Utility Fog

Sunday, 4th of April, 2021

Tonight we have some incredible genreless music from around Australia, and around the world, touching on folk, rap, noise, techno, footwork and drum'n'bass. We also have an interview with the brilliant Kcin.

LISTEN AGAIN to the words and music that you need - stream on demand from FBi or podcast right here.

Nika Mo - The Singing Bone [Tone List/Bandcamp]
Nika Mo - Landscape: longing [Nika Mo Bandcamp]
Nika Mo - Dance of the Cloven Hoof [Tone List/Bandcamp]
Annika Moses is a Perth-based composer, sound-artist, radiophonic sound artist and weird-folk singer/songwriter, whose album is one of a number of releases Perth's Tone List are putting out as part of their Audible Edge Festival of Sound. Working here as Nika Mo, Moses composed the songs on Of Cloven Hoof in Honey inspired by the very weird, primal storytelling found in the lesser-known tales from the Grimm's Fairytales (and even the more famous ones have been heavily sanitised in their familiar forms). Often characters undergo radical bodily transformation, or wish to escape their current forms, and the cloven hoof, a motif in many of the stories and traditionally a symbol of deceit or devilishness, comes to signify rather something like changeability or tangled, unknowable complexity. Into this critical framework, Moses has created a collection of beautifully strange, evocative and uncompromising songs, with her own instrumental and vocal performances augmented by a large cast of singers & musicians from Perth's experimental & folk scenes. It's powerful stuff worthy of her remarkable range of talent. Check out her wondrous piece of poetry/composition/sound-art "Amazing blissful moment (fearful receiver)" from last year while you're at it.

anrimeal - Brush My Teeth [Objects Forever]
Pallas Athene - Gimme Gimme [Objects Forever]
Kristen Gallerneaux - Are You An Animal Or Are You A Person? [Objects Forever]
Three tracks from the excellent, wide-ranging new compilation put together by members of The Leaf Library (who I cannot recommend highly enough - check out their last album). Object Ten is a cassette & digital collection of artists from all around the world, ranging from experimental folk & dreampop through skittering electronics and heavy drones. We started with London-based Ana Alves aka anrimeal, whose found sounds, bell-like guitar and violin accompany her voice in a way that echoes Nika Mo above; Toronto's Breanna Johnston aka Pallas Athene brings frenetic beats behind her jaunty dream pop, while US sound-artist Kristen Gallerneaux takes things to an even darker, bass-heavy space.

Taraamoon - Dayjoor (Daygard x Taraamoon) [Low-Zi Records]
Taraamoon - Nebrās (Roody x Taraamoon) [Low-Zi Records]
The debut album Bādbān from Paris-based Persian duo Taraamoon follows two beautiful singles from last year, but it also follows a substantial collection of work under the name 9T Antiope, which has featured frequently on this show, representing their more experimental, freeform challenging work, and featuring words mostly in English from singer Sara Bigdeli Shamloo. Taraamoon is exquisite electronic pop with lyrics entirely in Farsi, with the electronics of Shamloo and partner Nima Aghiani, along with Aghiani's noisemakers and violin, turned to somewhat more directly accessible purposes - shorter songs, beats and basslines etc. The decision to write in Farsi comes from a deep desire to connect with their homeland, as they've been Europe-based for some time, and on Bādbān they take this connection further by collaborating with a selection of Iranian rappers, each of whom weave their raps in amongst the rich vocals of Shamloo, co-creating a narrative about characters spread across the ocean after a shipwreck - metaphorically seeking unity for Iranian communities scattered across the globe over the last few years. Daygard's evocative spoken lyrics merge in the end with Shamloo's melody over loose-limbed beats and Aghiani's floating violin, while Roody, the one female rapper featured, takes a more rhythmic, aggressive approach with her verses.

Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - Aubergine feat. Fielded [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - God's Feet [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - Peppertree [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp]
The underground rap duo Armand Hammer, made up of billy woods and Elucid, continue to turn out some of the most inspired & inspiring hip-hop of the moment. On new album Haram we find them working with in-demand producer The Alchemist, which has led some to infer that they've sold out, what with Alan Maman's high profile work with Mobb Deep, Anderson .Paak, Freddie Gibbs and other big names in rap - including Eminem. But if he should need to prove himself, The Alchemist does so with uncompromising backings which blend perfectly with woods & Elucid's own style - long, out-of-context spoken samples, bizarre mid-track left turns, chopped & glitched samples etc. The lyrics as as vital as ever, and yes, woods & Elucid are at times coaxed into some oddly catchy tunes that could find purchase outside the underground, but this is exactly the advanced, challenging work we've come to expect from the duo.

Kcin - Salt Ghost [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
...interview with Kcin including...
Kcin - Blood In The Water [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin - Moon (Part 2) (under interview) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin - Distance From The Sea Of Sorrow feat. Elizabeth Fader (excerpt under interview) [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Kcin - Colonist Reprise [Spirit Level/Bandcamp]
Listeners to UFog over the last few years will have become familiar with Nick Meredith aka Kcin's dark sound, that melds percussion, found sounds and electronics in a way both familiar and unique. It was a pleasure to finally get to interview Nick on the occasion of his extraordinary debut album proper, Decade Zero, seeing release next week via Spirit Level. Listening to this album, it's clear why it's given this special status - it's not just cohesive in sound, but a deeply accomplished work, compulsory listening for anyone with an interest in deconstructed club sounds, industrial techno, Ben Frost's sonic destruction and Utility Fog-style sounds in general. In our conversation, Nick outlines his workflow, in which sounds are sourced and created, built up in the digital world, blasted through vibrating air and re-recorded, further deconstructed and rebuilt. Check it.

Shoeb Ahmad - Double Checks Against The Corner (d) (Peter Knight Version) [New Weird Australia/Bandcamp]
DroomData - Stoeptegels [New Weird Australia/Bandcamp]
Noom - Deep Dark Dance Bubbles [New Weird Australia/Bandcamp]
Infinitely pleasing that Stu Buchanan has turned his attention back to his New Weird Australia project, uncovering strange sounds from around the country for adventurous ears. New compilation Space Between Space sees its contributors expressing the liminal experience of our current situation, and all proceeds will benefit First Nations artists & community affected by the COVID-19 crisis. To start up, we heard Melbourne jazz/electronic musician Peter Knight pushing a forthcoming track from Canberra's Shoeb Ahmad into the red. Then NT-based DroomData dissipates their drones halfway through to give way to touching spoken word in Dutch, and finally the Narrm/Melbourne-based Michelle Nguyen's Noom gives us squelchily warm bouncing rhythms.

The Future Sound Of London - Zen Jenny [FSOL Digital]
Each year for some time now, legendary rave/ambient techno pioneers The Future Sound Of London have released a "calendar" for the year as a progressive album, one new or archival track per month, each exclusive to the album. From FSOL Calendar 2021, tonight I played the March track, melding their organic ambient textures with IDM-ish, almost drum'n'bass rhythms.

Brain Rays & Quiet - Creeps (Coco Bryce Remix) [SEAGRAVE/Bandcamp]
The collaborative work of Brain Rays & Quiet was one of my top discoveries from great UK label SEAGRAVE in recent times - IDM-tinged jungle and footwork of complexity & style. Seagrave now bring us a new EP with a couple of new tracks and a couple of excellent remixes. Notably Dutch producer Yoël Bego aka Coco Bryce, who's on a jungle tip of late, does suitably complex breakbeat juggling on his remix here.

Double O feat. Sheba Q - God Is A Woman (Coco Bryce remix) [Western Lore]
D'tch - Reparation Dub [Western Lore]
Speaking of Coco Bryce, he appeared on Western Lore's Blunted Breaks Vol 2 LP Sampler a few months ago with a lush remix of Double O feat. Sheba Q's track "God Is A Woman". I was under the misapprehension that the 4 tracks on this LP Sampler were excerpted from the Blunted Breaks Vol 2 compilation which was just released a week or so ago - but you'd better take care, because it turns out those are flips & alternates from the tracks featured on the new comp. The original (also lovely) of "God Is A Woman" appears there, among many other great new jungle/hardcore tunes, and I love the half-time head-nodder of "Reparation Dub" from Bristol's D'tch - swapped for "Re-reparation" on the sampler!

Listen again — ~193MB

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