Utility Fog

Sunday, 12th of May, 2013

A very doomy show tonight, just as we love it! Acoustic doom, explosive reverb-drenched doom rock, post-dubstep liturgical doom drone, and maybe I'll stop inventing the genres now. Plus glitched-up ukulele and musically-twisted field recordings...

LISTEN (again?) via the link at the bottom, the podcast or stream on demand in stereo at FBi! (Try out the excellent mobile streaming!)

First artist tonight I've been obsessed with for a couple of weeks, and I was very glad to get the Japanese 2CD edition of Ensemble Pearl's self-titled album in the mail this week. A collective formed from Stephen O'Malley of Sunn o))), Atsuo and Michio Kurihara from Boris and William Herzog of Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter, also featuring the extreme violin talents of Eyvind Kang and Secret Chiefs 3's Timb(a) Harris... So, just a little low-key project then. And as this in-depth Quietus review states, it's not going to get the recognition it deserves, so please check it out. American-influenced doom rock and drone, with massive dub reverb on the drums, and heaps of detail. Awesome.

Next up, not just a Sydney connection, but an FBi Radio connection. Paul Jebanasam is perhaps better known round here not just as dubstep producer Moving Ninja but as Farj from FBi's dubstep show Garage Pressure. He relocated to Bristol a few years ago, having already been released on DJ Pinch's Tectonic label, but he's ended up forming his own highly regarded Subtext Recordings, releasing bass-heavy post-dubstep from Emptyset, Roly Porter of Vex'd, and now himself.
Check out this excellent Quietus interview for some background on how he came to make the sounds on Rites - influenced by liturgical music, classical composition, and of course bass pressure... There's no dubstep head-nodding here, but there is percussion along with string arrangements and growling drones. It's interesting to hear his Moving Ninja productions in the context of this music.

We continue the strings and dark drones in our next selection, and incredible 20 minute track from Norwegian cellist & producer Svarte Greiner, head of the Miasmah and one half of Deaf Center. His works as Svarte Greiner and under his own name, Erik K Skodvin, can be classed as acoustic doom (which I love), although he uses electronics and electric instruments as well. But I particularly love the carefully-recorded acoustic sounds on the first Svarte Greiner album Knive and the Erik K Skodvin Flare album - and Black Tie delivers, based for the large part around plucked and scraped cello, with some intense distortion in the middle giving way to the original ostinati. Engrossing.

The Haxan Cloak is another cellist working in dark sound-art, albeit with lots more electronics. I tried to select a track from his new album featuring cello, and it's in there, if processed to not sound a lot like a cello!

Noise stalwarts Wolf Eyes have a new album out with electronics at the forefront - along with Nate Young's unique vocal stylings. More from this next week I hope!

Three huge forces in music meet once a year in Japan for a live concert which they then release on record. Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke & Oren Ambarchi's first release was true beauty, with Haino's angelic vocals, piano, drones and percussion; the second was ferocious psych rock noise. The new one combines these elements to some extent, moving even into some krautrock-ish grooves at points.

umin's ukulele folktronica came to my attention via Abandom Building Records a year or two ago. He's now got a new EP out on Bad Panda, although they've neglected to collect the tracks into a set. But you can still grab them all for free, including a remix from Italy's k-conjog, another Abandon Building artist. There's more structure to these new tracks, including clattering beats on one or two tracks. It's excellent glitchy acoustic music you should get.

Glitchy acoustics of a different nature appear on Michel Banabila's new release, Gardening, available now in an extended editiong with remixes (or new works) from Machinefabriek and others. Field recordings of gardening tools combine with subtle instrumentation and lots of processing/editing, and it's surprisingly coherent and musical. Should be no surprise from an artist of the calibre of Banabila, and his collaborators.

And finally, out any minute is the new record on Editions Mego from Gordon Sharp (now Cindy/Cinder)'s cindytalk, who's been making music since the early '80s and can be found on one of the legendary This Mortal Coil records. Abandoning vocals, his Mego releases focus on the quite esoteric climes of processed glitchscapes. The new album continues on this path, although in amongst the noise and fog are some industrial beats here and there.

ensemble pearl - painting on a corpse [Drag City/Daymare]
ensemble pearl - wray [Drag City/Daymare]
Paul Jebanasam - Rites II [Subtext Recordings]
Moving Ninja - Blackout [Tectonic]
Pinch & Moving Ninja - False Flag [Tectonic]
Paul Jebanasam - Rites V [Subtext Recordings]
Svarte Greiner - Black Tie [Miasmah]
The Haxan Cloak - Dieu [Tri-Angle]
Wolf Eyes - Choking Flies [De Stijl]
keiji haino / jim o'rourke / oren ambarchi - only the winding "why" expresses anything clearly [Black Truffle]
umin - tesil [Bad Panda]
umin - hmn [Abandom Building Records]
umin - concentr (k-conjog remix) [Bad Panda]
Michel Banabila - Changing Weather [Tapu Records]
Machinefabriek - Tuiner Met Plezier [Tapu Records]
cindytalk - as if we had once been [Editions Mego]

Listen again — ~ 104MB

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