Good afternoon blog, I just finished some work samples for my university application, so once again I feel the need to post. So I was looking to post some newer stuff from Commix, turns out their compilation's not due out for another month and it doesn't look like they're releasing any singles from it. Sad Face. BUT I've delved into my collection once again and have some other perfectly good Drum & Bass to replace it!
I don't often delve into 'dark' Drum & Bass, but when I do it's almost always Calyx. He just properly nails the sound, chucking sprawling beats down with the rattling of bass just behing it.The breakdowns in this tune are nothing short of amazing to boot, too bad the fadeout on this album version cuts the track short.
I tune I recently picked up after hearing it in a AFX set next, it's probably a little more on the Breaks side of things rather that Drum & Bass, but I just HAD to have it after the intro just straight up blew me away. Stay tuned for the second drop around the 2 minute mark, it's full of warbling bass akin to Calyx's stuff.
Moving into calmer territory now with this number from Ram Trilogy, it's a lot less in your face than the two tracks before, subscribing to the more old-school sound of Drum & Bass. The bass itself has more of a backseat role but rest assured it's still there, lurking in the background and ready to wobble your shelves.
Playing us off and out is one of my favourite producers of all time, Omni Trio's tracks range from deep to almost chilled. This is one of the latter, the swooping synths punctuated by stabs and pads from all directions is kept fresh from beginning to end seven minutes later. This one of my favourite Drum & Bass tunes ever, it's just well produced and well executed through & through.
That about does it for now, I'll try not to leave you hanging as long next time, which depending on when I can crank out the final bit of warped 2006 shouldn't be too long. :)
Miike Snow lets us hear a track from their upcoming album, it features the lovely Lykke Li so if you usually like Miike Snow, you'll definitively love this collab !
I'm usually not a fan Childish Gambino remixes, because they very often lose the vibe that was in the original song without adding something worth that said lost, but this one is different, so different and refreshing. Nice job.
I did my last exam for a couple months today, and I'm feeling a little inspired. Once again knockin' up a lil' playlist of stuff I'm feelin' at the moment for you lot to hear and that. Less words more tunes.
I know I'm pretty late to the Pretty Lights bandwagon, but hot damn if his first album doesn't hit all the right spots for me. I loves me hippity hops, plus it shares a couple samples you may recognise. The first one is also in Nightmares On Wax's You Wish, I'm sure you'll get the other one as soon as it comes up though!
I've been wanting to post this tune for ages but I can't get over the track title, give it a listen anyway; cos it turns amazing at about 40 seconds in. It might be Dubstep, but it's in a more old school style than most of the stuff floating about these days. Basically: no wubs, think Pangaea or Skream's early stuff.
One of my favourites for a long time, this track off Siriusmo's debut LP may be short, but it packs a hell of a punch. I like his flavour of electro a lot, it's got a sort of melodic quality. Also that drop at about 50 seconds in is way too satisfying for it's own good.
Another recent cut that grabbed me from Modeselektor's latest LP; according to the linear notes Siriusmo contributed some synths to the track and you can really tell, it has a lot in common sound wise with Idiologie though this ones a bit more chilled out. Stay tuned for the awesome vocoded bit at 2:46.
It's been a while since we've heard anything from Felix, his last album was released in 2009 and it got middling reviews. I found it to be quite catchy though, there was only one track I could really complain about, I mean sure it may not be the cult classic that is Kittenz & Thee Glitz but it's got it's own merits regardless. But I digress, enjoy the tune!
And finally, a hidden bonus track that's got some pretty slick sounds goin' on, it's a favourite of mine for that reason alone. I don't really need to say much more than that, this one's for you Mehdi, wherever you are.
I promise I'll get around to warped again soon, it was late when I started this so I thought I'd crank another shuffler in celebration. You know how it is right? sure you do, call me!
C-Cu-Cut Up,
-Claude Van Foxbat
I've been meaning to get around to this for a while. At first I wanted to post some of Broadcast's B-sides and rarities after covering their three main albums in the Warped posts, but then while searching for recordings of Broadcast live (which are very hard to come by) I found this. A bootleg of a show in Australia, and of their last ever performances. It's been just over a year since the untimely death of lead singer Trish Keenan, who continues to remain one of my favourite voices in music. Broadcast were underrated for their entire recording career which I feel is a bit unfair, So I ask you to give them a listen, they absolutely deserve it.
Tracklist: Winter Sun Wavelengths Corporeal In Here The World Begins Black Cat Valerie Lunch Hour Pops Royal Chant The Be Colony/Dashing Home... A Seancing Song Untitled (Children) Untitled (Eyes Open)
Encore: You And Me In Time
The real 'wow' moment for me is that encore, it's just so beautifully poignant. James Cargill announced late last year he's working on making an album from leftover demo tapes left by Trish, rest assured you'll hear more about it as soon as I do.
You know, sometimes I forget when and who's putting out new material, and I lost my text file that I used to use to help me remember. So this year I decided to make a little something to help me remember: some of my favourite tracks from peeps who either are, have, or I hope will be putting out some new stuff come 2012.
As I've mentioned before I'm hanging on waiting for new details about the forthcoming new material from The Knife, and then today this tune came on that I'd long forgotten about from their under rated debut. It's sound leads us nicely into the next track comin' up on the shoppin' list.
Little Dragon put out a new LP late last year, I've yet to pick it up but I've heard a lot of good things about it's sound so I should probably get around to giving it a listen. I've been enjoying their debut for about a year or so now, so I'll just leave you with one of my favourite slices from it.
Commix, who I brought up a while back as some of my favourite Drum & Bass producers have a compilation of unreleased tracks in the pipeline which I'm massively looking forward to, followed by what sounds to be a new Techno LP. I'm not really digging their techno sound though that's just going by the video they put up on facebook not too long ago. Time will tell I suppose.
Netsky dropped a new single from his upcoming album yesterday that I managed to get a hold of, It's pretty damn good and reminds me quite a lot of Danger, not surprising given that Netsky used to do electro. Make sure you check this out, if the rest of the album follows suit it's gonna be a massive release.
Nightmares On Wax has been teasing us for a while, he's been back in the studio for nearly a year now and I can't wait for whatever he brings out. I love his stuff so much that as I was looking through tracks to put up I realised I've posted pretty much evey track of his I own so far. Here's something for all you synesthetic folks out there!
There, now I have an easy way to remember who's putting out new stuff and you fine people get some music out of it too! While yous all enjoy that, I guess it's time for me to get back to film studies revision...
Here is an artist wanted to talk about for a few weeks, but I really did not have that much time.
Chateaubriand is a 17 year old french producer. He makes funky/disco electronic music and his EP The Sunset is now out. The original track features Quentin Lechemia, singer from Destronics and it's pretty great !
Another entry, another LP that I really love, as before this one has some tunes I've been told appear on [adult swim] ads so look out for them. Funnily enough I picked this one up shortly before I started writing so it's still quite recent in my mind, especially because I pretty much always have at least one track from it in my rotation. Hello Everything marks the end of the out and out experimental thrashing that made up his last few albums, it has some jazzy bits in common with Ultravisitor (notably Tetra-Sync) but is a new sound direction that I really, really like.
Hello Everything wastes no time in kicking off things while at the same time establishing that for the most part this record is a lot lighter than the speedy claustrophobic nature of Ultravisitor even with that classic 'Pusher Amen Break styled beat running alongside it.
As always, what Squarepushing LP is complete without a lil' jazzy interlude? Theme From Sprite is another instalment in the Theme From X series that we last saw on 1998's Music Is Rotted One Note which is the Sqaure man's album of Jazz which I didn't cover in this series because I didn't own it at the time, but I might go over it at some point.
The third track plays out like a combination of these two: it has the light jazzy stylings of the previous track, and the hypnotic backing rhythm of the first. It takes a bit of time for it all to come together, but when it does it's pretty great, even if it is all over too soon. Again it's much much more easy going than anything on Ultravisitor
See that last line there? yeah that kinda stops being as relevant here. We take a dive into more "proper" Squarepusher tracks as it were; Planetarium also highlights one of my favourite sounds ever that crops up a whole lot on this album, that distorted springy sounding thing just makes these tracks for me, every time.
I wasn't too impressed with Rotate Electrolyte at first, it just didn't seem to go anywhere especially considering it's length. Then one day I decided to listen to it all just to see what was in there. After a nice & interesting breakdown I was treated to perhaps my favourite moment on the whole album: when those same sounds that made up Planetarium's main melodies return in spectacular fashion at around 3:35 or so. I love that part so, so much. Even more when the drums come back in.
Welcome To Europe was the first ever track I posted here, and it fills the same niche as the last two. I just love it every time that elastic sounding synth (or whatever it is) comes up, though unfortunately this is the last time it appears on the album.
This track always stood out as a bit of a wildcard to me. In a blind test I'd probably guess it was from Ultravisitor and it's not until a while later in the song that it sounds more like stuff we've heard so far on this album. It's still Squarepusher on very good form though, stay tuned for the bass guitar!
The same applies for this, although it sounds more like a mix of Go Plastic era 'Pusher combined with the new sound. It's very all over the place, but it has it's own moments: the first minute or so is just great all round, and the light ending arpeggio is sweet as.
Rounding it off we have the two Japanese bonus tracks (that were released as singles along with Welcome To Europe) shortly before the release of Hello Everything. Hanningfield Window is interesting in that it sounds an awful lot like the sounds the Square man would adopt for his next album Just A Souvenir
Exciton however, is exactly the opposite. The only way I can really describe this is if you imagine Squarepusher soundtracking an arcade side scroller or something like that. It's by far the harshest sounding track here, but that's more than alright because it's a quality tune.
Hello Everything is by no means a perfect album (I don't really care for this album's two drone-y ambient styled tracks: Vacuum Garden and Orient Orange) but it's still a very good place to start if you're looking to get into Squarepusher mainly because it has a nice blend of all the elements that make that iconic Squarepusher sound, be sure to check it out if you like what you hear.
Dear Ilictronix readers,
It is I, Colour. I sincerely apologise for my absence leading to a severe lack of posting on my behalf and I shall also take this moment, if I may, to apologise for a lack of posting in the near future. Rest assured I am still alive and have still been poking around the blog as well as my facebook. The reason for my departure is quite personal and shall not be discussed here, so why don’t I just shut the funk up and post some music. Please note I have included a few alternate versions. Why you ask? Because it’s what I do.
Recently I’ve been really getting into deep house (well, what I consider to be deep house anyway, if there are any Genre Nazi’s out there, feel free to hurl abuse at me in the comments) and it is about due time that I find the time and enthusiasm to post them for ya’ll to enjoy. Hopefully this will be somewhat of a reimbursement for my recent nonexistence.
For all those French house lovers out there, this track is probably one of my all time favourites. Released in 2002 on a vinyl 12”, ‘The Best Of Your Life’ is an upbeat track released as a collaboration between three French house producers; Fred Pellichero; JC Sindress; and Sandy Wilhelm. Shaï (not to be confused with the 90’s R&B group, Shai.) was sadly a one off collaboration with ‘The Best Of Your Life’ being the first and final track released by the trio, despite its mild success within the French house industry (and to a lesser extent, the international charts). However do not despair, as almost 10 years later I present it to you for your enjoyment. Although this track has floated around Youtube for a few years gathering little over 100,000 views, not to mention it being available to download from many illegal music sharing services, it has yet to be picked up and posted by a blog (well, at least not that I can find anyway) and its somewhat mysterious past has yet to be really documented anywhere (despite that on Shaï’s Discogs page). This track really is a diamond lost to the sands of time. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Next up is a relatively recent track, well in comparison to a lot of the other tracks in this post anyway. Now I actually really like Martin Solveig, however at risk of being assaulted by a rogue loafer thrown at me by one of you underground indie hipsters who defies anything even close to being considered mainstream: I will admit that I haven’t heard a lot of his tracks, but some of what I have heard is pretty good. Take this track for example; funky, fresh, oozing beach house vibes, its everything that I love about summer.
Now, if you indie hipsters haven’t already broken your wayfarers In disgust of my last song, be prepared to cower in fear as I unleash my next track. Why yes, it’s Ian Carey. Oh yes, I know he’s a sell out. Yes, I know he’s turned into everything we hate about the music industry. But seriously, some of his old tracks are actually pretty great. Point in case: his remix of ‘Them and me and you’ by Gran Turismo. While this track isn’t exactly French or deep house, its still a laid back house track. Who says this guys only good for making annoying party tracks featuring Snoop Dog or some other overly auto-tuned bitch.
Right, now it’s about time for something a little more underground, and probably my pick out of the whole post. Simple. Elegant. Beautiful. Filthy. Is there really anything else you can ask for from a song? ‘Don’t you call me honey; you ain’t never taste this flavour’. This track combines the beautiful vocal stylings of one miss Scarlett Quinn with a bass line so filthy it’s not fit for public consumption. The result is a medley so amazing your ears might jizz a little when that deep grinding bass drops 30 seconds in. People who consider dubstep to be musical sex have clearly never heard this track. Oh, and did I mention that this track is absolutely filthy?
Well that’s all for me today, I do hope to see you around. Feel free to show some love and leave me a comment or two with your thoughts and random musings. Until next time, I bid thou farewell.
