Utility Fog

Sunday, 5th of May, 2013

Tonight we range through '90s electronic shoegaze and distorted beats, contemporary lo-fi folk, cello-driven postrock and post-drum'n'bass ehhhhhh what am I even, just listen, it's great music OK? Righto.

LISTEN (again?) via the link at the bottom, the podcast or stream on demand in stereo at FBi! (Now optimised for mobile!)

Starting with another wonderful track from Aidan Baker's Already Drowning, one of my albums of the year. Featuring Liz Hysen of Picastro on vocals, musically it's all about tension and catharsis. The whole album's stunning, get it.

Mark Van Hoen's Locust has been going since the early '90s, and evolved into a fairly ambient affair, but last year with his solo album for Editions Mego he revived some of his earlier sounds, revisiting the cut-up female vocals and crunchy beats of mid-'90s Locust, and we continue with that on the new Locust album. From back in 1994, the stellar Truth Is Born of Arguments gives us "Saturated Love". Truly an artist should know about...

Adelaide's Inch-time, now based in London, runs the Mystery Plays Records label and introduced us to fellow Australian Tristan Coleman's music via a couple of remixes a while ago. He's now remixed a Coleman track from his debut EP on Mystery Plays, and the remix is available for free from their SoundCloud.

Based in Brisbane, Feet Teeth come to us via celebrated Canberran label hellosQuare Recordings - free jazz on trumpet, tuned percussion and drums, but all fed through the digital blender. Very interested to see how they work it live!

And via Sydney label Flaming Pines we discover the wonderful work of Greek musician Nektarios Manaras, who plays an assortment of instruments including flugelhorn, guitars, percussion and traditional Greek instruments, along with a few guests, and beautifully evokes the aquatic environment of his home on the Greek island of Chalkis. Flaming Pines is quickly becoming the spiritual home for location-specific music, whether based around field recordings or creatively evocative music.

Ill Professor is Zelienople member Brian Harding, bringing their lo-fi sensibility to his solo work. It seems appropriate that it's released on cassette, but you can also get it digitally from the Constellation Tatsu Bandcamp. And you really should - it's pretty stunning in its low-key way, with mysteriously muted sounds from guitar, piano, percussion, and probably other unidentifiable sources, making for something rather beguiling.

More tonight from Jason Sweeney's beautiful Panoptique Electrical EP from late last year...

And then we're on to a fantastic forthcoming release on Constellation from AThee Silver Mt. Zion and Set Fire To Flames cellist Becky Foon, branching out solo as Saltland. It's just awesome how every cellist's solo project is different, and while Foon's cello is often holding melodies and prominent in the mix, there's plenty of percussion, electronics and other stuff going on here. Beautiful stuff.

Meanwhile, Oliver Barrett of Petrels and Bleeding Heart Narrative has made a very limited cassette release available on his Bandcamp, featuring untreated solo cello played in various environments. This is pretty uncompromising cello noise, coaxing moans and scratches and squeaks out of the instrument.

Another overflow from last week, we heard Jakob Bro's jazz composition and Thomas Knak aka Opiate's remix of the same, from the highly recommended BRO/KNAK 2CD/triple-vinyl release.

Moving into beats, Demdike Stare bring us the second of their incredible Testpressing 12"s, with more noise meets slowed-down junglisms, and we reprised one of the highlights from Demidike's Miles Whittaker's recent album.

And we finished with an incredibly atmospheric piece of trad dubstep from SP:MC, which I heard excerpted from a mix on YouTube a while back and have been waiting impatiently for ever since.

Aidan Baker - Ice (feat. Liz Hysen) [Gizeh Records]
Locust - Fall for Me [Editions Mego]
Locust - Saturated Love [R&S]
Mark Van Hoen - Unknown Host [Editions Mego]
Locust - Do Not Fear [Editions Mego]
Tristan Coleman - Good Money (Inch-time remix) [Mystery Plays Records] {download from SoundCloud}
Feet Teeth - Hsinchu [hellosQuare Recordings]
Nektarios Manaras - Floating In Anything [Flaming Pines]
Ill Professor - Wire & air [Constellation Tatsu]
Ill Professor - The five tones deafen [Constellation Tatsu]
Panoptique Electrical - Mount Schank Part Two [Panoptique Electrical Bandcamp]
Saltland - Golden Alley [Constellation]
Saltland - Colour The Night Sky [Constellation]
Oliver Barrett - Bathyscaphe [Petrels Bandcamp]
Jakob Bro - Izu [Loveland]
Thomas Knak - Izu Rebuild (remix of Jakob Bro) [Loveland]
Demdike Stare - Primitive Equations [Modern Love]
Miles - Lebensform [Modern Love]
SP:MC - Air Lock [Tempa]

Listen again — ~ 105MB

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