Utility Fog

Sunday, 17th of July, 2016

Psychedelic sounds to start tonight, and lots of dark & twisted techno & glitchy electronic sounds...

LISTEN AGAIN to all the sonic sensations... Stream on demand from FBi radio or podcast from here.

Sydney duo Fabels have a strong background in shoegaze and psychedelia, featuring as they do Ben Aylward from the legendary Swirl, and Hiske Weijer from the quite experimental Psychic Date. Their second album Hi is just out, and it's as beautifully depressive and sonically discombobulating as their debut Zimmer. Both use the template of indie/shoegazing bass & frequently noisy guitar, with drum machine & keyboards backing it up, along with lots of effects (often on the vocals), and heavy studio edits here and there. Highly recommended.

Next up we head to Canberra, where Danny Wild is making experimental electronic & ambient sounds as Low Flung. He has a side on the excellent new Australian/Indonesian label Tandem Tapes (featured on a recent UFog), and also appears on the new compilation Domestic Documents Vol. 1 co-released by Melbourne label Butter Sessions and Melbourne radio show/music blog Noise In My Head. The compilation is an excellent representation of Australian techno, ambient and electronica. We also heard some lovely broken beat techno from Adelaide's Mic Mills, and a crazy piece of strung-out ambient-meets-drill'n'bass from Mosam Howieson.

These Hidden Hands are the Berlin-based duo of Tommy Four Seven, and Alain Paul. To me they're central to this industrial techno scene that's coming out of Berlin, even if they're relatively short on releases since their debut in 2013. It's an intoxicating combination of maximalist, distorted broken techno beats, queasily tuned samples and synths. Their debut came accompanied by a bunch of heavyweights from bass & techno, new and old, but then we've had to wait until this year for a follow-up. This single (which comes with a Roly Porter remix) follows on from the first new single this year, a collaboration with the extraordinary experimental producer & singer Lucrecia Dalt.

It's so great to have a new LP from Yair Elazar Glotman's KETEV moniker. A classically trained double bassist, he's equally known from incredible sound design, bass-heavy techno, and his close-mic'd explorations of his instrument. After the Études album from last year that was produced entirely from the double bass, it's great to hear the growling, crashing sounds from that instrument sidling into the subterranean bass & beats of his KETEV material. I think this may be the best album yet from a stellar 2 year career...

Portuguese sound artist Vitor Joaquim has been making music & multimedia art since the late '80s and is a central figure in the Portuguese electronic music scene. His latest album Geography is out soon from the excellent Portuguese experimental label Crónica, and looks at how geography has shaped humanity, with reference Jared Diamond's writings. I played the first two tracks from the album, but later tracks feature musical contributions from friends & collaborators from all around the world (see Bandcamp for credits).

The latest issue of The Wire Magazine is out, and features the 41st edition of their Wire Tapper series. As usual it's crammed full of great stuff. Tonight I started with a track from Moscow electronic producer Fedor Pereverzev aka Moa Pillar, whose recent releases on Russian label Full of Nothing and elsewhere have been in an epic house/techno vein. This new track takes things in a more syncopated and spacious direction. He's also half of ambient/folk/electronic duo Tikhie Kamni with Anastasia Tolchneva; the Full of Nothing label is certainly due a feature on this show.
Next up we hear some top-quality grime from London DJ Lixo, who also hosts club nights and has a monthly radio show - busy guy!

And finally, a lovely piece of skittery jazz ambience from the trio of Klaus Gesing, Björn Meyer & Samuel Rohrer. Released on arjunamusic, they segue us nicely into our final artist of the night, ambiq, who happen to also be on arjunamusic and have a track on the latest Wire Tapper too. I've been meaning to play the new ambiq album, having spun them when the debut album came out in 2014. It's also a kind of ambien jazz with those jittery, tricky rhythms that find their way into the jazzy end of postrock, particularly the Austrian/German chaper. It's no surprise, then, that the drummer is Samuel Rohrer from our previous trio. Claudio Puntin plays clarinet and electronics alongside techno/ambient producer Max Loderbauer on modular synths. It's a wonderful, deep sound equally placed in the improvisatory jazz world and the exploratory electronic world.

Fabels - Ah [Fabels Bandcamp]
Fabels - Turquoise [Fabels Bandcamp]
Fabels - Everything [Fabels Bandcamp]
Fabels - Hi [Fabels Bandcamp]
Fabels - Evacuation [Fabels Bandcamp]
Low Flung - 5 Minutes Until Work [Tandem Tapes]
Low Flung - Quietreakin Outly [Butter Sessions/Noise In My Head]
Mic Mills - Nostory [Butter Sessions/Noise In My Head]
Mosam Howieson - Oedo [Butter Sessions/Noise In My Head]
These Hidden Hands - SZ31X71 [These Hidden Hands]
These Hidden Hands - When Told [These Hidden Hands]
These Hidden Hands - These Moments Dismantled (feat. Lucrecia Dalt) [These Hidden Hands]
KETEV - Stripes From The House of The Shaman [Portals Editions]
KETEV - Women / Animal Skull [Portals Editions]
Vitor Joaquim - Geography [Crónica]
Vitor Joaquim - Cantino [Crónica]
Moa Pillar - Sun Stood Still [Full of Nothing courtesy of The Wire]
Lixo - Writer's Block [courtesy of The Wire]
Klaus Gesing/Björn Meyer/Samuel Rohrer - Flimmer [arjunamusic courtesy of The Wire]
ambiq - The Spur [Arjunamusic]
ambiq - tangoreceptor [Arjunamusic]
ambiq - Naked George [Arjunamusic]

Listen again — ~100MB

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