Juergan Teller for Celine AW12

Not a new thing but it's just so stunning. Shot by Juergan Teller, model Daria Werbowy. Textured structured understated beautiful.

Video for Mind Over Mirrors - Memorander

Easing into the morning with this.

 

Chromatics Live at Heaven

Gig stereotypes. The relentlessly snogging couple, the out-of-tune singalonger, the tall person with a hat who stands right in front of you. They were all there last week at the Chromatics Heaven gig but heaven knowns (groan) even they couldn't detract from the shimmering, amazing performance.

For one far-too-short hour, the room was awash in the Chromatic's brittle shimmer and wistfulness, and Ruth Radelet's voice sounded in-cred-ible live (although that's a bit lost in the videos of the gig, sadly).

Their first few tracks were more like tasters than full blown songs, really short and bare bones riffing. A few tracks in and it shifted to longer, bigger, more emotive, more magical, more more more. You know, (in the headiest tradition of gig cliches), it was like a journey. A really superb, gorgeous journey.

High points were definitely Kill for Love, Night Drive, my favourite In the City. The opening bars of their cover of Neil Young's Into the Black set off shouts of joy from around the room. Incidentally, are the Chromatics the world's best cover band? Their cool italo vibes and understated vocals work wonders on songs that were pretty damn good to begin with. Their version of Bruce Springsteen's I'm on Fire aches with cold desire and Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill becomes an unforgettable,  monumental electronic love song.

Johnny Jewel from the band organised their latest album, Kill for Love, onto a single Soundcloud (below), which is very thoughtful. Night Drive and In the City are also ESSENTIAL LISTENING. (imo, more so than Kill for Love - just saying).

Out of Date Record Review - Marcus Mixx & FIT

So this record came out on Detroit's Fit Sound in April but I only got it a month or two ago. It's just so damn good I still fancy writing about it.

The Marcus Mixx track, Salut the Noise with a Laugh, is unsurprisingly a mix of raw house beats & cowbell (classic Mixx) and cheerfully unhinged vibes. Opening with a straightforward enough sounding stab, things quickly unravel as video gamey bleeps and weirdness starts undulating all over the place..and then.. and then.. the laugh starts. Yes, the sampled man's laugh that dips in and out of the track adding a bit of  One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest to an already pretty odd track. The beats are ace, the production flawless (read, raw and direct) and the samples and weirdness absolutely spot on. Happy days.

The FIT track has a way different appeal. Totally, utterly hypnotic and more than a little bit sweat lodge, it shares the raw hewn sounds of the Mixx track and has more than a hint of Oasis Collaborating vibes. A simple looped builder which creeps up and up and up and takes you back back back to the source. SERIOUSLY HOT.  

Listen to clips at the Fit Records distribution site, there's a pretty defunct looking Fit Soundcloud if you're interested, and don't forget Marcus Mixx's INCREDIBLE youtube channel.

Professor Genius - Hassan (That's right - MORE L.I.E.S.!)

Disclaimer - this review was originally written when the Hassan album was due to be released, pressing problems have pushed it back almost a year so it's great it's finally arrived, I'm a bit lazy so I've only quickly updated the below so apologies if it's out of date.

Hassan I Sabbah was a 13^th century Persian warlord, leader of an army of skilled assassins notorious for their daring and murderous antics. He lived in a mountain fortress and inspired slavish devotion in his followers by offering them the key to the kingdom of heaven – a paradise full of drugs and girls, naturally – if only they would follow his every heinous command.

Anything named after such a man clearly has a lot to live up to. Thankfully Hassan, the first album by Professor Genius (Italians Do It Better, Disques Sinthommes and THISISNOTANEXIT), is a synth-laden bit of homegrown exotica with some mesmerising stories to tell. It’s a spell-binding swirl of textures and contrasts, shot through with distinctly middle Eastern motifs and drone-like krautrock atmospherics.

The album opens with Hassan 1, an ambientish number that feels like an awakening. It tip toes up and down arpeggios and emits shimmery noises that sound like stars as it checks its capacity for cosmic utterances hasn’t been diminished. The album takes its time in drawing itself up to full height but certainly by half way through the layers of texture and percussion have developed into something fully FULLY captivating.

Multi-layered middle Eastern percussion sits below swirling, to-die-for synth soundscapes which conjure up the northern lights, secret orders and exotic mysticism. The effect is intoxicating, especially on the later tracks such as Alamut where far below, powerful waves of bass throb with lazy menace. On other tracks like Dream of Skin, reedy, metallic melodies dominate, pulsating with droning insistence as buzz and feedback provide shifting backdrop to the cinematic sounds. The whole album is awash with vibrating, hypnotic tones and streams of noise, layered and drawn into self-contained worlds ordered with exotic percussion. Banks of keyboards declare their uneasiness as eerie melodies loop above cloak-and-dagger synthetic landscapes. Somehow, this is an album which  soothes and menaces in equal degrees.

A big departure from his previous releases, this album sees Professor Genius move into cinematic imaginings of very specific and evocative character, time and place. In that, its fairly unique among synth-based music, which is so often stretching for the future or looking back with a nostalgic idealism. And for the still new-ish (ish) label LIES, it’s also a real depature, testament to a breadth of vision unhinted at by their typical holding pattern of strong releases from analogue house producers such as Legowelt, Steve Summers and Maximillion Dunbar. Looking forward to the forthcoming L.I.E.S. American Noise compilation!

PS. Don't forget to check out the remixes: 

Photos of Fordlandia

Henry Ford built Fordlandia, a prefabricated industrial town in the middle of the Brazilian jungle, in 1928. Its sole aim - which it never really achieved - was to provide the Ford motor company with a plentiful supply of rubber, helping them avoid the presumably higher prices of the rubber which came from the then-British colony of Malay. At the time, without synthetic rubber, the only way to get rubber for car tyres was to grow it. Sadly the rubber plantations ran into all sorts of problems (read about them here and here), and the Detroit-in-the-Jungle never really took off. The invention of synthetic rubber in 1945 made the whole thing even more poignantly pointless.

Much the same as he'd done back in Detroit, Ford built places for his workers to live, hospitals and places to socialise in, and kept a close close eye on the place (no smoking, women or drinking, even in private quarters).

The first photos (the 'then') are from the 1920s and 1930s, and as well as showing glimpses of early Fordlandia they're a lot about early industrialisation, labour & leisure, the effect of industrialisation on the landscape, the first stirrings of globalisation and definitely some sort of colonial-industrial mentality.

The second photos (the 'now) are by photographer Scott Chandler, and it's always nice to see images of buildings being reclaimed by the land. Oddly creeply, but nice. Enjoy.

Ode to Zardoz

Zardoz, the most brilliantly awful film I have perhaps ever seen. Made in the 70's, starring Sean Connery, in between Bonds, in the future and - I'm so serious I could cry - in a red pair of pants. For the whole film. The flimsiest of premises, the worst acting by extras, a multitude of mind-bogglingly bad crowd scenes, and overall so incredibly terrible it was in fact, quite enjoyable.

In a nutshell, there are a group of people running the show called the Immortals. They wanted to stop the plebs (called the Brutals) from getting in on the good life, so they banished them off so somewhere called the badlands or something.

They sent one of their own to keep them under control, and this guy went around in a massive floating head, pretending to be a god called Zardoz by speaking out of the head in a massive booming voice. So far, so wizard of oz.

What has the stone head got to say? 'The gun is good, the penis is evil'

Sean Connery is one of this God's band of henchmen who go around killing the brutals to keep them under control, all whilst wearing his quite incredible red bikini. He decides to break out of the badlands and gets into the vortex the immortals live in. 

There are all sort of really odd bits about how the penis is mysterious, and a massively awkward scene which revolves around Sean Connery getting an erection when the girl he fancies gets annoyed with him. 

In the end he somehow destroys the exploitative set up those pesky immortals had going on and get the girl. I kind of fell asleep but I think that's the gist of it.

MIND BOGGLING

Delroy Edwards ' Plumskins Burnout Mix'

What a banger. New track from this dude Delroy Edwards (who's just had something out on L.I.E.S.) just went up on his Soundcloud yesterday. Obviously it's annoying to just compare people but it's like the bits I like from Omar S, Marcus Mixx (drum patterns & sounds) and Dance Mania all in one record. It's raw! Rampant, straight-up banger. No messing. Amazing sounds! Listen! Loud!

NHK'Koyxeи Dance Classics Vol I

Have been meaning to write about NHK'Koyxeи ever since I bought Dance Classics Vol 1 (a misleading title if ever there was one btw) and now that both Kouhei Matsunaga (aka NHK'Koyxeи) and Bill Kouligas of Pan Records are tweeting about the imminent release of Vol II I might as get on with it.

'Dance Classics Vol. I' is an incredible album, massively complex rhythmically but not at all dry. The total opposite in fact, it's immediate, accessible and intuitively enjoyable even though it's really quite clever. Actress-like yes, but more technical and less emotive - although some of the more experimental tracks have a certain whimsicalness to them.

It's very structural music, with a construction far more complex than its immediacy and visceral impact would suggest. The basic pattern is set up then further elaborate flourishes and layers develop out of it, and the best moments of the album (see opener 587) are when these new elements breathe fresh shimmers of unexpected richness into the sounds. 

There are a couple of tracks with real dancefloor appeal. The bassline of 587 wouldn't be out of place on any bass music or dubstep dancefloor (is dubstep still a thing?); 530's beats are so laid-back they almost trip over themselves but it still lopes along with irresistible, vibrating force, and the unsettling insistency of 572_2 just makes you want to put a puffa jacket and baseball cap on and start winding. Other tracks are way more abstract and dreamy, one sounds like a girl's music box which needs winding up, another like a skittery anxious collction of recorded sound and digital fragments. With the two kinds of tracks complementing each other so perfectly it makes for a really rather amaze album altogether. Very much looking forward to VOL II. 

For more sounds check out the nhk_koyxen Soundcloud page and his Raster Noton podcast. 

Will Jarvis Hellraiser

Popped into the Gowlett pub in Peckham to see some bathroom themed art by Will Jarvis of the Sunday Painter gallery. Amazingly intricate with a definite trompe l'oeiul effect - check out the tiny detail on the silver balls which make up the plug chain, for example. Liked the grid of toothpaste best I think.

 The Gowlett 'Public House Projects' space upstairs is actually really nice, very bright and white and a good place to see art.

Christopher Kane AW12

Doing some fashion research, ended up looking through the latest Christopher Kane collection and you know what, I wouldn't mind wearing any of the below (sadly the same is not true of a great deal of the fashion world's output). Fashion meets Dalston meets granny (check the luxe granny florals, luxe granny knitwear and luxe granny shoes, albeit with massive granny-unfriendly fashion heels).

Which reminds me, my favourite new game to play on the top deck of the bus is hipster or granny. You see the back view of a woman walking down the street in sensible shoes, socks and a massive coat, and you try and guess whether she's a granny or a hipster. The only way you know for sure is when the bus overtakes and you can look back and check her face. You'll be surprised.

LUKE WYATT SAD STONEWASH - A Video Mulch

The video Luke Wyatt made for his Torn Hawk Tarifa track has been calling me, and en route for another gawp at it on Youtube I came across another amazing video he's done with the Tarifa track. It's a promo for a full length DVD called - best name ever - Sad Stonewash. Its VHS sentimentality is totally kitsch and surprsingly poignant, and major visual disintegration FX push it as far towards pixellated meltdown as it's possible to go without completely destroying the meaningful looks, sunsets and 80s dance moves. And the harsh metallic beats in the track, balanced by the balearic sunset melody, perfectly complement the sentimental/destructive feel of the video.

Luke Wyatt explained to AAVV how he works and what inspired Sad Stonewash:

 “I select video to appropriate based on its mood resonance or compositional zing. My VCR gets beat up with a size 13 docksider until it makes errors and the VHS tape spits up on itself. While digitizing the video I induce the computer to make mistakes by not telling it the truth about the data it is ingesting. I isolate the mistakes I like best, outline them, and send them back to my VCR, resuming the docksider attack, repeating this process until things attain an anti-sheen, losing any crisp edge, as if they had always belonged together. I then arrange the images in an order that must appear equally inevitable. I term the results of this technique Video Mulch. For this work, the following was on my mind: languid linen-suit sadness via the stylish poignancy of Michael Mann sunsets. A cold weather cousin sadness to that: the dour, grey, gothic sadness of a few old bands who played chiming delay guitar. Sixth grade sword obsessions (a dream of the sky), meet adult shoe and leg love (hangups of the earth). Both crowns and castles point to the sky (or space), pinnacles and minarets announcing heaven as the place kings should shoot for. Remember how the Voltron castle became a spaceship and lifted off the earth?”

check Luke Wyatt's website

Stream brand-freaking-new tripped-out space shit from Jamal Moss's Music from Mathematics

These three tracks are off a forthcoming Music from Mathematics release. I'm actually listening to them as I write. It's great 'artnoise' (as it calls itself). No 5 is a low-end squelch fest with tinny space keysboards drifting in out and of pitch above.. No 6 is a massively wigged out intergalatic battle jam and No 8 so far is full of tense deep space synth patterns and unsettling vibes. Check it!

Listen to new Willie Burns tracks, out soon on The Trilogy Tapes

Willie Burns (geddit?) is one alias of a certain William T Burnett (of the excellent NY-based W.T. Records). He's got some new tracks coming out on The Trilogy Tapes, a London record label run by Will Bankhead (Honest Jons and Hyperdub graphic designer, the man behind those famed Actress record sleeves amongst many other things). Willie Burn's also released well decent  stuff in a similar housed-off vein on L.I.E.S. and Creme Organization (although the L.I.E.S. release is the one to look out for).

The Trilogy Tapes seems to be a satisfying secretive label. There's not a great deal of information about them which is unusually cryptic and very very appealing in this day and age. TTT has been home to some really ace releases, Joy Orbison's massive 'Ellipsis' and Dean Blunt (from Hype Williams)'s limited cassette tape release of late last year, 'Jill Scott Herring OST'. There's also a new Blawan out on there, a Madteo cassette and a punk compilation. Loads of good stuff.

Anyway, back to these Willie Burns tracks. The two that have gone up on Soundcloud already are both nice but my favourite is Duh Duh Dunk, below. The EP will be called The Overlord, and is due out soon. Check out The Trilogy Tapes website.

Forthcoming on L.I.E.S - Delroy Edwards - 4 Club Use Only

It said 'ghetto house' in the corner of the soundcloud page but it's far more sedate than that would lead you to think. (Note however the font saying 'DELROY EDWARDS' on the record sleeve is pure Dance Mania).

 

It pushes along, sure, but rather than a peak hour banger it's more PURE ATMOSPHERE POWER. Shimmery and meandering, it's super raw and soulful. It makes me shut my eyes a little and zone out at my desk. Mmm. It's not a million miles from some of the OASIS Collaborating stuff. Just listen to those beats - whatever they're run through they've got an incredible textured surface area that just sounds so cool. Serious FXHE vibes (which is a very good thing. I can't be bothered to defend Omar S against people who think only wankers like him, as far as I'm concerned he's a don). Incredible track.