Cyclic Defrost

Various Artists – On Automata (Retort Records)

2012-05-12T20:03:13Z

Retort Records is a relatively new Australian electronic music label whose self-stated aim is to release interesting music with a focus on adventurous composition, and this debut compilation ‘On Automata’ sees them drawing together seven quite divergent artists, both local and international. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable unifying thread here is the artists’ emphasis on highly detailed, and there’s certainly a dense, challenging quality to a significant portion of the tracks here. Machine Makes Change’s ‘One Like Fire’ opens proceedings with what’s easily this album’s most menacing offering as a dense rush of sampled percussive scrapes and dripping liquid textures flexes and roars against dark droning tones, in a moment that calls to mind some of Amon Tobin’s most disorienting and abstracted compositions.

By contrast, Szobor provides one of the more relatively accessible contributions here with ‘Fuzzy Vs Shiny’, sending off-centre techno rhythms rolling beneath eerie ambient howls, the sense of tribal electro-funk carried by the bassline adding a raw edge that evokes Clan Analogue’s back in the day live jams, before Sun In Aquarius’ ‘Elasticity’ drops things straight down into treacherously fractured dub that sees DSP-manipulated snares tracing contorted patterns against menacing orchestration and delayed-out horror movie samples, the entire track seeming to twitch with a barely restrained sense of violence. UK-based producer Caural (the only artist I was previously familiar with here) meanwhile offers a gently soothing outro with ‘Soundtrack For Endings’ as reverb-heavy synth pads ripple against warm swells of bass and stripped-down hiphop beats, the woozy soft-focus vibe providing the perfect antidote to the harder-edged explorations that preceded it. An extremely impressive and diverse that suggests great things ahead for Retort Records, but move fast as ‘On Automata’ is limited to a run of just 300 vinyl copies.

Chris Downton

Various Artists – On Automata (Retort Records) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Sweatson Klank – Elevate Me (Project Mooncircle)

2012-05-12T13:04:09Z

Elevate Me, the latest release from producer Sweatson Klank following a two year hiatus, presents a stunning mix of UK dance music with the harder beat sounds distinctive of his native LA.

Utilising the vocal sample methods that have become so popular in electronic music as of late, along with driving rhythms and heavy-diving bass lines, the five tracks explore the entire spectrum of popular electronic music. The opening track, ‘Always You’, sits mostly in the UK arena, with fast percussive elements dipping into heavy bass sounds. It’s in this first song that the heavy use of pitched and twisted vocal samples becomes apparent, an element that weaves throughout most tracks on the EP.

‘Own’, in contrast, is much more experimental in terms of its rhythmic basis, with jagged and staggered drums forcing through to the foreground of the song throughout. Along with oscillating synth patterns and a heavy use of throbbing bass, the track explores the more experimental territories of UK dance music. The LA sound is brought back completely in ‘I Can’t Explain’, bringing a rather refreshing break and pushing heavy influences of Flying Lotus and other artists on the Brainfeeder roster. The beat sits in a more regular timing with straight drum samples while soulful funky synths burst through the background in flares and the trademark vocal samples echo amongst it all.

The final song, ‘In Between’, finds the balance between the two sounds, with a deep oscillating bass and a drum line that works into a steady dance rhythm yet still working in and amongst the standard beat sound. Sweatson Klank highlights his diversity as a producer on Elevate Me, demonstrating his ability to shift between genres, yet still keeping a common theme and tying all of the tracks together into a smooth and danceable EP.

Joshua Millar

Sweatson Klank – Elevate Me (Project Mooncircle) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Richard Knox and Frederic D. Oberland – The Rustle of the Stars (Gizeh Records)

2012-05-12T12:51:17Z

There’s a deep incongruity at work in Richard Knox and Frederic D. Oberland’s Rustle of the Stars project, whose title evokes a feathery, utopian ambiance. Inspired by the sonic phenomenon occurring at the Arctic Circle, where a tiny noise is created from the draught of breath on ice crystals, Knox and Oberland’s music is bold and mired in dirt, grit encrusted string passages and grey fields of distortion. This is more Godspeed You! Black Emperor human despair than any Stars of the Lid cosmic drive, striving to get their mud-caked boots to sea level with astral concerns far from their thoughts.

Knox and Oberland set the familiar neo-classical language of strings and lonesome piano figures beside a post rock haze of electric guitar screech, amplifier hum and Tim Hecker-esque distortion. The key to understanding the work is in the producers’ reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s Dream-Land, “the ships trapped or crushed by ice, the point of no-return, the minds sinking, the attempt on the Pole ending in disaster, the quest of the Northwest Passage, Erebus & Terror, the Mercy Bay, Mangazeya, Charles Francis Hall, Beechey Island, the Midnight sun and the Polar night.” The stars look down passively upon their efforts, but like these explorers the human condition, and the cold earth in which we are bound, is all that can be documented.

First piece ‘Sleeping Land (pt 1)’ finds them reluctantly waking, stretching their limbs, depicted by hesitant, sluggish violins. ‘Drawing Lines to the End of the World’ foregrounds a windswept and repeated guitar figure, Sergio Leone in an arctic desert, while ‘The Wreck of Hope’ builds to a hissing crescendo of weeping tones, both sound and title recalling the Constellation roster. The pervading feel is of being not frozen but mired in earth; either way its a cold and hopeless state.

Joshua Meggitt

Richard Knox and Frederic D. Oberland – The Rustle of the Stars (Gizeh Records) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Ex Confusion – Embrace (N5MD)

2012-05-12T20:00:28Z

Ambient music is a dime a dozen but rare are those albums that offer pure, subdued sonic bliss from start to finish. Kompakt’s Pop Ambient series used to be more reliable in that sense, and while the move to incorporate broader, more challenging sounds has been welcome (and necessary) it’s come at the cost of carefree unquestioning listenability. Even Ulf Lohmann’s Because Before, a benchmark pop ambient release and among my favourite recordings, required starting at track 3, but Ex Confusion’s gorgeous Embrace lives up to its title, offering nothing but comfort and solace through each of it’s nine tracks.

The project of Atsuhito Omori, Ex Confusion creates loose billowing clouds from guitar and piano, but the sources are completely obliterated in the service of the compositions. ‘If There is Love’ offers the only diversion, foregrounding a repeated piano motif, but it too is made wooly, doused in cushioned marshmallow effects. The rest is all serene drifting anonymous clouds, pitched between Lohmann, Eno and Stars of the Lid, perfect sleep, relaxation or meditation music. Its also welcomely blank and emotionless, divorced from all too present new age kitsch or glum miserablism.

Joshua Meggitt

Ex Confusion – Embrace (N5MD) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Oktored – Gemini 1 EP (Yo Sucka!)

2012-05-12T12:48:44Z

Detroit-based electronic producer Oktored first surfaced last year with his debut Future Sounds Of 8 Mile EP on his own Yo Sucka! Label, and this follow-up five track 12″ EP Gemini 1 sees him shifting his bass music-oriented productions into deeper and more abstracted waters. In fact, there’s almost an IDM-kissed vibe to several of the fractured, jittery explorations on offer here. While ‘Relax’ easily represents one of the most immediately dancefloor-poised moments here, sending rattling juke-house rhythms rolling against surging synth textures and lazy-sounding pads, there’s a curiously disorienting undertone to the entire groove as the snare rolls slowly creep increasingly out of time against the queasily wavering background atmospherics. By contrast, ‘Drifter’ sees things getting considerably darker as stuttering ‘Windowlicker’-style breakbeats judder and lurch against creepy ‘Exorcist’-esque melodic refrains and squealing g-funk synths in a moment that calls to mind some collision between Joker and the late nineties Warp label, before ‘Ines’ gets tech-ier, sending a jacking broken house groove rolling against almost Italo electro-tinged synths. A diverse and unpredictable EP that’s perhaps geared slightly more towards the headphones, with a second volume apparently following soon.

Chris Downton

Oktored – Gemini 1 EP (Yo Sucka!) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Merzbow – Live at Parramatta Riverside Theatre – May 11, 2012

2012-05-12T12:47:25Z

For me, a Merzbow performance is all about the iconography. All the pointers from the history of rock performance are there, through to more recent electronic developments. So, filing into the Parramatta Riverside Theatre’s largest auditorium (a beautiful room in which to witness any type of performance – and just 10 minutes from home for me, a staunch suburbanist), the subdued lighting reveals an Ampeg stack stage left rear – bass icon, check – a Marshall stack stage right rear – guitar/rock icon, check – and a desk stage front and centre, covered in a small mixing desk, an infinite tangle of spaghetti-leads patching in and out of fx pedals and a now almost ubiquitous glowing white apple symbol on the laptop – electronica icon, check. And there it was, 50 years of music performance iconography sparsely and imposingly inhabiting the large stage.

Performance, as subtle as it is for Merzbow, is the whole point of seeing this live. There are any number of ways to approximate the sonic onslaught – personally I’ve enjoyed something quite timbrally, structurally and immersively similar (without quite the same volume, of course) by lying in spa baths with my ears underwater (something I do highly recommend) and, at times, there were similarities to intense traffic or aircraft noise. But the sonics aren’t really the point. Everyone knows basically what it’s going to sound like before Merzbow himself even enters the room. But the performance aspects bring him right into line with tradition, make sense of the barrage, whilst at the same time undermining that lineage. So, when he straps on his home-made ‘instrument’, the first impression is of electric guitar. But then you realise the phallic extensions of the traditional guitar are neutered in this concoction, which is just a simple metal disc attached to another piece of metal which sticks out from each end of the disc by 10 or 15cms. One cliché undermined. Of, course, once what looks like a metal dishwashing scrubber is rubbed back and forth over the contact mic-ed metal, the sound, processed in extremis, is everything rock guitar has always dreamed of being – an obnoxious, unrelenting wash of pure electric power. The thinly veiled sexual machismo of rock remains evident in the rapidly masturbatory rubbing of the metal plate with a variety of objects for the next hour.

It’s clear, from the performance, that rock is the basis of this music. But, as things progress, other strains begin to enter. The first sign is some high pitched self-oscillating delays which take on the sparkle of synthesiser arpeggios amidst the cloud. When similar layers of that rhythmic pulse enter the sub-bass sonic regions, it almost becomes a mutant techno, deeply buried, rock mutating into electronica. Its sustained repetition over 15 or 20 minutes as the performance builds to its end adds to this perception. And then, as Merzbow strips back a few layers of noise at one stage, what originally sounded like random electronic bleeps flying around the higher frequency ranges make themselves known as highly processed voices talking. Far from being a cliché of alienating nothingness, the music reveals itself as various layers of humanity. Merzbow’s constant up and down woosh on his wah pedal, physical action immediately manifest in sonic reaction, highlight this.

Merzbow’s music is actually the obvious place that rock’s evolution should take it, if it weren’t for the majority of rock musicians sidetracking themselves into nostalgic cul-de-sacs. Merzbow plays a beautiful game with that – emptying rock’s pomp of all but it’s key signposts, emptying its sound of all but its most cathartic elements, then exaggerating these beyond reason. The sound is enormous, while Merzbow himself remains relatively calm. Time and volume dissolve. I started the performance with my ears protected by the venue supplied earplugs, but soon found myself without anything in them as the noise was not painful. As layers were added, I gradually added cotton wool as required, but it was often difficult to tell just how loud things were. To test it out, at one stage I carefully sang a note out loud, which I slowly built into a full throated yell. I couldn’t hear any of it myself, nor did anyone immediately around me seem to notice my personal addition to the noise. Yet the music never felt painfully overwhelming. And by the end of the set, I had to ask a friend what the time was. I knew I had heard a lot of sound for a long time, but it certainly didn’t feel like a slog through an entire hour, it felt much less than that. And so, with little ceremony, Merzbow pulls the faders down on his mixing desk, then pulls the remaining squall out of his foldbacks, then exits the stage behind his Marshall stack, it’s small glowing red power lights reminding us that none of this would be possible without Jimi Hendrix.

Adrian Elmer

Merzbow – Live at Parramatta Riverside Theatre – May 11, 2012 is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Child – Bad Timing (Enigmatik Sounds)

2012-05-05T06:56:07Z

I haven’t been able to find much in the way of information about electronic producer Child other than that he/she is Australian, and I’m also assuming that debut download-only two track release on Enigmatik Sounds might be their debut release under the production moniker. If that’s in fact the case, this is certainly an extremely impressive opening move. ‘Bad Timing’ almost represents a mini-epic in itself, spending its seven minutes shifting from brittle Oval-esque glitchiness into ebbing synth ambience before spending its second half accelerating out into fluid junglist styles, the hard metallic snares nicely undercut by the wistful, detuned synths. What’s also particularly striking is the way that the rhythmic programming evolves alongside the instrumental, melting from broken shards of DSP-treated noise into fluid, swinging ‘Amen’ breaks by the track’s end. ‘Hairy Beggar’ meanwhile gets more contorted and spooky, taking things off on a deep dubbed-out wander that sees jagged shards of timestretched breakbeats suddenly rearing out like knives against the murmuring bass drops and rippling melodic textures. You can get ‘Bad Timing’ as a name your price download at http://enigmatiksounds.bandcamp.com/album/bad-timing

Chris Downton

Child – Bad Timing (Enigmatik Sounds) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Groundation – Building An Ark (Planet Company)

2012-05-05T06:58:53Z

White-boy reggae from Northern California doesn’t necessarily sound very appetising, conjuring up images of stoned surfers in thrall of Jamaica. Yet Groundation, who formed way back in 1998, are seven albums down the track and still keen to bring something new to the genre: amazing musicianship. Whilst they’ve got the roots reggae sounds down — with drums, congas, bass, Hammond B3, horns, and guitar — there’s a very strong jazz and improv approach to the way they put the ingredients together. They played a blistering set during the hottest part of the day at this year’s Womadelaide, creating a lackadaisical, hypnotic groove, punctuated by these incredible instrument solos. This is something you rarely see in reggae sets; very few have these kind of chops.

Yet, most instruments on Building an Ark get an opportunity to shine. Curiously, it feels so natural, the transitions into some of the jazzier moments feeling like the next logical development for the music. You only really question when you suddenly realise, in the midst of a frenetic organ solo, that the tune started off with a relaxed reggae groove. There’s a lush fusion feel at times, providing the album with a rich sheen, something that will, no doubt, upset roots purists. Yet, to be fair, with their melange of genre diversions, this is clearly something that doesn’t upset Groundation too much.

Building An Ark is conscious music liberally dosed with biblical references, which reinforces their commitment to roots music. But the consciousness goes much further, seemingly suggesting that we are one world, one music, as they break down the barriers between pop, blues, jazz and soul, with tunes up to seven odd minutes.

Some of the tunes on Building an Ark such as ‘Humility’, are immediately rewarding, with possibility the catchiest vocal hook/chorus the band have ever written, soul horns and jazzy organ. Yet much of the album is a little more complex. Groundation are a lot more than you initially expect, despite the listener being at times confused, the band are very much self assured and offering something new to a genre filled with pale imitators. Just don’t hold where they come from against them.

Bob Baker Fish

Groundation – Building An Ark (Planet Company) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

De La Mancha – The End Of Music (Karaoke Kalk)

2012-05-05T06:54:34Z

I have to admit, I was a bit put off by ‘Golden Bells’, the opening, minute-long, synth intro track to this album, The End Of Music. It sounded a bit pompous and I was half expecting some sort of prog metal abomination to follow. However, I was pleasantly surprised to hear it glide smoothly into the kraut stylings of ‘Ursa Minor’. Its 6 minutes of driving, pastoral bliss is, in fact, rather excellent. And it even resolved back into the same synth as ‘Golden Bells’ started proceeding out with, only this time, with the context firmly embedded in my ears, it made a nice sense.

The Swedish group, built around core duo of Jerker Lund and Dag Rosenqvist, create music that aims for the epic. Across The End Of Music‘s further six tracks (seven if you get the CD, or eight if you include the digital only bonus, ‘Til Gupu’), they never quite motor up to ‘Ursa Minor’s tempo again, but do build droney soundscapes out of organs/synths, piano, acoustic and electric guitars, and slightly less usual instrumentation, such as autoharp on ‘Hidden Mountains’, some gentle drum machine in ‘Erase’, or muted brass in ‘For Family’. Spread over the duration of the album, the lush instrumentation and dozey tempos create a dreamlike quality, across which float the truly lovely sounds of the voices. It’s a sound that requires a particular headspace, though. Outside of ‘Ursa Minor’, nothing is going to grab and demand your attention. You need to surrender to it, or it may float away from you.

The band cites Sigur Ros, Led Zeppelin and My Bloody Valentine as formative influences and, certainly, the sense of grandeur of those artists can be heard in the long-form nature of the tracks and their spacious noodling. However, this music is much more gentle than anything those groups might suggest. I’m actually often reminded of late period Pink Floyd, but without the horrible 80s production. It’s more the hazy, floating nature of the melodies and the acres of reverb which mute psychedelia into a grand form of pastoral. Indeed, as the album progresses, it becomes sleepier and more acoustic in nature, a gradual descent into serene dreams. Which is probably a great way to sum up The End Of Music.

Adrian Elmer

De La Mancha – The End Of Music (Karaoke Kalk) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Audego – Abominable Galaxy (Independent/MGM)

2012-05-05T06:53:03Z

Abominable Galaxy, the debut album from Melbourne duo Audego, comprised of producer Pasobionic and vocalist Carolyn Tariq, aka Big Fella, is a unique working of samples, slow breaks, and delicate vocals. The album presents an overall rather dark sound, resembling the downtempo trip-hop sounds of acts such as Portishead and Massive Attack. There are, however, smooth female vocals that cut through to provide a pleasant balance. Organic sampling leaves a soft vinyl crackle on the majority of tracks, lending the songs warmth that is often lacking in contemporary music.

The first track, ‘Unfamiliar Song’, pushes a gritty filtered bass line with a rather simple drum line resting on the top. Obscure rattling samples lead into the track before the bass takes over, carrying it through to the very end.

‘Borrowed Time’, perhaps my favourite track on the album, could easily be mistaken as a tune by Portishead themselves, with a smooth rhythmic lead in, the soulful vocals push through like those of Beth Gibbons, and a coda of blaring horn samples near the end brings it right home to the trip-hop aesthetic.

‘Rose’ is another strong stand out on the album, an instrumental jazz number that contrasts excellently with the gritty electronic pieces that cover the rest of the track list, yet it still fits in with the collective sound. A smooth sampled piano line trickles over plucked bass, all kept in time by a soft drum loop that sits well amongst the immersive vinyl crackle.

Abominable Galaxy is a stellar release, one that brings the distinct late ’90s and early ’00s dark electronic sound into the current decade, with excellent production and flawless vocals marking it as an album for the those who appreciate the more intricate forms of electronic music.

Joshua Millar

Audego – Abominable Galaxy (Independent/MGM) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Various Artists – Future Sounds of Jazz Vol. 12 (Compost Records)

2012-05-05T06:48:45Z

The very first Future Sounds of Jazz compilation from Compost Records was released in 1995, and the label has crept its way to volume twelve this year – the first in five years – featuring a huge range of jazz, soul, house and more experimental electronic acts from across the globe. Including Sepalcure and Wareika side by side with lesser-known acts such as England’s Letherette, France’s Hypnolove, Lo Tide from Australia, as well as Anchorsong and Ragout De Lapin from Japan, the compilation clocks in at over two and a half hours across two discs. It’s not really something to take in one sitting – in fact I enjoyed it most a few days ago when I was walking and driving around the city on and off all day and was able to stop and start. The album is sequenced really well, and the highlights are spread out pretty evenly; I find myself returning to different sections each time I listen.

While I wouldn’t consider myself an authority on jazz history, I was fortunate enough to have Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy playing in my house growing up Future Sounds of Jazz doesn’t really remind me of this time so much anyway; I don’t think Compost are interested in capturing some sort of nostalgia for a particular jazz period so much as they’re trying to group various electronic acts that utilize various elements of jazz together to form a cohesive statement. Despite it being a pretty chilled out album, most of these songs are pretty groove based and have a certain propulsive movement to them.

There is plenty to like on this compilation – highlights include the Paper Tiger Remix of Scrimshire’s ‘Home’, which combines a fast-paced choppy garage beat with glitchy and wonky synths, only to eventually slow everything down to half speed, allowing Faye Houston’s super smooth vocals to take centre stage to stunning effect. Elsewhere Sepalcure’s ‘Fleur’ is a real pleasure, combining a heavy stuttering, mechanical beat with creamy vocal samples, with xylophone and strings thrown in for a great warm, soulful sound.

On the slightly stronger second half, there is ‘Uncountable Doors’ (A Green Meadow Remix) by Eden, which starts off sounding disjointed, but over the course of its eight minutes gets locked in a very tidy groove, with crisp drumming and bass heavy synths and chopped up vocal samples, reminiscent of Battles. Even groovier is ‘Sir Shina’ by Deep Space Orchestra, which sounds like an Avalanches’ off-cut in the best possible way, with speedy distorted bass-line combined and male vocals

Despite only five of the songs being made originally for the compilation, it maintains a surprisingly solid vibe throughout. And while I can’t imagine this being my favourite album of the year, that isn’t to understate how consistent and charmingly uncomplicated this album is. It can sometimes be hard for music like this to walk the line between being both pleasantly ambient, whilst also being creatively satisfying, but I think Compost more often than not nail it on this compilation.

Wyatt Lawton-Masi

Various Artists – Future Sounds of Jazz Vol. 12 (Compost Records) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Charlemagne Palestine and Janek Schaefer — Day of the Demons (Desire Path Recordings)

2012-05-02T10:47:57Z

A match made in heaven, or perhaps hell, Day of the Demons brings minimalist visionary Charlemagne Palestine and conceptual sound artist Janek Schaefer together for two side-long drones of bells, organs, howls and untraceable miscellany. The premise is in the title and outstanding cover art — the duo presented as brave adventurers into the dark, mysterious and unknown; the recording, both an account of how they defended themselves and of the horrors they witnessed.

In ‘Raga de l’aprés midi pour Aude’, slowly-unfurled buzz wavers and grows, bells toll, and sine tones whine, before Palestine’s unmistakable wail enters to lead the throng. There’s an urgency to the vocals, but they remain in control, and he passes through the storm victorious, with a weary call of triumph. ‘Fables from a Far Away Future’ explores broader thematic stages. Processed accordion and sleigh bells jangling over children’s voices in a schoolyard add a hint of uncertainty to otherwise bucolic sounds. We then hear children reciting prayers and a twanging with vocoder hum, before the electricity takes over in waves of soothing pop ambient and less-soothing organ drones.

The excitement of both pieces comes from the balance between fraught tension and sheltered solace. These dichotomies are placed side by side and in perfect harmony, creating music that is both menacing and menaced, cushioned and assuring. The limited blood red vinyl edition includes a mask to ward off the evil spirits, if you need any further incentive.

Charlemagne Palestine and Janek Schaefer — Day of the Demons (Desire Path Recordings) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Filastine – Loot (Muti Music)

2012-05-05T21:07:47Z

Los Angeles-born and now based in Barcelona, Grey Filastine has spent the last several years building up a formidable reputation amongst the global bass music scene, something that’s in part due to his playing more than 100 live shows a year, controlling loops and synched visuals through a mass of gear connected to an amplified shopping trolley. During the same time, he’s also maintained a reputation for political activism, whether with his marching band Infernal Noise Brigade, or more recent work in support of the Occupy Movement with his Sound Swarm; an orchestra of bike-mounted megaphones controlled by pirate radio transmitters. In particular, Filastine is known for his deft juggling of global music genres, and indeed the 13 tracks collected on this third album ‘Loot’ see him continuing to smoothly integrate Balkan and Middle Eastern instrumentation with everything from cumbia and dubstep through to dancehall and hiphop influences. While the currency-themed sleeve art suggests themes relating to the current global financial meltdown though, this isn’t really something that’s immediately perceptible when listening to the tracks. Whatever the case, Filastine chooses to open this set with what are easily two of the most atmospheric and ferocious moments on offer here.

The eerie ‘No Step’ sees a detailed web of digitally treated textures that calls to mind Amon Tobin gradually resolving around vast crunching hiphop beats and what sounds like manipulated string instrumentation, before ‘Colony Collapse’ takes things straight down into dark juddering dubstep more akin to the likes of The Bug as Indonesian vocalist Nova’s sweetly beguiling harmonies nicely counterbalance the growling sub-bass and industrial-edged snare programming. The Fukushima reactor-themed ‘Lost Records’ meanwhile sees Japanese rapper ECD dropping his MC flow over a shimmering backdrop of day-glo electro-dancehall synths, Geiger counter clicks and sudden contorted dubstep breakdowns, before ‘Juniper (Remix of Y La Bamba)’ offers up what’s easily one of the most subdued and gentle moments here, placing a ghostly rhythmic pulse beneath feathery layers of phased folk harmonies and acoustic guitars in a manner that suggests one of Prefuse 73′s more gossamer-tinged moments. An impressive third album from Filastine, ‘Loot’ sees him continuing to graft together seemingly disparate musical styles with consistently rewarding results.

Chris Downton

Filastine – Loot (Muti Music) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Thomas William vs. Scissor Lock – Jewelz (New Weird Australia)

2012-04-30T02:09:54Z

I think it’s all in the name. Having seen both artists play on their own, as well as together in this configuration, my ears want to pick out the bits that each artist contributes. Scissor Lock’s (Marcus Whale, also of Collarbones fame) processed vocal and fizzy, static laden synths are immediately obvious in ‘Cadillac’. And I can just picture Tom Smith’s (once known as Cleptoclectics) second and third fingers elegantly beating the drum pads on his Groovebox during ‘Omega’. In spite of these brief moments, though, trying to work out who is doing which bits in the ‘vs’ context proves fairly fruitless. Ultimately, Jewelz proves that the two have worked together enough, and are skilled enough collaborators, to over ride the conceit of their name.

And then the sonic rewards are many. The title track is incredible in building peaks and troughs of distorted ambience, sometimes machinic, sometimes organic. Individual elements of sound across the album are incredibly lo-fi, but they are organised with hi-fidelity precision. Many of the synths have that digital edge that most producers work hard to avoid, but the duo make a feature of them, aligning them with low frequency rumbles and sidechained compression to make them sing, holding the migraine-inducing top end shear in control, just.

One thing I’ve noticed across many repeated listens, and I’m not sure the duo would have done this intentionally at all, are the references to uber mainstream pop, albeit heavily processed, of course. This is most notable in ‘Qusqu’ whose opening half synths threatens to broaden out into U2′s ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’, or John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ clap rolls towards ‘Omega’s conclusion. Which are probably an aural equivalent of me making out elephants and kangaroos in the clouds, but it shows the lack of austerity in this music which has grown out of the noise based genre, a genre that often has trouble not taking itself too seriously. Jewelz is actually fun and it is pleasurable to have it wash over you.

New Weird Australia continues to walk a very fine and difficult line successfully, that being to uncover and release music that is simultaneously challenging yet warmly engrossing. In spite of their respective youth, Tom Smith and Marcus Whale can both be considered experienced veterans of this particular scene in Australia. And the effortless blend of beauty, ugliness, harshness and warmth across Jewelz helps confirm them as leaders in the field.

Adrian Elmer

Thomas William vs. Scissor Lock – Jewelz (New Weird Australia) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Richard Chartier and Robert Curgenven – Built Through (Line)

2012-05-02T01:58:14Z

Line has always been about subdued digital near silence and Built Through by label owner Richard Chartier with onkyo turntablist Robert Curgenven offers no surprises. One could get tired of Chartier’s pernickity consistency, from the capitalised sans serif font, the blandly formalist titles, austere cover art, continued reference to architecture and space … were the music not so subtly spellbinding, as is the case here.

It’s interesting to read of how these pieces were produced, using pipe organ (‘invariance strata’), wine glasses (‘displacement’), and multiple turntables and dubplates throughout, but ultimately futile, as it’s the usual digital processing which dominates. What matters is the finished pieces, all of which are persistently engaging, drawing you in through miniscule gestures, gradual development and a firm understanding of compositional balance.

The language is all cold machine hum, insectoid chirrups and cotton wool whoosh, familiar through any number of previous Line releases, but perhaps a greater emphasis on that warm whoosh than usual. ‘Built Through Both Sides’ introduces an almost noisy series of scratches over its twenty five minutes, but they are both infrequent and faithful to the track’s dominant sound and require no warning to those tempted to crank the volume high (a necessary requirement). Curgenven’s presence could be responsible for the naturalistic hum throughout, which one can imagine seeping like perfume from his dubplates, enriching Chartier’s precisionism with a welcome breathe of fresh air.

Joshua Meggitt

Richard Chartier and Robert Curgenven – Built Through (Line) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Love Connection – Euphoria (Sensory Projects)

2012-04-30T00:58:03Z

As we’re reluctantly enjoying the last remnants of warm weather and the sunshine increasingly loses its bite in the south of our country, it’s a reminder that winter is lurking and summer is slipping away. It’s an interesting time to release the second album from Melbourne four-piece Love Connection, particularly as their blend of jangly guitar pop really taps into those loose lazy carefree emotions that summer seems to bring. Their music is slight and breezy, brimming with a hazy psychedelic warmth. Hearing it now seems to exacerbate the feelings of loss, imbuing the music with a certain woozy melancholia.

Organ is prominent, and the vocals are democratically mixed back down within the instrumentation. Initially this is off-putting as we’ve been conditioned to expect vocals up front, yet it really works for Euphoria, enhancing the feeling of losing connection with your senses that certain days of summer combined with herbal or chemical intervention often bring. Of course deciphering the lyrics is near impossible, and the vocals come off like loose ramshackle wails or inebriated sing-alongs, yet they’re never harsh or ill-fitting and in fact often take the role of another instrument, regularly providing the melodic hook to the songs.

These guys are clearly in thrall of ’60s psychedlia, though they seem to separate themselves via a clear love of jamming out a melodic idea to its full potential and then perhaps even a little further, and in this sense they bring to mind mid ’90s shoegazers like Ride or Slowdive.

The album’s centrepoint is also its biggest departure, a twenty-minute synth driven ambient electronic piece called ‘Euphoria’. It’s what makes this album great, that after 10 tracks of hypnotic jangly pop they unexpectedly launch into an opus that would make Tangerine Dream proud.

From the album cover, to the mix decisions, to the title track to even the release date, Euphoria is a bold artistic statement brimming with joyous pop hooks.

Bob Baker Fish

Love Connection – Euphoria (Sensory Projects) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Toob – Chop House Volume 1 (Chop House)

2012-05-02T09:49:36Z

Whilst remaining continuously busy with their ‘main’ band Red Snapper, UK-based electronic producers Rich Thair and Jakeone have been responsible for an impressive stream of material under their Toob partnership since its inception in 2004, with two albums, a slew of EPs and collaborations with Bomb The Bass (on the latter’s Future Chaos album).

While previous Toob outings have seen the duo exploring elements of breaks, house and funk, this first volume in a series of free download only EPs on their own Chop House blog/netlabel sees them offering up three tracks geared firmly towards dark throbbing techno atmospheres. ‘Wave 4′ kicks proceedings off with what’s easily the most epic and sweeping moment on offer here, taking things off on a nocturnal glide through robotic bass sequences, rattling percussion fills and phased Chicago synth patterns that calls to mind the likes of Juan Atkins or Carl Craig, particularly when the spooky pitched-down spoken samples begin to lock into place amidst the swirling, hypnotic electronics. ‘Nueva Onda’ meanwhile sees the metallic snares coming to the forefront as jacking tech-y rhythms roll alongside rumbling tribal percussion, distant samples of Latin bleeding through like ghosts slowly into the mix as the hi-hats get stretched into what sounds like knives being sharpened. Finally, ‘Chop House’ tosses some retro-rave stabbing synth arpeggios into the mix that call to mind the likes of Altern-8, taking things out with a rattling slice of electro-laced techno that manages to throw in plenty of showery snare breakdowns, for that authentic warehouse vibe. You can download Chop House Volume 1 for free from www.toob.org.uk

Chris Downton

Toob – Chop House Volume 1 (Chop House) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

The Bombay Royale – You Me Bullets Love (Hope Street)

2012-04-29T23:29:45Z

It makes sense that a Melbourne outfit in thrall of Bollywood excess, both musically and visually, would pit their debut long player as the soundtrack to a fantastical Bollywood romp.

Over the past few years this mysterious masked nine-piece (plus singers) have been honing their sense of the dramatic, of the exotic and the majestically kitsch around town. We’re talking surf guitar melding into jazz, exotica, and rockabilly, with searing synth injections and of course the more traditional sitar, mandolin and tabla. Live they’re a party machine who play up the more fun and kitsch elements of their sound, yet this recording adds extra depth, where you can ignore the theatrics and hone in on the musicality, the strange genre mashes and wacky compositional decisions.

With a three-piece string section, big beautiful brass, and of course ultra funky basslines if you close your eyes you’re knee deep in curried funk, thanks in the main to the two vocalists Parvyn Kaur Singh and Shourov Bhattacharya who both sing in Hindi. Their interplay in particular provides much of the narrative to the music. That said the opening track Monkey Fight Snake, an instrumental, is an epic, that initially sounds like garage rock until these descending horns blast the tune apart opening up room for tabla and just when you think you have the tune worked out it moves into a very strange mariachi Morricone territory. It’s the only instrumental track on the album and it’s worth the price of admission alone.

Increasingly there’s something of a faux world music scene happening in Melbourne, where the influences no longer come from American or British guitar bands. Label mates Public Opinion Afro Orchestra worship at the well of Afrobeat, Puta Madre Brothers are mariachi garage connoisseurs, and Bombay Royale offer a loving homage to an unparalleled music industry. They’re all putting their own stamp on the traditions, though few do it with as much exuberance and inventiveness as the Bombay Royale.

Bob Baker Fish

The Bombay Royale – You Me Bullets Love (Hope Street) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Various Artists – Loved Up (Dubporn Records)

2012-04-29T23:28:19Z

While the title might suggest a hands-in-the-air big room house experience, this unmixed download-only compilation from US-based label Dubporn Records offers up nine tracks that veer distinctly more towards introspective late night listening, with the one unifying factor perhaps being the near constant presence of nervously skittering broken rhythms. Genoc1de’s ‘Deep Angel’ kicks things off with a moody wander down into spidery electro rhythms, shimmering ambient pads and growling sub-bass swells that calls to mind a far more subtle and chilly take on the prog-breaks genre, while NVS’ ‘Raven Dub’ sees the distant roll of field recorded thunder and rain giving way to juddering dubstep beats and delayed out soul vocals, the synths suddenly locking down into buzzing walls of noise against the flexing snares.

Elsewhere, Mono.Mental’s ‘Dark Days Turn Bright’ brings the more introspective atmospheres back to the forefront as ripples of fractured percussion dart back and forth against an eerie jazz-tinged backdrop of weary sounding horn tones and chaotic samples that ‘s reminiscent of Amon Tobin’s noirish creations. Adames’ whirling ‘Go Mirror (It’s Your Birthday)’ meanwhile takes things off in a hypnogogic rush of juddering dancehall-house beats, disorientating reversed synth tones and blaring air-raid sirens that strangely recalls one of Caribou’s more furious rhythmic excursions. A strong label compilation that manages to consistently perk the intrigue factor – you can get ‘Loved Up’ as a name your price download from http://dubpornrecordscollection.com/album/loved-up

Chris Downton

Various Artists – Loved Up (Dubporn Records) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Amon Tobin’s Beyond 3D – ISAM: interview

2012-04-29T23:26:47Z

Amon Tobin is without a doubt one of the most transformative and progressive electronic music artists today, with the length and nature of his career highlighting his ability to change and develop along with his music. His music has gone through numerous transformations; starting off in the field of jazz and drum and bass with a heavy reliance on smooth samples and break beats, over time it has drifted to the heavily warped, morphed and deep soundscapes in his most recent releases.

In some sense it is appropriate to say that the music that Amon creates is indicative of the trends and periods of electronic music in which he was writing. Over time, his music leans more and more towards the synthetic, drifting away from using straight samples. Instead he turns sampled sounds into instruments that produce completely foreign tones and noises, a distinct mark of his creativity as a musician.

His music exudes dedication. Just listening to anything from his extensive back catalogue lets the listener know that he is more than just a producer; he is a musician, a designer and manipulator of sounds and atmospheres. His new live show ‘Beyond 3D – ISAM’ is set to hit Sydney in June as a part of Vivid Festival. Acting as an extension of everything he has been working towards in his music, a visualisation and physical incorporation of the intense sounds and textures presented in his latest album ISAM, it promises to be a visual and auditory experience like no other.

Cyclic Defrost: Looking back at your early albums, which are much more heavily focused on jazz, breaks and sampling from your own record collection, would you say that they are a result of the influence of your time living in Brighton?

Amon Tobin: You know, I know exactly what you mean, but really what all the records have been about is kind of taking things out of context. So it just happened that jazz and blues was something that I could move out of its context into something electronic. That’s what I was focusing on in those earlier records, was seeing what would happen if I could take a piece of walking bass and put it in a drum and bass track back in the early ’90s, or take a piece of jazz and turn it into something else. That’s always been kind of the line I’ve followed, and going on to some of the later albums where it just got more into transformation again and again. With this later stuff it’s really a continuation of that, it’s taking something from the world around me and trying to make sense of it, to transform it and turn it into something personal.

CD: So would you say that a lot of the music you have created is separate from a lot of outside influence; or what role, if any, does the influence of other locations and events play in the creative process and the way that you write your music?

AT: You know it’s hard to say, because I mean, like everyone, I’m really influenced by everything that I see and hear and everything I experience. It’s just that it’s not all in a very quantifiable way, I mean I find it hard to put my finger on what made me do this or that, it’s always been really something that’s kind of more driven by curiosity really, like personal curiosity; like ‘how far can I take this’ or ‘what would happen if I do this to that sound’. Really most of the music I make is out of a process of experimentation, and it’s just trying to learn about what I’m doing and during that process the music will come and end up being my album.

CD: Do you think that way in which your music has become more exploratory, in the way that you’ve explored different methods and ways of sampling, moving away from sampling jazz and breaks into what it has become now, is through the way you creativity has moved forward and that your curiosity has articulated itself in different ways as time has progressed?

AT: Well you know a lot of it is to do with technology as well, technology has developed and what is possible has become a lot more flexible. There was a time when I really just had a very small sampler and only about 8 different sounds that I could play at any different time, and I didn’t have any processing that I could really do to the sounds so it was quite crude. Then things developed and I was able to do more and more to the sound, and I guess around the time I was doing records like Supermodified and Out from Out Where I had more tools at my disposal, more possibilities of how to really get involved in changing and transforming sound. It just happened that now the possibilities are even greater, so I guess source material becomes more and more obscure because it’s a transformation and so it’s so much more radical now. Now I’m at a point where I’m kind of making up my own instruments and learning to play them and synthesizing them and things that just weren’t possible before really, it’s kind of driven by that as much as anything else.

CD: You’ve moved around a lot in your life before settling in Brighton and then moving to Montreal in 2002, does that curiosity that you have in your music extend to where you live, or is that very much separate, unrelated to the reason for moving around so often and settling in different places?

AT: I lean on the side of saying that it is probably quite a bit separate because I don’t really get out much to be honest, I spend a lot of time in my studio, I guess my own world.

CD: One of the things that is definitely apparent to most listeners of your music in the way the albums have developed, with them becoming a lot more synonymous with sound design and exploring different soundscapes and pushing your music a lot further. Was that something that you were consciously looking to achieve, through the way that you developed your music? Or is it just something that happened out of curiosity as opposed to a conscious act?

AT: I’m not consciously trying to even make a certain kind of record, in terms of exploration I’m really just investigating what I can do, what’s possible, what I find interesting, new ways of approaching sound. I guess really the music is a bi-product of my own learning experience, I’m just trying to learn about the world around me and how it works and all of these things, and the music kind of ends up being what the end result of that … it sounds kind of representational for where I’m at so far really.

CD: Something else that can tie into that is when you did the Splinter Cell soundtrack. Do you think that’s another way where you can explore what your music can be applied to through pushing it to other mediums, where it can move away from purely being music in itself and attach itself and develop further experiences?

AT: Yeah definitely, the soundtrack stuff was a really different thing to me, because suddenly I couldn’t just do anything that I though of, it was much more like making a piece of music that was a part of a much bigger thing, it was just a small cog in the wheel. I was trying to emphasise whatever it was that particular scene or mood in the game or film or whatever I was doing was trying to achieve, so it was a real work of discipline for me, it was trying to work within some confines, which I found really useful.

CD: So it was definitely taking you out of your comfort zone in the way that you compose your music. The way I understand it was that you created different sections that could go along with how intense the game play was at any point, is that the way it was written?

AT: For one of the games it was very much that, about trying to create different levels of intensity, and each layer had to work independently but also work together with any other layer at a given moment. So it was a really complicated and technical challenge, but like I was saying, you can take away a lot from that, from trying to work within a sort of discipline, and hopefully I learnt some things from that that I can apply to my own music after.

CD: This leads me perfectly into talking about ISAM, which, for me, is definitely the your most distinct album in terms of its sound, techniques, and the way that you morph the sounds and samples. Do you perceive it in the same way, that it has typified this new utilisation of technology and effects, and different ways of sampling everyday sounds to create these completely different soundscapes?

AT: Well in Foley Room I started going out and doing field recordings and trying to look at all sound in a very objective way, that anything could be musical whether it be instruments or things that weren’t instruments, I tried to find the music in them. So when I got to ISAM I was doing field recordings, but using them as a starting point and then trying to synthesize those sounds, bringing them back into a more electronic realm. Then because I could synthesize them I could turn them into playable instruments, which I then had to try and learn how to play and perform. So, for me, it was the next step, a kind of marriage of recorded sound and synthesized sounds and a real hybrid of the two. Its something which I hadn’t really heard before, something which I was really excited about, not just putting synthesizers and samplers together, but more building actual instruments and making acoustic models and trying to make convincing instruments out of these things that had no specific origin. I just got really fascinated by that, like I use my own voice a lot on the record, sometimes I’d turn it into strings, sometimes I’d turn it into pads … I’d change the gender and I’d make it a girl or an older woman, I did a whole bunch of vocal experiments on the record, but always, basically, with an air that the whole idea was transformation and trying to take something familiar and make it personal, maybe a bit alien, but special.

CD: Would you say that the new live show is an extension of all of that into something that is much more of an experience, that its pushing the boundaries even more and bringing your music into a visual aspect and incorporating yourself into it physically; is that what you’re trying to achieve with the live show?

AT: Well yeah that’s exactly it. This record was tricky because, like I said, there weren’t any musicians I couldn’t perform it with as a band, and because it wasn’t a DJ record I couldn’t play it on the dance floor, so I had to think of a different way to perform it. In terms of visuals it is very much that, this whole idea of mapping onto a structure is something that follows along in the sense that you’re looking at something that’s real but its doing things that aren’t real, its kind of behaving in an ultra natural way you know, its doing things that aren’t really possible even though it looks very solid and real. I think it’s a really genuine link with how the record is, a lot of the sounds on the record you can’t really place because they have something familiar about them, they seem solid but they’re doing stuff that a real instrument couldn’t do, or maybe you can’t really identify where its from. I think that was a really strong link that worked out initially in the show, as well as like you were saying; I’ve kind of been integrated into something much bigger than myself. I feel like that on my own record, I’m part of what’s there but by no means all of it, it’s all an extension of what I am imagining.

Amon Tobin will be performing two back-to-back shows of ‘Beyond 3D – ISAM’ at the Sydney Opera House on the June 2nd in conjunction with Vivid LIVE.

Amon Tobin’s Beyond 3D – ISAM: interview is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.