i'd rather be fat than be confused

Lana Del Ray - Video Games (Video)

2011-12-24T03:35:00.000-08:00

A beautiful new discovery care of Gorilla vs Bear blog.

Very lovely in a Cat Power meets Joanna Newsom manner. Been on pretty heavy repeat lately. Love that line "I heard that you like the bad girls/Honey, is that true?" Its delivery is simply perfect.

Enjoy

The Pearly Gatecrashers - Mobile Girl

2011-12-24T03:24:00.000-08:00

This made me smile :)

Darren Hayman - The Ships Piano

2011-09-16T02:16:00.000-07:00

Woop!

The Ship's Piano from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

Stephen Vitiello - Sounds Building in the Faded Light

2011-09-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

Although i have many opinions about what happened on September 11th i don't wish to go into these online, this blog is for music, so music it is.

You may have heard of Stephen Vitiello, a sound artist familiar to any close follower of 12k, who released his wonderful collaboration, the Gorilla Variations, with Molly Berg. Back in 1999 Stephen was given a residency in an unoccupied office on the 91st floor of Tower One at the World Trade Center. With contact microphones fastened to the windows, he converted one of the world’s tallest buildings into the world’s largest microphone, the vertiginous glass curtain acting as a distended microphonic diaphragm. The resulting recordings depict a sound world beyond the reach of most human beings; even beyond the reach of most of humanity’s edifices. We hear wind and street traffic, the bellow of a ship in New York Harbor, and can even pick out an occasional voice from the streets a thousand feet below. Unsettlingly, there are several planes in the air, and the building itself creaks like an old wooden ship, straining against the torquing of its frame in the howling gales of Hurricane Floyd. Vitiello also employed photo-sensitive cells at the eye-end of a telescope to translate discreet light sources in the late-night New York skyline into eerie aural ghosts of the visual world.

The album is available to download care of The Radiant Now

TRN 247: Stephen Vitiello

Printed Circuit - Brick It

2011-08-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

A rather fantastic video from long term fatandconfused favourites Printed Circuit.

The Living Sisters

2011-03-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

Lovely video directed by Michel Gondry.

"In this video for the Living Sisters' song "How Are You Doing?," disaster has never sounded so sweet. And disaster is everywhere, albeit in cutesy form, in Michel Gondry's vision of a day in the life of Eleni Mandell, Becky Stark and Inara George, the latter of whom, at the time of the video shoot, was four months' pregnant with twins.The lyrics may tell of an afternoon of ho-hummery, but Gondry, a punishing Frenchman, has other tests of fortitude in mind for these harmonizing ladies." Los Angeles Times

Yo Gabba Gabba

2011-01-30T13:42:00.001-08:00

I guess how much you like this post will depend on just how seriously you take your music. I'll be the first to admit that I can't get enough of the soothing sounds of BvDub or the deeply mysterious sounds that i'm listening to right now of the Xela side project Twells & Christensen, however every now and again something light hearted is needed and light hearted is exactly what Yo Gabba Gabba is, after all it's an American kids show.

It's often said that they don't make kids programmes like they did when I was a lad, and I tend to agree they do come with a healthy dose of biasedness linked to other fond childhood memories and the complete freedom of being a child. Though I will still argue again against that last comment that i'm yet to see a recent series as good as either Willy Fog or Mysterious Cities of Gold.

I've not actually seen Yo Gabba Gabba but from the album, it seems that they do still make childrens TV gold.

I'll let the music do the talking.

Just the tip of the iceberg...just the tip

Buy - Vol. 2-Yo Gabba Gabba! Music Is Awesome

Darren Hayman - January Songs

2011-01-01T15:29:00.000-08:00

Don't forget about this, Darren Hayman of Hefner fame is treating us to a song a day for the month of January.

Here's number one, pretty good stuff. There's also a calendar showing his movements throughout the month and who he's planning on collaborating with, should help pass this traditionally long month, plenty to look forward to.

01 It Was Over by Darren Hayman

http://januarysongs.tumblr.com/

My name is Darren Hayman. I'm going to write, record and release a song every day during January 2011. They won't all be good but some might be. The songs will be available as high quality MP3s for free for a day or two via Soundcloud Thereafter the songs will be available to buy in MP3 and higher quality formats via Bandcamp Here is a calendar to help show what I am doing and when. I'm pretty full up for musicians and collaborators but that shouldn't stop you asking. I would particularly like to hear from film makers who might want to make videos etc. You can contact me here januarysongs2011@gmail.com On this page I hope to post the songs, a daily blog, videos, drawings and photos. Wish me luck.

Albums of the Year 2010 - Techno/House/Dubstep/Minimal/UK Funky

2010-12-27T14:47:00.000-08:00

I like my house, it's simple but it's nice, I like House, it's probably the best thing there is on TV, with the exception of the first twenty or so episodes of Lost, but House music, well i've never been sure. All those half spoken samples, it never did anything for me. There was a time, many many years back when i hated "dance" music, and whereas it's impossible to define a sound as simply as dance, i basically mean club music, I hated it, my sister hated it, Mike Roberts hated it and quite possibly his brother John Roberts, which is strange because John Roberts, the artist is one of the ones that has helped me finally understand the genre, EL-P also who's beat heavy wereallgoingtoburninhellmixxx from earlier in the year helped me finally understand Dubstep, though still not Burial.

I'm not even going to try and put these in order or even explain how they sound, the soundclips should take care of that, but these are some of the most essential beats i've experienced this year. This encompasses Techno, Dubstep, Electronica, Beats and House...i think oh and something called UK Funky.

**for soundclips and generally best view, read direct from website rather than rss feed.

Various Artists - Soul Jazz Presents Riddim Box (Excursions in the UK Funky Underground) Buy

Soul Jazz, seems like a label to pay attention to, not only do the have the most awesome artwork but seem capable of putting together really quite incredible compilations, not content with already supplying us with the amazing Future Bass compilation featuring some of the most interesting Dubstep artist i've come across (Mala, Untold, Coki, Randomer) Here we're treated to 21 tracks from the UK Funky underground, a fine collection indeed.

Boomkat: Soul Jazz set their sights on the morphing parameters of UK Funky with a cherry-picked, 21-track double disc compilation. While they've touched on the topic with the Future Bass and Box Of Dub sets, this one is essentially a "Best Of" UKF, locking off stone cold heavyweights from Kode 9, Lil' Silva, Grievous Angel, Crazy Cousinz, DVA, Ill Blu, Roska, MJ Cole, and Altered Natives, among others. The style has emerged as a clearly defined sound in the East London underground over the last couple of years, tying up strands of Bashment House, Soca, Garage, Grime, and European party Techno into a colourful weave of rhythms and patterns sharing the 120-135bpm bracket. The relatively loose set of criteria for Funky tracks have set up the sound as a mongrel cousin to an oft-homogenised Dubstep scene, and provided new options for DJs and dancers tired of halfstep torpor and looking to up their groove quota. The instantly infectious arrangements of scene standards like Hardhouse Banton's 'Sirens' and the NB Funky's 'Riddim Box' (which supplied this comp with its title) laid the template for a sound constantly in flux between junglist propulsion and feminine pressure, which has since been exported to all corners of the floor with fusions like Kode 9's proggy 'Black Sun', the Tech-House ruffige of Radio Slave's 'Blaze 'N' Cook' remix and Roska or DVA's technoid tribalist riddims. This is probably one of the best places for Funky noobs to practice their dutty wine, and even for the "heads", there's some under-the-radar goodies you really ought to get familiar with. TIP!

Various Artists - Night Slugs Allstars Volume 1 (Night Slugs) Buy

This is non stop, absolutely essential, Lil Silva, Jam City and Girl Unit who's incredible "Wut" closes a killer set, one of my favourite tracks of the whole year.

Boomkat: In UK club music 2010 was the year of the Night Slugs. To celebrate this fact, they round up 13 prime cuts for their 1st CD release, including exclusives and VIP versions from their top boys and showcasing the most virile memes of Teched-out Funky, Jacked-up R&B and Electroid Bass music. On an upfront and exclusive tip, there's a ramped-up VIP mix of Mosca's awesome 'Square One', next to Jam City's all-new and stupidly effective 'Arpjam' plus the shocking force of an L-Vis 1990 & T. Williams hookup entitled 'Stand Up', all created especially for this comp. You may also notice a few newish names, introducing the likes of Ikonika's buddy Optimum on the fluttering, tranced-out Funky riffs of 'Broken Embrace' and the lazer-soul House of Montreal's Jacques Greene with '(Baby I Don't Know) What You Want'. Still fresh out the box, Girl Unit's outstanding 'Wut' anthem makes a bold appearance next to Kingdom's athletic Ballroom banger 'Bust Broke' and there's still no f**king with Lil Silva's 'Seasons', possibly the label's canniest A&R move. Factor in Bok Bok's remix of another megatonne bomb 'IRL', the sweetened synth licks of Velour's 'Booty Slammer' (now outed as the work of Hyetal and Julio Bashmore), and the warped electro-heat of Egyptrixx and Cubic Zirconia, and you know what the outcome is... ESSENTIAL.

Various Artists - Scientist Launches Dubstep into Outer Space! Buy
Even if your not interested in the remixes, the original tracks on disc one are a superb introduction to Dubstep. Another fantastic mix.

Boomkat: The long awaited and much debated Scientist mixes of exclusive dubstep material from the likes of Pinch, Kode 9, Mala and Shackleton finally lands for all Sound System crew. It's undoubtedly Tectonic's most ambitious project to date, some 12 months in the echo chamber spent duppying contemporary material until it heaves and breathes courtesy of masterful mixing board trickery. The man at the controls ranks among the finest Dub engineers ever to grace a desk, and although his prime period was nearly 30 years ago he's still got an innate sensitivity to the subtleties of fluctuating reverb/echo/delay combinations and the transient spaces they're capable of creating. With this in mind the original tracks are rendered as hallucinatory images of their former selves, spatial dimensions warped and surfaces refracted until they feel overgrown and listening to them is like peering into an alien forest, becoming both unpredictable and almost unstable. A project of this kind is pretty much unprecedented in Dubstep and deserves your attention forthwith.

Digital Mystikz - Urban Ethics (Digital Mystikz) Buy

Whereas the still excellent Return II Space from earlier this year was mainly Mala based material, here Coki takes control and all you have to do is wait a whole 57 seconds before you get what your waiting for, one of my favourite discoveries this year.

Boomkat: Coki's loooong-awaited counterweight to Mala's astral 'Return II Space' LP finally lands on super heavy 3LP gatefold vinyl!!! As the other half of Digital Mystikz, Coki can rightly claim status as one of the most influential figures in modern UK dance music, providing the necessary gutterisms to balance Mala's meditative, rooted ethos. It's probably fair to say that Coki's tracks have yielded a great influence on the dubstep scene with pivotal tracks like the proto-wobbler 'Spongebob', dreadnaught 'Tortured' and the crossover anthem 'Night', produced with Benga, tracks which created a fairly clear dichotomy within the style between wheeling, populist rave and "deep" heads-down steppers to anyone bothered enough to consider such things. He basically specialises in making the sort of marmite tracks which will send you nucking futty either way you look at it. 'Urban Ethics' is armed with seven cuts, three of which would fall squarely into the rave-wounding category. In the opening 'Shock It', the threatening darkcore killer 'Robotnik' and the self-explanatory 'Animal' you'll find what you were most likely looking for; fierce, rave-guaranteed burial tunes as potent as the the nastiest '94 Bizzy B tracks, but boiled down to a crack-like 2010 hit. The others, 'Old Hope', 'Intergalactic' and 'It' are all tidy digi-dub numbers, but lets face it, they're not gonna make you skank out like the rest, are they? Well recommended for all dubstep soundbwoys!

ASC - Nothing Is Certain Buy

Boomkat: After 10 years of impressive releases for Offshore, Good Looking and Covert Operations, ASC drops his new album on Instra:mental's excellent Nonplus Records. With 'Nothing Is Certain' he's created a defining moment for the Autonomic canon, focussed on glowing, far-eastern electro-referencing melodies and agile modern tech-step programming. 'Matter Of Time' sets his agenda with exceptional production values before swinging into the lush but fractured minimalism of 'Opus' and taking a moment for reflection on the beatless 'Conversations'. 'Microsia' and 'The Depths' are tricker half-timed beat experiments and there's even a stab at slow swung electro-house in 'Textura'. Back in 180bpm mode 'Losing You' and 'The Ubiquity Incident' shift back into steppers gear with impressively widescreen results. ASC is in sophisticated form and should be checked by any fans of DBridge, Instra:mental, Sabre etc. Recommended.

EL-P - Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3 Buy
Despite an off putting first track or so this mix really picks up the pace quickly and peeks between tracks 7 &9 which are simply excellence after excellence, maybe topped only by the incredible closing track Eat my Garbage 2, 8 minutes plus of dubby drums and filthy synth stabs. A musical trip well worth investing your time in.
Boomkat: Continuing the tradition of 1998's 'Little Johnny From The Hospital' and the more recent 'Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx2', El-P serves 15 diverse instrumentals for Def Jux. He largely shuns samples for this LP, instead favouring a powerfully synth and drum driven excursion with fragments of electro wired with a heavy rock vibe.

Ernesto Ferreyra - El Paraiso De Las Tortugas Buy

Boomkat: Following a series of well received 12" singles, Cadenza present the debut LP from Ernesto Ferreyra. Having lived in places as diverse as Ibiza and Berlin, the influence of the house and techno scenes in these cities stretches across these tracks with reassuring subtlety. Delicate changes in melody and percussion snake around the kickdrums while a stream of warm pads flows over and under the mix to generate a powerful upbeat feeling throughout. A dubby low-end pulse drives the music with ease while the high end creates the sort of energy guaranteed to keep your feet moving all night. Even on the album's darker moments (on cuts like Back Pain) there is still a lightness of touch that keeps you engaged without neglecting the high levels of production on show. The album ends with a selection of powerful house cuts of the Panorama bar variety, completing one of the more interesting minimal records of the year. Mastered by Rashad at D&M in Berlin, 'El Paraiso De Las Tortugas ' is a guaranteed party starter, honed for maximum dancefloor effectiveness.

Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner Buy
Boomkat: The highly anticipated debut album from Gold Panda (discounting the Japan-only collection of singles!). Ever since his 'Miyamae' 12" dropped on Various Production's label last year, it was obvious Gold Panda was one to watch. Since then he's had a clutch of warmly received singles for Make Mine and Ghostly International besides a stream of remixes for everyone from Health to The Field, each painting a more detailed and involving portrait of a distinctly lovely artist with a penchant for sweetly exotic melodies and crafty electronic composition. His beautiful recent single 'You' aside, there are ten tracks of brand new material, ranging from the dusted sunrise techno figure of 'Vanilla Minus', through the trickling melodic cadence of 'Same Dream China', and the ecstatic throb of 'Snow & Taxis', maintaining a thread of tenderly blissed emotions which make 'Marriage' and the pastoral pulses of 'I'm With You But I'm Lonely' so unforgettably nice. fans of Lusine, The Field, CFCF, Four Tet or Caribou should book in some quality time with Gold Panda.

Teebs - Arduor (Brainfeeder) Buy

Boomkat: Teebs' debut drops sweet and heavy on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label, following the excellent Lorn album with a more lushed-out and hazy experience. As his recent single and A-side for All City's LA series proved, this man's got his own distinct style of MPC chops, generally less frantic than Flylo's and cleaner than Ras G's, defined by smooth, cushioned surfaces and the warm glow of his synthesizer textures. However he does share their attention span, giving eighteen finely sculpted vignettes from the most liminal, dreamy headspace, mostly hovering around the three minute mark. The previous single featured three of the album's best tracks, the sparkling centre-piece 'Arthur's Birds', the tingle and bump of 'Bern Rhythm', and the melancholy ''Why Like This?', but the goodness certainly doesn't stop there... 'While You Doooo' shakes out a sun-crisped Bossa Nova syncopation with shimmering harps and the sublime 'Wind Loop' could almost be a hazy adjunct to the Tri Angle sound of Balam Acab and co. His drowsy compressions on 'Felt Tip' provide one of the most blissed out and dreamy states, and the Carlos Niño comparisons come full circle in his gorgeous collab with Gaby Hernandez on 'Long Distance'. The combination of meditative calm and richness of the production elevate this album well above the crowd and mean it should make a lasting impression.

Harmonious Thelonious - Talking Buy
Noisy, tribal and at times reminding me of Vitalics ability to control his audience, brainwashing them with mind controlling beat after beat.

Boomkat: Harmonious Thelonious is an alter ego of the prolific Stefan Schwander aka Antonelli Electr, Rhythm Maker and Repeat Orchestra. Following two under-the-radar 12"s for Dreck and Diskant he's bloomed his Afro-infatuated Harmonious Thelonious project into a full blown album, brimming with dense and noisy electro textures and sumptuous rhythmic syncopation. It essentially imagines what Konono No.1 could sound like if they were a studio project from Düsseldorf, borrowing heavily from the lilting timbre of their likembe melodies and bolstering them with ruffly scrawled effects and augmented with a steadier, techno compatible propulsion. As the title infers 'Entranced' is an hypnotic display of slipping loops and bustling, frictional textures creating a undeniably kinetic charge akin to The Field jamming Kasai Allstars, while 'Tautological Speakers' bristles with distorted electronics and gorgeously glassy tones over shuffling machine beats from Jamal Moss's most battered Rolands. The four tracks from his Diskant 12" also make an appearance, including the awesome 'Primitive, Persuasive, Provocative Percussion' which almost sounds like Female going full tilt for a Congolese ceremonial ritual. Rugged, raw and heavy stuff, just how we like it.

Mount Kimbie - Crooks and Lovers Buy
Just lovely. James Blakes solo project was not the only thing worth talking about this year.

Boomkat: With two EPs and a handful of remixes, Mount Kimbie have opened a portal into the world of post-dubstep, electronic fusion soundscaping. 'Crooks & Lovers' is their much anticipated debut album, an assured statement comprised of crafty complexities and coherently juxtaposed angles making use of the freedom from any immediate dancefloor demands. With their releases landing on HotFlush and their inclusion in the catch-all net of dubstep, you'd be forgiven for thinking they're a purely dancefloor act but there's many more elements at play within Mount Kimbie that we've always felt would better lend them to the album format. The shards of acoustic guitars, crying-on-the-dancefloor vocals and jazz arrangements woven into their singles are given more time to develop here, from the vocal glossolalia of 'Adriatic', sounding like an XX experiment recorded on a 10th storey balcony, to the woozy underwater accordian and nautical atmospherics of 'Ode To Bear' or the Bohren And Der Club Of Gore-style dark jazz closer 'Between Time', indulging their esoteric inclinations with finesse. That's certainly not to say that they've forgetten the groove entirely. It's still a central feature of their sound, just largely slowed to a more sedate, hazy pace. The heavy compressed head-swing of 'Would Know' sounds like Actress stepping off with James Blake (who frequently works closely with the duo), and 'Blind Night Errand' programmes Bretschneider-esque digital minimalism spliced with an East London flex in line with Spatial productions. They're at their best when all the elements mesh together, with idiosyncratic chord arrangements, effervescent R'n'B vibes and clinical rhythm structures of 'Carbonated' or the morphing BC-to-Balearia of 'Field' and the twitchy soul of 'Mayor'. 'Crooks & Lovers' is a deeply enjoyable album with a broad appeal to lovers of pop savvy, technically aware and original electronic music. A Must.

Marcel Dettman - Dettman (OSTGUT Ton) Buy
Relentless.

Boomkat: Berlin's techno figurehead launches his highly anticipated debut album for Ostgut Ton. Ever since his deadly MDR001 release, Marcel Dettmann has become a name to keep a close eye on within techno/house circles and beyond. We remember hearing that early transmission during a deluge of classic dubstep tracks and tepid techno minimalism in 2006 and were simply astounded at how much his music stood out from the crowd. His sound concentrates the physicality and dark drive of Industrial/EBM techno or efficient Dubstep into sleek arrangements reminding of Rob Hood or the grey scapes and shapes of Sleeparchive, a typically dry and functional style that's cast a shadow of influence over large parts of the techno community. 'Dettmann' is his note from the edge of the current dancefloor, a dryly observed comment of drowning techno, strafing dub-tech and slowly oxidised atmospheric tones that's about as thrilling as an asphyxiwank in the darkrooms. His set unfurls at a well judged clip, from expansive beatless intro and the garage techno subduction of 'Argon' we're plunged into Vainio-esque bleepism on 'Screen' and steered through frozen jackers like 'Drawing', the Basic Channel-debted sub-throb of 'Reticle' and the folded flex of 'Irritant'. As the sweat begins to dry in the closing stages the relentlessly push of 'Silex' starts to smirk at your under-exercised cardiovascular system, while the sit-down and space-out moment of 'Home' signals that you should be heading off before 'Viscous' demands that you stick around for one more, kicking out salted bass vibes and monotone melodics to keep you pounding the same spot you've been on for the last 12 hours. If that sounds like your idea of fun, this is a must.

Honourable mentions to:

Four Tet - There Is Love in You Buy
Luke Abbott - Holkham Drones Buy
Shed - The Traveller Buy
Various Artists - Funf Buy
Various Artists - Soul Jazz presents Future Bass Buy

An amazing year, just too many great albums to mention.

Albums of the Year 2010 - Ambient/Experimental/Drone

2010-12-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

Although 2010 hasn't been quite the same with regard to the amount of critically acclaimed ambiance and experimentalism, it has produced some incredible releases. To be fair the genre has mostly been explored inside out, nowadays it's less about incredible new sounds as it is about what you do with them. There has however been no shortage of great releases this time round and an abundance that I've just not had chance to listen to, for instance the Audio Gourmet net label collection and Resting Bells constant output.

Hopefully you'll discover something new from the below, happy droning.

1. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love Is A Stream (Type)Buy
A beautiful mess of static waves, magical and strangely beautiful. An album that finally gave this man's solo pursuits the attention they have long since deserved.

Boomkat:
Best known as a founding member of Tarentel and The Alps, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma returns with a brand new album for Type having previously released solo material through Spekk, Arbor and his own label, Root Strata. "Love Is A Stream" marks a radical rethink of the classic dream-pop template, taking an impressionist's brush to the established genre traits. Full of noise and expertly sculpted feedback, tracks such as 'Loving Love' feel like an all-analogue take on Fennesz's noisier moments, complete with hazy exchanges between skyscraping major 7th chords; you might equally suggest that Love Is A Stream goes some way towards joining the dots between My Bloody Valentine and more recent drone-pop scene leaders such as Tim Hecker and Grouper. Although the dominant component parts of this sound seem to spring from the fiery embers of molten synthesizers and tape saturated guitar tones, the album derives some of its luxurious textural presence from vocals supplied by the likes of Type boss John 'Xela' Twells, Lisa McGee and Maxwell August Croy. You can just about make out lost voices roaming around the pulverised mix of 'Stained Glass Body' and the billowing 'River Like Spine' (though it's fairly hard to make any single element out, given how melted and fluid the mixing is), bringing a frail human element to an album that otherwise sounds entirely not of this Earth. Beautiful music.

2. The Fun Years - God Was Like, No (Barge) Buy
All too many bands have failed to follow up killer albums, and due to my own imperfections I almost always overly build up my anticipation of any new album from a band that I love as much as the Fun Years.

With God Was Like, No, The Fun Years did not disappoint. Nothing was too new but their own brand of gentle ambience mixed with the soft crackle of static is near enough perfect to reaffirm the old statement, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Boomkat: *Long-awaited new album from this amazing project, sounding somewhere between Ben Frost, Tim Hecker, Philip Jeck and Fennesz* The Fun Years are responsible for one of our favourite records of the last few years, the magical 'Baby, It's Cold Inside'. This is the much anticipated follow-up, delivering their first new material since an inclusion on Kompakt's Pop Ambient series. Arguably, it's their finest work, evolving the grainy loops and organically constructed drones into a living, breathing mass of intangible yet deeply affecting emotions set somewhere between the majestic blur of Philip Jeck's classical loops and Mogwai's widescreen post-rock, without really sounding like either. After a string of intense recording sessions and road testing the material in odd locations like an air traffic control tower and the guts of a Richard Serra sculpture, 'God was like, No' was finalised, resulting in eight tracks which bend light and sound with a gorgeously tactile and almost kinaesthetic quality. This is best heard on the first side of shorter drone-pop experiments, five tracks which glow and fizz with a matt luminescence, constantly realigning your depth perception as serene layers of synth drone hover in and out of focus, fluttering and disintegrating around blissed, infinite guitar loops not dissimilar to Fennesz's work on 'Endless Summer'. Once we've snapped out of the trance, the other side introduces an altered palette of shapes with a more tensile, frictional relationship. From the subtly dense crescendo of crackle and foreboding gongs in 'And They Think My Name Is Dequan', 'Get Out Of The Obese Crowd' sinks fathoms deep into gruffly distorted textures and stays there until the tidal waves of cathartic ambient noise in 'Precious Persecution Complex' gradually subside. And breathe. If you love feeling shored up and dazed at the end of an album, this one is an absolute must.

3. Eleh - Location Momentum (Touch) Buy
At times no more than the hum of machinery left on standby, yet strangely fascinating, less was certainly more for the majority of this album. It carried the same kind of ability as Phill Niblock or Saito Koji of being able to evolve very slowly and yet never lose the listeners interest.

Boomkat: *The long awaited Touch debut from Eleh - one of the most fascinating and mysterious projects in contemporary electronic music* Ever since we heard our first Eleh record back in 2006 we've been completely blown away by the precise architecture and conceptual realisation of one of the more mysterious recording projects in electronic music. A succession of eleven vinyl-only releases on Important and Taiga followed, marking the enigmatic figure behind the name as a purveyor of exceptional drone music, exploring analog synthesis with a particular emphasis on the physicality of sound from the very lowest registers of the frequency spectrum. 'Location Momentum' is the first time Eleh's music has become available on a digital format, giving Touch the honour of releasing five long, deeply immersive tracks. The patient development and concentration of resonant acoustic phenomenae on the 20 minute opener 'Heleneleh' leaves us breathing slowly and feeling as though our atoms are about to disintegrate like a sandsculpture built on a bassbin. The overlapping drones hit critical frequencies, creating tactile synaesthetic sensations akin to some religious/narcotic experience. The cathedral-set reverbs of 'Circle One' further enhance the worship/trip, something we recommend experiencing on a good set of speakers as opposed to headphone for maximum effect (apparently you're supposed to be 7 feet away from the sound source), putting us into a drowsy, maleable state, but still acutely aware of an immense and insistent presence in control of our senses. By the time you're onto slow subduction of 'Observation Wheel' expect blurred vision and possibly speaking in tongues as par for the course. Finally we're left open mouthed and drooling at the measured and ultra-precise control of 'Rotational Change For Windmill', gradually lowering the pure, unadorned bass tones into a vacuum of abyssal nether regions, enveloping all other tones until we're in the presence of a mass of tangible air movements, at one with a properly arcane vibe. If the music of Eliane Radigue, La Monte Young or Kevin Drumm has affected your life, this album comes very highly recommended. *WARNING* Do not listen to this album while using heavy machinery or operating a vehicle!

4. Counterspark - The Halpern Experiment (Resting Bell) download
In a year when my drone/experimental needs were mostly spent in anticipation of the release of the latest album by The Fun Years, which seemed to be put back month after month, Counterspark did a more than admirable job in catering for my needs with an album, a free one at that of sublime, warm and welcoming drones, not a million miles from The Fun Years, that begged to be listened to on headphones and played again and again.

5. Frank Bretschneider - EXP (Raster Noton) Buy
A new name to me but one I won't be forgetting in a hurry. Delightful miniatures of clicks, beats and sine waves. This won't be to everyone's taste, the songs are songs within songs but from 1:50 of "mass, blue: aluminate, ventilator" through to the end of "Lightweight, Satellite" four songs later, it simply went from strength to strength.

If you even remotely like this then you will absolutely adore his better still 2007 album rhythm.

Boomkat: Raster Noton's rhythmic auteur, Frank Bretschneider, presents his first album in three years, a "music-visual project based on the idea that fine art should attain the abstract purity of music". 'EXP' is an attempt to assimilate the qualities of music, namely rhythm, movement, tempo, mood, intensity and compositional structure within the visual aspect. The music for the project is arranged from an array of generated and selected waveforms sourced from pure electricity, magnetism, light and other radiation. These sounds inform the visual animations, paralleling their changes in frequency, intensity and shape, attempting to exactly reproduce the audible occurences. Of course, that's pretty hard to grasp without seeing the animation so we'll just concentrate on the music. The album is divided between 35 tracks, each ranging between 13 seconds and nearly 3 minutes. Living up to his reputation as a master digital craftsman, Bretschneider uses his abilities to sculpt cochlea engulfing bass tones and ultra-visceral hi's, occasinally arriving at moments where he creates the illusion of 3D electro-acoustic environments with spectacular depth perceptions. Between these hyperreal scapes and his avant B-boy beats this is a special album that should warrant repeat listens for those who really want to explore every nook and cranny of his artificial spaces. Very highly recommended.

6. Taylor Deupree - Snow (Dusk, Dawn) (12k) Buy
I'm still waiting for his long player Shoals, also from this year, to sink in. However the preceding single track to the album, Snow (Dusk, Dawn) was an instant hit, maybe bettering my favourite Deupree moment to date, that being Weather and Worn. 16 minutes of snow falling, crackling ambient elegance that was not a second too long.

Boomkat: "Transience, ephemerality. There is beauty in things that don't last. Taylor Deupree's Snow (Dusk, Dawn), a multimedia project incorporating sound and photography, is based around 63 photographs taken with expired polaroid film. This particular film produces images cast with other-worldly blueish hues and almost immediately begin to fade; losing color, to deep browns, and then finally, within 24 hours after being shot, to complete black. Deupree's work is often inspired by nature, particularly the winterscapes near his home and studio in rural New York. With the polaroid film in hand, which he knew would capture only a fleeting image, he shot images during the first heavy snowfall of the winter of 2009, at dusk, in the setting sun; nothing was to last, the snow, the image, the day. The next morning, barely at sunrise, he set out again to finish the film, in a dawn that wasn't going to last. As quickly as he could, following each photo session, Deupree scanned the polaroid prints, capturing the first white snow in ghostly blue before the pictures faded to black. Each of these scanned images is printed and displayed next to its original, black polaroid counterpart in the package along with the cd. Each copy of this edition of 63 is thus rendered unique, each with a different print and polaroid. For the music portion of the project there is also contrast, transience, and decay. A fragile melodic loop, distressed by surface noise, struggles to keep its repetitive flow over a quiet and languid 18 minutes as it subtly, but constantly, loses ground and eventually becomes fragmented and falls away amongst the elements that surrounded it. Snow (Dusk, Dawn) captures the essence of what much of deupree's work is about: imperfection, time, and memory. He uses both high- and low-tech means of creating rich works that scrape away at the surface of digital sterility. Avoiding the con- trolled manipulation offered by computers he prefers natural and unpredictable processes to add depth and texture to this work. Outdated film, cheap cameras, dust and leaking light effect his photographs while guitars, found percussion, old analog synthesizers and recordings of falling snow provide the soundtrack to a moment in time that comes and goes like dawn".

7. Eluvium - Static Nocturne (Watership Sounds)
mp3 excerpt
Stream the full track at Bandcamp
I rarely have the patience to sit through a single track that clocks in at almost hour, even albums that last that long rarely capture my attention for their entire length, but then it a rare case that the quality is this high. I'd long since been a fan of Eluviums crisp piano opuses that I'd pretty much ignored his more experimental side, that being until I discovered Zerthis earlier this year. Static Nocturne takes a similar approach, as the title would suggest an instrumental compostion, dreamy and pensive in sound and full to the brim with wonderful wonderful static.

8. ibreathefur - Every Day You Look Different (Under The Spire)
The Under The Spire lable seemed to take a back seat this year, or at least avoid the limelight it was given upon its launch in 2009, still the continued to fire out some great, sadly for th most case critically ignored, records.

The pick of the bunch was ibreathefur's Every Day You Look Different. Four songs of crunchy ambience and decay that were neither too long nor too short, basically, just right. Certainly an artist capable worth keeping an eye on.

Boomkat: Ibreathefur is the project name of Chris Spearman, here delivering a work full of tension and dynamics, one minute pummelling you with harsh electronic noise the next soothing you with calm and fuzzy drones. A maelstrom of electronic noise hits you as this lovely 4-tracker opens, bringing to mind the more glacial sheets of noise Tim Hecker has perfected over the years. 'Nylon Light Bleed', quietens down with a manipulated acoustic guitar that falls back into a swirling hiss over mellow drones. The EP finishes with beautiful field recordings, rounding off a lovely release from this interesting new artist.

9. Roll The Dice - Roll The Dice Buy
Whilst everyone got excited about Emeralds new sound and Oneohtrix Point Nevers never ending list of releases, dropping the word "Kosmiche" into every sentence, very few bands of such a trend really impressed me. Maybe the aforementioned artists albums will hit me next year like Jacaszek's Treny took a long long time to register.

I was however completely won over by the collaboration of Swedes Peder Mannerfelt and Malcolm Pardon, namely Roll the Dice, from the opening Arpeggios of The New Black, it was evident that their sound was filled with nostalgia and this is something that they delivered with great expertise. Axee and the aforementioned The New Black stand out.

Boomkat: *Massively anticipated release of this mysterious Fever Ray related project for fans of John Carpenter, Emeralds, Cluster, Afx - on a strictly limited vinyl pressing* Roll The Dice is a very special collaboration between two Swedish studio boffins, Peder Mannerfelt and Malcolm Pardon. The keener eyed among you will recognise Mannerfelt from his involvement with the stunning Fever Ray project, while Pardon is known for his work as a behind-the-scenes producer of music for film and TV. They've shared a studio in southern Stockholm for several years so it only seemed logical to combine their passions for analog electronic music beyond the odd techno track they'd been known to make. So the decision to construct an album using only synths and piano was made, resulting in a semi-improvised opus that ranks alongside recent releases by Emeralds and strongly harks back to the minimal expressions of later Roedelius or the intuitive drama of John Carpenter. A working method was established where the duo would enter the studio with no pro-conceived ideas, inspiring a freeform aesthetic which found structure in repetition and understated progression, sometimes blooming like a spiritual Arvo Pärt composition, as with 'After', or at times conducting their feelings via Basic Channel styled metallic bass throbs reflecting chromatic synth patterns as vividly cinematic as the northern lights, namely with 'Swing'. The absence of drum machines and computer sequencing means that the duo rely on innate precision, guided by the same sort of kosmiche spirit that made Cluster's heavenly transportations so spectacular, and which they manage to parallel in the majestic ascent of hypnotic piano and subtly swelling synths on 'Undertow'. Giving a final shape to the product, the project was finished on the legendary API desk of Gröndal studios in west Stockholm, the desk of choice for Timbaland outside of the US, giving a hallucinatory hi-end gleam to their widescreen vision. Essential Purchase!

10.

10. BvDub - The Art of Dying Alone Buy
BvDub cemented his place in my heart last year topping my album of the year charts with both We Were The Sun and the much underrated A Prayer to False Gods.

This years not so positively entitled The Art of Dying Alone only served to further strengthen the already sturdy foundations. Nothing massively new except perhaps the more prominent presence of fragments of wordless vocals, particularly on the beautiful 19 minutes that are the closing eponymous track. A prime example of how beauty can be strectched out into near perfection. Truly Epic.

Boomkat: Returning with his Bvdub project, San Francisco's Brock Van Wey presents his cheerily titled new album, The Art Of Dying Alone. Previously seen on Kompakt's Pop Ambient 2010 compilation, Van Wey capitalises on this growing momentum by delivering what's almost certainly his finest hour to date. The album is a shining example of its genre, an astutely constructed flow of of ambience and introspection that navigates considerable depths. With a bucketful of heavy-headed melancholy, 'Descent To The End' sets you on your way, immediately plunging you deeply into Van Wey's verdant, multi-layered musical idiom. As has previously been the case, some of the more obvious points of reference would include the likes of Gas and more recent artists in the field of flotation tank techno, such as The Sight Below. However, the almost song-like tendencies of the record unshackle the Bvdub sound from its genre forebears to some extent, as demonstrated by 'No One Will Ever Find You': an oceanic swell of female vocals, acoustic guitars and endless, frothing synth-strings - the founding ingredients for much of what's to come over the course of this album. The immense twenty-one minuter, 'To Finally Forget It All' stands out too, allowing a clicking downtempo beat to infiltrate Van Wey's luscious soundscape and line his quilt of looped guitar harmonics and misted-over choral textures with a pulsing rhythmic component. As ambient music goes, the all-round epic sonic effulgence of The Art Of Dying Alone is unusually brash, and the adherence to a specific set of sounds further imbues the album with its own specific identity within the field. Grand stuff that followers of the Pop Ambient school won't want to miss.

11.

Find more artists like Infinite Body at Myspace Music

Find more artists like infinite body at Myspace Music

11. Infinite Body - Carve Out The Face Of My God (Post Present Medium)Buy
Strangely popular amongst the more trendy experimentals, your Skaters, Ducktails crowd etc. A lovely album awash with waves of synthetic drones that dramatically fade in and out of focus.

12.

12. Segue - We Learn to Forget (Under The Spire)
It kind of does what it says on the tin really, it's Under The Spire, it's quality minimal drone ambience, you should need no further encouragement to go check it out.

Boomkat: Segue is the solo project of Jordan Sauber from Vancouver. He blends guitar with found sounds and field recordings for a series of minimal drones perfectly matched with Under The Spires homespun aesthetic.

13.

13. Seaworthy & Matt Rösner - Two Lakes (12k)Buy
A nature record of types, beautiful sounds of moving water and forest sounds, the kind of beauty we've come to expect from the excellent 12k label.

Boomkat: A brilliant new collaboration from two of Australia's leading electroacoustic practitioners, Two Lakes finds Seaworthy's Cameron Webb joining forces with Matt Rösner for an album based upon the sounds of the coastal ecosystems of Lakes Meroo and Termeil in New South Wales. The duo set about collecting detailed location recordings of the various lakeside habitats and environments, capturing sound from forest regions, streams and beaches at different times of day. Hydrophones as well as more conventional mics were used to document the natural sonic activity, and the two musicians even found some time to set-up a studio in a nearby cabin so as to lay down improvised instrumental performances using acoustic and electric guitars, ukulele and electronics. Instrumental and environmental sounds are unified in the final mix, and the results never fail to be enthralling. That's not always the case with albums of this kind. It's all too easy for music like this to become a little wishy-washy - neither one thing nor the other - but Two Lakes feels like a very synergetic meeting of documentary field recording and instrumental performance. The tone of a piece such as 'Meroo Stream' far transcends the sort of pastoral tranquility you'd expect from such a project, and instead there's a real sense of solitude, and even... dampness permeating through the mix. Superbly recorded and beautiful on a surprisingly visceral level, Two Lakes comes very highly recommended indeed.

14.

14. Warmth Terminal - Getting Closer (Hibernate)
The Hibernate label continues to fight the Under the Spire label as my favourite hands on small independant experimental label. There were a number of great releases from them this year, probably the pick of the bunch being Warmth Terminal, minimal and simple in sound yet as the name quite aptly suggests, the gentle drones will warm your heart with their uncomplicated and undefiled clean tones.

Boomkat: Getting Closer is the debut release from UK-based ambient artist David Lancaster, who unveils his Warmth Terminal project with a collection of four melodic and accessible drone-based compositions, mastered by Ian Hawgood. Avoiding the customary sense of stasis hanging over these sorts of releases, Lancaster launches with 'On That Day', a quarter-hour work that swells through bright, sustaining passages of tonality whilst evolving through an unexpectedly tuneful, somehow aquatic sounding progression. On this opener, the presence of synth-string chords and a guiding bass presence sets Lancaster's sound apart from the dominant "micro" tendencies of the ambient genre. Serving up a shorter second piece, 'They Sat Down And Sighed Happily' (try to ignore the cloyingly twee title) is full of glowing major-key harmonics and a continuous field recording of what seems to be rainfall. It's all very pretty and highly musical, once again readily coming forward with a sense of melodic development nestled away at the heart of the drone. 'It's All Around Us' takes these notions of subtle, tuneful motions to a new extreme, installing a sense of time-lapse euphoria that probably has as much in common with a Robin Guthrie production as it does electronic drone music. Finally, 'See In Slow Motion' rounds off the album in similar style, drifting through nine minutes of icy, hypnotic waves.

15.

15. Minamo - Duree (12k)Buy
Another beautiful release from 12k, with artwork to match. Half remembered melodies that are delicatley held together in such a fragile manner that I can't help but think of the excellent Molly Berg and Stephen Vitiello collaboration of last year. Simple, almost childlike and equally as beautiful in it naive sounds.

Boomkat: Durée is named in tribute to French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson's writing on human conceptions of the relationship between duration and consciousness. Apparently Minamo are keen to align with Bergson's view that time is a continuous flow rather than a sequence of quantised, compartmentalised moments. Something like that. Hard to say how that really adds up when you consider that this is a CD that very specifically lasts 45min 11sec and is divided into 8 distinct tracks, but still, given the Japanese electroacoustic quartet's predilection for narrative-shirking freetime strands of improvised (though subsequently edited) music, you kind of see where they're coming from. These things tend to be best served without preamble, and purely as an exercise in cochlea-tickling processed loveliness this album is just gorgeous. Led by Fourcolor's Keiichi Sugimoto, the group uses a selection of instruments including guitars, percussion, bells, analogue synthesizer, harmonium and an unspecified Nintendo console as sound-mkaing devices. After committing a number of lengthy, off-the-cuff recording takes Minamo set about mixing, cutting and splicing together the album, although the digital post-production is apparently reduced down to a minimum, with far greater emphasis placed on the realtime use of effects pedals. Although Minamo's established sound remains largely in place, their renewed, organic approach lends Durée's compositions a more song-like feel than prior material you might have heard from this band. There's a wonderful sense of symbiosis to a piece like 'Help Ourselves' however, marrying plodding piano chords to bright, piercing strands of bitcrushed tones to great effect. Nothing too experimental going on here, but Durée is right up there at the pinnacle of Minamo's musical accomplishments and stands as a top notch example of pastoral, very beautiful electroacoustic soundscaping.

16.

16. James Blackshaw - All is Falling (Young Gods)Buy
Another beautiful album of musical intricacy from an artist that has made my end of year list for the last three years running. Many didn't show much love for this album, but in reality it's a logical progression from his early guitar heavy albums which i feel where a victim of their own success. Here the focus is more on the piano and the addition of further instruments, though the guitar still features heavily it is no longer the sole focus of our attention. Particularly the opening Part 1 and Parts 6, 7 & 8 are as beautiful as you'd expect from Mr Blackshaw.

Boomkat: Initially, it would seem as though the big story here is that 'All Is Falling' finds the much-revered acoustic guitarist setting his primary instrument aside in favour of various other outlets for his compositions. Indeed, Blackshaw adopts a very different sonic arsenal, and while a guitar is still a major component - this time it's plugged in. Blackshaw has gone electric. In actuality, this album isn't too much of a stretch from last year's delightful The Glass Bead Game, which found Blackshaw opening up his sound to include increasingly orchestral textures. Likewise, 'All Is Falling' features strings, woodwind, percussion (tuned and otherwise), and kicks off beautifully with an axe-free, piano-driven first part. The swirling keyboard phrases reveal a familiar agenda, as Blackshaw enticingly cycles his way through tumbling arpeggios in much the same way as he might on his acoustic 12-string. Part two marks the first indication of where Blackshaw's newly amplified sound might be headed, and the switch to electric guitar immediately raises comparisons to Ben Chasny in Six Organs Of Admittance, yet the tone of the pieces themselves avoids any psych-folk reference points, instead sounding overwhelmingly like a modern classical suite penned with the electric guitar in mind. The sixth piece in particular seems to reference Steve Reich-style repetitions, as underlined by a voice counting time throughout. There are some shatteringly lovely arrangements strewn across this record, with violin and cello parts complimenting Blackshaw's lead especially nicely; the twelve-minute seventh part puts these elements to best use, as the bowed elements shift from highly organised short, rhythmic phrases and Rachel's-esque post-rock into more abstract and dissonant territory, as underlined by an onslaught of sickly, detuning glissandos. Another firm-footed evolutionary step for this artist, 'All Is Falling' expands upon James Blackshaw's established oeuvre without deserting the compositional principles and instrumental fluency that made him such a compelling figure in the first place. Lovely.

17.
No Words (Land Of Decay) by WhenSkiesAreGrey

17. Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words - No Words
Strange name, beautiful sounds. The opening two tracks (of this three track tape) are both entitled No Words, the second is a masterstroke of beauty. Calling out like some distant relative of Zerthis the sound of sinking, pianos underwater, slowly descending to their demise, being sucked into a black vortex, extracting every last possible piece of beauty out before it's ultimate necrosis. Powerful stuff.

18.
Distance/ Skeletal/ Union by Marta Mist

18. Marta Mist - Distance/ Skeletal/ Union (Hibernate)
Another excellent release on Hibernate, just a single track this time but epic all the same. Twenty plus minutes that seem to pass with hardly the blink of an eye. Beautiful stuff.

19. Sean McCann - A Wind in Their Way (Monorail Trespassing)

Deleted Scenes: two frozen reverb-guitar blowers from sean mccann, closed out by a rather eno-esque piece that sounds like some gorecki, time-stretched, recorded to micro-cassette, then run through a holy stain pedal

20. Loscil - Endless Falls (Kranky) Buy
As brilliant as ever, the rainfall that accompanies the opening track only serves to make his work even more beautiful and essential. Fern and Robin was one of the dreamiest pieces of the year, there's a good chance that if you left this on repeat you may well never wish to wake back up. Soothing sounds.

Boomkat: One of Kranky's longest standing artists, Scott Morgan returns for a fifth album for the label, and it's quite superb, even by Loscil's already high standards. Regular Kranky followers will no doubt find themselves suitably bewitched, but this music's equally likely to appeal to followers of BJ Nilsen, Stephan Mathieu, Kyle Bobby Dunn and Celer. Endless Falls is bookended by recordings of rainfall, something which mirrors the droplet-obscured sleeve. This sort of imagery is a handy visual metaphor for ambient music of this variety: in the photograph a form of interference displaces the content of the picture as its true subject, and so it goes in Loscil's music. While Morgan's string sections and looping melodic gestures make up the fabric of these recordings it's the muffling and masking of them that draws the true beauty out of this music. 'Estuarine's minimal and plaintive piano phrases wouldn't be nearly so alluring were they not partially hidden away from you, and the stretched-out violins of the title track only function as beautifully as they do because they're cradled by a low, warm hum of filtered out, ambient sound matter. Rather than merely revelling in protracted linear drone exercises, Morgan latches his music to subtle rhythmic elements throughout the album, most prominently highlighted by 'Dub For Cascadia' - whose melancholy chord surges, crackling waves of static and contoured bass throbs sound like Stars Of The Lid playing along to something from the first three Pole albums. It's difficult to contemplate such a thing, but Endless Falls might be that rarest of things: an album whose best track is a spoken-word piece. In this case Destroyer's Daniel Bejar takes to the mic for the nine-minute closing piece. 'The Making Of Grief Point' is nine minutes of dramatically-charged, glitching, Biosphere-like drone, spun from downplayed neo-classical instrumentation and filtered loops, all accompanying Bejar's typically elliptical, digression-prone and fractured lyrics. Wonderful stuff throughout - highly recommended.

Albums of the Year - Pop Edition - Final

2010-12-27T04:15:00.000-08:00

And so there goes another year, billions of albums released, far too many ignored or at least neglected, and yet some really great albums have surfaced over the past twelve months.

The last three months in particular has seen me finally click with Dubstep and even House to some extent, a genre I never thought i'd get into.

Here we start with the most essential pop albums of the last year. i've narrowed it down to 18, if I was less tired I probably would've rounded it up to 20 and included Sleigh Bells Treats and the eighties-tastic That We Can Play by Games.

The majority of pop that i've fallen for this year has been deeply influenced by the sixties, girl groups especially, not a bad thing considering this was the golden decade for pop.

Hopefully you'll find something new and enjoyable. Enjoy 2011.

Click the reviews link for soundclips and the normal reviews, generally my own comments along with Boomkats plus tracks to stream.

	Artist	Album
1	Best Coast	Crazy For You	Buy	Review + Soundclips
2	Rangers	Suburban Tours	Buy	Review + Soundclips
3	Allo, Darlin'	Allo, Darlin'	Buy	Review + Soundclips
4	Anika	Anika	Buy	Review + Soundclips
5	Big Blood	Dead Songs	Buy	Review + Soundclips
6	The Like	The Like	Buy	Review + Soundclips
7	Magic Kids	Memphis	Buy	Review + Soundclips
8	Tennis	Baltimore - EP / South Carolina	Buy	Review + Soundclips
9	Beach House	Teen Dream	Buy	Review + Soundclips
10	Gigi	Maintenant	Buy	Review + Soundclips
11	Belle & Sebastian	Belle & Sebastian Write About Love	Buy	Review + Soundclips
12	The School	Loveless Unbeliever	Buy	Review + Soundclips
13	Chain and the Gang	(I've Got) Privilege 7"	Buy	Review + Soundclips
14	Cults	Adult Swim Singles Program	Buy	Review + Soundclips
15	CocoRosie	Grey Oceans	Buy	Review + Soundclips
16	Amiina	Over & Again	Buy	Review + Soundclips
17	Gonjasufi	Kowboyz&Indians / My Only Friend	Buy	Review + Soundclips
18	Scout Niblett	Calcination of Scout Niblett	Buy	Review + Soundclips

18. Scout Niblett - Calcination of Scout Niblett (Drag City)

2010-12-26T19:26:00.000-08:00

Although in many ways this wasn't a completely new album, a number of the tracks had surfaced in various guises, for instance the opening track and maybe instant standout track Just Do It was previously a B-Side to single Dinosaur Egg, other tracks featured as foreign bonus tracks on other albums. And yet this still remained a precious collection of songs from a very special girl. Capable of sounding sweet as an angel and then as dark black can get.

Many tracks stood out, for me personally the hectic dynamics of both Calcination and Cherry Cheek Bomb made them instant winners alongside the less obvious big muff infected boggy sound of Strip Me Pluto, the dank muddy sound of the guitar was a perfect compliment to her oh so perfect vocals.

I fear that i will never get bored of this girl. A live performance earlier this year only helped to reaffirm that. Certainly one of my proudest discoveries.

Find more artists like scout niblett at Myspace Music

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

17. Gonjasufi - Kowboyz & Indians (Warp)

2010-12-26T19:23:00.000-08:00

One of those incredible tracks, that probably isn't meant to be considered pop, yet its hugely Indian influenced backing was simply impossible to ignore, the lyrics too, so deadpan and straight to the point, "I'm turning your John Wayne into another John Doe/ I'm not your lone ranger I'm not your John Doe".

The album itself was strong, the track Sheep perhaps being even better than this, Ageing gloriously blues like in sound, like it had been ripped straight from an old 78, DedNd sounding like it was auditioning for a future Flora commercial, but nothing quite caught the immediacy and invention of this track.

Kowboyz&Indians / My Only Friend (BUY)

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

16. Amiina - Puzzle (Aminamusik)

2010-12-26T19:19:00.000-08:00

Another one of those bands who's sound fits in incredibly well with the snowy weather. Each note sounding like a drop of snow settling wherever it can find itself a home.

It's not quite grabbed me as much as Kurr did, arguably one of the prettiest albums ever, however it's still incredibly beautiful material. The singles stand out, particularly What Are Waiting For which features more actual vocal presence, as in actual words, than I believe I've previously ever heard. And whereas vocals on mainly instrumental bands tracks normally turns me right off, this is done so well that you could be forgiven for thinking that this was múm at their very best.

Púsl and Mambó twinkle like we've come to expect from Amiina, chiming away like your mothers music box and somehow always reminding me of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". In the Sun is pure antonym of its own name, icy and Icelandic in sound, with occasional approving glances expected from the likes of Vashti Bunyan and Efterklang if their wasn't so many of them or if simply major record labels did not exist.

Sicsak is darker and perhaps perfects the sound that I wished and that Textile Ranch once threatened to make on a consistent basis.

Go take a walk in the snow with this as your companion, you will not be disappointed.

Puzzle (Buy from Amazon)

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

15. CocoRosie - Grey Oceans (PIAS)

2010-12-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

With the exception of having moustaches and picking awful album artwork, in my eyes CocoRosie can do no wrong. Their twisted take on hip hop mixed with ancient folk and toy instruments is the kind of thing you should avoid like the plague and yet they pull it off so well. Over the years they've actually provided some of my favourite beats, simple but ridiculously catchy.

This is a more consistent album than The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, the good songs aren't quite as good, though that album had some exceptional moments, but there are no fillers, Lemonade, The Moon and the Cow standout with the opening triplet also being worthy of a mention.

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

14. Cults - Go Outside

2010-12-26T19:12:00.001-08:00

Over the last year or so, several bands have managed to recreate the magical sound of the sixties girl group/garage pop sound, the multiple vocalled harmony laden hand clapping, foot stomping, feel good, sing-a-long sound. I mean bands like Magic Kids, Strawberry Fair, Gigi, Fergus & Geronimo, The Cave Weddings, Stolen Hearts to name but a few. Add to that reliable list of pop loveliness the less than pop sounding named Cults.

13. Chain & The Gang - (I've Got) Privilege (K recs, 2010)

2010-12-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

Chain & The Gang - (I've Got) Privilege (K recs, 2010)

An awesome 7" single that clearly should've been a double A side, both songs ridiculously catchy in different ways, (I've Got) Privilege is a cocky, funky beast of a tune, played at half pace in the coolest manner ever.

Detroit Music is better still, stupidly fine garage which would fit perfectly on one of the Nuggets compilation and shows former Kindercore band the Agenda how it should have been done, definately one of the singles of the years and a track that i'll be playing again and again.

Chain and The Gang feature Ian Svenonius of Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, Weird War and Siesta records Dave Candy.

Find more artists like CHAIN & THE GANG at Myspace Music

12. The School - Loveless Unbeliever (Elefant)

2010-12-26T19:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why i ignored this for so long, but upon seeing that they were playing in Nottingham, i decided to dig it out and how thankful I am that I did. Formerly part of The Loves, The School continue repaying their debt to the sixties, less Velvet Underground, more girl group. So many great songs here, so polished and filled with all the handclaps and harmonies you could wish for.

Find more artists like The School at Myspace Music

11. Belle & Sebastian - Belle & Sebastian Write About Love (Rough Trade)

2010-12-26T19:07:00.000-08:00

You can make what you like of this, there are enough reviews around, enough obstinate opinions and enough people who can't get over the fact that Belle & Sebastian moved on from recording albums that were written in a week in a week, because that's what you would do if you had enough money thrown at you so as the boundaries of possibility no longer existed.

And if thats how you want to be, well, at least try Come On Sister, Write About Love, I'm Not Living in the Real World and The Ghost of Rockschool.

The polishing on the case was the three bonus tracks that surfaced through varying sources, the latter two, that being Suicide Girl and the jaunty Last Trip were perhaps my favourite tracks from this whole session.

And if nothing else take it as a consolation that at least Belle & Sebastian have treated us to yet another cosmetically beautiful looking album.

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

10. Gigi - Miantenant (Tomlab)

2010-12-26T19:04:00.000-08:00

Another fantastic pop album appearing seemingly out of nowhere, Gigi is the work of No Kids member and songwriter Nick Krgovich and fellow Vancouver-ite Colin Stewart, an allstar (well allstar in an indiepop kind of way) cast joins for guest vocals and suceed masterfully, despite the many voices, this still stands up as an album in its own right, rather than sounding like a compilation.

The tracks featuring Chorus stand out, sounding like a 60's girl group, full of feel good multi vocal harmonies, footstomps and handclaps. Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls does a lovely job of a boy feeling all to sorry for himself on the lavish Dreams of Romance. Rose Melberg sounds amazing as ever on another highlight, again wrapped up like a sixties hit never made. On One Woman Show Jooey Cook of the Pomegranetes sounds slightly out of tune and untrained in the brilliant and loving kind of way that Kimya Dawson does, a fantastic track with a great Aisler's Set-esque chorus.

This is just the tip of the iceburg, i've not even mentioned guest appearances by Owen Pallet, Dear Nora, Karl Blau and Mirah. A triumph in the art of perfect pop and the ability to recreate that sixties sound.

Find more artists like Gigi at Myspace Music

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

9. Beach House - Teen Dream (Bella Union)

2010-12-26T19:02:00.000-08:00

Etheral would be an understatement, dreamlike and majestic sounds filled this album making it a welcome companian whatever the weather, mood or time of day. Zebra, Used to Be and Norway set the standard for great music this year few songs managed to match up to both the brilliance but also the understated immediacy of each track, dynamics barely there instead songs that trotted along in third gear and never feeling the need to accelerate or drop the pace, like a long walk outside of the city, no distractions, just you and nature, simple and beautiful.

Find more artists like Beach House at Myspace Music

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

8. Tennis - Baltimore/ South Carolina EP's (Underwater Peoples)

2010-12-26T18:56:00.000-08:00

Tennis showed fantastic potential, you may argue that something in lost in the poor production of these tracks, i'd rather dwell on what they might be capable of next year if there given even something close to the opportunity Best Coast had and took, brilliant lo-fi girl fronted pop. Cape Dory is just wonderful.

Find more artists like Tennis at Myspace Music

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

7. Magic Kids - Memphis (True Panther)

2010-12-26T18:54:00.000-08:00

After already carving the name all over my indie pop loving heart with last years incredible "Hey Boy" single my expectations were left slightly short on initial listening, however given time the majority of the tracks here revealed themselves to be absolute pop gems. Admittedly "Hey Boy" and "Superball" which we'd already heard are still the best of the pick, the latter perhaps even being better than the former, still the closing trio of Sailin, Little Red Radio and Cry With Me Baby brought the album to an exceptional close, more smooth 60's in sound than the songs we'd heard before. A fantastic album that gets better with each listen.

Find more artists like MAGIC KIDS at Myspace Music

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

6. The Like - Release Me

2010-12-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

The Pierces hinted at this vengeful, messed up ex-girlfriend, post-split up blues sound on their album 13 Tales of Love and Revenge. The Like took that idea and perfected it, like the Shangri La's when they removed those rose tinted glasses and faced reality, the bitterness of being cheated on is a strong feeling and its presence is clear from the very beginning. "If i could smack some senses in to his senses/ then i might feel alright/ Cos i spent the weekend feeling all alone/ for that rat to come back home/ when all the while he was with somebody new/ now that i know, his hours are few/ Cause i just can't forgive and forget/ So when i'm through with him he will be wishing he was dead/ I know what he's been up to/ and i know that he's been untrue/ when i'm through with him he will be wishing he was dead"

The anger subsides at times but generally this is a fantastic anger fuelled heartbroken tale of unfulfilled love and the all the confusion that Best Coast translated so well, all in the guise of the Shangri La's discovering distortion and quirky keys. A quite brilliant tale of love and revenge.

Find more artists like The Like at Myspace Music

5. Big Blood - Dead Songs (Time Lag)

2010-12-26T18:51:00.000-08:00

Blessed with beautiful voices and the ability to write great songs, from the fuzzed out acid folk opener Dead Songs to one of the most beautiful non instrumental songs of the year, that being the closing track, The Archivist & The Archeologist, a heartbreaking tale of one whom find her soul mate only to find that he is family. Headstone 1974 all dosed up on effects, Curtain Call, remarkebly beautiful in its starkness, a truly great album that seemingly got better and better with each listen.

4. Anika - Anika (Invada)

2010-12-26T18:47:00.000-08:00

An extraordinarily succesful collaboration between Portishead and Beak>'s Geoff Barrow and German artist Anika. This is the sound of the sixties Girl Group given an almighty dub reworking. Her voice haunting and Nico like, the bass, deep and deeper still. Each song managing to stick in your mind and have you singing along despite the almost doomy feel. End of the World and No Ones There stand out amongst a very impressive collection.

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

3. Allo Darlin' - Allo Darlin' (Fortuna Pop!)

2010-12-26T18:21:00.000-08:00

Twee as can be and proud of it, not afraid to steal lyrics and even chrouses from already popular songs. Allo Darlin' had already charmed me beyond the point of return when I saw them support the lucksmiths on their final show ever, this album only served to establish and further my affection.

Charming, twee and seemlessly bridging the gap between Camera Obscura and Tender Trap. Responsible for some of the most danceable indie pop this year.

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

Find more artists like Allo Darlin’ at Myspace Music

2. Rangers - Suburban Tours (Olde English Spelling Bee)

2010-12-26T18:18:00.000-08:00

Dronea Dronea have been banging on about Forest Swords for a very long time, way before people slapped bizarre new genre's on their sound, whether that be "Chillwave" "Hypnagogic Pop" or "Glo Fi", the truth be told Forest Swords owe more to Burial that what I believe the aforementioned terms to mean. As such i steered clear of the genre as I didn't massively love the Swords, though they are finally growing on me.

Label mates Rangers on the other hand hit all the right buttons, the music is chilled, it glows and whilst maybe not quite hit a state of hypnagogia it is certainly early evening, summer music. Everything about it is just fantastic, the bedroom-esque production, the not quite perfect EQ and the ability to stay the right side of both cheese and funk with those oh so rubbery bass lines.

The best way to describe the music would probably be to imagine what people in the late 80's/ early 90's imagined the music of today or even what the future in general would be like, it has a strong nostalgic feel, some would say like peering into someone elses half remembered memories, fuzzy around the edges and missing clarity and complete sense. I can't help but think of Deloreans and Back to the Future 2 for some reason.

Suburban Tours is an album that shouldn't work but strangely does, quite instantly loveable and full of shelf life. Along with the excellent Bear Creak, laid back jazz funk bass to make Howard Moon week at the knees, Out Past Curfew, through Woodland Hills, Ross Downs to the aptly named Bel Air are simply genius, like Ducktails discovering the thumb of the Mighty Boosh's Hitcher.

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

1. Best Coast - Crazy For You (Witchita)

2010-12-26T18:15:00.000-08:00

A total surprise, I'd heard a few songs and been horribly disappointed by the poor quality. The 13 tracks here are nothing but fantastic. It sums up the confusion and complications of growing up, love and obsession, all in shiny catchy pop songs with great great choruses and a little lo-fi twist. An album to be played over and over again. Believe the hype!!

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

Find more artists like Best Coast at Myspace Music

Some Reliable End of the Year Lists

2010-12-23T14:00:00.000-08:00

I love this time of year, spanning back as far as 1996, I still vividly remember sitting down and carefully studying both the NME's and the Melody Makers top albums of the years, intricately studying each album and actually discovering some real gold, for instance that years list spawned one of my all time favourite albums Sparklehorses Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot along with The Dirty Three - Horse Stories, Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die and Lambchop - How I Quit Smoking. It then became quite the obsession to grab every magazine come the arrival of the January issue and scour it for those albums that I missed, Mojo, Q, Select, Vox, you name it, I bought it.

(great website featuring all the old lists http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk)

These days things are slightly different, so much music is available to download or to stream and I find myself hearing more music than ever, admittedly not quality listening but still, and yet the lists have as always slapped me in the face with a number of undiscovered or ignored artists that have been making waves. As always there is alot of trash out there that you shouldn't believe, the following are some that I'm confident that you can trust and will no doubt discover something wonderful and new to tie a ribbon around another year of wonderful music. Until I produce my list...sometime soon...of course :-)

Fact Magazine - Top 40 albums of 2010
Emusic top 80
Boomkat (numerous lists from amazing artists, always a treasure trove, i'm setting a day and a loan aside for this!)
The Liminal
Various Artists on 12k recs Albums of 2010
The Wire top 50 Albums of 2010

El-P - Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3

2010-12-08T13:53:00.000-08:00

Decided to put this on whilst wallowing in self pity this afternoon, all sneezed out and drained of energy, we Brits are not cut out for this kind of weather. I'd forgot quite how good this was and quite how much I loved it, after all this was the record, although not being dubstep, helped we finally crack dubstep, although still not Burial, and ultimately shaped my listening trends for the last half of the year, pointing through various sources to artists such as Mount Kimbie, Teebs, Gold Panda, Shed, John Roberts, Digital Mystikz and a whole host of others.

I'm not really sure what genre this is, maybe instrumental hip hop, Boomkat choose to label it beats/downtempo/boogie, whichever way it is awesome, i can at least guarantee you that much. Despite an off putting first track or so this mix really picks up the pace quickly and peeks between tracks 7 &9 which are simply excellence after excellence, maybe topped only by the incredible closing track Eat my Garbage 2, 8 minutes plus of dubby drums and filthy synth stabs. A musical trip well worth investing your time in.

Spoiler : Reviews:

Read full review of Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3 - EL-P on Boomkat.com ©

Bearsuit Go Dubstep!?

2010-12-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

I've long been a lover of Bearsuit and I even have the original Hey Charlie, Hey Chuck 7" single to prove it, not that anyone would want me to do that but there you go. Renowned for their hectic boy/girl screaming interchangeable vocals and their ability to slip from Belle & Sebastianesque pop to Melt Banana white noise whilst still retaining pop sensibilities, it can only be good news that they have a new album on the horizon, The Phantom Forest, which is due for imminent release on the lovely Fortuna Pop! label.

So, just to give you absolutely no idea what to expect from the album, here's a filthy dubstep remix of one of the tracks from the aforementioned album, When Will I Be Queen. An affinity with Bearsuit is not required as this is like nothing they've touched before, judging by how good it is maybe they should take it as a new direction or at least slap Crystal Castles around their face with it until they realise this is how you make music.

Bearsuit - When Will I Be Queen? (KANEDUBSTEP Remix) by KANEDUBSTEP

Bearsuit - Please Don't Take Him Back mp3

James Blake

2010-12-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

Still not completely worked out what i think of Mr Blake, I've enjoyed all his work as Mount Kimbie and have grown to love CMYK over repeated listens, sometimes persistence pays off. The awesome repeated cut up sample"Look I found her, Damn, Red Coat!" over and over as gentle twinkles sparkle over ambient house swells, before exploding into something quite wonderful, whilst still maintaining a feel of minimalism.

In all the time I've worked for my present company I have never heard any song played on the radio that resides on my ipod, hence why i had to pinch myself when i recognised James Blakes latest single, Limit to Your Love blasting out on Radio 1 (i think). It turns out its a cover of a Feist song, which goes some way to explain its popularity. It's quite different from the majority of what I've heard from him so far, simply him singing of reverbed pianos for almost a minute before it drops out and the rumbling dubstep wobble bass kicks in, yet it maintains a backseat position, rumbling like the sound of a washing machine in the flat above, shaking the floorboards without drowning out your personal comfort zone.

Understated and brilliant.

Love the contrasting Boomkat and Norman reviews, I'm almost certain Boomkat have never said anything bad about a record so it's quite refreshing to see Norman being honest in a market were sell, sell, sell is the only thing on most retailers minds.

James Blake - CMYK by jdillon89

James Blake - Klavierwerke (128) by factmag

James Blake - Limit To Your Love (Radio Edit) by factmag

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said :

Spoiler : What Norman Said :

Tristan Perich - 1-Bit Symphony (Cantaloupe Music)

2010-12-02T13:01:00.000-08:00

A bizarre release this, in fact I don't even know if it is available as a release. Tristan Perich has formed a conceptual 1 Bit Symphony, literally a 1-Bit orchestra fit inside a CD jewel case. At times it sounds slightly kosmiche, at others like Printed Circuit -7 bits and sentenced to repeated viewing of the last 20 minutes of Requiem for a Dream repeatedly. Bizarrely enough its still very enjoyable and very much worth investing your time in.

The distance covered between Movement 1 and Movement 5 is epic, the first high pitched and rapidly ossicilating, the latter a dreamy fuzzed up drone piece, still dressed up in lovely 1 bittyness.

Spoiler :From the Label :

Tristan Perich - 1-Bit Movement Symphony: Movement 1 mp3

Source: The Rambler

Tristan Perich: 1-Bit Symphony (Part 1: Overview) from Tristan Perich on Vimeo.

Amiina Give Aways

2010-12-01T15:19:00.000-08:00

Looks like Amiina are handing out presents for the next 25 days, head over to http://amiina.com/

Here's the first:

December 1st, 2010

Hello all,
here is today’s treat – an old amiina track that never was used, now reworked to tickle your ears on this 1st day of December – Enjoy

December 1st by amiina

Amiina - Puzzle (2011)

2010-11-30T13:12:00.000-08:00

Another one of those bands who's sound fits in incredibly well with the snowy weather. Each note sounding like a drop of snow settling wherever it can find itself a home.

It's not quite grabbed me as much as Kurr did, arguably one of the prettiest albums ever, however it's still incredibly beautiful material. The singles stand out, particularly What Are Waiting For which features more actual vocal presence, as in actual words, than I believe I've previously ever heard. And whereas vocals on mainly instrumental bands tracks normally turns me right off, this is done so well that you could be forgiven for thinking that this was múm at their very best.

Púsl and Mambó twinkle like we've come to expect from Amiina, chiming away like your mothers music box and somehow always reminding me of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier". In the Sun is pure anotonym of its own name, icy and Icelandic in sound, with occasional approving glances expected from the likes of Vashti Bunyan and Efterklang if their wasn't so many of them or if simply major record labels did not exist.

Sicsak is darker and perhaps perfects the sound that I wished and that Textile Ranch once threatened to make on a consistent basis.

Go take a walk in the snow with this as your companion, you will not be disappointed.

Warmth Terminal - Getting Closer (Hibernate 2010)

2010-11-29T11:55:00.000-08:00

I can't imagine a weekend more suited to acquiring a Warmth Terminal, since the snow has settled it's been so cold I can see my own breath inside the house. It's the time of year to get wrapped up and sit by the fire with a good book, or take long soaks in warm baths (assuming your boiler is up to it). David Lancasters invitingly named Warmth Terminal are a perfect accompaniment to such efforts to keep the cold out. Clean and warm drones as we've come to expect from the delightful Hibernate label, four tracks that wrap you up like cotton wool. One of my favourites on the label so far.

Warmth Terminal : Getting Closer Sampler by hibernate

Spoiler :What Boomkat Said:

Read full review of Getting Closer - WARMTH TERMINAL on Boomkat.com ©

Belle and Sebastian

2010-11-28T13:36:00.000-08:00

For the last year or so, Grouper have hogged the top spot of my Last Fm Top Artists for the last rolling 12 months, I don't check every day but for a long time my love affair with Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill has left all other artists lagging behind...until this week that is, when Grouper finally made way for, of all people, Belle and Sebastian.

I find it almost hard to believe that the first band (well maybe second or third, as Blur and the Foo Fighters filled much of my early teen listening years) I ever really obsessed over have stuck so firmly in my playing selection. I say this because I'm the kind of person who always wants to hear something new, always ready to discover something different and I get easily bored of albums. Seven or eight years ago i could firmly tell you my 5 favourite bands, that being Belle and Sebastian, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hefner, Clinic and The Delgados, these days Iseem to be able to discover five new bands a week, i could hardly begin to squeeze down to a solid list of my ten favourite bands, maybe not even 20. Since these humble beginnings my tastes have evolved through indie pop, electronica, post rock (to the point of boredom), drone and more recently dubstep and even house and yet subconsciously and admittedly with the help of a new album, Belle & Sebastian are still doing it for me, more so than any other band over the last 12 months it would appear.

Ibreathefur - Every Day You Look Different (Under The Spire)

2010-11-27T00:57:00.001-08:00

The highly consistent Under the Spire label deliver another slice of droney pie in the form of Ibreathefur's excellent Every Day You Look Different, the four tracks here are wonderfully wintry and gravelly in sound, similar in sound to the experimental drones of Wixel and perhaps Ben Frost especially towards the end of Through Turbines, the grating static, churning it's way through imaginery nets and slipping into your receptive ear drums.

Find more artists like ibreathefur at Myspace Music

http://www.ibreathefur.com/

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

Read full review of Everyday You Look Different - IBREATHEFUR on Boomkat.com ©

This is my life...apparently

2010-11-17T12:05:00.001-08:00

Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love (2010)

2010-11-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

Any band that has made as big an impression as Belle & Sebastian did when they hit the scene all those many years ago is bound to meet with mixed reactions by the time they reach their seventh studio album (I'm excluding compilations and soundtracks here). Generally the reception will be frosty with no real basis, quick conclusions that the album is poor after little more than half a listen. So called "real fans" will complain that it's not a replica of Sinister but then if they were "real fans" wouldn't they like everything the band did? One for those elitists to ponder over.

The truth is that if anything, this album is closer in sound to Sinister than anything they've done in a while, yes it's shinier and many of the songs are "jauntier" but in comparison to The Life Pursuit, an album that disappointed many but in time grew in to a real winner, there are a number of slow simple songs, such as Calculating Bimbo that could easily have been taken from an early Belle and Sebastian release.

Whereas you may long for another Sinister, the truth is that Belle & Sebastian aren't going to be the band that do that, someone else will come along and create something that causes such a stir, instead we should see the progress and the fact that so many albums in the band are still making great pop songs albeit with the controversial assistance of Norah Jones! Arguably the whole album isn't incredible but in a generation where there are so many albums available and so many ways to get hold of them, this album deserves your attention, like back in the day when you'd buy the album the day it was released and listen to nothing else for weeks on end until you could recite every word.

Stand out tracks are the excellent Come on Sister which along with the opening I Didn't See It Coming showcases a more prominent keyboard presence and some fantastic backing and choppy guitars, without doubt one of their finer moments, though of course Belle and Sebastian are not short of such. I Want the World to Stop is reminiscent of Waiting For The Moon to Rise but on a better budget with a bassline that makes it dance floor friendly and begs to be remixed. The string of songs, Write About Love, I'm Not Living in the Real World and The Ghost of Rockschool are particular highlights, Write About Love is lyrically brilliant and the guest vocals of Carey Mulligan are a polite reminder that despite what we all expected, they've never really looked back since the departure of Isobel Campbell. I'm Not Living in the Real World is not typical B&S but is a triumphant two and half minutes of call and response ba-ba-ba, oooo-weeee-oooo pop brilliance that will seemingly never grow boring. The Ghost of Rockschool finishes the trio nicely, effortless in sound, casually brilliant, the classy guitar licks and bass line are the icing on the cake as this builds and builds into yet another brilliant track.

The closing brace of I Can See Your Future and Sundays Pretty Icons are a lovely pair of tracks that are so catchy and yet i think they'll take a few plays before you actually realise how good they are.

All in all, a very good album from one of my favourite bands of the last two decades, despite what some will say. Give Write About Love a chance, you might be surprised, even the Norah Jones song is pretty good if you can look past the initial concept.

Belle and Sebastian - I Want The World to Stop Source: Draw Us Lines
Belle and Sebastian - I Didn't See it Coming Source: Whale in a Cubicle
Belle and Sebastian - The Ghost of Rockschool Source: Whale in a Cubicle
Belle and Sebastian - Write About Love Source: Planeta Pop
Belle and Sebastian - Come on Sister Source: The Glorius Hum

Cults - Go Outside

2010-11-04T02:55:00.000-07:00

With Go Outside Cults have produced a summer classic which in my mind is somewhat a less succesful but equally euphoric pop classic as Peter Jon and Bjorn's Young Folks, the Brainbheats remix giving it an extra dancy edge rather than blending it into an unrecognisable mush. Twinkling glocks draw you in before it inevitably explodes into pop perfection.

Definately a band to look out for.

Cults - Go Outside mp3 - Source: I Guess I'm Floating
Cults - The Curse mp3 - Source: The Citizen Insane
Cults - Oh My God mp3 - Source: The Citizen Insane
Cults - Most Wanted mp3 - Source: The Citizen Insane
Cults - Go Outside (Brainbheats remix) mp3 - Source: Mostly Junk Food

Spoiler : What PFork Said :

Chain & The Gang - (I've Got) Privilege (K recs, 2010)

2010-10-28T14:27:00.001-07:00

An awesome 7" single that clearly should've been a double A side, both songs ridiculously catchy in different ways, (I've Got) Privilege is a cocky, funky beast of a tune, played at half pace in the coolest manner ever. Detroit Music is better still, stupidly fine garage which would fit perfectly on one of the Nuggets compilation and shows former Kindercore band the Agenda how it should have been done, definately one of the singles of the years and a track that i'll be playing again and again.

Chain and The Gang feature Ian Svenonius of Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up, Weird War and Siesta records Dave Candy.

Spoiler : What KRecords Said:

Find more artists like CHAIN & THE GANG at Myspace Music

Eluvium - Static Nocturne (Watership Sounds, 2010)

2010-10-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

Another delightful release care of Matthew Coopers Eluvium project, again caked in static, great waves of fuzzied memories and winter winds blowing straight into your face, pianos fade in and out and even though it clocks in at over 50 minutes this is the kind of track that could happily be left on repeat till the day I die.

From the man himself:

"i am often asked

what artists and albums are of influence to me

and although i am an avid consumer of music

i am ultimately a fan of sound in a much larger sense

it is from rain falling, the ocean swelling, the wind picking up

cars driving by, train yards, box fans, etc.. etc.. etc...

the amalgamation of these things creates a wonderful comfort to me

and it is in this "static" that ideas and music come to me

the mixtures of these elements create the chord changes and melodies

or are the foundation by which they are found

there is nothing more comforting to me in the world

than the flood of this vibration at a constant

"Static Nocturne" is an ode

to the process by which inspiration finds me

and an homage, of sorts, to this foundation of noise"

Eluvium - Static Nocturne excerpt mp3

Seaworthy & Matt Rösner - Two Lakes (12k, 2010)

2010-10-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

Those won over by Annea Lockwoods epic "A Sound Map of The Danube" or even those that found it a little too epic will welcome the sound of the Seaworthy's collaboration with Matt Rösner, two lakes is based upon...well fairly obviously sound recordings made at two lakes, namely Meroo and Termeil.

Like the aforementioned Annea Lockwood and maybe less "out there" contemporaries (less "out there" in the sense that their pieces tend to have a less tenuous connection to the art we know as music rather than literally being the sound of water, birds and all sorts of wildlife) such as Jana Winderen and BJ Nilsen, the sound here is very much at one with nature, the lush and tireless sound of water lapping and flowing, gentle winds causing delicate microphone static and the lovely drones that Matt Rösner has already made us familiar with once this year on his Repeat album.

Should you be unfortunate enough to be holed up in the city all autumn then maybe this might be your first step towards reminding yourself of the beauty of nature.

Mp3 source: Brainwashed

Spoiler : What The Label Said:

In April 2010 12k recording artist Seaworthy (the recording project of Cameron Webb) and Matt Rösner travelled to the south coast of New South Wales to undertake a detailed field recording study of two coastal lake ecosystems at the Lakes Meroo and Termeil. The aim of the project was to explore the sounds of a fragile coastal Australian environment and to build from those sounds unique musical pieces that provide a place for listener contemplation and reflection.

Field recordings were taken from the lakes and surrounding beaches, forests and streams at different times of the day. Various equipment including a hydrophone, a shotgun and stereo microphones were used to capture the natural sounds of each lake. During breaks in field recoridng, the artists set up recording equipment in a nearby lakeside cabin. Using acoustic and electric guitars, a ukelele and electronics, a series of improvised performances were documented. On the last day of the trip, with the experience of the recording process still fresh in mind, rough arrangements were created from the field recordings and improvised sets. Matt Rösner then took these arrangements back to his studio in Myalup - a small coastal town on the opposite side of the Australian continent - to mix and finalize the production.

Both Rösner and Webb have been active in the Australian experimental music scene for over 10 years with a plethora of releases on local and international labels, sharing a similar vision of molding found sounds and field recordings with traditional instrumentation and electronics. Aside from shared musical interest both artists grew up in close connection with the Australian coastline, albeit on opposite sides of the continent. This connection with their landscape as a remote and diverse place is evident in the pieces created by the artists during their collaboration on the South Coast.

Two Lakes marks the third full-length appearance for Seaworthy on 12k following 2006’s Map In Hand and 2009’s 1897 and blends his signature guitar style with the beautifully arranged field recordings and electronics of Matt Rösner. Two Lakes is a strikingly stark and lonely album undeniably influenced by the remote recording cabin and delicate Australian ecosystem. The blend of instrumentation comes off more like a natural, live duet between artist and nature than a modern-day layered recording. Webb’s finger picked acoustic guitar and ukelele play off of the sounds of wind, reeds and insects in perfect harmony, supported by soft beds of eBowed drones and careful electronic tones. Despite their human presence Rösner and Webb manage to create music that resonates on another level, as if composed by the lakes themselves.

note:
The artists have set up a blog where you will find additional photographs, field recordings and notes from the Two Lakes session. It is also a way for Webb and Rösner to keep an ongoing dialogue between themselves and to expand on the project.

http://environmentalsounds.blogspot.com/

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

jefre cantu-ledesma - Love Is A Stream

2010-10-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

I seem to remember 2009 having a plethora of great ambient releases and much noise being made of what was being released ready to be streamed into our headphones giving us a place to escape to. Maybe i'm not hanging around the right circles, but certainly the forums I frequent have been less vocal about the genre this time round. One release however that has caused a stir would be that of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, a man who goes by many names, whether that be as part of Tarentel, Colophon or even a further play on his actual name, Jefre Sei Getsu Ledesma which he used on last years Namu Kie Butsu, an album i wish I hadn't neglected so much now.

His latest offering is on the reliable Type label and entitled Love Is A Stream, here we have a collection of pieces that crackle like radio static, a conversation at sea, a shipwreck of a sound, the sound of a soul holding on to life as the waves take them under, fighting for each breath, images of the past flashing through the mind, regrets and the wish that you'd done things differently.

The sound flows and gushes through your ears at times reminiscent of one of my all time favourite ambient pieces, that of Zerthis Was a Shivering Human Image by the much loved Eluvium. This is one to let yourself get wrapped up in this autumn, a thing beauty and great depth.

Stained Glass Body by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
Where I End & You Begin by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
Where You End & I Begin by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

Eleh - Location Momentum (Touch, 2010)

2010-10-17T06:42:00.000-07:00

A curious album of denseness, wrapped in low frequency ossicilation. Much like the work of say Phill Niblock or perhaps more accurately Saito Koji, or at least a much darker version of the aforementioned, the music(?) presented on Eleh first digital release is made up of, in the very accurate words of the Wire, "just a handful and discrete (and discreet) but highly charged sound events that emerge, overlap, recede and reverberate at critical frequencies over extended durations". Humming drones like factory machinery ticking over, the buzz of lights in an empty office. As encapsulating as it is mysterious. The envelopes that rotate like windmills in Linear to Circular/Vertical Axis are a sound I've never heard presented in such a way before, perhaps a little hard work for the impatient listener but for those with an open mind and an appreciation for creativity, this is a truly excellent adventure in sound.

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

*The long awaited Touch debut from Eleh - one of the most fascinating and mysterious projects in contemporary electronic music* Ever since we heard our first Eleh record back in 2006 we've been completely blown away by the precise architecture and conceptual realisation of one of the more mysterious recording projects in electronic music. A succession of eleven vinyl-only releases on Important and Taiga followed, marking the enigmatic figure behind the name as a purveyor of exceptional drone music, exploring analog synthesis with a particular emphasis on the physicality of sound from the very lowest registers of the frequency spectrum. 'Location Momentum' is the first time Eleh's music has become available on a digital format, giving Touch the honour of releasing five long, deeply immersive tracks. The patient deveopment and concentration of resonant acoustic phenomenae on the 20 minute opener 'Heleneleh' leaves us breathing slowly and feeling as though our atoms are about to disintegrate like a sandsculpture built on a bassbin. The overlapping drones hit critical frequencies, creating tactile synaesthetic sensations akin to some religious/narcotic experience. The cathedral-set reverbs of 'Circle One' further enhance the worship/trip, something we recommend experiencing on a good set of speakers as opposed to headphone for maximum effect (apparently you're supposed to be 7 feet away from the sound source), putting us into a drowsy, maleable state, but still acutely aware of an immense and insistent presence in control of our senses. By the time you're onto slow subduction of 'Observation Wheel' expect blurred vision and possibly speaking in tongues as par for the course. Finally we're left open mouthed and drooling at the measured and ultra-precise control of 'Rotational Change For Windmill', gradually lowering the pure, unadorned bass tones into a vacuum of abyssal nether regions, enveloping all other tones until we're in the presence of a mass of tangible air movements, at one with a properly arcane vibe. If the music of Eliane Radigue, La Monte Young or Kevin Drumm has affected your life, this album comes very highly recommended. *WARNING* Do not listen to this album while using heavy machinery or operating a vehicle!

Jacaszek - Treny (2008)

2010-10-16T07:33:00.000-07:00

Each time I listen to this album i'm left wondering why it took me so long to understand it, to see what all the fuss was about and to fall totally and utterly in love with it. Without doubt Treny has a firm place in amongst my favourite ambient albums, a worthy contempary of albums like The Fun Years - Baby, It's Cold Inside, Grouper's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, Phill Niblocks Touch Strings, BvDubs Prayer to False Gods and Eluviums Lambent Material. Its sound is so soothing, deep, not warm, almost eerie in places, but generally enchanting, maybe even spiritual, certainly angelic, the kind of album that demands to be listened to through headphones and certainly a grower.

Jacaszek - Treny by miasmah

Spoiler : What Boomkat and Miasmah Said :

Marsen Jules, Arvo Part, Zbigniew Preisner's soundtrack work for Krzysztof Kieslowski, Deaf Center, Max Richter, Erik Satie, Alberto Iglesias - if you are familiar and in awe of any or all of these names then this latest album on the exceptional Miasmah label will no doubt end up on your essential listening pile for the foreseeable future. Jacaszek has managed with "Treny" to assemble an album so heart-stoppingly beautiful and personal that we've been stunned into silence for its entire 55 minute duration. With string arrangements provided courtesy of Stefan Wesolowski, the foundations of the album are set with Cello and Violin painting fragile outlines coloured by subtle electronic manipulations, harp, piano and reduced, haunting operatic voices. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Michael Jacaszek doesn't make use of any samples, with everything on the album assembled by the musicians on hand (notably Maja Sieminska, Anja Smiszek-Wesolowska and Wesolowski and Jcaszek themselves) - and the subtle grandeur of the album is almost impossible to take in over one sitting, even if the impact is absolutely immediate. This is the kind of album that you just cannot believe a bijou imprint like Miasmah is able to lay its hands on - such is the scale of its success that it feels like a hugely important piece of work, far outweighing almost anything else we've heard in the modern classical field these last eighteen months. Cinematic without ever feeling contrived, "Treny" is surely one of the most impressive, mystical and astonishing albums of the year - we just cannot imagine that anyone listening to it will fail to be utterly bowled over and taken in - listen to the previews and you'll get an idea of just what we mean. Deaf Center's Miasmah label has slowly and carefully assembled a life-changing catalogue of releases designed to enrich and expand our musical horizons, and with "Treny" they have just delivered their most complete and compelling musical statement to date. We absolutely implore you to check this album out, one of the year's most important releases thus far. ESSENTIAL PURCHASE.

Miasmah

Michal Jacaszek's 'Treny' is the seventh release from Norway's Miasmah label - a label that has already created a unique and distinctive identity for itself through a string of releases existing in the darker side of the musical spectrum. Bringing together a variety of musicians and composers from around the world, each artist shares a similar aesthetic and a penchant for introspective, lamenting, classically-influenced music. With this in mind, no better home comes to mind for the new album by Poland's Jacaszek - in fact, it could even be argued that 'Treny' typifies the Miasmah 'sound' and encapsulates everything that is so gripping about the label right now.

The opening track, 'Rytm to Niesmiertelnosc I', sets the dimly-lit scene perfectly. A beautifully arranged string quartet and a lonesome female voice are framed with waves of distant underwater rumbles and creaks, with fragments of harp occasionally breaking to surface to release mournful motifs onto the dense musical canvas. It could be argued that the talent that Mr. Jacaszek holds is in his perfect blending of acoustic and electronic sounds, inasmuch that it is hard to tell where tape loops end and forlorn violin melodies begin.

By the beginning of the second piece, the appropriately titled 'Lament', Jacaszek has already firmly established a sound for himself. Clearly influenced by the liturgical compositions of Henryk Gorecki or John Tavener, with a healthy pinch of Angelo Badalamenti's mood-setting soundscapes, Jacaszek manages to find his own niche somewhere between Murcof and Francois Tetaz's indispensible score for 'Wolf Creek' - somewhere dark and mysterious but ultimately beautifully rewarding and moving.

There are traces of optimism in these songs, and as the album ends with 'Rytm to Niesmiertelnosc II', the clouds turn from a heavy grey to a uplifting palette of autumnal shades as a subtle rhythm emerges to gently guide the listener into lighter pastures. Despite the somewhat uplifting ending, as the last note strikes you may find yourself wanting to turn back into the darkness and start the whole adventure again. Wrap up warm, and carry enough supplies for many years of repeated listening...

Darren Hayman

2010-10-16T04:57:00.000-07:00

Theres has always been a place in my heart for Darren Hayman and Hefner, i can't remember whether it was an NME compilation that featured the track Pull Yourself Together (as well as Kimberley by Clinic) or a tape that Matt Glazebrook made me with The Sad Witch on it, either these two tracks triggered a long standing love affair with Darren Haymans heart broken, never giving in attitude to love. The lyrics have always been incredible, managing to be funny whilst at the same time touching, an art that few have mastered, MJ Hibbett tries it but I see him as a wanna be comedian rather than a singer.

I will admit to being not as much of a fan of the last two albums, that being Pram Town and Essex Arms, though having the chance to see him live recently means that these two will no doubt be revisited (certainly Essex Arms, i'm not even sure it's been commercially released yet). The aforementioned live performance though is where i'm at. The last time I saw Hefner, they had just released We Love The City and they were brilliant, performing downstairs at Rock City, it seems quite strange that 10 or so years later that Darren is performing alone with a Ukelele to little over 50 people at the Chameleon above Clinton Cards in Notttingham, but the setting couldn't have been better. The intimacy of the venue lent itself to allow the songs to come to life, lyrics you'd never heard before making sense, making you laugh and putting the genericism of life in England into a neat and tidy musical format. The references to labels and brands are there, whether it be Ben Sherman or Lacoste, the working men and footballing watching types could find solace in all the sentiments the songs produce. In my opinion this was one of the best live performances charisma wise that i've seen in a long long while, perhaps since Kenickie and i'll be amking sure that I catch him on every possible occasion from now on.

hefnet.com

Gigi - Maintenant (Tomlab, 2010)

2010-10-16T04:30:00.000-07:00

The tracks featuring Chorus stand out, sounding like a 60's girl group, full of feel good multi vocal harmonies, footstomps and handclaps. Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls does a lovely job of a boy feeling all to sorry for himself on the lavish Dreams of Romance. Rose Melberg sounds amazing as ever on another highlight, again wrapped up like a sixties hit never made. On One Woman Show Jooey Cook of the Pomegranetes sounds slightly out of tune and untrained in the brilliant and loving kind of way that Kimya Dawson does, a fantastic track with a great Aisler's Set-esque chorus.

This is just the tip of the iceburg, i've not even mentioned guest appearances by Owen Pallet, Dear Nora, Karl Blau and Mirah. A triumph in the art of perfect pop and the ability to recreate that sixties sound.

Gigi - Alone at the Pier (Feat Rose Melberg) mp3
Source: Rawkblog

Gigi - Strolling Past The Old Graveyard (Feat Karl Blau) mp3
Source: fensepost

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

Best Coast - Crazy For You

2010-10-16T04:08:00.000-07:00

The early Best Coast seven inches were somewhat lo-fi, that being an underexaggeration and although i'm all for the bedroom musician, they lacked a ceratin something, whilst at the same time having a glint of greatness, just a glint mind. I was a little unsure as to whether or not to bother with the full length but found myself curious of the hype, also a little worried to find that NME named Best Coast as most exciting new act of 2010, since when did I agree with the NME!!??

Anyways, it would appear that Miss Bethany Cosentino (previously of weirdy noise types Pocahaunted, though you'd never think that possible) has got the Mr Sheen out and given her little pop ditties a shiny finish.

It's safe to say that anyone with even the least bit of musical sense will be completely won over by this album, from the very start when she sings "I wish he was my boyfriend" you're without doubt already wishing she was your girlfriend. The album continues at this same high quality throughout , each song littered in affection, the confusion of love and all those sings that go through your mind at that time in life.

At times i think of bands like All Girl Summer Fun Band less a certain percentage of the fun factor, less giddy head over heels in love, more besotted and confused but adorable all the same.

This is gonna be one my albums of the year for sure.

mp3 source: Unpiano

Best Coast - Crazy for You mp3
Best Coast - Goodbye mp3
Best Coast - Boyfriend mp3

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said :

Disrupt - Foundation Bit (Werk, 2007)

2010-10-16T03:41:00.000-07:00

Having long since being resigned to the fact that I would never fully understand dubstep and only occasionally enjoy finding myself in the middle of dancefloor full of people moving in that staggered way that it's lazy beat forces you to, I've been surprised by how much i've begun to enjoy the genre of late. This new found love is in part due to EL-P's wonderful weareallgoingtoburninhell mix with it's occasional dubstep influence and also in part due to this wonderful album that i discovered on a regular visit to the highly recommended Glowing Raw blog.

It's not out and out dubstep, in fact if you wanted to strip it down to the bare facts it's propbably a dub/8-bit hybrid, however you sometimes need an inbetweener album to help you cross over into a new musical haven. In this instance Disrupt have done sufficiently well in helping me take that step.

The album is laced with lovely deep and heavy bass lines, dubby and maybe even in debt to reggae somehow. The kind of thing that would normally have me switching tracks, instead the bass lines are so simple, the whole sound in fact is stripped down but these bare elements, when put together make for a highly addictive sound.

Listen Here

Disrupt - Tubby Rom Module mp3
Disrupt - Bomb 20 mp3
Disrupt - Blast You to Bits mp3

MP3 Source: Phlow

Spoiler : What Boomkat Said:

Big Blood - Dead Songs (Time Lag)

2010-08-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

Big Blood - Dead Songs (Time Lag)

A somewhat chance discovery, stumbled upon by the hype of the good folk on the Avant Sounds of Atease thread on the Radiohead AtEase forum. Not typical of the normal Ambient, noise or nu-jazz that normally surfaces on their, instead a woozy mix of folky-psych goodness that sounds like your soul mate repackaged in the shape of a song or twelve.

The Archivist & The Archeologist particularly blissful, 9 minutes of confusing love delivered in the most delightful manner possible.

Each song so loveable and instant, visions of camp fires and late night sing alongs, heavenly vocals and hooks to die for. Like CocoRosie covering Howlin Rain, Nina Nastasia gonna vegetarian. Beautiful Music.

Tons of Big Blood albums to be downloaded here, i'd recommend buying Dead Songs, next best thing, start with The Grove

Rangers - Suburban Tours (Olde English Spelling Bee)

2010-05-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

The best way to describe the music would probably be to imagine what people in the late 80's/ early 90's imagined the music of today or even what the future in general would be like, it has a strong nostalgic feel, some would say like peering into someone elses half remembered memories, fuzzy around the edges and missing clarity and complete sense. I can't help but think of Deloreans and Back to the Future 2 for some reason.

Suburban Tours is an album that shouldn't work but strangely does, quite instantly loveable and full of shelf life. Along with the excellent Bear Creak, laid back jazz funk bass to make Howard Moon week at the knees, Out Past Curfew, through Woodland Hills, Ross Downs to the aptly named Bel Air are simply genius, like Ducktails discovering the thumb of the Mighty Boosh's Hitcher. Very Highly Recommended, sure to be battling it out with Four Tet, Frank Bretschneider, Counterspark and hopefully the Fun Years for my album of the year.

What Boomkat Said :

Taylor Deupree - Snow (Dusk, Dawn) (12k)

2010-05-19T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last years Weather and Worn was a key record in shaping my musical year, irresitable droney experimentalism in bite size pieces, impossible not to listen to again and again. And although he boasts a large back catalogue and impeccable taste as head of 12k and Line i've yet to find anything by him that's quite matched up to Weather and Worn's magical warmth, until ironically now with the coldly entitled "Snow (Dusk, Dawn)".

Another masterpiece much in the same manner as the aforementioned, inspired by the late winter snow of 2009 and part of a multimedia project that you can read about below.

The way he combines surface noise with dreamy rotating drones is near perfect as the track rotates and swells gently never straying too far from the early sounds but developing enough to keep the interest whlist still not forcing its way to the forefront, perfect music to relax or read to. The kind of outcome you'd expect should Jana Winderen have bumped into either Collin Olan or Rutger Zuydervelt during their respective experiments with ice but ten times better.

What The Label Said :

please note: Snow (Dusk, Dawn) will only be available during the opening night of Taylor Deupree's Unseen photography show in Tokyo on April 15th. Any copies remaining from this night will then be available in 12k's online shop on a first-come-first-serve basis. About a month following the opening of Unseen the musical portion of this edition will be made available through our digital distribution network.

Transience, ephemerality. There is beauty in things that don’t last. Taylor Deupree’s Snow (Dusk, Dawn), a multimedia project incorporating sound and photography, is based around 63 photographs taken with expired polaroid film. This particular film produces images cast with other-worldly blueish hues and almost immediately begin to fade; losing color, to deep browns, and then finally, within 24 hours after being shot, to complete black.

Deupree’s work is often inspired by nature, particularly the winterscapes near his home and studio in rural New York. With the polaroid film in hand, which he knew would capture only a fleeting image, he shot images during the first heavy snowfall of the winter of 2009, at dusk, in the setting sun; nothing was to last, the snow, the image, the day. The next morning, barely at sunrise, he set out again to finish the film, in a dawn that wasn’t going to last.

As quickly as he could, following each photo session, Deupree scanned the polaroid prints, capturing the first white snow in ghostly blue before the pictures faded to black. Each of these scanned images is printed and displayed next to its original, black polaroid counterpart in the package along with the cd. Each copy of this edition of 63 is thus rendered unique, each with a different print and polaroid.

For the music portion of the project there is also contrast, transience, and decay. A fragile melodic loop, distressed by surface noise, struggles to keep its repetitive flow over a quiet and languid 18 minutes as it subtly, but constantly, loses ground and eventually becomes fragmented and falls away amongst the elements that surrounded it.

Snow (Dusk, Dawn) captures the essence of what much of Deupree’s work is about: imperfection, time, and memory. He uses both high- and low-tech means of creating rich works that scrape away at the surface of digital sterility. Avoiding the con- trolled manipulation offered by computers he prefers natural and unpredictable processes to add depth and texture to this work. Outdated film, cheap cameras, dust and leaking light effect his photographs while guitars, found percussion, old analog synthesizers and recordings of falling snow provide the soundtrack to a moment in time that comes and goes like dawn.

This edition is being presented at the NADiff Gallery in Tokyo, Japan on April 15th as part of Deupree's Polaroid photography show, Unseen.

The edition contains: 3" CD - Original Polaroid print - Color print of pre-faded Polaroid image - Letterpress card.

A PDF file of the entire edition can be viewed HERE.

Frank Bretschneider - EXP (Raster Noton)

2010-05-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

Frank Bretschneider, a chance discovery following a return to the wonderful Raster Noton Unun Series,(the name of the series derives from the greek atomic numbers of the chemical elements 111–119 in the periodic table)care of Aoki Takamasa.

The music of Frank Bretschneider would probably have not been too appreciated by myself maybe even 9 months ago but as i find myself more and more drawn to the experimental side and ambient dub the deep, thudding glitchy beats are a delight to the ears. Very much like label mates SND's Atavism, their is little melody as such, at least in a conventional manner, instead electronic stabs, skitters of interference and wasp like hums and zips.

Compared to 2007's almighty Rythym, EXP takes a slow start not really kicking in until half way through track 4, namely, b.l.u.e., polylog, node, from there on in it's nothing short of exceptional, tracks 6 through 9 in particular, sure to appeal to fans of Raster Noton, SND and Atom TM.

What Boomkat Said :

Counterspark – The Halpern Experiment (Resting Bell)

2010-03-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

Much like previous Resting Bell release, Herzogs "First Summer and the Running Dream" Countersparks The Halpern Experiment is a truly encapsulating listen.

Cooked up from a series of Cassettes purchased second hand Counterspark has manged to transform these pieces into a dreamy brilliance. The kind of drone that demands to be listened to with headphones, turned up loud, melting your brain into a dreamy rapture. Amazing stuff.

Counterspark - The Halpern Experiment Full Album Download

What Resting Bell Said :

TU M' - Monochromes Vol. 1 (Line)

2010-03-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

Line being a sister label to the marvelous and ever reliable 12k records to quote "has continued to publish documents of compositional and installation work by international sound artists and composers exploring the aesthetics of contemporary and digital minimalism as limited edition Compact Discs and DVDs."

To some 12k may be experimental in its own right, Line however takes it to the next level being specifically for ultra-minimal stuff and art installations. As such at times I've tended to keep a distance. For this release though nothing could be more instant to the ears of an appreciator of long swelling drones.

TU M’ are an Italian multimedia duo formed by Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli in 1998. In their own words "Through a personal use of digital and analog instruments, the TU M' reveal a complex universe made up of present and past, closeness and distance, where seeing and listening become a meditative contemplation. " I couldn't agree more.

At times it veers towards the epic soundscapes of ambient dub master BvDub, allowing the pieces to flow and billow into an endless sea of tranquility. The only fault here would be Monochrome #04's length, straying into 29 minutes whereas twelve would quite happily have sufficed. The other three tracks however are exemplary both in length and content.

"A poet always has too many words in his vocabulary,
a painter too many colors on his palette,
a musician too many notes on his keyboard."
- Jean Cocteau

Tu' M - Monochrome # 03 - excerpt
Tu' M - Monochrome # 00 - excerpt

2008/2009 | Monochrome # 09+V06 | 20' | excerpt.mov
2008/2009 | Monochrome # 08+V03 | 30' | excerpt.mov
2008/2009 | Monochrome # 06+V05 | 20' | excerpt.mov

What Boomkat Said: This disc represents the auditory component of a mixed media project from Italian duo Tu M', who describe Monochromes as "a collection of modular audio and video compositions" which create sound and light vibrations that reverberate around the performance space, resulting in "an atmosphere to be contemplated". This being an audio-only CD, Tu M' have in a sense shifted the goalposts somewhat, and the only clue to the visual element you have is the album sleeve, which lifts a still image from the project. Having listened through the disc, it's actually pretty difficult to imagine how any sort of corresponding video might enhance the experience. These compact, finely worked pieces construct an enveloping ambience in their own right. 'Monochrome 01' immediately provokes comparisons to William Basinski with its looped, heavily enshrouded loops and ghostly piano gestures, but there's a more digital, less gritty feel to this album that sets it apart from that oft-copied sound. Next comes 'Monochrome 02' (unsurprisingly enough), which is far less concerned with constructing any explicit melodic presence, instead content to cast sonic shadows for twelve minutes or so - it's all characterised by a disconcerting intangibility, vaporous and strangely... absent in tone. More overtly musical is the shortest entry here, 'Monochrome 03', which unfurls chords that gently swell and fall away like a distant orchestra, only for the final piece to present a more solid block of sound, casting a veil of digital smudges over your ears for a hypnotic half-hour. Abstract and immersive listening from the reassuringly challenging Line stable.

Transmittens - We Disappear (WeePop!)

2010-03-12T11:02:00.001-08:00

Weepop! is a label that I've sadly not written enough about, be assured they are a label that I adore, a portal back to the pop world that I sometimes forget about when I let myself get so wrapped up in all the wonderful drone out there. Transmittens are a wonderful reminder of everything I love about the whole indie pop, twee scene that I grew up amongst.

Having known nothing about them before pressing play I was quite surprised and somehow excited by the squealing feedback that opens Marfa Texas, within 3 seconds though all is restored to wonderful drum machines, handclaps and moog lines to die for. Each song lulling you in with guitar or keyboard lines less than subtly imprinting the chorus melody in your mind before its even arrived, so much so that you can almost instantaneously sing along.

Hardly a breath is taken in between tracks, each one fighting for your attention, each one succeeding. This is one of the best simple "lo-fi" indie pop albums I've heard in some time, very much reminiscent of one of my old favourites, the Pipas with touches of the Icicles, such a wonderful knack for keeping it catchy and yet still being capable of writing more subdued numbers such as Something Else.

Places I'm Dreaming reminds me of Lily Allens LDN (this is meant to be a COMPLIMENT, i love that song!)given bedroom pop treatment with it's infectious repetitive hook. But no doubt it'll be the wonderful Hot Dog Suit that leaves you with the biggest smile of the day "somebody told me/ they know where Peter's at.../He in a Hot Dog Suit/ Dancing in Front of You/ Oh Yeah!" somewhere close to genius, a wonderful pop album that will be played again and again this summer.

Transmittens - Marfa Texas mp3
Transmittens - Hot Dog Suit mp3

What WeePop! Said :

Simon James French - Anthem (Hibernate)

2010-03-04T14:50:00.000-08:00

Another hugely impressive release from the Hibernate label and perhaps my favourite on the label so far. Five tracks of drones that border on ethereal, each one lovely and slow. Listen hard enough on opener Serfdom and you can hear the faint sound of children playing against the windy drones and Ian Hawgood like crumples.

It's one of those releases that doesn't overdo it time wise, like Tom White's and Taylor Deupree's releases of last year, you don't feel that you have to take an afternoon off to listen to it, instead, instant, to the point and seemingly tireless.

Simon James French - Anthem - Stream Here

Hibernate Label

What The Domestic Soundscape Said :

I met Simon James French at Middlesex University when I was working on the Cut and Splice Domestic Soundscape podcast series. Along with several other artists he came to the informal workshops/classes I gave there about Sonic Wallpaper and contributed to the discussions on that topic which ended up in podcast #2 of the series, Rooms and Chambers.

I have kept in touch with SJF through following his blog Plundr Tumblr which I really enjoy reading, and was recently interested to read of his EP release, Anthem, which can be heard and downloaded here.

Serfdom - the first track - opens with generously rich and sonorous drones, the rustle of jeans and a distant patina of joyous voices. These drones continue over the subtly-changing soundscape beneath and there is a delicate, fragmentary quality to the snatches of environmental sound-recordings which move in your peripheral hearing as you listen. Is that a dog’s collar jingling? A tractor or other trundling, slow-engined vehicle?

Plunder is distinctly more ominous with more obscure and difficult-to-identify sounds lurking inside one another, ringed by dull, bell-like sounds. The tone darkens in the opening sections of Misery. Somewhere around here environmental sounds begin to rise out of the drone-soup and up to the fore, and there are some lovely sonic elements which remind me of my electronic cooker with its tap-tap-tapping sound, the bubbling hiss of onions frying or perhaps even the sound of rain pattering intensely on a surface. I love how the material qualities of sound are used here; how it somehow suggests wetness or dryness, scratchy or smooth, soft or hard, and how this materiality fleshes out the relative purity of the drones. The ethereal dronescape re-emerges towards the end of Misery and, surrounded by rustling sounds, there is an almost choral atmosphere to this section - like someone singing inside electronic wires - before the ponderous and slowly moving sequences of Falsehood open. Metallic, resonant and restless, this track pans about like an animal trying to get comfortable in its hole and fades to emptiness so that the last track - Shame - can round up the whole EP, which it does, in a rapturous crescendo of tremelo-rich drones, backdropped by what I think is the sound of cars passing.

At times in its gentleness I find this release to be very remeniscent of Greg Davis’s release, Somnia, but where Davis uses very pure drones and melodies which make it feel as though Somnia has been composed in a vacuum-sealed box, SJF allows his music to rub shoulders with a bit more environmental texture and I like this difference between the two. I enjoy the use of sounds throughout, and the pacing of each track, and the sense of Anthem as a complete work with discrete sections. My only criticism of this release is that the epic quality to the track titles and the release title itself - Anthem - do not necessarily, at least to my ears, reflect the delicacy and subtlety of the sounds contained throughout. There is something intimate and mellow about Anthem with its evocations of interior or familiar environs that I find more like vespers and less like an anthem, but I think this is a small point, and the overall sense of choral religiosity in the music makes those giant track titles forgiveable.

Airport Girl - The Foolishness That We Create Through Love Is The Closest We Come To Greatness (Fortuna Pop!)

2010-03-04T14:18:00.000-08:00

Another free download from Fortuna Pop! and this time a real blast from the past, Airport Girls, Honey I'm An Artist is one of my favourite pop albums from a very important part in my life musically, I remember discovering Airport Girl supporting Cinerama and playing alongside Solar Plexus (who became Saint Joan and now Ellen Mary McGee) at the now rarely used venue, The Boat Club in Nottingham.

The monstrously long titled track The Foolishness That We Create Through Love Is The Closest We Come To Greatness was always one of the highlights, starting off with an Idlewild esque riff before full on exploding into Dexys style pop and not sounding a second too long despite its length of just over 6 minutes.

The only sad thing is that my actual favourite Airport Girl song, and the original Bside to this single is not included, that of Striking Out On Your Own. Still it appears that the singles still available to buy on the website, it would indeed be money well spent. A welcome reminder of my indiepop past.

Airport Girl - The Foolishness That We Create Through Love Is The Closest We Come to Greatness mp3

What they said way back when :