As is tradition

There's no shortage of tracks out there with dates attached - now, I'm not normally one for date-posting over here, but I usually make an exception for this one - It's not the only one the Boards Of Canada boys have either, but I like to shine a light on it around the date in question. Hailing from their early pre-Warp days on Skam records, it perhaps a little less known than their later works. Annoyingly, this also makes it very hard to post a legal stream of it.

Normally, I'd go for a hooky Soundcloud upload but I don't quite feel like it this time, so instead we're reverting back to the old tried and tested YT players. With a twist this time! The first video is from an old community video contest that was judged by the band themselves, which ended up coming second. The years passing (16 of them!) haven't been kind to it and it looks crunchy as all get out, but it makes a nice change from the usual cliché BoC fan-vid which leans heavily on the 70's nostalgia, but then again this track is quite different from your usual BoC affair as it is. It comes out looking a little more like the hi-tech Warp videos of old, think Chris Cunningham's video for Autechre's Second Bad Villbel.



Of course, I gotta follow that up with a newer upload, if only for the infinitely better audio quality. It was remastered/repressed in 2014 which in my head makes me think "oh that wasn't too long ago" before realising it's coming up on almost a decade ago... The rest of the Hi Scores EP is worth a spin, there's other bits on there that are more 'BoC' like in execution if the thundering tech of this one isn't for you.



And that'll about do it for today - I'll be back soon enough with more but until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Delicate

Wayne Thiebaud - Reservoir (1999)

Bit of a quick one for now as I was feelin' a little inspired. I'm back on my usual again - I've always had a leaning toward the ambient side of things, something you'll well know if you've been around here long enough. Today I figured I'd shine a light on some favourites old and new from the collection. Starting off with some Hiroshi Yoshimura, whose works are a distilled version of what I love about this kind of music. His work has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance recently due to the internet - reaching people it otherwise wouldn't have done decades after the original release. I've gone with yet another piece from Music For Nine Post Cards this time, it's thankfully readily accessible thanks to a repress and digital re-release. I would say Nine Post Cards is absolutely essential if you are at all interested in Ambient Music - it is fantastic throughout but I fall in love all over again from the opening bars of this one right here.



Moving away from pure ambient for the next one, I posted one track from the enigmatic Astral Engineering a while back and here we are again. Living more in that ambient techno sphere, the needle is sometimes firmly in one area, sometimes in another. Singularity is more ambient than techno to begin with, but sways that way over time with some suitably hi-tech arpeggios in the latter half. It's very much of-its-era in terms of sound, sound a little bit like an off cut from Alter Ego's debut from 1994, though this track originally appeared on this compilation from 1999, so it's a little out of time in that regard. Still, it's a lovely hypnotic listen, the ending is a little abrupt but that's because all the tracks on this album are meant to be played sequentially. It's a free download over on Bandcamp so definitely worth it if you like what's on show here.



And finally, I couldn't write a post like this without mentioning Boards Of Canada. Feels like it's been forever since I mentioned them, there are any number of tracks from their catalogue that could go here, but I had one specific in mind when writing this up. The original Olson from Music Has The Right To Children ranks among my favourite ambient pieces of all time, but I've talked at length about it many times over the years. In it's stead I've gone with the version from the Peel Session EP they put out - helpfully re-issued a few years ago by Warp. It extends the original by about double, and somehow manages to lay on the analogue warmth even thicker. It is wonderful, and compliments the original brilliantly - neither is 'better', they're more like different shades of the same colour, there are times when one will feel more apt than the other.



And that'll be all for today. I feel like it's been a good while since I went all in on the ambient side of things, I was hoping to swing it more in a techno direction with the Astral Engineering track, but I'm still happy with what's on show here - I hope you've found some things to enjoy here. As usual, I'll be back soon enough with more but until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Not Quite

So some things are still broken, but I'm making baby steps every time I sit down and take a look at things, it's fast becoming one of those tech troubleshooting tales where it could be one of a million things at hand - compounded further by the fact I inherited this site and really don't know anything about the inner workings AND having to troubleshoot across multiple sites. Still, I'm trying to keep active despite it all. I think I can do this, I just need a hand is all.

Friedensreich Hundertwasser - The Endless Way to You (1967)

So this one is gonna be extra short as a result, here's a selection of troubleshooting tracks I've had on in the background. They're all of a specific type, each one very fitting for scrolling through bug reports, fixes and everything in-between while neurons fire and my eyes glaze over a bit. Starting with a bit from the massive Touched Two compilation, a fittingly hi-tech almost ambient piece - a perfect accompaniment and another high quality offering from the compilation.



Moving back to more familiar faces next with Boards Of Canada. A piece from The Campfire Headphase that I initially wasn't too hot on but have since come around to in time. To paraphrase myself from ages ago: Slow This Bird Down captures a muggy, close night in audio form. On the whole Headphase is not as sinister as Geogaddi, it's been a long time since I listened to it as I completely burned myself out on all things BoC a little while back, but coming back to both this and Tomorrow's Harvest has been a real delight.



And finally some Washed Out. I have mixed feelings about Within & Without - from the artwork down to the songs themselves, it's Washed Out at his most twee 'indie' chillwave style - drenched in reverb and with distant almost mumbled vocals. And yet I can't find myself disliking it. Yeah, the content is a little dated but I've got a lot of love for the formula - I do prefer the version of this track that appeared on the 2010 edition of the Adult Swim Singles Program, I'm not sure if it's the lower bitrate playing tricks but it sounds a little rawer in execution, giving a nice extra lo-fi feeling to everything. A fun record to dig out once in a while, if a bit formulaic, especially if you've come off the heels of the Life Of Leisure EP



And that'll be all for now, a very much cut down post compared to my previous efforts, but once all this mess is sorted out I promise I'll be back to the regular jaunt! I'll be back around soon enough with more but until then - as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Right on Time

Every year I plan to put this track up, and every year I miss it by a day or so before I realise. But not this year! A little let down by it not being on BC so we'll have to make do with a YT player this time around, but small potatoes really. Join me as we listen to June 9th by Boards Of Canada on the date in question - if you're familliar with the BoC boys, you'll find this one quite a bit different, hailing from the early days of their career on Skam records, it's much more techno than the ambient trip hop that they'd later become known for. There's some real gold among those early releases, tracks like this one and Chinook have this very different feel but there's still that underlying BoC DNA in there.



It can be a pretty deep rabbit hole to go down, there's a lot of BoC material before their first 'official' releases (and more than a couple of forgeries as well) - it's incredible to be able to chart their progression over the decades, the tunes mentioned above are from around the time they were switching gears into the sound they're known for today so it's a little bit easier to hear there. And that's all I've got for you today! Apologies for the super short post, I'll be back this weekend with a more substantial entry but until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Summer Somethin'

Finally time to get around to putting this up now that things are warming up for those in the Northern Hemisphere. Some cuts that didn't make it onto the Cosy Collection of last time, spun off into their own thing. A little more eclectic in terms of selection, there were plenty that didn't make it in that I will hang onto for next time - I hope you enjoy the selection. As usual, tracklist in plain text and a full rundown of the selections below: (Both players above are the same, but the picture one doesn't show the tracklist like the compact player so I included both!)







Tracklist:
Maria Yamamoto - Venus to Chiisana Kamisama (Instrumental)
Lina Ohta - Puzzle-Riddle
Boom Bip - Last Walk Around Mirror Lake (Boards Of Canada Remix)
Kensuke Ushio - Flare
Kensuke Ushio - Speed Of Youth
Ghostlight - Fantasy Complex
Susumu Yokota - Nothing Time
Sugar Plant - Simple Dub


Pretty happy with how this one turned out for the most part, some of my intended selections didn't make the cut (Röyksopp and Air to name a few) which was disappointing, but I think I've been guilty in the past of forcing tunes in, so I tried to be a little more loose this time. Kicking off with a semi-obscure but of J-Pop from Maria Yamamoto - this is exactly the type of song I had in mind making this mix and I chose the instrumental to highlight that, Maria's vocal is fine but I just had to let that fantastic instrumentation by Tsuneo Imahori shine, it's just gorgeous. From there we keep things in a similar vein, with Lina Ohta's very brief and only foray into music - it's a similar story here as with the last one - produced by Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame, he has an incredible talent and an incredibly vast discography, his pop productions like this one are always a treat.

Moving more into traditional territory next with the sublime Last Walk Around Mirror Lake Remix from Boards Of Canada. Very much in the Campfire Headphase style, that whole album could easily have made up the entire tracklist here. It was a different spin on the typical nostalgic BoC sound, trading analog weirdness for more acoustic elements (though still very firmly retro in style), but that makes a perfect match for Boom Bip around this time. Wonderful stuff, and one of the best tracks in the BoC archives.

A double feature from Kensuke Ushio next - he's made plenty of appearances in my recent mixy posts, both under his real name and the Agraph alias. I fell in love hard with his stuff a few years ago now, his brand of IDM on the Agraph albums is a lovely balance between the glitchy and melodic that I instantly clicked with - more recently he's been doing a bunch of soundtrack work, and with it exploring whole other genres. From full on synthwave for Devilman Crybaby to his more usual Ambient / IDM for Boogiepop wa Warawanai, I have loved it all. His work for A Silent Voice is no exception, it's a beautiful movie with an equally beautiful OST. I couldn't pick just one so I went with the sparkling duo of Flare and Speed Of Youth - the former showing off the ambient side while the latter gets just a touch of that IDM influence on it. Fantastic works.

Rounding out we have Fantasy Complex from Ghostlight, a tune I was randomly recommended one day, and it wouldn't stop recommeding me it. So I stubbornly gave in one day and gave it a spin. It's very nice, all of Ghostlight's work has this real nice lo-fi feel to it that I don't have a ton of in my library, though I wish I knew what was the content that made the algorithm decide to send them my way. From there we have a little more Susumu Yokota, this time from the Sound Of Sky album that I opened one of my winter mixes with. I've yet to hear the man's full discography - there is a lot of stuff to get through and that's before you look at his many aliases - but even so, Sky is up there as one of my favourite offerings from the man. Chill lounge house tracks like this are the order of the day, so Nothing Time was right at home here.

And finally, Sugar Plant. Another recent love of mine that has been sadly relegated to thse mixes due to them noth being readily avalable on streaming that isn't Spotify. They're sort of difficult to pin down, on paper they are an indie / alternative rock band, but that label feels like sort of a disservice - their works feel quite electronic, sort of like Seefeel in that respect - creating these lovely loops with actual instruments - though Sugar Plant is much more downtempo that Seefeel's droney shoegaze. Highly recommended for fans of the Trip Hop stuff I've posted in the past, they feel very much like Morcheeba to me. I've chosen the Dub version of Simple to play out, it's not massively changed from the orignal, just with lots of lovely dub delay and other elements added for good measure, a fitting finale I thought.

And that'll do for today, pretty fast turnaround on this one, thanks mainly to me having a draft tracklist to hand for a few months now! I'm going to drop by with more Final Bandcamp Friday stuff throgh the week hopefully, but I hope until then you can find plenty in this selection to tide you over - and of course, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

20 Summers Back

I'm having a bit of a Warp renaissance as of late - this past weekend the usually dormant Boards Of Canada twitter account came out of the woodwork to retweet some articles celebrating the 20th anniversary of the release of Geogaddi. In times past, I'd have been among them at the time (or at least tried to be) but even having missed the actual date, I think the album itself is more than worth a revisit.

Geogaddi is a very dense album, and not just because it's got the biggest tracklist of all their mainline albums. It's dense because it is steeped in atmosphere - here the Boards really lean into their aesthetic - resulting in an album that is brimming with psychedelia, tinged with 60's nostalgia, and thanks to some subtle (and some not so subtle) nods to the occult, a slightly menacing undertone - the subtlest being the inclusion of one final track of silence on the album that is purely there to raise the album's runtime to 66 minutes and 6 seconds.

As a result it's perhaps not the best starting point if you're new to the Boards, I'd recommend the previous album Music Has The Right To Children for that, but even so it's home to some of their finest works as well. Following the standard Boards Of Canada modus operandi - after a brief intro to set the stage in Ready Lets Go, we immediately dive into Music Is Math. Which is a tune that is going to make me instantly walk back the statement I just made about it not being a good intro to a first time listener - an almost distillation of the quintessential BoC sound, if you like this, you can pretty much go ahead and grab the rest of their discography for more.



But it's not long before the slightly sinister elements make an appearance as it's followed by Beware The Friendly Stranger, which you may recognise from David Firth's Salad Fingers series - it's a melodic interlude, but with a menacing crackle and fizz lurking just below the surface, which is will be a recurring theme throughout the tracklist. We're going to jump quite a bit forward to highlight another standout in 1969, which continues the trend of comforting yet unsettling. The beats are surprisingly heavy on all of Geogaddi which is demonstrated very well here. Crown it with some of the most explicitly deliberate cult imagery on the album (the sample here is "Although not a follower of David Koresh, she's a devoted Branch Davidian", just with Koresh's name reversed) and you have the complete Geogaddi recipe. It's hypnotic but doesn't outstay it's welcome at a (nice) 4:20, the final quarter when the track title's namesake comes into play it is magical - I can never get enough of that robotic '1969, in the sunshine'.



I am skipping over a majority here which does feel like a bit of a disservice, Geogaddi is a record that deserves to be experienced in its entirety at least once - but I am also playing favourites here. Speaking of favourites, some of my top Boards Of Canada tunes all follow a similar formula - the short melodic ambient interludes that punctuate the albums. Over The Horizon Radar is one of them, lovely but fleeting. I usually find myself saying 'just one more time' when they do come up as a a result, this one along with Olson from Music Has The Right To Children are probably my two most played of them all as a result. Over The Horizon Radar ushers in the final quarter of the album, and marks the end of the darker sound as well - the final few tracks are all beautiful in their own ways.



Over The Horizon Radar is followed by Dawn Chorus, which is also one of my favourites (and one I've not done a very good job of describing having searched the archives). You'd be forgiven for not really getting the darker side of the album given my selections, none of them other than 1969 really show it - and Dawn Chorus continues that trend - what can I say, I'm picking favourites after all! It's a sparkling, sun dressed celebration of its title. The end result is nothing short of euphoric, when this one hits on certain days it is like nothing else. It is just wonderful, an absolute treat to listen too, and one that is all the sweeter when its been a long time since hearing it last as is the case with me.



It doesn't seem that long since the 20th anniversary of the album before, Music Has The Right To Children, but then again I suppose everyone's perception of time is a little warped these days (no pun intended). That and Geogaddi will be forever linked in my head as I picked them both up around the same time when I went on my huge Warp Records deep dive however long ago. Two landmark albums that I think any fan of electronic music could do with hearing once - the Boards boys absolutely nailed their aesthetic by this point on both the visual and audio front and would go on to influence many others in the electronic music sphere.

This little excursion has been fun, I'll be sure to rifle through my collection and see if I can't spot any more upcoming album anniversaries that I could cover. I hope you've all enjoyed it too, (my coverage has matured a little bit since the first time I've covered these albums as a teen!) and if this is your first time really listening to the BoC, then welcome - and I'm sure you'll enjoy your time with them. Until next time - as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Wandering the Boards

I had another one of those moments the other day where shuffle deals me a hand I wasn't expecting - hitting me with some Boards Of Canada. It wasn't like I haven't been listening to them or anything, it was more one of those cases where you only notice something missing after it returns. BoC are near and dear to me as you all may know, but the same can be said of all big Warp acts really. It has been a while since I've actually posted anything from them now I think about it, but I did do a runthrough of all their albums pre-Tomorrow's Harvest way back when as part of the Warped History series. At any rate, immediately afterwards I went on a quick dip back into some of my favourites from their works, and thanks to Warp's appearance on Bandcamp, I can now easily make it into a quick post as well - so let's go!

Eyvind Earle - Three Horses (1987)
We're actually going to start with a bit from Tomorrow's Harvest, their latest release not counting the big rebranded reissue of the Peel Session. I didn't actually review this one when it came out unlike some other Warp albums which is probably for the best in hindsight - it's certainly a grower (no pun intended). It's not my favourite of their albums, but don't take that as harsh criticism, it's still BoC doing what they do best. If you needed proof of that, look no further than the one-two punch of the album's opening Gemini, where the BoC boys lay out their 70's soundtrack influences bare - and how it leads into the second track Reach For The Dead. The whole album is a much... darker affair than usual, but not dark in the same way as Geogaddi was - it's a much more gritty, granular experience. Having said that, it is similar to Geogaddi in that the whole album is laden with foreboding atmospheres, but even so there are moments of beauty on there and Reach is one of them - one that I think stands alone even if the rest of the album leaves you wanting.



We'll be going backwards through their discography from here on out, I've chosen a couple from Geogaddi just to fill things out as my immediate first choice Over The Horizon Radar is lovely but fleeting. A trend that will continue with the rest of my picks actually, these small ambient interludes are some of my favourites they've done, and due to the bite size length I usually find myself saying 'just one more time' when they do come up. Over The Horizon Radar ushers in the final quarter of the album which is a pretty good summary of the whole thing honestly, it has the balance of ambient and slightly sinister trip hop thing that runs through the album down perfectly.



And speaking of, 1969 would be one of my go-tos for the flip side of the album - comforting yet unsettling. The beats are surprisingly heavy on all of Geogaddi, but 1969 seems to stick out a lot more than the rest to me at the moment - top it all off with some deliberately cult imagery (the sample here is "Although not a follower of David Koresh, she's a devoted Branch Davidian", just with Koresh's name reversed) and you have pretty much the album's MO in a nutshell. It's hypnotic but doesn't outstay it's welcome at a (nice) 4:20, the final quarter when the track title's namesake comes into play it's magical - I cannot get enough of that vocoded 1969, in the sunshine.



But if I had to pick just one single piece from BoC's vast discography that I could listen to forever, it would be this. I've brought it up a bunch of times before but I think it's been long enough that I can bring it up again - to me, Olson is the distilled essence of the Boards Of Canada sound, at least on the pure ambient front. Their work is very evocative of a moment in time, and they do a fantastic job of capturing that nostalgic, wistful feeling here - the analogue hisses and warbles are refined to perfection to capture that moment in time that influenced them so. It's maybe a little late to say it in the post, but if by chance you're new to BoC and like what you hear here, I would recommend starting with the album that Olson is from: Music Has The Right To Children and working your own way from there, forward or backward in their discography and you'll probably find even more that appeals.



And that'll do it for this slightly hastily written post, apologies for the widening gaps between them these days, things are getting busier IRL, I'm going to try and continue this short post trend just because it's easier to manage with the current climate and all. I have something else lined up that I haven't started yet so there may be another one out by the end of this week, but if not I'll drop by with it when I can. And as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Unheard

My Warp revisit continues - when I was first taking my deep dive into Warp's backcatalogue it was a great time as they were doing a year long celebration thing that meant re-issues of classic albums in double pack format were really easy to come by, in this futursitic if a bit clincal grey packaging. Alongise that were three compilations, much like the Warp10 ones but a bit different in practice.

The three are subtitled (Chosen), (Unheard) and (Recreated) respectively. And the titles pretty much give it all away - (Chosen) is community and Warp selected picks from their archives, (Recreated) is covers of classic Warp tracks by other Warp artists and (Unheard) is previously unreleased stuff. And it's this compilation in particular that I'll be talking about today.

The compilation is real good, but there's no denying that there are some deliberately chosen standout tracks on there. Case in point, it opens with the simply divine Seven Forty Seven from Boards Of Canada. If you've ever gone on a trip into the BoC fandom, you will know that there is a mountain of unreleased material from them - from snippets of tracks played only at live shows to early fragments of demos from cassette tapes and Seven Forty Seven is actually a slightly revised version of a track originally 'called' Audiotrack 6A from the 'Random 35 Tracks' tape.

The original is hauntingly beautiful in it's own right - the tape hiss and other cassette artifacts only playing into that fuzzy nostalgia that BoC do so well, though the beat sounds a little out of place, it very clearly signposts the sound that they were heading towards come their actual releases. And that makes Seven Forty Seven so interesting, it's the BoC boys revisiting a decades old sample and putting together a more refined version of their vision that more easily comes with all that extra experience. The track itself would have fit right in on The Campfire Headphase but it's perhaps even older than that, as snippets of this could be heard on the really old Boardsofcanada.com flash (RIP) website back in the day. Over time the song grows into a cacophony of various sounds, but it manages to not feel overwhelming in doing so. It's not my favourite BoC sound, but it's certainly one of their finest hours and an incredible demonstration of their aesthetic approach.



Autechre next - as I've said before their earlier work circa Incunabula and Amber are my favourites, and this compilation was a treat in that sense. Scratching an itch that wouldn't be hit again until they released the Warp Tapes 89-93 as a freebie a couple of years ago now is Oval Moon. Far removed from their genre bending trips into electronic that they are known for these days, their early pieces are very much befitting of that 'Listening Electronic' idea that Warp was pitching around the early 90's, a sort of ambient techno that's often infused with a high-tech melodic edge.

I have plenty of favourites from that era - from Richie Hawtin's work as F.U.S.E. on Dimension Intrusion to the decidedly Sci-Fi Electro-Soma from B12, to Autechre themselves, but I think if I had to pick one song that defined most of the elements of that style it would be Oval Moon - it's maybe a smidge repetitive to be the perfect example IMO, but that could easily be because this is a previously unreleased track, perhaps even a demo. Despite that I'd still consider it a solid example: all of the sounds are there and the little techy flourishes sprinkled throughout are an absolute delight, really capturing the spirit of that series. If you like this as much as I, absolutely seek out those Warp Tapes 89-93 I mentioned earlier (they were free from Autechre's store way back when but I don't know if that's still the case...) - it's essentially two continuous hours of early Autechre jams like this one.



And finally, Sixty Forty, Broadcast's cover of Nico. This one's another case like BoC where the (Unheard) tag isn't 100% true - they had performed Sixty Forty a few times, maybe at some live shows but absolutely on one of their many Peel Sessions (I know this because I have a recording of one!). Still, as with the BoC track it's nice to have a studio version at least and not a radio rip of it - though like Seven Forty Seven the lo-fidelity recording suits the skeletal electronics that Broadcast were playing with around the Tender Buttons era (though the Peel Session recording is actually from a few years before). There are other unreleased Broadcast tracks I would have loved to hear proper versions of if they exist - Forget Every Time from another Peel Session being one of them. The surviving Broadcast member James Cargill has put quite a few demos and other Broadcast miscellany on Soundcloud in recent years, so it's a possibility at the very least.

But that's veering off topic - I love Sixty Forty, but it being a cover leads to many, many pretentious arses whinging about it 'ruining' it. It's a different sound for Broadcast, the electronics are very much like what they would go on to use in Tender Buttons, especially on the title track of the same name - but the slow build up of layers and layers of sound on top of that as the song progresses is something new for them, and one that's done really well here. Trish's vocal is great too, (though that is something that also draws out the cover comparisons) perhaps not the best demonstration of her flexibility but very much in line with that stoic delivery that was present in certain tracks of Tender Buttons, a sound that suits that stripped back approach oh so well too. There is a bit of bias there as I have said many times that Trish is one of my favourite vocalists ever, there are definitely other Broadcast tracks where she shines brighter - but I love the bittersweet Sixty Forty all the same.



That'll do it for today, I could go on and on about these compilations but I'll refrain for now. Do check out the others if you're interested - (Chosen) is a solid rundown of the best bits of Warp and (Recreated) has some astounding covers on it to boot - my favourites being the ambient Piano inversion of Aphex Twin's Vordhosbn from Leila and the intense breakcore styled rework of Milanese's So Malleable by Clark. But I'll hold onto those for a rainy day sometime.

And as always - Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Songs In The Key Of Chroma - Revisited

Back in January of 2018 I was in the mood to do some playlist curation, I was starting to commute longer distances and my usual stratagem of putting everything on shuffle wasn't cutting it; ambient drone loops are not a good companion for rush hour trains. So I made it my mission to create some more themed playlists focusing on moods, but rather than title them something trite like 'Jams' or something, I decided to split them into the colours used for industrial printing (which in hindsight may have been just as trite, especially for that pun in the title!). But still, it's easy for me to pick them out of my list of playlists with their unique names and thumbnails.

Why I'm here though is way back then my mission statement was to grow each of these playlists to 100 tracks and then talk about them again, because that's the most the Spotify embedded players will support. Now they actually did this a while ago, and while some of them sat at 99 for a while they are now all over that 100 mark. Not that it was a be-all end all thing, (I am still going to grow these playlists for certain so feel free to follow!) it was more of a milestone kinda thing. Anyway, let's have a look at the new and expanded playlists I have, starting with the first two colours of CMYK, Cyan and Magenta.

Cyan is a bit of a mixed bag, in here you'll find a slightly downtempo leaning collection sprinkled in amongst little bits of electropop, some ambient selections and other various lush sounds. If any of you longtime readers know what kind of sounds I rant and rave about on the chill side of things, you will find plenty of that here! With the expansions to the playlist it has gained a little bit of ambient in there as well with the new Squarepusher EP and some others. As well as a little bit of J-Pop here and there, thanks to me realising there's actually a ton of it on Spotify if you search in Japanese. There's some non-electronic in there for what it's worth but nothing incredibly out of theme. If you like what you hear remember to get the full playlist you'll have to go to Spotify as the embedded players only support up to 100 tracks!
Think artists like: Röyksopp, Ladytron and Boards Of Canada



Magenta now, which began as a kind of an electro throwback and contemporary bangers playlist, which has now morphed into having a little bit of everything that I get real excited about. Which is why now it's a mish mash of Trance, Eurobeat and Synthwave and even some Metal in the form of the Doom soundtrack. It's probably a little scatterbrained for casual listening but if you're in need of a quick injection of Audio Energy I would definitely recommend you check it out. I am well aware that of all the playlists this one is definitely the most self-indulgent for me and is sickly sweet in parts, so I would absolutely understand if you make your own spin off that skips the Eurobeat cuts! If you like what you hear remember to get the full playlist you'll have to go to Spotify as the embeded players only support up to 100 tracks!
Think artists like: Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, MSTRKRFT and Vitalic



They've changed slightly over the past two years, I'm not trying as hard to limit myself to 2-4 tunes per artist anymore, but still trying to keep things pretty varied. Not sure if I'll be posting the updated other two playlists yet, Yellow and Key, but as of writing they are both over the 100 mark if you would like to check them out. Yellow is home of all things strictly downtempo, with a strong hip hop/trip hop lean to it and some slightly funkier numbers in there for good measure. A warmer feel than Cyan, far from the dancefloor thematics of Magenta. Key is where all the darker parts of my music collection lie, and as such is not as strictly electronic as the other three, and now scrolling over the tracklist I think it may be even more scattered in terms of variety than Magenta, there's a solitary Sinatra tune alongside the expected Burial and Portishead for example.

Regardless, I hope there's somethings in these two (or four, if you click the other links) that you like! In the original spirit of the blog I encourage people to build off these playlists and share them with as many folk as I can, a co-worker of mine practically stole all of Yellow for his own downtempo playlist! As always, stay safe and enjoy the music all.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Sunday Service (2020)

NOTE: Hi there! This is an older post that I've re-published and am re-posting as new articles too just so there is visible content going up. Note that the next post will be an original one! This post is originally from February 2016.

Enjoy,
-CVF

Apologies for the slight delay with this 'un, some things happened and I got carried away. Today's sesh is gonna be back to the chill side of things because that's what I'm feelin' ATM because of things that happened, more after some art fer yer eyes.

Edward Hopper - Early Sunday Morning (1930)

Been diggin' Thievery Corp's Saudade LP once again; the albums a bit of a departure from their usual trip hop modus operandi, instead opting for a return to a Bossa Nova style sound. The whole album is very relaxed, with perhaps some hints of sadness given the LPs title. This one comes with the added bonus of feeling extra cultured with the french lyrics.



Had a little chat with Evan a while back where we discussed our favourite Gorillaz songs, and as it turns out we both have a penchant for the more downbeat side of the project. I got around to getting the bonus tracks for main Gorillaz man Damon Albarn's solo effort Everyday Robots the other day and was quite surprised to be treated to another of Albarn's downtempo experiments.



And finally some Boards Of Canada. It took me a while to get me hands on this one back when, the Hi Scores EP I picked up came just a card sleeve with some Braille on. Everything You Do Is A Balloon takes a little while to get going for me, but once it does it earns a spot in the top of BoC's works.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Replacement Pod Service

Claude and Adam discuss their favorite tracks of the week. This week Adam shares a list of his favorite tracks for this summer and Claude talks about Japanese bonus tracks and cuts from two different Akira's. *Uploaded late due to Adam being very sick.*

This slightly late instalment of the ilictronix podcast (due to technical issues we recorded in two parts, and Adam is ill as mentioned above, but hey it's the first time we've been late!) is coming to you to make your Monday this week, just before we get into our super spooky special selections for next week; I return to my usual routine of downtempo vibes, with a cross section of tunes I'm feeling at the mo, including a Japanese Bonus Track from Flylo's Until The Quiet Comes to kick things off, and of course what would some patented Van Foxbat selections be without some soundtrack stuff? The two Akiras that tripped Adam up: Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame, and Takemoto of Serial Experiments Lain. Adam gets all nostalgic for the sounds and times of Summer now we're deep into Fall, sharing a variety of tunes and telling us why they're on his list. TBH that's part of the reason I started this while podcast thing back up again so I'm super into it, I absolutely love hearing the accompanying tales for various tunes. Anyways, full tracklist follows as per ususal:

Tracklist:
Intro:
DJ Tonka - Summerthang

Claude’s picks:
Flying Lotus - The Things You Left (Japanese Bonus Track)
Casino Versus Japan - Metrobolt
Boards Of Canada - Music Is Math
Akira Yamaoka - The Reverse Will
Akira Takemoto - Island In Video Casset


Adam’s Picks
Peggy Gou - It Makes You Forget
Scan 7 - The Resistance
Special Request - Brainstorm
Lab79 -Test Two
Mhysa - Strobe

Outro:
DJ Mehdi - Survivol


Show Notes:
The full fanpage breakdown of Boards Of Canada's Geogaddi with a big old list of the references, samples and even transcripts of some of the harder to hear and reversed samples on Geogaddi can be found over here on Bocpages, it's even got some interesting interviews from the band themselves, as well as extra fan theories and the like. It's an enthralling, if at times slightly unsettling read.

The fan-made mixtapes I mentioned compiling all the trip-hoppy and lighter ambient stuff Akira Yamaoka's made for the Silent Hill Games over the years are both on YouTube: the original mix here and the recently-released updated one Silent Chill Redux here, be aware that the tracklist seems to be using the fan-made titles for some of the songs rather than the ones on the actual release. (IE: on the old mix "Pizza & Bowling" is actually called Alone In The Town on the actually relased SH2 OST)

My print-based Spotify playlists can be found on my spotify profile! but to save you all some searching I'm going to link them all independently here: (C)yan is a bit of a mixed bag, in here you'll find a slightly downtempo leaning collection sprinkled in amongst little bits of electropop, some ambient selections and other various lush sounds. (M)agenta next, which is home to all manner of tunes to cut loose to, a mish-mash of gorgeous tunes of the House, Electro, Synthwave persuasion, plus a few miscellaneous selections to get lost in. (Y)ellow: Home of all things downtempo, with a strong hip hop/trip hop lean to it, with some slightly funkier numbers in there for good measure. And finally, (K)ey. Which is where all the darker parts of my music collection lie. Full disclousre it's not all electronic!

And just because I'm in my playlists, if anyone's big into the Cyberpunk aesthetic like I am, I also have a huuuuge playlist of tunes that fit the genre I'm constantly curating, you can find that here

And once again, that *should* be that for this week. As I've learned doing these, there may be one or two things I've missed or otherwise forgotten to put in the show notes. If so just stay tuned, I give the episodes a quick run through after the posts go up, and I'll edit this post with updates should I have missed any! That's it until next week, join us once again where Me and Adam will be back with more hot takes and even hotter selections. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Post-Erity

Joaquín Sorolla - Girl With Flowers

Starting this week's selections off with an archival success story. You may remember a loooong time ago I mentioned a fairly obscure remix of on of my favourite tunes ever, Rippin Kittin by Alexander Polzin.At the time I praised Miss Kittin for having it available to stream along with most of her discography (and even tunes she only did vocals for). The link to buy the Golden Boy stuff was long since dead, but having it on soundcloud was better than nothing, especially considering I couldn't find this remix to buy anywhere, or even on YouTube or the like. I still grabbed a copy of it anyway, call it paranoia I've seen stuff disappear from soundcloud before and it's a real shame. Well it seems that my paranoia's paid off once again, I swung by Kittin's soundcloud only to find that the entire Golden Boy playlists she had had been wiped clean, along with a few others. Logic would say that they're in some kind of copyright hell, or best case about to be re-pressed and re-released. It's still a downer though but thankfully in the meantime I've got the version I swiped to keep me company, it's a fantastically sedate version of Rippin Kittin, turning it from an electroclash anthem to something a little more reflective.



Keeping it on the downtempo side of things for now, with yet another entry from one of my favourite soundtrack crafters Yoko Kanno. A far cry from the electronic infused, Björk inspired tracks she made for the Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex soundtracks, the tunes that appear on the Zankyou no Terror Original Soundtrack keep it fairly acoustic, though there's connections to Iceland in both the show and soundtrack (the lyrics to Von being in Icelandic, Director Shinichirō Watanabe actually citing Sigur Rós as an inspiration and the soundtrack was even recorded there). ís is probably the most famous piece form the soundtrack, it's used within the show to breathtaking effect and I knew I had to have it in my collection. It scratches an itch the same way that Washed Out's Life Of Leisure EP did when I first listened to that, and one that I didn't even know I still had.



The new post schedule means that I missed quite the anniversary around 2 weeks or so ago now: Boards Of Canada's Music Has The Right To Children turned 20, having been released late April 1998. I don't have to to explain to those of you that have been with us a long time how important both this album and Boards Of Canada's work as a whole is to me, I wrote a multiple year long exploration of Warp's releases after all. To the rest of you who might not be as familiar, Music Has The Right To Children is an excellent dropping in point to the world of BoC, it's an essential addition to anyone's collection with a taste for downtempo and ambient. The gelling together of gorgeous retro synth work with slightly off kilter and surreal samples, all backed by almost trip-hop style beats is the synonymous Boards Of Canada sound, and they're on top form throughout Music Has.... Here's my favourite ambien interlude off the album, the short but sweet Olson, which a friend of mine described as "The musical version of a warm hug".



-Claude Van Foxbat

Out Of Phase

Elmer Bischoff - Figure In Landscape (1957)



Haven't been feeling myself as of late, going to keep the text to a minimum and share some tunes of a more ambient persuasion. Starting with a rare beatless contribution from Flying Lotus, takn from the Ideas + Drafts + Loops compilation he put out some years ago now.



Geogaddi has finally returned to my rotation. In between sinister slices of slightly occult undertones there are some of my favourite lush Boards Of Canada offerings. Over The Horizon Radar will forever be among them.



Squarepusher has few ambient pieces to his name, but those few are all very solid additions. Tommib being one of them, chcok full of gorgeous distrotion and all the things that scratch my itches, but most of all I love the way it subtly fades up to prominence and then just as soon its gone again.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Chilly Out (2017 Re-Post)

Note from Claude: Hi all! I'm currently laid up with a intense migraine and the weather's shite, but I've managed to glance up at a screen long enough to dig up this post from 2015 which I'm re-posting to fill in for my usual selections on a Sunday. Thanks to technology for allowing me to write this bit using speech to text, enjoy the trip down memory lane and I'll be back next week with the usual.

Oh boy has the cold come home fast. 0 to frosty mornings overnight, which means it's finally time to do my annual tradition of prepping winter playlists. Let's get right on in.

Gustave Caillebotte - View Of Rooftops (Effect Of Snow) (1878/9)

After my recent trip into the world of what electropop I have in my collection thanks to a soundcloud roundup I've been crushing on my long time favourites Broadcast once again. I've written pretty extensively about my love for them, and I won't repeat myself here, instead enjoy the wintery tones of the penultimate track of Haha Sound.



To that end, a long lost relic from 2008/9 popped back up on that search. Honestly surprised it took so long to come back up, I haven't heard anything from Youth Novels for about 3 years despie daily shuffling o fmy entire library. But it came back, and ho boy these feelings and memories hit pretty hard. I'll have to catch up with Ms. Li sometime soon.



Of course Boards Of Canada were on the lineup for a cold playlist, I'm still amazed at some of the tracks they have tucked away on obscure, often unreleased albums. I've covered a few of the tunes from the aptly named Old Tunes tapes a while ago, but as of right now I'm digging Boc Maxima, and reminding myself of why Whitewater is one of my favourite pieces of BoC.





-Claude Van Foxbat

ComfyCozy

Balcomb Greene - Bois de Vincennes (1964)

Gettin' to that time of year here in England where the °C starts falling fast, so I spent Saturday dreaming up some tunes I think would fit in that very loosely defined 'cozy electronic' label I've mentioned a few times recently. First is a fairly recent addition to my stuff, coming from a compilation of Subroc Recordings. This is the tune that kinda set me off on making this post, it echoes with the same feeling that is present on plenty of tracks from The Flashbulb, and also resembles a slightly more sedate version of the Luke Vibert tune that lends its title to this post ComfyCozy.



I've been holding off on going all in with Casino Versus Japan's album Go Hawaii for just such an occasion. As I mentioned before this album is the closest I've come to finding something that very closely resembles the work of Plone (which funnily enough were active at the time of Go Hawaii's release), but with a slightly more lo-fi feel than Plone. That nervous opening synth is gorgeous, and the tune overall is fairly lush with sounds. Stay tuned after the fadeout for an extra bonus slice of pure ambient around 4:43. A bit odd to have the 'hidden bonus track' format when this tune isn't even halfway through the album but I'm not complaining.



I spent a long time trying to narrow down which Boards Of Canada tune I think would best fit into this cozy electronic category.Though it was a strong contender, I've posted Olson enough times that I think it'd be a litte lazy (plus Olson is super short too). I hovered around Twoism for a while, but like a lot of BoC's backcatalogue, there are some small unsettling bits and pieces there to boot. I eventually settled on Left Side Drive from the Trans Canada Highway EP, which as it turns out is a fairly good intro to Boards Of Canada if it's your first listen; all the elements are there, the lo-fi analogue feel, the playing around with reversed sounds, and of course the lush synths and beats combo.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Runnin' Behind

Nicholas Roerich - Sadness (Two In Boat) (1939)

Oh wow it's been a lil' while hasn't it. Suppose I should rectify that and apologise for the gap for I have been the saddest boy lately. With that in mind les get into some tune. You weren't expecting some Felix Da Housecat now were ya? Kittenz & Thee Glitz gets pretty mellow in parts, and to my surprise I hadn't posted this surprisingly R&B bit so here ya go.



Bit of a departure now as we revisit BoC country. Y'know if you asked me to pick a single favourite Boards song, I don't think I could do it. BUT what I could do is tell you individual parts of their discogs that I fall madly in love with every time, and that's where Kid For Today comes in, specifically at 1:09 which might have a tad to do with it being the same sounds as on Olson



And leaving y'all with another mellow cut from Röyksopp's Junior. Coming back to this one it feels like it could've gone either way and just have easily fit on Senior as well, which I suppose is fitting and all seeing as it's carefully placed near the end of the LP.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Blue Monday

Hello! You will be pleased to know I am not dead, I have only recently taken up a weekend night job dealio so Friday through Sunday may be a bit dry from now on but I plan to try and make up for it through the week. Now that's out of the way here are some songs I am recovering to.

On Kawara - Oct. 23, 1989 (from Today Series, Monday) (1989)

Been a while since I've laid down some proper ambient but that changes today. Taken from an album where all the songs are untitled comes this 'un from The Green Kingdom, loved it for a long time since it was the backing piece to Hotline Miami 2's main menu, the combo of the visuals and this may make it a contender for chillest main menu ever.



Been on a bit of a BOC bend as of late, so I thought it'd be ample time to mention the Peel Session EP again. It mainly some alternate version of songs from Music Has The Right To Children (and if you're lucky the rare XYZ). It is pretty short on the whole too, but it's all worth it to hear this extended take on Olson.



Let the Röyksopp boys play us out again, with yet another bit from The Understanding. This one's actually the penultimate track if you only have the vanilla version of the album without the few bonus tracks, but I think it sets the mood well enough.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Sunday Service

Apologies for the slight delay with this 'un, some things happened and I got carried away. Today's sesh is gonna be back to the chill side of things because that's what I'm feelin' ATM because of things that happened, more after some art fer yer eyes.

Edward Hopper - Early Sunday Morning (1930)

Been diggin' Thievery Corp's Saudade LP once again; the albums a bit of a departure from their usual trip hop modus operandi, instead opting for a return to a Bossa Nova style sound. The whole album is very relaxed, with perhaps some hints of sadness given the LPs title. This one comes with the added bonus of feeling extra cultured with the french lyrics.



Had a little chat with Evan a while back where we discussed our favourite Gorillaz songs, and as it turns out we both have a penchant for the more downbeat side of the project. I got around to getting the bonus tracks for main Gorillaz man Damon Albarn's solo effort Everyday Robots the other day and was quite surprised to be treated to another of Albarn's downtempo experiments.



And finally some Boards Of Canada. It took me a while to get me hands on this one back when, the Hi Scores EP I picked up came just a card sleeve with some Braille on. Everything You Do Is A Balloon takes a little while to get going for me, but once it does it earns a spot in the top of BoC's works.



-Claude Van Foxbat

How 2 Adult

Oh boy me and InDesign nearly had some fallout today, you'd think after a few years worth of experience things'd be easier, but adobe always keep me on my toes when it comes to software. Anyway today I did some adult things (not like that you 'orrible minded lot) so I forgot to post. So have a hastily put together 10PM post.

Ellsworth Kelly - Spectrum Colors Arranged By Chance VI (1951)

For all the smack talk I did in the opening paragraph, editing to audio isn't half therapeutic sometimes. Special thanks to Siriusmo for keeping me sane while I awkwardly nudge 5 text boxes into alignment. At least I could try and do it to the rhythm of the beat.



Perhaps it may have been a tad fast tho, so instead have a slower cut from Commix's debut to even things out. I put it away a lot because I tend to wear out the track-list, but I'll be damned if that rumbling bassline isn't sexy as hell nearly every time.



Put Music Has The Right To Children back in after a long abscence. Still as good as ever, the album has earned its reputation had more than enough said about it, and for my money it's still the best jumping in point to BoC's own personal brad of ambient infused sound.



-Claude Van Foxbat

12 Days Of Tunes (03)

David Hockney - Winter Tunnel With Snow (2006)

I'm 73% sure it would be a crime for me to be going on about wintry tunes and not mention Boards Of Canada. Normally my go-to would be Olson from Music Has The Right To Children but honestly at the minute I have been digging their aptly named Old Tunes and other assorted rare cassette tapes of their pre-Twoism output. On more than a few of them you can definitely hear the sound direction they'd become known for, see this one for example: