Utility Fog

Sunday, 7th of September, 2014

Some big specials on Adelaide's lovely Clue To Kalo and Iceland's lovely Hildur Guðnadóttir among other loveliness!

LISTEN AGAIN to the seductive sounds. Stream on demand from FBi on mobile or at the office! Podcast right here...

So good to have new µ-Ziq in da house! Although I'd say some of it is pretty old µ-Ziq, especially the delightfully doleful & melodic second track I played, "Tambor". For my money, not even Aphex Twin has quite his talent for the melodic.

Oh, speaking of which... new Aphex Twin! The album is coming real soon now, and we were just gifted with this first track, which I pretty much had to play in order to keep my radio license - followed by one of his most celebrated pieces of melody & wonky rhythms.

No doubt bearing a fair bit of an influence from Richard D James is an Englishman now based in Perth releasing music as Gravy Murphy. Nice hearing (sampled) live drums with acid synth lines.

Sydney indie/electronic band Bon Chat, Bon Rat put out a new album recently, with some nice '80s-influenced pop songs on there, but also some great, most post-rocky instrumentals separated by little experimental electronic segues. I thought I'd drop us in on the second-last segue and play through the last two main tracks on the album. Recommended, check out their Bandcamp.

And then, staying in Australia, we found ourselves on a little trip through the works of Adelaide's Mark Mitchell aka Clue To Kalo, aka http://www.cluetokalo.com/">super science at the start of the 2000s. His early works were influenced by the idm of the time, but already featured his sweetly melodic vocals. Over the next few albums he transformed through "indietronica" into something more like live band music, although the laptop production never really went away. It's nice to hear the electronic flourishes among the almost musical theatre-like songwriting and full band arrangements here. It's his first self-released album and I hope it gets the recognition it deserves.

The rest of the show is a bit of an excursion into experimental strings. We start with Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, who's just released her best album yet, Samar, on the Touch label. At times her strummed and lightly bowed cello is reminiscent of French cellist Colleen on her last two beautiful albums, but with more of the drone sensibility Guðnadóttir has honed in her work with other experimental artists like Ilpo Väisänen (of Pan Sonic) and Dirk Dresselhaus (Schneider TM) with their Angel project. The new Angel album features her quite heavily, especially on the glorious 20-minute opening track, plucked and droned cello merging into stentorian electronic tones...

A different take on strings and electronics comes from frequently-featured Dutch artist Michel Banabila's new album with his countryman Oene van Geel on viola. Some rhythmic bass throbbing is the closest we get to a beat, but mostly it's ambient glitchscapes with occasional explosions, and at points surprisingly folky multi-tracked viola. Well worth lending your ear.

And finally, a surprising collaboration. Another noisenik, Gabriel Saloman (aka GMS, ex-Yellow Swans) has taken his psychedelic sound-painting into the world of classical composition lately. Apparently for this release, he & Peter Broderick spent some time preparing the initial samples that then formed the basis of their two sides. GMS' side is one lone track, but Peter Broderick's is a few (not that short) pieces, of which tonight's also goes into the slight-dub territory of his recent collaboration with Greg Haines.

µ-Ziq - Taxi Sadness [Planet µ]
µ-Ziq - Tambor [Planet µ]
Aphex Twin - minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix] [Warp]
Aphex Twin - Alberto Balsalm [Warp]
Gravy Murphy - Mumps [Gravy Murphy Bandcamp]
Bon Chat, Bon Rat - // - Kartika - /// - Mara's Daughters [Bon Chat, Bon Rat Bandcamp]
Clue To Kalo - The Men That They Make Us [Clue To Kalo]
super science - now which way to where? [Surgery Records]
super science - heart's in my sneakers [Surgery Records]
Clue To Kalo - do you know that love can end? [Mush]
Clue To Kalo - Seconds When It's Minutes [Mush]
Clue To Kalo - Of Him On Her Heels, By The Narrator [Popfrenzy]
Clue To Kalo - Time As A Turbine / Motives [Clue To Kalo]
Hildur Guðnadóttir - Heima [Touch]
Hildur Guðnadóttir - Í Hring [Touch]
Hildur Guðnadóttir - Liður [Touch]
Hauschka & Hildur Guðnadóttir - #283 [Sonic Pieces]
Angel - Naked Land (excerpt) (feat. Hildur Guðnadóttir) [Editions Mego]
Michel Banabila & Oene van Geel - Dondergod [Tapu]
Peter Broderick + Gabriel Saloman - Man Of The Streets [Beacon Sound]

Listen again — ~105MB

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