Utility Fog

Sunday, 21st of August, 2016

The world is full of great music and I'm here to bring it to you...

LISTEN AGAIN because you know it makes sense... Podcast right here, stream on demand at FBi.

Sydney singer-songwriter Jack Colwell is a classically trained musician, a multi-instrumentalist and singer who's been touring with Sarah Blasko recently. He reached out to Christian Fennesz on his Australian visit earlier this year and managed to secure a remix from him on this new remix EP When the World Explodes, and Fennesz helped him compile a pretty stellar lineup of artists to remix his tracks, including Persian electronic artist Ash Koosha (released on Ninja Tune), LA noise-rockers Health and US experimental grime producer Rabit. Roly Porter contributed a widescreen post-classical-meets-electronic remake, while another classically-trained Sydney producer, Marcus Whale, takes Colwell's music into the fractured, tough yet vulnerable zone of his brilliant Inland Sea album from this year.

John Chantler is a restless artist in terms of his home base as well as his musical interests. Originally from Brisbane, he'd already spent some time in Japan before releasing his first music on Room40. He spent a long time in London, for a while as the UK representative of the label and then also helping to establish and book the iconic experimental venue Cafe OTO. The last few years have found him in Stockholm, driven from London by its relentless gentrification. His music has gone from gentle glitchy beats & electronics to gradually more abstract work produced on modular synths, and more recently various types of organs. The new album seems to be modular synth-based, although there are some musique concrète touches and guest appearances from his wife Carina Thorén and master cellist Okkyung Lee (although I'm not sure on which tracks).

Stavrogin is UK artist Theo Darton-Moore, who also writes about electronic music for Stray Landings. Darton-Moore's earlier releases as Stavrogin are more on a bass/idm tip, but this new EP finds him producing submerged techno and spare, glitchy hip-hop. It's dark and very, very tasty. You need to get on this when it's out on August 29th.

Dutch duo Funckarma haven't released a lot under that name for a while, as Don Funcken has been busy mainly with his day job & "real life". His brother Roel has mostly kept up the pace (Funckarma were legendary for pumping out releases under various pseudonyms in idm, electro and later dubstep...) Back in 2013, the US idm/electro label Schematic released Part 1 of the remixes of Roel's Mercury Retrograde, from which we took a beautiful bouncy remix by Japanese artist Ametsub. The second part was due to be released on another label I believe, but never made it out, so now we are finally able to hear the remixes, including one by a massive influence on Funckarma, the one & only Plaid. These remixes come paired with a set of remixes of Don & Roel's project with Dutch film composer & modular synth guru Cor Bolten, Legiac, and I decided to play BOTH remixes from beloved German ambient & idm artist (and Funckarma contemporary) Arovane, who turned in one windswept idm version and one ambient version with waves of drones and piano lines.

Gudrun Gut has been a mainstay in the German experimental music scene since the early '80s, involved in early industrial music, punk bands, and since the '90s, adventurous electronic music - not least through her Monika Enterprise label dedicated to releasing experimental & electronic music by women from all over the world. Her latest album sees her teaming up with the Heimatlieder aus Deutschland project ("folk songs from Germany") which seeks to celebrate the folk musics of Germany's immigrant melting pot. There are now-German-based artists from African, Middle Eastern and various other European countries featured here, including Trio Fado playing Portuguese fado, and Heide showcasing German-speaking music from Transylvania.

Legendary Italian experimental/postrock quartet 3/4HadBeenEliminated have been making music since 2004. Originally a quartet, they are (perhaps ironically given their name) now a trio, featuring three legends of the Italian experimental scene: Stefano Pilia, Claudio Rocchetti and Valerio Tricoli. Their albums are few and far between, so I was excited that Oren Ambarchi's Black Truffle is releasing a new album from them, Speak To Me - now out. That LP has a 13 minute and 17 minute side though, making it a little unweildy for radio, so it was extra rad to discover another new track from them, released on a Berlin-based label called Sound of Cobra. The label's Italian connections are clear from an awesome lineup of artists appearing on the compilation A Promise of Arrival, with Andrea Belfi, Massimo Pupillo and psych rockers Zu appearing alongside international artists like David Grubbs, Anla Courtis and Brisbane's own Lawrence English. The compilation is donating all procedes to a number of organisations working to aid the plight of refugees around the world. "The promise of arrival dies way too often on the shores of selfishness. This collection of music offers a helping hand."
The track from 3/4HadBeenEliminated is typically elliptic, with softly-spoken vocals over a slow-marching soundscape that gradually coalesces into a chugging krautrock-punk-glitch monster.

To finish up, we have a brilliant piece of minimalist drum machine beats and massive swamps of bass drone and bizarre samples from Indonesian artist Samsara Portal Holistik, released on the part-Aussie, part-Indonesian split cassette label Tandem Tapes. Their side is paired with a longform drone piece by Derek Piotr. This label is doing fantastic work - go grab all their releases on Bandcamp!

Jack Colwell - Far From View (Marcus Whale Remake) [self-released]
Jack Colwell - Coat: The End (Roly Porter Remake) [self-released]
John Chantler - Falling Forward [Room40]
John Chantler - I Feel Summer About It [Room40]
John Chantler - Sunburning [Piehead]
John Chantler - A2 (The Luminous Ground) [Room40]
John Chantler - The Long Shadow of Decline Pt III [1703 Skivbolaget]
John Chantler - Lesser Demands [Room40]
Stavrogin - State Trading [3BS Records]
Stavrogin - Blackcap [3BS Records]
Roel Funcken - Textures (Plaid rmx) [Funckarma Bandcamp]
Roel Funcken - BooseGumps (Ametsub rmx) [Schematic]
Legiac - Conazol Ketamind (Arovane rmx1) [Funckarma Bandcamp]
Legiac - Conazol Ketamind (Arovane rmx2) [Funckarma Bandcamp]
Trio Fado - Toma da la ca (Gudrun Gut remix) [Heimatlieder aus Deutschland]
Gudrun Gut - Move me [Monika Enterprise]
Gudrun Gut - Leaves Are Falling [Monika Enterprise]
Heide - Ein kleines Waldvögelein (Gudrun Gut remix) [Heimatlieder aus Deutschland]
3/4HadBeenEliminated - DimethylAtonalCalcine [Sound of Cobra]
Samsara Portal Holistik - Open Sesame [Tandem Tapes]

Listen again — ~192MB

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