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Albums of 09: The Final Frontier

Late in the year I realized that one of the dominant themes amongst some of my favourite albums of 2009 was a sort of forward-looking futurism. That’s not to say that the music itself was inherently new, much of it is informed by post-Apollo 70s era krautrock and early electronic work, but it had an other-worldly voyager character to it that points at a novel, if nostalgic, trend. Long and slow synth lines enter and recede, low-fi blips and old sci-fi sounds, and the occasional sample, pop in as though there’s a laser gun fight happening outside. Repetitive sine wave oscillate and meander throughout, echoing across time, while the drones and hums of engines in the distance propel you to undiscovered planets. Soundtracks for hyperspace travel.

Emeralds – Emeralds & What Happened

No one better captures that essence than the improvisational, experimental prog collective that is Emeralds. Their CD What Happened, a collection of live improvised recordings, summarizes their aesthetic as best as it can. It’s a great, droning ambient disc that also highlights the problem with an improv band: without the need for studio perfection, they can produce a lot of unique music. Unfortunately, while prolific a lot of that output seems inaccessible and lost to underground cassettes and limited vinyl pressings. Much of the reason for the CD recommendation arises from some of this peripheral output, mostly because my absolute favourite track “Geode” can be found on their self-titled LP. But all this side content just adds to, and never diminishes, the appeal of What Happened.

Oneohtrix Point Never – Rifts

A 2 CD set from another prolific artist that combines three previous albums, two of which were also released this year, and a bunch of unreleased material into one sprawling set. It’s the perfect introduction to his work, as it was for me. Rifts takes a far more nostalgic and electronic approach than Emeralds, seemingly more overtly referencing early 80s computer infomercials, computer graphics, and low-tech sci-fi (like this scene from Stalker.) One moment you have an ambient soundspace and then something like this this, but it’s never jarring because it’s all so thematically interconnected. It do wish I could see his DVD project because if the clips on YouTube (the above link and “Nobody Here“) are any indication it is definitely something I would be entranced by, and the visual style perfectly captures the OPN sound.

Belbury Poly – From a Distant Star

The BBC first started broadcasting in 1922 which means that the signals have travelled 87 lightyears out into space. If the inhabitants of 58 Eridani heard these early broadcasts, sampled them, and sent signals back to Earth^[1], it might not be out-of-place to imagine it sounding like From a Distant Star. The album is entwined in that kind of almost creepy nostalgic happiness of old low-quality children’s broadcasts and late night radio plays and home gardening advice shows. It’s very playful, full of almost toy-like instrumentations, and strangely melancholy at the same time. The Hidden Door (weird YouTube video featuring pictures of Polish girls) is the standout for me, but Adventures in a Miniature Landscape is a better example for that clownish, melancholy flavour.

Alva Noto – Xerrox Volume 2

If Alva Noto’s Xerrox Volume 1 is music for airports copied over and xeroxed a hundred times^[2], then Volume 2 is the equivalent music for spaceports. Carsten Nicolai’s “Xerrox” project takes its name from its basis in some theoretical ideals involving copying in the digital age and what “original” means in this context. Or something. Despite the art house justifications for it, not all that unexpected from the Raster Noton label, it is perfectly enjoyable ambient music. I especially love “Xerrox Sora” which which starts as this clicking badly copied bit that fades away into an ocean of chords and white noise that crescendoes and just instantly fades away leaving nothing but echoes of itself for the last minute and a half.

The previous Volume 1 was equally good and when you consider the packaging that comes with these releases I eagerly await, and hope for, a Volume 3 in 2010.

Nosaj Thing – Drift

Los Angeles is getting a lot of buzz thanks to Flying Lotus, Samiyam, and The Gaslamp Killer and their unique style of instrumental hip hop genre spanning beats. In some ways it feels like the American parallel to UK dubstep^[3]. Nosaj Thing is very much rooted in that scene but replaces a lot of its roughness with a more mellow, at times melodic, spacey synth approach. There are multiple instances of synthesized choirs and voices giving Drift a celestial, if digitized, aesthetic that seems to be more informed by classical symphonies than hip-hop mix tapes. I was instantly hooked on this album after hearing the breathy, melodic beats of “Fog”. It’s so good. If I were to make a Top Five list, rather than an indecisive Top Fifty Five, this would surely be in it. The pseudo Elite 2 inspired artwork doesn’t hurt.

1. Entirely possible since 58 Eridani is about 43 light years away giving them just enough time to send a response. I’d be arriving now. Though, of course, the pedants would note that they’d be responding to the absolute earliest broadcasts from the beginning of the 1920s.
2. Not literally Eno’s Music for Airports. The majority of samples and audio sources on Volume 1 were recorded in airports and during flights, though you could easily make the connection to Eno’s work too.
3. It’s all interconnected, really, with Flying Lotus and Samiyam appearing on London’s Hyperdub records.

Puscifer, The Mission

Maynard James Keenan is a self-professed nerd, despite the stylings of his Tool and A Perfect Circle projects. So when he’s free to let loose on a solo project without the expectations that those two bands come with, he really lets loose. The first sign of this is the fact that “Puscifer“, as a “band”, came into existence via a Mr. Show skit. The second sign? Their first commercial song was Cuntry Boner.

Then there are the juvenile album covers and titles. The latest EP is called ‘”C” Is for (Please Insert Sophomoric Genitalia Reference Here)’. Yes. If you’d see that in a store you’d dismiss it instantly. But behind the high school hurr hurr titles and art is some really great music and surprising collaborations. See, for example, the above video, which is itself bizarre and amazing and looks like the best ever application of Poser: it has Milla Jovovich singing. Then there’s the song “Potions (Deliverance Mix)” and its writing credit of one “Trent Reznor;” and “The Humbling River”, the most serious and APC-like sounding track on the album, with its hypnotizing aura. For a six track (two live songs) EP, it is really, really solid.

It’s just a shame about the name.

Blondie “Performs” Live on Dutch TV

I love this video of a live “performance” by Blondie of the song “Denis” on a Dutch TV program from, I would think, 1978. I don’t know what the story is here, but there’s something appealing about seeing Debbie Harry just stand dead still while multiple televisions around her show proper (from the same show?) live performances of the song. The video inter-cuts between those which is a shame because just watching her stare at the camera with an air of displeasure would have made it all the more absurd. Somehow it seems more genuine then the mostly lip-synced performances of the era, perhaps owing a little bit to Blondie’s oft-overlooked punk origins.

New Jahtari Dubs for the 8-Bit Minded

Well, this was a pleasant surprise for a rather cool November afternoon: Bookmat has not one but two new Jahtari releases available for purchase and download. These came as a complete surprise, partly because Jahtari does a poor job with their site: not only was there no word that these were coming, but there still isn’t any word that they even exist.

First, there’s Tapes’ “Hissing Theatricals” which is a brilliant, if brief, foray into lo-fi 8-bit dub patterns, with an added cassette transfer hiss for that extra bit of texture. It’s very much in that Disrupt style but a little more, I don’t know, focused? The mp3 release costs only three pounds so it was an instant impulse purchase for me, especially after hearing the sample for “Gold Love Riddim.” It’s fantastic and worth the cost of the album on its own.

I love Boomkat, but their often sycophantic and overly enthusiastic reviews are some times a little too much. Every other album is massively recommended, a career definer, an essential purchase, three exclamation marks! etc. This is what happens when the reviewer is also the seller. That said, in this case, the album hits all my right buttons and I agree with their sentiment: Massively Recommended!. If I were to make another Bleeping mix, this would be featured front and centre. Hell, it even uses a Capcom opening chime sample — think Street Fighter 2 — which, coincidentally enough, I recently used too.

The second release is an EP between the man himself, Disrupt, and Glasgow MC Soom T. They’ve collaborated before and an entire performance can be heard on Jahtari’s site: Disrupt Live w/ SOOM T at Glasgow Art School. The track “Dirty Money”, from that live set, is what I ended my “Beep-Side” with. It was a bit rough and raw then, but it’s been given the title track treatment for this EP and it’s a lot more cohesive now. Filling out the rest of the EP are two other vocal tracks on the EP, and two instrumental dubs.

It’s a good collaboration with some good jams, but it’s a bit in your face. I’m just not naturally drawn to vocal stuff unless it’s really good, distorted, or just much more in the background. Which is why if I want to hear female vocals over 8-bit dubs I’ll more frequently turn to the low-key stylings Illyah & Limited Candy’s “Machines and Ghosts EP”. Unless I’m sticking it to the man, or Ken, then “Dirty Money” would do.

Videos of the Decade, By Way of Delicious

Antville’s list of the best videos of the decade, no doubt a precursor to many “of the decade” lists over the next two months, is a good one. I don’t have too many complaints about the picks themselves, though I would contest their placement. For what it’s worth, this would have been my number one selection.

In trying to remember what videos I enjoyed this decade that weren’t on the list I turned to two places: my YouTube favourites, and my delicious bookmarks. The YouTube favourites were mostly a bust as they were almost entirely made up of old 80s and early 90s videos that were suffixed with the all-too-common Video is no longer available mark. delicious proved more fruitful as the video + music tag intersection gave me a pretty good zeitgeist for most of the decade. I say that having just realized that as of next month I’ve been a delicious user for six years, so it’s a pretty good indicator for most of my tastes through the decade.

What follows is a list of all the music videos that I bookmarked there over those years that aren’t already on antville’s top 100. Some were chosen for the video itself, some for the music, and others for weird cultural reasons (ie. mostly videogame and/or internet meme-ry).

• Ladytron – Destroy Everything That You Touch – love the band and the video, so I was surprised to not see this listed.
• Massive Attack – Live With me – same for this.
• Alva Noto – Unitxt – embeded below
• Kap Bambino – Red Sign
• Holy Fuck – Milkshake
• Clark – Ted
• Portishead – Machine Gun
• Dresden Dolls – Girl Anachronism
• Beck – Black Tambourine
• Bomb the Bass – Butterfingers
• Fujiya & Miyagi – Ankle Injuries
• Weezer – Pork and Beans
• Kompakt – I’m in Love With a German Film Star
• dan le sac VS scroobius pip – Thou Shalt always Kill
• Bjork – Declare Independence
• Ye-Ye – Eurostar
• Halfby – Screw the Plan
• Cadence Weapon – Sharks
• DJ Shadow – This Time
• Dublab – Poison Diamonds
• Dealership – Forest
• David E. Sugar vs Ears – First OK

Beep-Side

Here’s a B-Side I made to the previous Bleeping Beats mix that includes some new stuff, some stuff I couldn’t really fit in previously, a few goofy things, and some live performances that are a little raw and rough around the edges, all wrapped in a slight early-90s arcade vibe. (Though for all the fighting game references, I didn’t include anything off of Disrupt’s “Samurai Shodown”/”Last Blade” 7″, but it is freely downloadable at Jahtari).

I don’t have anything to say about this one except to note that this will be the last such mix for a long, long time. I’ve burned through my reserves and any further attempts would be repetitious. Besides, I’ve reached my limit for this wonkiness and I’m now purging my system with some ambient drones, and “hauntology”, and spacey synth lines. So good.

Bleeping Beats, Chiptunes, and Hyperdub 5

A couple weeks ago I posted a 40 minute mix on nerd music (you can download it here) that focused on (mostly) instrumental hip-hop and dub(step) musicians that incorporate the chiptune sound in their music. The genesis of this mix goes back to the end of August. I started compiling some tracks, quite a few of which I had previously posted on nerd music, that highlighted this sub-sub-genre. Then work and this whole moving to another continent thing got in the way and it sort of languished until about three weekends ago when, during an annoying flu, I finally pieced it together. I’m a little biased, but I very much like the mix. I think it flows nicely from track to track, includes a few little fun references, and it’s short enough to not be tedious. Here is a tracklist.

Coincidentally, in-between conception and final upload was when Hyperdub, home of Burial and Kode9, started issuing its 5 year anniversary EP series culminating in, two weeks ago, the massive 2 CD “5 Years of Hyperdub” compilation. That CD has, by my count, about 7 or 8 tracks that use chiptunes to some degree, and that’s not even counting the few tracks that use indeterminate lo-fi bleeps and synths or the Martyn track “Mega Drive Generation” with its obvious nod to videogames. If you like the 8-bit videogame sound then “5 Years of Hyperdub” is essential; doubly so since a lot of the other tracks are quite fantastic. The second disc also gives a pretty solid overview of Hyperdub’s output thus far.

When you look at the dubstep scene you realize quickly that it’s a fairly young genre. Not in terms of its own existence as a named thing, but as a measure of the age of many of its prominent musicians. They’re of the generation that doesn’t know a world before the Nintendo Entertainment System and a lot of the music reflects that. There’s Rusko dubstepping the Bionic Commando theme (and it’s pretty badass) and Joker cutting up the Metal Gear Solid 3 theme and the countless others bringing in Gameboys, and videogame samples and aesthetics. If you had a giant Venn Diagram of dubstep and 8-bit chiptunes, you’d see a large overlap between the two.

Why dubstep is particularly prone to this, more than other electronic styles, I don’t know. Maybe it has to do with its relatively lo-fi, home studio feel of the genre? Burial’s claims that he produced his first album entirely within Soundforge come to mind. There’s a hidden, untold history there, but it’d be best told by someone that knows the genre, and its players, better than I do. In the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying it until it’s pillaged and destroyed for all its worth. And if you do enjoy videogame-like music, but are afraid of the stigma that “pure” chiptunes can bring, you can’t go wrong with Hyperdub’s compilation.

I’ve also just uploaded my mix to SoundCloud. Interesting service. It’s embeded below:

BEAK>

BEAK> is a new project by Geoff Barrow, of Portishead, and two other guys. Extracts from their upcoming album can be listened to, in full, and purchased on their Bandcamp site.

If you liked Portishead’s “Third” or, more correctly, the parts of it that were compared to the likes of The Silver Apples and Sunn O))) and Fennesz, then you will enjoy Beak>. It’s a lot more raw, lacking the high production levels of Portishead, but it gives the music an almost improvisational feel. The vocals are distorted and echo-y, no Beth Gibbons here, but they suit the electro-acoustic aesthetic the band is going for and, more so, their recording style. The music was recorded live in one room with no overdubs or repair, only using edits to create arrangements.

It’s all very good material and it makes me eager to hear the rest of it and it tempts me so much to get the limited edition box set. But now that I’m literally living out of a suitcase, it’s hard for me to justify the purchase of physical media, let alone the kind that comes packaged in a pizza box. I just don’t have the space; but a digital download will be an instant purchase.