Utility Fog

Sunday, 6th of December, 2009

Tonight, still catching up from 4 weeks in the USA - and indeed, so much new music that next week will still be playing catch-up! Then the 20th & 27th of December will be Utility Fog's best of 2009 shows. I think we'll have to leave "best of the decade" till after that, because I'm stuffed if I can work out a whole decade right now...
LISTEN AGAIN at the bottom of the post! This week & last week were a lot of fun!
Oops! Fixed the permissions error on that file — you can now download it!

Two members of the Elysian Quartet make up Geese, and their new remix of Jon Hopkins is gorgeous. While it helps that the original track is a stunner, they've done some fantastic work here, as they did with their Hot Chip remix earlier this year.
Keeping with the strings a little longer, Le Lendemain give us another track from their lovely new album, with more incredible cello playing from Danny Norbury.
Meanwhile, William Ryan Fritch is one of those ultra-talented multi-instrumentalists who doesn't have to play strings on every track to prove he can, but his production as The Skyrider Band with Sole on his last couple of albums has added both a live band element and all the crunchy electronic bits you could want. To remind us that Sole also had a remix album out earlier this year, we heard astronautilis’s remix of highlight "a sad day for investors".
Bleeding Heart Narrative, who gave us one of the best albums of last year, had a very fine follow-up out this year, featuring more songs among the experimentation. He's now released a remix album which you can download free from Tartaruga (see links below). We heard remixes from Dälek associate Destructo Swarmbots and Tartaruga artist Brassica.
DJ Food is now Strictly Kev solo. He's released two excellent EPs this year, hopefully in preparation for a new album; it's what we'd expect from DJ Food, and the quasi-dubstep bass squelches that appear now and then are nice additions.
Two Fingers bring us onto the dancefloor with an rhythm from a very limited Instrumentals album. I'm not sure whether it has come out at all on CD in the UK or Australia, but I found an edition limited to 1000 copies while in the US. Nice!
Kode9's legendary Hyperdub label turned 5 this year, and the celebratory 2CD compilation features not only 16 tracks from their history but 16 new tracks showcasing contemporary sound from dubstep, wonky hip-hop and funky house. Cooly G’s track doesn't sound like house at all to me, with a head-nodding broken rhythm. Darkstar’s 'Need You" was Pitchfork's top dubstep track of last year, and finally we heard a track from dubstep stalwart Mala.
Next up, a sideways step into the Krautrocky robot world of L@N, from 1996. I found both their albums in the US, and they're semi-legendary things in German experimenta electronica.
They were introduced to me on a mixtape sometime in the late '90s by none other than pimmon, and I also found one of his earlier albums overseas, so we had the beautiful glitchy "hexham scent" from him.
Back, then, to German experimentalism with the wonderful Kammerflimmer Kollektief. From 2003 we hear the crackle of electronics with jazz-and-dub-influenced post-rock. I saw another Kammerflimmer album 2nd-hand somewhere and didn't get it - OH NOES!
New local demos for the week included some lovely shoegazey electronic stuff from Medalist and something uncategorizable from Sleep In. Telafonica’s new album continues to offer up new pleasures.
I found an old CD of Nice Nice in their hometown of Portland, OR, just in time for a new 7" to be released on Warp. caural's "imaginary quartet remix" from the 2004 release is one of the loveliest things I've heard in some time.
One of the best pop albums of the year came from Ramona Falls - which is Brent from Menomena. It sounds a lot like his band, perfectly combining charming songwriting with unusual production, and features many guests from the Portland music scene.
Peter Broderick has spent a lot of time based in Portland. Tonight's track comes from a soundtrack to a dance/theatre piece for which all music was made from piano and violin, albeit with some processing, as we heard here. Even more processing and sound design went into the collaboration with Machinefabriek. We also heard a beautiful track from Machinefabriek collaborating with Melbourne guitarist Tim Catlin — listen in next week for another track.
Keeping with the glitch/drone, we heard Fennesz from another CD I picked up at one of Portland's amazing record stores. sur-terre.net (Soundtrack for Variable Fiction) is a soundtrack released on French label Ytterbium featuring exclusive tracks from many European experimental/glitch artists from 2004, including Vladislav Delay, Pita and many others. It's a hard-to-find release and I'll be playing something off it next week as well, for sure.
Finished up with two tracks from the twilight sad, whose 7" came free with their new album when I picked it up in, yes, Portland. The stunning "that summer, at home i had become the invisible boy" takes the template of '80s mopey British indie (with a wonderful Scottish accent) and pile on noise to surpass My Bloody Valentine. The 7" b-side is in a similar vein.

Jon Hopkins - The Low Places (Geese Remix) [Domino]
Hot Chip - One Pure Thought (remixed by Geese) [EMI]
Le Lendemain - Fiore [Home Normal]
Sole & The Skyrider Band - Black [Sole One/Fake Four]
sole & the skyrider band - a sad day for investors (astronautilis remix) [black canyon recordings/midheaven]
Bleeding Heart Narrative - The Cartographer (Destructo Swarmbots Remix)[Tartaruga] {free download remix album!}
Bleeding Heart Narrative - A Dialogue (Brassica's Dark Side of the Live Aid remix) [Tartaruga] {free download remix album!}
DJ Food & DK - Sentinel (Shadow Guard) [Ninja Tune]
Two Fingers - Broken (Stance) Rhythm [Paper Bag Records]
Cooly G - Weekend Fly [Hyperdub]
Darkstar - Need You [Hyperdub]
Mala - Level Nine [Hyperdub]
L@N - L@N L-8 [a-Musik]
pimmon - hexham scent [(K-RAA-K)³]
Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Neumond inselhin [Staubgold/Temporary Residence]
Medalist - By Land [demo]
Telafonica - Time To Move The Nest [4-4-2 Music]
Sleep In - Sanity [demo]
Nice Nice - Ark Drum [Warp] {free download from Warp!}
nice nice - uh-oh (caural's imaginary quartet remix) [audraglint]
Ramona Falls - Russia [Barsuk]
Peter Broderick - the dream [Western Vinyl]
Peter Broderick & Machinefabriek - Rain [Fang Bomb]
Tim Catlin & Machinefabriek - Flutter [Low Point]
Fennesz - The man with the sewing machine [Ytterbium]
the twilight sad - that summer, at home i had become the invisible boy [fat cat]
the twilight sad - In The Blackout [fat cat]

Listen again — ~ 263MB (link fixed!)

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