Powell's Untitled on the Death of Rave

Powell's new release on Boomkat's The Death of Rave imprint (home to the vinyl of Mark Leckey's Fiorucci..).

Four tracks, all seething with a claustrophobic post-punk repetition, happily and productively united with a bleak and insistent electronics.

Rider starts gently, drums and buzz circling, drawing you in. 'I walk with the zombies'.. and a guitar lick. The buzz shifts shapes but presses on insistently, unforgivingly. Hypnotic, magnetic. Unexpectedly so. 'Zombies..', he says again.The track pauses, a breather, but just for a second. Then it's back, bassline throb background hum as persuasive as before. Give up, give in, surrender, go under.

On 'Oh No New York', a sharp wave of static gives way to pure no wave bass, drum and vocal sample, an unconvincing OH NO! The track is then gradually criss-crossed with thin, shifting lines and bursts of scratchy static, feedback. And buzz. An all pervasive buzz. Sounds are set-up, you get a bit used to them and then they're carved into, circled, filtered and augmented with the drills and chainsaws of DIY, lo fi electronics. Whatever they may be.

Not that the original post-punkers didn't get around to playing with this stuff themselves. Suicide and Wire for sure (I'm sure there are many others but I just happen to have heard those two) certainly explored synths and so on in their nihilistic post-punk zone.  It was fucking great then and it's fucking great now.

There's something so seductive about the techno/post-punk alloy. Check the Silent Servant Fact mix, and anything Blackest Ever Black have ever done.  Purist nihilistic grandeur of the highest order.

Lumigraph

I first heard Lumigraph's Lunar Luup on an Opal Tapes compilation called Cold Holiday (very much worth listening to). It's a strong compilation but this track still really stood out.

Opal Tapes seem like an intriguing label, based somewhere in the North East, putting out what they call 'scuzzy' electronics. I've only really listened to the Cold Holiday compilation this track came from, but the 1991 High Life album is meant to be pretty good. And I've just seen there's a Tuff Sherm & PMM album on the bandcamp page that I'm tempted to download.

Anyway. Literally not got a clue about this Lumigraph but they're good. Lunar Luup is incredible, it slowly gets all its bits together and then emerges, bowling along with a really addictive rhythmic swagger. It's raw and ragged sounding, too, in a very good way.




The Wave Watcher track has as similar sort of bowl-along, uneven and insistent syncopation (??). Also very good, takes a little longer to put itself together but no worse for it.



Lumigraph's Soundcloud.

Mark Leckey at the ICA

I heard Mark Leckey talk at the ICA last week and he did am amazing job of making a couple of ideas which had seemed quite dry to me suddenly seem pretty fascinating. First watching his object-centric films and then listening to him talk about the complexities of objects and images really naturally and enthusiastically made it more or less come alive.

He talked about his 2004 video Made in 'Eaven (above), how making the video was in a way an attempt get as close to this 'sublimely perfect' object as possible (the sublime object itself is Jeff Koon's Rabbit from 1986). he talked about the powerful pull certain objects, like this one, had over him, how they made him want to literally become one with them, or to get as close as possible to them. It's a theme he played with in other films too, but this was the best.

And of course he wants that, I thought, OF COURSE we all do, in some sense. The right image or the right object creates a wierdly powerful response, from the right book or record to the perfect pair of black leather boots, bikes, lipsticks, buildings. I mean, these are just things I find myself investing in to any degree, and that's not even touching on the deeper stuff Leckey is talking about, the intimate connection which certain really charged objects induce.

There's something about objects - for me - with a strong sense of form and presence that sets something off. There are a couple of things I've stumbled across recently, a ring and a painting which are kind of similar actually. Anyway, I feel like I want to keep them, or the sense I get when I look at them - with me at all times. Mmm.

It can be epically pop as well, Leckey talked about wanting to become these beautiful pictures of made-up women he'd seen in magazines. I watched Prince's Purple Rain recently and kind of lost myself dreaming about Appolonia's perfect 80's hair and glossy lips. Not to be near her but to kind of  become the carefully constructed perfection, on some level.

It's there in Cronenberg's Videodrome, with a slightly different and darker emphasis (becoming one with the VHS image, the world of Videodrome). A lifetime ago, reading Naomi Klein's No Logo, I remember she talked about driving down a street full of fast food stores as a child and wanting to disppear into the plastic perfection of the signs and lights. Going back to Jam City, the cover of his album is all photoshopped corporate perfection marred the shiny sleek motorcycle, another feat of form and function. It's everywhere, to be fair.

I suppose it boils down to the glossy allure of perfect form, a perfect surface. Maybe a response to the natural chaos and messiness of life (would it be annoying to say espeecially modern life?); maybe a sign of an ill-adjusted element in the human psyche. Maybe a perfectly sane response to the massive amount of consumer imagery and objects we're subject to at all times... after all, how far do those objects differ from art objects? Why not treat them with the same interest and attention. TBC.

Video for Mind Over Mirrors - Memorander

Easing into the morning with this.

 

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.

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. 

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.

New Future Times - Steve Moore 'Zen Spiders'

Spacious, beautiful, new-age & balearic house from NYC based producer Steve Moore on Washington DC's Future Times label.

Steve Moore does a whole bunch of musical projects including Zombi, has been known to play with Sun 0))) and has released on L.I.E.S, Kompakt, Moon Glyph and Mexican Summer. A busy guy. Check out this stunning track.

John Heckle

Fresh-faced Scouser John Heckle is really quite an astonishing producer of carpet-burn-raw house and techno. His tripped-out-to-fuck music sounds like he takes a lot of hallucinogenic drugs but I'm assured he's a clean cut kind of guy.

'Ahead of Time', below, from a 2011 Mathematics release, is enthusiastically unhinged and deeply unstable. Definitely veering into the interesting end of the experimental spectrum. His debut album has grown-up a touch and stabilised somewhat (the right meds, perhaps). It's got the most incredible lo-fi production and astonishing tracks all. over. it. I wanted to upload 'Atomic Response' but it's not on Youtube so here are the hypnotic 'Red Defender' and the surprisingly uplifting,synthy disco-y (French-Kiss-ey) 'The Voyageur (Voyeur)', both from the album (which I've actually already written about for the blog but I just wanted to post about his stuff again).

The story of getting to signed to Mathematics Recordings, apparently - he went up to Jamal Moss/Hieroglyphic Being in a club with a demo, HB was less than interested but took the tape without saying anything. A few months later, an A4 envelope arrived at Mr Heckle's residence, inside - Mathematics Recordings contracts for signing. No fucking about, then!

(disclaim-- John Heckle's done loads of other tracks, these are just some that I particularly like)

Paved with Gold - ISYS and NTS at Tate Tanks

Earlier this evening ISYS and NTS got their London thing on at the Tate's new Tanks space. There were five films screened and soundtracked live, and some poetry from host James Massiah.  The videos were really lovely, with an impeccable ISYS eye for London's beauty and style. Footage of crowds, the city streets, people and fashion were edited and soundtracked so well it made me kind of see the city again and this time catch the aliveness and the energy...



The music was varied and pretty great too - My Panda Shall Fly did an improvised sitar, electronics and vocals set and Dark Sky played a kind-of-heavy but still poignant dubstepish-bass-ish track complete with London sound recordings. Okay, so that didn't make it sound all that great but actually, it really was.

Revealing the soul and beauty in the everyday life of city without getting sentimental is a lot easier said than done, but the films and music tonight pulled it off perfectly. It was like being shown the city afresh, and it was really touching.

If you haven't already, check out ISYS and NTS, two banging websites. 

We Can Elude Control @ Bold Tendencies 6

Saturday night was the second of Paul Purgas' 'We Can Elude Control' sound-art night at Peckham's Bold Tendencies. Despite the sweltering heat the lower level of the car park was packed with the art-school kids, extreme-beard hipsters, black-garmed NHS Specs intellectual types and sandal-and-sock wearing Gruniad readers who make up the core South London art crowd.

I arrived in time to hear the end of Bill Kouligas (the man behind Berlin's PAN Records). The bass and power of the sound were making the concrete throb, which was both cool and kind of worrying. Inside the thunderous wall of noise sharp sounds played off each other, matching power and knife-edge precision. 

After a cooling breather on the roof, it was back into the carpark for Roly Porter, who played an improvised experimental electronics set with Cynthia Miller (they're keeping it in the family apparently, as she's his Aunt). Their heavy set was nicely primal, with unsettling rumblings and deep dark undercurrents. 

Out one side of the crowded dark carpark you could see the lights of the London skyline and overground trains which perfectly complemented the tough electronics noisily rumbled past on the other. Roly Porter and Cynthia Miller seriously cranked it up in the final minutes for an especially brutal onslaught, then that was it - time to bolt upstairs for fresh air and Camparis. 

New L.I.E.S. - MUTANT BEAT DANCE - SKETCH III

New on the lovely Brooklyn-based L.I.E.S. label is this track from Mutant Beat Dance, aka Beau Wanzer and Melvin Oliphant (who is also known as Traxx). As with all the Mutant Beat Dance stuff I've heard, the beats are just pretty damn tough. Not hard, mind, they just ooze dancefloor rawness. And the rest of the track is nicely unhinged, there's a looped keyboard sound in there that's menacing like a Goblin soundtrack, some incomprehensible vocal samples and lots of raw jacking vibes. It's heavy and it's weird and it'll make you jack, it's mutant beat dance.

 

Heroin in Tahiti

Surf-drone? Kraut-surf? Whatever, Heroin in Tahiti are two guys from Rome and they make heavy, whacked-out, heavenly kitsch.

I was raised by snakes, I lie all the time

The future is bright, the future is synthetic etc.

Anyway, two more good synthy bits are Raised by Snakes by Belgian synthpoppers Telex and the slightly cheesy but very earnest/infectious You by Axodry. Both were given remixes by the anonymous DJ collective Razormaid. I haven't been able to find the Razormaid remix of Telex on vinyl at all, and even the original version seems to be only available on pricey bootlegs. The Axodry track was originally released on XYZ Records, and is on sale for about £40 on discogs. Thank God for Youtube eh. 

I've also posted a rather lovely video of Telex (they of 'Moskow Disko') from 1980, when they entered the Eurovision song contest. With matching white scarves over pastel coloured Tshirts, they sang an instantly forgettable song about the song contest. The fact they in came last is utterly criminal (nul points).

Shriekback - Mistah Linn He Dead

Produced by On-U's Adrian Sherwood in 1984, this is supposedly a remix of Shriekback's 'Hand on my Heart' but is a totally, totally different animal. Dubbed out, wired, amazing.

Thanks to The Beat.

Kodwo Eshun on Synths and Race

More synth pondering, from Kodwo Eshun's More Brilliant than the Sun, which incidentally is an amazing book.

'Then there's the synth race, entering the synth race, which is Techno, the whole interface between the first Detroit guys and what I call the Import Ear. The guys listening to this stuff coming out of Europe, coming out of England, listening to the whiteness of the synthesizer and using it because that sound would make them alien within America. That's the secret behind all the early Detroit records. All those guys - Model 500, Cybotron, they've all got these affected Flock of Seagulls-type accents. Why do they have this? Because they want to be alien in America. How do they do this? By singing like white New Romantic English kids. So it's the idea of white music being exotic to black American ears. So it's trying to turn the exotic eye back onto the English, because that's part of the process that happened. Also what happened, Techno was happening without the registering mark of the UK media, without the traditional steps in which America comes out with an original music, and it's usually bastardized in England and Europe and mixed, remixed and then sent back. That was reversed; in this case, it was America bastardizing, taking English music and doing strange things with it. Hence the famous embarrassment when English journalists would head to Detroit to say, 'Where's this music come from?', only to find out this music had come from where they'd just been, only to find out they were the origin. This is the first explicit case where white music is the origin, and where the black American musicians who are the adulterators and the bastardizers. So Techno's a complete reversal of the classic 60s myth of the blues and the Rolling stones, the entire rock heritage which starts out with this famous myth of Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones. In Techno, you've got an immediate reversal. In Techno, Kraftwerk is the delta blues, Kraftwerk is where it all starts. In Techno, Depeche Mode are like Leadbelly. A Flock of Seagulls are like Blind Lemon Jefferson. So Europe and whiteness generally take the place of the origin. And Black Americans are synthetic, the key in Techno is to synthesize yourself into a new American alien. So I look at the synth race in terms of various developments of that...'