Utility Fog

Sunday, 18th of October, 2009

Tonight's Utility Fog featured an interview with Portland's Heather Woods Broderick, which is available for download separately here as well as as part of the whole show.
LISTEN AGAIN link at bottom of playlist.

We started with a new track from Alister Spence Trio, featuring Spence on piano/keyboards, The Necks’ Lloyd Swanton on bass, and Toby Hall on drums. Although they're laid out like a traditional jazz piano trio, like the Necks their musical ventures take them out into ambient and experimental territories — such as the lovely double bass textures at the end of this track.
Sufjan Stevens’ orchestration skills have been evident for as long as he's been making music, so it's no great surprise to hear an amazing orchestral work from him. The BQE extends far further than just the classical orchestra, though, as we hear in the plucking at the start of the first track I player, and the second track's wonderful electronic processing and edits.
I played a track from the new bleeding heart narrative album last week, but tonight wanted to showcase some more of Oliver Barrett's talent — so we had something from his debut album, and two vocal tracks from tongue tangled hair, featuring string arrangements and studio interventions.
Heather Woods Broderick’s debut album is a beautiful concoction of indiefolk songs, string arrangements and adventurous production. I had an in-depth chat with Heather and played quite a bit of her music!
Simultaneously (I think?) with The BQE, string quartet Osso are releasing an album of string quartet arrangements of Sufjan’s experimental electronic album Enjoy Your Rabbit, so I felt it was worth hearing a track from that album, as well as Nico Muhly’s arrangement of one of the tracks.
This allowed me a segue into Iceland-based Adelaidian Ben Frost’s fabulous music, as Nico is involved in Ben's latest album (and they share a record label). We had a track (as we did last week too) from Ben's early EP music for sad children, and one from his band school of emotional engineering, followed by another amazing piece from By The Throat, which should be out in Australia by the end of this week.
This took us back to Alister Spence Trio, with quite a different track from the opener, and then more piano goodness from Leila, masterfully covering Aphex Twin for the Warp20 (Recreated) compilation. Also on piano, from his beautiful Polaroid Piano release on Brisbane's Someone Good, we had two tracks of soft-focus piano and interesting studio treatments from Akira Kosemura.
One of many free downloads this week came from Sydney's Seekae, via Loopsnake (FBi's own Andrew Maxam), with a lovely remix of their fan favourite "Void".
We followed this with a few tracks from Dublin breakcore/electronic artist Herv, who first came to my attention way back in 2003. We had one track from that year, and one from 2006, showcasing Herv's interest in using classical & acoustic sounds in his music, and followed it with a manic track from his latest, a (free) download release on CockRockDisco.
Another remix of the Melvins follows, in which noise god Matthew Bower surfaces as Sunroof! and turns in a piece of gorgeous ambience(!)
Coincidentally perfectly in key with Sunroof!'s track is Sydney's Deepchild, whose latest release is highly, and most satisfyingly dubstep-influenced.
London prodigy Paul White inhabits more of the wonky hip-hop end of this spectrum, and after his astounding remix featured on the Wild Angels comp, it's great to hear some equally bent sounds from The Strange Dreams of Paul White, sampling from King Crimson and Captain Beefheart among many, many others.
Rob Sparx has made his way from d'n'b roots (there are a couple of excellent drum'n'bass tracks on this album too) into the dubstep world, and his latest album is a double CD, the second one featuring (I believe) tracks from 12"s and remixes from the likes of Distance.
And Ital Tek has a new 12" on his own Atom River, and is giving away a bonus track free from the label's website.
Shadow Huntaz somehow segue nicely out of dubstep, with the bass-heavy production of Funckarma. The brothers remix Belgian electronic pop group Röyksopp, turning something silly into something very dirty and heavy.
And finally, while King Cannibal’s remix of Two Fingers isn't quite as dirty as The Bug’s one I featured a couple of weeks back, it's got a great almost-drum'n'bass drive to it.

Alister Spence Trio - neon and rain [Rufus Records]
Sufjan Stevens - The BQE, Movement III: Linear Tableau with Intersecting Surprise [Asthmatic Kitty]
Sufjan Stevens - The BQE, Movement IV: Traffic Shock [Asthmatic Kitty]
bleeding heart narrative - the cartographer [Tartaruga Records]
bleeding heart narrative - bhn [Tartaruga Records]
bleeding heart narrative - colours turn colours [Tartaruga Records]
Heather Woods Broderick - From the Ground [Preservation]
...interview with Heather Woods Broderick (accompanied by extracts from "Something Other Than", "For Misty" and "Left" and "Old Son")...
Heather Woods Broderick - Wounded Bird [Preservation]
fieldhead - songs well known [home assembly music]
Sufjan Stevens - year of the rat [Asthmatic Kitty]
Osso - Year of the Dragon (Sufjan Stevens arr Nico Muhly) [Asthmatic Kitty]
Ben Frost - poking holes in your research [self-released and long out of print!]
school of emotional engineering - falling for sylvia [Architecture Label]
Ben Frost - Híbakúsja [Bedroom Community]
Alister Spence Trio - radium [Rufus Records]
Leila - vordhosbn [Warp] {cover of Aphex Twin}
Akira Kosemura - Tyme [Someone Good]
Akira Kosemura - Sign [Someone Good]
Seekae - Void (Loopsnake Remix) [download from SoundCloud]
Herv - Konnektquartet [Go Away Recordings]
Herv - fast food, slow women [compactrisc.]
Herv - At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you [CockRockDisco] {album is a free download from CRD!}
Melvins - The Silky Apple Butter of Youth by Sunroof! [Ipecac]
Deepchild - Wannado [Sub Continental Dub]
Paul White - The Uprising Of The Insane [One Handed Music]
Paul White - Alien Nature [One Handed Music]
Rob Sparx - The Prayer (Distance Remix) [Z Audio]
Rob Sparx - Stroller [Z Audio]
Ital Tek - Lightning Fields [Atom River] {free download from the label site!}
Shadow Huntaz - Mysteries [Porter Records]
Röyksopp - Tricky Tricky (Funckarma Rmx) [download from SoundCloud]
Two Fingers feat. Ce'Cile and Sway - Bad Girl (King Cannibal remix) [Ninja Tune]

Listen again — ~270MB.

One Response to “Playlist 18.10.09”

1. timo Says:
   October 18th, 2009 at 11:50 pm

   yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
   ben frost