In A Beautiful Place Out In The Mojave

The ever mysterious BoC dropped a shot notice listening party for upcoming and long awaited LP Tomorrow's Harvest in an old abandoned waterpark in Newberry Springs, Southern California. Some footage surfaced, was taken down and promptly re-uploaded (cut down to just three tracks, apparently at BoC's request.)Unsurprisingly, this isn't your usual iPhone filming deal with blown out bass; nope, true to BoC fashion this is a mysterious (but well put together) compilation of footage from the event. Enjoy.


Within Reach,
-Claude Van Foxbat

AT / AA 12

The Designers Republic - Re:mote

Another old one this time, an old favourite I stumbled across and downloaded a long while back. Probably at 2AM by the flicker of the CRT juding by how long I've had it. I've searched high and low for a legit copy of the EP that this is from - Misstress Barbara vs. Barbara Brown, Vol. 1, but annoyingly nowhere has a legal 320 copy of it to buy, only volume 2 it seems. I kinda like it though, I just love that techy house sound aside from Golden Boy's Or, I can't find much that sounds like it; any recommendations would be appreciated!

AT/ AA 11

Robert Del Naja - Four Noble Truths

Double whammy today, as the bloke who does the art also has a hand in the tune itself. Robert Del Naja, better known as 3D of Bristol based Massive Attack does a lot of stencils among other things, he's gone from wildstyle tags in the Wild Bunch Soundsystem days to these politically loaded spray pieces. I can't say his art is a perfect compliment to his music, but it's still interesting to browse through, if a bit hard to come by. Enjoy it with the darker turn that Massive Attack took on their third LP Mezzanine.

AT / AA 10

Sayuri Michima - Untitled

A week in and one week to go, this series has been alright so far hasn't it? Fast running out of art to put up like, but no matter, onto today's tune; another bit from Richie Hawtin's short lived F.U.S.E alias. The one LP under this name is pretty sweet, hard techno stuff against Warp's trend around the time for 'electronic listening music' (fitting, s this LP is part of the {Artificial Intelligence} series). The hard stuff has its own merits, but I have the biggest soft spot for that smooth sound that is trademark Warp, sit back and enjoy.

AT / AA 9

Chiho Aoshima - A Contented Skull (2003)

Shinichi Osawa's The One is a bit of a wildcard when it comes to pressings, there's a bunch of different ones out there as I found when I picked up the expanded version with a ton of remixes on it. There's some strange changes on there too, like swapping out The Golden for a longer, alternate mix just called The Golden 2. The story's the same with Our Song, but in addition to the altered mix, the Japanese vocals of the original (A Lonely Girl Version) are swapped out with some different english ones along with a different subtitle (We Are All Innocent). There's both pretty stellar tracks, but the original is the one I fell in love with and am sharing with you lot today!

AT / AA 8

David Firth - Coffeeshop Confidential (2009)

Sad news on Monday, as house mogul and defining voice behind Daft Punk's cult hit One More Time Romanthony passed away. And I feel like giving him just one song would be a disservice, so instead enjoy three of my choice cuts from Romanthony.

AT / AA 7

Kid Acne - The Chosen One (2013)

One from my early dubstep days this time. Back to 2008 when Rusko wasn't shovelling out bro-step and had just released Babylon Vol. 1. It still stands up today ad pretty much embodies the sound that I fell in love with dub for. Shame how it all turned out, but at least we have some good tunes to remember it by.

AT / AA 6

Takashi Murakami - Melting Dob E (2008)

Commix have come back into my playlists again recently. Both because its been a while and to remind me to pick up their new stuff. Tucked away at the end of their debut LP Call To Mind is a remix by techno pioneers and living legends Underground Resistance. It's more techno than the drum & bass/house vibes of the album, but it fits in quite nicely.

AT / AA 5

Jason Cawood - Salvaged (Untitled), 2009

Real rough day today. As much as I don't feel like posting there's one song that keeps on repeating, the haunting re-imagining of Olson from Boards Of Canada's Peel Session EP. A fitting compliment to the original, but no less full of all things Boards. Lends itself well to repeat playings alongside it's original counterpart. Enjoy.

AT / AA 4

VitaliV - Elvis

I must admit, for a long time I wasn't big on the Chem Brothers, aside from Star Guitar obviously. But I've picked up a few pieces here and there and back when a friend was kind enough to lend me his copy of Push The Button, and that's where I found this tune here. If we're talking progression, this tune nails it completely unlike the Deadmau5 method of builds, fakeouts and breakdowns. As an album closer, it's pretty much perfect.

AT / AA 3

Copyright - Filth / Purity, 2010

Lotta history behind this one. Heard it a long time ago when I was a little Foxbat on Grand Theft Auto III, I probably shouldn't have being only around 6 or 7, but hey that's what older brothers are for isn't it? Fast forward to now, Omni Trio is one of my favourite drum & bass crafters, and the tune still sounds sweet as even 12 years later. It's also used in spectacular form as the opener of the Moving Shadow 01.1 compilation, track it down and give it a listen, the tracklist does not dissapoint.

AT / AA 2

Kiki - Plate from Ballet Mecanique, Dudley Murphy & Fernand Léger, cinematography by Man Ray, 1923-1924

Old one from one of my favourite ambient dealers Oneohtrix Point Never here, from a cassette simply called Ruined Lives back in '08. The title track is a standout, a rather somber trip through a lot of synthesized goodness, a nice demonstrator of OPN's overall sound and one of his more accessible tunes at least until his love for arpeggiating comes in towards the end.



3 Juno,
-Claude Van Foxbat

A Tune / An Art A Day

In the interest of keeping things fresh, I'm gonna switch to a pseudo-microblogging style for a bit. So I present to you my new idea: 1 Tune and 1 Piece of art a day for however long it takes for deadlines to be over. We'll get into bizness afeter the aforementioned art.

Tom Wesselmann - Smoker, 1 (Mouth, 12) 1967

Leading this is a little number from Simian Mobile Disco's second LP Temporary Pleasure. It suffers like many second albums, there is real gold on there in tracks like Audacity Of Huge, but they've been blogged to death. Here's a recent repeater of mine that comes in towards the end of the album, Bad Blood



Pop Is Dead,
-Claude Van Foxbat

Sine Tempus

Goldie remains a huge influence on me, and I was reading up on his film that he's been working on for a long time, Sine Tempus, he's said its a coming-of-age story about a young paintbrush artist, which draws a whole bunch of parallels to Goldie's life. A few years back he released the soundtrack to the film saying it was out 'soon'. That was 2008, and while no film has surfaced the soundtrack will certainly tide me over till then, it's very visually evocative, as is the art for the album.

Onto the tunes, they bridge a full spectrum of moods befitting the film. Opening we have the downtempo trip hop styled number Don't Give In which reminds me slightly of State Of Mind from Timeless, the contrast between the cascading beats and the piano is pretty special.



It's not long before the darker side of Goldie starts to show. The haunting intro to Letting Go gives way to an onslaught of breaks, the transition is so sudden that it almost takes you by surprise and it barely lets up over the seven minutes.



The album doesn't let up much either, changing up to a more anger fueled sound it's not hard to see this fitting into the soundtrack somewhere, especially when considering it's quite probably based on his own story; to quote the man himself from this track "Wake up, Smell the fuckin' roses"

Moving onto a more reflective tune now, featuring another haunting intro. This time, instead of flooring you with a sudden explosion of sound, Rhythm Killa eases you into it,m builing toa big crescendo after the break around 4:20. This one kinda has a nostalgic tint to it, but that could just be the brilliant self sampling from his first album's title track Timeless on this one.



Continuing the reflective theme, this next tune sees the return of both Natalie Williams and the piano accompaniment from Don't Give In. It's a stark contrast to tracks like Breakin Glass for sure, but the mood it creates is fantastic and befitting of a soundtrack.



And finally, closing the album we have Chances, featuring some Fever Ray-esque pitch shifting. It sees the return of the sax from Timeless, but the beats are much more subdued, fitting as it's the album closer and all. Speaking of, the ending section is nothing short of fantastic as the sax gets it own moment in the spotlight before it fades away.



Being an arty type, it's certainly interesting to see this play out, Goldie has said he wants to bridge the gap between visual art and music with this LP, and I think to an extent he has. It's going to be interesting to see a film with a unconventional soundtrack like this, if it ever surfaces.

Without Time,
-Claude Van Foxbat

Fastback

Heard of Fastback? I wouldn't be surprised if you said no. For someone with as much talent as this guy, it's impressive how little popularity he has. My first exposure to this guy was on a Daft Punk fan message board, where he became a hero with his uncanny inside knowledge on the French Touch scene (do we still call it that? I don't know I'm so out of... touch). He threw us all for a loop by going by the screen name Akchote, and slowly deviating from the trap style productions he had been posting into things like... this.

He had photos of promo CDs of SebastiAn remixes that hadn't be released, information about the new Kavinsky album, and information about SebastiAn and a few other Ed Banger crewmembers' activities... then after all the conjecture that perhaps he was actually SebastiAn began flying, he posted this.

Which was followed by Noel Akchote, SebastiAn's older brother and famed French country musician joining the message board and tearing this guy down as a stalker and general creep-o. It was all rather weird, but somewhat entertaining I guess. Ah, internet....

I still don't know what to think, honestly. Nor do I care, I guess. I follow Fastback on Soundcloud, and I am frequently blown away by the amazing quality of this guy's electro. Some of his tracks are available for sale on his bandcamp page.

Morepocalypse

Another Thundercat single dropped t'other day, this time featuring the Lotus man himself on the production side of things. To quote the man himself when he was teasing it he other day; "When I heard people trippin on the new daft punk song I said to myself. Wait till they hear this new Thundercat"

It's Monday

Nothing like spending 2 of the three days you have off working. That's deadlines for you, but anyways here's some stuff I've been diggin' as usual, with maybe some hints of the warm couple days we've had peekin' through.

A real old school number from Felix circa 1995 here, I remember stumbling across this one day and giving it that first listen. I've said may a time I usually pick tunes based on their titles, and this on was no different it properly nails the erm... mood set up in the title.



When I first covered Locust Toybox a few years ago, I mentioned Firth's other musical side projects, now most of these aren't strictly electronic but are still very well made. I'm The Manager is sort of the meeting point for Locust Toybox and his other music work (with amazing song titles to boot), as you'll hear with the return of that lovely guitar from his Aphex Twin cover.



There's a good four or five bonus tracks tucked away on my limited edition copy of Röyksopp's second LP The Understanding, I ften forget they're not on the vanilla album and there's not much press about them (save for Go Away) which is a shame because they are actually really good tunes that compliment the rest of The Understanding nicely and balance out the instrumentals ratio.



And playing us out is a nifty bit of sample work from my fellow Leeds dweller Nightmares On Wax, the loop of Frederick Knight's I've Been Lonely for So Long is simple but very well done, though his Me + You loop from Smokers Delight is still my favourite. And with that, I better get meself back to work.

It's Friday

Sorry about the lateness of this one, but it's approaching deadline season so I've been hard at work! (honest!) The important thing is it's a long 3 day weekend here in the UK, and that means one step closer to the summer off, in the meantime enjoy this amazing bit of youtube that I came across today, it's hypnotic.



Up All Night,
-Claude Van Foxbat