Get Popped

Fritz Glarner - Relational Painting #65 (1953)
Bit longer between posts than I would have liked, I just haven't had the energy to sit down and write anything, but that's because this week has been shite to put it mildly. And there's still one more day to go which is also shaping up to be the final shit cherry on top of the shit sundae. But let's not dwell on that too much, you don't come here to listen to me whine after all. Hot off the heels of last post, I've been revisiting the electronic pop of my collection, let's have a look.

Kicking off with a record I'm surprised I haven't mentioned more - Young Ejecta (FKA just 'Ejecta'). The duo had been on my 'to listen' list for ages after looking deeper into the discogs of Joel Ford, as I looked for something to scratch my Ford & Lopatin itch. Dominae isn't quite in the same retro vein as the Ford & Lopatin record, but its a lovely slice of the kind of electropop I really dig. Small Town Girl is the one I've had on repeat recently - the intro is a little bit darker than the main event, the switch up in sound around the 23 second mark is lovely, the electronics are lush and Leanne Macomber's breathy vocals compliment them really well. The uptempo switch around 1:10 also never fails to get me toe tapping, there are tons of great moments like that scattered throughout the album actually! I've not got around to their other LPs yet so expect them to make an appearance when I get to them.



What would an synth/electropop post be without Au Revior Simone? They're the usual suspects whenever I talk around this space, I love their style and their albums have been a great source for when I need to scratchy that synthy poppy itch. I've gone with a non-album tune this time, Come Away is a one-off released a couple of years ago now, though it originally debuted at David Lynch’s Festival of Disruption in 2018. It, and it's sister one-off release How Long are the most recent things we've heard from them, and while I ache for more from there, there is plenty in their back-catalogue to get stuck into. Come Away gets a little lost in my collection by virtue of it being in this single format, but when it does come up, its a real good time - the chorus is delightfully dreamy.



Taking a bit of a turn away form the pure electronic for the next one - another band I'm surprised I haven't mentioned before: Trembling Blue Stars. My first introduction was Sometimes I Still Feel The Bruise, which is one of those songs that for me was brutally relatable in its lyrical content - the Blue Stars' output does have that streak of melancholy running throughout most of it (though ironically not on No More Sad Songs, the original final track from the album I'll be talking about today). I feel like Fast Trains And Telegraph Wires strikes a nice balance between the electronic and acoustic, Cold Colours comes out feeling a little bit retro as a result, twinned with lyrics dealing with being ghosted makes for a suitably dour experience, especially given the week I've had.



One more to see us out, I've gone back to Helen Marnie of Ladytron's first solo album (as one reviewer cleverly put it, Lady, without the Tron). It's incredibly hard to avoid drawing comparisons between the two, given Marnie's contributions to Ladytron. Not to diminish her solo effort though, the record does have it's own distinct and different identity than a Ladytron record - but at the same time if you like Ladytron, you will like this LP as well. Slick electronics are the order of the day on Crystal World, and the opening duet of The Hunter and We Are The Sea makes for a stellar opening to the album, but I've talked about The Hunter before so I'm going with the latter this time. Crystal World does a fantastic job of displaying Marnie's songwriting: lots of creative rhymes and an interesting rhythm to the delivery makes her vocal as much a highlight as the electronics.



And that'll be all for this time, apologies for the slight delay but hopefully this makes up for it a little bit! I still have a couple of half finished posts in the archives I might try and spruce up, but I may put a few other smaller ones in there as well just for exercise. But enough about the internal runnings of the site - I hope you find some tunes here you really dig and as always: Stay safe an enjoy the music.

-CVF

Bringing it in

Charles Sheeler - Windows (1952)

A quick and slightly eclectic selection of stuff to see in this week - One that's been on the cards for a while and potential retro review candidate is more from Ladytron. Ever since they cropped up on Bandcamp about a year ago with their then-new single and album I had crossed all my digits that their full discography might make its way over there, and I am happy to say that I have not been disappointed. Most of it is there, aside from the respective singles from each album but even then most of the stuff from them worth hearing has been compiled into the 'Remixed & Rare' companion albums for each one. I've gone with a track from Witching Hour this time - home to some of the 'Tron's most iconic tunes though decidedly less electronic than 604 and Light & Magic before it, maybe it's the nostalgia talking but International Dateline and a few others on here are absolutely soaked in that mid 00's feel with their slight indie incline.



Another surprise find this time, I first found this track on a now out of print compilation from Toytronic called Everything Is Green on one of my semi-regular treks into the world of IDM. It's a lovely little comp that has a nice amount of variety on it, as the title of the compilation might suggest it's more on the more lush and melodic side of the IDM world that I've been very into at the minute. I first thought this one was a one off oblique Autechre / Board Of Canada reference (Boc Scadet being quite close to Basscadet, one of Autechre's early works) but turns out they are an established artist with a few releases under their belt. I still reckon it's a combo reference though, but that's conjecture on my part.

Anyway, the tune itself stood out to me because much like the naming scheme it sounds an awful lot like the stuff Autechre were making on Warp in their early days, which instantly appealed to me as that is some of my favourite stuff they've done (along with all the other artists at the time making similar). It's perhaps not quite as all in on the lush electronics as some of the tracks from Everything Is Green, but even so the techier elements aren't nearly as abrasive as some other examples I could pull up. It's that kind of bleepy electronic I can (and have) listened to all day, if the rest of the EP is like this I will almost certainly be adding it to my collection sometime soon.



And finally another visit to ThorHighHeels. If I'm honest I'm not ready yet to get more from them - between the two Umurangi Generation soundtracks I picked up a little while ago along with the Positive Yellow album as well, I have more than enough to get stuck into as-is. Still, I went for a cursory look, THH often uses his own tunes in their videos and some of them are seriously catchy so I try and find a few here and there to earmark for later. I adore Positive Yellow for wearing its inspirations on its sleeve - the whole thing is a blend of 90's rave, house, breakbeat, techno and hints of UK Garage here and there but doesn't come out feeling like a trite re-tread that overly panders.

That's a trend that continues on their other releases, albeit not as pronounced as on Yellow - bits of it can still be heard on the first track of In The Rough, especially when the 808 cowbells get their moment in the spotlight but the whole thing plays out like a more conventional indie electronic tune in the style of Monk and company I posted not too long ago. That's not a complaint though, more of an observation! THH still has a great ear for sounds and this track shows that off in spades, it's full of great little touches and I can't help but smile my way through that breakdown at around 1:15. I highly recommend checking them out, even if the ironic text and eye-searing neon of the album art turns you away a bit.



And that'll do it for this time, I'm back at work now for a little while but it shouldn't slow things down too much - though having said that I am going to look through the archives and see if anything catches my eye for another Retro Review so that could take longer than expected if I end up doing another long album like Moby's 18. I'll try and make another quick one if it does come to that though! Either way stay tuned and as always: Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Breaking the Barrier

Alex Colville - January (1971)
It's taken some doing, but I am happy to report that as of now (which will be yesterday when you read this) we have hit the point in blog restoration that there are more posts restored than are left in 'draft' status. It's a little milestone that I've been seeing slowly come closer thanks to the new Blogger UI, and a process that's actually been fairly painless for the most part, and not quite as tedious as I thought. The older posts I'm hitting now often need more work than usual so expect that to slow down a bit, but I'm pretty happy with the progress.

It's not just going to be me patting myself on the back though! I've returned to poppier tides for the first time since New Year's - after double checking I'd not talked about some of these already, I've picked out a nice selection of the vibe I'm feeling at the minute. Starting with another piece from Helen Marnie of Ladytron's first fully solo effort Crystal World, it has a bit of a similarity with their later output but still manages to carve it's own niche - it's very far removed from the early Ladytron I posted not too long ago at any rate. Submariner is far and away the longest track on the album at a weighty 7 minutes, but it makes excellent use of them as the production ebbs and flows throughout, building to crescendos that before slinking away to make room for crystalline breakdowns. And of course there's Marnie's vocals, as they were in Ladytron, an absolute joy to listen to.



And falling back in with ADULT. I've not talked about The Way Things Fall much at all really, (though that's partially due to me overdosing on their early work back when) which is a shame because it's a solid entry in their discography. I'd hesitate to call it a full on pop record but it's certainly one of their more accessible releases, a return to more melodic structures compared to the punky, nervous noise of the album before it - the suitably nihilistically titled Why Bother?. And for as much as I love the frantic stabs and shouted out vocals of tracks like 'I Feel Worse When I'm With You', I think I may like the more sedate side of this album a touch more. That's not to say that Nicola Kuperus doesn't get to inject the proceedings with a little bit of their trademark melancholy, the opening lines being "Will we live like this forever?". The production is stellar as usual too - the slightly retro electronic bias in me being catered to quite heavily for sure - there's some amazing melodic breaks and solos to change up the pacing, the real standout for me is that entire final quarter of Nicola dueting with the synths.



And finally, going back a fair bit to an album I planned to do a Retro Review of (That still might happen!) - Ford & Lopatin's Channel Pressure. The story of Ford & Lopatin is an interesting one - formerly known as Games, they made waves with in the chillwave scene with two EPs in 2010, my favourite being punnily titled That We Can Play - followed that up with some absolutely class and slightly Vaporwave mixtapes before having to change their name to Ford & Lopatin. Come 2011 they take part in the Adult Swim Singles program with a track that would appear on this album 'Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)' among others, dropped the album and then.... just kind of faded away. As we've heard nothing since 2011 I think we can assume that the project is over - both Lopatin and Ford going on to other things as Oneohtrix Point Never and Young Ejecta respectively.

It may have only been a short time they were around, but I can think of only a few releases they did that I didn't really enjoy. Channel Pressure is not one of them - a fantastic album, brilliantly executed and aesthetically on point in both audio and visual. I've chosen one of the tracks that I always thought was sorely overlooked. I didn't expect it to be, as it has a pretty wild video that dabbles in BDSM and some kind of strange VR torture(?), one that I fully expected to be a cult video like DyE's 'Fantasy' (Warning, incredibly NSFW). It's a little tricky to find these days, just googling it will give you a bunch of music blogs talking about it at the time with flash players that no longer work - I tracked it down via the production companies website in the end, you can watch it on Vimeo here!

I did want to talk about the video a little, before I even saw it, I Surrender sounded sensual to me (even if the video goes in a surreal direction with it) and it was a nice moment of serendipity - that thick, heady bassline sets the tone from the get-go and stands out as unique among the album's overall sound. The same's true for the whole thing really, Compared to the rest of the album which is mostly upbeat with abstract interludes sprinkled throughout, Surrender is a slow jam evocative of their earlier Vaporwave tapes - a trait shared with the track before it, the R&B styled Break Inside. The album is definitely worth a look if you like what you hear here - the whole thing is a love letter to an 80's style sound but without the now cliché trappings of other times that style's been aimed for.



Got a little longer than I planned at the end there, Here I was thinking this would be a short sharp one! Maybe I'll have to write out and edit that Retro Review after all! I'll be back soon enough with more - but until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Goodbye Flash

A little late to jump on the bandwagon but I thought I'd write a bit about Flash finally being made defunct. It was a cornerstone of the web for years, though it was on a slow decline over the last few years. I'm of that age where I have very specific memories tied to Flash - there was a time on the web where animations and things weren't hosted on Twitter or wherever but were individual webpages with .swfs.

It goes beyond that too, as I'm working my way through republishing all the old content on this site, I'm having to fix old YouTube and Soundcloud players as they're Flash based (and some of the tracks no longer exist which pains the archivist in me). Which brings me to the theme of this post: songs/artists and so on that I would not have discovered if it wasn't for Flash. Let's get stuck in.

I was planning to start a little self-indulgent with a bit of Eurobeat courtesy of m.o.v.e but Japanese copyright means it can't be embedded. I will still talk about it though, what happens when you make a Eurobeat mix of some J-Pop? Well, it takes something that was already upbeat and injects it with pure sugar to make it even faster. I unironically love the choruses on here and as is always the case with Eurobeat, that final key change in the final quarter is brilliant. This track was actually the inspiration for this post as I found it via a very specific piece of Flash history. More on that in just a little bit!

Things stay Japanese for the time being though. A lot of stuff I found via Flash was in that vein, partly because the circles I was hanging out with were into that kind of thing as was the style at the time. I understand that can be a negative for some folks, (in hindsight the Caramelldansen memes heavily foreshadowed my love of Eurobeat) but these trance mixes are fairly free of any blunder-years worthy moments, aside from sounding very of-the-era. Compiled on the fantastically titled Cyber Trance Presents Ayu Trance, a bunch of the big names in trance get together to remix the works of Ayumi Hamasaki. Airwave's mix is one of my favourites, tapping directly into that euphoria loving part of my brain. The version on the compilation is shorter than the EP release, the version on the EP dedicates around 4 minutes of it's 8 minute runtime to build up, which I get is sort of the point of Trance but sometimes I just need that instant grat you know what I mean?.



An extra special shoutout to Ishkur's original guide to electronic music too, which is the source of the image above. Apart from being a really neat thing to mess around with is also a fairly comprehensive guide to all things electronic, with audio examples too! Ishkur's come out with an updated one that's even bigger and more up to date, but the original will always have a special place in my heart - Ishkur has some pretty strong opinions on certain genres, and while we may not agree on everything I respect the dedication. It was also a great resource if you were looking to explore genres outside your usual wheelhouse, which is partially what inspired this post.

The 'Electroclash' section - labelled 'Synthtron' by Ishkur and cynically subtitled with a million and one variations is a really good cross section if you're looking to get into the genre - the usual suspects are there: Felix Da Housecat, ADULT., Fischerspooner and Miss Kittin. Track one in the list of examples is Ladytron's Playgirl. Both I and the Press at the time have gotten a bit of flak for daring to give them the electroclash label and I can see that argument, they are collaterally lumped into that group because they were coming out with slightly retro-inspired electronic around the same time. Still, I will say that yes while 604 doesn't really fit the label 100%, it does come close sometimes - as seen with He Took Her To A Movie, a cover of Kraftwerk's The Model in all but name and on Playgirl with it's sligthly melancholic lyrics and stoic delivery it's not hard to draw comparisons to Miss Kittin and the like.

Nettwerk Music Group · Ladytron - Playgirl [2001]

Likewise, tracing the roots back using the guide, I was introduced to a whole new world of things that were supremely up my alley - specifically in the 'French Pop' section. I was partially aware of some artists here, like Jean-Jacques Perrey but probably would never have found something like Girlscout on my own. I've said similar before but when played back to back like this, it only makes it all the more obvious that the 'electroclash' scene as a whole was essentially just a New Wave style revival with more up to date tech. This is a tune that will get stuck in my head once every few months and just have to give it a listen or two. That chorus is catchy enough on its own, never mind the little 10 second loop of it that's used on the guide.



I could go on and on forever about the guide but I'll cut myself off here. For what it's worth the guide is still live for the time being, it worked just now on my browser but I did have to tweak some settings to get Flash to work so no guarantees. If you're reading this in the future and Flash is definitely 100% dead - there is also a Flash Archive of tons of animations and the like out there with an emulator to run them, and Ishkur's original guide is included on there if you'd like to explore!

And as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Delayed Arrivals

Do you ever think you have something in your collection and it turns out that you never did? It's something that's happened to me more than a couple of times (though less since I overhauled my folder structure a few months ago). It has been a while since I've had it happen, but recently I did have a couple of cases of it, and I'm going to share the results of that for you today.

Marina Pallares - La llegada de la abundancia (2007)

First up is Helen Marnie of Ladytron's first solo album. I remembered the announcement and release in 2013, I was still at University then, I remember listening to it and digging it. And apparently I just never bothered to follow up on it? Which is a shame because it's a very nice album. I'm not as familiar with Ladytron's later works from around the time, but compared to the stoic electronics of Ladytron's debut 604 that took more than a bit of influence from Kraftwerk's The Man Machine, Crystal World is much more dreamy in its execution. It's a style that compliments Marnie's voice very well, I liked her vocal command in Ladytron and I'm more than happy to see the trend continue here on the very first track of the album. It's slightly odd for me to think of tracks like this that are still fairly recent in the grand scheme of things as slightly nostalgic but they kind of are, this one in particular reminds me of that one summer around 2009 when electronic was all over the airwaves.



Similarly we have Au Revoir Simone, pretty sure I had some loose MP3s of theirs on an old phone many moons ago that got left behind. But like with Marnie I remember liking it a whole lot but then just never following up on it. And then a few years ago now when the new Twin Peaks was on and they were doing that special guest band bit, Simone were one of the bands included which kick started a reminder in my head. Move In Spectrums is an album I've mentioned in passing once or thrice; specifically the gorgeous slow jam that is Somebody Who. Revisiting it after some time though, and it's instead Crazy that's really resonating with me. I am totally enamoured with what they do with the synths here, and much like some parts of Gorillaz's Plastic Beach, I can't believe that some of these tracks weren't big hits, especially Crazy with it's chorus that almost demands you shout out along with it. My favourite part right now is the final build up and payoff starting around the 2 minute mark, which is just divine.



And finally, my long time loves The Knife. This one is not like the others in that I've known about it for a long time but was never able to get my hands on it, thankfully now it's much easier to get via bandcamp, albeit on on its original EP. Originally released on one of their first ever EPs, Afraid Of You is an almost perfect summary of the sound that early The Knife productions had, the kind that my friend once lovingly described as "Napoleon Dynamite-esque". And hopefully that should make sense when you listen; it sounds very crafted, and I mean that in the hand-made sense, the whole record has this very DIY style to it. Not to say there aren't signs of where they'd take that sound in future, this track is probably one of the very first examples of Karin playing with vocal roles: pitch-shifting her vocals to adopt different characters and perceived genders, something that they would continue to do throughout their career. The drums also have a slight edge of the Deep Cuts style to them, which is probably why it was included on this issue of the Heartbeats EP.

It's slightly oddly nestled between two remixes of Heartbeats which seems a little odd, feels like it should have been the closing B-side personally but I digress. I have a real love for this slightly acoustic-meets-electronic sound that early Knife records had (one that as no doubt influenced by Karin's previous band Honey Is Cool), and Afraid Of You is a shining example of it.



Apologies for the big gap in posts a little while ago, I work in education and as I'm sure you're all aware things are more than a bit messy at the minute, and they are only going to ramp up in the next few weeks. Not to bring the tone down or anything, just thought I'd say somethin'. Hell, even with that little gap, I've already posted more this year than I did for all of 2019! (Even if I did cheat a bit with old re-posts). So I'll try my best to keep things semi-regular, but I hope you'll understand if things are a little more patchy than usual. As for you? 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

Spooky Electric

Was planning to post this a little earlier, and have more tracks in it too but it's been very busy as of late. What's that saying about mice and men? Anyway, figured I'd best get it out there seeing as we're getting close and also I'm pretty sure it's the 31st already over in the states. So please enjoy my carefully curated list of vaguely Halloween-y tunes. There's no real order to them beyond the first 4 or so, so feel free to shuffle!



It's a real mixed bag of upbeat and downbeat too, the most recent additions being what precious little of Akira Yamaoka's Silent Hill soundtracks there are on spotify. Hopefully there's some stuff in there that you dig, and if you'd like to follow the playlist I plan on adding to it a little more over the next couple days. I found it much harder than in previous years, but then again my library has grown considerably since then. Regardless, enjoy and I will see you all again soon!

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Down With The Sickness

"Claude explores the genres and artists he has mentioned in passing during previous episodes. Adam is sick and shares a bedridden playlist."

We can't catch a break these past couple weeks, between weather delays and various inconveniences last week we had our fair share. This week has it's own flavour though, as Adam is besotted with some kind of dreaded lurgy. Still it served as good inspiration for his selections this week, opening with the incredible vintage Clark with Slow Spines from Empty The Bones Of You. We soon hit my patch tho, which this week is loosley themed around artists I've mentioned in passing or have otherwise overlooked in the past episodes.

Peaches to start with, I was originally going to say in the episode that I didn't think she'd done anything since but a quick look at discogs quickly proved that wrong (though it kept I Feel Cream's reputation as the 'cleanest' Peaches album though. Still goes hard even coming up on 10 years later. Rex The Dog also makes his first appearance, I sum up my thoughts on the album pretty succinctly in the episode, but the short of it is that it's a quality bit of house that suffers (only slightly) from being cut down slightly from the OG versions of the tracks. Ladytron also appear, think it's their first time too which is surprising for how much I like them. My pick for this week comes from their later works, but I touch on their history while discussing. Adam also drops some extra knowledge about one of their albums that I didn't know.

Rounding out with Modeselektor (who I think I have mentioned before, but again not this album). Miss Kittin also makes her first solo appearance too, which would have been really fitting had I chosen something from her first album I Com but I went with the second Batbox instead. Most of what I said for I Com applies to this album too, they're full of gorgeous breakdowns and of course Kittin's trademark vocals.

Adam's selections for this week are the most eclectic they've been so far, which is only fitting given his predicament. I must say they at least flow together very very well, which is something I always try to implement in mine. Saying that they are also essentially the sequel to his scrapped super depressing winter selections from last week which would have been nice to hear, if a little bleak back-to-back, it's nice to hear something other than garge piano stabs for a change too (I joke, I joke). I owe Adam thanks anyway for soldiering on despite being gravely ill, and for getting the episode edited and uploaded on time to boot! Tracks and a singular show note after the linebreak:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Chris Clark - Slow Spines

Claude’s picks:
Peaches - I Feel Cream
Rex The Dog - Bubblicious
Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
Modeselektor - (I Can't Sleep) Without Music
Miss Kittin - Play Me A Tape


Adam’s Picks
Kemikal - Graffiti
James Blake - Overgrown
Galcher Lustwerk - Idhouse
Total Art Of Percussion - Wuhan Wuchang
Juan Atkins - Riod

Outro:
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Way Out


SHOW NOTES:
Adam linked me to his little slice of childhood fever-dream trauma (that made him become one with electronic music) turns out it was a clip from Superman III of all things, so now both you and I are clearer on what exactly he was on about.

And with that, we'll see y'all next week, where we'll be bringing you more selections, same time same channel!

-Claude Van Foxbat

Spotify Monthly Selections October

Slight noise issues prevented us from recording a *full* episode of the podcast today, so we're going to pick it up again tomorrow. But that actually gave me a chance to looky at the post list and notice I hadn't posted this months spotify playlist and a rundown of my choices. So let's put it on and have us a little dance shall we?

Well, I say that like the selections don't have something in common with my podcast selections for this week. That is they lean on the downtempo side of things. It's also a bit of a nostalgia dive into what I was listening to (and what was new) when I was at university. A lot of these tracks were excellent backing for my AfterEffects animations, starting with the fantastically detuned and distorted sound of Clark's Tooth Moves. We keep it Warp for the meantime with one of my favourites from Cosmogramma after me and Adam gave our mixed opinions on the album I thought I'd at least talk a little bit possibly about it.



A tune I made the mistake of animating a show-reel to, I can now just again appreciate SBTRKT's Never Never however many years after I've graduated, I'd completely forgotten about that incredibly deep bassline for one. Sampha's vocals in combo with the production make for a deliciously smooth package that I've fallen for once again. I remember writing a review of Moderat's II when it was released, and I distinctly remember immediately being head over heels for Let In The Light. Admittedly you all know I have a massive weakness for distorted vocals of any kind, but lately I've been all about those thunderous drums.

Similarly another album I reviewed at the time, Squarepusher's Shobaleader One d'Demonstrator (which actually got a follow up not too long ago finally). It received mixed opinions at the time but man I will always adore that intro track. Once again, full disclosure I love me some vocoder/talkbox goodness but hot damn talk about establishing an aesthetic effectively. I've seen a lot of comments comparing the album to Daft Punk oddly, I can see similarities to bits of Discovery sure but even then that's a stretch, I much prefer the descriptor I've used since a few weeks after the review: Space Jazz.

Which somehow made me think of Ladytron's Destroy Everything You Touch, one of the standouts from Witching Hour, with Marnie's vocals on point as usual. Another dive into my University listenings with the beautifully laboured strings and beats combo of Apparat's You Don't Know Me, and the surprisingly downtempo Green Light Go from Modeselektor. Rounded out with a random pick of a Tokimonsta tune I like (reminder to me to actually pick up some of her stuff finally). Rounded out with the absolutley crushing Amarillo from the Gorillaz's slightly underrated album The Fall, a fantastic sound if the "mostly composed on an iPad" tale is to be believed.

-Claude Van Foxabt

A Model's Legacy

El Lissitzky - Flying To Earth From A Distance (1920)

Today's post is going to largely center around one song. Not that I'm going to post it and a bunch of remixes mind, no, today we'll be talking about Kraftwerk's The Model, and the effect its had and will likely continue to have on electronic music. So, for those of you that might not be aware; The Model is from Kraftwerk's 1978 album The Man Machine and would actually go relatively unnoticed until it was released on its own as a single in 1981, then topping a bunch of charts in '82. Chances are you've heard this one before somewhere, either in its original form in in any multitude of covers its had over the years. It, and the album its from (and especially that cover art) have a superb aesthetic, which leads me nicely into my second point.



Ladytron's debut often gets lumped into the elctroclash scene by many, including me. Though I will concede that their debut LP 604 has more of a housey feel to it than your typical electroclash sound, and though the band themselves swears they aren't of the genre it's not hard to see why that they were tagged a such: simple electronics, monotone lyrical delivery, the promotional pictures of the time, which featured them dressed uniform-like against a red background?. But as you've probably noticed by now, all of that aesthetic is pretty much lifted from The Man Machine, and of course so was a lot of electroclash. But Ladytron at least wore their hearts on their sleeves, with He Took Her To A Movie using much of The Model as the basis for its instrumentation, including that iconic melody.



And truth be told I could drag this post out by reeling off more electro/clash examples, I'm fairly sure that Miss Kittin & The Hacker have a tune that works here but I can't remember off the top of my head. So instead I'm going with a much more out there re-incorporation of the Kraftwerk sound that I only came across a few days ago in an incredibly unlikely source. Playing us out is a piece by Hajime Hyakkoku from the soundtrack to K-On!, an anime about an all girls high school band, The music for the show is actually really good for both the OST and the in-show band but I digress. First I chalked this up to just simply aping the Kraftwerk sound, but when that bassy synth comes in at about 11 seconds in it's incredibly clear that The Model's fingerprints are all over this, and the title is actually a nice reference to that (Computer Love being the B-Side to The Model when it was released as a single). I do always like to see that even a good 31 years after its original release, Kraftwerk was still influencing musicians of all kinds and they definitley will continue to do so.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Comfort Tunes

Not shaping up to be a brilliant week. But I'm tryin me best to carry on regardless, British Spirit and all that. Anyway it's time for more tunes I put on whenever I get a little bit down like this, surprisingly you don't really want to throw shapes to '92 techno when things are a little blue.

Jeremy Mann - 7th Ave. Night (2012)

And blue things will be; here's a little something I've been holding onto for a while, I first heard of Michael Brook's Cobalt Blue when I was on my ambient streak a few years back. Ultramarine is by far one of my favourites from the LP, it gets a little dark in spots for sure, but I always fall in love with the interspersed guitars throughout when they come up. Not strictly electronic but I highly recommend the album, it's consistently gorgeous throughout.



Another throwback but even further this time. Alpinestars' White Noise is an album I picked up off the heels of Röyksopp's Melody A.M. in the early 00's because I was in love with the new breed of chillout that was hip at the time. The album's aged poorly in parts for sure, but it still has parts that I still like a bunch and take me back to being young & dumb. Take the single Burning Up for one.



Bringing it a bit closer now, a tune I was in love with non-stop for about a year straight back in High School (when the album was new!). Between this and Destroy Everything You Touch you have a portal that takes me back there. A lot of good times associated with this one, it's still got a place in my heart.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Synthesized Soul

As often as I repeat it, I've always had a certain affinity for electronic music since I was little, I remember being amazed at the sounds, so unlike anything conventional instruments could produce. More than likely you've seen the same argument played out countless times: Electronic music doesn't have 'feeling' which is something I've always rejected, maybe it's my sci-fi side talking but when you break it down isn't a Piano just a machine? (Obviously not in the same way as a Modular Synth, but still). But enough philosophy for now, here's some songs that have been tickling my brain bits recently.

Vladimir Bonačić - PLN 5 (1969)

Ladytron's debut output was littered with references to old tech, be it the Speak & Spell featured in the Playgirl video or hell even the track simply called Commodore Rock. It's most prominent on the few instrumental tracks on their debut, as the opening tones of this one sound vaguely 8-bit.



Keeping it in electroclash-y territory with some Fischerspooner. I've been meaning to do an in-depth overview of this LP like I did with Felix and other albums of the time but it hasn't happened yet. Around the midpoint of the LP we're treated to this lovely interlude, I've always loved the post-dancefloor introspection present on Electrclash LPs and this one may be my favourite example of them.



Coming back to a frequent one of mine, OPN's closer to R Plus 7 is still as gorgeous as when I first heard it. I can see how some could be a little alienated with the direction OPN takes it towards then end but I adore it throughout. Especially that lush introduction.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Summer's End

Summer used to be a lot more enjoyable before I had to regularly render videos, now it is pretty much uncomfortably hot 24/7. But those days are numbered and I have some suitably chilled songs to give you in prep for that, less go.

Loui Jover - Anything (2014)

Starting with a recent addition to my collection, the rock turned Drum & Bass outfit Everything But The Girl. The title track from the LP has been haunting me as of late, parts of it are definitely a product of it's times; the dramatic strings, the liberal use of the Amen Break to name just a few. But towards the end it comes out surprisingly modern, Tracey Thron's depressive delivery isn't something you'd think would twin well with Drum & Bass, but truth be told I can't get enough of it.



Keping it mostly in England next with another part from Ladytron's Witching Hour. My all time favourite from the album is still Beauty*2, but I've already written about that a couple of times (and it's more of a winter song anyway). Considerably less electronic than their debut 604, but nonetheless still a solid addition to their catalogue, here's an early highlight:



And finally my first vocal love since I heard her guest on Felix Da Housecat's Kittenz & Thee Glitz, Miss Kittin. I've put Batbox away for a long time, but now it's back in rotation and I'm all in love once again. Everything from Kittin's playful delivery to the wobbly bassline underlining the synths between verses is hitting all the right buttons. It's a shame her solo output is so few and far between, none of it has disappointed.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Thursday Themes

Been sorting a multitude of things attempting to seem professional. But the time's come to take a step back and zone out with some fine digital audio. So let's not waste any time

Tony Oursler - Cherry Nokia (2008)

Some Plone was just what I needed, their playful breed electronic is always a pleasure to listen to, it's a shame the project was so short lived, I could see stuff like this going down well these days. Here's yet another bit from their unreleased second album that I'm loving right about now.



On that same track, props to Snap Ant for making the surprisingly depressing Playgirl from Ladytron into something that wouldn't sound amiss coming out of a bar's speakers somewhere in Spain. Here it is:



And last but not least, a lil' bit of reggaefied Gorillaz courtesy of Spacemonkeyz. Put the LP back in my rotation again, and it's always a welcome addition when it's time comes around. Ideally should have posted this one 3 days ago but what are ya gonna do?



-Claude Van Foxbat

Gloomy Sundays V: Micro Edition

A whole week without a post. Damn son, been a long time since I seen that. It's alright tho cos we loop back around to being sad again. This one's gonna be quick cos I'm not at my usual PC, but I got some tunes for ya.

Miwa Ogasawara - Aufgang (2013)

Aesop Rock probably isn't your first choice when you consider what we've posted before, but this one is a serious contender for me, I'm sure you'll be able to figure out why if you know me a little and pay attention to Aes' lines he lays down here.

"I love you all with all that's left of me, For helping try to kill what made a mess of me."

I always Ladytron having a much more moodier output than they do. Maybe it's an Electroclash conditioning thing coming off the heels of Kittin & The Hacker's joints. Regardless, when they do go down that route it's always golden. If Gary Numan and Kraftwerk showed us anything it's that synthesizers are brilliant backings for the downbeat.

"Don't want the same ghosts for company this evening"

And finally we're just going to revisit an old favourite of mine. I've written a bit about Seefeel before, granted their not everyone's bag and all but I still say this is probably the finest example (alongside Spangle from the Starethrough EP) of what they do well. This track in particular is just lush with sounds.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Back In Blighty

I have returned over the channel to the familiar isles of Leeds, with no sunburn to report thankfully! Over there was surprised to find I don't have really any Spanish tunes in my archive, but at the risk of sounding nationalistic I do have a ton of British tunes, so have some of them why don'tya?

David Hockney - A Bigger Splash (1967)

Kicking off with my summer album circa 2007, Simian Mobile Disco's debut stands strong as ever even though it's only a ten tracker. The vibe captured on tunes like this is pretty much perfect and is just at home on the beaches of wherever as it is back in England at your uncle's crap summer barbecue.



Another moody bit from the 'Tron's debut. The LP Starts incredibly strong and even though it is pretty simple in comparison to their later work it has a real charm to it that's very sweet, no doubt helped by the strictly synthesized accompaniment.



And finally yet another debut, this time the trip hop pioneers Massive Attack. Unlike their more mellow output circa 1998's Mezzanine, this track is much more rooted in the original trip hop stylings with more of an emphasis on the Hip Hop part, with just a sprinkling of some soul in there courtesy of Shara Nelson.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Revisiting

Dug out some albums from days gone by, and you can pretty much track my reaction to them through my posts on here, so where are they now? still in rotation ocassionally actually, here's a quick sample.

Andreas Nilsson - Landskaps

Ladytron's debut exists in a weird place. It gets lumped in with electroclash a lot, while it is from that era and it shares the same old school synthpop revival sound, it's really hard for me to put it with tracks like Miss Kittin & The Hacker's Frank Sinatra or Peaches' Lovertits cosnsidering how light hearted it sounds in comparison. Still check it out for a fairly unique vibe.



I got talking to Adam about Bibio yesterday, funnily enough when I went to Bleep to get me that new Squarepusher EP I found the lovely folks there had given me some free Bibio downloads for my birthday about 3 years ago: A demo version of Take Off Your Shirt and the original version of Excuses from the single. I remember falling in love with the video and it's hazy vibes back when it came out, and the tune's still as class as it was then.



And finally Pretty Lights. Guys been on the up & up lately, but I burned myself out on his albums long ago. Taking Up Your Precious Time is still as good as ever, but the follow up Filling Up The City Skies was a little too ambitious in all honesty. It's a 2CD release and the first half is definitely much stronger than the second, granted there are some good tracks on there, but the hip hop vibes are just much better executed. Case in point:



-Claude Van Foxbat

AT / AA 74

Ellsworth Kelly - Colours For A Large Wall (1951)

Ladytron's first album is often lumped in with the whole electroclash movement of the era, and it's easy to see why, there's the monotone culture critiique that's a staple of the genre thanks to Miss Kittin alongside clearly retro inspired sounds. And as much as I feel like 604 isn't an electroclash record though, it does have a lot of similarites, like Felix covering Space's Magic Fly on Kittenz & Thee Glitz, Ladytron are true to their roots with a love letter to Kraftwerk in this re-tooling of The Model.

AT / AA 34

Patrick Nagel - Shannon 1989

This one takes me back a little bit, back when I was first getting into Ladytron this was a pretty frequent player alongside its album mate Destroy Everything You Touch. It seems a lot of people have found this tune through some kind of botched porno clip, which is a shame cos it has a nice atmosphere to it but hey any publicity right?

I'm So Spooked

Hey guys, I'm not dead! after a brief break from University and returning from a fantastic night out on the toon in Newcastle, I not only have time to post, but have things to post too! today's offering is bits from a mixtape I knocked up for a friend relating to a certain holiday approaching, Enjoy!

I already had the perfect opener lined up in the offering from the Cornelius EP that is unlike anything else put out there by the usually electric-centric duo The Bloody Beetroots. I thought it served well as an introduction to what I called rather unimaginatively The Spooky Tape.



I of course followed that up with their church based banger from their debut LP Romborama, it would have been rude not to. listening back to it with that in mind reveals all kindsa spooky goings on in the track right down to the thermin-esque whining bits in the background, and of course a healthy dose of the organ. As one person so nicely commented on my Youtube upload of this track "No more Castlevania remixes for me!".



I can't go around dropping videogames into the mix without including everyone's favourite 1980's inspired electro dealer (alongside the 'Vinsky of course) Danger. The intro just nails that old school feel and wouldn't sound too out of place in a low budget slasher horror from about 30 years ago. Do yourself a favour and see if you can ffind that video on youtube where someone synced this tune up to bits from The Terminator it's class.



I desperately needed a slightly more downtempo number to spice up the tape's structure, but it still had to be electronic. I found the answer in an underrated bit from Teenage Bad Girl. This track has always been a favourite of mine from Cocotte, it was a nice break from their usual repertoire, and I as moe than happy to see them carry the slower paced break tradition on to Backwash.

This gap allowed me to get a bit creative; see this friend is wanting to expand her music horizons and explore more electronic stuff. I ended up playing the safe choice on the actual mixtape and put Röyksopp's The Fear in. However for you fine people I'm going to treat you to my original choice in The Knife's The Captain, a beautifully haunting song that Olof from the duo describes as "What I imagine the Alps to sound like".



Saying that I did choose to put on one of Broadcast's weirder sounding tracks afterwards. Coming back to Pendulum was an experience all right, that off kilter sound, the unrelenting beat during the chorus and of course the lovely tones of Trish Keenan. Between all that it had certainly earned its place on the mix. That and to bring it back around to less electronic oriented stuff to finish it off.



Rounding off my selection is Ghosts from Ladytron. After listening almost exclusively to their debut 604, which is a record infused with the vibes of the 80's mixed with contemporary house, jumping to 2008's Velocifero was quite a shock. The electrics may not be as pronounced (minus that droney intro & outro), but the quality is still there and I'm kicking myself for not checking the rest of their discography sooner.



That'll do for now, but how about you make your own halloween mixtapes and share them with friends? it's a fun little distraction, and I've already given you a few tracks to get started with so get to it!

HALLOWEEN EDIT: One of our lovely readers by the name of Sulphites dropped by with their own spooky tape to share, you can find it over on their blog.

Boo,
- Claude Van Foxbat