Utility Fog

Sunday, 28th of November, 2010

RIP Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle (who essentially invented industrial music), Coil and many other groundbreaking, iconic bands. His loss has sent reverberations through the music world, and tonight we have a big long tribute to him.
LISTEN AGAIN to the show via the link at the bottom of the playlist.

Also a bit of a retrospective on Third Eye Foundation tonight, whose new album is the first under that name for about a decade. We started with a track from his new album, The Dark, and it's his usual dark drum'n'bass with twisted, warped classical samples and noise.

But we'll be back to Third Eye Foundation later. For an end of year special, Sydney's Feral Media and Brisbane's Lofly have pitted their artists one against the other with an excellent remix compilation called The Strain of Origin (oh, and follow the link - it's a free download). We had a masterful remix of Brisvegans Aheadphonehome by Sydney postrock band Underlapper, adding their own vocals and production to the mix. And then folktronic postrockers Mr Maps take Sydney stalwart afxjim to Brisneyland via Tchina. Very tasty.

Also a free download is the preview single from Bleeding Heart Narrative's new album, due out in the new year. It's a typically melodic piece with typically broad-ranging instrumentation, featuring the cello of course. The first bhn album was a work of experimentalist genius (and one of my albums of the year for 2008); I'm pleased he's found his songwriting voice and I hope he continues to be adventurous as well as melodic.

Then we had an interview live-in-studio with Jason Noble from Ensemble Offspring, talking about their Sounds Absurd show happening this Tuesday the 30th of November at 8pm at Carriageworks. We heard clarinet with tin foil, and hands dancing on a table...

Sydney's only klez-hop band Asthmatix dropped this tune on my earlier in the week; Mickey Morphingaz' turntablism mixing with live musicians including Daniel Weltlinger's violin to create a deep-fried potato bread...

James Blake has been doing my head in for some time now. I'm not as huge a fan of his last couple of tunes, which are a bit more straight r'n'b, leaning less on the chopped-up samples and minimal stop-start 2step beats; but this tune from earlier this year not only has a great beat and a great drop-out, but the latter part of the song features an absolutely gorgeous keyboard harmony and bassline.

An unreleased remix by brael of part timer, which will probably appear on a limited remix disc with his new album, also features a subtly funky beat.

And a remix can then introduce us back to Third Eye Foundation. Matt Elliott worked with Chris Adams aka Bracken's other band Hood in the '90s, producing a couple of albums for them. The 2007 remix album for Bracken featured this surprise appearance from 3ef, who hadn't been heard from since the early '00s — Elliott had gone on to release a number of albums of queasy gypsy-influenced sea shanties, which were fascinating but not quite as beguiling as his amazing work under the Third Eye Foundation.
Since the mid-'90s, Matt Elliott overlaid his breakneck drum'n'bass beats and dub bass with vari-speed classical samples, howling moans and noise. I tried to take in a fair bit of his career, including one remix of many, one which didn't make it onto his remix album I poopoo on your juju. An auspicious career altogether, and the return of 3ef is welcome. Let's hope it's back to stay.

Harmonious bec were a fortunate discovery via the latest of Wire Magazine's Wire Tapper compilations. They're a mysterious Japanese duo made up of entities known as "ZaMa Roo" and "from Vapor to Water", along with some guests. It's an awesome find, and congrats to Monotreme Records (UK label, despite the name) for putting them out. I hear echoes of Mice Parade inside the very Japanese take on electronica, postrock, instrumental hip-hop and even bits of drum'n'bass. Very nice.

And now we get to our tribute to the life and creations of Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson, who passed away earlier this week. I'm no great expert, and don't know a lot of the earlier work of industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle, so we heard something from their 2007 album, post-reformation and pre-breakup, a mixture of beauty and horror as always.
But it's his work with Jhonn Balance (and many others) as Coil which I'm a huge fan of. So we go back to 1986 first, then hear a classic tune in two different versions. Then we're in 1995 with a couple of amazing remixes: Trent Reznor was a huge fan of theirs and gave them some good support; Scorn's Ellipsis remix album is uniformly excellent, and Coil's mix is dark and long.
Finally we head to their two musick to play in the dark albums, from 1999 and 2000. These are absolutely essential albums of glitch, dark ambient, post-gothic electronic wondrousness. Yes, you heard me.
I had to foreshorten a few of these tracks, for which I feel sad, but it was the only way to fit in even this insufficient amount of music... Sleazy will be sorely missed.

Third Eye Foundation - Pareidolia [Ici d'ailleurs]
Aheadphonehome - The Rattle (Underlapper remix) [Feral Media/Lofly] {free download from Feral Media Bandcamp!}
afxjim - The T in Tchina (Mr Maps remix) [Feral Media/Lofly] {free download from Feral Media Bandcamp!}
Bleeding Heart Narrative - Perun [Tartaruga] {free download single from the label!}
...interview with Jason Noble from Ensemble Offspring...
Asthmatix - LATKE [unreleased]
James Blake - Footnotes [R&S Records]
part timer - where we used to go (brael remix) [forthcoming on Lost Tribe Sound?]
Bracken - Heathens (Third Eye Foundation's Step it out of Lebanon remix) [no label/Anticon]
Third Eye Foundation - Science fiction [Domino]
Third Eye Foundation - For all the brothers and sisters [Domino]
Suncoil Sect - Counterculture (remixed by Third Eye Foundation) [Secret Agent Records]
Third Eye Foundation - What is it with you [Domino]
Matt Elliott - You spooked the horses Parts 1 + 2 [Domino]
Matt Elliott - Trying to Explain [Ici d'ailleurs]
Third Eye Foundation - If You Treat Us All Like Terrorists We Will Become Terrorists [Ici d'ailleurs]
Harmonious bec - Shunrai [Monotreme Records]
Harmonious bec - Asahigoaka [Monotreme Records]
Throbbing Gristle - Rabbit Snare [Mute]
Coil - Ostia (The Death of Pasolini) [Force & Form/Some Bizarre/Threshold House]
Coil - Teenage Lightning II [Wax Trax!/TVT Records/Threshold House]
Coil - Teenage Lightning 2005 [Threshold House]
Nine Inch Nails - the downward spiral (the bottom - coil with danny hyde) [Nothing/Interscope]
Scorn - Dreamspace (Coil - "Shadow vs Executioner" mix) [Earache]
Coil - The Dreamer Is Still Asleep [Threshold House]
Coil - Paranoid Inlay [Threshold House]

Listen again — ~ 177MB

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