Monday, 25th of November, 2002

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!!!

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