Electronic Immersion

I'm batting around ideas for a new mixtape type deal, I settled on a theme pretty early on but it's gotten a little broader with time. Like most of my mixtape experiments it's mainly going to be tracks that I can't find legit streams for, but there are plenty of others that are in the running that might make it, but they also might not. This post is half to help me make my mind up and half to put the tracks out there anyway on the off chance they don't make it. Let's go.

Janet Fish - Five Tall Glasses, Afternoon (1975)
Some Dopplereffekt to start with, fine purveyors of hi-tech electronics for many a year now. The cover for Cellular Automata will likely look a little odd on your screen - the close knit lines of the cover will make Moiré patterns (though on preview it looks like the tiny version of the cover on the Bandcamp embed has lost the effect, head to the main Bandcamp page to see the effect!). As for the record itself, it's more Dopplereffekt - I don't mean that to sound flippant or anything, they've totally honed their sound by this point: cold and clinical electro. To the surprise of no one, the more ambient cuts are my favourites - technological feasts like Ulams Spiral and Exponential Decay. Isotropy probably tops the list though, I knew from the lush sweeping intro that it was going to be - gorgeous stuff.



Bit of a left turn with my next choice, it is one that definitely isn't going to make the cut because I've already used it twice (I think) so far on other tapes. It does inform a lot of the choices I'm making with the sound direction of the upcoming one - I have a deep love for this very specific kind of early 00's electronic, that sort of downtempo style that I used to label 'Coffee Shop Electronic'. The Tusen Takk Rework of Drop is a surprisingly electronic turn from the usually Indie Kings Of Convenience, but then again this is just before Erlend Øye released his first solo effort which was one big collaboration with various electronic musicians so there is probably some cross contamination there. Very much in that Röyksopp vein (again, no surprise there given Øye's collaboration with them on their first album Melody A.M.), Øye's vocal really suits this kind of vibe and I wish he'd explored that electronic sound of his debut album a little bit more.



In keeping with the theme once again, a little bit of short and sweet from Gimmik. One of my more recent finds thanks to a couple of old experimental compilations, Gimmik's stuff is often very lovely - I've picked up a few album's worth but not actually mentioned too much of it. (Back To Basics) was my first proper full length listen and is a greta jumping in point. If, like me, you also enjoy the Aphex Twin sound circa Richard D. James album then this album will very much appeal to you. Really, the whole album is a sort of amalgamation of all things IDM, there are shades of AFX in there, a touch of Flashbub perhaps, and on tunes like L'Appel Des Cors and my choice for today it's much closer to the work μ-Ziq was putting out in the late 90's. I could live in this little microcosm of sound forever, it's very beautiful but fleeting.



And that'll do it for this slightly eclectic selection for today, of the three I'd say that the Gimmik tune is the most likely to appear in this eventual mix if I get around to making it - I have some free time coming up so time will tell. At any rate, I hope you've enjoyed these selections, I'll be back soon enough with more, Bandcamp Friday is looming as well so look forward to that! Until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Tiding Over

Eyvind Earle - Grazing In Peace (1970)

Hey all, just dropping by with a quick one to see out the weekend. I do have a bigger post planned but I want to be able to give it a little more attention, so rather than leave you all till Wednesday with no updates I thought I'd knock something up quick. Keeping it Knife themed as I work out my complicated relationship with Fever Ray's second album Plunge. I absolutely adore the debut, as I do most things Karin Dreijer is involved with but the second is more of a mixed bag. It's... edgier, to put it mildly, there's a marked change in not only sound but approach to the subjects covered which is to be expected given the near decade between the first album and this (and the release of the incredibly politically influenced Shaking The Habitual from their other band The Knife as well). I might not agree with all the directions Karin took with the Fever Ray project (the eye-searing orange and blue color scheme of the bandcamp page for one) but I still admire them as an artist, and given I like 99% of their other output I think I'll survive. That said, there are little glimpses of the original Fever Ray here and there; Mustn't Hurry most definitely sounds like it could have been a b-side or even a solo single like the couple that were made after the first album: icy electronics and Karin's unique and trademark vocals are the order of the day here. It's been a while since I listened to it in full and I am absolutely stunned by the sounds, I was enjoying myself throughout but the little break and extremely powerful synth line introduced around 2:40 placed me firmly in love territory once again.



Took a bit of a road trip in sound recently too; looking over all the artists that Erlend Øye collaborated with on the incredibly smooth 2003 album Unrest. I've been in search of things to fill my love for that early 2000's DIY electronic sound and what better way than to go to the sources? In doing so I found Minizza, and while I've yet to take a full dive I'm liking what I hear so far, and they seem to have been fairly active since that era too. This one in particular is a real tale of back-and-forth influence: Apart from producing some tracks for Øye's album mentioned above, Minizza also did this electronic cover/rework of (Øye's folk/indie band) Kings Of Convenience's Winning A Battle, Losing The War, which Øye then included on his DJ-Kicks compilation! I do always enjoy hearing acoustic songs being flipped like this and this one's a really solid example, swapping the gitar for that poppy arpeggiated synth really gives the whole thing a different feel, and obvious bias of mine, bonus points for the subtly treated vocals too. I will say I am not a fan of the horns(?) introduced around 3 mins in, I can't help but feel they sound a little goofy, which I know is rich coming from someone who un-ironically loves Eurobeat. Still, they aren't around for long so it's not a massive detriment.



A similar tale with our last offering today actually. Ochre's A Midsummer Nice Dream, It's a lesser know IDM album that I found in the days when I was really into exploring lesser known artists of the genre. I had a copy on an old phone with plans to pick it up soon. Three guesses as to how that went. Anyway, it's an album I'd have sudden memories of and go dig out every so often, and purely on a whim I decided to look it up. I was nicely surprised to find there's a 15th anniversary re-issue out, chock full of bonus tracks as you'd expect. It's a lovely album, if a bit tame if you're hardcore into the Drill & Bass or otherwise intense side of IDM, but I've taken a long break from the sound myself, and between this and the lush glitch of Kensuke Ushio under his Agraph alias I've really enjoying being submersed in that world again. Here's a perfect example of that in REM Sleep Research; those gorgeous sounds are on display from the get go and are lovingly contrasted with skittering beats and occasional miscellaneous squelches. Ochre really gives the songs room to breathe here, there's brilliantly placed breaks that let everything slide into a stripped back or even full ambient mode toward the end which I certainly appreciate.



-CVF