Cold Snap

Evening all, while the university has me blogging away on a Personal & Professional Practice module, I thought I'd hit you up with a few tunes before I forget again. It's taken a cold turn here in the UK. Shocker, I know, but we thought we'd escaped after a fairly mild winter. No such luck unfortunately, but unlike everyone else I actually like the cold, and it gives me a nice opportunity to share tunes before I realise how much work I have to do again.

Kicking it off with some fittingly cold tunes first, with another cut from thew black sheep of Massive Attack albums, 100th Window. I've recently got back into this LP, and I can see why I left it alone for a while, a lot of the tracks towards the end are 8+ minutes long and end up hogging a lot of space on my SD card. Still, they've made a return recently and they are just as nice as ever.



Keepin' it European with my long time favourites The Knife. They've recently announced both a new album and a whole tour to promote it, but in the meantime I'll keep their third LP Silent Shout in rotation like I always do. It's hands down one of my favourite records of all time, it properly nails the aesthetic its going for.



And finally ending our cold jaunt is James Blake, his shelf wobbling cover of Feist's Limit To Your Love is pretty sweet, especially when that Fever Ray-esque voice tweaking gets involved towards the end. If you need help testing your system's bass, go ahead and skip to about 55 seconds in.



Not to leave you all out in the cold I thought I'd round it out with a couple warmer tracks. Starting with LA local FlyLo of course, I'd forgotten I had his July Heat bootleg tape lying around so I came across it today and went ahead and dug it out. There's some sweet ones on here for sure, here's one I'm feeling right now thanks to that tidy bassline.



And finally a fast riser in my collection of beatcrafters, its Knxwledge again with another cut from the Old Klouds LP, which is chock full of lovely instrumentals that you should definitely check out if hip hop's your thing. This one's a gem that pops up near the end of the album.



Nuts,
- Claude Van Foxbat

A New Day

So I thought I'd get around to laying down the very first post of 2013 before I jet off to Uni again tomorrow, just like old times it's gonna be me throwing up what tunes I'm feeling at the minute. Let's dive right in.

My good pal Evan laid a new tape on us not too long ago, this time he stretches out a bit and mixes up the usual hip hop affair with some Drum & Bass experiments he's been teasing us with for a while. I'll be sure to tell him to not be worried too much, cos this tune is way up there with my favourites in Liquid and Jungle.

Deadbeat Demon - Worlds Apart

More from the Stench again with another slice from his free album this year Moo Fire. Like the Demon, Stenchman gets his Amen Break on in this one and gives us a nice Jungle/Garage mix up in the vein of Skream. That piano hook is right on the money when it comes to living up to that Old School title for sure.

Stenchman - Back To The Old School

Again with another installment from Moo Fire but hear me out. I can't stand most stuff billed as dubstep these days, luckily Stench and his dub bud Suspect (appearing here as Suspicious Stench, get it?) have mostly kept it in line. This track is a little out of character in comparison to their usual output but still has that sound that is uniquely theirs. That and it has a lot more structure to it that straight up wobbles throughout.

Speaking of back to the old school,I finally got my hands on one of my favourite remixes of all time the other day; The Hacker's Fadin' Away, brilliantly reworked by Dima AKA Vitalic, and this tune pretty much has all the hallmarks of Poney EP and OK Cowboy era Vitalic on it. This tune is 13 years old but you wouldn't believe it, it was fresh when I first heard it in '07 and it's still as quality as it was on my first listen. Deffo check it out if you've not heard this one before.

Vitalic Official · The Hacker - Fadin' Away (Dima Remix)

And finally we have a cut from renowned beat butcher Venetian Snares. VS has a staggering amount of albums under his belt, this one come from his latest from 2010 which shares the same title as the album itself. It's the usual VS affair with skittering breakbeats littered throughout, though I would say this is definitely more accessible than the strings 'n beats combo on Rossz Csillag Alatt Született.



2013 AD,
- Claude Van Foxbat

With A Bang

So, years over soon, and I thought I'd do something a little different. I'm gonna cut down on the words for this one and instead just hand out some ammo to blast on NYE to make sure yours is the best sounding night on the block. Stand by for tons of players coming your way, in fact think it might the most I've ever had in one post.

We got house, we got techno, we got mixtures of genres and all, a lil' bit of evrything. You go on out and have yourselves a good night with this lot and as always stay safe, enjoy the music and have yourselves a very nice New Year from all of us here at ilictronix!

Peaches Rocks · I Feel Cream

Philestine - Discourse On Method

Vitalic Official · Vitalic • Second Lives

Unlucky For Some,
-Claude Van Foxbat

Still Alive

Good News! The Apocalypse has been swiftly averted so we can all carry on existing as usual. Turns out the Mayans were about as good at predicting the end times as they were at predicting the arrival of the Spanish. But it does open up a nice window for me to talk about tunes, see me and a friend got talking about what'd go on our end of the world playlists so I thought I's share with you all my list of finely crafted end world tunes.

Squarepusher to start, with Tundra 4 from the wildcard Venus No. 17 EP having the perfect balance of glitchy breakbeats and foreboding backing like in the original Tundra. It starts fairly placid but just layers on the intensity over and over again through it's 12 minute run time, but this is only the beginning.



Staying in familiar territory, fellow beat melter Venetian Snares brings his contribution to the table. It works mostly in the same ways, with those haunting ethereal strings juxtaposed with the madcap drum programming. It, like most of Rossz Csillag Alatt Született shouldn't work. But it does, and in spectacular form.

I just had to include this live recording of Aphex from 1990, it's got that rawness about it like on Analog Worms Attack that's real nice, and of course the 303 work is also pretty nice. Take note that this is from AFX's acid house days, so don't expect any beat butchery in the vein of the 'Pusher and the Snares above.



Bringing it back to more coherent tunes, an old gem I had buried away in the depths of my Dubstep folder from Press, I got it like forever ago on some kind of compilation EP with a Stenchman tune and a few others, and they all have that Stenchman-esque grimy streak to them. I wasn't expecting it to hold up very well, but it properly nails the sound it's going for, my only complaint is it's a bit long at 7 minutes but I can let that slide.



And finally, my favourite slice from the Planisphere series Justice did for a Dior fashion show. The crunchy guitar solo throughout absolutely makes this from the get go, but the break around 1:10 lets you know that something big is on the way. And it doesn't disappoint, the guitar returns, this time with the trademark Justice touch that pushes it to that next level.



And with that I'm done. Until the next apocalypse at least, rest assured that if and when that time arrives I will have more tracks prepared to make your end of the world the best sounding one this side of Alpha Centauri!

Y2K?,
-Claude Van Foxbat