Da Funk Back To The CyberPunk

The final in the trilogy of cyberpunk posts and by far the broadest in terms of genre. This time it's my all purposes Cyberpunk playlist. Here is home to anything I feel fits that atmosphere which means that unlike the Cyberia Mix, I'm not limited to more dancefloory stuff. That's not to say that there isn't any crossover between the two, (hell just loading it up for this post I spotted a Dopplereffeckt track that I missed that happily sits on both of them), but certainly expect more downbeat, introspective and minimal pieces intertwined throughout.

It's sitting at a cool 300 songs right now, clocking in at just under a whole day's worth of audio accompaniment. I'm pretty happy with how it is, there are a couple choices that I could give or take depending n the day but overall I think I've got a pretty neat overall feel! (even if it does lean a little heavy on the ambient side to begin with, I listen to it on shuffle anyway though). Not to throw shade at people but the variety is part of why I made this playlist to begin with, and more importantly why I kept the amount of Synthwave on it to a minimum, as there seems to have been a massive uptick in 'BEST OF CYBERPUNK SYNTHWAVE' playlists after the announcement of a certain upcoming RPG with the same name. Don't get me wrong, you all know I do like the Synthwave, but I'd like people to be aware that there are other perfect examples of Cyberpunk Music outside of that! Get some industrial techno and old school electro in there, contrast that with some ambient and lush IDM and you're well on your way to having a nice mixture of tunes for that High-Tech Low-Life.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: The Legacy

"In this episode: Claude brings some Kraftwerk flavors. Adam goes Balearic.

We are live again for this week! As the strap-line says, this week I try something new by bringing an adaption and expansion of a post I did a while back called "A Model's Legacy". In it, we see how Kratwerk (specifically their early 1980's hit The Model) has, and continues to influences electronic music worldwide in its many forms. Not to discount the other non-electronic things its influenced, but we are an electronic music show mind, we take a trip from its home Germany to the UK, Japan and back again, and I hope you find it as interesting as I did to talk about and compile!

Adam treats us to some yet again more summery selections, though I was disappointed that his choices weren't all literally Balearic Beat, the precursor to Tropical House. Joking aside it's a cool rundown, I really dig Adam's ability to merge new and old stuff in his selections in a way that is so smooth (even if that Jai Paul track is technically both new and old at the same time). I'm aiming for a return to the strictly upbeat myself come next week, which I think will be Thursdays from now on due to Adam mentioning his slight schedule change in the episode. Nothing should change though, we are going up a little late today but that's because I got side tracked at home. Anyway, tracklist follows as per usual! Tracklist:
Intro:
Otik - Actress

Claude’s Picks:
Kraftwerk - The Model
Ladytron - He Took Her To A Movie
Hajime Hyakkoku - Virtual Love
808 State - One In Ten
Doug Lazy - H.O.U.S.E (The Remodelled Remix)


Adam’s Mix
Jai Paul - He
Kapote - Delirio Italiano
Don Carlos - Alone
Ian Pooley - Coração Tambor (Needs Remix)
Hoover1 - 2B2 (Mr. Speaker Mix)

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Button Mashin' D&B, Breakup Playlists Continued

"Claude brings some Video Game DnB. Adam goes through another breakup and continues his breakup playlist "cuffing season edition" "

We are live for this week! I one again revist the world of videogames, with an initially unintentional (but then I made it so) focus on the world of Drum & Bass and all it's flavours. We cover a whole bunch of ground in this episode; from old school breakbeat to liquid funk and even a little bit of breakcore in there too. I couldn't have contrasted more with Adam's choices this week but more on that as we get to it.

I appreciate that these episodes blur the lines with what the show's about, and that it might not be for everyone given the subject matter, but as mentioned last time it came up games played an integral part in my electronic music journey and continue to do so to this day! I also tried to keep it fairly varied in terms of the audio, even though we're mostly dealing with Drum & Bass this week, I tried to bring a selection of flavours from a selction of sources; we have fan works, independent works, and dedicated composer's work too. Though saying that my intro choice for this week breaks that trend, as teased (off-mic) last week I have recently picked up a bunch of quite obviously Rustie and Hudson Mohawke inspired stuff I am still absolutely in love with. Major shout-outs to OCRemix this week, with two of the tracks for this week coming from albums hosted on their site (of which you can find links to in the show notes!).

Adam's choices for this week are very much considered, and once again I very much appreciate having him on the podcast (and as well for editing and uploading it of course). We touch on many things ABOUT music in his section of the show, which is something we've talked about a little in previous episodes where we discussed how we listen and why (or why we think) we do that. And honestly I really enjoyed it, part of what makes ilictronix what it is is not just the electronic music component, but the passion as well, and you can hear as Adam talks us through his choices this week that each one has been carefully considered and has its place in the listing. Perhaps a little bit deep for a show where we mainly just talk tunes in a casual fashion but I feel its an important aspect of the musical experience, and I definitely would rather have it this way than us just talking about dancefloor bangers back-to-back (even if we do from time to time!). Tracklist and the show notes below as per usual!

Tracklist:
Intro:Louis Futon - Shoulda Known (GANZ Remix)


Claude’s picks:
Rom Di Prisco - Quantum Singularity
Flexstyle - Unstoppable (Critical Hit!)
0edit - Impetus
Toby Fox - Your Best Nightmare
Zircon & Jillian Aversa - The Search For Ambrosia (NYC Streets)


Adam’s Picks
Arca - Brokeup
Calibre - Addict
Other People Place - You Said You Want Me
Kraftwerk - Computer Love
Basic Channel - Lyot Remix
Outro:
Thom Yorke - Truth Ray


SHOW NOTES:
Shoutouts once again to OCRemix for doing what they do and providing a ridiculous number of albums and remixes over on their website. Two tracks I talked about this week are taken from their albums, the first being Flexstyle's Unstoppable (Critical Hit!) which you can find on the album ARMed And DANGerous, which is available for free here!. The second is from the Deus Ex themed album I mentioned, it's my favouirte of the OCRemix albums I have for a variety of reasons, all the tunes are excellent for a start but it also includes several different cover designs so you can customise it further, even printing it out if you wanted to make a jewel case out of it. The second track I talk about is Zircon & Jillian Aversa's The Search For Ambrosia (NYC Streets) which is available on the album Sonic Augmentation, which is also available for free here!

I do own it through Steam, but if you have no desire to pick up the game, or just want to throw a bit of money his way, you can find the Undertale Soundtrack on Toby Fox's bandcamp here. I would reccomend giving it a look, aside from that breakcore example I played there are some really good tunes on there, and some really beautiful chiptune-style pieces too.

Finally, Ed Harrison's new 0edit bandcamp is here, the Neotokyo soundtrack is split into two albums; NSF and GSDF, I can wholeheartedly recommend both. I have yet to check out his other solo release but I most definitely should given how I've fallen back in love with the Neotokyo stuff.

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

Back 3: The End (For Now)

and for out final chapter, we visit similar synthy territory once again. It should come as no surprise by now that the 80's were a goldmine for those of us electronically inclined, with things like Vangelis' score for Blade Runner taking center stage. As I finish up this week's selections we take a walk on the more experimental side of things, taking a look at my other genre love, Ambient, The out and out synthetics of Kraftwerk, and a selction from an obscure New Age record.

Syd Mead - L.A Skyline West (1988)

Tangerine Dream were yet another case of me thinking I should definitely start listening to something, but being completely clueless as to where to start. Thankfully I found my way in eventually and I am so happy that I did. Their music is among the few that can take me back to being a bright eyed kid completely in awe at the sounds coming from a cassette. It ticks all my electronic boxes in the most sublime way.



Breaking the rules a little bit here, technically this one is from '79 but it was released as a single and eventually went to #1 in the charts in '82, and that's where I heard it first in that same tape collection. Out of all the song so far I have compared to electroclash, this one is probably the closest, from a lyrical standpoint it could easily have been from Felix Da Housecat's Kittenz & Thee Glitz and was even the base sample for Ladytron's He Took Her To A Movie.



And finally, a little something from a band called Software. I already gave the album the once over here, it's been in my library for some time now. Has my opinion changed on it? A little, some parts of it are pretty generic, (my older post pretty much is the best selections from it) but what 'New Age' music of the era wasn't? Still it's recent influence is apparent with Vaporwave, and Oneohtrix Point Never's label is called Software and I think might even use the same font as the cover.



There is plenty more I wanted to put in these posts, but it turns out I didn't have a lot of the things I wanted to post to hand, or in cases like the Blade Runner soundtrack were actually released later than the 80's. Still I see it as a plus should I come back to this again which is highly likely given the treasures on offer.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Know Your Roots

I've known of the early days of electronic music for a long time. As I've said before, my father practically raised me on Kraftwerk cassettes and Jean Michel Jarre vinyl, and something about that old school synthesized sound just excited me. It still does in fact, which is why I'm going to drop a few early electronic classics that are essential listening for me.

Of course, we have to begin with the quintessential Krafwerk, here's a slightly lesser known number from by far their most popular, and my favourite album; The Man Machine. Oddly enough it was released in 1979, but one of their most well known hits The Model only entered the charts in 1982, thanks to being re-released as a double a-side with the next track.



This embodies what I think of when it comes to early Kraftwerk, that simple melody, the embracing of technology, all tied together with that monotone vocal delivery. A lot of the themes and elements that make up this sound are revisited around the early 2000s in Electroclash, which seems like an oxymoron; using higher tech to emulate the early electronic sound, but I do enjoy it, silly genre name and all.



Now, Giorgio Moroder. Producer extraordinaire and classy gentleman in that opening photo up there, makes a lot more upbeat stuff than the 'werk, as is to be expected of the merchant of Disco that is Giorgio Moroder. Ignoring the thinly veiled innuendos of the track titles like I Wanna Rock You on 1979's E=MC² and concentrating on the production, it's very well put together, full of that funky edge that made Moroder so famous in the first place and holds up just as well as Kraftwerk's tunes from the same year.

GiorgioMoroder · Giorgio Moroder - E=MC2 (1979)

And finally another tune courtesy of my dad. French band Space were doing their own thing too, and they gave us this track that I posted Felix Da Housecat's cover way back when. It's the earliest on the list so far, coming from 1977, I can only imagine the sounds combined with the chroma keyed up video must have been mind blowing. And just look at those wood panelled keyboards!



Energy, -Claude Van Foxbat

Kraftwerk

Hey Everybody.

Taking things for granted. We've all done it. Some things are so ubiquitous and integral to our day to day lives, that it's depressingly easy to forget they're even there. Kraftwerk are like this. So much music - pop , electronic, dance, hip hop - owes so much to Kraftwerk.

So, if you haven't heard these:

You have a lot of explaining to do.

Phil.