Utility Fog

Sunday, 21st of October, 2012

Good evening! Some albums of the year are starting to get it together here, 3/4 of the way through. A few being played tonight, including our opening album.
LISTEN AGAIN to dark broken-beat postrock, postpunk dub, cello duo madness, industrial noise cello remix, pulsing minimalism, minimalist piano postrock and glitchy electro-world remix... stream on demand at FBi, direct link at bottom, podcast in sidebar.

L A N D open tonight's show with a couple of tracks from their masterful Night Within album. First, the only non-instrumental track features David Sylvian in very appropriate surrounds: loping beat, deep bass tones and free jazz squeals. The drum beat here is either sampled from Talk Talk's "New Grass" or re-recorded; and with the album's 3rd track, "Stillman", the 5/4 beat is a facsimile of Radiohead's "Morning Bell" (the Kida A version) — clearly not a sample, but at precisely the same tempo it can hardly be a coincidence.
Sources notwithstanding, this Ben Frost-mixed album is a sonic monster and will certainly be among the top 10 of the year.

Malka Spigel was bass player and occasional singer in Israeli/Belgian post-punk band Minimal Compact. She and her husband Colin Newman (of legendary post-punks Wire) formed Githead around 2005 with Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, and her new album sounds a lot like Githead, with her flowing, dub-influenced basslines and Newman's enveloping guitars. I can never get enough of this sound. Minimal Compact had an acerbic, angular sound with Middle Eastern influences, but are best known perhaps for the gothic ballad "When I Go", sung by Spigel, which featured on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' legendary film Wings of Desire.

I loved Clubroot's debut album in 2009. Comparisons were made to Burial, but it sounded to me like Future Sound of London's world-influenced ambient with a dubstep beat. His third album disappointed me this year, but this cut, left of the vinyl version and now released on a 12" (and digital) EP is very good.

Couldn't resist dropping something in from another top 10 album for 2012, Memotone's I Sleep. At Waking. Combining elements of sound-art and post-classical with its 2010s beats, it's beautifully poised, with polished production but enough grit as well...

I've been playing the amazing music of Geese for a while now – looped violin and viola duo, extended techniques, fantastic musicianship. They're best known for their innovative remixes, of which I've played many. Live they're joined by a drummer, and two of their live tracks have appeared on a compilation from Black Palace.

Keeping it stringy, here's another album I think will be up in the top for 2012, from Insa Donja Kai. Insa Schirmer and Donja Djember are (brilliant) cellists, and on some tracks they're joined by percussionist Kai Angermann. I didn't play the passionate opening cello duo expansion II (listen at the link), as I wanted to showcase one track with vibraphone, but there's so much variety on this album, from quasi-classical arrangements to ferocious virtuoso improv (maybe) to rhythmic pieces. It's great, peeps.

Moving on, but keeping it cello-related, we have a couple of cuts from an EP billed as Scott Solter Resets Erik Friedlander. Solter, a producer who's worked with many experimental artists over the years and is a member of legendary postrock/post-thingy group Boxharp, takes Friedlander's cello jazz trio music and turns it into a noisy industrial kind of thing.

We segue into the very minimalist electronics of Yuri Lugovskoy via a remix from The Declining Winter/Memory Drawings violinist Sarah Kemp aka Brave Timbers, here layering violin and piano over Lugovskoy's pulsating tones. As with all Home Assembly Music releases, this is an original album that comes with a bonus disc of remixes, although this time the remixes seem to be an integral part of the package. The originals are all barely-changing drones; the remixes overlay many other instruments, often acoustic. There's actually a preponderance of piano, including on the stunning standout from Adelaide indietronic royalty Panoptique Electrical.

Perth's Gilded have put together a gorgeous album, one of my top Australian releases so far this year without a doubt. Adam Trainer and Matt Rösner mix piano, scattered percussion, drones, field recordings and occasional vocals (among other sounds) to create an enveloping world. They're playing this Friday in Sydney at 107 Projects, Redfern along with Pimmon, Seaworthy and some guy called Raven.

And speaking of Pimmon, we finish with his warped remix of fellow Sydneysider Thomas William, from a just-released pay-what-you-like remix album featuring heaps of awesome Australian electronic types. Compulsory download. Or buy it on cassette if you're weird/evil.

L A N D - Nothing Is Happening Everywhere (feat. David Sylvian) [Important Records]
L A N D - Stillman [Important Records]
Radiohead - Morning Bell [Parlophone]
Malka Spigel - Back In The Old City [swim~]
Minimal Compact - When I Go [Crammed Discs]
Githead - Darkest Star [swim~]
Clubroot - Summons [Lo Dubs]
Memotone - Stalker [Black Acre]
Geese - Spool (live) [Black Palace]
Insa Donja Kai - red reflections [Sonic Pieces]
Insa Donja Kai - end silence [Sonic Pieces]
Scott Solter Resets Erik Friedlander - Full Chrome [Erik Friedlander Bandcamp]
Scott Solter Resets Erik Friedlander - Assault By St. Wolfi [Erik Friedlander Bandcamp]
Yuri Lugovskoy - Track Eight (Brave Timbers remix) [Home Assembly Music]
Yuri Lugovskoy - Track Three [Home Assembly Music]
Yuri Lugovskoy - Track Seven (Panoptique Electrical remix) [Home Assembly Music]
Gilded - Expand/Contract [Hidden Shoal]
Gilded - Cluttered Room [Hidden Shoal]
Thomas William - Flip My Chips (Pimmon's Strange Machine remix) [This Thing/Thomas William Bandcamp]

Listen again — ~ 106MB

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