Playlist 08.07.18 (9:11 pm)
Avant-garde sounds blend into experimental electronics and beats tonight...
LISTEN AGAIN - I know I would! Stream on demand from FBi, or podcast here...
Aaron Moore & Erik K Skodvin - Instead of rain I bring a hat [Hands in the Dark]
Aaron Moore & Erik K Skodvin - Furland [Hands in the Dark]
A few years ago the Miasmah label released a big retrospective box set of the Leicester avant-garde band Volcano The Bear. Miasmah's Erik K Skodvin (aka Svarte Greiner, a wonderful experimental cellist & drone musician) became friends with Volcano The Bear's Aaron Moore, and a few years later we are gifted with this extraordinary work - very much a meeting of their styles, with plenty of Skodvin's spectral cello, along with often-arrhythmic percussion, electric piano, often-wordless vocals from both... It's quite doomy, but sometimes breaks into quirky upbeat vibes, or the glorious multi-tracked vocals on top of Skodvin's scratchy cello in the second half of "Furland". And it's gorgeously produced at all times.
hackedepicciotto - Let There By Joy [hackedepicciotto Bandcamp]
Danielle de Picciotto & Werkstatt – Desert Fruit [Monika Enterprise]
hackedepicciotto - The Long Way Home [hackedepicciotto Bandcamp]
The husband and wife duo of hackedepicciotto are both highly influential musicians in their own right. Alexander Hacke is a founding member of industrial pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten. Danielle de Picciotto is a musician and multimedia artist who co-founded the Love Parade after moving to Berlin in the mid '80s. They've been married now for over a decade, and for some years now they have lived a nomadic existence, taking their art all around the world. Courtesy of the Goethe Institut they're performing their live soundtrack to their own slient movie Crossroads this Saturday in Sydney. Their latest album Joy is their second album made for use in meditation and yoga, but for all that it's surprisingly dark - but Menetekel, released late last year, is darker still, with a doomy sensibility drawn from heavy, slow rock and de Picciottos's drawn-out violin. De Picciotto also took part in Monika Enterprise's Werkstatt last year, embedding her spoken vocals in glitchy beats and sounds.
Syntax Error - Under The Ice [self-released]
Featuring Ben Aylward of beloved Sydney indie/shoegaze band Swirl - and latterly of Fabels - and Matthew Syres of improv band Forenzics, Syntax Error sport a muscly rhythm section with Peter Yates and Ben Eadie, who underpin this epic debut single... Ben's shoegazey guitar lines are offset by the soundscapey emanations from Matt, and the song builds and builds into a psych storm, while never losing the impetus of the bassline and steady beat.
Ben Chatwin - Helix [Village Green]
Ben Chatwin - Hound Point [Village Green]
When Ben Chatwin changed to his real name from Talvihorros, his music switched from dark drone & postrock to an airier kind of post-classical. For this new album Staccato Signals he started off with multiple analogue and modular synthesisers, but couldn't resist bringing the strings and other acoustic instruments back - so we have a tension between the snarling bass and industrial influences of the electronics, along with some programmed lines and even muffled beats, alongside the emotional heft of the acoustic instruments. It's some of his best work yet.
OZmotic - Elusive Balance [Touch]
OZmotic - Being [Touch]
On their new album Elusive Balance, the Italian duo of Riccardo Giovinetto & Simone Bosco (known for collaborations with Fennesz and Murcof) explore the dividing line between human and nature, with ambient sounds colliding with frenetic stuttery beats, high-pitched electronic interjections and melodic saxophone... Elusive indeed, but utterly compelling.
Nima Aghiani - Qamyn [Purple Tape Pedigree]
Nima Aghiani - Ibbothal [Purple Tape Pedigree]
Nima Aghiani - Kah-Gash [Purple Tape Pedigree]
Set in that elusive state of REM sleep when your eyes are flickering around and you're really not quite sure if you're dreaming, this new album from Persian producer & violinist Nima Aghiani extends the noise and experimental sound of his wonderful duo 9T Antiope into a take on industrial techno, with heavy crunching beats underscoring screeching power electronics at times, but also joined by layers of undulating violin. It's incredible stuff that I've had on repeat this week, check it out!
RP Boo - No Body [Planet µ]
RP Boo - Bounty [Planet µ]
Chicago producer RP Boo is one of the earliest purveyors of footwork - a true pioneer. He's been celebrated by Mike Paradinas' Planet µ with a couple of albums of archival material, finally bringing his art to the wider world, but what's interesting even on this new album is how incredibly utilitarian it still is. The tracks seem so simple, but they're so sophisticated, with the sparse beats and small number of vocal samples perfectly cut (and his own semi-spoken raps appear here and there too!) It's bizarrely avant-garde, yet totally there for the dancefloor.
Forest Drive West - Prism [RuptureLDN]
Joe Baker continues his upgrade of jungle sounds with Rupture London on his new Set Free EP. This stuff sits alongside his techno work released on labels like Livity Sound, but he's impeccable at the jungle/drum'n'bass stuff (and occasionally works the two genres together too).
Synkro & Arovane - New Dawn [Apollo]
R&S Records' ambient subsiduary Apollo here releases the first duo offering from Synkro (one half of Akkord) with idm/ambient legend Arovane. It's a varied take on ambient with beats - this opening track dabbles in jungle, the rest are more techno or house oriented. It's super pretty stuff.
Andreas Brandal - Vanishing and Beginning Again [Tandem Tapes]
Returning to the excellent Tandem Tapes label with a recent split cassette, we finish up with Norwegian producer Andreas Brandal, with glitched guitar loops and soundscapes.
Listen again — ~198MB
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