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Utility Fog


Your weekly fix of postfolkrocktronica, dronenoise, power ambient, post-everything improv... and more?
Sunday nights from 9 to 11pm on FBi Radio, 94.5 FM in Sydney, Australia.

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Sunday, 22nd of September, 2019

Playlist 22.09.19 (9:13 pm)

Experimental sounds from Australia and all over the world tonight. The world is a wonderful place and there are some pretty good humans in it, even though as a whole we're a scourge.

LISTEN AGAIN to the sounds of now... stream on demand @ FBi, podcast here.

9T Antiope - Down The Rabbit Hole [eilean rec./9T Antiope Bandcamp]
9T Antiope - An End On Itself [eilean rec./9T Antiope Bandcamp]
Iranian duo 9T Antiope (based in Paris) are frequent visitors to Utility Fog playlists, with the irresistible combination of Nima Aghiani's instrumentation and Sara Shamloo's silken vocals. Although the experimental sounds are still present on the new album Grimace, released by French label eilean, the album is resplendent in gorgeous string arrangements from Aghiani. It's something to really sink into. The label has run out of the limited CD edition, but there are still a few available from 9T Antiope's own Bandcamp.

xin - Myopia [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
xin - Sucker [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
xin - Declared Denied [Subtext Recordings/Bandcamp]
The debut album from the Berlin-based xin just came out this week from Subtext Recordings, following on from an excellent EP last year (see middle track). Their music partially takes its cue from the musical language of club musics like drum'n'bass (and its intense subgenre neurofunk), dubstep and so on, but twists it into different forms, layering influences from classical, industrial and who knows what else. We hear a lot about "deconstructed club music" these days (and tbh I dig most of it), but this is doing that in a really assured and gripping way. Also, taking a leaf from Fis's recent Saplings project, the artist & label have arranged that all profits will go to Eden Reforestation Projects, ensuring that at least 40 trees will be planted for every album purchased. This excellent initiative is an attempt to divorce the business of the music business from the rot of corporatism, which I applaud wholeheartedly.

Loraine James - So Scared [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Loraine James - Vowel Consonant [Hyperdub/Bandcamp]
Another incredible debut album (well, label debu) this week comes from London artist Loraine James, whose album on Hyperdub is a mélange of influences from UK club music and idm to jazz, grime and drill - and a bit of Chicago juke in there too it has to be said - but it's also a testament to being in a queer relationship in London, and everything that goes with that. So it has lovely tender pieces and frenetic elements and some danceable tracks. At a time when everyone's mashing everything up, there's still somehow nothing quite like this out there at the moment, and you should get into it.

Loraine James - +44-Thinking-Of-You (Hence Therefore's Outta My Element Version) [Loraine James Bandcamp]
Hence Therefore - Census Map Museum [3BS Records]
James has a few releases under her belt from the last few years, and I was lucky to be introduced to her last year because Sydney's Hence Therefore, based in London for a few years, sent me a remix he'd done of her track "+44-Thinking-Of-You", based around a Mariah Carey sample and a fidgety house beat. Simon has a new single out on 3BS Records in October, and he's sent me the tracks, so we heard a sneak peek tonight of the b-side - broken beats for the dancefloor. One of the most exciting Aussie producers at the moment, who doesn't get nearly enough hype.

Kcin - Always Never Enough [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin - New England [Hospital Hill/Bandcamp]
Nick Meredith is a drummer by trade, but with first name reversed he becomes an industrial/techno cyborg as Kcin, combining bass growls, electronic rhythms and live percussion into something mammoth and primal. For this new release, which he claims is the first half of an EP, he's teamed up with Tim Shiel's Melbourne-based Spirit Level. Honestly I hope there's a lot more than the other half of this EP on its way, but it's good to know that this will be continued. I thought we should have a reminder of the great debut EP he released on Hospital Hill a couple of years ago while we're here.

Ale Hop - Augury [Buh Records]
These Hidden Hands - Lima 3AM (feat. Ale Hop) [These Hidden Hands]
Ale Hop - Puñales [Buh Records]
Not to be confused with the chain of I'm-not-sure-quite-what-stuff from Portugal & Spain, Ale Hop is Peruvian sound-artist & musician Alejandra Cardenas, now based in Berlin. On Apophenia she deftly conjures up Peruvian landscapes through field recordings, electronics and instruments, and only occasionally vocals. She also covers a famous tune by Ulpiano Benítez, but this one musical nod aside, the album mostly lives up to its title, which refers to the tendency to find meaning and patterns in randomness - not that it's random music, but rather it's a powerful abstraction which manages to represent its subject matter in unexpected ways. I discovered Ale Hop via an appearance on the last album by Berlin-based post-club duo These Hidden Hands a few years back.

Propan - Always the same [Sofa]
Propan - The Warmest Kiss [Sofa]
Propan - A Beauty [Sofa]
Norwegian duo Propan released their second album Trending on Sofa Music earlier this month. Both Natali Garner and Ina Sagstuen work with vocals and a big array of effects, whispering, singing, beatboxing, pitch-shifting, looping, delaying, creating strange versions of club music, r'n'b, folk music, and more. It's unexpected (I promise, even after this description), delightful and disturbing.

Bonniesongs - Barbara [Art As Catharsis/Bonniesongs Bandcamp]
I played some tracks from the stunning album Energetic Mind by Irish multi-instrumentalist Bonnie Stewart a few weeks ago, but I didn't play "Barbara", and that needs to be remedied. Bonnie's been based in Sydney for a few years now, but she's currently touring Ireland to launch this album. This song has been a staple of her live sets for ages - a deliciously creepy ode to a character from Night of the Living Dead. Freya Schack-Arnott's extended cello techniques add to the atmosphere, as does Bonnie's very restrained performance.

Megan Alice Clune - Pooling Liquid [Megan Alice Clune Bandcamp]
Sydney musician Megan Alice Clune is known for her changeable ensemble Alaska Orchestra, but also creates glacial works solo, under her own name. This piece comes from a score created for choreographer Rhiannon Newton called We Make Each Other Up, released earlier this year. Megan Clune is performing at the second Surfacing Series put on by Luke De Zilva at Freda's Down / Under Space in Chippendale this Saturday the 28th of September. It's a great lineup featuring sound artist Alexandra Spence, Jonathan Wilson teaming up with Hospital Hill's Matthew McGuigan, Ben Carey and Lucy Phelan.

Listen again — ~287MB


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