I shut down the lines, turned over the locks, silenced the clocks, and took a vacation. That was a week ago, and now seems like last year. Meanwhile, I had to take a step back from rotations, even though the music kept spinning on my mind. Thus a month went by, and now I'm back with another installment. All that doesn't mean that I haven' been keeping busy - I was able to document an exclusive interview with none other than
The Flashbulb. So make sure to point your clickers there and read!
Conversations With Benn Jordan
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Robert Logan - Grinder EP (Slowfoot)
Last year, 19 year old Robert Logan hit the UK scene with his debut album, Cognessence. It was immediately embraced by the dubstep and the dark experimental IDM communities alike. In February 2008, Logan followed up his full length with a 12" EP on the same label,
Slowfoot Records. Although two tracks from the record have previously appeared on the LP, the title track alone makes the vinyl worthy of collector's purchase. The sound of the four pieces is a continuously developing crunchy groove with a touch of big beat, infusion of hip-hop, and a base of dark ambient texture swishing at the bottom of this poisonous cocktail. I am perpetually impressed by the twists and turns of the progression in Logan's music. The label quotes Logan's previous collaboration alongside of
Grace Jones and
Brian Eno, contributing to
Alex Gibney's documentary Taxi to the Darkside [winner of Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature]. Recommended if you like
Hecq,
Architect and
Burial and crave a bit of new evolving darker sound. Favorite tracks: Grinder and Lost Highway.
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Skeetaz - Off (Proboscis)
I am a huge Jamie Watts (
KiloWatts) fan, so it's no wonder that I'm excited about his side project with Bil Bless under the Skeetaz moniker. This 2008 debut album is released on the duo's own label, Proboscis Records. Watts seems to be all over the place these days - there's his latest full length release
Ground State on
Native State Records (which alone is worthy of foaming mouthful of praise), multiple singles on his own digital KiloWatts Music label, and a fantastic take on IDM meets folk sound - an album titled Focus & Flow, in which he collaborates with Peter Van Ewijk under
KiloWatts & Vanek moniker. Whew! It seems that Watts is simply oozing music and excreting ideas... But back to mah- Skeetaz. The album features the usual excellent IDM treatments - still melodic, intelligent and very playful - but just a touch darker at times. I would even be brave to nudge the album towards dark electro and psychedelic breaks, as the sound is clearly influenced by psytrance bleeps, clicks, and other insects. Don't get fooled by a digital-only independent label release - the sound is groundbreaking and the production is super tight. Excellent brain tingle for the lazy Monday mornings. I snatched this candy from Addictech's new digital download outlet in FLAC - check out the online samples. Absolutely favorite track: Dirty Dobbers.
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Wes Willenbring - Somewhere Someone Else (Hidden Shoal)
Modern classical hasn't felt this young in years! I mention the genre to friends, and they yawn to the tune of stuffy library halls and uncomfortable theater seats. Meanwhile, the old friend quietly slipped under the contemporary knife of post ambient and got itself a face lift. Enter Wes Willenbring and his debut full length on Australian digital label, Hidden Shoal Recordings, simply titled Somewhere Someone Else. If you love melancholic piano sounds that bathe you with warm and wet kisses; if you like ambient textures exploring the silence and space; if you like muted guitar and blurry soundscapes that move with synthetic and organic sighs... then Wes Willinbring has a treat for you. Hailing from San Francisco, Willinbring started piano lessons at the age of seven. Years of recordings, collaborations, and explorations yielded this perfect soundtrack to an emotional repose. Pick up the album from Hidden Shoal's online store, and while you're there grab the free label samplers. Recommended if you enjoy
Manual,
Bruno Sanfilippo,
Evan Bartholomew,
Kiln and
Opitope. Favorite tracks: Lost Illusions, As You Fade Away, and While My Lungs Fill With Water.
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Tipper - Tertiary Noise (Tipper Music)
Dave Tipper returns with the latest installment in electro flavored trip hop, downtempo, and nu skool breaks. This album, titled Tertiary Noise, is once again released on his own label, Tipper Music. With a couple of remixes (including two by
Si Begg), remastered back catalogue selections, and never before released tracks, this 2008 flashback sounds a lot like... well... Tipper. And that's not necessarily a bad thing - from the very first track, you find yourself in a familiar territory of glitchy treatments, solid beats, and deep rumbling bass. From then on, the album is a rhythmic ride down the Tipper lane. It's a bit darker, crispy-crackly, and less melodic than Tipper's previous releases, with an occasional rehash of a recognized beat - but once again, this aspect doesn't make it any less appealing. Tipper's ability for continuous output in the genre is unrivaled, yet Tertiary Noise is rumored to be his final foray into the uptempo break beat sound. Excellent disk for the dance floor. Side note: my Grados lacked the bass response, but the studio KRK sub did not disappoint. So be sure to have a well equipped vehicle to feel the vibrations on this trip. Available as a lossless download from Addictech. Favorite track: A Touch Of The Vapours and Dissolve (Si Begg Mix).
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Morning Recordings - The Welcome Kinetic (Loose Thread)
Morning Recordings is a brainchild of a Chicago based Pramod Tummala, and The Welcome Kinetic is his second full length on Loose Thread Recordings. The album is sprinkled with many guest appearances and musical collaborations, most notable among them is the voice of
Drag City's
Edith Frost, essentially comprising of a collective of friends. Tummala himself is easily comfortable on guitar, piano and the harmonium on this laid back classic soul, future jazz, and fusion album with elements of
Tortoise-like staple vibraphone post-rock sound. The breathy playful vocals remind me a bit of
Psapp and
Portishead, while the lo-fi treatments and analog tape manipulation is reminiscent of
Boards of Canada and
Dictaphone. The album effortlessly loops and folds over itself, mostly in major harmonic scale, and serves as excellent background music, while you stare at the clock, watching the hands tick away the stubborn minutes left at work. Many tracks are already stuck in my head. Be sure to pick up a previous album, Music For Places, which features the lovely voice of
Lindsay Anderson (think
Telefon Tel Aviv's Sound In a Dark Room). Favorite Tracks: Sugar Waltz, The Welcome Kinetic, and Songs From A Hotel Bar.
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Flying Lotus - Reset (Warp)
Steven Ellison lands a Reset EP, on Warp Records. His previous full length release, titled 1983, was released by Warp's US West Coast outlet,
Plug Research. The LA producer grained recognition, and graduated with flying lotus [er... I mean "flying colors"]. Reset opens up with a track featuring heavily gated, soul vocals by
Andreya Triana (think
JAZZ SENSATION's Just Like That). From then we wobble through super groovy, left-field, instrumental hip hop, to the likes of
Daedelus,
Prefuse 73,
DJ Shadow and
Malcom Kipe. Overall the sound is spacey, loungey, sexy, if you will. The EP is rather short, and before you know it, the six tracks of eighteen minutes are over, and you press play again. And if it sounds like you have heard some of these head-nodding beats before, well... you have: think all the text-based short Adult Swim interludes with laid back and dope rhythms. It's nice to see Warp Records back in the groove (not that I dislike
Grizzly Bear, but... you know what I mean). Check out his web site for a quick game of Attack! Then hit Reset. Favorite tracks: Tea Leaf Dancers and Massage Situation.
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port-royal - Flares (Resonant)
Flares is a 2005 release by a Genoa based Port-Royal on Resonant Records. I have already voted their follow-up,
Afraid To Dance, to be one of the best albums of 2007. I bring back this earlier work in anticipation of an upcoming remix project, Flared Up, due out in the spring of '08, with contributions by
Manual,
Dialect,
Skyphone,
Stafrænn Hákon, and
Ulrich Schnauss to name just a few. In Flares we are graced with beautiful blend of ambient meets electronic meets shoegaze meets post-rock sound, that defies strict categorization and exists only for your earthly pleasures. One needs to put down the caffeinated drink, turn off the blinking scrollies, and pause to appreciate the album's sheer vastness of hazed texture, lush chilled-out soundscapes, and pure tranquility. And here's the best part, folks (I'm quoting from the label's site) - "in preparation for the upcoming remix version, the royals have placed their debut album 'Flares' for free download from their website." So how can you pass this by? Recommended for followers of
Hammock,
M83,
Sigur Rós, and all of the above mentioned artists. Favorite tracks: the three part Zobione.
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aquilone - Untitled (Unsigned)
Cyril Guillory is a Rennes (France) based unsigned musician, who goes by the name of Aquilone. The thirteen track demo disc that I received in the mail features a unique blend of electronic and organic instruments with an occasional vocal interlude, incorporating saturated pads, filtered noise, loopbacks and a familiar analog rhythms. The heavy and raw synth lines remind me a bit of
Ulrich Schnauss, while the near distorted and overdriven guitars flash with a flavor of
Belong and
Ben Frost. Guillory includes a handful of artists for his inspirations, among them I recognize
Pan Sonic,
The Notwist,
A Silver Mt. Zion and
múm. But I also can't help but hear a heavy
Radiohead and
Thom Yorke influence. Check out some tracks on his myspace, while I'll keep my eye out for his first album.
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Blueneck - Scars of the Midwest (Don’t Touch)
A North Somerset (UK) based instrumental post-rock band, Blueneck, flicks the lit match into the puddle of gasoline, spilled near my winter beaten soul. With the calm cinematic piano, gliding guitars, and explosive crescendos, Blueneck builds up raw emotion until you are slapped across the face with sound; and while your cheek is still throbbing with the pain of reality, the subliminal messages are pumped into your head in gentle brush strokes. Blueneck expands on the beloved
Godspeed You! Black Emperor with their masterful command of instruments, apocalyptic tension, and controlled dynamics. The atmospheric and restrained pace intensifies the anticipation of resolve, and the final delivery does not dissapoint. I'm not a big fan of vocals in my music, unless they are executed by memorable voices, like David Martin's from
iLiKETRAiNS. Yet Duncan Attwood impresses me once again - I am instantly reminded of
Thom Yorke and Radiohead's classic Kid A. Scars of the Midwest is Blueneck's first album released on Don't Touch records, scheduled for a vinyl reprint by
Denovali Records in 2008. I am also impatient about their split release with
The Pirate Ship Quintet on the same label, Denovali. Highly recommended! Favorite track : Epiphany and Ub2.
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I Am David Sparkle - This Is The New (KittyWu)
We've all been blown away by a Japanese post-rock band
Mono, so why not check out an excellent surprise from a pioneering Singapore based instrumental four-piece band, I Am David Sparkle? Before I get to the music, I want to take a moment and drop a tribute to a very much under-appreciated component of an album - its packaging. This Is The New is tucked deep inside an accordion-like stereographic packaging full of hidden words and inaccessible secrets, but to get to the music, you have to become part of the artistic process and remove the stitches holding this enigma together. Once you remove the thread, you can never go back; in essence - creating by destroying. Clawing into the heart of the album, like a hungry squirrel working at the hard-shelled nut, I was praying that the music would live up to its externalities. Tension breaker - two thumbs up! Formed in 2001 and "inspired by the landscapes of life, love, and beauty", the group draws on their past experience in indie, punk and hardcore acts, but at the heart of composition lie the undeniable elements of post-rock, with hints of
Explosions in the Sky,
Sigur Rós and
Mogwai, and an occasional electronic rhythm treatment to the likes of
The Album Leaf. The music is comfortably familiar, soothing, and intelligent, adding to the palette a sprinkle of new color, as inspired by the cultural and geographical distance. Favorite track: Dance of Death.
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The Flashbulb - Soundtrack To A Vacant Life (Alphabasic)
For over two years, it seems as if dark forces surrounded Benn Jordan's masterpiece, Soundtrack To A Vacant Life. First, it was the death of
Sublight Records (RIP), followed by continuous production delays and tour cancellations. Finally the album is here, only to arrive a couple days after Benn released the album himself to be shared among the peer-to-peer and bit-torrent networks. Along with a quality rip, Jordan included a text in which he embraced the ever-changing distribution channels and encouraged donations and purchases directly from his own label, Alphabasic. Jordan's goal, as it is is clearly stated on his blog, "...is about exploring and testing the music industry in an attempt to find a place where both the artists and listeners are happy." Although this approach is by no means novel (must I even bring up
Radiohead), nevertheless, I wholeheartedly applaud Jordan for his [successful] attempt to bring back the music. But let's not lose the focus here - the music. After all, regardless of the price and distribution, if the music doesn't cut it, it will simply fall into discounted bins. In STAVL, Jordan whips out every trick from within his depthless pockets. The elements are borrowed from almost every genre, from breakcore to African tribal drums, to flamenco, to hard riffed guitars, and soft piano pieces. Although the album definitely falls in the realms of electronic music, because of its sheer soaring breadth of instrumentation, composition, and production techniques, I would much rather see it filed under modern classical, serving its role as an introduction to the music I currently adore. So go ahead and download the album for free, I promise you will love it. And then I strongly believe you should purchase the actual CD or send a donation, so that we can all continue to benefit from the evolution of music.
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Autechre - Quaristice (Warp)
It's hard to believe that Sean Booth and Rob Brown have been experimenting with sound for over 16 years now, ever since their first release, Incunabula, on Warp Records. It is perhaps their unique programming approach to analog synths, custom Max/MSP patches, micro granular effects, and mathematical rhythms, that pushed the envelope of sound exploration to the common studio techniques of today. Can the UK duo continue and reinvent the sound? I'm on my fifth listen of Quaristice, Autechre's 9th album, and the definitive answer is: yes. The twenty tracks on a digital release which I snatched from bleep (including exclusive artwork for each track!), maintain the indisputably unique Autechre sound. The beats are still chopped, the sound waves decomposed, and the structure erratically twisted. But unlike Autechre's previous LP, Untilted, this 2008 release is warmer, less noisier, and at times even melodic (there are even strings buried deep in one of the tracks). The genre starts to glide closer to abstract and minimal ambient, with an occasional glitchy quality of other worldliness. If by some miracle this is your first Autechre experience, brace yourself for a unique and unforgettable experience, if you can hold on. For the rest of us, it's just a necessity for our complete anthology. Too bad that the special, limited to 1000 copies edition, with an additional CD and a photo-etched steel casing sold out within the first 12 hours of announcement.
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Loscil - Plume (Kranky)
Vancouver based Scott Morgan is a sound director within the video game industry. But that's his daytime job, and his contemporary ambient soundscapes constructed with looping oscillators (a similar function in Csound computer language is compounded to Loscil) don't have much in common with game music. In contrast, Morgan's fourth album Plume, on Chicago's Kranky Records, is a relaxing, atmospheric, and hypnotic trip unfolding layers of sound complimented by ethereal percussion, gentle xylophone taps, and strums of elbow guitar. For Morgan, the creation of music starts "with a harmonic root from which sounds [are] processed into a loose structure over which the live players could improvise". Each track within the album grows, transitions, and gradually develops into a piece bestowing a specific state of mind or a flashback to a concrete memory. A quote from Morgan's elaboration on a piece capturing the growth of family, if you will: " 'Charlie' was composed after seeing/hearing my daughter Sadie through ultrasound while she was still in the womb. The track was also partly composed as a womb-like sound experience for her to sleep to after she was born, hence the heart beats..." Recommended if you like his ambient label mates,
Stars of the Lid, or other excellent artists in the modern classical genre, like
Helios,
Deaf Center, and
Xela. Favorite track: Bellows.
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That's all... Do me a favor and drop a line. Or just a period! At least this way I'll know you've read it, and this will motivate me enough to go on. If you like something specific, I would love to hear your thoughts! Your recommendations are always appreciated!
Bruno Sanfilippo