Teleosteopathy

Clark’s new album Turning Dragon has blown my week apart. All I’ve read about it so far focuses on its weight, its assault, its sheer violence. This is surely warranted - I’d be scared to hear an opening few tracks on any other album as punishing as the stretch here from “New Year Storm” to “For Wolves Crew” - but the violence is tempered at points by studied forays into softer, dubbier textures. “Ache Of The North” is mainly what I’m thinking about. For me it seems to riff off nsi.’s undulating contribution to Ostgut’s standout Shut Up And Dance! compilation from last year. However, while the reverberating offbeats the Berlin duo conjured were almost stately in their passage, the Bucephalus-like clatter that Clark summons up gallops past in a “cavernous thunder” (thanks James Glazebrook for picking all the right descriptives in his great review).

Another thing nsi. could not have been expected to try was to sew in some squiggly acid undertones halfway through, before weaving the different threads into an almost orchestral pattern of pretty noise. But they were purportedly writing for ballet. Clark, happily, was not (unless I am making a gross assumption here!), so we are treated to the full acid, symphonic tapestry. Turning Dragon was released yesterday on Warp records. Coming soon…Autechre! Oh, and I’ll probably write about some techno or something, although it’s sometimes difficult to carry on one’s own modest writing when faced with articles as elegant and informative as Philip Sherburne’s recent Wire feature on Vladislav Delay. Read it if you can.

Clark - “Ache Of The North”[Warp]

So I was thinking some more about Petre Inspirescu’s “Sakadat”. It’s a great track with a kangaroo’s bounce, except that the kangaroo has tourettes. I think the most apt word for the snare is actually ‘funny’ - it makes me smile a lot anyway, but the warped synths that come in later make an already amusing track just a little bit OTT. I go from smiling to being a little put-off.

Thing is, when I first heard the track I immediately thought of Gabriel Ananda’s “Trommelstunde” off his fantastic Bambusbeats album on Karmarouge. That track is all about an offbeat snare and the silence that surrounds it, with the spaces inbetween filled with the kind of rolling, tribal percussion that Ananda has made his own. I find “Trommelstunde” ultimately more satisfying than “Sakadat” because it doesn’t even need any spaceship noises to keep the build going. If anything, its singular focus on the range of a snare drum allows for more compelling peaks and troughs without any distraction.

Well, then I was listening to Soylent Green aka Roman Flügel’s “Jet Set” from 2006’s La Forza Del Destino on Playhouse. It too has a slamming rimshot that catches you unawares throughout the piece, surrounded by clipped sandpaper rhythms and a really deep kick - like “Trommelstunde” it’s got a really mutable groove. But it also has some spaceship synths (a similar style to those found on 2000 And One’s remix last year of Dominik Eulberg’s “Grünschenkel”) and midrange ‘waahs’ that are more similar to the middle section of the Inspirescu track. I think it achieves this combination without sounding quite so over the top as “Sakadat” can.

I guess there’s something in those chromatic wails of “Sakadat” that rankles with me given my first-minute expectations of a purely rhythmic onslaught, Ananda-style. Or maybe i’m just feeling disappointed that Bambusbeats has got less play than I think it deserves. Probably a bit of both. Anyway, here’s that Soylent Green track if you haven’t heard it already.

Soylent Green - “Jet Set” [Playhouse]

Incidentally, I think that Petre Inspirescu’s Tips release on Cadenza from last year is a far better showcase for his individual sense of rhythm. “La Crème Bonjour” is particularly diverting (that sounds more patronising and less complimentary than I mean it to be - I think it’s a brilliant release).

Justin Bua

2007 spoilt me something rotten, with countless 5* albums from some firm favourites (LCD Soundsystem, Radiohead, Matthew Dear, Super Furry Animals), some late discoveries (Burial, Panda Bear, Of Montreal) and, most pleasingly, full-length upon full-length of amazing electronic music. There was an explosion of techno albums, with almost every big single seemingly followed sharply by a richly conceived long player. How can you argue with: Gabriel Ananda, Ricardo Villalobos, Pantha Du Prince, Michal Ho, Dapayk & Padberg, Cobblestone Jazz, False, Guy Gerber, Gui Boratto, Pole, Samim, Efdemin…as I say, spoilt rotten.

A few further (!) releases that really got me intrigued were three of the less expected offerings. Onur Özer’s Kaşmir was the darkest, creepiest of the bunch. His disregard for minimal’s often strict structuring was matched by his penchant for unusual instrumentation. No silly accordions here, though, rather restless trombones and dulled woodblocks. At its most warped, on the 10 minute “Terpsichorean Echoes”, Özer took me on a trip through the darkest recesses of both my mind and my insides. Frightening, really.

His keenness of ear was matched by Kalabrese, although in a far more jovial setting. Where Özer plunged down rabbit holes, Rumpelzirkus did a funky dance in a chicken hutch. There were horns, but they didn’t sound on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There were creaking chairs, there were congas…Kalabrese made me laugh out loud with his demand to “let the bubbles go into your brain, go crazy!”

Then at the end of 2007 along came Thomas Melchior with the divine No Disco Future, an exercise in mutant minimal pop, sending me whirling into eddies of sound and texture. This one hit a lot harder than the other two - particularly on the pummeling “Her Majesty” - but it also proved to have the lightest of touches in its divine closer, “Water Soul”.

Well, why am I telling you all of this. I’m telling you because 2008 has started with another album to spoil our ears and grey matter in turn: Bruno Pronsato’s Why Can’t We Be Like Us on Hello? Repeat records. The response that this record has garnered is entirely deserved. Back in 2007’s December Wire, Philip Sherburne (unsurprisingly ahead of the curve) called it “the year’s most living, breathing update of the 4/4 pulse.” In a review from one of my favourite writers at the moment, Peter Chambers at RA advised us to “take as much time letting these complicated mechanisms unwind in your earspace.” He compares the album favourably to Özer’s, suggesting that Pronsato’s atmospherics are less a product of doodling. Well, I don’t know. To me they explore different moods - Pronsato’s tones are more reminiscent of a carnival than a catacomb, and maybe they have different intentions for how organic they want to sound. I find this album to be more like Kalabrese’s in its realistic timbre, perhaps due to their shared history as metal drummers, while Pronsato’s exploration of repetition mirrors the cyclical development found in Melchior’s longer tracks. All four of these albums point to a very exciting ‘08.

Regardless of all this rambling, the fact is that Why Can’t We Be Like Us does make me think about the nature of this sort of music that I happen to like. I can get totally lost in the hopping drums of “What They Wish”, which never seem to fall where I expect them, and then after the 7 minute mark these contemplative piano chords reach right inside me and squeeze. I commented on Chambers’ article that I thought it was heartbreaking - I’ll repeat it here. Techno doesn’t normally provoke that sort of emotion from me, so it seems that there are still rich furrows to plough with the right firm pair of hands in control.

After all that, I’m not actually going to post a track from the album. I guess I feel it’d be slighting it slightly. I dunno. Anyway, I’m going to post a track from another album on its way to us from one of my absolute favourites, Kelley Polar. His Love Songs Of The Hanging Gardens has turned into one of those albums that I don’t think I could go too long without. In my books it’s been criminally overlooked so I hope to change this by posting a track from the new one. I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling is a little more conceptual, I suppose you could say, than the debut. It has some stone-cold classic pop songs (the Blue Monday-aping “Entropy Reins (In The Celestial City)”, for example) and some more intriguing vignettes. In fact, much of the last part of the album seems to form a suite of sorts, plunging down dischordant chromatic scales in various settings, before the closing “In Paradisum” melds all that’s gone before into an extravagant finish. 2008 really has got off to a flying start (and don’t even get me gushing about BSP’s new one).

Polar’s “Chrysanthemum” was released as an EP last year, which is sitting prettily on my shelf over there. It fought LCD’s “Someone Great” for my song of the year, with its sweaty breathing, apocalyptic lyrics, swooning strings and…well. Have a listen, and go and by both albums, old and new (when it goes up for sale), from the Environ webpage - they deserve every penny.

Kelley Polar - “Chrysanthemum” [Environ]

Check out the equally captivating video here. As perfectly formed as the song.

Rick Warner asks if progressive house is experiencing a renaissance so soon after it apparently lost most of its credibility, at least in the circles he and, I assume, much of RA’s readership move in. Maybe he’s right, especially given that separate releases from Shlomi Aber and Guy Gerber did so well last year - particularly Gerber’s stonking Late Bloomers album. That full-length managed to bridge the gap between hands-in-the-air prog and stomp-on-the-ground ‘minimal’* with belly-shaking aplomb. I think it’s perhaps this middle ground that’s slowly erasing the reflex distaste that previously met any hint of a dew-eyed melody.

This release from Satoshi Tomiie works this trick to a T. It’s got enough thud to hit my gut and enough oozing synth lines to warrant its starstruck title. The remixes are a coup as well - especially Luca Bachetti’s, which makes the original even more palatable for the ‘minimal’* masses. This remix plus his amazing Rolling Brooklyn release from last year mean he’s one i’m definitely keeping my eye on.

Satoshi Tomiie - “Solar Wind” [SAW]

* I feel almost dirty using that word now, even with quote marks - this strikes me as an indictment of most of the current dialogue surrounding what should really be just sounds and not ’scenes’…

Here’s the mix I made recently. Again it’s only short, about 40 minutes long, and it kicks off with some of my favourite producers of the year - Anja Schneider, Dapayk & Padberg, Carl Craig remixing LCD Soundsystem - alongside a track from Sascha Funke’s new album Mango on Bpitchcontrol. Audion makes it all go a bit messy later on, but then DOP & Nôze’s humour brings it all back under control again before Melchior Productions finish it off in style - “Water Soul” is my favourite track off the amazing No Disco Future album and seems to me to be a great way of winding down at the end of a mix.

Decrimramramrim ‘07
01. The Emperor Machine - “Rimramramrim” [D.C.]
02. Sascha Funke - “Lotre (Mehr Fleisch)” [BPitch Control]
03. LCD Soundsystem - “Sound Of Silver [C2 Remix Rev. 3]” [DFA]
04. Jamie Jones - “Should Have Gone Home” [Freak N Chic]
05. Dapayk & Padberg - “Theiss” [Mo's Ferry Prod.]
06. Anja Schneider - “Gimlet” [Mobilee]
07. Matt John - “Olga Dancekowski [Audion's Paradise Café Mix]” [BAR25]
08. Dubfire - “I Feel Speed [Audion Remix]” [Not on label]
09. DOP - “Dopamen (C6H3OH2CH2CH2NH2) (feat. Nôze)” [Circus Company]
10. Melchior Productions Ltd. - “Water Soul” [Perlon]

I read about Andrea Sartori’s Il Tagliacode in the Wire and also on acidtongue’s end-of-year list. I’m so glad that I did - I hear it as the album I’ve been waiting for ever since Isolée’s “Schrapnell”, although it also frequently edges towards Amon Tobin territory. It’s a truly absorbing listen.

05. Black Strobe - “I’m A Man [Audion Donation Mix]” [Playlouder]
Not much to say about this one really, other than that it was the one track I wanted to get hold of most for quite a long time. I’ve yet to hear the original but part of me wonders whether it’s really worth it. Here, Matthew Dear throws politeness and restraint out of the window. Actually he throws the listener out of the window, along with one of the most thudding kicks of the year and an earsplitting breakdown that put his own “Noiser” track to shame (not that I don’t enjoy that one either, or its “Fred’s Bells” b-side…oh god i’m such a fanboy.)

04. Marc Houle - “On It” [M_nus]
B-side to the much-maligned comedy track “Techno Vocals”, “On It” seemed to get somewhat lost in all the grouching about M_nus, Houle and minimal in general. Well, I’d like to say that I thought “Techno Vocals” was actually pretty funny, and also not bad for the goofy, throwaway kinda track I took it to be. “On It” is in comparison, however, a masterpiece in loping, wound-up menace. Houle (live at the End) was responsible for possibly the best single moment in a year full of incredible moments, when he conjured up such a ridiculous squall from his other hate-it-or-love-it track, “Bay Of Figs”, that I thought my whole head would explode, before mixing it into the percolating throb of this track’s second half. In my mind, Houle’s forthcoming full-length is one of the more intriguing prospects of the coming year.

03. Hugo - “Cocadisco” [Tuning Spork]
It’s Tuning Spork yet again, this time with a record I’d heard nothing about before first-listen. Pleasantly surprised the first time round, I proceeded to get further tangled up in it with each subsequent listen. “Cacao” is great for mixing, “Lunatico” matches its name…but it’s “Cocadisco” that’s the furthest out there. If I heard this out in a club I’d probably think I was hearing things - disembodied voices, scraping synth noisers (as opposed to noises - am I allowed to coin this word?) and a relentlessly pushing rhythm all combine to make this apocalyptic surround-sound blast. I’m surprised that this record didn’t get a little more attention this year.

02. Ricardo Villalobos - “Primer Encuentro Latino-Americano” [Sei Es Drum]
Fabric 36 remains captivating so many listens later, and this track remains the oddly bewitching highlight. After the skronk of “Mecker”, the drama of “Andruic & Japan” and the soulfulness of “Won’t You Tell Me”, “Primer…” finally delivers the foot-stomping grooveathon one would expect of a Fabric mix, albeit filtered through Villalobos’ inimitable style (and for no-one else is that old saw more apt.) It goes on for ten minutes (almost 13 on the Sei Es Drum EP) but if I had the choice it’d go on as long as Fizheuer Zieheuer, a track which in my mind it totally eclipses. Long may Villalobos enjoy the notoriety he has gained over the last few years - if anyone can take this sound to a wider audience I feel like he’s the slightly odd-looking posterboy that’s going to do it.

01. Audion - “I Gave You Away” [Spectral Sound]
Well, I suppose that is apart from (the considerably less odd-looking) Matthew Dear. For me, 2007 belonged wholesale to Matthew Dear/False/Audion. Two almost faultless albums in Asa Breed and 2007, a beguiling live show at Field Day festival, numerous Audion remixes and, on top of all this, the best track of the year. “I Gave You Away” came along in February, playing the slightly daunting role of follow-up to “Mouth To Mouth”. I reckon it played it perfectly - far from being another attempt at dancefloor carnage, this one is as subtle and well-observed as they come. The disease-inflected synth line battles the stuttering beat for rhythmic attention, cycling round and round a silent pivot, both tonally and texturally. Faint string lines take you smoothely from one movement to the next as the synth gets ever more insistent, the high-hat flutters, the snare jitters, the synth fades and returns…and at just over halfway the whole shebang comes clattering down on you. Then it does all it needs to, which is fade and return even stronger.

To say that this year was good for me is a bit of an understatement. I finally got out and about to several amazing techno nights, found some like-minded people, listened to as much of the year’s (truly astounding) music as I could and thoroughly enjoyed it. Here’s hoping this year follows in style.