Utility Fog

Sunday, 14th of August, 2016

Eclectic selections coming down the line for you tonight...

LISTEN AGAIN because who can keep up? Podcast here, stream on demand there.

It may just be the circles I walk in, but there's hardly an Australian artist around being hyped as much as Katie Dey at the moment, and for good reason too - she's making traditional dirty indiepop, but with gloriously messy electronic processing all over it - helium vocals, fuzzy crunchiness. Even when she does a bit of more straight distorted guitar-pop, the beats are made of clattering home objects. Most importantly, her songcraft is impeccable, reminiscent of the best in slacker pop as well as contemporary pop - and in "debt" recalling the under-appreciated Aussie genius Machine Translations - up to and including the string version that makes up the interstitial track following it. These interstitials separate all the songs on the album, instrumental pieces providing little studio offcuts, segues, or entire alternate approaches like this.

Land Systems is young Sydney artist Nathan Moas, releasing music on cassette & digital through muffled records. The EP as a whole features ambient and sometimes aggressive/industrial sounding electronics, but the one vocal number (featuring Sydney artist mara) points towards some more song-oriented music to come from him. The experimental sounds herein suit me just fine though - lots of sound art mixed in, and some beats...

WWWINGS are the ultimate internet band... residing in different parts of the ex-Soviet Union, making post-techno bass music, tough and fucked up, lots of crazy samples and YouTube channel-skipping. Beats and rhythms are made up as much out of chopped & screwed samples as 808s and breaks, creating a mixture of industrial and ambient. They have strong connections with the LA scene - apart from Planet µ, two of the labels they've been released on and many of their collaborators are from LA, although the equally achingly hip Infinite Machine is locates itself in both Montréal and Mexico City. So internet.

Out of Denver, GILA has just released an EP of ambient loveliness and beats. Crisp stop-start beats and a clear sense of melody show why XL Recordings have jumped on this artist. The second track is a bit more techno although still bearing the hip-hop boom baps.
Also on XL is Overmono with their debut EP Arla - but while it may be a debut for these brothers together, separately they've both released excellent post-dubstep/post-uk hardcore techno as Tessela and Truss.

Tommy Four Seven and Alain Paul's These Hidden Hands have just released their second album, and if you've been following this show you'll known I'm a big fan of what they do. Their sound mixes industrial techno with melodic influences, and recently they've been found collaborating with vocalists like Lucrecia Dalt. The new album sees this continue, with excellent work from Julia Kotowski aka Entertainment for the Braindead and Ale Hop opening up the duo's own music into new vistas outside the tough dancefloor beats. Much though I love what they've been doing, this extra dimension is welcome.

French poet & spoken work artist Anne-James Chaton has worked with The Ex guitarist and Unsounds co-owner Andy Moor a number of times in the past. For their new project Heretics they hooked up with Thurston Moore, like Moor a veteran of the postpunk scene but from a very different direction, workshopping material in a residency in St Nazaire, France. Their interest in heretical figures throughout history surfaces perhaps obliquely in the texts that they created, supported by guitar and effects and electronics. Moore's declarative style fits surprisingly well with the dispassionate lists of Chaton. I can only assume the often corny nature of the statements is the point of it... One hopes...

katie dey - only to trip and fall down again [Joy Void]
katie dey - don't be scared [katie dey Bandcamp]
katie dey - debt / (f8) [Joy Void]
katie dey - so you pick yourself up / (f6) [Joy Void]
Land Systems - esc feat. mara [muffled records]
Land Systems - thrived [muffled records]
WWWINGS - Infinity (ft. Ebbo Kraan) [Planet µ]
WWWINGS - Death Wish [Symbols]
WWWINGS - EXOCORTEX [TAR]
WWWINGS - Glacial [Infinite Machine]
WWWINGS - Melt (ft. Barla, Graves & Pope) [Planet µ]
GILA - Tuff Whisper [XL Recordings]
GILA - SnoPack [XL Recordings]
Overmono - Programmer [XL Recordings]
These Hidden Hands - The Telepath (feat. Julia Kotowski) [These Hidden Hands]
These Hidden Hands - Ivy [These Hidden Hands]
These Hidden Hands - These Moments Dismantled (feat. Lucrecia Dalt) [These Hidden Hands]
These Hidden Hands - Dendera Light [These Hidden Hands]
These Hidden Hands - Lima 3AM (feat. Ale Hop) [These Hidden Hands]
Anne-James Chaton, Andy Moor and Thurston Moore - Poetry must be made by all [Unsounds]
Anne-James Chaton + Andy Moor - Princess in a Mercedes Class S 280 feat. Chiara Solari [Unsounds]
Anne-James Chaton, Andy Moor and Thurston Moore - Concoctions [Unsounds]

Listen again — ~198MB

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