Vitalic is Pascal Arbez, a programmer from France. OK Cowboy, his newest full-length, sounds like the soundtrack for a movie based on a video game. Lots of soaring through 8-bit Tron-scapes, with electro-ish digitized new-New Wave vocals on some tracks. Throughout there runs a beat that will keep your head bouncing so much it sends your brain on holiday. Makes us want to throw on neon colored stretch pants and dance like drunk robots. Playful enough to be your friend but detached enough to still be le super cool. For fans of Electronicat and Daft Punk.
Your introduction to this French Canadian combo comes in the form of this short-but-sweet cdep. And if these four songs are any indication, Multivitamins For You might be a more fitting moniker! In the span of just under 24 minutes, the group covers an impressive expanse of styles -- from a live performance in which their joined by a big ol' brass ensemble over to the land of remixes (by Blunderspublik and Venetian Snares) and ending with a timely dance-y cover version of an early Arcade Fire song "No Cars Go". Packaged with lovely pink homespun silkscreened artwork.
Last year was an incredible year for electronic music, and for techno in general, especially for a new breed/strain of techno that managed to appeal to folks who didn't think they liked techno: Shed, Terrence Dixon, Andy Stott, Stefan Goldmann, all darkly rhythmic, subtly psychedelic, definitely redefining what we thought was techno. You can add this latest record from Cristian Vogel, his FOURTEENTH album if you can believe it. We knew Vogel mostly for his remixes, of folks like Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Maximo Park, but had never really check out any of his records. Not sure what made us throw on The Inertials, but we're super glad we did. As it definitely fits in with the above mentioned faves, the sound, murky and sinister, the beats muted and skittery, the sound palette super cinematic, at times playing like a WAY darker Clubroot, the same sort of lush, luxurious majesty, but here recast as something much more grim. Elsewhere, Vogel tries his hand at minimal dub, and ends up reimagining it as something much more upbeat, but without losing any of the music's inherent sonic malevolence.
While some of The Inertials does drift into more upbeat territory, the majority of the record is spent in the shadows, pulsing, pulsating sprawls of droning ambience, of beat driven drifts, and post Kompakt house music, blurred into hazy streaks of grey, rain slicked rhythmic stutter, the record's finest moments, ditching any sort of techno framework for a way more abstract sound design, tracks like "Deepwater" reminding us of the recent aQ Record Of The Week from Roly Porter, or even long time aQ fave Ben Frost, super minimal beats, that seem to decay before our very ears, leaving just tracks and traces, transforming from a taut, tense stretch of minimal techno skitter, to a dark, ominous landscape of churning black electro ambience, or "Spectral Transgression" that begins life as pure kosmische psychedelia, all pulsing synths and arpeggiated melodies, glistening and prismatic, before transforming into a mysterious strain of house-kraut, finally finishing off with the dark ambient driftworks of closer "Moved By Waves", which suspends all manner of gristle and glitch, in a softly undulating gauze of smeared synths and layered drones, a fantastic slab of blackened Pop Ambience to finish things off.
Brothers Wolfgang and Reinholdt Voigt have dabbled in collaboration before, with a 12" here and there over the lengthy careers that both have had as pioneers of German techno. Wolfgang's arboreal atmosphere that swept through the four epic Gas records still rank at the very top of the electronic music that we've ever heard, but Reinholdt is no slouch. He's got a very particular style that emphasizes on-the-one synths stabs which cycle through his hypnotic monophunk excursions. And for the first two tracks on their collaboration, it seems the brothers are alternating in aesthetic conceit, with Wolfgang gliding smoothly into the silken techno of "Intro Konig" while Reinholdt snaps his taut rhythms in place for "Der Erste Zug," but for the rest of the album they prove to be much more unpredictable as on the oom-pa rhythmic sample and playful chords of "Der Keil NRW" and the robotic Mambo groove of "Tja Mama, Sandra Masichbeger." The album's finale "Der Letzte Zug" is about as far from techno as the Voigt brother could get, with a 26-minute mantra of a hypnotic buzz extracted from just a couple of chords on a zither or a hammered dulcimer. It's way more in line with a Yoshi Wada or Henry Flynt piece than these proponents of the Kompakt techno sound, but it's nevertheless a very cool track.
After a couple of releases on which he'd devolved the Cologne monophunktrax techno sound into a questionably conceived array of clunky machinations, Reinhard Voigt finally lives up to his family name with his "Im Wadel der Zeit" album for Kompakt. Like his
Poor Reinhard. No matter how hard he tries, he'll always be compared to his brother Wolfgang (whose records as Gas, Mike Ink, Studio 1, M:1:5, etc. stand as the pinnacle of electronica hypnosis). "Premier World" doesn't do much to make anyone pay attention to what Reinhard is doing instead of his brother. Taking Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" as staring point to these simple post-techno loops (well beyond the monophunktrax of the Cologne sound), Reinhard Voigt has made a somewhat dorky ambient album with conceptual nods to the conceptual minimalism of Steve Reich or Terry Riley.
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Wolfgang Voigt's contribution to the 20' to 2000 series (subtitled "20 minuten gas im november") is a reference in title (as well as sound) to the three albums he recorded as Gas.
All three Gas records were unanimous AQ favorites and this newest release retains the autumnally bleak sound of those albums but still manaages to fit thematically into the hyper minimal 20'-2000 series. Complex grey drones slice in and out of a basic technotic architecture. On the first track the drones are hidden within a thick haze of backwards digital swooping, and on the second track they are framed by the minimalist throb of a drum kick. Even if you've not followed the exemplary 20' to 2000 series, this is an essential piece of electronica.
Probably best known, at least around here, as the man behind pioneering pop ambient project Gas, as well as the head honcho of Kompakt Records, Wolfgang Voigt has been making gorgeous experimental minimal techno of all stripes for years, from muted minimal thump, to ethereal electronic psychedelia, it all bears Voigt's unique sonic stamp, and we've dug pretty much all of it. So were were both intrigued and excited to discover Voigt had recorded a piano record, his take on 20th century classical, taking modern composition and filtering it through his distinctive aesthetic, we definitely didn't know what to expect, but it probably wasn't this.
Imagine Conlon Nancarrow's player pianos redefined as modern minimal techno, and you'd be getting close, or maybe a robotic electrified Lubomyr Melnyk melded with simple 4/4 techno, and then stripped down to its very essence, simple looped piano figures are locked into endless motorik grooves, while a simple propulsive pulse drives the track, totally intense and mesmerizing, the piano parts slightly atonal, adding a weird sense of tension, lots of low end, ringing out and reverberating, the melodies strange and haunting, often descending chromatically over and over, very dizzying and disorienting, and just as often transforming into strange little melodic tangles.
The last few tracks seem to ditch the beat entirely, instead exploring the piano and the space around it, strange haunting melodies, very very free and abstract, somewhere between modern classical and free jazz, a hypnotic abstract winding down after the rest of the record's more tense and tight rhythmic machinations...
Wolfgang Voigt has produced various strains of minimal techno under a number guises since the mid '90s. We have long championed his work as Gas whose four albums of blissed-out techno surveyed the Bavarian forest at autobahn speeds, standing as a marvelous and breathtaking pinnacle in the history of electronic music. Despite the totality of the Gas project, Voigt has kicked out countless singles of banging techno, minimal monotrax, schaffelfieber jitter, and pulse-driven ambience - some of which are destined for the club, some of which amount to a very peculiar headphone techno. For the Kafkatrax series, Voigt sourced everything except the bassdrum from the voice of Frans Kafka! It really could have been anybody's voice that Voigt used as there's nothing particularly engaging about Kafka's voice, but the act of transforming Kafka's voice into the insectoid chirps, buzzes, and pulsations of Voigt's techno is a nice touch! Originally, Voigt released Kafkatrax as a trilogy of singles, with each track and each single incrementally deconstructing Kafka's voice more and more. The first few tracks feature that voice contextualized as a constant, if rhythmic chatter amongst the girding monophunk of thumping kickdrums; and it's quite reminiscent of Thomas Brinkmann's use of Blixa Bargeld's voice way back when. But the more Voigt obliterates the voice into non-vocal sounding elements the better. "Kafkatrax 2.3" bends and bloats those samples into acid lines of percolation; and "Kafkatrax 3.4" oscillates swarming masses of Kafka samples into strange melodies sitting above Voigt's churning backbeat.
Full length number two (record number three) from this fantastically confusional minimalist techno supergroup, a trio made up of Mortiz Von Oswald (Chain Reaction, Rhythm And Sound), Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay) and Max Loderbauer (Sun Electric), but like the first record, and the Live In New York double lp, the members and their sonic pedigrees do little to prepare you for the actual sound of the trio. Not techno, not even really electronica, at least at first, instead it's a sort of minimal jazz abstract dub, a thick, sinewy baseline holds the first track together, while around it reverbed guitars drift and pulse, bits of glitch surface here and there, flurries of percussion, fragmented melodies, it's all very abstract, hushed and minimal, it takes 6 or 7 minutes for the various strands to be pulled together, and then anchored to a super stripped down metallic rhythm, nothing else changes, those bits of guitar still swirl and shimmer, the rhythm pulses within a cloud of muted murk and strange abstract effects, finally growing more propulsive during the last several minutes, a skeletal beat, augmented by hand drums, tambourine, soft billows of hiss and whir, streaks of crunch and crumble, but all way in the backdrop and the rhythm loops hypnotically.
The second track begins much more overtly electronic, with another minimal electro pulse, but again, the surrounding sounds are definitely more organic that you might expect, glimmers of guitar, soft streaks of melody, some rubbery upright bass thrum, scatters of extra percussion, hazy synth swirls, but for all that seems to be going on, it's super hushed and muted and yeah minimal. The other two tracks are of course variations on the same theme, with "Structure 3" being perhaps the most Chain Reaction-y, with a little bit of a heroin house vibe, a muted electronic pulse, a dubbed out rhythm, laid across a sea of distant jangle and swirling echoes, until the final track, the longest of the bunch, and perhaps the most heavily rhythmic, but just barely, a groovy jazzy sprawl, the only deviation a couple of sonic squalls, one a flurry of wildly sawed strings, brief but dramatic, the other a less obvious burst of extra percussion, but throughout, the whole thing remains hushed, and muted and minimal and quite darkly dreamy.
Like the other MVOT records, features super striking minimal cover art.
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We were pretty into Vertical Ascent, the debut release from the trio Moritz Von Oswald, a sort of abstract electronic dub minimal techno super group, featuring the group's namesake Moritz Von Oswald, he of Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound, Vladislav Delay and Max Loderbauer of Sun Electric. And it sounds basically how you might imagine. Dubbed out, abstract, a pulsing minimalism, and while the full length was intriguing, it wasn't until this live record that we were totally smitten. Not sure if it's more loose, or if the vibe that night was just right on, but it manages to be dark and hypnotic, but also strangely effervescent and dreamy. The beats are total Chain Reaction, muted, wreathed in effects, suspended in spacious fields of hushed shimmer, of distant rumbles, that would be enough, but here, the beats drift through hazy landscapes of dubbed out ripples, drifting clouds of abstract effects, brief sonic squalls, swaths of synthy shimmer, streaks of glitch and skree, all of which makes the music sound more improvised, more 'jammed' and more LIVE, you can also hear low level conversation once in a while, when the music is at its most skeletal, but instead of distracting, it sounds almost like just another sound one of the players is adding to the mix, a mumbly textural low end rumble. The tracks are long, and all 4 seem to flow into one another (at least on the accompanying cd, not on the 4 sided vinyl of course). Unlike the more abstract leanings of the record proper, the trio keep things beat oriented here, letting the sound and sounds get seriously far out, but always anchored by some gorgeously hypnotic beat. The 15 minute opener is the most Chain Reaction of the bunch, while the closer is the funkiest, managing to create some sort of impossible minimal abstract funk out of crunchy synths, swirling buzz, stuttering skeletal beats, thick swaths of noisy psychedelic electronics, the crowd reacts in kind, whooping and going a little bit nuts, while the two songs in between, sound a bit more Kompakt, ultra minimal, cool and late night, still laced with unlikely sounds and twisted arrangements (again, some of the weirdest parts getting big reactions from the crowd), but all wrapped around super stripped down muted thumps and skitters.
This is the rare electronica / electronic music that works both on the dancefloor and in the headphones, a mesmerizing after hours body moving slow burn groove, or a blissed out, come down, late night chill soundtrack for drifting off and dropping out...
Incredible packaging. Insanely thick gatefold jacket, with super stunning cover art, includes a cd version (NOT a cd-r, an actual cd) in a hand screened sleeve. Already out of print, these are the last copies EVER!
This one is difficult to categorize. Rigid electronic music in the guise of open-ended free jazz? 20th century minimalism with subtle ethnographic influences? Concrete stoner music for the Salvia Divinorum set? Ok, the last one may have been a stretch, but this record has been really hard to wrap our brains around. This super group of sorts, all from the new wave of minimalist techno, includes not only Moritz Von Oswald (Basic Channel, Rhythm And Sound) of course, but also Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay) and Max Loderbauer (Sun Electric), veering a bit from the predicted norm. That this was released on The Honest Jon's label adds another level of unexpected curiosity as this is an electronic record but not quite the "heroin house" you would expect from the Chain Reaction label, nor the classical recompositions Von Oswald made with Carl Craig earlier this year. What you get is a flexible weaving of machine calibrated electronic treatments (drones, synth sequences and hazy shifting textures) with an array of clattering handmade rhythm instruments (metal clangs, wooden clops, and watery blops) interlocking in organic ways designed for improvisation and live performance. It's definitely warmer and more inviting than most of the Basic Channel stuff, while still keeping the sound and performances reigned in. Yet we're not sure if this is a first foray into a more exploratory open-ended direction or just a curious one-off. Overall though, we go away with a beautiful and interesting sounding recording that's definitely worth checking out!
Otto Von Schirach's first full length for the awesome Schematic label is a frenzied mix of Aphex Twin-style electronica squiggles and Squarepusher-ish manic energy, along with a healthy dose of randomness, as if it's a car-racing video game soundtrack whose direction is determined by crashes and explosions of a turbo vehicle. Nice and fun, but a lot to take in one sitting.
More hyperspastic funk-ass algorithmic computer music from Miami butt-technician Otto Von Schirach. First in the Chopped Zombie Fungus trilogy of eps.
In case you hadn't heard, Von Sudenfed is the collaboration between Mark E. Smith and Mouse On Mars. Given that Smith had once quipped that The Fall could involve anybody's grandmother on bongos accompanying Smith and his cantankerous slurred vocals, it's a bit surprising that this isn't considered a Fall project. Nonetheless, Tromatic Reflexxions is clearly the best album that Mark E. Smith has been part of in years. The same goes for the Mouse On Mars side of the equation. We're not going to stray too far from the conventional wisdom regarding Tromatic Reflexxions, as we basically agree that it really does sound like LCD Soundsystem, even though Mark E. Smith wants nothing to do with any of those comparisons. Musically, the combo produces a smarty-pants concoction of post-everything rhythms with dubstep density, disco-punk punchiness, and electro grooviness all mashed up into an infectious squelch, which clearly resembles the LCD Soundsystem singles of a couple years back. Smith is just as cranky, irritable, and insufferable as he's ever been on any give Fall recording. Perhaps not surprisingly, Smith's presence in an electronica context offers an obvious comparison to James Murphy's smug delivery on the LCD Soundsystem recordings. Many of us here hadn't thought that this collaboration would work in the least, but more than a handful have been clearly won over. In all likelihood, Tromatic Reflexxions will stand out as one of the best art-rock / electronica albums of 2007. Well worth checking out.
We've been a bit burnt out on electronic music lately. Sorry, but it's true. We've just sort of been IDM'd to death over the last few years. We still love us some Aphex Twin and some Boards Of Canada and some Kompakt stuff sure, but that's just a drop in the bucket of the thousands of records of 'dudes with laptops crafting complex beatscapes'... And before we get a million emails, yeah we know there's probably some killer electronic record that we haven't heard, and if there is, please free to shoot us an email and let us know...
But every once in a while, especially lately during this laptronica burnout period we've been experiencing, an 'electronica' record will surface that just hits the spot. Maybe incorporating similar elements, but in a new and unique way. Chris Clark was one, his post Aphex skitter and swoon became a bigtime aQ fave. And Vorpal seems poised to be the latest. Taking the head-spinning splice, dice and chop approach of folks like Venetian Snares and Jason Forrest, but infusing it with all sorts of warm sweet melody, and classic dance music groove, Vorpal manages some magical just-right balance that perfectly hits the spot. There's lots of drill and splutter, skip and hiccup, shuffle and slitter, plus a bunch of weirdly staggery full on dead stop glitches that get us every time, but it's all over warm smears of moody melody and shimmery twinkle that gives the whole record a sort of dreamy blissed out vibe no matter how splattery the programming is or dense the chopped soundscapes are. It's really not sonically miles apart from any of its predecessors, but like with lots of records we love, there's just some special something, some ineffable element, that makes it so goddamn good. Plus some seriously killer cover art...
From the same brain that created the fragile, pretty electronic sounds of French Paddleboat comes this decidedly more glitchy and at times more cacaphonous effort. Scott August is the young gent from Kelowna, BC who began making music while still in his teens. Holed up in his bedroom like a sonic mad scientist. On the usually much more dissonant and obtuse music label Scratch Records.
Why drop the "enetian" from the perfectly good name Venetian Snares? I dunno; but there isn't much of a big departure for Aaron Funk (aka VSnares / Venetian Snares) from his last couple of albums of chemically acerbic, drill 'n' bass workouts. "2370894" is a spastic album that shreds the common drum 'n' bass signatures into a shock / horror splatter: sometimes stretching the speed limits into Panacea's darkcore tactics for stalking rhythms and hoovering basslines into atonal stabs of breakbeat mania, then overloading the rhythmic density of free-jazz clatter into a headache inducing digital mess, then wallowing in the downer sentiments of Morrissey samples on top of conditionally minimal electronic arrangements. Vsnares concentrates all of the truely abrasive numbers at the beginning of the album and gradually lightens up the album to end up closer to where his label boss Mu-Ziq has been residing.
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Yes, this debut album from SF's Vytear does indeed sound rather rubbery. Kooky, thick analog-y bloops and programmed beats bounce about like a barrel of superballs. Melodies bend and spin and frolic madly, closely resembling a Commodore 64 playground run amok. A fun, sputtering 'n' spastic listen.
Luke Vibert, who also records under his own name and as Plug, here delivers another album of bouncy and fresh electronica. This is happy go lucky dance music whose dark edges bubble forth only occasionally (a bass heavy jungle break here and there). Lots of
Before Plug, Luke Vibert recorded some wacky off-kilter trip hop under the guise Wagon Christ... If anyone is curious what 'clown hop' is as Aquarius' (via Sean Cooper's) taxonomic definition of this specific sub-genre of electronica (see also u-Ziq and Dr. Rockit), Wagon Christ's records are exemplary of the definition. Tally Ho, his latest release, shows a clear influence from the awesome Amon Tobin. And yeah, the vinyl is import only... sorry.
This UK duo blew us away with their debut, as it quickly became a big time favorite at aQ, as its blend of shoegaze and electronica conjured up such a perfect dreamy and breezy state of sound. We've been anxious to hear how they would follow that phenomenal debut. We're so happy to report that Coracle demonstrates that Walls are no flash in the pan, as this album takes some of the ease and breeze of their debut but also injects a whole lot of fresh color and new ideas into the mix. More swirling melodies, more seamless transitions within songs, more radiant energy then we've experienced on almost any other album this year. But warmth is the main ingredient in Walls' sound, and really, it's what makes them so damn pleasurable to listen to. It really does feel like floating and surfing through Technicolor waves in a blissed out sonic sea. Some of us have already penned this in on our favorite albums of 2011 lists!
The lp version includes a cd version of the record as well.
The hazy and washed out cover art caught our eye but the sounds that came pouring out of the speakers is what won us over right away. Shoegaze blissed out electronics that seem to float in the clouds but also have a keen sense of melody. Walls definitely remind us a lot of that cool Morr music compilation of Slowdive covers that came out years ago, as it really does sound like our dreamy electronic based favorites tapping into the mesmerizing world of shoegaze greats like Slowdive, or the more celestial moments of Flying Saucer Attack's masterpiece Further.
Blissy blurry guitars and smeared murky vox buried in the mix on a few tracks, it all makes for such a perfect sun soaked sound. These songs swirl and flow with such ease yet it never turns into wallpaper as there is an understanding of creating actual songs and nice moments of subtle tension that give the record a rounded and utterly satisfying feel. Like an even more blissed out Infinite Body or our favorite outings by Ulrich Schnauss, or even what could happen if Panda Bear let go of his Beach Boys leanings and set his sights to a more soaring shimmery sound. This is turning into a major candidate for dreamiest record of the year!
NYC jungle DJ on a full-length.
Highly Recommended. Described by the label as "avant garde trip hop from NYC's underground" and possessing "Knitting Factory-style beats", Wally & Swingsett come up with weirdly delicious, mellow rhythmning, as good as DJ Shadow or the Ninjatune posse. Light and fun with really smart touches.
We'd been hearing a lot about this guy, a UK soundscaper named Louis Johnstone, who records as Wanda Group, and while we dig this quite a bit, none of the descriptions we read though really prepared us for what it actually sounded like, two sidelong sprawls of darkly psychedelic avant noise collage, the sounds all over the map, from dense blasts of white noise buzz, to mysterious field recordings, to minimal flurries of skittery percussion, distant foghorn drones, conversations, the cries of seagulls, gristly crackling rumbles, like contact mic'd fire, shimmering dronescapes, muted murky drifts laced with random bits of ambient noise, scrapes and bumps, footsteps and whatnot, gorgeous stretches of near silent shimmer, hushed lowercase thrum, fields of blurred vocals, which sound like grunting and groaning processed into disembodied swirls of sound, looped Jeckian warble, symphonic fragments, all layered and mashed up into woozy washed out streaks, thick industrial grey ambience, all manner of random noise, field recordings and room sound, tangled up into heaving swells of densely reverberating thrum. And that's just the first track/side. The flipside is essentially a sonic continuation, lots more grey, gristly sounds, more murky field recordings, buried voices, hiss and static and hum, crackle and glitch, some Ryoji Ikeda style clinical sine wave / minimal tone scapery, haunting dronescapes laced with fierce grinding buzz, bursts of staticky shortwave transmissions, dense swirls of fragmented power electronic pummel, deep cavernous rumbles, crumbling staticky swells, malfunctioning machinery symphonies, blurred into grim industrial smears, all settling into an uneasy blackened drift.
Noisy, austere, haunting, brutal, abstract, ambient, a twisted epic expanse of experimental sound that should definitely appeal to fans of twisted modern minimalism, avant drone, soft noise and lowercase exploration.
Includes a download code too!
Denver's hip hop punk rock retards the Warlock Pinchers, who flourished in the late '80s/early '90s, are either the stupidest band ever, or the most genius, probably the former, although we think it's some impossible/improbable mix of the two. You may have heard their classic anthem "Morrissey Rides A Cockhorse", a heady, hooky dose of borderline homophobic Smiths bashing, but like all of their jams, it's all in good (stupid) fun.
Their proper albums are chuck full of big dumb beats, crunchy metal riffs, big dumb rapping, and irresistable choruses, they're one of those bands who practically everyone we know LOVES, which makes way less sense once you hear them.
Bomb The Franklin Mint is tough to recommend to anyone but diehard fans, as it's a collection of early recordings, demos and practice sessions. That's not to say that this doesn't rule, it does, but it rules in a way that maybe only WP fans can really understand. Imagine very early Beastie Boys, but way more simplistic, the beats totally primitive, the guitar playing rudimentary, and the lyrics, alternatingly ridiculous, over the top, offensive and/or funny as fuck. And on these early jams, all that stuff is even more magnified, the sound even more raw and lo-fi and capital D dumb, but so fun and funny and infectious and fuck it, AWESOME.
We'd probably recommend tracking down Deadly Kun Fu Action / Pinch A Loaf and Circusized Peanuts first, the proper records do in fact rule, big time, fucked up and funny and funky, but listening to this, even the demos and practice sessions sound pretty bad ass, but then we LOOOOOVE the Warlock Pinchers, so we're not exactly objective. So fans, buy this, you definitely want it, especially for the old stuff, the first tape, most of which we'd never heard, for the rest of you, give it a try, check out the sound samples, prepare yourself for some awesomely inane over the top lo-fi goofiness, and you never know, you just might end up as weirdly obsessed as we are... [Only one sound sample, per the band's request]
A simple album of stark sonic gestures from local composer Henry Warwick. Just one or two perfectly realized elements are unfolding at a time, usually a variant on shimmering waterfalls of analogue synth pulsings, often warm and delicate, sometimes threateningly dark, sometimes minor key and wistful. Quiet and lovely. Comes packaged in a signed edition of 500 with copper leaf
Some abstract, cinematic, late-night (or early morning) drone-whoosh here from this academic/electronic/experimental composer. He's now based in Toronto, but we know him from his years in SF, as he's an aQ customer of long standing. Recorded between 2003-2012, the seven tracks here encompass warm waves of blissed out ambience, glitch-distressed hauntology, and cold glacial drone. 'Tis nicely varied from track to track, and within each one as well, there are enough dynamics and textural shifts to hold one's interest, if you're actively listening - though a more relaxed listening practice could easily result in simple mesmerization.
Apparently, this disc is the first release in a trilogy, documenting Warwick's latest program of "audio research". The title of this one, Something Borrowed, is in reference to his compositional process here - the basic sound materials are all "borrowed" (samples from cds, synth presets, etc.) and then manipulated with the use of computer software. Not that you'll recognize the sources or anything.
Fans of stuff like :zoviet*france: and Tim Hecker should perhaps investigate.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Yet another chunk of electro goth, witch pop, gloom-soul weirdness from this SF duo, who, while originally linked to the witch house scene, seem dead set on blazing their own confusional sonic path, and it does just keep getting better and better.
Drippings is a songsuite of what to these ears sounds like minimal miserable electronic death ballads, or like a more lo-fi, creepy and drug addled How To Dress Well. The same sort of soulful vibe, but WB's 'soul music' is something altogether more grim and evil, mottled and murky, the music here stripped down and skeletal, the vocals verring from DJ Screw style sizurped drawl, to an almost Nick Cave sounding deep and dramatic croon. All laid over a strange framework of super spare electronic dub, crumbling bits of distorted melody, bits of metallic buzz and deep rumble, the occasional swirl of synthy shimmer, gauzy stretches of sci-fi kosmische ambience, wheezing drones, sometimes coalescing into a clattery detuned warped cabaret, other times spacing out into glimmering expanses of crystalline haze, and still other times, stumbling into strange Middle Eastern sounding grooves, that sound almost like Muslimgauze crossed with the Butthole Surfers, but still laced with those creepy ominous bellowed vox. Seriously twisted, dementedly genius, fantastically totally fucked up and thus WAY recommended.
SUPER LIMITED! We might not be able to get more when we run out, so act fast.
Finally!!! The hotly anticipated debut full length from San Francisco weirdo electronic duo Water Borders, aka Amitai Heller and Loric Sih, formerly of SF rockers New Thrill Parade! And HOLY SHIT does Harbored Mantras deliver the goods! All of us around here have been eagerly awaiting this and are so psyched to finally be able to share this freakily futuristic and subversive bass goth with everybody. Hopefully, by now, avid aQ list readers are well familiar with the warped soundworld of Water Borders from past records on killer labels like Skrot Up, Disaro, and the Hungry For Power label run by kick ass blog 20 Jazz Funk Greats. While all that material was definitely amazing, and excitingly forward thinking, their proper debut, "Harbored Mantras", might just turn out to be a total game changer. It makes sense a bleeding edge label like Triangle would put it out, as it's an obvious attempt to diversify and re-direct their already stunning canon. The future is simply bigger than 'witch-house', and the keen eyes of the powers that be at Triangle seem to understand this all too well. (Also see the beautifully stark Ayshay ep featured elsewhere on this list for further evidence).
It's a rare sonic artifact that successfully bridges the gaps between such disparate and divergent influences and comes out on the other side as something utterly unique. but Harbored Mantras does just that, and then some. Most of the reviews thus far and even the press release from the band itself have gone over the groups influences ad nauseum, but for the most part, they are pretty right on, we too hear Coil, we hear modern UK bass music, we hear echoes of Gavin Friday at his most expressive and brooding. All apt comparisons for sure. But what's so interesting to us is the manner and method in which Water Borders implement these influences to effectively create a fresh crossover. Water Borders' sound successfully inhabits multiple musical universes in ways that are both subtle and surreal, yet somehow impossibly calculated and perfectly executed. It's a churning gothic weirdness, it's well informed dance music, it's textural and moody, while at the same time solidly rooted in lyric based song form. The songs that constitute "Harbored Mantras" solidly convey a dark vision of the present and future. Technophobic paranoia, social inequities, workaday drudgery, narcissistic identity crisis, and the ever-changing nature of communication are all strands that are woven into the spirit and soul of this record. There's much to be discovered in this piece of work... let's get to the tunes.
The album opens up with the slow burn of "Tread on Them". We're greeted with the sounds of long forgotten bones clattering in a blackened wind, while a ritualistic metallic clang creeps into the foreground. Heller's creepy baritone enters atop this hissing texture and suddenly with the introduction of bass we're sent falling into WB's bottomless sound-cave. The low end frequency is a dark and dubby stomach ache drone, creating a different type of club vibe. Euphoria replaced with claustrophobia. The sound is functionally cathartic, like good dance music ought to be, but the feeling is still foreboding. "Yelling long live success" as we waltz on top of the vanquished, feeling a deep shame all the while for acts willfully committed to arrive at the top of this heap... "What Wiwant" ups the energy with a nervously syncopated 2-step. Disassociated hand percussion and the ever-present bass wobble creating an absolutely hypnotic head-nod trance. The song is a driving banger swaddled in ominous synth textures, working you up to a frenzy while never letting you leave the hazy nightmare. "Waldenpond.com" is a brief respite from the chaos, offering up a beautiful slab of gloomy triphop. The guest vocals from Group Rhoda are a gorgeous addition to the WB's sound, strongly contrasting Heller's guttural croon with plaintive melody. The tempo is slower here, kind of a groovy, opiated dream state where melodies and textures swirl atop a dubbed out rhythm track. The vocal production is particularly stunning on this one. For the first half of the tune Group Rhoda's vocals are shimmery and ghost like, floating atop the beat with dense reverberation and spacious delay. About half way through the track the vocals are sampled and arranged rhythmically, becoming part of the beat itself. This clever production tactic lends itself well to creating an arc within the song... where we once sought comfort in the gauzy atmospherics we now are suddenly bucked off that cloud, hurled into a more jarring moment. The line "I hate the night" bouncing in our brains, awakening visions of a parallel world where identity is fragmented and "reality" is confused. And that BASS! Caustic, deep rumbles shaking us to the core. All elements combining to give an overall feeling of discomfort, albeit one that you can get down to. "Bad Ethos" is a harshly negative slo-mo industrial track. Lots of noisy mids and highs droning on and on with some seriously demented histrionics going on with Heller's vocals, the deep dark bellow replaced with a high end evil screech. Next up is arguably THEE cut of the record, "Even in the Dark". Originally featured on the group's Disaro disc, but now revamped and made even more MASSIVE! Starting with a minor key arpeggiation, the bass slowly creeping in and the vocals murky and misanthropic. Suddenly those same vocals become more discernible, albeit DRENCHED in a reverb glaze, revealing probably the strongest melodic moments of the record. The underpinning is still the throbbing pulsations heard throughout, but now with an intense element of high end melodic skree, tom toms ping ponging across a vast cavern, synths clawing at the ears, a cacophonous tumult resulting in an undeniable urge to erase the self and finally dance off that cliff that "Harbored Mantras" has been beckoning you toward throughout.�
From here on out, the album remains driven towards this death trance mood, incredibly focused in its intent. It's alienating and disturbing but at the same time engaging and creative. Moments of beauty, moments of chaos...a fully developed record with an incredibly consistent vibe. This is what we mean by game-changer. It's at once a part of the now, but also something wholly different and utterly challenging, not easy listening at all. Never pandering to the trends, but at the same time so current and powerful! An infinitely rewarding debut record from an outfit that promises to keep on pushing their futuristic sonic agenda. Absolutely essential!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Unlike We's full length, this 12" features far fewer jungle beats and much more layered, scratchy texturing. If someone told you it was Stockhausen, you'd be really impressed. The vinyl is probably the MOST BEAUTIFUL we have ever seen, even nicer than Stereolab's "Emperor..." import, which, you may recall, was gold glitter encased in clear vinyl. This 12" is composed of grey, blue, yellow, and purple concentric circles of varying widths, some perfectly centered and some off center. Truly a beautiful object.
We's first album "As Is" may still stand as the finest documentation of the Brooklyn Illbient sound. But their third album is pretty great too, an excellent electronica release in its own right and warrants complementary comparisons to AQ fave Amon Tobin. "Decentertainment" is filled with deep ambient headphone brain tuning stuff, stoned / downer hip hop beats and soulful vocal snippets complete with vintage vinyl scratchiness. Then a quick tempo change switches gear into bouncy drum & bass breaks surrounded by interesting samples and dubbed out melodies.
Their first record was such a breath of fresh air at the time. An original, consistently interesting, unpredictable and inspired approach to ambient and drum'n'bass. New Yorkers Olive, Lloop and Once11 have made a recording to equal their last. Their approach in this record is identical to their last (they even brought Eyvind Kang back in), lacking only uniqueness. But if you liked the first, you will certainly like this one.
Mick Harris is no longer Scorn, he is the Weakener--but Scorn fans won't mind 'cause Mick is still making his trademark kind of scary bass-heavy electronica that WordSound makes a good new home for.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Truth in advertising? Well, not here. This is not a new Andrew Weatherall (of AQ faves Two Lone Swordsmen) album, but a compilation of his favorite tracks from the early 80s with the electro-club / death-disco hits by Dominatrix, 23 Skidoo, A Certain Ratio, 400 Blows, The Normal, Chris & Cosey, and more.
The awesomely (and super positively) titled Fuck Everybody, You Can Do Anything, is the third record from The Andrew Weathers Ensemble, a mostly improvised affair, masterminded by Andrew Weathers, but augmented by a constantly shifting cast of guest improvisers (including members of local dronefolk combo Common Eider, King Eider). Weathers and Co. offer up an extremely unlikely sonic hybrid, with a loose strain of modern minimalism as its core, but somehow incorporating both a spare, dusky modern Appalachia, as well as some warped avant R&B. And yeah, we know how ridiculous that sounds, but once you hear it, it makes all kinds of beautiful (non)sense.
The bulk of Fuck Everybody is laid atop lush fields of smoldering drones, slow shifting layers of sound, over which Weathers drapes shimmery steel string buzz, a melancholic twang flecked folk, occasionally swathed in sweetly swoonsome strings. But it's the vocals that really make this unique, a raspy, soulful croon, but one that's been processed, and vocodered, and autotuned, and suddenly, it sounds like some warped slo-mo-soul jam, all wound around hazy streaks of psychedelic folk.
Woodwinds drift in and out, as does the work of various guests, each supplying varying degrees of sonic filigree. Again, those elements are mostly ephemeral, wraithlike affectations that shimmer ghostlike around the core sound of softly pulsing chordal thrum, mysterious, muted percussion, those aforementioned subtle R&B-isms, sped up and slowed down vox, chopped and looped, and then, skeletal tendrils of steel string buzz and spare fingerpicked folk. That vintage blues folk feel, fused with the processed vox, not to mention a sky full of glimmering, crystalline FX, somehow manages to make two totally disparate sounds, sound like they absolutely belong together. And when multiple vocals intertwine, be they multiple vocalists or Weathers multi-tracked, they become a stunning group-style chorale, and the sound blossoms into what sounds like avant old timey standards or some alternate universe spirituals, a gorgeous, slow burning chamber folk, weaving psychedelic modern spaciness into more traditional folksong structures, and filtered through the cracked lens of modern minimalism.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
Early electronic compositions from Karlruhe native and Stockhausen pupil Reinhold Weber. 2 long pieces inflected with oscilating bloops and bleeps, sirens and a delayed German narration.
Some of these tracks have been floating around on blogs for ages, it was only a matter of time before someone would gather them all up and release a killer compilation, shouldn't be too surprised it ended up being Omni! This Australian synth pioneer is probably best known for the bubbly synth pop classic "Love By Numbers", with its near literal lyrics, the verses simply AW reciting numbers from 1 to 100 (and then some, but it fades out around there), in a thick weirdly Teutonic accent, his count interrupted here and there by a dreamy girl pop chorus of "It Must Be Love", before it's right back to the counting, all over some terrific minimal wave electro pop. Originally released with the awesomely titled B-side "Boring Instrumental", which is a glorious little chunk of stripped down lilting electronic pop, not boring in the least. And then it gets really weird. Check out "Sex II", which lays down a groovy squelchy minor key electro groove, over which AW, and his female counterpart, recite what sounds like a strange not especially sexy, grocery list, from avocado, to rare beef finely sliced, aspirin, a kumquat, three floral toilet rolls, a pork sausage, a cantaloupe, a jar of Vaseline, chicken giblets, crumpets, mayonnaise (this one delivered in a near orgasmic croon, as is chopped liver, rump steak and Listerine!), the whole thing laced with little electronic squiggles, the boy / girl vocals delivering their various items extremely passionately/seriously, more so as the list continues, the track occasionally also augmented by breathless panting, all over a sort of chorus of thick soaring majestic synth swirl and some crunchy fuzz guitar. Might be the most replayed track here. But that's only the beginning, there's a twisted cover of the Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction" which is nearly unrecognizable, made all woozy and fuzzy and soft focus, there's the VERY Elvis-y electro-rockabilly of "Boom Boom Baby", which also predicts the sound of eighties big haired synth weirdos Sigue Sigue Sputnik, there's the woozily psychedelic "The Galvanized Garden Of Inner Peace", that also has a little rockabilly swagger to it, there's another version of "Sex II", instrumental this time, the music even more playfully exaggerated and the sounds super dubbed out, there's the dark bloopy, distorted guitar driven, electro slither of "Do-Do" replete with some weird deep vocals intoning "GET OFF THE FLOOR!!", everything reverbed and drenched in echo, there's "The Ballad Of A Metronome", which is classic eighties pop, but with some truly strange sung/spoken vocals, there's also the warped piano ballad "Radiation Injection", which is more goofy and playfully silly than the title might suggest, but with some snarly almost Suicide like vox tethered to the bleepy bloopy music. Pretty much every track here is a twisted gem, covering all of AW's outfits, from his solo single, to his stints fronting the Metronomes, Thealonian Music and Modern Jazz. He would later go on to record with Nina Hagen, he's actually STILL a live member of Einsturzende Neubauten, the liner notes, as with all Omni releases, are extensive, and detail AW's musical life, and of course there are lots of rare photos and reproductions of original record sleeves. But give a listen to the sound samples, we're guessing you'll be immediately hooked!
We've been trying to track these down for ages, a mysterious set of dubstep 12"s, some of the coolest, darkest, grimiest dubstep we've heard, all housed in plain white sleeves, no info except for a stamp of either a larva, a pupa or an adult Weevil, that symbol designating which of the three Weevil Series 12"s it is. We decided it was probably better to sell these as a set, as they were difficult to track down, and had to be shipped overseas, and odds are if you want one, you're probably gonna want the set.
Originally a customer sent us a link to some samples online and all it took was about 30 seconds and we were hooked. Dark and creepy, ominous and menacing, the sound rough and textured and raw and not at all slick or glossy, the beats, slipping from dubstep stutter to almost jungle skitter, the background a swirl of spaced out effects, deep bass swells, mysterious voices, and when the beat drops, it drops hard, the bass buzzing, thick and corrosive.
The first volume, Larva, is seriously grimy, muted buried rhythms and roiling black clouds, the beat gradually growing more intense, the drop huge, the beat nearly knocking us over, the dubstep definitely a little jungly. The second track offers up some super effected distorted dancehall style toasting over an echo drenched beat, and warped bass warble, and the drop here too is fierce, the bass a fat fuzzed out wobble, the beat jagged and stuttery, a super raga style dubbed out groove that kills. The final track gets a bit more darksteppy, the tempo cranked up, definitely more jungle than dubstep, the beat wreathed in clouds of squelch and synthy squiggle, and peppered with bits of African Head Charge like ambience. So good.
And the second volume, Pupa, is just as good, starting out with a clipped lurching groove, and some vocals that are chopped up and transformed into a weird sort of bassy hiccup, almost like a croaking frog, the beat stripped down and minimal, all skitter, wreathed in clouds of swirling psychedelic hiss and whir, and haunting black ambience, a strangely off kilter hip hop-ish chunk of dark dark dubstep. The second track mixes it up again, setting the beat against a backdrop of woozy synth swirl, wrapped around a skipping chunk of warbly bass buzz, wrapped in swirls of glitch and static, the sound more laid back and droney, hypnotic and washed out, which leads into the final track, a big block rockin beat, laid over fuzzed out bass, and all sorts of dubby effects and extra percussion, again, with some swirly synths laid down in the background.
Finally, the set finishes off with part three, Adult, which shifts gears again, the first track a murky bit of super minimal droned out mesmer, the beat, muted and buried beneath a field of static, and blurred low end fuzz, laced with random bits of clatter, like some super abstract Chain Reaction Heroin House take on lo-fi dubstep, crusty, and sinister, and abstract and haunting and AWESOME.
The second track continues in the same direction, similarly minimal and stripped down, not nearly as murky, but with a seriously clinical, motorik clipped beat, surrounded by Geiger counter like chitter, all over little flurries of high hat, and subtle bits of dubbed out FX, super hypnotic and WAY too short.
Finally, the closing track picks up the pace, that creepy processed raga like toasting returns, over metallic clouds of billowy bass, the beats laid back and stripped way down, the thick buzzing bass pulse driving the groove, everything surrounded by what sounds like field recordings of a forest or jungle, a darkly psychedelic bit of dubbed out bass heavy murk. So good. We haven't stopped listening to these since we first got them in. Dubstep jam of the year? Last year? This year? Any year? Hell yeah!!
Each 12" is limited to 300 copies, hand numbered, and hand stamped, all in plain white sleeves. And remember we're selling all three 12"s together as a single set.
