Utility Fog

Sunday, 9th of January, 2011

2nd show of the year and heaps of wonderful stuff to play you!
LISTEN AGAIN via the link at the bottom.

Oh folks - next week I'm down at Mona Foma in TAS I'm afraid, so that kind gentleman Shannon O'Neill will be entertaining you instead.

Started with more gorgeous crackly ambience from the fun years. Check them out, really do.
We followed it with something subtle and beautiful from multi-instrumentalist William Ryan Fritch. He seems to play every instrument that exists. He's also a member of the SkyRider Band, who've been awesomly backing Sole over the last few albums. There's a world music vibe to this music which I felt led quite nicely into the next track, off an album I featured a little bit tonight...

A few years ago, Belgian label Crammed introduced the world to the distorted likembe (thumb piano) sound of Konono N°1, under the banner of "Congotronics". They and a few other bands have now been given a remix/cover/tribute double disc by the label, with surprisingly awesome results all-round. The distinctive thumb piano scales and cross-rhythms have been making an appearance in Andrew Bird’s music of late, so it's not a huge surprise to find him here — his is one of the few pure covers on the disc, and the distorted violin loops fit in nicely with the surrounding works.

I've already played this Bleeding Heart Narrative single; looking forward to the album! He's gone a lot more song-oriented over the last while, and does them well.

Borful Tang brings us the first of a few tracks from the latest Below The Radar compilation from The Wire. A nice mix of list instruments, spoken recordings and noise.

Following this, a surprisingly sedate piece from the math-rock-enamoured Mr. Maps, whose album is only about a week away now. Cello-led, this track ends with some nice computer manipulation from Chris Perren.

Next up from Wire Mag is Expressway Yo-Yo Dieting, aka Pat Maherr, chopping and screwing slowed-down gangsta rap samples and turning them into something not entirely like hip-hop.

While Clubroot lives somewhere on the outskirts of dubstep, on this remix Portland producer SPL takes him into very heavy dubstep territory.

And then we hit our next little special, the music of Rjyan Kidwell aka Cex. There's a new Cex album coming from his old alma mater Tigerbeat6 this year, but he also put out an EP in the last month, so we heard a track from that (at approximately dubstep tempo, but not really dubstep), and then found our way back to his first (real) album in 2000, with some crunchy idm. Not wanting to go for a whole artist bio right now, we skipped back to 2007 with his wonderful Steely Dan mashup (as in (s)mashed to smithereens) Dannibal, and then a remix from a shortly-forthcoming EP Megamuse, which precedes the album on Tigerbeat. He's a very versatile artist, for all that he's always liked to hide behind various devil-may-care personae.

Zoon Van Snook has snook up on us from Bristol via LA - specifically the venerable LA label Mush. The album's a little bit strange in that it gave me the expectation of being folktronica, but ended up not quite like that; it's a little too pretty and easily-listenable, sliding off one's consciousness at first, but on re-listening, it's very catchy and has a lot more substance than "all that". I'll be playing more.

Paneye's album is another that sneaks up on you from behind. He does a good line in Boards of Canada-style watercolour washes, with nice idm beats. Sydney music recorded in Japan!

Back to Justin Broadrick and the The Blood of Heroes project, with some very nice beats from end.user. A longtime favourite track of mine is next, the first Jesu collaboration with Jarboe. I didn't much like the album they made later, but this song hits hard with Jarboe's snarling vocals and Broadrick's riffage. Even heavier are the riffs on the recently-unearthed and completed "dethroned".

Back to Congotronics, and Japanese musical legend EY∃ is another perfect foil for the overdriven thumb pianos, and he layers and recombines their sound and his deliciously. Oneida, too, bring the African compositions effortlessly into their own musical mayhem.
Next week (er, that's in two weeks) I'll play a few more quite different takes on this sound. The compilation is highly recommended. I won't rant here about Type Records’s irritating conceit of giving away a free bonus CD only with limited vinyl versions of their releases... oh wait, I did.

Final take from The Wire's digital compilation is from John Mueller, remixed here by Olivia Block — guitar drone with shards of aural glass.

Shoeb of hellosQuare introduced me to Italian band 3/4HadBeenEliminated on a Sydney visit last year, so when I heard they had a new release on Die Schachtel I got hold of it. Italy has produced some very fine sound-art, and this is no exception, with elements of postrock, field recordings and even vocals in the mix. It turns out I know the work of a couple of members separately from the band as well — in particular Valerio Tricoli, who has worked with Dean Roberts.

Vocals are the central magic in the Kleefstra/Bakker/Kleefstra, from a Japanese tour compilation named after this track (That It Stays Winter Forever). With Machinefabriek also on the disc, you know what to expect - perfectly-recorded slow-moving drone, with the original instruments gleaming through here and there, and on this track, a beautifully-read poem in Dutch.
I'll be playing another long piece from this next time, I hope.

Finally, another long(ish) track, from Perth artist Adam Trainer. This was released on a tour EP in 2010, but dates back a few years earlier. It bears the influence of late Talk Talk, but in the hands of this member of now-defunct postrock geniuses Radarmaker it's more than just a photocopy. I'm reminded a little also of Dean Roberts' Autistic Daughters... I've been wanting to play this for a few weeks too, so I'm glad I fitted it in tonight!

the fun years - auto show day of the dead [barge recordings]
William Ryan Fritch - rattle these bags of bones [Asthmatic Kitty]
Andrew Bird vs Konono N°1 & Sobanza Mimanisa - Ohnono/Kiwembo [Crammed]
Bleeding Heart Narrative - Perun [Tartaruga] {free download single from the label!}
Borful Tang - Sanctuary [Gigante Sound] {courtesy The Wire}
Mr. Maps - Nostalgia is Crippling [lofly]
Expressway Yo-Yo Dieting - Untitled {courtesy The Wire}
Clubroot - Sempiternal (SPL Remix) [Lo Dubs]
Cex - November Reign [via Bandcamp]
Cex - a mansion as the body she resides in [Tigerbeat6]
Cex - His Crimes [Wildfire Wildfire Records]
Cex - Trumpetflower (Scrubber Fox remix)( [Tigerbeat6] {forthcoming - listen at SoundCloud}
Zoon Van Snook - Half Term (8:08) [Mush]
Paneye - She Swallowed My Days [New Weird Australia] {free download from Bandcamp}
Paneye - Dead Rainbow Rastas [New Weird Australia] {free download from Bandcamp}
The Blood of Heroes - Remain [Ohm Resistance]
Jesu - storm comin' on (feat. Jarboe) [Hydra Head Industries]
Jesu - dethroned [Hydra Head Industries]
EY∃ vs Konono N°1 - Konono Wa Wa Wa [Crammed]
Oneida vs Konono N°1 - Nombre 1! [Crammed]
John Mueller - The Whole (Olivia Block mix) (edit) [Type Records] {courtesy The Wire}
3/4HadBeenEliminated - oblivion parts II & III [Die Schachtel]
Kleefstra/Bakker/Kleefstra - Dat It Altyd Winter Bliuwt [White Box]
Adam Trainer - Animal Heart (You've Got An) [hellosQuare]

Listen again — ~ 182MB

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