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Sunday, 31st of October, 2010
Playlist 31.10.10 (10:17 pm)
Good evening! Tonight, some specials on a number of very special artists. I'll get to Foetus in a minute - started with one of a number of amazing tracks from his new album. So, JG Thirlwell, aka Clint Ruin, You've Got Foetus On Your Breath, Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel, just plain Foetus, and more recently Manorexia and Steroid Maximus. And let's face it, a bewildering array of more monikers. I think of his early work as pioneering industrial music, from way back at the start of the 1980s. There's no doubt he was a bit influence on Nine Inch Nails and others at the other end of the decade. He also played with totalitarian imagery and pretty extreme lyrics, in keeping with the punk/no wave attitude. But along with the abrasive personality, which comes out in the vocals as well as the percussive music, there's always been a desire to create bombastic, fully-orchestrated classical music, soundtracks, big band pieces and more. And these days he can be found scoring the Adult Swim cartoon The Ventura Bros and composing for the Kronos Quartet. After all that masculine energy, it's time for another special, on the very awesome Gail Priest from Sydney. As well as having written Experimental music: audio explorations in Australia, Priest has released a number of wondrous recordings, and her new album is out right now. It will be launched this coming Saturday, 6th of Nov, at Hardware Gallery, 263 Enmore Rd, Enmore. Also rather wild and free is the solo music of Avey Tare, of Animal Collective. I really love the track from 2008’s Living Bridge compilation — I still think it's unequalled by anything on the new album, with its gorgeous piano lines, pitch-shifted vocal samples and great poise; but still, there's some ultra-catchy stuff on the album. I also do love the way the second-last track runs into the familiar (FBi-)radio hit "Lucky 1". Next special of many tonight is Benoît Pioulard, musical pseudonym of Thomas Meluch, who also has a new album out. It's more of the same, but with a sound as beguiling and hard to pin down as Pioulard, that's a great thing. You've got abstract drone/noise works and beautiful indie-pop ditties, all in a lo-fi vein. Fans will rejoice. Of Happenstance I don't know many details, but I do know it's a duo featuring Chris Stewart, who also releases wonderful folktronica as need more sources, as well as contributing vocals (at least) to many releases by the boats. The Happenstance 3” is the last releases on the mobeer sub-label of moteer. I always loved the concept of 3” CDs attached to beautifully-designed beer mats, but I guess it's a labour of love, not finance, as ever. The music is subtle and awfully pretty. Do whatever you can to track these three releases down — the third being a mini-album by needs more sources released on the always-insanely-limited cotton goods. Brief neo-classical detour via prepared pianist Hauschka, whose new album exhibits more of the lovely chamber arrangements as well as his piano playing. And then a few analogue synth concoctions. From noise artist Rene Hell, something surprisingly lovely and sensitive (also highly limited). Final bonus track is the only track I like from the new Owen Pallett EP — perhaps surprisingly, since I'm a fairly rabid fan. I think it's a bit of a throw-away release, but this one track has his usual flurries of strings and lyrics. Foetus - O Putrid Sun (for Yuko) [Ectopic Ents] Listen again — ~ 170MB
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Sunday, 24th of October, 2010
Playlist 24.10.10 (10:13 pm)
Good evening! It's that time of year again, when we ask you to give a little back, and become a supporter of our wonderful radio station, FBi. Tonight, an interview with the lovely Sophie Hutchings, whose piano-based solo album Becalmed was released on Preservation recently to rave reviews worldwide. Full disclosure: while I had nothing to do with the album, I am playing cello with Sophie at her album launches this week: Thursday and Friday at Ravál in Surry Hills. One of the big highlights for this week is David Sylvian’s new release, an album of collaborations from the last decade or so. First track we heard was the title track, "Sleepwalkers", featuring the music of German improv/postrock/glitch hero Martin Brandlmayr. And also in the early stages of the show, a favourite from his Nine Horses group, stop-start samples and Sylvian's vocals offset by the shimmering Stina Nordenstam. I only managed to fit in one track tonight from the new Hauschka album, but you'll hear more if you tune in in coming weeks. It's up to his usual excellent standards, with prepared piano joined by immaculately-arranged strings. Someone give him a movie to score! After Sophie's piano, it seemed right to move on to James Blake’s latest EP, telling titled Klavierwerke. Released on the rejuvenated Belgian label R&S Records, it features Blake on piano along with the sound he's become famous for in the last year or two — incredibly poised production, perfectly chopped micro-samples of soul tracks (I guess), pieced together with plenty of gaps that only serve to emphasise the emotional impact, not to mention the head-nodding goodness. His remix of Mount Kimbie’s "Maybes" is also worth mentioning, for the gradual coming-together of pads and bass over a simple 2step beat. Magnificent. Danish trio System, previously known as Future 3, have their own line in clicky minimal dub-influenced electronica. All fine musicians in their own right, it's great that they're still continuing as a trio too, and their latest album bears a bit of a dubstep influence on a few tracks, as we heard here. Back with Sylvian, and a track from way back in 2001, made for French electronic artist Readymade. Nice skittery 2step-like beats which seem to work very well with Sylvian's vocal tones. Next up, the special on David Newman's Autistici that was promised a few weeks back. (Sorry folks — in turn, a number of tracks & artists I had planned for tonight will have to wait for next week!) A convenient link from the label that released Autistici's Volume Objects in 2008, 12k, takes us to the new album from Seaworthy & Matt Rösner, who are launching this album in a double album launch with Sophie Hutchings on Thursday. Unfortunately all I've been provided with (so far) is a very brief two-track sampler, but by the sounds of it it's gorgeous stuff. I'll make sure I get a copy! Finally tonight (and again, I'm sorry there's so much I didn't get to!), we preview a new 3” from The Declining Winter on the scarily-titled secret furry hole label. The track we heard is a new direction for Richard Adams' band (in this case I'm guessing it's a solo work). It sounds like queasy vari-speed tape experimentation, with vocals submerged somewhere in the mix. From earlier in the year, the track "Red Kite" showcases bandmate Sarah Kemp aka brave timbers’ multi-tracked violins, and demonstrates Richard's growing songwriting skills. Sophie Hutchings - Sunlight Zone [Preservation] Listen again — ~ 166MB
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Sunday, 17th of October, 2010
Playlist 17.10.10 (11:18 pm)
Back from the amazing Sage Francis, whose set I had to leave early, but huge thanks to Brooke Olsen for doing an extra hour of Sunday Night At The Movies, or rather doing the first hour of Utility Fog for me! If you follow me on Twitter, then On to another brilliant release from this week, although this one is a promo and isn't actually out till next month. Inch-time’s new album appeared on last week's playlist and is a beautiful and warm piece of electronica. This week I received the remix album, which is an excellent indication of how good the label that Stefan Inch-time has setup to release this is going to be. A very well-chosen selection of artists have turned in some brilliant work, as we hear over the three tracks here. Next up we have a reminder of the classical-inspired dubstep-tinged beats of Nosaj Thing, in order to lead into Busdriver’s vocal-based cover of the same track. It's from a fun and FREE collection of his called Computer Cooties that you can get by giving him your email address. Do it, not just for the Nosaj cover — plenty of goodness there, including the unhinged "Deer God', which successfully homages and parodies the Monsters of Folk and the Roots' "Dear God", and the unrelated and far superior XTC classic of the same name. With an intimate relationship with said deity, Sufjan Stevens follows, from another download release. "Arnika" is typically beautiful and inventive. Sufjan's on a real roll at the moment. This brings us to another special of the week, which I wasn't able to include in last week's show. Best compilation of the year, maybe — from Boomkat’s 14tracks, a focus on the Digitalis label, and specificaly with a whole lot of out-of-print, very limited cassette releases. First off is angels in america, about whom there exists essentially no information on the net (love it!), but this is sludgey noise of the highest order. Best known to us for playing violin in The Declining Winter, Sarah Kemp here lights out on her own as brave timbers. Mainly acoustic violin and guitar, with some field recordings, it could end up being little more than very pretty, but beautiful harmonies and some very adept multi-tracking turn make this album highly recommended. The first very-small-number also came with the Woodwork EP of remixes, including our friend fieldhead, who works his crosschained-2step/drone magic on the opening track. Two more tracks from Digitalis follow — first off, the not-at-all-little-known Peter Broderick, whose Duets release is one of the few I actually have. The banjo and piano here is typical Peter B, simple yet arresting. Finally, I'm still loving the postrock of Sydney's Grün, and this week gave an airing to the longest track from their Greenland album, at almost 9½ minutes. It's jumped out at me on every listen, and here at UFog Towers we pride ourselves at not worrying about track lengths. If it's good it deserves to be played! anbb - i wish i was a mole in the ground (extended) [raster noton] Listen again — ~ 114MB
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Friday, 15th of October, 2010
Late start this Sunday! (10:56 pm)
I am going to see the great Sage Francis this Sunday (sadly without B. Dolan), so I'm going to be starting at more like 11pm than 10pm! Short and sweet show, but plenty of good stuff, so listen in or listen (again) later!
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Monday, 11th of October, 2010
Paul's Playlunch 11.10.10 (12:06 pm)
HE'S BAAAAACK! 11 hours after the 'Fog finished, here's Paul's Playlunch with Peter. Cerberus Shoal - Sweetie [North East Indie] Listen again — ~ 61MB
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email: utilityfog at frogworth dot com Mastodon ![]() Utility Fog teeters on the cusp between acoustic and electronic, organic and digital. Constantly changing and rearranging, this aural cloud of nanotech consumes genres and spits them out in new forms. Whether cataloguing the jungle resurgence, tracking the ups and downs of noise and drone, or unearthing the remnants of glitch and folktronica, all is contextualised within artist & genre histories for a fulfilling sonic journey. Since all these genre names are already pretty ridiculous, we thought we'd coin a new one. So "postfolkrocktronica" it is. Wear it. Now available: free "Live on Utility Fog" downloads! We got tasty rss2 or atom feeds - get Utility Fog playlists in your favourite RSS reader/aggregator. There's also a dedicated podcast feed. Click here to subscribe in iTunes. Archives of all previous playlists and entries are available:
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