New Weird Australia | Volume Two

September 12th, 2009 Stu

Grant Hunter’s cover artwork for the free download compilation, New Weird Australia Volume Two – featuring our country’s endearing emblematic marsupial with black claw outstretched and a murderous fleck in his eye – perfectly illustrates the ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ binary of the Australian story.

On one side, the world is sold on paradisal visions of Australian reefs and plains, care-free surfers racing down golden sands, and the classic long-shot of a sun-blemished Uluru. On the flip, with just as much fervour, we mythologise and peddle stories of perpetual gangland warfare, malevolent outback serial killers and dingoes eating babies for their morning snack.

If only the same warped duality could be brought to bear on the world’s vision of our musical worth. The exported track record is however largely one-sided – our place as the shiny, electro party-starter of the Southern Hemisphere is unrivalled, along with a seemingly endless passion for rock, culled from a 40-year old tombstone. Ask the world to identify a prominent Australian undercurrent and they will remain largely tight-lipped. Hence New Weird Australia – a project aimed as much at curating a contemporary library of alt-Australiana, as promoting that collection to the rest of the globe.

For Volume Two, we once again represent a strong geographic diversity with music from Tasmania, Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales. We embody genre diversity from 21-year-oldWilliam Gardiner’s neo-classical work to the sprawling sample ephemera spread by Newcastle’s Cock Safari; from Maddest Kings Alive’s shoegaze chip-tunes to a seemingly perfect drift plain soundtrack, hewn by Solo Andata’sPaul Fiocco. There are also multiple exclusives from Kharkov, Lucia Draft, Mieli, No Art, Karoshi, Transmissions and Jason (Pretty Boy Crossover) Sweeney’s Panoptique Electrical project, and new work from Broken Chip, Ghoul, Oceans, Sam Price and Splendid Friends.

In mapping and redefining the local terrain, New Weird Australia represents a new breed of Australian musicians that cast an essential shadow over Australia’s sunny disposition.

(cross-posted from newweirdaustralia.com)

New Weird Australia Volume Two, September 2009, NWA002

DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE (AUDIO & ARTWORK):
Standard Quality, 192 kbps (103MB)
Higher Quality, 320kbps (159MB, via Rapidshare)

1. OCEANS, 02 + 03 (5:11) From ‘album’
2. GHOUL, Swimming Pool (Remix) (3:04) From ’Swimming Pool’
3. WILLIAM GARDINER, Sonance Arboreal (4:39) Previously unreleased
4. SAM PRICE, AutoHackney (5:28) From ‘Rand’
5. BROKEN CHIP, Summer Stars (5:06) From ‘POWWOW Seven’
6. KHARKOV, Crustacean (3:12) Previously unreleased
7. COCK SAFARI, 8MH (6:36) Previously unreleased
8. LUCIA DRAFT, Not Interested (1:16) Previously unreleased
9. MIELI, Hometime (3:34) Previously unreleased
10. KAROSHI, Re-Animate Me (2:44) Previously unreleased
11. NO ART, Fight In The Nocturnal House (3:56) Previously unreleased
12. TRANSMISSIONS, Staring At Lightning Strikes, Catching Every One (2:45) Previously unreleased
13. PANOPTIQUE ELECTRICAL, We Was Them (7:32) Previously unreleased
14. MADDEST KINGS ALIVE, Measels (4:05) Previously unreleased
15. SPLENDID FRIENDS, Holy Shears (1:42) From ‘Summer Moon Illusion’
16. PAUL FIOCCO, Torsions and Drifts (13:34) From ‘Torsions And Drifts’

Compiled by Stuart Buchanan & Danny Jumpertz
Artwork by Grant Hunter, granthunter.daportfolio.com

Click artist title for background information and links.
All music donated by the artists for use in this compilation only, all rights reserved.

New Weird Australia is a not-for-profit initiative established to promote eclectic and experimental Australian music. Free compilations are available to download every two months from www.newweirdaustralia.com. Contributions from Australian musicians and designers are welcomed and encouraged – submission details and terms can be found on the ‘New Weird Australia’ site.

Tags: broken chip, cock safari, ghoul, karoshi, kharkov, lucia draft, maddest kings alive, mieli, new weird australia, no art, oceans, panoptique electrical, paul fiocco, sam price, splendid friends, transmissions, william gardiner

Posted in Mixtapes. | No Comments »

Discontent | Burnt By The Sun

August 8th, 2009 Stu

For a brief moment at the back half of last year, it felt as if dubstep was everywhere – that more common forms of what we might simply term ‘electronic music’ had been effectively backed into a corner by a swelling legion of producers (new and old) finding inspiration through the low end. There were two net results: one, the overall quality of the music being produced naturally become diluted and duplicated and it was all the worse for it; two, producers at the top of their game took their work off to one side, far outside the genre schema, and it was all the better for it. This collection isn’t particularly post-dubstep in any real sense, but – if there’s any commonality to be found – each of the producers here are creating new electronic music that sits outside the path of any genre juggernaut.

Kicking off the mixtape, Jay Bharadia and Gaslamp Killer plough a seam that points back to sample-delica and cut’n’spice science, but they too find something new to say inside an over-represented marketplace. Jay Bharadia’s work was only recently introduced to me, although this cut is taken from his 2008 album, ‘The Yeti Cave’. More recently, he’s released a beautiful collection of warped remixes from Lone, Ochre, Implosion Quiet and two particularly sunburnt offerings from Airliner ‘67. The Gaslamp Killer’s cut is ripped from his new debut EP, ‘My Troubled Mind’ released via Flying Lotus’ label, Brainfeeder. For once, the hype is right – and The Gaslamp Killer delivers a short but instantly compelling delve into his inverted beat alchemy.

Lest you feel any predictably in where this mixtape might head, there’s a few curveballs tucked inside. One is Ikonika, a female producer that has hitched herself to the right star in signing to the Hyperdub label, a dubstep collective that (much like its founder, Kode9) has found a new lease of life outside the main genre arena. ‘Phonelines VIP’ included here sounds as if it could have been ripped from an early Artificial Intelligence collection from Warp Records, updated with a two step sensibility. The second is Mochipet, whose endless productivity is matched by a consistently high and consistently skewed quality. Mochipet certainly doesn’t take himself too seriously, but in doing so, he finds seemingly endless freedom and flexibility. Having the space to move anywhere, particularly inside a single track, is not something that every producer can lay claim to and – on the new album, ‘Master P On Atari’ – that ability once again serves Mochipet well.

The mixtape closes with Paul White, a producer that has been prolific for many years – primarily as a ‘library music producer’ for British television. Inevitably, this overtly informs his work – this track from the album ‘The Strange Dreams Of Paul White’, with its wonky analogue sounds, hip hop beats and haunted snatches of Asian vocal, manages to tap into a leyline that straddles the last four decades of music. As with the rest of these selections, White understands that while embracing currency and futurism has its place, there still remains much to be gained from distilling that sensibility with choice fragments of the past. A notion that our bland, copyist dubstep fiends might be well advised to consider.

Discontent – Burnt By The Sun | download [Rapidshare,114MB]

1. Jay Bharadia – Mother Culture / England [8:21]
2. The Gaslamp Killer – Anything Worse / U.S. [4:15]
3. Various Production – Trycycle / England [6:58]
4. Ikonika – Phonelines VIP / England [4:22]
5. Jogger – Nice Tights (Nosaj Thing Remix) / U.S. [3:00]
6. Bodycode – Subspace Radio / South Africa [6:10]
7. Dalt Wisney – Smokey Daze Forever / Pakistan [3:02]
8. Mochipet – Marshall Bass Stacks / Taiwan / U.S. [3:45]
9. Fulgeance – Ann Arbor / France [4:44]
10. Fletcher – Dreadlox Dub / South Africa [6:17]
11. King Cannibal – So…Embrace The Minimum / England [4:02]
12. Paul White – Burnt By The Sun / England [2:16]

img | tchola

Tags: bodycode, dalt wisney, fletcher, fulgeance, gaslamp killer, ikonika, jay bharadia, jogger, king cannibal, mochipet, paul white, variousproduction

Posted in Mixtapes. | 4 Comments »

Discontent | Hypnogogic Pop

July 30th, 2009 Stu

This mixtape is inspired by David Keenan’s ‘Hypnogogic Pop’ article in August 2009 issue of The Wire. Keenan asserts that the phrase refers to “pop music refracted through the memory of a memory“, drawing its power from “1980s pop culture into which many of the genre players were born, and which is now being factored into underground music as a spectral influence“.

I was drawn to this partly due to my admiration of Pocahaunted (featured briefly in the article), but also more particularly to the aesthetic – music drawn through layers of continual disintegration, indifferent to (and indeed almost entirely opposed) to clarity or crisp production, with instrumentation seemingly drawn from cheap, disposable sources. The packaging too is born of the same sensibility – many of these releases find themselves distributed via cassette, in limited runs, with photocopied covers and no hope for a simultaneous digital release.

In times when the printed zine is making a stand against the endless digital ephemera of blog culture, it’s perhaps unsurprising that a new generation of experimental artists would reject free and easy digital distribution in favour of lo-fi, corruptable, DIY recordings. But in this hypnogogic realm, looking back across the planes of over two decades, the time-scarred inspiration from that era is also corrupt, endlessly photocopied and degraded to such a point when it becomes almost entirely detached from the source. The natural result, as Keenan notes, is a sense of being “haunted by pop” – which also references “hauntology“, coined by Simon Reynolds in 2006 describing a crop of British artists who deploy “delectable morsels of decaying culture-matter”.

As with all material on Discontent, music found on this tape has been made available for free by the artists, hence it represents only a slice of the scene. Some of the artists on this collection are cited in the original article, others I’ve take liberties to include – such as Australia’s Cock Safari (whose new EP feels like the perfect bridge between continental scenes) and Salem’s take on Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Streets Of Philadelphia’, which feels like a more direct coda to the abstract references peppered throughout these 72 minutes.

Discontent – Hypnogogic Pop | download [Rapidshare, 145MB]

1. Jason E Anderson – Half / U.S. [2:37]
2. Cock Safari – Fleetwood Jack / Australia [3:23]
3. Yeti Scalp – Window To The Past / U.S. [5:10]
4. Sun Araw – Heavy Deeds / U.S. [9:50]
5. Pocahaunted – Ghetto Ballet / U.S. [8:53]
6. James Ferraro – Untitled 3 / U.S. [5:58]
7. Emeralds – Lawn of Mirrors / U.S. [3:16]
8. Steve Hauschildt – Cybernetic Inevitable / U.S. [10:16]
9. Brother Raven – Diving Into The Pineapple Portal / U.S. [12:09]
10. Salem – Brustreet / U.S. [5:02]
11. Witchbeam – Change Desires Into Realities / U.S. [5:55]

img | Neil Krug (Licenced Via Creative Commons, Some Rights Reserved).

Tags: hynogogic pop

Posted in Mixtapes. | 1 Comment »

Discontent | Music For Merce

July 30th, 2009 Stu

Earlier this week, just as I was about to re-launch the blog, I read that Merce Cunningham had passed away. Whilst regularly lauded as one of the finest choreographers and dancers not only in America, but also worldwide, Merce’s contribution to music is no less profound. His avant garde approach to movement was matched directly with his work within sound. His life partner, John Cage, was the inaugural musical advisor for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and, between them, the duo forged an unparalleled relationship between music and dance, so much so that the repertory now reads as something of a ‘who’s who’ in 20th century avant garde music. Familiar names such as Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Brian Eno, Sigur Ros, Gavin Bryars, Pierre Henry, Erik Satie rub shoulders with composers and musicians who bent form, twisted genres and stretched definitions – and all of them sound-tracked work from a visionary artist, the like of which we may never see again.

It seemed fitting to construct a tiny tribute to Merce, utilising music and sound both lifted from artists within the repertoire (Pauline Oliveros, Sigur Ros, Earle Brown, Brian Eno, Sonic Youth, Yasunao Tone and, of course, John Cage), and those who were inspired by it. The latter is represented directly and indirectly. La Monte Young, who scored Merce’s 1964 piece ‘Winterbranch’, cited Ustad Abdul Karim Khan’s ‘Jamuna Ke Tira Kanha’ as “one of the great masterpieces of music”. In addition to Charlotte Moorman’s realisation of a Cage piece, artist Mikrosopht also blends one of Cage’s many spoken words recordings into his own composition, where the composer’s influence on Nobukazu Takemura is more oblique – citing his “impressionist and objective conception” as key bearings on the creative process. I’ve also included My Brightest Diamond’s variation of Radiohead’s ‘Lucky’ from Stereogum’s OKX project – a puzzling hit and miss affair, particularly given the subject matter.

I was extraordinarily fortunate to have met Merce Cunningham a few years back – a close friend was working with him and invited me to lunch at his apartment when I was visiting NYC. I remember him being extremely warm, good humoured and incredibly genuine – it was one of those rare and beautifully uncommon episodes that will remain with me for life.

Discontent – Music For Merce | download [Rapidshare]

1. Pauline Oliveros – Sound Patterns [4:04]
2. Sigur Rós – ( ) #6 [8:48]
3. Ustad Abdul Karim Khan – Bhairavi Thumri (Adha Tal) – Jamuna Ke Tira Kanha [4:09]
4. Earle Brown – Hodograph 1 For Chamber Ensemble [3:34]
5. Brian Eno & David Byrne – Regiment [4:11]
6. Mikrosopht – Very Deep Pleasure (feat. John Cage) [3:23]
7. Charlotte Moorman – “26′1.1499″” For a String Player (abbreviated version)” [2:47]
8. Sonic Youth – SYR6 (Excerpt) [3:09]
9. Nobukazu Takemura – Cogwheel [9:46]
10. Yasunao Tone – Wounded Man’yo, No. 36-7 [10:23]
11. My Brightest Diamond – Lucky [4:14]
12. John Cage – John Cage Meets Sun Ra, Part One (Edit) [10:42]

img | yan.da (Licenced via Creative Commons)

Tags: brian eno, charlotte moorman, david byrne, earle brown, john cage, merce cunningham, mikrosopht, mixtape, my brightest diamond, nobukazu takemura, pauline oliveros, sigur ros, sonic youth, ustad abudl karim khan, yasunao tone

Posted in Mixtapes. | No Comments »

Discontent Re-launched | ‘Free Music’ Mixtapes

July 30th, 2009 Stu

For over 20 years, I’ve been making mixtapes. Originally on cassette, briefly flirting with MiniDisc before landing now on the ubiquitous CD-R, there are just under 200 of my own mixtapes clogging up shelf space in the house. The first, titled ‘Aural Subculture’ (a vague reference to New Order) is dated February 1988 and includes tracks from The Sugarcubes, Cocteau Twins, Joy Division, The Fall and the Jesus & Mary Chain, amongst many other less notables.

For me, mixtapes serve two purposes – first, they are archival documentation that not only preserve a moment in sound, but that also ensure that I don’t lose pieces; that artefacts are catalogued and available to recall at any given moment. As a broadcaster, charged with identifying and promoting new music on a weekly basis, music can pass me by in a heartbeat – the average audition time for a track is less than ten seconds. It has to catch me in that time frame, otherwise I’ve clicked on to the next. Without that dictum, I’d never get through the volume required in any given week. Thus mixtapes help me preserve the stand-outs, to ensure that they get played (often repeatedly so) on radio and remain on the shelf for a lifetime to come.

If that sounds a little clinical, then be assured – the second purpose is pure pleasure. The curation, collation and sequencing of mixtapes is one of my favourites pursuits. Even if no one else ever hears them, it gives me great joy.

Thus, when considering phase two of Discontent, it felt very much as if the time had finally arrived to put two and two together. Blogging and mixtapes, as one. Blogging about a single track in a single post certainly gives space and context, but the time allocated to writing is disproportionate to the length of the music itself. With mixtapes, I can get across a wider selection of music, but also create context in a different way – by placing each piece in a sequence with a considered selection of other sounds.

Importantly, as always, all of the music on Discontent remains ‘legal’ or, more simply, ‘free music’ – that is, that the music in these mixtapes has been made available for free by artists, labels or other organisations. Perhaps they never considered that their music would be used in this way, but hopefully the introduction of a new filter, a new context or a new curation will help distribute and ’sell’ their work more widely.

To launch Discontent 2.0, I’ve posted two new mixtapes – the first is inspired by an article in this month’s Wire magazine on ‘Hypnogogic Pop‘ and features new music from Sun Araw, Pocahaunted, James Ferraro, Salem, Witchbeam, Yeti Scalp, Cock Safari, Jason E Anderson (also in his Brother Raven guise), Steve Hauschildt and Emeralds.

Although most of the mixtapes will feature new music, the second selection this week takes a more retrospective approach – in memory of artist Merce Cunningham, who sadly passed away on Monday. The mixtape includes musicians that have at one point or another featured in the repertory for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (Pauline Oliveros, Sigur Ros, Earle Brown, Brian Eno, Sonic Youth, Yasunao Tone and, of course, John Cage) as well as music inspired by Cunningham’s artistic and personal partner, John Cage. ‘Music For Merce‘ is a small tribute to a great man and a timeless body of avant-garde work.

In addition to these tapes, I’ve also reposted recent mixtape selections: Discontent Mixtape Volumes One & Two, the first volume in the New Weird Australia project, and ‘Databass Eclectic Audio‘ – a 1997 collection of (then) new experimental Scottish music.

I hope you enjoy this new approach for Discontent and get just as much pleasure from listening to these selections as I had putting them together.

So it goes,
Stu.

img | eatmorechips

Tags: Mixtapes., News.

Posted in News. | No Comments »

New Weird Australia | Volume One

July 5th, 2009 Stu

(cross-posted from newweirdaustralia.com)

New Weird Australia Volume One, July 2009

Geography dictates that, to some, Australia may forever remain as the Romans once saw it, as the “unknown land of the south”. However as technology conquers territory, distance becomes increasingly insignificant – a fact that is clearly illustrated on this first instalment of New Weird Australia. In borrowing (and expanding) ‘new, weird’ terminology, we hope to shrink the notion of distance between innovative Australian artists and their international compatriots; between the dot points on the vast map of our own land and between definitions of genre, taste or style.

For Volume One, we find ourselves narrowing the gap of the 4,000km range from the precision edit and bluegrass glitch of Brisbane’s Anonymeye, to the free-jazz of Yugoslavian ex-pat and Perth resident, Predrag Delibasich. We simultaneously compress time – moving from Pimmon (a renowned experimentalist with a significant international back catalogue) through to Kyu, a nascent duo freshly ripped from the Sydney soil. We additionally garner exclusive tracks from Telafonica, Tom Smith (of Cleptoclectics), Raven and Inquiet, and recent releases from Clingtone, Lessons In Time, Battlesnake, Loom and the inappropriately named Brutal Hate Mosh.

Neither popular nor alternative, neither one genre nor another, New Weird Australia represents a new breed of Australian musicians that find refuge in the space between us. We hope you enjoy this selection and seek out the full library of work that these artists have to offer.
Stuart Buchanan, July 2009.

DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE (AUDIO & ARTWORK) (89.6MB) *

1. CLINGTONE The Intruders (1:23) From ‘Mary Had A Little Lamp’
2. ANONYMEYE If At First You Don’t Secede… (5:31) From ‘The Disambiguation Of Anonymeye’
3. LESSONS IN TIME Those Plastic Street Signs Are Not To Be Followed (2:02) From ‘Lessons In Time’
4. TELAFONICA Time And Distance (6:32) Previously unreleased
5. PIMMON On The Other Hand This Carbon Fire Is (Flammable) (4:36) Previously unreleased
6. KYU Sunny In Splodges (5:19) Previously unreleased
7. BATTLESNAKE Shadow Of The World’s Tallest Midget (5:22) From ‘Umlaut’
8. TOM SMITH Settled For Less (3:09) Previously unreleased
9. RAVEN Presumption #1 (3:10) Previously unreleased
10. LOOM Snail Shell (8:06) From ‘All You Need Is Teeth’
11. INQUIET Honey & Seeds (3:28) Previously unreleased
12. PREDRAG DELIBASICH Heartburn (13:37) Previously unreleased
13. BRUTAL HATE MOSH Roads (1:43) From ‘It’s Pronounced Kate Moss’

Compiled by Stuart Buchanan
Artwork by Adrian Elmer

Click artist title for background information and links.
All music donated by the artists for use in this compilation only, all rights reserved.

Thanks to all the artists for the leap of faith in donating their tracks for the first volume in this initiative. Special thanks to Danny Jumpertz and to Adrian and Blake for their early support.

New Weird Australia is a not-for-profit initiative established to promote eclectic and experimental Australian music. Free compilations are available to download every two months from www.newweirdaustralia.com. Contributions from Australian musicians and artists are welcomed and encouraged – submission details and terms can be found on the About page.

* Problems with downloading? Click here for the Rapidshare Mirror download page.

Tags: mixtape, new weird australia

Posted in Mixtapes. | 1 Comment »

Discontent | Mixtape Two

May 24th, 2009 Stu

The Discontent Mixtape series is an irregular series of compilations, designed to give blog readers an extreme intro into the Discontent world – a collection of tracks that have appeared on the blog in recent times. For this, the second volume, I’ve included a few tracks that didn’t quite make their way from hard drive to blog, and so are included here for the first time (Mutamassik remix, Ras G, Psychic Ills, Xiao He and Entertainment For The Brain Dead).

All the tracks have been published freely online by artists or labels, so feel free to post the link or distribute the mixtape. If you do, please also link back to www.discontentblog.com.

Discontent – Mixtape Two | rapidshare download

1. White – Build A Link [China]
2. Three Trapped Tigers – 1 [England]
3. These Are Powers – Life of Birds [U.S.]
4. Mutamassik – Commo The Rag (Claws Costeau’s All Dirty Remix) [Egypt]
5. Kid606 – Mr. Wobble’s Nightmare [Venezuela]
6. Ras G – Shinelight [U.S.]
7. Psychic Ills – Fingernail Tea [U.S.]
8. Underlapper – Meanderthal (Cleptoclectics Remix) [Australia]
9. Lloop – Lei-tzu [U.S.]
10. Vorad Fils – Android Creche [Australia]
11. Growing – Green Flag [U.S.]
12. Cauto – Despertar [Spain]
13. Xiao He – After Time [China]
14. Entertainment For The Brain Dead – What You Get (Part Timer Remix) [Germany]

Discontent Mixtape One remains available here, featuring Fever Ray, Harmonic 313, Mi Ami, Hudson Mohawke, Salem, Filastine and more.

Tags: mixtape

Posted in Mixtapes. | No Comments »

Databass Eclectic Audio | 1997

April 28th, 2009 Stu

Music played a large hand in the genesis of Thee Data Base, the zine that I co-edited with Alan B back in the 1990s. And whilst music was well represented in the content of the zine itself, it was actually the electronic / experimental music scene around us in Glasgow and Edinburgh that galvanised us into some form of action in the first place. It was clear that this particular type of music at this particular time had brought disparate people together in search of something ‘else’ – a refuge from the musically barren 80s and the rebirth of ‘Britpop’ in the mid 90s.

It struck me that a compilation of local music would be a logical extension to the zine and to our irregular club / performance nights. We put a call out in one of our issues and received a healthy reply from the community. Of course, these were the days pre-broadband and even pre-CDR, so the best solution for distribution was the mighty cassette tape. I compiled fourteen tracks from the submissions (and added in a couple of our own for good measure) and designed the sleeve artwork (above). Alas, our zine venture came to a natural end before the cassette could be released, and faced with issues of cost, time and a little thing called ‘life’, the ‘master’ cassette was put into a box and forgotten about.

As I launch into another compilation venuture, New Weird Australia, I’m posting this of something of an interesting counterpoint – Old Weird Scotland perhaps? If I recall correctly, the bands featured here are mostly all Scottish acts, all operating around the late 1990s. The main exception is Involution – a very early project from American producer Kush Arora who befriended us by long distance at the time. Kush has since gone on to work with or play alongside Negativeland, The Bug, Flying Lotus, Warrior Queen, Blevin Blectum and Thievery Corporation. (Note, the Involution here is not to be confused with a Cevin ‘Skinny Puppy’ Key project of the same name).

I don’t recall what became of anyone else here, however that doesn’t detract from the quality of the work – ranging from the proto Anticon vibes of Cassius Clay Inc to the drone work of Heehawhairhead, or the 808 squelch of Alan’s Re:Search project to the primal screams in the live recording of Roddy Hunter’s performance piece ‘Infant Inside’ – and there’s also Stephen Beer’s beautiful Brian Eno-esque electro lullaby and the white-boy, lo-fi bedroom take on Dionne Warwick’s ‘Walk On By’ from Natural Born Chillaz. The closing track is a screwed version of a poetry reading, designed to signify the launch of a slo-mo project I intended to work on – needless to say, this still remains my only ‘No-Fi‘ recording to date.

DOWNLOAD: DATABASS ECLECTIC AUDIO (1997) | download zip file (Rapidshare)

Tracklisting:

1. RUBY JUNE Doodle
2. CASSIUS CLAY INC. The Rosy Cross
3. ESOFERRIC Deletia
4. HEEHAWHAIRHEAD The Great & The Grey
5. RODDY HUNTER Infant Inside
6. RE:SEARCH Non:Ecludian Rhythm Pattern
7. CRUX Gravel
8. INVOLUTION Sculpted Presence
9. STEPHEN BEER Underwater Camera Work
10. HAND OF POB Oil & Water
11. TAGNUT Purge
12. FOENE Tape Extract
13. NATURAL BORN CHILLAZ Walk On By
14. NO-Fi When I’m Dead

Posted in Mixtapes. | 1 Comment »

Discontent | Mixtape One

February 6th, 2009 Stu

If you’re new to the Discontent blog, greetings. Here’s a quick way to catch up on what you might have missed over the last few months – Discontent Mixtape One.

This mixtape features a selection of tracks posted on the blog since its launch in November last year. All the tracks have been published freely online by artists or labels, so feel free to post the link or distribute the mixtape. If you do, please also link back to http://www.discontentblog.com. Enjoy…

Discontent – Mixtape One | rapidshare download

1 Fever Ray – If I Had A Heart (Instrumental Edit) [Sweden]
2 Harmonic 313 – Dirtbox [Australia]
3 Lone – Beach Bump [England]
4 The Long Lost – Woebegone (Flying Lotus’ Luckiest Charm) [U.S.]
5 Fantastikoi Hxoi – Kyriarxoi Tou Sympantos [Greece]
6 Ghoul – Fuck Math [Australia]
7 Mi Ami – African Rhythms [U.S.]
8 Hudson Mohawke – Polkadot Blues [Scotland]
9 Pacheko – Green Bull (B Bull Mix) [Venezuela]
10 Filastine – B’talla (feat. Rabah) [U.S.]
11 AGF aka Antye Greie – Disturbia [Germany]
12 The Sight Below – With Her Kiss (I’d Pass The Sky) [U.S.]
13 Sleeps In Oysters – Moths’ Wings For John [England]
14 Salem – Brustreet [U.S.]

Tags: mixtape

Posted in Mixtapes. | 3 Comments »

Fat Planet Year Two | 2005

February 5th, 2009 Stu

To celebrate the second anniversay of the Fat Planet radio show on FBi 94.5FM, this mixtape – published in December 2005 – ripped together a number of downloads that featured on fatplanet.com.au during the preceeding twelve months. From baile funk to euro-crunk (ahh, remember that?), from Japanese post-punk to Bollywood breakcore, this CD-length compilation celebrated “all that was great about music in 2005″. Seems like a lifetime ago already.

DOWNLOAD: FAT PLANET YEAR TWO (2005) | rapidshare

DOWNLOAD: FAT PLANET YEAR TWO Artwork | pdf

Tracklisting & Liner Notes:

Notes taken from posts during in 2005 on fatplanet.com.au

1. MC VANESSINHA [BRAZIL] danca de peteca

“an interview with dj marlboro on hyperdub:”In a famous quote, Chuck D refers to rap as the black CNN. In many respects Rio or baile funk could be referred to as favela CNN. That is, it’s used as a medium to convey how the people who live in the Brazilian favelas really feel using their own language, idioms and slang. baile funk is basically a strain of Miami Bass breakbeat, but much cruder and ruffer in it’s production. There is a healthy anything-goes and fuck-fashion attitude to using samples… It’s prole-like unpretentiousness and complete lack of “cool” makes it a scene apart from the rave and club scene dominated by São Paulo and the fashion conscious Paulistas. But ironically, baile Funk is the original Brazilian electronic dance music stemming from the incredibly popular Rio sound-systems of the 70’s.”

2. STACS OF STAMINA [SWEDEN] donne moi un poisson (ft. ttc)

“let me just clear one thing up right now – stacs of stamina’s album ‘tivoli’ is one of the best albums of 2005. easy. and with it comes a hilarious new genre classification – ‘euro-crunk’… it proves just how dramatic crunk can be when we take some of the less agile MCs out of the equation – at once both deliciously deft and deleriously blunt, ‘tivoli’ sets an impossible standard against which future challengers will be judged.”

3. ENDUSER [US:OHIO] not so distant drums

“never before has bollywood sounded so mind-altering than in this breakcore / broken beat widescreen presentation courtesy of ohio’s enduser, aka solo producer lynn standafer. both bhangra and breakcore can be found filed away in my cd library, i just never assumed i would ever find them together in the same temple. and now that i have, their marriage seems absolutely right and absolutely essential.”

4. NETTLE [SPAIN] myanmar (timeblind remix)

“a one time classical saxophonist, timeblind has made his way through a multiplicity of genres to get to where he is today – from free jazz, industrial, acid house, techno to broken beat, breakcore and dub… this was originally released on nettle’s ‘firecamp stories remixed’ series – nettle being another psuedonym for the talented dj and producer dj rupture.”

5. DJ BC vs M.I.A. [U.S. / SRI LANKA] quem vai encontrar a festa da maconha?

“a sweet bootleg from dj bc, mixing m.i.a.’s ‘galang’, a 1962 bossa track called ‘quem quiser encontar o amor’, plus gloria gaynor, dj paris and some dialogue from an anti-drug movie.”

6. SLAM REVOLUTION [SENEGAL] wax degg

“more african hip-hop thanks to our friends at nomadic wax. both tracks are taken from their new release “african underground vol. 1 hip-hop senegal” which aims to provide a contemporary snap-shot from what is arguably africa’s home of hip hop. unlike many compilations claiming to be the ‘real deal’, this is actually the genuine article – recorded on location in dakar, calling on artists that you’re unlikely to hear anywhere else any time soon.”

7. VISIONARY UNDERGROUND [ENGLAND] 100 vibes

“a four piece from london, their remarkable fusion of contemporary breaks with a clear asian influence takes asian dub foundation’s template and moves it further towards the dancefloor.”

8. SHUKAR COLLECTIVE [ROMANIA] blooz gypsy

” the core trio play what is known as ‘ursari’, a style of music traditionally created by men in order to encourage their (tamed) pet bears to dance for their amusement… it’s traditionally played using spoons, barrels and other wooden percussion and, in this album, there’s also a tom waits-esque gutteral vocal that gives the music a rich, rough hue. add to this tradition a succession of breaks, a few rounds of turntablism and some avant-garde electronica and you’re served with a genuinely unique and original sound.”

9. KONONO NO.1 [CONGO] ditshe tshiekutala

“konono no.1 are one of the most original groups operating in africa today, mainly due to their use of the electrified / amplified traditional instruments – a style known in congo as ‘tradi-modern’. boiled down, it’s old school analogue electronic music – thumb pianos, megaphones, pots & pans, old car parts etc, all amplified to the point of almost absurd distortion. if any modern euro-electro pioneer was making this, we’d be hailing them a genius – yet, konono no.1 have being doing their own DIY thing for nearly 25 years.”

10. MUGISON [ICELAND] sad as a truck

“iceland’s mugison is a wonderful contradiction of styles – from his abstract soundtrack album’ niceland’, to the downtempo folktronica of his excellent debut ‘lonely mountain’ and finally to the beat-heavy, fuzzrock mp3 ’sad as a truck’ from his second album ‘mugimama is this onkey music?’ (sounds like something beck should be making if you drew a more leftfield graph from ‘loser’).”

11. WE ACEDIASTS [JAPAN] ibasho

“the four piece (three from japan, one from new jersey) recorded two tracks with dfa, both of which can be found on their release ‘pre acediasts’, along with six other tracks recorded in tokyo. this mp3 is a rare opportunity to hear the producers stripped right back, a minimal marriage of trademark post-punk 4-4, krautrock, psych and post-rock. ”

12. BALUN [PUERTO RICO] the glass bicycle

“balun are a three-piece from puerto rico… i’m getting the feeling that central and south american electronica is growing in favour and it’s certainly finding some public attention beyond appaearing on the now-standard ‘neuvo latino’ compilations.”

13. THE TINY [SWEDEN] closer

“a three piece from stockholm, the tiny digest all that is bold and beautiful about smoky, torch-song jazz and refract it through a lens that’s been sitting in the pockets of bjork or kate bush. vocalist / pianist and writer, ellekari, onces more takes a seemingly familiar skewed vocal technique into new territories, and essentially proves what we always suspected – incredible though such vocals are, they are best displayed to their advantage in the jazz field.”

14. HUUN HUR TU [TUVA] kongurei

“this band from tuva, the country that holds the distinction of being the most ‘land-locked’ in the world, i.e. furthest away from any ocean. their combination of throat-singing and traditional local instruments makes for a rare and unique slice of music.”

Posted in Mixtapes. | 1 Comment »