Utility Fog

Sunday, 28th of October, 2012

A bit of a trip tonight, around the world of genres. Featured is Inch-time, whose wonderful new album is out on his own Mystery Plays Records.
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I'm a big fan of mashup artist dj BC, and a few years back he put out a briliant album called Glassbreaks with Philip Glass music and hip-hop a capellas. It was brilliant and showed Philip Glass in a very positive light. Unfortunately he was forced to take it down, and yeah, of course it's illegal sampling. But it was mentioned that a legitimate Glass remix album was coming out, and that was part of the reason. Well it's taken some years, but Philip Glass _REWORK is finally here. You can find out for yourself the big names involved, and I'll probably play some next week, but for tonight I thought I'd start (appropriately) with the "Opening" from Glassworks performed incredibly sensitively by Japanese producer Cornelius on piano, with some tinkly electronics around the edges.

From Sweden comes 1991, although his productions seem to harken on the one hand back to the early '80s, with a big sample from The Cure's "Charlotte Sometimes" in the first track (whose title is also a snippet from the lyric) and the cassette-burnished sound, and on the other hand to the '70s, with Tangerine Dream-style synthesiser works. The beats, when present, fit perfectly into this post-thingy world. Looking forward to his next emanations.

Very much with the Now beats next, comes Throwing Snow, whose earlier works were a not hugely notable form of folktronica & hip-hop breaks. In the last couple of years he's dived into a high-paced post-dubstep style of electronica. Love the string samples in the last track, and crackly high-intensity textures.

Moving towards a few Japanese remixes for tonight, we reprise a release on the excellent flau label from last year, with Japanese singer & glitchy electronic artist Cokiyu. Her remix album featured some excellent tracks from aus and Part Timer, but I had no choice but to feature Opiate' brilliant rework.

Another Japanese label, mü-nest, has just re-released an EP from 2004 by Californian indietronic duo Park Avenue Music, along with some remixes by Japanese artists including the aforementioned aus, and flau artist Geskia!. We also heard the latter's remix of Cuushe from her recent gorgeously-pacakged triple-3"-EP release on flau.

And then it's Inch-time time. Back in 2004 I remember receving a promo CD of new South Australian music - or it must have been something like that anyway - featuring two tracks from Inch-time. Folktronica with warm basslines, string arrangements and excellent beats, it was right up my alley, and I tracked him down and got hold of his debut self-released EP any colour you like. Over the following years he moved to London, struck up a relationship with Static Caravan (who'd just put out the early Tunng releases) and eventually formed his own label Mystery Plays Records. His last album was in 2010, and featured a stellar remix disc alongside it. The new one, Myth and Impermanence sees him collaborating with some very fine English jazz musicians, and combines his organic-feeling production with live drums, trumpet, guitar and other instruments, for some tasty night-time music. Whole back-catalogue is highly recommended.

We took another track from the new remix album from our Thomas William - this time heading to Perth for Solo Andata member Kane Ikin to give us some busy high-tech lo-fi beats.

And we heard one track from each side of the split 12" between Sydney's Kate Carr and Gail Priest, who are launching this superb EP at 107 Projects, 107 Redfern St, this Sunday between 5 & 9pm (so you can hop in the car and listen to me on the way home!)

I haven't played as much drone since moving to the 2hr format, but there's still heaps of very excellent stuff being made, and one of my favourites is Sun Hammer. He just sent me his latest, a collaboration with Indiana drone/doom artist Sujo, and it's suitably dark and very detailed stuff. It's easy to slip back into an assumption that drone is just long crescendos, take a sound and stretch it out to 6 minutes. Releases like this give the lie to that, with lots of little things going on over these slow-growing waves of sound.

Finishing with something altogether brighter, albeit still quite ambient, from Brooklyn's Padna on Sydney's most internationalist of labels, Preservation. Acoustic guitar is joined by scraping and sighing sounds and electronic treatments here. Beautiful and, again, very detailed.

Philip Glass - Opening (Cornelius rework) [The Kora Records/Ernest Jenning/Orange Mountain Music]
1991 - Open to the Dark [Astro:Dynamics]
1991 - Fabric of Space [Astro:Dynamics]
Throwing Snow - Clamor [Snowfall]
Throwing Snow - Too Polite [Local Action]
Throwing Snow - Perca [Snowfall]
Cokiyu - Round In Fog (Opiate Rework) [flau]
Park Avenue Music - Cutter [mü-nest]
Park Avenue Music - The Mellow One (Geskia! Remix) [mü-nest]
Cuushe - Do You Know The Way To Sleep (Geskia! Remix) [flau]
Inch-time - The Sun Myth [Mystery Plays Records]
Inch-time - red in green [self-released/Static Caravan]
Inch-time - No Need To Sign Your Name [Static Caravan]
Inch-time - Suspensions [Mystery Plays Records]
Inch-time - Home [Mystery Plays Records]
Thomas William - JHA (Kane Ikin's Edit) [This Thing/Thomas William Bandcamp]
Kate Carr - a sailor's chant [Flaming Pines/Metal Bitch Recordings]
Gail Priest - ghost gum [Flaming Pines/Metal Bitch Recordings]
Sujo + Sun Hammer - OSD [Sujo Bandcamp/Sun Hammer Bandcamp]
Sujo + Sun Hammer - Fistula [Sun Hammer Bandcamp/Sujo Bandcamp]
Padna - Pelts [Preservation]

Listen again — ~ 107MB

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