2009年 Jun 2日 Tuesday, 16:42

Track: Cold Out There (full track)
Artist: Jon Hopkins
Album: Opalescent (2005)
Tags: genius, ambient, electronic, instrumental, chiller cabinet, the arctic circle, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic…

http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/A7oTyrJeV6o/default.jpg YouTube

I have heard two outstanding new innovative electronic albums in the last few days - Thom Yorke's friends Moderat - Moderat and Jon Hopkins - Insides, both released in May and both equally as ingenious. The only reason I've chosen Jon Hopkins is because I also want to tell you about the latest news from The Arctic Circle and the Chiller Cabinet.

The track I recommend this week is one I have heard many times on The Chiller Cabinet, a late night radio show of "ambience, movies, & minimalism", currently on ChillDAB. The track is available here in Last.fm and I have it tagged for the group radio, which is based entirely on official tracklists I have managed to get hold of. To date, it has been my favourite Jon Hopkins track, although having heard the new album, I have some thinking to do. Also, we are enjoying a mini-heatwave here in London which apparently ends overnight tonight. So this is our weather forecast for the coming week! (Well maybe not quite…).

http://libsyn.com/images/arcticcircle/podac.jpg

Ben Eshmade, producer of the Chiller Cabinet, has been very busy working on related projects, from free lunchtime concerts - Daylight Music - to free to download weekly podcasts - Arctic Circle Radio. Daylight Music also gets its own podcast called The Hut, which you can see in the same link. Week 2 was announced earlier today, so you haven't missed too much yet. See this journal from Chill DAB who introduce the shows. There are tracklists available for both podcasts and I plan to tag them all up for new tag radios, coming soon.

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Insides, might just trounce Moderat's eponymous 'debut' (which was delayed by about seven years) by the tiniest smidge for its depth, variety, range and vision. Encompassing every sound between rural folkiness and breakbeat/jazz percussion, stopping for the tenderest of whispers along the way, the music is as beautiful as it is clever. From Hopkins' MySpace:

At long last, a mere 5 years since Contact Note, my new album Insides is out. It was recorded at Cafe Music Studios in London, by me, on the piano, and the laptop. It also features the following amazing guest instumentalists: Leo Abrahams on the guitar and hurdy-gurdy, Emma Smith on the violin, Davide Rossi on the electric violin, Vince Sipprell on the viola, Lee Muddy Baker on the drums, King Creosote on the humming, and Lisa Lindley-Jones on the additional vocals. Remixes of Light Through The Veins were provided by David Holmes and Ewan Pearson. Mastering was performed by Guy Davie at Electric Mastering. The record has been released by Double Six / Domino Records and the awesome artwork has been designed by Man Vs Magnet.

The bulk of the recording was done in the first half of 2008, and was finally completed last August. However, some tracks were conceived as early as 2005, with a few more being written in 2006. Then 2007 was too busy and only left me time to write Vessel in the September. Finally I managed to set aside a concentrated bit of time between February and June 2008 and turned it into what it is now.

Small Memory was the last to be completed, taking less than one day. In contrast, Light Through The Veins, from its origin as a simple nine-note idea in late 2006, eventually took over three weeks to finish, and ended up containing about 800 sounds, layered over 128 tracks.

The video was very welcome today as temperatures reached 28C in my living room. Not sure I'll feel the same once the north winds start blowing again. It features penguins, which will no doubt please Ben Eshmade immensely.

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Reco of the Week archives

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Admin - Stats as of today:

Last.fm listeners of this track - 6,285
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 24,592
Position in Last 7 Days: 14 / 200
Position in Last 6 Months: 3 / 3,164

Video
Date Added: 30 January 2008
Views: 27,040, Ratings: 56, Comments: 51, Favourited: 190 times

Stats after 7 days:

Last.fm listeners of this track - 6,391
No. of plays scrobbled in Last.fm - 24,962
Position in Last 7 Days: 14 / 215
Position in Last 6 Months: 3 / 3,164

Video
Views: 27,719, Ratings: 57, Comments: 52, Favourited: 195 times

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