Utility Fog

Sunday, 12th of July, 2015

A trip to Montreal and France tonight is followed by US, English, Czech, Russian and Australian contributions, covering shoegaze folk soundscapes, musique concrète, sound art, glitchscapes, noise, violintronica, generative beats & tones, deconstructed junglisms, jazzy beats, indietronica and heck, more. More or less.

LISTEN AGAIN to this glorious hodge-podge, down below, podcast, or stream on demand from FBi.

We start with a long overdue listen to Benoît Pioulard's new album, as always via the Kranky label. This album leans more heavily on the soundscapey side of his shoegazey folk - there aren't a lot of songs here, although there aren't as many field recordings either, perhaps. But for all that it's not abstract by any means - in fact it's enveloping & beautiful and I've been sticking it on quite a lot.

I've only recently discovered Bérangère Maximin, so I've had a bit of catching up to do, the fruits of which you can enjoy tonight. Originally from Réunion island (a little bit of France in the Indian Ocean), she moved to France as a teenager, has played in various bands, and studied sound art. Her pieces move between sound art, musique concrète, composition and experimental electronic, occasionally also taking in folk genres like gypsy/klezmer, shoegazey psych-rock, fizzy glitchy dub and some kind of post-punk spoken-word. It's deep listening music and I'm really glad to feature it on tonight's show.

Marseilles' Philippe Petit styles himself as a musical travel agent. He's a prolific collaborator, releasing many albums under the umbrella "Philippe Petit and Friends", but has recently been putting out solo releases via US experimental label Aagoo. He's also known for his label & compilation series BiP_HOp which linked together idm, experimental electronic, drone and later expanded into post-rock and jazz and all sorts of arenas. Clearly the track we heard tonight was influenced in some way by his tour of Australia early last year...

Sticking with the francophone world for one more track, it's also long overdue that I play something from the new Chapelier Fou album. It's his familiar jam - looped violin and crunchy beats. Always glad to have a new release from him.

Erik Schoster has been sporadically releasing music as He Can Jog for 7+ years, but these days they're dripping out here and there on his Bandcamp. The latest track to appear is a specific realisation of a piece of software called Amber, and over at the release page you can find links to the Python script that generated it, and to his Python framework for computer music, Pippi.

On a new cassette (and thankfully digital), Dosh collaborator Ghostband deconstructs jungle, techno and idm in rather strange ways. I've chosen a track which solidly references jungle, with chopped amen breaks slathered all over it, but the pace of the track, and the shape of its basslines and melodies is miles away from jungle or even drill'n'bass. Pretty fun but.

Classically-trained producer Joe Acheson aka Hidden Orchestra earns his moniker with deftly-arranged multi-layered studio productions, drawing from drum'n'bass, hip-hop and dub as well as classical and jazz along the way. It's reminiscent of that other "orchestra", the Cinematic Orchetra, as well as Amon Tobin and lots more - but what's particularly impressive on his Reorchestrations album, which is made up primarily of remixes of other artists, is how cohesive it sounds. He makes these remixes his own, while remaining sensitive to the originals. Looking forward to a new original album from him soon!

Only Now is a new project from US producer Kush Arora. It's nice to hear the world and dub influences of his other music informing these dark electronic tunes - percussion heavy, but also rooted in contemporary bass music.

Those uk garage/2step-loving kids from Melbourne, I'lls, have finally released their new EP or mini-album or whatever it is, and it's lovely. They're doing solid work with their label hellosQuare Recordings too, with a mixture of folktronic, indie and slightly more dancefloor releases appearing regularly from them.

A few weeks back I played some tracks from the excellent split 12" that Shoeb Ahmad's put out on his hellosQuare Recordings between him and German duo Schneider Kacirek on the occasion of their Australian tour. Shoeb's side is uniformly excellent - less songwriting-oriented than his previous album, with heavily-edited jangly guitars, beats and some low-mixed vocals.

Benoît Pioulard - A shade of celdaon [Kranky]
Benoît Pioulard - With no advantage [Kranky]
Benoît Pioulard - The gilded fear that guides the flow [Kranky]
Bérangère Maximin - Boudmo [Tzadik]
Bérangère Maximin - Knitting in the air (feat. Christian Fennesz) [Sub Rosa]
Bérangère Maximin - Infinitesimal (Mvt II, Der Stern) [Sub Rosa]
Bérangère Maximin - A Day Closer [Made to Measure/Crammed Discs]
Philippe Petit - Tidbinbilla Sanctuary pt.1 [Aagoo]
Chapelier Fou - Fuses [Ici d'ailleurs]
He Can Jog - Amber [He Can Jog Bandcamp]
Ghostband - Shreds [Ghostband Bandcamp]
Clarinet Factory - 5 Steps (Hidden Orchestra remix) [Denovali]
Long Arm - Sleep Key (Hidden Orchestra remix) [Denovali]
Only Now - Mid Riot [Record Label Records]
I'lls - Agwa [Solitaire Recordings]
Shoeb Ahmad - Bang-Bang Club [hellosQuare Recordings]

Listen again — ~110MB

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