Risen [SoundCloud Links Broken as of 2020]

Whoops, I got so wrapped up in bank holiday shenanigans that I almost forgot to write this post. So you're goingto be sort changed by one tune this time but in the process I managed to find some material for the next one. Anyway, back onto the tunes, it's been a while since I've seen or mentioned Celadon City; me and he go way back by now, always providing a nice port of call whenever I needed some more wholesome electronics. This here remix is no exception to that rule, and with some additional touches from Dom Kilsby it has has me wanting to return to Stardew Valley.



And finally another bit from Funkstörung, this was actually one of my first introductions to them beyond the remix of Björk's All Is Full Of Love,and I loved it. I was deep into the IDM hole at that point, and Funkstörung's much more sedate approach to the often frantic genre's elements was refreshing to say the least, and it had vocal accompaniment too which is a rarity too. It's not for everyone, guest vocalist Enik's delivery is unconventional to say the least, but I think the combination of the sometimes stilted verses and stumbling beats live up to the title, and make for a unique atmosphere.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Still Incoming (Soundcloud player Broken as of 2020)

More chats with Adam RE: our lil' project. Got some neat ideas going and it's shaping up to be pretty nice, I wish we could show something off for what we have so far but we're still workin' on it and I wish we were able to get it out to you a little faster and all but you know how life is. Instead have some more delicious instrumental hip hop to start off your week and I'll update you as and when with any new info!



-Claude Van Foxbat

Good Things Incoming (Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

I just got the word from Adam that our not so secret project is pretty much ready to go, so look forward to hearing from us (literally) more often in future! In the meantime Iforgot to get somethign prepared so I'm going to leave y'all for the weekend with some delicious instrumental goodness. Stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks!



-Claude Van Foxbat

Missing (Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

Well looks like one of the tunes from the last post has since gone AWOL. To make up for it here's another something form the feed, I almost wanna say it reminds me a little of Plaid's style of IDM, or it did until the hoover synths got involved, that's more Rustie's deal. Anyway, apologies for that, and I'll be back with a proper post again in due time!



-Claude Van Foxbat

Over Watched (Links broken as of 2020)

Apologies on missing my usual spot again, it's been a lil bit of a hectic week and also Overwatch is a thing that exists. To make up for it here is a couple of things from Soundcloud that caught my ear. It should come as no surprise that I'm always down for more instrumental hip hop jams, just yesterday I was tracking down some [as] bumps again for the first time in years and this one would fit in there nicely.



Another smooth offering here too, which also may have the longest intro I've ever heard on soundcloud. Not that I'm complaining mind, because it remains very pretty throughout, and there's always room for more smoothness in my repertoire.



-Claude Van Foxbat

The Latest (Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

Apologies again for the dry patch, it's been a busy week! BUT good news is me and Adam actually got done our pet project so expect to see that soon! And more good news is that I've been keeping tabs on music so I haven't had to scratch the barrel for this one. So, to make up for that enjoy the latest from Abbrev. Reminds me a lot of Tri Repeate Autechre this one actually, and that's a very good thing indeed. I had the same idea of using misprinted tickets back n uni but nothing ever came of it so I gotta respect that. I'll be sure to mind the gap next time (pun not intended).



-Claude Van Foxbat

Wise From Your Gwave (Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

Let the days catch up again, apologies cos it's been a busy weekend but on the plus side me and Adam are meant to be sortin' out out pet project again later today so you got that to look forward to. In the mean time have a cross section of the latest tunes from our writing pal Evan.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Friends In Beats 2: Speedy Edition (Links broken as of 2020)

I gave long time friend of the blog and music pal of mine Evan a well deserved shoutout not too long ago, and one of the things I mentioned is that he normally has excellent genre flexibility. Well he musta read it and wanted to show it off a little, so he hooked me up with some 'sclusives of the Drum & Bass variety. But before we get into those, here's another new slice of delicious chilled instrumental from him:



Now that that's out of the way we can get to the meat of the Drum & Bass. I love sharing examples of the genre with him from the early days of '92 to the more jazzy feel the E-Z Rollers were putting out around 2000, and the influence shows on tracks like these, it'd be easy for him to adapt his house formula into the mix and make some modern style Liquid Drum & Bass but instead it's a nice spectrum across the entire history, al wrapped up nicely but that bassline.

EVK - 615 [click to download] |HTML5|


That's not to say he doesn't bring his other work in at all, despite the radical difference in BPMs, some of the samples seen in his Hip-Hop stuff come into play quite often, and the end result often comes out sounding more than a little Omni Trio-esque. For that I can't complain, Omni Trio is responsible for some of my favourite Drum & Bass songs ever ad I'd love to see Ev tackle something that sounds like Even Angels Cast Shadows. Here's hoping!

EVK - Take U There [click to download] |HTML5|

-Claude Van Foxbat

I Done Goofed (Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

Forgot to schedule a post before I left for a couple days, have this belated bit from Warp as recompense not sure if I've heard anything from Darkstar before, they have their cover designs down to a T judging by their previous but it's alright. Nothing mind blowing but I'll have to do some more digging when I return and see for sure. Until then, enjoy!

-Claude Van Foxbat

Friends In Beats (Links broken as of 2020)

Our own in-house producer hasn't been able to post for a while now, not that I mind because when you've been doing this for as long as I have it's easy enough to post a lil' something together. Not to say our man Evan hasn;t been putting work in tho, here he comes with another EP/Tape offering.



I adore whenever he drops one of these, The artwork is solid for one but also they're like a guided course of his influences and interests, often with a few Drum & Bass or House tracks thrown in for good measure. This time though it's all hip hop stuff, and there's few producers who scratch my instrumental itch like Evan does, I'm in love with the opening track, as well as the slightly re-worked version of an older tune now called Rolex. It's shaping up to be the soundtrack to my day, here's hoping it is for yours too!

-Claude Van Foxbat

Keeping It Short (Links broken as of 2020)

The trend of tons of releases this year continues, with the man from my neck of the woods Abbrev. dropping a sneaky album on bandcamp. It opens with Geraldo I posted not too long ago so I feel pretty confident going in.



The trend of him being crazy good at genre flexibility continues here, and is reflected in the tags over on bandcamp. In the first 3 tracks alone we go from pusedo-Acid to pounding 4/4 techno to a chilled out IDM influenced number. That might turn some of you off, but I do enjoy hearing the approach on each, granted not everyone's a hit but there's still plenty out there for you to get stuck into.

He's got quite a few releases under his belt already so be sure to check out his bandcamp for more!

Even More Celadon (Links broken as of 2020)

I was going to lay off covering my man Celadon City for a while because I always like to get variety in my posts, but goddamn I just can't, he's consistently knocking it out of the park in terms of quality and release schedules, seriosuly I haven't seen this much music I dig released in such a short time frame since the great electro epidemic of 07-09.

Anways, he's back with a new EP, and I'll just quote what he has to say about it because it pretty much does my job:
"Albums and EP are a way that one can tell a story. An EP can also set a mood in the room, put a person to sleep, inspire someone to go outside, and much more. Those types of projects have brought me to places, and have inspired me to write my own stories. “Warm Notes For You” is an EP that is meant to be played through in its entirety, for it is a story. The most beautiful thing about music is that you can interpret it however you want.".

And with that: Enjoy.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Pride (Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

A litte late on this one, but long time pal of the blog and ex-writer Joe (Now producing under Cloudfill) got around to releasing the newest project for his label Hexmania. The concept is simple enough, the compilation is chock full of productions and each one is by a LGBTQ+ artist, and all the proceeds from sales (both digital and casette!) go to The Kaleidoscope Trust, an intentional LGBTQ+ rights orginisation.



The results speak for themselves, from the bouncy sugary sweetness of the opening track Keep Moving!!! to 8-bit bass from Cloudfill himself there's not a dud note on it. And honestly to get a little if you're into electronic music at all, you owe the LGBTQ+ community a great deal seeing as they have been integral to its history and evolution, and despite the progress made in recent times discrimination and marginilisation is still a massive issue for these folk. So give it a listen and as always, stay safe and enjoy the music!

Diggin' On Vadim (Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

Been tracking down all the people from the Music For Freelance remixes and seeing what they're up to, most of them are still kicking and making tunes! Today's pick was DJ Vadim, I put his remix of Fe in the sidebar playlist a month or two ago, gave me some lovely fuzzy Portishead vibes. Found him on soundcloud pretty quick and already hit an early highlight with his collaborations with Sena Dagadu. This is the first I've heard of her, but I'm definitely itching for more after this, give it a listen for yourself!



-Claude Van Foxbat

Goodbye, Old Friend (Hello, New One) [Soundcloud players broken as of 2020)

After many years of continued service, my favourite underdog streamer Grooveshark has gone under. I used them for the monthly playlists on the sidebar, thanks to their no BS model of embedabble streamers available to all, with or without accounts. Also no audio ads too. But them days are gone and now I have to scour the archives and fix anywhere they were embedded. But let's not dwell on that too long because I have new tunes.



Doing the rounds on Reddit this morning, happened to see this post in Cyberpunk Music one of my favourite haunts. This guy's not too far from me surprisingly, and I'm digging a lot of what I hear on his soundcloud. In fact I think that these tunes and the little getaway for this weekend I have planned will be enough to get me out of this anti-creative funk I've been in. Before I go have another one of his tunes for your enjoyment.



-Claude Van Foxbat

EVK RADIO (Day Late Edition) [Soundcloud player broken as of 2020)

wazzam

New mix for you guys, stars hard and ends that way too, enjoy!

Soundcloud this time.

Be Easy,

Earl

Friday Quickie (Link broken as of 2020)

Seems Oizo's been causing a stir by releasing another thing on FlyLo's Brainfeeder label. He set things straight on twitter tho saying quote: "hey internet freaks, I never left Ed Banger Records !!! I just joined BRAINFEEDER ! nothing's wrong !". not an unexpected move after FlyLo's obvious love of Oizo what with re-issuing his second LP on vinyl on Brainfeeder and that. Check out the snippets they put up the other day here, it's shaping up to be another twisted slice of Oizo goodness!

City Series Vol. 1 - Leeds (Playlist broken as of 2020)

Putting into motion something I've been wanting to do for a while now, here's a series where we get our writing team to make a playlist for their city. Could be inspiration, could be local acts, could just be you dig the sounds - whatever. Starting with me, I'm up north in the UK in Leeds, so naturally I have to start off with LFO and their amazing Warehouse mix. There's other local flavours in there too, like Soft Cell (Fun Fact: My dad went to college with Mark Almond here), LSK and of course Nightmares On Wax.

So there you have it, tried to cover a lot of bases genre wise so I apologise if the grime/garage/dubstep turn at the end is a bit sudden. Regardless I hop you enjoy and stay tuned for the Atlanta and Chicago installments courtesy of Adam and Evan!

-Claude Van Foxbat

The 5N Tape (Main link broken as of 2020)

You might remember The Actress Not The Character from some posts back. I really dug his stuff a lot but I've been all quiet about posting it because we've been collaborating on some projects, since then we've both gotten pretty busy with our own stuff, and this is what he was working on in the meantime:



Still loving the sounds here, lovely IDM styled stuff throughout, really glad I read his email back when, it's really refreshing to have stuff like this in an age of EDM saturation. All the tracks are available for download too, so feel free to grab a couple if they take your fancy, you can also support him and grab the rest of his backctalogue on his Bandcamp

Highlights include recent collaboration Learning Experience, remixes of the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Talking heads and a reworking of Appendages from his upcoming EP, keep your eyes peeled for that, as I had a hand in the visual side of things and I'm really excited for y'all to see the results!

Find more from The Actress Not The Character at:
Bandcamp
Soundcloud
Twitter
Facebook


-Claude Van Foxbat

I'm seeing Other People.

Like most of you I've grown to love certain imprints over the years. Brainfeeder, Boys Noize records, Ed Banger and Mouseville are some notable examples. One of my favorite new labels though is "Other People", born from the ashes of Clown & Sunset, this is one source you need to keep on your radar. Started by Nicolas Jaar this white hot label is more of a subscription label right now. For $5 a month every Sunday they drop some of the freshest tracks around. Yes there are some notable full lengths like Darksides's Psychic and some samplers but track for track this is the best thing out right now (in my opinion obviously). Let's take a look why and learn about the heavy hitters of the label....




Nicolas Jaar: One of my favorite producers of all time, this guy can really do no wrong. From his stellar set from Sonar Festival in 12' to his groundbreaking Essential mix, everything he touches turns to gold. It's his brainchild so most of the artists on this label follow in his slow-burning, Spanish infused, micro house footsteps.  





Valentin Stip: Aside from Jaar, French artist Valentin Stip has but out a great deal of the releases from Clown & Sunset. His Angst EP was one of my favorites from last year warrants your time. 



Acid Pauli: Acid Pauli got his big break when he dropped the track "A Clone Is A Clone" which sounds as great as something Jaar would have released. Nico returned the favor and unleashed Pauli's track "La Voz Tan Tierna" on the world during his Essential Mix on Radio one. Unlike most of the Artists on the Other People imprint Pauli has a full length out now. 



Vtgnike: Pronounced Vinage Nike, this Russian producer is almost the black sheep of the Other People Family. Left field Juke music is his speciality and he really has nothing out right now. His first track "Untitled Juke" was released in the Don't Break My Love sampler and was the strongest out of the album. His drops April 2nd but it's available to stream now and it lives up to the hype. 





Darkside: Ooooooh man Darkside.....Nicolas Jaar and guitarist Dave Harrington make, mind bending, psychedelic rock/house fusion, I don't think I need to say anything about this group or their EP Psychic other than if you haven't heard it yet stop whatever your doing and dive in. 



90% of Other People and Clown & Sunset releases are free to stream on soundcloud so go dig deeper and get hooked, this really is the bees knees people.  

http://other-people.net

-Adam