Digital Digging

I've been looking through my Bandcamp collection and Wishlist in prep of the upcoming Friday, where they're continuing the tradition they've had recently of waiving their cut of the sales for that day. I've been taking advantage of this because it feels nice to do, and also it turns out having a set date to get music on actually makes me actually decide on things instead of throwing them in the pile of "to get to". Anyway, here are the results of that perusal.

Yiannis Tsaroychis - Cafe "Neon" At Night (1965)
I don't even have that much in my Bandcamp collection but already its easy for things to get a little lost, take The Flashbulb's Love As A Dark Hallway, I picked it up some time ago but then never really mentioned it here. I think the main reason for that is that it was an album I'd loved from afar for a couple of years by the time I got it, so while it was new it wasn't 'new' y'know? To cut a ramble short definitely check out The Flashbulb, Benn Jordan is a fantastic musician and his work under The Flashbulb moniker is often a lovely mix of ambient sensibilities and fairly accessible IDM. I'd almost argue it's easier to introduce folk to the genre with Flashbulb (although now I'm writing this, that's not counting the more melodic Aphex Twin pieces!), all the key elements are there just not as face melty as some others. Pastorial Whiskers almost sounds like it could be something from Squarepusher funnily enough, especially the Hello Everything era with those swooping synths and jazzy bass guitar work. One last side note I do like how Benn included different album art for each individual track for this album, it's a nice touch, a shame most music players don't support it fully though.



It's a similar tale with this next album actually, maybe even a longer one than the above. I first fell in with this one back on Grooveshark of all places, back when it would have been a new release in 2013. For all it's flaws I did really like its recommended system, it was better at showing you new stuff than Spotify at any rate which at least for me gets stuck in a loop of the same few albums and tracks, but I'm digressing again. It's been a while since I listened to it properly, the one album is very much lost in my usual MO of shuffling everything I own. Which is a shame because its a very slickly done slice of Ambient and IDM and is totally in line with that techy sounding vibe I've been after lately. There's definitely more than a bit of Burial influence on here and it sounds a lot like there's a touch of Moderat as well, especially the II album, they were only released a few months apart actually! It can get a little long in the tooth for me on some days, but as you might expect with my recent techy kick I'm very much into it today.



Third verse same as the first! I was a long time admirer of Soichi Terada's work on various soundtracks but his solo work was at that point either only on vinyl, out of print or just tricky to get hold of. Thankfully that's changed in recent times and a compilation of his various solo pieces is now easily grab-able on BC, Sounds From The Far East is essentially a 'best of' of Terada's House works, as much as I love his Drum & Bass from Ape Escape he has a real knack for the slower tempos too. Part of the reason I love Terada's work so much is that it sounds like he has so much fun when making them, something you can hear in the production and is reflected in the album art for this comp too. It's an unfortunate casualty of the digital version having a different tracklist curse, but it's not too hard to find the missing / replaced tracks out there if you're so inclined like I was. There are a ton of tracks I could pick but I went with one of my favourite deep house bits in Purple Haze which wastes no time getting into the swing of things, and is full of the hallmarks of Terada's sound of this era: sweeping synths, big kicks and bouncy basslines.



Something new (to me) to wrap up, once again making me further amend my "I don't like minimal" sign to say "I don't like a lot of minimal" (although this is technically tech house but the point stands if you give it a listen!) I checked out Swayzak based off the electro-poppy State Of Grace and I Dance Alone, and was greeted with this and similar tracks instead. I was surprised for sure, but then again this isn't the first time I've seen an artist make a dramatic 180 in sound. I've yet to take a proper dive in but I have found more than a few tracks to catch my ear that are once again scratching that techy itch I have. Low-Rez Skyline is fairly sedate which makes for really good at-the-computer music, there's a lot of little flourishes and switch ups throughout that keep things fresh and interesting for me. It echoes of one of my other favourite Tech/Deep House pieces: Marshall Jefferson's Mushrooms remixed by Salt City Orchestra, albeit minus the absolutely stellar spoken word element. If you asked me originally I'd say that Skyline could benefit from that type of treatment too, but now I'm not so sure. It's a little lengthy at almost 10 minutes, but that makes it one of the shorter tracks from this album, I could see that being a deal breaker for some and on paper I would include myself in that, but I'm only now beginning to feel it growing stale after my fourth or so listen in a row when prepping this post.



And that'll do us for today. Stay tuned this week as both mine and coincidentally the blog's birthday come up on Saturday, I don't know what if anything I'm gonna do yet but I hope to come up with something. There'll be certainly no party this year that's for sure. And on that note, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Ilictronix Podcast: The Season Of Tech

Claude and Adam share and discuss their favorite tracks of the week. This week, Claude digs deep in his techno crates and Adam plays his darker tracks for the changing seasons. Featuring tracks from Galaxy 2 Galaxy, Aphex Twin, Bjarki a new track from Clark and more!

This week's ilictronix podcast is now live! I changed the idea I had for my selections based on Adam's opening choice, I talk a little bit about it in the intro chat of the show, but the short of it is that I canned a planned generic Cyberpunk rundown from my spotify playlist of the same name and instead went all in on the techno front. It's of course front loaded with Artificial Intelligence-era Warp stuff but stay tuned, I pull out a couple of rarities towards the end! I also say later on in the episode, but I wanted my choices to be a nice grab bag of techno I like, so that it could serve as a nice jumping in point for anyone listening who's interested, because 'Techno' is an incredibly broad label to tackle. Adam also hits it out of the park with his choices, diving deep intro darkness, treating us to yet another annual installment of his Fall-come-Winter playlists as the brutal Chicago winter begins to take hold. I always enjoy hearing what he comes up with, and especially when I get yet another reminder to pull my finger out and update my Clark-related listening. Tracklist and show notes follow as always:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Nebula - Deep Space

Claude’s picks:
F.U.S.E - A New Day
Aphex Twin - Polynomial-C
Musicology - Telefone 529
Joey Beltram - The Vertical
Bryan Zentz - Floating Point


Adam’s Picks
Bjarki - This 5321
Jensen Interceptor - Battery Assault
Clark - Harpsichord E.C.S.T.
Smerz - Worth It
Vtgnike - Gkbeats

Outro:
Galaxy 2 Galaxy - Jupiter Jazz


Show Notes:
The video Adam was talking about of Squarepusher live at Fuji Rock was easy enough to find, on Squarepusher's own channel of all places. He's appeared there a few times since but this is most definitely peak classic 'pusher, the VHS artifacts and the downright vintage laptop he's using only add to that. Joking aside, it's great to see not only the man himself, but also the crowd be super into it, even if it does get a little experimental at times. 'Pusher was nice enough to include a tracklist in the video description too; the set's split into two parts: Part One and Part Two

I thought I'd also link the details of the Ghost In The Shell albums I talked about. Kicking off with Megatech Body, where I apparently had my own Mandela Effect moment because it's actually called CD and not Co? I guess it would make sense with the vinyl pressing too. Anyway, there's a discogs page with all the different pressings in and all their deliciously 90's graphic design; very handy if you're looking to avoid the Taiwanese bootlegs that exist. If you're looking to pick it up remember to look for the LTD. edition one, it has an extra CD that almost doubles the tracklist!.

The same goes for the tribute albums, I thought that discogs only had the bootleg pressings listed but that seems to have changed. There's a few for sale on there too if you'd like your own slice of obscure techno history! The first album, with the endearingly Japanese title Tribute Category:Techno Style seems to be a little cheaper than the sequel, I can't think of why other than the Scan X track having an incorrect name on the booklet (it's labelled 'Reflections' on the pack when the tune in question is 'Higher', and unlike the Zentz track I mentioned in the episode, they did see a release beyond this compilation.) The second, dubbed in suitably technological fashion Tribute Category:Techno Style Ver2.0.0 is there too, but there's no traclist errors to speak of here. I will say I like discogs new system of showing you the release history of a track if you click on the title of it, makes it easy to make sure I'm not spreading misinfo. I used to to make sure that I was right when I said the Zentz tune only appears on that comp, which it does.

Just as a final aside, if you fall down the rabbit hole of trying to track down soundtracks and similar stuff to the above, another helpful resource other than discogs is VGMDB, as it's name suggets, it's essentially discogs but for animated series' and videogames. Makes it handy to track down catalog numbers and cross reference tracklists if need be. It also has a marketplace like discogs, so it's definitely worth checking out in this case. It's not as populated as Discogs' marketplace, but it can help if you're looking for something super obscure!

And that should be it for the show notes this week, if there are any missing I'll update the post as and when I'm made aware of them as I re-listen to the episode. I'm really happy with how this week's tunred out in therms of selections and talk, despite my slightly cobbled-together tracklist I think I did a good job of nailing what I like about techno, and of course it's always nice to have someone else's selections to get stuck into too. Myself and Adam will be back next week with more of the usual, until then, stay safe and enjoy the music all! We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Getting Technical

Louisa Matthiasdottir - Fólk á göngu



Over the past couple of days I feel like I've come around to being my old self again. I found more art like the stuff I used to make (and I might return to some day) After a long period of being really into acoustic downtempo and (shock horror) guitar based music, I've come back around to diggin' techy sounding things once again. Starting off with some of my favourite purveyors of Drum & Bass, Commix. I loved Call To Mind, it's chock full of thick basslines and all around good stuff. How You Gonna Feel is a rare example of Commix with (non-sampled) vocals. Their choice was a little unconventional when it comes to Drum & Bass vocal accompaniments but it compliments their production very well indeed. Also serves once again a kick up my arse to finally pick up that compilation album they put out a few years back.



Moving from one to the other here with a fairy recent instrumental addition to my collection. Not that there's anything wrong with Yanagi Nagi's vocal stylings mind you, but this instrumental is equally gorgeous on it's own, and the instrumental lets it be heard in full. It's very clean sounding and a touch on the dreamy side to boot, I thought the piano was a little cliché at first but it has grown on me. It's fast becoming one of my go-to tunes to have on while I do things, but it's equally as enjoyable if you give it your full attention. I couldn't find a stream of the instrumental version anywhere to share, but here it is with the vocals (which I think don't always fit).



And finally, another techno cut that I missed out last time. That intro had my interest from the word go, it's certainly a unique sound if nothing else, and as it went on and added more and more elements my interest bar only went up. When the entire tune comes together it's a fantastic listen, there's even some reversed(?) vocals throughout just to chalk another mark on the uniqueness scale, the end result is the exact opposite of the minimal tunes I was griping over last week. My only issue with this one would be that the title might be more at home on some French House revival track, but the song itself more than makes up for that.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Down Slow

My usual MO for tunes has gone out the window recently, since I bought more trip hop stuff for my collection and now I find myself walking the rain station with much more laidback stuff going on, here's a cross section of some I think you'll dig.

Atelier Olschinsky - Structures III (08)

Kicking off with an unreleased number from anti-artists The KLF. This was meant to be included on an EP in 1994 but they intentionally ended their music career, literally burned a million quid in cash and then deleted all the original masters of all their releases which is a bold move. Anyway, as the name suggests, this is a slightly more upbeat version of Madrugada Eterna from the Chill Out LP.



Another solid piece of history from AFX's debut on R&S Records, the timeless Selected Ambient Works 85-92. I always take the album out of my playlists just so I get nicely surpised when it comes back in again, take it in with a track so nice that it has an entire forum named after it.



A strange addition from Miss Kittin here, what starts as a experimental spoken word type piece completely changes around 2:40 where the track really comes into its own and shows off what Kittin can do with just her own voice, I love that aspect of the production on this one.



- Claude Van Foxbat

Summer Vibes

For those of us not in the northern hemisphere, summer is her. So avoiding all of the crispy-ice tunes, here's my personal soundtrack to summer. I like to spend my summers relaxing and being around those that one would wish to be around with such amazing weather.

That Summer Feeling

First up, some sparkly build up from Van She. I'll admit, I liked the original Walking On A Dream by Empire of The Sun, but I also hated to like it. Van She's whole remix is a build up covered in sunscreen wearing some high fashion shades and swimwear with tropical prints. It just works.


Next is some amazing chunky goodness from Pretty Lights. His first album, A Colour Map of The Sun dropped in early July, and I love it. Combining what can only be described as 'phat' electro lines with pseudo-sampled soul, Pretty Lights has created something beautiful. This track is a clear winner in my book, and just fills me with excitement for summer days.



Seemingly minimalist compared to Yellow Bird, Montreal based CFCF's remix of HEALTH's Good Tigers still slots perfectly into the summer vibes playlist. With an almost reggae base to it, smooth as silk vocal work and a beat that doesn't overpower the delicate nature, CFCF perfects the summer sound with little soundscape.



Released July last year, Purity Ring's debut album Shrines was a modest success, and sat in the U.K polls at #100. A strange mix of hip hop inspired beats, electronic dance anthems and indie, Purity Ring have sparked my interest. I'm rather excited to hear what their next album brings. Until then, Fineshrine is my choice track for the Canadian electro duo, and for beach activities.



My initial plan was to post the entire list, but it just keeps growing. So I'll make this the last one for now. In 2011, the Chemical Brothers crafted the soundtrack to Hanna, a movie that seems to have gone by largely unnoticed. While the movie is a possible 4 stars for me, the soundtrack holds some quality gems, gems that sparkle in the sun.


Slip Slop Slap,
-Sulphites

Gunpowder, Treason & House

It's the 5th of November, which means over in the UK we all get together and make some stonking great fires and let off a few fireworks in celebration of some bloke named Guy Fawkes failing to blow up parliament in 1605. Which is just a little bit ironic.

It's a good time, especially if you can stand stinking of smoke for the next couple days. Now I could list some tunes about fireworks or whatever, but instead here's some house stuff I'm enjoying right now, starting off with a slow building number from Simian Mobile Disco. (Apologies for the crap video thumbnail - it's the only upload I could find)



Thins take a more downtempo turn here, featuring some lovely synth work throughout and even some Knife/Fever Ray style vocal contributions toward the end it's a great showcase of Rex's production, check it out in prep for his new releases!

MuteSong · Rex The Dog - Heartsong

New addition to the writing team Earl has a few tricks of his own, I dug out his Selectizm. comp for another listen not too long ago and fell in love all over again, He kills it in both the house and hip hop department. This track is no different, the breakdown with the cheeky Blade Runner sample is an early highlight.

Deadbeat Demon - Orion Hi

And finally, an often overlooked remix from Daft Club. The album gets a lot of flak but I dig the most of the tracks on it, and it features a pre-Get Lucky collab between the Punk and Pharrell! Here's the seven minute rework of Face To Face from Demon.



-Claude Van Foxbat

AT / AA 73

Roger Dean - Floating Islands

Looking back through my old art inspirations folder, looking at some more pieces by my favourite graphic design studio The Designers Republic. From there I got more into the art of Wipeout and their original developer Psygnosis (Now the defunct Sony Liverpool). Anyways way back in the days of the Amiga, Psygnosis had their logo designed by Roger Dean, who's famous for doing album covers for loads of Prog Rock LPs back when. Here's a piece of his work with some lovely early 90's Autechre that I think fits it quite well (and also had a cover designed by The Designers Republic!).

Radio Claude Vol. 1

Got into mix taping again. I know, I know, but I did a little bit more mixing on this one than before, so I feel comfortable calling it that. After giving the Miss Kittin's brilliant Radio Caroline Vol. 1 another listen, I've decided I like the idea enough to take it into my own hands, so here's a 'what I'm listening to' basically. I didn't want this to feel bare, so I've put some art in there too, it's a it rough around the edges but that's because I've re-used it from an old graphic design project. Tracks and links after the art!

Tracklist:
Golden Boy With Miss Kittin - Nix (Or, 2003)

A:xus ‎– When I Fall In Love (Stryke's Acid Dub Techsture) (When I Fall Remix Project, 2000)

Misstress Barbara - Never Could Have Your Heart (Misstress Barbara vs Barbara Brown Vol. 1, 2002)

Mount Sims - Later On That Night (UltraSex, 2002)

Felix Da Housecat - Silver Screen Shower Scene (Thin White Duke Remix) (Silver Screen Shower Scene EP, 2002)

AT / AA 12

The Designers Republic - Re:mote

Another old one this time, an old favourite I stumbled across and downloaded a long while back. Probably at 2AM by the flicker of the CRT juding by how long I've had it. I've searched high and low for a legit copy of the EP that this is from - Misstress Barbara vs. Barbara Brown, Vol. 1, but annoyingly nowhere has a legal 320 copy of it to buy, only volume 2 it seems. I kinda like it though, I just love that techy house sound aside from Golden Boy's Or, I can't find much that sounds like it; any recommendations would be appreciated!