Reading:

Just finished two of Jon Courtenay Grimwood's novels previous to the current series: ReMix and RedRobe. I loved his last two (see reviews here) and these were pretty fun if somewhat more slight. The mysterious psi abilities which show up in both books on the sidelines seem somewhat out of place in what are otherwise pretty much hard science fiction, and the violence is sometimes too much – but I'm pretty much with him politically, and I think there's a moral centre to the works. His characterisation and the moral/political aspect to his work improves greatly in the current series, which I think is fantastic.

Listening:

So exciting is this news that I have assigned it to the main weblog as well as the listening category.
Hrvatski/Keith Fullerton Whitman has finally released not one but TWO new albums. I got the Japanese editions, released on P-Vine, because each has an extra track.
As Keith Fullerton Whitman, he makes music hugely different from Hrvatski's usual distorted hyper drum'n'bass. The album Playthroughs, released by Kranky (US home of Godspeed You Black Emperor! among many others), is made entirely from guitar sounds played through (geddit?) various Max/MSP patches and the like. It's lovely pulsating tones, practically nothing identifiably guitar-like, and I've enjoyed putting it on when I'm in bed at night. My favourite is "modena", which has slightly more of a rhythmic movement to it, and more variation throughout. Also excellent is the extra track on the P-Vine version, a live recording which shows you just how little post-production was needed.
The long-awaited new Hrvatski album on Planet μ, Swarm & Dither is an absolute masterpiece. My joy is only slightly marred by the fact that I have some 9 out of the 13 tracks (14 on the P-Vine version) already. Still, it's all mastered properly this time round. The fantastic Kid 606 "remix" (which is entirely Hrvatski's work) is present along with various other old classics ("2nd Zero Mandible Investigation" was one of the first Vat tunes I heard) and newer classics (the marvellous "Marble Madness" computer game cover, an 8bit breakcore number here re-named "Marbles"), but the new tracks are damn funky and spunky too. The Japanese addition, "Gemini (revision)" appears in slightly abbreviated form on the 12" release of Swarm & Dither, adding drums and guitar to the gorgeous glitchy rhodes theme I already knew from the autumnature comp on Greg Davis's autumn records. What more can I say? It rocks, and everybody needs to own it. Now I need MORE!!!

Even bigger news, perhaps, than the new Keith-Hrvatski albums recently is that there's a new Fennesz album out on UK label Touch, and it contains all 4 tracks from his seminal Mego 12" Instrument, on CD for the first time! Called Field Recordings 1995:2002, it's got remixes and compilation appearances from those years, and one new track called "Good Man" (and as Mark from Synaesthesia aptly puts it: "the new track is the duck's nuts – fully the duck's nuts son!" Who am I to disagree?) The Instrument EP demonstrates that Fennesz's ear for drawing beauty from the most fucked-up sounds was there from the start. Often sourcing his sounds from his own guitar playing, Fennesz's music is heavily processed through all sorts of digital and analogue filters. He's been there since the start of the whole glitch thing, and is a true master. The last track, "Codeine" (ostensibly a remix for Stephan Mathieu & Ekkerhard Ehlers' "Heroin") is stunning, with his signature guitar strums and otherworldly electronic crackle & fuzz over a droning organ. The influence on Hrvatski is clearly immense, and it's fascinating to compare Keith's approach to similar source material (cf "Gemini" on Swarm & Dither).

I've been getting into the wonderful German indie electronica label Morr Music lately. See below for a review of the Blue Skied An' Clear comp. I picked up a few other Morr albums recently. Styrofoam's second album a short album about murder is very wonderful. It combines indie vocals with slightly glitchy and granular electrons, à la Dntel but more electronic perhaps. Styrofoam (Arne van Petegem, from Belgium) also did two excellent remixes for The American Analog Set on their mini-album Updates, which I think are his best work yet.

Manual is Jonas Munk from Denmark, also recording for Morr, and he's put out two albums as well as another with his post-rocky group Limp. They all explore similar territories – shoegazer-infused guitars, post-Boards of Canada keyboards and subtly chewed-up drum-patters, in a somewhat glitchy landscape. This makes for absolute bliss to my ears, which may explain why these albums have been refusing to get stuck back on the shelf for so long. One highlight is "nova", the first track from the first Manual album until tomorrow. It starts off as ambient as can be, and when the drums come in the fragility remains, as they constantly stutter or get caught by delays. It's very funky in an understated sort of way. Much of the rest of that album, and smatterings of the others, have a similar approach to drum-programming, which I just can't get enough of.

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