Snowpocalypse

The first winter snow of the new year fell yesterday in the great city of Chicago. Ever since I moved here over the summer I knew this day would come; the season everyone has been warning me about, "The Chicago winter". I'm not even a full month into it and already it's absolutely miserable. Canadian Drone and Ambient artist Tim Hecker is going to make it a lot worse.

Heckers music is hard to describe in words because it's a very emotional listen. To me it's like a midnight blizzard: cold, howling and swirling, dreadful, introspective, and ultimately beautiful. It's hard to choose which tracks to recommend since each of his albums have different moods and should be listened to in their entirety.

The first track is from the album Ravedeath 1972. A majority of the album was written with pipe organ in an Icelandic cathedral, so everything sounds distant, old, and suffocating. The track starts off abrasive and grainy, but then a melody starts to form, and then pulsates in this breathtaking track.  

The next track is from the follow up album Virgins. Virgins, is a lot more in your face. Louder tracks that are very jarring, surreal, and absolutely depressing. The track black refraction is one of the quietest and loneliest spots on the album so its easy to recommend  I could go on and on about how I love the piano loop that gets distorted, the haunting noises in the far corners... But instead you'll just have to listen for yourself and check out the rest of his work.

-Adam

Peeled

Legendary broadcaster John Peel had some stellar acts on his shows in his time, including some favourites from warp records. He got the usually mysterious Boards Of Canada on the show, and here's a track they didn't feature on the resulting EP, apparently due to a sample clearing issue which is a shame because it's a fine addition to the BoC backcatalogue. According to them it was the longest and fastest track they'd done since around 1997 or so, have a listen and enjoy.



Another firm favourite band of mine Broadcast actually had several Peel Sessions but never released any recordings of them. The original version of their cover of Nico's Sixty Forty would debut on one of these shows before appearing officially on the Warp20 (Unheard) compilation. Here's a little bootleg recording from their 1996 session with an unreleased gem, Forget Every Time.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Monsters Under The Bed

Hey, I'm the new/er guy.


My first post, and I chose some chill indie jam from Oregan based artist(s?), Gingerbread Patriots. Information varies on members, with John Brophy being the only name that appears as a listed band member.  A majority of the sounds for this tune came from an iPhone, the bass and vocals were recorded elsewhere. I have no idea how people create these kinds of lo-fi beats and make them fit into a chorus of other things, but in this case, it works. A simple tune with some great vocal work, and according to the bands Facebook page, the song is based on monsters and tinnitus.



"I used to not be able to sleep when i was a small bebeh ...cause i could hear my heartbeat in my ear on my pillow. i just found out thanks to google dot com (amazing site where you can find anything!) that it was probably pulsatile tinnitus. i used to think that the sound was tha monstahs marching through the sandy desert and beaches to get me. thankfully they musta had a long way to go cuz they never arrived to my bed/their dinner table (sic)"

- Sulphites

Stuff We Missed

Trust that when we're busy getting the site stable and a new crew in that funkateers Chromeo drop info on a new album and a couple single dealies. Last thing I'd seen of them before this was their collabs with Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates fame. Not really feeling the cover art for this one personally, but whatever let's check it out!

So how does the new stuff sound? quite nice actually, starting with their latest addition Sexy Socialite; a little departure from their usual repertoire, and is probably the fastest track I've ever heard from them. Loving the breakdowns on this one.



And the other half, something a little more conventional from the duo as you can probably tell from that opening bassline. Unfortunately it seems they're catching the wave of uninspired "sounds like Daft Punk" comments that comes with doing anything remotely funk these days. Regardless these two are definitely worth your time, as well as their last three albums if you've missed them!



And of course, Miss Kittin's new album is fantastic. She's totally embraced the vibe changes that she usually has on her albums and made a massive double album, one side dancefloor, the other side more ambient. I was gonna embed a couple from her soundcloud, but they're disabled! Instead enjoy the video for one of the singles, Bassline.



-Claude Van Foxbat