Catching Up

It's been a little while hasn't it? I originally planned to pen this yesterday but you know how things get, especially at this time of year. Anyway, I thought I'd do a little catch up on what's happened since last time I posted, which as it turns out is quite a bit. Let's not beat around the bush no more and dive right in.

Lajos Tihanyi - Three Trees (1922)



The elephant in the room and one of the funnier stories to come from the electronic music world in recent years involves Hudson Mohwake - his signature brand of wonky beats went a little viral over the weekend due to a Reddit post from some guy who had Cbat on his, quote, 'sex playlist'. I've always found the idea of those kinds of playlists weird anyway, but I gotta agree with the general consensus here that of all songs, of all HudMo's discography, Cbat is a wild choice for such a thing. HudMo is currently revelling in it as you can see from the description on the newly uploaded Cbat video, and in true HudMo fashion found the whole thing hilarious over on twitter, and no doubt appreciated more eyes on his work just as he has a new album out!

In-between all that you'll find a lot of heated debate about the song itself, plenty of the usual arguments that come up with anything electronic "hurr its robot farts" and the like, but on the flipside I bet more than a handful of people have found the man's work through this - and as I've said in the past: be it soundtracks, memes or whatever, more folk into electronic music is always good in my book. I can't really hold it against the negative crew either, Cbat is pretty abstract once it gets going, and truth be told its not my favourite from the Satin Panthers EP. If you're like me though and want more of that rave inspired intro to immerse yourself in, the closing track from the EP Thank You has you covered, and is a little more accessible than Cbat.



If that appeals to you then I'd highly recommend diving into the HudMo archives! Personally, I'm also going to throw in a hearty recommendation for Rising 5 from the man's debut album Butter. I'd actually suggest that as the perfect place to start actually, the whole LP is very nicely balanced and is a solid intro to HudMo's sound. Rising 5 is one of those tracks that I will not hear for a long long time, but fall in love all over again from the first bars of the intro - all the sweeter when it gets to the totally bombastic meat of the track with that eastern inspired hook.



Other than that, the only other thing thats happened is I missed Bandcamp Friday for the first time ever. No particular reason, it did kind of sneak up on me due to the gap between the last one, but I've also been busy so haven't had time to line up releases to pickup - and I was also in the pub for a lot of Friday so that may have been a factor. That doesn't mean I don't have eyes on things though, I make sure to browse my wishlist every now and then just to keep it fresh in my memory. And then I take the opportunity to make a post of the content to further remind myself!

I went a little deeper in my list than usual this time to see if there was anything deep down I'd not mentioned yet. There I found Baths, an alias of Will Wiesenfeld. I first became aware of through FlyLo's Ideas+Drafts+Loops freebie and the delightfully twee animated series Bee & Puppycat, for which he did the soundtrack. The soundtrack is no longer available legitimately which is a shame as they are all lovely little instrumental pieces. I've gone instead for a track from Cerulean that comes sort of close to having the same vibe.

Aminals, if the title didn't tip you off already, is firmly in that territory - a playful piece of cut-up hip hop. If you're a fan of the more hip-hop styled bits of Bibio's work, tracks like this and Maximalist are very much of the same school. Aminals perhaps more so with the samples of rambling children a la Fire Ant, but the samples on Maximalist do very much remind me of parts from Ambivalence Avenue.





And I think that'll be all for today, I did have a couple more tracks lined up but this has fast gotten longer than I anticipated, think I'll pop them aces back up my sleeve for next time! It's kept at least sonically consistent this way. I'll try and write the other tracks up sooner rather than later, but as mentioned up top this is a busy time of year for me so there may be a slight delay. Rest assured I'll be back soon enough with more but until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Wonky Weather

Scouting for more little things that I might have missed over the years as potential upcoming sccops which has led me back to my longtime companion Warp Records once again, more specifically that era around the time I started writing the whole Warped History posts. I've mentioned before that while I am intensley proud (if a little embarrased at some of my teenage writing) of that series, I spent so long looking back att he history of Warp that I missed some of the then-new releases. I have obviuosuly since gone on to pick them up in the years since but I figured I'd shine a light on them here.

Kicking off with Rustie, I first heard of Rustie through some Dubstep remixes way back when - imagine my surprise then when Glass Swords drops in 2011 with this wild and almost sickly sweet sugary sound to it. It's one that I always struggle to pin down with one genre as it bounces all over the place across the 13 tracks - but of you're looking for somethin' to chase the blues away, this would be it. Coming back to it now, I could see it being overly obnoxious to some ears, but if I'm being honest that is part of the appeal to me (see also: my love of Eurobeat). We're not talking about a track from the album this time though, instead I've gone for a B-side fron the Ultra-Thizz EP - Dreamzz. While my favourites are still tracks like All Nite or the A-side to this EP, this track does a fantastic job of demoing the Glass Swords ethos but isn't quite as tooth decaying levels of sweet as some of the others. If the thundering kicks and squealing electrics of this one appeal to you, most certainly check out the rest of Glass Swords!



Staying in that same wheelhouse with Hudson Mohawke next. He's gone on to great things in the interim years, but my first real exposure to his work was a combination of the Polyfolk Dance EP and his debut full length for Warp - Butter. Much like Glass Swords it also bounces all over the place during its runtime but feels a little more... unfocused. There are a ton of great sounds and ideas explored here, but they never stick around for very long. But that's a very small complaint in the grand scheme of the album, it's been fun to come back to it 10+ years later and have it sound still as interesting as back then. It's a wild ride to be sure, one that can leave you a little dazed and confused on the other side, but on the way you get some absolutely stonking tunes: from the Sitar infused Rising 5 to what I've picked today with FUSE: the bombastic claps from the intro let you know what you're in for, and that melody is perfect to be 'sung' along to with a heavy slur like we all used to do with Kernkraft 400.



Finally straying a bit from the Wonky side of things with a little FlyLo. The accompanying EPs for Los Angeles are a real treat that I overlooked for a long time, the tracklists are a little misleading at times - while some of the tracks here are as featured on LA (even the ones that have the same titles are sometimes alternate mixes to just confuse things further) - there are tons of B-Sides and alternate mixes on show too. There's some great exploration of the FlyLo sound here too: there are tracks that clearly take influence from the the dubstep and garage of artists like Burial in RobertaFlack (Heart Beat Mix), the second half of Secrets (Refix) goes on a really raw Drum & Bass / Jungle style kick. There's even a bit of vintage FlyLo revival on here too with an 8-bit chiptune rendition of Auntie's Lock/Infinitum closing out the EP.

But I've gone with the slightly unassuming RobertaFlack (Other Mix), a much more hip-hop styled version of the original that brings it more in line with the other big hitters from the album like Parisian Goldfish and Camel, with a little bit of that old school FlyLo 8-bit treatment as well. I played Los Angeles to death around when it came out to the point where I almost got sick of it - but even then I think it might just sneak to the top of my favourite FlyLo production along with the Reset EP (which would have been here as well but its not on Warp's bandcamp for some reason). Maybe it's because I know the main album front to back, but hearing something new in the LA style like this takes me right back to that mindset of when I first heard it. I still have a lot of love for this style, as of right now I'm falling head over heels again for the final minute or so of this one - just plain fantastic work from FlyLo.



And that'll do for this entry, a little busy for the next few days so there might be a bit of a gap again but nothing too extreme. I do have some ideas floating around but the tracks in question might have to be non-bandcamp streamers which is a bit of a pain to work out the embeds and all. But, I suppose I can make do with that just once in a while, we've had a pretty good streak going as of late after all. In the meantime though: as always, Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

ilictronix Podcast: Upbeat & 'Ardcore

"Claude brings some smooth deep flavors that pleasantly bring in the new season. Adam tips his fedora for a "EUPHORIC POWER HOUR (I'm so sorry)" and brings some hi-nrg tracks.

Going up a day late because Adam uploaded slightly later than usual (also I fell asleep oops). Regardless we are back for this week! The description he wrote above really does it justice. I continue on my quest to break the mold of what I feel like is stuff I usually pick, mixing it up with a purely upbeat selection for this week, starting with the buttery smooth Mount Amazing 2 from Soichi Terada, and I try my best to keep the vibe of that track alive throughout, keeping things eastern with the first (of what will be many!) appearances of TeddyLoid, taking us on a surprisingly blog-house nostalgia train before checking in with what Shinichi Osawa's up to as of late too. A visit from Philestine too, featuring that deliciously nostalgic 'Show Me Love'-esque organ synth that coloured so many moments of my youth. We round things out in very very smooth fashion too, with back to back tracks from ZHU and Hudson Mohawke. I haven't been able to stop looping the ZHU track for roundabout 2 weeks now, me and Adam also go down memory lane again over the fact its a MSTRKRFT remix, there was a time when they were coming out every week! And we close things out with the out 'n out vibes of HudMo's Scud Books, I mention this in the episode but this is one of those tunes that found me at the perfect time and it will always transport me back to that place. It helps you can get down to it too.

Adam sheds all pretences this week and treats us to an all you can eat buffet of Hardcore & Hi-NRG. Once again I'm emboldened for when I eventually do do that Eurobeat episode I keep talking about (it'll be soon™ I promise). We joke around the topic and all but I'm going to echo what I've said in past episodes about stuff like this; there is no such thing as 'Guilty Pleasure', you like what you like! And don't let anyone make you feel bad for doing so. Here at ilictronix (as you will have heard if you've listened to a couple of these episodes) like a whole ton of the spectrum when it comes to electronic music, and it really shows with how passionate Adam can get when describing some of these. Tracklist as usual below:

Tracklist:
Intro: Soichi Terada - Mount Amazing 2


Claude’s picks:
TeddyLoid - White Out
Mondo Grosso - Labyrinth (Album Mix)
Philestine - Skippy The Bush Kangamoo
ZHU - In The Morning (MSTRKRFT Remix)
Hudson Mohawke - Scud Books


Adam’s Picks
Vibes & Wishdokta - Givin It All I Got
Lone - Melted
Force Mass Motion - The Pressor
Edit V - Burning Love
Jimmy J & Cru-l-t - Take Me Away

Outro:
Kaotic Chemistry - The Come Down




-Claude Van Foxbat

Complications...

We've been hit with a wave of DCMA's recently, most notably on some of the Warped History posts focusing on Aphex Twin. I was actually considering making them stream-only a while back because I'm proud of 'em and want em to be read forever, and now I will!. As of right now, I have put the entire Warped History series in stasis. But once I edit all the posts to be stream only they'll come back, it's just gonna take some mind numbing HTML edits to do so. But for now, here is a jumbo sized selection from Warp themselves, because I still love 'em to bits.

Soundcloud Roundup

Apologies for being all quiet on my end as of late, I'm enjoying my free time now Uni is done. Anyways I made my rounds on soundcloud again and caught up on some stuff I missed. Leading e chrge is HudMo who dropped his second LP recently. Now I haven't listened to it yet, and even if I had I don't consider myself the leading source on HudMo anyways, but even so I am in love with this tune he's put up. I needed more sugary sweet anthem-style synths in my life since taking fellow Glaswegian Rustie's Glass Swords out of rotation again.



And catching up with a bloke I found on reddit a while back, dug deep in his 'cloud and found this. Like he says it's less of a remix and more of a cover of the oiginal, but I think it stands on its own merits. I adore the original track and this is an interesting angle on it for sure.



Digging sounddcloud has been petty great, because thanks to people reposting songs you can go down an infinite rabbit hole of tunes. This is one such case, now I may be biased considering my love for hip hop instrumentals, but I think this one's pretty neat. My only complaint is I ain't really feeling the intro but I stop caring once the main body of the song hits.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Working For The Weekend

After spending the last couple of days wrestling with a website that seems to hate chrome with a passion, I should really take the weekend off, but I can' be doing that because I have deadlines to meet so that's gone out of the window. Luckily I've had time between renders to catch up on what's been happening out in the music world, specifically with my long time label romance Warp.



New Squarepusher first! From upcoming LP Damogen Furies which has killer artwork. Given his most recent albums I wasn't sure what to expect. Not in a bad way mind, just not sure what style he'd be doing this time. I was expecting to hear some more of the Z-Machines in there but they aren't on this track at least. It starts off pretty Squarepusher-esque but some synths come in later which give me a lick or two of Glass Swords-era Rustie. And I'm perfectly fine with that.



The new HudMo's been blowing up a ton too. I'll be honest and say that I've never been a fan of his trap direction (but I did like 100HM so there's that), but that intro had me VERY interested. I'm diggin' this track a ton, Irfane who you may recognise from Breakbot's releases lends his talents to the track and makes a treat to listen to.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Up In The Clouds

I reall need to start hanging on Soundcloud more, I miss so much stuff by not keeping up with it it's unreal. Have a dump from my latest travels into the sky of sound. I didn't even realise Knxwledge had a soundcloud, he probably gets good mileage out of it with his usual ~1 minute tunes, heres a sweet one I stumbled upon



Lied a bit with this one, I actually saw it go live, meant to post it and plain forgot. HudMo finally released his tune 100HM that I heard a ton on the streets of Los Santos thanks to Flying Lotus. The release is a bit slower than the one in game but I don't mind because this is some heavy stuff. Hope it makes an appearance on an upcoming from him!



Cruising his remix playlist I happened upon this, never heard it before but I had to on the title alone. Was a bit meh on it at first but then HudMo hit his stride and made it happen. Awesome sounds in this one, full of that gorgeous organ synth seen on Robin S' Show Me Love that was a big part of the local house scene of my youth.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Mods are away, Post Trap!

Poor Trap, one of the biggest implosions of a genre since "Witch House" had its heyday. What was a fresh take on Dirty South, is now a room filling EDM parody of itself.

With a slew of high profile album releases from the always amazing Warp Records, we could see a return to form for this promising genre. Let's take a look at the year ahead.



Rustie - Green Language 

I'm going to be honest I was not too hot on Rustie's Glass Swords when it dropped. I guess my ears were not ready for that type of sugary but heavy hitting sound. I think I finally "Got" Rustie after his Radio One Essential Mix. It was a burst of treble and bass in every direction and things just clicked. He has been busy remixing everyone from Pusha T to Bloc Party and had some production credits on Danny Brown's OLD.

His follow up to Glass Swords sounds to be even brighter and bigger than the debut, Green Language is out August 14th.





Hudson Mohawke - UNTITLED 

Hudson Mohawke is one of the biggest names to come out of Warp and the stellar Lucky Me collective, and is quickly becoming a household name.

One of the biggest and most impressive career trajectories in recent memory, hudmo is blowing up in every way possible. Featured on GTA V, signed to Kanye's G.O.O.D. music, his side project TNGHT had its biggest year ever. His solo album should is coming out sometime this year on Warp, and will feature the biggest bangers of the year, guaranteed.


Lunice - UNTITLED 

Believe it or not apart from Flying Lotus it was Lunice who really got me into Future Beats, his "Stacker Upper" EP was a breath of fresh air. Hitmane's Anthem was played on repeat all summer along with Fancy Forty, and its remix from Rustie (We have gone full circle) The other half of TNGHT with Hudson Mohawke, Lunice is poised to have a breakout year with his debut. We really don't know much about this one, or if its going to be out on just Lucky Me or Lucky Me and Warp like TNGHT's debut was. All we know is the singles and the rumored tracks are hot hot hot.







-Adam 

Advent Calendar

Hi



Lucky Me decided to upload one new song everyday until christmas from artist such as Rustie, Hudson Mohawke or Lunice. You can check them all out here but but I'll give you my 3 favorites.

You can download every song from the Advent Calendar on the official Lucky Me website







And as if this wasn't enough good news, The Glitch Mob released a song from their upcoming album that will drop in February. The song is called Can't Kill Us and gives me high hopes for their new album, it still has that great Glitch Mob sound, distorted synths and bass plus their signature drums, love it.



Enjoy!

-LRNT

HudMo100

Glaswegian based messy music maker Hudson Mohawke hit 100k likes on Facebook, and was nice enough to throw together a little .rar of edits he's done, including a nice re-imagining of Hell Interface's (aka Boards Of Canada) rework of Midnight Star's Midas Touch. Here's my picks.

Hell Interface x Usher x Midnight Star - Midas Girl (Hudson Mohawke Edit):


RJD2 x Ciara - Go Longer (Hudson Mohawke Edit):


-Claude Van Foxbat

Electronic Lovin'

Well, it's that fateful day again. Lucky I went out the night before so now I have some video editing and some stuff to write up for Uni then huh? Regardless I'm gonna drop some tunes on you because I like procrastinating more than work!

HudMo lays down another of his annual slow jams mixes just in time for the 14th, not your conventional mix by any stretch of the means, apart from Mohawke dropping in some of his beloved gunshots here and there get ready for quarter of an hour worth of slow jams!



And some mo' selections from my catalogue for you. First is Sebastién Tellier with a bit from his fittingly titled Sexuality that has the honor of being produced by Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo, one half of everyone's favourite french house duo Daft Punk.



I'll throw in my favourite remix too, Kavinsky's touch on the opening track from Sexuality is just brilliant, the intro to it is almost perfect. And fits right in with the rest of the album's sound quite comfortably unlike some of the other remixes, which is something I like a lot.



And finally, a couple of tunes from Canadian funk maestros Chromeo. Fancy Footwork is where they started to nail the sound they were going for, and it reflects in the explosion in popularity around that LP in comparison to their first. Here's an under appreciated gem from Fancy Footwork



And I'll end it with the final tune from that album, and something that wouldn't sound too out of place on HudMo's Slow Jams tape up there, but with a little more of a funk vibe to it. Make sure you stay tuned till the end to hear the bonus reprise of Tenderoni!



Evol,
- Claude Van Foxbat

Waiting for Monday

Hey there

Busy weekend ahead but I had to find time to share these.

I feel like I NEED to start with this track from Para One's new album, coming out on Monday.

Para One · Para One - Love Ave

Next one is simply mesmerizing... Frank Ocean!





From Club Cheval's first EP on Bromance, Now U Realize, far from the kind of track they are used to produce, they went for a song that's meant to be played in clubs, and they did it incredibly well, one of the best song of the month.

BromanceRecords · Club Cheval - Now U Realize

It's been a while since we last heard of Dupatronic, their new song just came out yesterday on soundcloud, if you did not hear it, you're maybe now following our facebook page, and that's not really cool of you ! In the meantime, here is J Paul Getto's remix.

J Paul Getto · Dupatronic - Just With You (J Paul Getto Remix)

And let me finish with a great music video for Azealia Bank's Liquorice...

Azealia Banks "Liquorice" from Jason Hamilton on Vimeo.

Bonus: Azealia Bank produced by Hudson Mohawke & Nick Hook in case you did not hear it yet.



Off to my busy weekend, seeya!
-Here

Past Meets Present

I was feeling a little down yesterday, but instead of my usual routine of putting some chillaxing stuff on, I went looking for something a little more... Classical. But knowing my eclectic taste it couldn't just be normal classical music, no sir. So now sit back and enjoy the wonderful sound when old and new collide.



Leading the charge is Hudson Mohawke's amazing remix he did for the GTA III 10th Anniversary trailer. I liked the original classical song, but this version just blows it out of the water by miles by hitting all of my hippity hop buttons in the best way possible. Definitely check it out, it's a properly massive tune.



Afterwards I was feeling something a little bit slower, at least for now. And that was perfectly delivered by Venetian Snares with his reworking/sampling of Billie Holiday's version of Gloomy Sunday that's got a kinda dubstep feel to it. Very nice indeed.



Of course, this being Venetian Snares, things don't stay slow for long, and soon we get something a little bit speedier that melds the technological stylings of the glitch-esque drum programming with the natural peaks and intense melodies offered by the classical. Not everyone's cup of tea perhaps, but an experience nonetheless.



Rounding us off we have something with a bit less BPM but by no means less intense, a far cry from the tech tampering Venetian Snares brought to the table. The first time I heard the amazing drop and the coming together of sounds on this track I knew it would be forever a favourite in my library. Brilliantly executed in every single way.



And relax. Now that that's all out of the way, wind down with another Apparat offering. It's mostly chilled out with a whole heap of mellow vibes, that is until about 2:30, when something magical happens. The strings go a little glitchy for just a second, and before you've registered what's going on the track takes on a whole other dimension.



And with that thought I'm signing off; enjoy the tunes, stay safe.

A Free Man,
-Claude Van Foxbat

Valentine's day music

Hey, seems like it's that day again. Let's start very smoothly with Hudson Mohawke and his annual valentine's day mix

Hudson Mohawke · Valentines Slow Jams Chapter 5

Mehdi's oldschool "Love at 145BPM" mix... ∞ ♥ M

Ed Banger records · Dj MEHDI Minimix "Love at 145BPM" (circa 2008)

Bonus ? Two brand new remixes.

Jean Tonique is always around, making amazing disco house remixes, this time it's for The Kooks. This would make anyone dance...



Finally, another great remix for Childish Gambino's Heartbeat, this one is from Justin Faust, I wasn't sure about it at first, but it works.

Justin Faust · Childish Gambino - Heartbeat (Justin Faust Remix) *** free download ***

Happy Valentine's Day!
-Here