cooltunes

About mid-morning, the crew brought out the boombox. I didn’t want to listen to it, so I cranked up my Blank & Jones collection, which can get me through most of the day in a productive haze. At some point, the painters turned down their stuff. After lunch maybe. Then they went to work on the beams, which meant they were close to where I was working. They got kinda quiet, although occasionally one would do the falsetto again, a melodic ballad that was nice.

They finished the whole house in a day. Very proud, they walked me around so I could see. As I was writing out the check, the lead guy said, ‘Nice music.’

Feel the Sunshine from their Relax: Edition 2 album.

Boards of Canada on a day when the daffodils are blooming, the breeze is soft, and blossoms on the plum tree are still firmly attached and fragrant.

Adam Freeland Extended Mix.

The rain has not let up all day, expected to keep up through the weekend and into next week.

Youme and Meyou:

‘. . . a phone line, a laptop
and a box of tangerines’

A family member has set up his turntables on the lawn with a couple of laptops and a lot of Murcof. There’s been sporadic activity of the costumed variety, three or four witches (and one witch mom), a space guy, a magician, and six young ladies with gowns and at least one tiara. Two highschoolers were out collecting cans for charity, and got candy as well.

I attended the opening performance for the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival on Wednesday night. The event had additional sigificance outside of being the opening night of the festival - it was also the first time the festival had booked a night of only Mexican artists to perform.

The Mexicans in question, .pig and Murcof, put on an excellent show, although they weren’t as good as I was expecting.

.pig’s performance was a piece entitled “feto talk”, which consists of massively filtered and distorted turntable scratches and vocal effects. Speaking objectively, I don’t think I’d ever listen to them on my own time but as a performance they were impressive. The music was very harsh, very static-y and dissonant, so I was a little relieved when they finished after about half an hour. I think that’s probably all I could’ve put up with before getting irritated or bored.

Murcof is one of my favorite musicians of all time and I had extremely high expectations for his live performance. He has a new album coming out on September 17th, Cosmos, so I was looking forward to hearing some new material, and he did not dissapoint in that aspect. He played four new tracks from the album, ranging from one I’d heard from his myspace page, Cielo, to a couple of extremely drone-y ambient pieces that were new to me.

All of the songs were great and I’m eagerly anticipating the new album, although I’m a little surprised by the direction his music seems to have taken. The two drone-y pieces were a surprise, as most of his music seems to incorporate a fair amount of IDM-like percussion. Picture Tim Hecker-style ambient, except built from the classical sample-based palette that Murcof uses, and you’ll have something pretty close to what I heard Wednesday.

Anyway, the music was good but the performance itself left a little something to be desired - Murcof basically sat in front of his laptop and didn’t move for most of the show, except to tweak knobs on a mixer and a MIDI controller. I’m used to at least video being projected when I see electronic music acts, and its absence at this show reminded me of why it’s usually necessary with laptop-based musicians.

Most laptop artists are god damned boring to watch live.

Also, Murcof only performed four songs. The show didn’t start until 9:00 and I was out of the theatre by 10:30. What the hell.

I had tickets to the next night’s show, which Tim Hecker was performing at, but honestly, I didn’t think it was worth the effort to Bart it to the Mission, then walk to the train station and get home at 1 AM just to see him play a half-hour set.

Even if the festival has good performers next year, I’m not sure I would consider going if the format is the same. I’d much rather go to something like the upcoming Biosphere show at the Recombinant Media Labs Compound.

Stuffed with fresh peach cobbler, I thought I’d buy some Einstürzende Neubauten tonight, and also got Blixa Bargeld’s ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’.

• A bootleg recording of Vladislav Delay’s set from DEMF last month, which can be downloaded here (also contains part of Jeff Mills’ and A Guy Called Gerald’s sets)
• A live performance of Monolake’s from Frigid in Sydney
• Rhythm & Sound’s DJ set from Paxahau’s 8th anniversary
• Pole - Steingarten
• Jan Jelinek Avec The Exposures - La Nouvelle Pauvrete
• Jan Jelinek - Loop Finding Jazz Records
• Andrew Pekler - Station to Station
• Kate Simko’s set from DEMF last month, which can be downloaded from her site here.

I’m a little behind in finally listening to the back catalogue of the ~scape label, there are quite a few gems there. Lots of forays into glitch meets jazz. They’ve also put out an interesting series of compilations where IDM/glitch-heads produce hip-hop. Staedtizism 3 is worth checking out for the tracks by luminaries Thomas Fehlmann and Daniel Bell aka DBX.

If Moby is struck by lightning, we’ll all know why.

I didn’t know that evangelicals blamed Katrina on a Gay Pride Weekend in New Orleans. There’s a Gay Pride Weekend going on in SF right now. Should we be worried?

Specifically the Humvee chase segment, which appears to be mislabeled as ‘You Can Save Her’ on the album. Along with the track ‘Su-Chou Prison’ from ‘Spy Game’, also by Harry Gregson-Williams. Gets the blood pumping on a sleepy holiday weekend.

It’s been 10 years since the last Maurizio release.

Moritz Von Oswald has ended the drought by putting out a new remix of Tony Allen’s “Ole”, on Honest Jon records.

There’s a new Deep Chord release coming out. Limited to 500 copies, 2 X 12 + one 7″ single. Contains remixes from Convextion and Echospace (Rod Modell + SoulTek).

The discogs page for the release is here.

Surprisingly, things are looking great for the dub techno/detroit/basic channel fan these days. Allow me to list:

Scion is releasing records again, along with Chain Reaction artist Substance, on the new label Scion Versions.

A surge of activity from Convextion, with a re-release of his earlier track Miranda, his long-awaited full-length album, and an upcoming release on Arne Weinberg’s label, AW-Recordings.

I spoke to Rod Modell a few months ago and he assured me that he’d be in the studio trying to get some releases out by the end of summer; it looks like the fruits of those labors are starting to surface now. A 10″ on a new label, Hierophant Records, some production work as Spectral Network on the limited and obscure Octal Records, and a remix on the aforementioned re-release of Convextion’s Miranda. Also, for those who missed the extremely limited run of Mike Huckaby’s remixes of Deep Chord on the Synth label last summer, those records have now found distribution through word and sound and are available for purchase in Europe. I believe the now-defunct Watts Music was signed up to distribute those records in the US, no idea what’s going to happen there.

As a parting note, a promising polish(?) netlabel released an intriguing compilation, Mousiken Poiei Kai Ergazou. It’s worth noting that Sustainer makes his first appearance since his 2002 album on Italic in this release. An newcomer by the name of Furthr contributes the standout track on this album.

The new Convextion album, initially limited to 500 copies, is going to be repressed as long as there’s demand.

I’m glad they’re taking that approach, and that their reasons for limiting the first pressing were just financial. I get aggravated when labels limit releases for seemingly no reason (and then trumpet the rareness and scarcity of a record that’s not even out yet).

A very, very hectic workday which hasn’t really ended yet, but I’m stopping. Starting to babble old Pet Shop Boys lyrics, but that’s okay, I’m listening to their Battleship Potemkin soundtrack. Too groggy to appreciate it just yet though.

Murcof posted a few videos of himself performing with Eric Truffaz and Talvin Singh at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.

Rios, from Remembranza.
Ulysses, from Utopia.

I’m kind of miffed I found this on his myspace page. I still refuse to use that site on general principle, but it seems like I’m not going to be able to avoid that for much longer.

I went to this show at the Recombinant Media Labs Compound last night.

I’d been to a show at the RML before, but at their old location in Hunter’s Point. I’ll start off by saying that their new location is in a thankfully less scary area of SF, in the SOMA near 7th street.

I arrived 10 minutes early, and the show didn’t actually start till around 10, which was kind of annoying. I guess the first hour was for the benefit of their regular crowd, who consisted mostly of grey/black-wearing trendy-young-professional types, mixed with a healthy dose of tattooed, dreadlocked alternative-y folks. The first group is the kind you’d expect to see in a modern art museum doing a lot of chin-stroking in front of Rothko paintings. They all seemed to know one another.

Once 10 PM rolled around they lead us into the studio, which is the room pictured on their homepage. It’s an amazing space, you’re completely surrounded by speakers and a seamless wall of screens for their “surround cinema”-related stuff.

After everyone was inside, we were treated to three experimental videos which utilized the surround cinema effect. A guy who introduced himself as “Not Human” forewarned us that the first two videos were at normal volume but the third was “fucking loud” and that we were advised to utilize our earplugs. The videos were set to two Biosphere tracks, and the third was a recording (I think?) of one of the tracks Ryoichi Kurakawa played there a couple of weeks ago, and was as loud as advertised.

An aside on the loudness of their system - on the way into the studio they have a machine that dispenses earplugs, and warnings that the sound level inside exceeds 120 dB regularly. That pretty much sums it up.

After the third video and a short break, Deadbeat stepped up to a laptop plastered with an “I <3 Dub” sticker and began to play. I’ve heard people say that Deadbeat’s albums are kind of a pale reflection of his live performance, and after finally seeing him perform solo I can see where they’re coming from. It was interesting seeing him play very loudly, as his dub basslines are groovy enough to encourage dancing, yet his music isn’t quite uptempo enough to allow one’s self to actually dance continuously. Thus everyone was very vigorously head-nodding or swaying for most of his show. He ended with a DNB-esque remix of Saul Willliams - Black Stacey, which was awesome.

I didn’t know what to expect from Richard Devine, as all I previously knew was that he produced abrasive IDM. It’s kind of hard to put a description of his set into words, but I’ll try. Essentially, Richard Devine is a complete psycho, a rockstar, and his music is the electronic music equivalent of death metal. I’m almost surprised people didn’t start moshing during his set, it was that percussive. People (including Devine) were seriously throwing the devil-horns hand sign during pauses in the harsh beats. On that note, Devine was incredibly fun to watch, as he grimaces and winces like he’s struggling to defecate pieces of solid iron. After the show was over I seriously felt like I’d been beaten; the sound was so loud you could literally feel the waves of compressed air from the subwoofers travelling over your skin. Amazingly enough, the earplugs did their job and my hearing was pristine once I removed them.

Oh, and I got to watch Deadbeat rock out during the Devine set. He was jumping around with the enthusiasm of a little kid, it was great.

All in all, an amazing show. I’ll definitely be attending more events here.

Robag Wruhme and the Wighnomy Brothers remixed FSOL.

I kind of figured it’d be standard minimal tripe, but it’s surprisingly good. I’ve always wanted to slip the original into a DJ set but the tempo’s just a little fast and the kick drum a little weak for it to fit well with anything. Their remix solves both of those problems and still manages to be an interesting interpretation of the original.

Discogs link

In 2000 and 2001, Biosphere created a sound installation for the Northern Lights festival at Kulturhuset along with English sound sculptor Jony Easterby.

The installation was called Fluxgate. The basic premise of the installation was that visitors were to throw snowballs at various target areas on the sculpture. The accuracy of the throws combined with current astronomical data on the aurora were then used to generate different sounds.

There’s a 20-30 minute recording of Fluxgate in action on Biosphere’s site here. Other free MP3s of his can be downloaded here. As the page states, if you enjoy the music and are feeling generous, you can donate to his paypal account (details of which are on the page).

I picked Clubsessel’s self-titled album late last year but haven’t given it a close listen until now. It’s pretty good. Darker, subdued deeper techno, although more toward the IDM and downtempo spectrum of things as opposed to straight-up dancefloor material. It’s also pretty minimal, but not clipped, glitchy and cut-up like the kind of stuff Mille Plateaux is known for.

Anyway, Clubsessel is more popularly known as misc., under which alias they’ve recorded a butt-ton of stuff on Sender, and I pretty much can’t stand most of it. They’ve also recorded as Niederflur on M_nus, with some very … well, minimal work suited to that label’s aesthetic.

You could say that Clubsessel is the IDM/Downtempo component of the Niederflur alias.

Oh and in other news Richie Hawtin’s disappeared so far up his own anus that you can’t even refer to his label as Minus anymore, it’s M_nus. Christ.

After a lot of googling/discogging/last.fm’ing, I trainspotted an interesting track I heard earlier today:

Schneider TM vs. KPT.Michi.Gan - The Light 3000

It’s a synthpop cover of The Smith’s “The Light That Never Goes Out”. It’s somewhat of a poignant rendition, and isn’t cheesy at all. Check the link for a 30-second sample.

Couple of updates on what Monolake’s been up to:

-He’s got a new single coming out this month (page has samples). Sounds okay, need a longer listen.
-He made a couple of random generative ambient tracks via Ableton and posted exceprts for download (one is 15 minutes, the other 60). Cool background music, and worth checking out. A remix he recently did for Depeche Mode and a live set from last year are also available for download on the same page.

Includes tracks from Serena Maneesh, Young People and Grizzly Bear.

It’s available for download, along with previous releases, at Kyoto’s site.

For those that are not familiar with the phenomenon, there are numerous labels which forgo the actual releasing of music on physical media. These netlabels allow free downloads of their music, which is often released under a creative commons license or something similar. For more information about this phenomenon, the curious reader can consult the generous collection of such labels hosted by the folks at archive.org.

So far as the release goes, however, it’s nothing special. Standard digi-dub, enough to please the ear for a few moments but with nothing superlative or consequential. This one is maybe marginally better than the usual fare of the label. Those who come to a similar conclusion might want to check out some slightly better labels in the same vein, like instabil or groovear.

I’ve been playing a lot of Uusitalo (aka Vladislav Delay) lately. I held off on checking out Vapaa Muurari for the longest time because I’ve only really liked one of his albums (Vocalcity). However, after getting ahold of his latest album and noting the similarity to his other work as Luomo, I decided to give it a shot.

I’m not as into Tulenkantaja as much as Vapaa Muurari, as it’s a bit quirkier and more of a standalone album instead of being a live rework of his previous material. Had I known Vapaa Muurari contained as much reworked stuff from Vocalcity, though, I’d have checked it out much sooner.

So if you liked Delay’s work as Luomo and would appreciate it in the context of a live set with more of an ambient flavor, I’d definitely recommend checking out Vapaa Muurari. Tulenkantaja, not so much. It’s a decent album, though, just not quite my thing.

Microhouse, techno, and experimental minimal electronica fans rejoiced at the end of 2004 when it was announced that the Force Inc. Music Works family of labels would begin releasing again, having resolved issues arising from bankruptcy of German distribution giant EFA.

For those of us who like to wear our musical tastes on our sleeve so to speak, they are now selling T-shirts through their website.

Other techno-related shirts can be found at Hardwax’s website, and at Kompakt’s online store, in the back catalogue section.

What it is, what it sounds like and which musicians use it in their work.

Peter Benisch - Waiting for Snow

Peter Benisch - Soundtrack Saga

Biosphere & Deathprod - Nordheim Transformed

Biosphere - Substrata

Although it’s arguable that the artists being from Scandanavian countries and the album art are really what makes the listener associate the sensation of coldness with the music more than anything inherent in the sounds themselves, the association is made nonetheless. Images are linked to discogs entries for each album, some of which have some pretty thorough reviews. Titles are linked to the corresponding page on last.fm, some of which have samples.

How a band’s development has been heavily influenced by their leader’s obsession with the sport of cycling.

Plastic City is teaming up with Apple to offer an 512 MB iPod Shuffle preloaded with 35 tracks from the label.

Nice idea, although I wouldn’t personally buy it. Now, if they had a regular iPod with the entire Plastic City back catalogue, or maybe stuff from the entire UCMG New York or UCMG Germany label conglomerates, I’d be all over that.

Albums to watch for this year:

Layering Buddha, the previously mentioned album by Monolake.

Cosmos, the fourth album by Mexican minimal electronic/classical maestro Murcof.

The Cold In Between, on Plong!, and Nightwidth on Merck, by Swede minimalist Anders Ilar. No idea what the Plong! one will have on it, and I’m assuming the Nightwidth EP on Narita will be represented on the Merck release along with who knows what else.

Vince Watson seems to have a lot of projects in the works, with an older album destined for release on Transmat now set for release on Belgian label Delsin. He’s also working on an album for F COM and apparently will be doing some work for NRK. No word on whether those last two will be done before the year’s up, but the Delsin album is slated for an Autumn release.

Also, I’m behind, and I haven’t checked out Loscil’s most recent work, Plume. It was released at the end of last month.

Surrounded by metal fans in a small Scottish town, a 15-year old Alan Warner discovers music that he can relate to in Can.

I’m a little late in blogging about this, but for those that aren’t aware, there’s a rather interesting item made by a couple of guys centered in China. It’s called the FM3 Buddha Machine, and it’s basically a lo-fi speaker inside a plastic housing which emits 1 of 9 ambient loops at a time.

Monolake’s recently finished a project based entirely on the Buddha Machine loops, so you know it’s good stuff.

felt like streaming and mixing some of the new records i’d picked up over the last month. i can never find a good track to mix out of the mataya one, so i bailed and started over.

mix 1 starts with some laid-back electro, moves into microhouse and light tech-house territory, then goes into some heavier, glitchier stuff. the mix of the last 3 tracks was shamelessly lifted from mr. c’s classic 2002 essential mix.

mix 2 is tech-house of the darker, deeper variety, with some basic channel stuff and aril brikha thrown in for good measure. ends on a floatier, housey note.

mix 1:

mesak - tufnu (klakson)
johan skugge - kyrkogaard (mitek)
subsound - electrobot (affected)
zvukbroda - kse zo (listen to reason)
omni a.m. & casey hogan - in my time of flying (euphoria)
le dust sucker - keine bewegung berlin (styles kickin’)
steve bug & richie hawtin - low blow (minus)
mataya - new game (listen to reason)

mix 2:

blue mar ten - numbers (deep structure)
second hand satellites - orbit 1.4 (hallucination)
maurizio - m5 (maurizio)
round four - find a way (vocal mix) (main street)
sanasol vs. ozzy - seveneleven (ozzymix) (thule)
aril brikha - on and on (transmat)
david alvarado - klugh (ovum)
juju christian - feel good (zeppelin)

Underworld has been awfully quiet for the last few years. The Independent takes a look at what they’re working on.

So what exactly is it? We all know that Sade is the official poster woman. Around here, it’s the station the guys always turn off when they drive my car.

Lately, it has expanded to include some mild electronic sounds. It does have its uses, but I’ve found that I work better to other music.