Tech Troubles

Y'know, there was a time when a bug or glitch would pop up and I'd say 'ooooooh', crack my knuckles and set to work troubleshooting. That's a passion that's faded with time, maybe it's an age thing, maybe it's to do with my IRL job having quite a lot of that in it as it is. At any rate, there's been a few issues come up this week that have really made me just go 'UGH' - like downloading 100GB+ worth of game only for there to a massive remote code execution exploit come out only days later. There's also been a couple with this site actually, so you may have seen some weirdness during the week (which is also why this post is a little delayed). But let's put a cap on that for now and talk some tunes instead.

Pictured - how it be with technology sometimes

I put Moderat's debut back into rotation a while back, and I've been enjoying it more than I remember. For a record I've always had kind of mixed feelings about, I will say it starts off incredibly strongly - there are times where it feels like the trio of Modeselektor and Apparat are trying to find their feet, especially in comparison to the eventual later albums under the Moderat moniker - but the one-two punch of A New Error and Rusty Nails are both perfect examples of their collaboration. For both you can distinctly tell the parts that each brought to the table: Apparat's lyricism and delivery of course being the most prominent on Rusty Nails, but there are also shades of his Walls work on the opening track too. Today though, I'm feeling the classic Modeselektor bass that is all over A New Error



I've been revisiting a lot of The Knife lately as well, specifically their respective offshoot solo efforts. I did always end up paying more attention to Karin's rather than Olof's, but he has also done a lot less solo work than his sibling. A string of EPs under the name Oni Ayhun are the main offering from him - a collection of four releases over about 3 years. There's some real gems among the tracks, and today I'm going with probably the most popular one of the bunch, the B-side to OAR003, creatively titled OAR003-B.

A staple of many a mix around the time of its release, it still crops up from time to time, most recently in the DJ mixes included with GTA V's nightclub update. I has a bit of that Silent Shout style to it, but overall it's very different. You could be forgiven for thinking it's older than it is, in parts it definitely feels like that is the case. Despite it's quite hefty runtime of 11 minutes, it's not hard to see why it's popular - I love the constant working and reworking of the melody and I have a well documented weakness for key changes too. Unfortunatley it's not readily available on legit streaming, so I'm going to split the difference with a hooky soundcloud upload and a legitimate YT one.

electralina · Oni Ayhun - OAR003-B

Also in the pipeline are plans to do a few more Retro Reviews in the near future, including the bits of the Artificial Intelligence series I missed during my massive History of Warp series (which I am going to edit soon to replace the spotify players with Bandcamp ones where I can). I know I go on and on about those albums and that sound specifically, but I've never actually covered the main compilations that bookend the series of albums! And I never got around to covering Speedy J's Ginger either come to think of it.

J's contributions to the compilations are very nice indeed, I've gone with Symmetry for this one as it's a bit of a rarity, only appearing on the Japanese version of G Spot as the closing tune. And what a good closing tune it is, it would be my personal choice to cap off te AI series, an ambient trek with spacey arpeggios and swirling synths - it encapsulates that Hi Tech feel that underpinned the entire series, only in this very skeletal ambient fashion, building to an eventual crescendo in the final quarter or so. Lovely stuff and a textbook example of the 'Electronic Listening Music' Warp were shooting for.



And that'll be all for now, like I mentioned I've got more than a few ideas waiting to go, it's just a question of finding time to type them up! There might be a couple short ones I can pepper throughout to make the gaps shorter though. I hope you've found something to enjoy from the selections today, I'll be back soon enogugh with more but until then - as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Staying Frosty - Another Winter Mixtape

Miwa Ogasawara - Kosmos (2010)

Another year, another time where I put together a little something to sort of cap things off. I do normally end up doing another post or two after but I always like to make one of these both as a creative exercise and just out of tradition at this point. This year's winter roundup is a selection of tunes I've loved, discovered or re-discovered over the last year or so - while not as traditionally 'wintery' as the last couple have been, I think it still has a little of that spirit running through it. Part of the reason I started doing these little tapes was to actually get around to putting up songs I love that might not be readily available on your conventional streaming platforms and while there are more that a few of them this year, I've managed to squeeze a little more readily available ones in there too! I was also pleasantly surprised to see Blu Mar Ten digitally re-issue the album that I Wake Up is from - The Six Million Names Of God - an interesting curio of early 2000's 'chillout' records that I think I may have covered on here before, it has some really nice tunes on it.

But we're getting a little off topic there - as is always the case with these little mixtape dealies, I did have a plan for what tracks I was going to use - but that quickly went out the window when I started laying things down. I still managed to get a few choice cuts in there regardless, but there are plenty of choices made on-the-fly too! Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, I will be the first to admit I ain't the best mixer in the world, doubly so when jumping between genres so frequently like I have here. Having said that I don't think it's too bad, and with the sheer variety I have on show it was never gonna be perfect so... Full tracklist and my usual track-by-track breakdown below!



Tracklist:
Yoko Kanno - Hanna
Röyksopp - You Don't Have A Clue
Kensuke Ushio - Trace Of Twilight
Peak Divide - Homework Salad By Night
Masafumi Takada - So That The Forms Of Heavenly Maidens Linger Before Me Yet More
Sugar Plant - Simple
Blu Mar Ten - I Wake Up
Moby - Whispering Wind
Akira Yamaoka - Witchcraft
Boards Of Canada - Turquoise Hexagon Sun
Hiroshi Yoshimura - View From My Window
Moderat - This Time

Fully embracing my soundtrack side to start off with, Yoko Kanno's Iceland-influenced soundtrack to Terror In Resonance leading things. Perhaps not strictly 'electronic' to begin with, but I absolutely adore the little glitchy parts in the mid section, and making good on that Icelandic influence, the whole thing builds to a brilliant post-rock style crescendo. Röyksopp follow - another one of my all time favourites. I did almost use Sparks again as it is for me the nigh perfect summary of the style I'm going for with these tapes - but instead I went with a bit from Junior. Featuring the same vocalist from Sparks, Anelli Drecker, it felt like the next best thing. While an intentionally much poppier record than their previous, fans of their style of downtempo will still find a lot to love on Junior, case in point with You Don't Have A Clue.

Back in soundtrack territory for a double feature - first with a gorgeous almost ambient piece from the 2019 Boogiepop wa Warawanai. It was pretty tricky to not go full ambient with the whole thing in all honesty, especially with Kensuke Ushio's OST work all carrying this same super smooth sound. Between this and his solo work under the Agraph alias, he has fast become one of my favourites of recent times - as evidenced by his inclusion on my last couple of mixtape-likessss. It's not around for long before we take a slow dive into lo-fi town - I've been playing a lot of Unbeatable as of late, a game with a totally enthralling visual style that is utterly drenched in nostalgia, and the soundtrack does a downright perfect job of complimenting that aesthetic, aping bands like The Pillows to great effect. Not totally electronic, but it does stray into that side from time to time, be it the Avalanches style sampling of Proper Rhythm and the mandatory lo-fi hip hop joint I chose in Homework Salad By Night.

From there it's a case of digital crate digging. How do you follow up a lo-fi tune without getting stuck in a rut? Why, a bit from the soundtrack to the videogame tie-in for Samurai Champloo of course - with a slight techy feel, it opened up a lot of choices for the next entry. I ended up going with Sugar Plant, a band that is sort of shoegaze, but in a downtempo kind of way. I fell in love with them hard over the summer, their repeating grooves are really easy to slip into and a joy to listen to, and make the time just melt away - I used the full 6 minutes of the tune for just that reason. Simple actually reminds me a fair bit of some tuff from Morcheeba, look them up if you dig Sugar Plant.

I already talked about Blu Mar Ten in the opening paragraph so let's skip over to the next entry from Moby. I went for a deeper cut this time on purpose, initially planning on it being the 'Slow Synth' version of We Are All Made Of Stars but ended up going with Whispering Wind - originally a B-Side for the Natural Blues single. A hefty dose of my bias for treated vocals is part of that decision or sure, but the whole B-Side album is a nice complimentary piece to Play, partly because the tracks on there haven't been played to death like the main album.

From there we round out with a bit more Silent Hill stuff from Akira Yamaoka. I knew I was going to use something from them but hadn't quite narrowed it down, I wasn't expecting to end up going with one of the later ones from Homecoming in all honesty, but I knew it was perfect when it came on. Yamaoka's ambient and trip hop stuff is gorgeous, and Witchcraft, while a little softer than some of his other works just hit perfectly at that time. From there we get some Boards Of Canada, can you believe I've never used them in one of these tapes before? I would normally have gone for an ambient piece but what better compliment to Yamaoka's work than the more beat heavy bits of Music Has The Right To Children? (Though Turquoise Hexagon Sun actually originally appeared on the Hi Scores EP!)

Rounding out the selections we have a real odd couple - first we dive headlong into ambient with a bit from Hiroshi Yoshimura's iconic Music For Nine Post Cards, beautifully delicate, View From My Window was one of the tracks I knew I was going to use from the start, I was just waiting for the right moment. To be completely honest I was ready to call it there, it's a great send off piece. But I was inspired by the 'moods' that Spotify had applied to me in their year end wrap up: Wistful and Euphoric, so to fit that brief I put Moderat's This Time on the end. It's been a long time since I really listened to Moderat's second album and I had forgotten how powerful this one was. Wonderful stuff and a apt capstone to this whirlwind tour of the last year or so. Covered a lot of ground and yet there were so many that didn't quite make it in, but then there's always next year I suppose!

I hope the tail end of the year is treating you all well, I know that writing here has been a little slice of consistency in a world gone mental - and hopefully reading has for you too. Tune in to this one for just under an hour of calm - and as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Same Name Game

Claudio Bravo - Coke Love (1971)

Following through on an idea I had years ago and could have sworn I'd already done a few times - wherin I post duets of tunes that have the same titles. Naturally, the ammo you have for this sort of post only increases with time, and amongst my thousands of tracks there was bound to be some crossover. The real challenge comes from finding ones that are readily available to stream from BC though, I've managed to get all of them on there this time though.

Let's start off with a little bit of a easy one - two Berlins from Moderat and Modeselektor respectively. Of course, Moderat is made up of Modeselektor and Apparat so perhaps cheating a bit, but interesting to see the two different takes from each. We'll start with Moderat's Berlin as it was the first of the two to be released - a surprisingly sedate number from the otherwise minimal and glitchy tones of tracks before and after it. Now of course you all know I am a complete sucker for any and all ambient interludes and this one is no different, it's a gorgeous little breakwater that ushers in the final quarter of the album. Apparat's influence is very clear to hear on this one, especially in the final ten seconds or so, which use almost exactly the same tone of synth as on Over And Over from Apparat's Walls some years prior.



A stark contrast to Modeselektor's Berlin - a bombastic slice of electro house from that era that wastes no time in getting going. The album it's from, Monkeytown, is probably my favourite of the bunch that the 'Selektor boys have put out - but I'm more than willing to admit that a big part of that is a sort of nostalgia for the time when it came out, it was an incredible year for this brand of high energy releases: Teenage Bad Girl's Backwash, Rustie's Glass Swords among others leading the charge. Looking over the track list now, I'm hard pressed to pick out any weak points, the whole album is pretty tightly produced - don't be dissuaded by the amount of 'Featuring' credits on it, each one is finely selected and runs the full gamut from Thom Yorke to Busdriver. Perhaps a little short at 11 tracks but that's nothing when they're all so good. Berlin is one of the high points though for all the reasons I mentioned above, I just love the sound that Modeselektor had around this time, and this one (and really the whole album) are absolutely coated in it.



The theme of contrasts continues with the next two - partially inspired by my last post where I revisited Graeme Norgate's OST work. We'll flip the format this time and hit up the uptempo one first with the opening track from Perturbator's The Uncanny Valley. Perturbator's brand of synthwave is one of my favourites, I was aware of them in passing but like so many others out there I only really took a closer look after the Hotline Miami soundtrack introduced me in full, and what a perfect fit Peturbator's sound is, perfectly at home in the slightly psychedelic ultra-violent world of Hotline Miami. The Uncanny Valley continues that trend, much more cinematic feeling than previous releases, but that's to be expected if you read into the background lore of the album: all about a technological cult in the year 2112. With Neo Tokyo as the opening track it'd be easy to assume this is all full power synthwave for the full runtime but there are some real nice downtempo bits nestled in there too - my favourite of which being Femme Fatale. Tune in and log on, get a load of this.



And finally, another bit from Norgate. His NeoTokyo is a very different beast to Perturbator's and takes more than a few cues from Blade Runner (which to be fair, the level itself did as well if the '2019' date on it didn't make it clear enough). The past few times I've talked up Norgate's work it's been upbeat ones but the man certainly knows how to set an atmosphere - tracks like this and the Siberia theme do a fantastic job of setting the tone for the levels in question. Again quite cinematic actually, not bad for the soundtrack to what is on paper an arcade FPS. Having said that it does suffer a little from being a mite cliché at times with the stock samples used to create that kind of generic 'eastern' feel, but in my case the nostalgia overpowers that. Still, even so I think it has a charm to it, the non-sample contributions are as good as ever, though for the complete effect you'll need to play some ambient rain sounds in the background to match how it is in the game!



And that will be all for this time around, I have another couple lined up but they probably won't use the Bandcamp players so I've put them to one side for a potential sequel along with any others that I might come across in the meantime. This one took a little longer than I expected but that's purely down to me meandering a bit, I wanted to finish it up last night but it was one of those Murphy's Law kind of nights you know? Anyway, you don't come to the blog to hear me vent so I'll call it here. Hope all of you folks in the USA have a good Thanksgiving weekend and as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Bite-sized Bits 11

Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart - Composition No. 15 (1925)

The revisiting trend continues, after a long time in storage I've dug out the Moderat again. But in the interest of variety though, I've skipped over II this time though as I think I definitely over did that, instead we're going back to their debut on the album front - the self titled Moderat.

To be fair I also completely rinsed parts of the debut too, Rusty Nails is potentially one of my most played tracks of all time after all. I was of the opinion for a long time that II was a much better album but I've grown to appreciate more of the original on revisit. I remember feeling like it was a bit long in the tooth but it's only 15 tracks (13 for the non-deluxe), but maybe over the years my definition of 'long' has changed!

Coming back there are plenty of signposts of the direction they'd take on II, the self titled is a little more varied, a little more minimal in parts but also sporting quite a healthy IDM streak which both Modeselektor and Apparat both dabbled in previously. Today I've picked a tune that has grown on me massively - Nasty Silence, which dwells pretty heavily in that IDM side of things, with perhaps a hint of Post-Rock to the structure as you can pretty cleanly divide it into two halves as it builds to a crescendo and then falls back into a more ambient feel. It's pretty wild to me that I pretty much forgot about this one, it's very much up my alley in terms of sound - I might have to come back and do a full on Retro Review of this one someday.



This album, and all of Moderat's work actually, has incredible visual direction. The cover illustrations are always a highlight - and the design work and videos from Pfadfinderei are usually a real treat too (and not to mention amazing 'research' work when I was in Art School). That'll wrap today's entry, expect the next couple of posts to be things that I'm planning to pick up for the upcoming Bandcamp Friday (and also look up if they're actually doing it this month too!) As always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

A Flip-through

That time of year where I look do a little bit of belated spring cleaning - tidying up the folders and doing the 'when I remember to' backup of everything just in case, I'm not as careless with new stuff as I once was so it's not quite the two-day task that it once was. On my travels I spotted something curious, an overlooked folder with a backup of my then-current collection of music that can't have been from later than 2012 or so, almost quaint in comparison to the beast it is now. But I was curious and decided to have a little look through to see what the state of things was almost a decade ago.

Eyvind Earle - California Memories (1994)

If you've been reading here for as long as I've been writing this will be a real trip down memory lane for you all too, pretty much every post the hyped up teenage me would make is represented in the haphazard loose files (in my defence I didn't think it was big enough at the time to warrant arranging into folders!). But one silver lining here is the smaller scale makes it easier to pick out certain tracks, the more you have the less likely you are to come across single ones after all.

The spur of this post was finding Nightmares On Wax's Emotion / Sweet Harry among the pile - a brilliant piece of turn of the millennium downtempo. It's never been released outside of the soundtrack to 1999's exceedingly British club comedy Kevin & Perry Go Large so it's not the easiest track to pick up, which is a shame - the rest of the soundtrack itself is an absolute who's who of late 90's dance and trance to boot. So instead I went with a track from the NOW album from around the same time Carboot Soul, Emotion could have easily been a B-side from it as the rest of the album shares the same kind of sound. If you're at all into 90's downtempo or trip hop - or interested in getting some in your collection, I can't recommend this album enough. Every single entry in the tracklist is just great, but the one-two punch of the opening track Les Nuits into this one is nigh perfection.



What else was happening in my collection around that time? Well, I'd just discovered that Modeselektor and Apparat were teaming up again as Moderat (get it!?) once more and this time it was going to be an album. Coming back to this one has been interesting too, because even at the time I was of the opinion that the album peaks very early in the tracklist, though there are some standouts later on as well. There are times where it's a little too minimal for me - tracks like A New Error sound great, but do start to wear out their welcome towards the end of their 6-minute runtime. My real favourite from the entire thing was Rusty Nails, Apparat providing vocal accompaniment nicely breaks things up so it doesn't suffer from stagnation, and I will always forever love that very obviously Burial inspired 2-step beat of the opening. In hindsight as well it's more obvious to see this one's ties with the eventual second Moderat album, with a lot of the tracks there following this formula. While I may like the second more than the debut, I still have a place in my heart for tracks like this.



And finally, relics from the days where I spent every day searching for my next electro house hit. At the time I was hyping up Simian Mobile Disco to anyone who would listen, to the point where the first track I ever posted here was one of theirs. In fairness to past me, Attack Decay Sustain Release is a really solid debut, and one of those albums that was definitely right-place-right-time to take advantage of the explosion of great electro that was happening around 2007. ADSR came out in June of that year and promptly made its way onto all my summer playlists, like Carboot Soul it's only short at 10 tracks but there are no duds - each and every one has something to offer.

Sleep Deprivation is perhaps one of my favourite album openers of all time, the buildup to payoff is one of the few from this era that still gives me that same tingly feeling of excitement to this day. The bandcamp version that the Mobile Disco boys have put up is a remaster, it doesn't sound much different aside from swapping out a couple of the tracks and (Sleep Deprivation and Hustler getting 'Club Mixes' whereas Wooden gets an extended cut). Personally I think the originals are better, but I do love the variety they bring, if it were up to me I'd have them as bonus tracks on the end and not swap them out like this but hey ho.

I've gone with I Believe this time, perhaps the poppiest track on here and one I'm surprised didn't manage to worm its way onto the radio like so many electronic tunes of the era did, it Features Simon Lord of the original Simian putting in a super powerful performance as he did on We Are Your Friends. I don't think it sounds too dated at all, not to sound like a broken .mp3 here, but I still have a lot of love for this one - with what is probably admittedly more than a bit of bias on the nostalgia front.



And so ends our trip down memory lane for today, I did briefly have a thought of 'Oh man, I should Retro Review that Nightmares On Wax Album!" only to remember I had already done that many years ago when I first started writing with the 'A Very Warped History' series. Not to say it can't still happen mind you, I'm sure I have more nuanced opinions these days so it wouldn't be a straight re-tread - and I should swap out the spotify players on those old posts with Bandcamp ones where possibtle now Warp has their own one... Regardless, hope you've enjoyed gettin' all nostalgic with me, or just plain enjoyed the selections if its your first time hearing them! Either way, as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Ilictronix Podcast: Lost In Electrons

"Claude and Adam share and discuss their favorite tracks of the week, in this episode: Claude shares electrons from F.U.S.E. Moderat, Simian Mobile Disco and more, Adam is back on his usual kick of house and piano stabs."

We are back again for this week! I've been feeling a little scatterbrained at the minute, same as last week to an extent actually due to IRL things. I tried to not let it effect the show too much but it definitely did or this episode, due in part to me taking a deep dive into learning software again too. So as I (admittedly rather poorly) tried to explain at the top of the episode, my choices this week are all tunes I've found myself lost in. There is an overarching theme of spacey sounding synths too that was a semi-conscious choice when I was formulating this list. On the way we make some diversion on the subjects ofCopyright in the modern era, naming your albums, Deluxe Editions once again and all the usual points you've come to expect by now. We have some good talk in this episode, helped along in part by Adam's lovely rebound choices, a far cry from the deliberatle dreary atmosphere of last week, Adam is once again as the man himself put it, Back On His Bullshit™. It's delightful to have him once again hitting us with our weekly dose of piano stabs, it's certainly been a comfort to me in these uncertain times. Anyway, enough waxing poetic, tracklist as usual below!

Tracklist:
Intro: Flo Milli - Beef FloMix


Claude’s picks:
Moderat - Let In The Light
Yoko Shimomura - Out Of Phase
Simian Mobile Disco - Do Not Exceed Stated Dose
F.U.S.E - UVA
Ulrich Schnauss - Nothing Happens In June


Adam’s Picks
Head High - Hardcore
Cody Currie - Asteroid Belt
Martyn - Elden St.
Chaos in the CBD - Green Dove
The Pharmacist - Vision

Outro:
Burial - Rough Sleeper


SHOW NOTES:
The BBC Radio 6 show I talked about where they interview Yoko Shimomura and other composers of the video-game circle is available here, but only for 5 more days as of writing. It's an interesting listen, and definitely check out the other episodes in the series too!

-Claude Van Foxbat

Feelin' Monday

On Kawara - Oct. 23, 1989 (From Today Series, Monday) (1989)

It's a start of a new week again. And what could be better than a slight headache and a real humid day?. But enough about me let's get onto tunes, and of course as we all know the best ones to treat mild headaches are early 90's ambient techno.



Moderat's II hasn't really left rotation since I got my mitts on it. Let In The Light especially so, might to be a little biased thanks to my weakness for pitch shifting,but every time it comes on I have to hove it a full listen.



And finally something a little more downbeat to round it out. Moby's been going all out with the vegan stuff over on his social media as of late which can get a little grating at times, but methinks it's important to seperate the man from the music. After all, you can't really hate the easy going vibes of Play.



-Claude Van Foxbat

New Music Needed

In a weird funk at the minute where i spend like 80% of my time skipping songs. Whoda thought that you could eventually get tired of 10k+ tracks? I suppose I should start hunting the albums I've been meaning to but for now here are the few that escape the skip button.

Pam Glew -To Live And Be Loved (2014)

Oddly enough one of the tracks escaping this culling is one I've heard thousands of time since I fist got my mitts on it in '07. Still a class example of what dubstep used to be, and by far one of the better remixes out there.



Moderat's second LP has also escaped this, I can't bring myself to skip this one once I hear the intro. I wasn't too hot on most of the debut aside from the big tracks like A New Error and that, but after hearing the snippet of it on the promo for the album I was hyped and the full thing is even better.



Similarly a tune I've had since '03 gave my subwoofer some bother on this cold English morning. Try as I might I can never hate one of the songs that showed me both Felix Da Housecat, Miss Kittin and Electroclash as a whole. Hell I'd even go so far as to say the whole album has a special place in my collection. Thankfully I re-ripped it in 320 when I got a new disc drive many years back, so you don't have to deal with the 128kbps copy I had to deal with for years.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Workin' 2: Electric Boogaloo

Oh man the days are sneaking up even quicker, I almost forgot to do a new post. Here's some of today's tunes for your enjoyment.

Indie184 - Sublime

Still loving the newest Moderat LP; the opener was the first I heard of it with that promo animation and it's still as good as ever, here's hoping for more from Apparat and the Modeselektor boy soon!



Fitting songs time, only I miss having some leeway with free time and not having a dissertation to write and oh god my life is falling apart. Have some Lykke Li to make it all better.



A friendly reminder that Omni Trio is amazing at what he does. Who doesn't love a good slice of old school chilled Drum & Bass? I certainly needed it at this point in the week, so here it is for all y'all.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Winding Down

Waiting on my results for the year is not an easy time, lucky my long time buddy the shuffle button was there to lend a helping hand and pretty much nailed it this time. Tracks after your daily dose of culture in picture form!

Jim Rosenquist - Myth and Technology F - Fly (1982)

Dug out Felix's excellently titled Devin Dazzle & The Neon Fever LP yesterday, could have sworn I'd posted all my favourites from it, imagine my surprise when I hadn't. Harking back to the diamond days of the Kittenz & Thee Glitz, this here is a sleazy slow number that dabbles a little bit in French. Real standout, and a unique vibe from Felix, if a little short.



Then straight away I got dumped into the retro-futuristic vibes from the end of Teenage Bad Girl's debut with even more french. Think electro house meets a power ballad a la Take My Breath Away and you're almost there, save for their then trademark vocoder, A lovely more darker turn than the electro vibes on tracks like Cocotte.



And finally a bit of Moderat's newest, I wasn't expecting this the first time I dove into the LP, after the minimal-meets-garage theme their self titled had. It's a pleasant surprise mind, Apparat has shown his mettle with downtempo stuff before, so to hear it taken on by both him and Modeselektor is a real treat.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Under New Managment

We're through the thick of it readers, I've mostly taken over site ownership from Prez, and I'd just like to take a post to reflect on how I've come to this point. Join me, won't you?

I lurked the blog for a long time, but the first thing I contributed was waaaay back in 2010 when I sent in an old school house track from around 1998 that I'd grown up with that had a pretty deep story behind it. You can read that in the comment section over here for the full details, for now enjoy the tune!



Not long after I started I started to cover most of the legendary Warp Records' backcatalogue, and of course Aphex Twin was a huge part of that. Here's a little bit from his debut Selected Ambient Works 85-92.



Of course, I can't forget that ilictronix was founded on a love for house. Here's a stone cold classic from one-half of Daft Punk Thomas Bangalter. If you can get your hands on any Roulé, you should! there's not a single bad release on the entire label.



And finally, before I leave you all once again, here's the bonus track from the latest Moderat LP that has some gorgeous drums in it. It sounds almost unlike anything else on the album, but there's nothing wrong with a little more Moderat to go around.



Thanks to all of you out there once again for sticking with us, and keep holding on for more to come in the near future!

-Claude Van Foxbat

Moderat - II (Album Review)

Ah, Moderat. I really wanted to love their self titled debut but some parts of it just left me sour. This time the Modeselektor lads and Sascha Ring better know as Apparat have come together to make another LP which has much less of a minimal edge this time around, but still has that great artwork and illustration by Pfadfinderei collective. Join me as I work through a select few tracks from the LP after the main art.

Click for huge (2000x2000 px)

A droney intro punctuated by warbles and rolling sine waves of bass flows perfectly into the second track which was teased a few months ago, Bad Kingdom; Modeselektor's influence is obvious from the get go, much moreso than on their debut I find. Apparat's vocal contributions go down a treat too, at first I thought this would be a re-tread of Rusty Nails and the rest of the album would be minimal meets IDM a la the debut, but the sound has evolved much in that four year gap and I am pleased to say that is not the case.



I also thought Modeselektor's Monkeytown vibes might be too prominent after Bad Kingdom, but the game is changed pretty frequently with each track. Let In The Light starts with the scratchy dirty sounds that Apparat is so fond of before bringing in a vaporwave-esque slowed vocal, then backed by some hazy garage lines before finally letting the lumbering drums loose on us. The whole thing comes out like a half remembered dubstep tune on a comedown. And I absolutely love it.



Not to say they've entirely abandoned their roots though, Milk clocks in at a hefty ten minutes and is by far and away the longest track here. Their evolution has been kind to them though, Milk layers on the variety much more frequently than the last record including a tactical break around 4 minutes in. They've taken a leaf out of Clark's book as well as around the 7 minute mark the distortion starts to get cranked up ending in a beautiful climax around 8:40 and an almost ravey fade to finish.

The fist listen of this was a bit confusing, it felt a little like Apparat's vocals had been ripped from a separate track and hastily put on this one and I wasn't feeling the noise fest around 1:20 which was a shame and kind of spoiled it for me. I came back to it a few days later which had the benefit of giving me almost a fresh listen; the intro is golden and everything past that little hiccup at 1:20 is too, and something about Apparat's vocals clicked and now I wouldn't have them any other way.



The second of the two interludes next, the opposite of Milk at just a little over 1:30. It features some really lush synths throughout, reminding me a little of the Modeselktor/Siriusmo collab Green Light Go, and Modeselektor's own I Love You. There's probably some really nice visuals to go with this one too, I can't wait to see what Pfadfinderei do with this one.



Ilona sees the return of those lovely slowed down vocal lines, this time with some more pitch shiftery going on making it sound like a busted turntable or something from Fever Ray or Oneohtrix Point Never's Returnal. The garage/dubstep styling is still strong in this one, the little break before the beats come cascading back into the mix around 1:30 definitely has a burial vibe to it. Another one for the favourites pile.

There's a select few tracks that are getting a lot of press from the LP, I initially wasn't going to cover them but this one stood out. It has much more of a conventional edge to it than the last few tracks we've been through; think Bad Kingdom, Rusty Nails etc. It's the most downbeat tune so far and wouldn't sound too out of place on Apparat's Walls.



The finale does not disappoint either, dripping with influences from both sides it's pretty much a perfect example of what makes Moderat: Chock full of lovely sounds and carefully crafted peaks and breaks it summaries and closes the album brilliantly. It was the track that caught my attention in the promos (again due in part to the visual contributions of Pfadfinderei). It almost makes me sad as the last fade out comes and goes, it may be another four years before we hear any more of Sascha, Szary and Gernot combined.



And that brings us to the end. I definitely feel like this is a better album than the self titled debut, it feels much more concise and focused in it's sound, while having enough variety to stay interesting. I imagine the overall melancholy vibe to the album might turn a few people off like with Gorillaz's Plastic Beach but Moderat do it so well I can hardly complain. Moderat's II adds another notch to the troves of quality albums released this year and is out now worldwide on Monkeytown Records.

A Moderat Amount,
-Claude Van Foxbat

AT / AA 15

The Designer's Republic Vs. MX Norway

Another bit from Apparat, this time with added assistance from Berlin dwellers Modeselektor, together making Moderat geddit? Anyways, they do have a particular way with sound which is only amplified when they collab, this tunes just as striking as Useless Information and just as intense perhaps even more so. It has a killer main melody and Apparat on the vocals to boot. Well produced and with pleasant noises. What more could you want?