and skittery, for dubstep obsessive, you probably already have a handful of these, but there are probably plenty you don't. Moody and mysterious, dark and haunting, some of the tracks are hushed and muted and murky, others are fully dubbed out and drenched in reverb and echo, while still others, our favorites, and thick, and buzzy, with huge warbly bass, and minimal stuttery beats, Headhunter's "7th Curse" is a killer, a sort of grim sci-fi slow motion groove, RSD gets all jungle-y with his "Pretty Bright Light", Smith And Mighty unleash some serious ragga dubstep on "B Line Fi Blo", Joker lays down some synthy buzz and big ass bass warble on "Holly Brook Park" and Hyetal gets all videogame electro, weaving 8bit melodies and swirling synths into a seriously cinematic sprawl of futuristic stutter and pulse, throb and buzz. So good. Pretty much every track here slays, another unanimous AQ fave for sure, getting crazy play in the store...
Noise Museum presents the second "Wreck This Mess" compilation of illbient / digidub grooves from Twilight Circus, Spectre, Systemwide, The Dub Factory, Extremadura, Botom Botom, Holon, Silk Saw, DJ Spooky, Egon Zo vs Digidub, Audio Active, Starfish Pool, and Andrew Lagowski.
Holy crap, another compilation from everybody's favorite electronic superstar Kid 606 and friends. Compiled by Andrew Nosnitsky, the concept behind "Wrong Application" was to create audio tracks resulting from non-audio, pure data information origination.
The Xart Hybrid documents a series of electronic sound events which took place in an old soybean-oil factory outside of Copenhagen from November 1998 - June 30, 1999. While the compilation moves through the spectrum of contemporary vangarde of electronica, the greatest percentage of the tracks (Pole, Vanqueur and Substance) revolve around the Chain Reaction sound of granular synthesis dub. Others include Mego's Ramon Bauer, Chicks on Speed, Opiate, Goodiepal (V/VM co-chucklers), and more!!!
This is pretty Cool. To celebrate its ten year anniversary the respected label Ninja Tune releases a 3 disc boxset -- 44 of the best tracks from its catalog, and that includes fully 17 overlooked or previously-unreleased pieces, too, so it should be of interest even to those who're familiar with the label. One look at the breadth of the artists represented here and you get an idea of how incredibly influential and important this label has been (and what a sense of humor!) over its career of 85 full lengths and 136 singles: Amon Tobin, Funki Porcini, Coldcut, Luke Vibert, Neotropic, T Love, Kid Koala (his best track ever, Emperor's Main Course), Blackalicious, Infesticons, Quannum MCs, DJ Food, DJ Vadim, Squarepusher, etc. Totally impressive. There's MC-driven hip hop, sampler tricknology, good old drum'n'bass, turntablism, jazzy wailings, and soundtracky electronica. The one-minute cut that starts off the set is a cute intro from Steinski, and contains so many split second samples of stuff from the Ninja Tune catalog that we can't even count'em. See what I mean -- Cool.
Please note that this set also comes on vinyl as a 4-lp set ($29) with all the previously-released tracks, but not the unreleased stuff (yes, there was a 6-lp version with everything on the cd box, but it's already sold out forever.)
This is a super elaborate tribute to one of our favorite labels, Germany's Hausmusik label. Just have a quick gander at some of the records they've released: Village Of Savoonga, Cakekitchen, Notwist, Lali Puna, Fred Is Dead, Alles We Gross, Calexico, Smog, Palace, and loads more, as well as one of our favorite compilations EVER: The Day My Favorite Insect Died. Always mysterious and amazing. Often in some deluxe sort of packaging. And thus we have "You Can't Always Listen To Hausmusik, But...", a 2lp collection of some of Hausmusik's brightest and best, loveliest and strangest. But there's more to it than that. The massive book includes fourteen writers paired up together to write short stories, each starting with the same sentence, each story started by one writer and finished by another, exquisite corpse style. The music was approcahed the same way, with one band supplying raw material, with another band crafting the material into a song. Pairings include Calexico / Notwist, Console / Loopspool, Sodastream / Ms. John Soda, Villaage Of Savoonga / Jersey, Fonoda / Deaf Center, Squares On Both Sides / Village Of Savoonga, Fred Is Dead / Couch, A Million Mercies / Calexico and a bunch more. Packaged in a thick, gorgeously printed book-like gatefold sleeve, with a huge build in pocket to hold the book, eighty pages, perfect bound, tons of art, some of it full color, unfortunately all the text and stories is in German, but it hardly matters. An amazing tribute to an amazing label. ----* ----* New DVD's : ----*
Do you like the sweet, drowsy pop sounds of groups such as The Pastels? If your answer is an emphatically murmurred "yes", boy, have we got THE compilation for you! Released on Stephen Pastel's own label, it consists completely of very like-minded,
P.S. Buyer beware: You might be tempted to get this only for the Kevin Shields track, his first in umpteen years, but unfrotunately it's not impressive at all, and it's also short. The reason to get this is for all the other artists on this great label.
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A pretty outstanding collection of unreleased material showcasing the talents at 555 - included are Third Eye Foundation, Hood (whose previous work did nothing for me, but here have presented a free-floating spaced-out song as good as Crescent or Movietone), The Remote Viewer (delicate IDM melodies and skittering digital beats), Empress (lush beautiful slow-core like Low or Codeine), and more!
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Yes, one dollar and ninety-eight cents, this is a budget priced Digital Hardcore sampler indeedio. It's all previously released stuff, some harder to find tho (like the Christophe de Babalon track from an early, out-of-print DHR 12") but regardless, this is a good DHR sampler that's fast, cheap, and out of control. [/cat/compilationsplit85.html]
Tripped out loungy-electronica compilation great for yoga or eating at trendy restaurants.
This is the first mix cd from Stefan Betke, the driving force behind Pole and a key figurehead in the neo-dub renaissance alongside Kit Clayton and Vladslav Delay. The album begins just as you'd expect with slick transitions between Process, Farben (aka Jan Jenilek), the afforementioned Delay, and Clayton, with Betke jacking up the bass to huge thundercracks and sprinkling in
The "Oacis" 4cd box should be confused with the "Oacis" book that Raster-Noton released earlier this year, though both featured the usual suspects in Byetone, Komet, Coh, and Alva Noto. Remixing source material from someone named Lumen (no, not the post-rock
Thus, the "Oacis" box is quite solid on the musical front; however, the packaging holds some unfortunate design oversights. First off, the box is housed in the same industrial strength zip-lock bag as the book, which fit the 8.5" x 6" book rather snugly, but overwhelms the 5.5" x 5.5" box. Secondly, the designers had obviously taken great cares in die-cutting all of the innersleeves, but included a lone piece of card stock which inhibits a direct line of sight through the package. Very disappointing design execution from a label that has prided itself on its perfect packaging (like the "20' to 2000" series). Oh well.
This collection of live recordings at the Ideenshop in Berlin from last year is an intriguing compilation of techno minimalism that as a whole seems to hold much more of an affinity to the angular electronic funk of Cabaret Voltaire than the elegant sheen of Pan Sonic or Goem. Kotai / Baader has produced a complex sequence of minor chord tones hovers above a nearly bassless drum machine for a monochromatic techno groove that sounds as eerie and minimal as the earliest acid house from the mid-80s. Patrick and Casio Kid collaborate for a deep immersive Francisco Lopez drone. Monolake offers a smattering of Schnitzler cosmic electronics that is driven by a Chain Reaction house shuffle. Don't Dolby, Automato, Felix Kubin, and 100Records also make appearances. In the end this is much more interesting than the average electronica compilation featuring Kid 606.
Okay, it's time to come clean. After fighting it for years. And beginning every techno review with a disclaimer like "we don't really like techno all that much", it's time to just admit it, we love techno. We do. well, we must, this is the SECOND comp called I Love Techno that we've raved about on the list. And we've been listening to it nonstop since it first came in. Sure we love Pop Ambient, and heroin house, and all the more minimal weirdo shades of techno, but the stuff on this comp falls closer to the French stuff we also love, Daft Punk, Justice, with wild buzzing synths, pounding big beats, crazy melodies, and this comp is overflowing with total dancefloor destroyers. The first I Love Techno comp, was a bit more on the minimal side of things, playing into a sound we already loved, but this 2008 collection is not minimal at all. It's maximal. Big time. Snarling, swirling, buzzing, pounding, wild, sweaty, strobe lit, electro flecked, synth heavy techno, and if we actually were inclined to dance, this comp would keep us moving FOREVER.
Opening with a brief burst of old school electro, the sound quickly shifts to a killer mashup, pounding beats and buzzy spacey synths, and cold clinical spoken female vocals, IN GERMAN. Cold wave via Daft Punk. Or something. And after that's it's on, and it don't stop. Synthesizers buzz and howl, squeal and shriek, beats shuffle, skitter, pulse, throb and pound, this shit is wild and weird and freaked out and actually sort of heavy in its own way.
Two tracks right in the middle, one by Bingo Players, the other by Les Petits Pilous, are completely nuts, jagged chunks of synth buzz, shooting out staccato style, locked in with pounding beats, like the frenzied climax of the ultimate techno jam, stretched out into whole songs. The record closes with the ultimate techno one-two punch. Boys Noize, who assembled this comp, offer up "My Head", which begins a hiccupping chopped up stutter, laced with squiggly synths, and it just gets more sharp and caustic and jagged and blown out and groovy and funky and far out as fuck. Which segues perfectly into Errorsmith's "In A Sweat", which starts out all fuzzy and hiss drenched, muted beats all strangled and stunted, before the beat drops, a super distorted fuzzy groove, that just gets weirder and weirder, the various synths slip from super low end buzz, to super sharp high end skree, constantly shifting tone and timbre, while the beat manages to stutter and skip all over the place, the whole thing culminating in a high end hiss storm.
So yeah, I suppose we do love techno. That is, as long as techno always sounds this funky and freaked out and fucked up and kick ass. Way recommended. Even for technophobes, as this has definitely won over a few of those around here.
It's no secret that many of us here at AQ are huge fans of Daft Punk. In fact Matt, Irwin and Antaeus all went to their concert in Berkeley this summer and still light up when talking about what an amazing night it was. The fact is Daft Punk have perfected their unique strain of dance music, executed in a way that almost anyone can get into, without losing any of the electricity and spirit that makes their sound so special. So it's always been obvious to us how fun it would be to be able to go through their gigantic record collection. This compilation features tracks that they have sampled on their three albums, so it's no surprise that it's filled with all sorts of rare funk, soul and disco gems.
While this works a just a killer comp, it's especially fun if you're a Daft Punk fan as we've gotten so much pleasure hearing such unmistakably Daft Punk moments in their original incarnations. We also think it's so cool that they made sure to give full props to their source material and the wealth of vintage dance music that they have borrowed so heavily from. Dance gems from folks we know and love like Karen Young, Cerrone and Sister Sledge to more obscure burners from the likes of Little Anthony & The Imperials, Edwin Birdsong and Breakwater this is a collection that's been making us dance and smile so wide.
This is one of those records that is either one of THEE most amazing and bizarre collections of random and far out archival sounds and recordings, or it's one of the most meticulously assembled sonic hoaxes EVER. And as it usually is with records like this, it almost doesn't matter. If it IS real, well then WOW. How some of these recordings exist, and have never been heard, hard to fathom. If it's all fake, then WOW again. Gorgeously presented, the liner notes detailed and super informative, complete with archival photos, and all presented in a jacket that looks like one of those classic collections of library music. BUT. This was compiled by weirdo outsider musician Felix Kubin (whose career retrospective compilation cd we raved about recently), which makes us think this is just the kind of thing he would think up, and actually create. Plus, some of these recordings are so impossibly bizarre, and some of the sounds are so weird, and often don't sound at all like what they purport to be.
So let's dig in. A recording of a demonstration record, demonstrating a mechanical automatic speech apparatus, lots of talking in German, then the actual demos, a weird mechanical series of tones, meant to be vowel sounds, the first step in a machine that will emulate human voice. Next is a lost recording of a Finnish telephone exchange from 1938, that sounds more like some strangely musical bit of dronemusic, all reverby and woozy and washed out, haunting and soundscapey. Up next is some music from a Norwegian Whaling Festival, in 1948, a surprisingly high fidelity blast of what could be Avarus, a cacophony of crowd sounds, voices, clanging metal, all nearly drowning out the skronk of various horns. Then there's a recording from a fraudulent attempt to raise money for a new '16 track tape' (twice as good as the 8 track that was so popular at the time, 1967), a recording of what we presume to be the factory where they make the tapes, all industrial whirs, voices, clanks and rumbles, the tape having remained unheard due to the fact that it was an obsolete format.
Up next, a supposedly early piece by David Tudor, possibly his first, a stretch of near silence punctuated by bits of crunch and glitch, weird warped tape sounds, it could be Tudor, hard to say. Then comes a hydrophone recording of a project to record plankton, capturing the plant's electronic impulses and converting them into sound, this recording however is from the cockpit of a submarine, so everything is murky and muddy, voices and underwater warble, quite an awesome recording, genuine or not. The side ends with what might be the most bizarre track of them all, a recording of a man performing with barnyard animals in the UK, a part of variety shows that were apparently quite popular at the time, the man beats a drum, his rumbling voice soon joined in by mooing cows, oinking pigs, meowing cats and clattery horse hooves percussion.
The second side doesn't get any less far out, beginning with what is meant to be a recording of a Pygmy hunting ritual, recorded in 1934 in Africa, and again, it sounds almost like some modern lysergic forest folk weirdness, super distorted, lots of percussion, wailed voices, super dense and chaotic, definitely raw and primitive sounding, but definitely suspect. Then comes another demonstration recording, this one from Oskar Sala, who created the soundscapes for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, here he demonstrates the Volkstrautonium for the infamous Joseph Goebbels of the Third Reich. Then there's an early early 'remix', created in 1965 from wax cylinder recordings of Persian foot soldiers in 1921. Next up, a found reel to reel tape, that came with a player, and was discovered to contain what is purportedly a recording of a Situationist project to construct a non authoritarian kindergarten "aimed to engender a spirit of subversion in children", and is essentially a recording of a man and a child, interrupted by various strange sounds. Then comes an unknown tape recording "presented here as a curiosity", a twisted blast of mysterious voices and garbled analog electronics, a technical experiment perhaps, we'll never know. And finally, an untitled player piano composition by Hans Henny Jahnn, a "playwright, novelist, organ builder, music publisher and polymath", and his masterpiece was apparently about a man who tried to notate the grain of birchwood into musical notation, and it seems Jahnn tried to do the same in real life, using birchwood grain as a blueprint for musical notation. Wow.
Incredible. And incredibly strange. A fantastic, and fantastical listen for sure. Everything here so bizarre and baffling, and in most cases almost TOO bizarre and baffling. But like we said, it hardly matters, regardless of their provenance, this is an amazing document of some truly wondrous sounds, recordings that if not genuine, are at least genuinely freaky and fascinating. And, unfortunately, we have but a handful.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Until the day when Jay Lesser is recognized as the genius of sonic terrorism that he really is, there's V/VM. Now only down to one member (as Janski Noise has permanently joined forces with DJ Speedranch), V/VM mixes junk store gems (e.g. Donald Duck's sputtering quacks, tabernacle choirs, marching bands, MSR style renditions of Elvis songs, crappy star-search pop songs, etc...) with the awesome power of the Chaos Pad and an array of distorted breakbeats.
Right from the get-go, the V/VM compilation "Hate You" is easily the most enjoyable (read: not annoying or irritatingly ironic) and well executed collection from this Stockport collective. The basic premise here is, well, pretty much the same as any other V/VM project: take any "shite" track and slice, dice, shred, add tons of distortion and completely destroy the shit out of it.
V/VM -- a label, a band, a concept, and perhaps most importantly a mistake -- has now stooped to taking potshots at The Aphex Twin, who has been very quiet for the past three years, releasing just the "Windowlicker" ep in 1999. While the silence of Aphex
We don't either...still, here's vol. one of infamous UK electronic jokesters V/VM's unoffical/unneccesary Aphex Twin "remix" project.
