Gyratory System | Utility Music

January 31st, 2009 Stu

Described by one of their labels, Angular Recording Corporation, as a “utilitarian instrumental marching band”, UK collective Gyratory Systems are born from the cremains of London’s One More Grain – themselves an avant employer of the brass section, albeit in a post-punk vein.

Certainly the description has some merit – picking out individual instruments on this track, ‘Utility Music’, proves almost entirely fruitless. A melee of percussion, wind instruments, 4-4 bass and dissonant keyboard stabs – all of which offers little in the way of solace. It’s a futurist krautrock tribute, giving their all at an avant-jazz picnic on an interstate freeway, while the boys at the back systematically destroy the entire DFA record back catalogue with a pair of knitting needles.

Whatever particular touchstones Gyratory System stumble across, they’re certainly of generous spirit. They are currently in the midst of a reformist release cycle, promising that their music “will appear in fragments, in various formats, at different times”. This month, four of these fragments come bundled in a Mini CD release (in handmade origami sleeve) titled “Utility Music I” – and if the thought a plugging a 3″ CD into your laptop fills you with fear, the band are also releasing the EP for the princely sum of zero dollars at their web site, gyratorysystem.com.

Gyratory System – Utility Music | mp3

img | catbagan

Tags: england, gyratorysystem

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | No Comments »

Frikstailers | Baile Frik

January 28th, 2009 Stu

When I first blogged about Frikstailers back in 2007, it was clear that something frisky was being dunked in the water in Argentina. Laid out in front of us, we had a seemingly endless outpouring of twitchy, fidget electro from the very same territory that was simultaneously bombarding us with chopped and screwed re-cuts of old school cumbia. Ralf & Sandro Lee’s latest EP is once again a prime example of South American genre-bending, brandishing a clear lack of concern when it comes to demolishing borders.

‘Baile Frik’ takes funk carioca as its starting point, however the familiar tamborzao rhythm is soon locked in a tussle with Frikstailer’s ruthless scalpel, and partway into the journey, the drum machine pads return to their roots – acknowledging a four-decade old debt by introducing some decidedly Kraftwerkian interplay. Elsewhere on the EP, rising boy-wonder Fulgeance adds a remix under his Peter Digital Orchestra guise, and there’s two Frikstailers rerubs of cuts from Panamanian MC Zulu.

Shell out the hard stuff at the new Revolt Into Style label site, who are also preparing to drop tunes from Douster, Marcelo Fabian and Zort.

Frikstailers – Baile Frik | mp3

img | girrrrrl

Tags: argentina, frikstailers, revoltintostyle, zulu

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | 3 Comments »

T++ | Therefore Version 5

January 27th, 2009 Stu

Although his releases under the T++ alias have gained a small yet hardcore tribe of clipped electro & dubstep devotees, Torsten Proefrock has long been an influential figure in the ever-evolving rabbit hole of interconnections that is Berlin electronica.

Of late, Proefrock has surfaced with exceptional remixes for the late Skull Disco label – versions of Shackleton’s epic ‘Death Is Not Final’ and Appleblim’s ‘Vansan’. However, his role as Senior Player dates back to the late 1990s, with the establishment of his DIN label – with Pole, Arovane and Monolake all receiving the DIN release treatment, as well as Proefrock’s Dynamo and ‘Various Artists‘ projects. He also played a major role in introducing Berliners and mail order junkies to one of the most unstoppable forces in intelligent music retail, Mark (Basic Channel) Ernestus’ HardWax, fulfilling the job of Store Manager for many years.

It is to Monolake however that we turn for Proefrock’s most prolific work, as producer, regular collaborator and, with the withdrawl of original collaborator and Abelton founder Gerhard Behles, now essentially the ‘other half’ of Robert Henke’s long-standing project. This new, unreleased track is distributed via Henke’s Monolake site, forshadowing his plans for the pair to stage a number of live shows together throughout 2009.

T++ – Therefore Version 5 | download page

Bonus: Robert Henke with Torsten Proefrock – Atlantic Waves IV (Live at The Tate) | mp3 | more info

img | bullish

Tags: din, germany, monolake, skulldisco, t++

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | No Comments »

Dizz1 | RBMA Mix

January 25th, 2009 Stu

More local product from out of Australia:

Dizz1 has been a player in the Australian music scene for a long while, as turntablist, promoter, producer, drummer and teacher. He’s been part of known Australian hip hop / beats projects such as db Chills, Wicked Beat Sound System, Nubreed, The Shook Daily Crew, Budspells and The Lordz of the Fly, and more recently has stacked up an impressive list of new creative partnerships: Mark Pritchard, Steve Spacek, Bobby Singh and Om’Mas Keith (SA-RA Creative Partners), all of which will be dropping releases in the coming twelve months. And lest we forget the not-so-insignifcant matter of Dizz1’s signing to Stereotyp’s Crunchtime Records as ‘Mugsy’.

More immediately is a world tour with DJ Dexter (formerly of The Avalanches) under the name “Curse The Machines” – citing artists such as Flying Lotus, Caspa, Hudson Mohawke and Harmonic 313 as kindred spirits, the Curse project “blends world music with Bass music” and hits Europe and the U.S. in the coming months. Sydneysiders get a chance to catch them supporting Dorian Concept at Hermans (Space Is The Place) on Valentine’s Day.

On this mix for the Red Bull radio series (following his participation at the Barcelona RB Academy in 2008), Dizz1 flexes his fingers to showcase the skills that have kept him at the heart of the South Pacific beats and bass scene for so very long, featuring cuts from a variety of his collaborators and conspirators.

Dizz1 – RBMA Mix | sendspace

Tracklisting:
Don’t Fight The Vibe- Stereotyp feat Sizzla
Clocks remash – Dizz1
Walkon- Dizz1
Wanna Take Ova- Steve Spacek
Dirtbox- Harmonic 313
Goatit- Black Milk feat Phat Kat & Elzhi
Final Stage- The Widdler
More Than Money – Basstech Remix
Hangman- Sasquatch
Spaceman VIP- DJ Kutz
Ojahoe- Siqnature
Calling dub Remix- Stereotyp
Siknature- Siqnature
26 Basslines- Benga
Eastern Jam- Chase & Status

more: myspace.com/dizzleone

img | k’s glimpses

Tags: australia, dizz1, djmix

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | 1 Comment »

Salem | Whenusleep

January 22nd, 2009 Stu

I’ve finally just taken delivery of Salem’s ‘Water’ 7″ on Merok, a tiny moment of tactile pleasure that prompted a post.

Salem (Michigan trio John, Heather and Jack) do a good job of keeping themselves buried. Their music thus far has been vinyl-only, no digital sales available. Interviews and facts are scant, photographs more so. The music itself actually feels buried; melodies trapped beneath multiple layers of dark, audio sediment.

If this were a hype-style machine, this lack of accessibility would be precisely their allure. However, the music (draped around a small inner sanctum of blogs for those without turntables) – obscured though it is – stands on its own. I’ve enjoyed reading the vast range of references that have been cited when discussing Salem: Bauhaus, The Knife, Cocteau Twins, Brian Eno, Nine Inch Nails, grime, 2-step. The list goes on. Certainly most of these are close – us Gen X-ers might also lob Coil or Throbbing Gristle onto the pile, just to see what sticks. What’s clear though is a fascination with the chopped & screwed aesthetic – and whilst The Knife may have liberally applied the screwed vocal to ‘Silent Shout’, Salem drag almost their entire instrumentation into the fray.

Certainly there’s no welcome mat here – Salem force you to act as something of a voyuer: to creep round to the back of the house, climb up the drainpipe to an upstairs window, and try to make sense of the groaning animal noises coming from the dark cupboard in the corner of the room. Rest assured, these boys and girls are not coming out to play.

‘Whenusleep’ is culled from the ‘Water EP’ available from Merok. The second track below, ‘Brustreet’, is something of a tribute to Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philidelphia’ and, yes, the Boss never sounded so good.

Salem – Whenusleep | mp3 [via The Fader]

Salem – Brustreet | mp3

more: s4lem.com, myspace.com/jjhhmm

img | lehcar1477

Tags: merok, salem, u.s.

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | No Comments »

Lone | Naomixxx

January 21st, 2009 Stu

‘Superficiality is everything’ – that’s a mantra I hear a great many times these days. In a world of blipverts, unlimited free availabiity of music and micro gen-Y attention spans, the days of long, languid periods of pre-coital courting with musicians appear to be gone. First impressions count, and a bad first impression counts double. So here it is – my superficial confession: Lone’s album cover reminds me of bad, Euro-Minstry-of-Sunshine-electro-house music marketing, misogynistic blokes thinking that lipgloss, titties and babes will help sell their opportunistic, piss-poor music.

Exhibit A:

Case for the prosecution over, here’s the case for the defence: underneath that misdirecting cover is a gorgeous album, where Boards Of Canada fall into a passionate, groping roll in the hay with Flying Lotus and the ever-mutating Wonky genre. Full-length cuts meld with brief snapshots and textures, combining to produce an album dripping with warmth and promise – so much so, that it might well be time to reappraise that album cover after all.

This new mix from Lone pulls an almost unrivaled list of players into the light: Plaid, Kode 9, The Tuss, Rustie, Clark and more.

Lone – Naomixxx | zshare

1 – kona triangle – pinchbeck intro
2 – lone – indigo breath
3 – plaid – anything
4 – kode9 vs LD – 2 bad
5 – the tuss – fredugolon6
6 – rustie – response
7 – drexciya – triangular hydrogen strain
8 – macabre unit – lift off
9 – clark – for wolves crew
10 – MRK1 – get out clause
11 – jakes and joker – 3k lane
12 – mr. curtamos – glow in the dark step

Bonus: Lone – Beach Bump | mediafire

img | ants4pets

Tags: djmix, lone

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | No Comments »

Amon Tobin | The Foley Room Recorded Live In Brussels

January 16th, 2009 Stu

Brazilian Amon Tobin has been targetted with a lightning bolt of generosity and is giving away a full-length live album on his site at amontobin.com. ‘The Foley Room Recorded Live In Brussels’ documents last year’s tour in support of the recent Ninja Tune album, in which Tobin dropped his usual reliance on vinyl sample sources and set about creating his own sound library, recording fx or ‘foley’ from unique sources such as roaring tigers, wasps and “falling chickpeas” (?). Although in danger of tumbling into the Matthew Herbert trap of chin-strokingly lovable ‘musique concrete’ – tracks that raise a smile on the first listen, yet become unlistenable after the third spin – ‘The Foley Room’ album was something of a triumph: thrilling, innovative and destined to become one of his career highlights.

In the live space, as is evidenced on this album, Tobin is not content to replicate and represent the finished product, quite the opposite. His love for drum’n'bass (and hardcore d’n'b at that) remains high on his shopping list, the nuances and subtleties give way to a more visceral and energetic experience. And it’s not all Tobin originals either – he blends Kelis, Spank Rock, Boxcutter and Autechre into the mix, along with cuts from his new Two Fingers project.

In the accompanying booklet, Tobin addresses the lack of visuals on the 2007 tour, explaining that “every last penny” was sunk into the sound system. “This show had nothing to do with stage antics after all,” he says. “It’s all about the sound and the shared experience of being immersed in waves of bass, while dissonant collections of rhythm and melody move, confuse, annoy you a bit, and then move again.”

amontobin.com was relaunched last year, and now features unreleased original material that Tobin is selling direct to fans – some of which comes via a ‘track of the month’ series. There’s also more free downloads, mixes, wallpapers and archive cuts: all in all, a great site (if a somewhat heavy load time) that speaks volumes about Tobin’s relationship with his audience.

Amon Tobin – The Foley Room Recorded Live In Brussels | zip

In 2007, I interviewed Amon about ‘The Foley Room’ album – download the podcast here.

img | Ronn aka “Blue” D’Aldaman

Tags: amontobin, brazil, ninjatune

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | No Comments »

AGF | Disturbia

January 15th, 2009 Stu

Even back when she was flogging her ‘Pon De Replay’ schtick, I always suspected that Rhianna was hardcore – that at any moment, she would squint her eyes, furrow her brow and come on over and kick the living shit out of you. I think my assessment still stands, or at least it did until I heard AGF’s cover of Rhianna’s ‘Distubia’.

AGF, aka East German poet, artist, musician and vocalist Antye Greie has an illustrious ten-year career behind her, with a phenomenal quantity of output, including work with her partner Vladislav Delay, Ellen Allien and Monika’s Gudrun Gut. Her work revolves around deconstruction / reconstruction, blending ‘real world’ (via poetry, spoken word and installative art) and the digital world together, until such times as the component parts are often virtually unrecognisable. Her poemproducer.com site represents a growing archive of work, including a generous volume of audio downloads.

AGF has always been a fascinating and uncompromising electronic provocateur, yet here she takes Rhianna’s original and crushes it relentlessly into fine shards of glass – and when that feels about done, she picks up her mallet and grinds that down further still, until we’re left with nothing but sand. Thrashing Rhianna’s lyrics through a psychotic blender, then submerged under a layer of digital distortion, AGF tweaks: ‘Am I scaring you tonight?’. Fuck yeah.

AGF – Distubria | mp3

img | mass distraction

Tags: agf, germany, rhianna

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | No Comments »

Fever Ray | If I Had A Heart (Fuck Buttons Remix)

January 14th, 2009 Stu

The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson in her solo Fever Ray guise releases her new album digitally today from Klicktrack and iTunes (physical formats follow, oddly, in over two months on March 21st). [See previous post for info on this project]. The cover art brings to mind comic artist Charles Burns – indeed, it may well be Burns, given that The Knife’s ‘Silent Shout’ video was apparently deeply inspired by his work.

A 7″ single also drops shortly (Jan 27th) with remixes of the ‘If I Had A Heart’ single, including this version from my latest obsession, Fuck Buttons (playing in Sydney this week, including an appearance at the Nick Cave curated All Tomorrows Parties on Cockatoo Island).

Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart (Fuck Buttons Remix) | mp3

img | origamadon

Tags: feverray, fuckbuttons, sweden

Posted in Old Blog Posts. | No Comments »

Fat Planet Year One | 2004

January 13th, 2009 Stu

To celebrate the first anniversay of the Fat Planet radio show on FBi 94.5FM, I pulled together some of my favourite free downloads from the 2003-2004 period and compiled them into this mixtape.

Underneath the track listing, you’ll also find a short breakout quote taken from the Fat Planet blog during that time. Interesting to find some early references to baile funk in there (via MC Vanesinha), which I noted as “music from garages” – obviously not quite having anything but a notional understanding of favela culture at this point. I still regularly return to the closer – the Sixtoo track featuring Damo Suzuki - a sensational piece of both respectful and revisionist krautrock from hip hop boy Vaughn Squires, now member of the Megasoid team.

Burn a little silver disc and file it under ‘f’ for fat.

DOWNLOAD: FAT PLANET YEAR ONE (2004) | rapidshare

DOWNLOAD: FAT PLANET YEAR ONE Artwork | jpg

Tracklisting:

1. NO NAME NO FAME buena vista fight club [CROATIA]
“some great downbeat latin breaks straight out of croatia … no.1 for ten weeks in croatian radio 101’s independent chart”

2. WAYNE & WAX a it dat (dj c it dat) [US: MASSACHUSETS]
“full of humour … a smart north american take on the contemporary jamaican sound”

3. CUT COPY going nowhere zipped [AUSTRALIA]
“straight-up new wave, direct from the 80s, with a side-swerve to take in some daft punk funk”

4. THINK TWICE under the bombs [FRANCE]
“awesome semi-spoken word vs punk funk track”

5. NEUTRINO syupaman [JAPAN]
“great downtempo hip-hop … released on mush – fast becoming the leader in such sounds”

6. THE ASTROGLIDES the man with the golden reverb [ISRAEL]
“damn fine surf tunes that hark back to a golden era”

7. MC VANESINHA dance de peteca [BRAZIL]
“brazilian hip-hop … sourced from independent sellers – it’s music from garages, apparently”

8. 2/5 BZ bugün eve içine kus geldi zipped [TURKEY]

9. LARS HORNTVETH ticks [NORWAY]
“defies regular description, although if my life depended on it i’d go for someone between free jazz, downbeat breaks and electronica”

10. ERIK LEVANDER bermond (bauri remix) [SWEDEN]
“echoing acoustic loops and a hint of far-off vocals are underlaid with a soft, crunchy rhythm track that is barely there”

11. JUANA MOLINA quien? [ARGENTINA]
“a more balanced approach between vocal, acoustic guitar and electro atmospherics … reconcile the music with the fact that juana is also a comedian with one of the most popular TV comedy’s show in the spanish speaking world”

12. OUMOU SANGARE nebife [MALI]
“without doubt my favourite african artist, simply because you’re unlikely to find a voice quite like this”

13. ROBERT LIPPOCK i can tell [GERMANY]
“always a freakin’ relief to find something that stands heads and shoulders above everything else … a stunning piece of folktronica”

14. COCOROSIE by your side [US: NEW YORK]
“traces of southern blues, jazz, downbeat hip-hop – and all the more remarkable considering this was recorded in paris”

15. JAB MICA OCH EL caca biohjelm [DENMARK]
“cut-up alt.folk string together with some distorted breaks – for lovers of four tet, look no further”

16. SIXTOO feat DAMO SUZUKI storm clouds & silver linings [CANADA]
“features damo suzuki on vocals, a founding member of krautrock legends, can … could have easily been taken from an early can recording session”

Posted in Mixtapes. | No Comments »