Utility Fog

Sunday, 20th of January, 2013

20th of January, 2013! That's... a date.
Really, this should be the future. Welcome. We have some dark and evocative sounds from eclectic Dutch artist Michel Banabila, a wonderful compilation from Sydney's Flaming Pines, new Ulrich Schnauss and much more!

LISTEN AGAIN etc etc. You know the drill. Link at bottom, podcast, stream on demand in stereo(!) at FBi.

Young Marcus Whale has been making Scissor Lock since he was, well, very young indeed. He was sending experimental sounds in to this very show at about 15 years of age. And now he's an international superstar as one half of Collarbones, but it's nice to hear 4 tracks in entirely solo mode. Processed vocals and subtle beats, much as you'd expect.

Dutch artist Michel Banabila has appeared on the 'Fog before courtesy of some lovely post-jazz and electronics, including the amazing In Other Words (free Bandcamp download!) featuring disembodied voices, chopped up into new languages, and blissful electronic textures.
The new sounds I played are decidedly darker; The SumDark 12 album is highly recommended. He's also recently collaborated with Machinefabriek.

And speaking of collaborations, we also heard some new work of Banabila with the legendary Philippe Petit, from Marseilles, who was visiting our shores only just recently. He brings the dark and cacophanous even more to Banabila's sound. And we also hear him in collaboration with the venerable Simon Fisher Turner, on Canberra's hellosQuare.

Connections, connections - next up it's hellosQuare boss Shoeb Ahmad with a lovely ode to the Mount Stromlo Observatory, the first piece tonight from the latest excellent compilation on Sydney's Flaming Pines. It's all about places that are special to the artists, so we heard the "Forest Floor" in Broken Chip's back yard, while Michael Terren seems happy to call anywhere he can plug an Australia power point in home...

Sydney-based Sofie Loizou launched her new label Radical Nature Records late last year, and we heard a lovely piece of electronica from her 12".

Something of a surprise release for the beginning of 2013 comes from electronic shoegaze king Ulrich Schnauss, from whom we haven't had a solo album for a ridiculously long time (along there've been plenty of remixes and collaborations in the meantime). There's nothing surprising here, except perhaps (cynically) for the general quality of the material. I'm vacillating between general enjoyment and general lack of enthusiasm, but it's pretty good y'all. It's Ulrich, heck.

Oh, and I guess you could draw dome distant connections with shoegaze and the music of Scissor Lock, aka Marcus Whale from Collarbones, here with his first solo release in quite a while. The vocals will be familiar to all Collarbones fans, with an emphasis on processing rather than beats, although there are some beats here, with some nice cross-chaining as is the style these days.

OMBRE is one of those acts I'm terribly embarrassed at having not gotten to last year. This pairing of Julianna Barwick and Roberto Carlos Lange produces some of the best work from either of them, with acoustic South American songs rubbing up against electronic production and shoegazey textures, and beautiful vocals from both of them.

Greg "Comatone" Seiler has been having fun in the studio recreating some of his favourite indie/rock/industrial songs from his youth, and I couldn't help but put one on the radio. It's a ridiculously pitch-perfect rendition of a classic by the Cure, complete with vocals! Yes, more please :)

And from Hydra Head's last release (RIP), we heard again from Justin K Broadrick's heavy-as-fuck JK Flesh. Plus another track from the second album by his genre-crossing supergroup The Blood of Heroes. Highly recommended, both.

And we finished up with another piece of wonderful analogue synth work from Cédric Stevens' highly limited double LP from mid last year.

Scissor Lock - None [Available from Bandcamp]
Michel Banabila - Crowds [Tapu Records]
Banabila - Do Something About It! [Steamin' Soundworks]
Michel Banabila - MltVz4 [Tapu Records]
Michel Banabila & Philippe Petit - Malpertuis [Antibothis]
Simon Fisher Turner & Philippe Petit - dou lidou [hellosQuare]
Shoeb Ahmad - Burnt in the Dead of the Night [Flaming Pines]
Broken Chip - Forest Floor [Flaming Pines]
Michael Terren - AS 3122 [Flaming Pines]
Sofie Loizou - Aphoria Horizonte [Radical Nature Records]
Ulrich Schnauss - Broken Homes [Scripted Realities]
Ulrich Schnauss - blumenwiese neben autobahn [City Centre Offices]
Scissor Lock - Churn [Available from Bandcamp]
OMBRE - Cara Falsa [Asthmatic Kitty]
OMBRE - Vistate [Asthmatic Kitty]
Comatone - The Drowning Man (Cure cover) [unreleased]
JK Flesh - Deceiver [Hydra Head]
The Blood of Heroes - Bronze and Brass [Ohm Resistance]
Cédric Stevens - The Siamese Level - Playground Emulation [Discrepant]

Listen again — ~ 105MB

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