7-1-7-2-2-8

This year is turning out phenomenal for new album releases, just today Warp Officially announced a return from Scottish electronic wizards Boards Of Canada,with Tomorrow's Harvest dropping June 10th (sadly not June 9th) in europe, and the 11th in NA. After a cryptic vinyl release on Record Store Day followed by some activity on a youtbe accunt labelled 'Hell Interface' (BoC boffins will recognise it as a past pseudonym of the duo) and a video teaser on Adult Swim I had my suspicions that something was going on and I was right! It might not be the BoCSet of their old unreleased albums we were promised but I'd argue the first new LP since 2005's The Campfire Headphase is even better. Check out the Adult Swim teaser and an unlisted lovely lo-fi preview of the numbers station laden vinyl track after the released artwork.

Slow Saturday

With us moving to new hosting soon and the focus being on more legal streaming I've been toying around with making little mix type dealies again. Here's one I've worked on for a couple of days that's pretty chilled, check it out after more art by me I hope you dig it!

Tracklist follows: after this, have a good weekend out there and remember: stay safe and enjoy the music!

Tracklist:
Miss Kittin & The Hacker - Kittin Intro (Intimités EP, 1999)
Pretty Lights - Down The Line (Taking Up Your Precious Time, 2006)
Martina Topley Bird - Valentine (The Blue God, 2009)
The Knife - Vegetarian Restaurant (Hannah Med H Soundtrack, 2003)
Rex The Dog - Intro (The Rex The Dog Show, 2008)
XYYXX - About You (XXYYXX, 2012)
Pangaea - Router (You & I / Router, 2008)
Caspa - Scared Of The Unknown ('Ave It Vol. 2, 2008)
Röyksopp - Sparks (Melody A.M., 2001)

Charming Little Beaches in Charming Little College Towns

So a friend of mine going to one of the state universities about an hour asked if I'd come up and visit on one of my days off. It's a charming little college town with lots of record stores, antique stores and nice places to walk, and my social life sucks so I drove up yesterday. Upon recommendation of multiple other college kids, we went out to this beach. There was no parking, but everyone was parking on the street. I was assured this would be fine. After an hour or so on the beach, I returned to a $150 parking ticket.

One. Hundred. And. Fifty. Dollar. Parking. Fine.

"Park here," they said, "it will be fine," they said.

Well you fooled me once with your pretty eyes but I won't be fooled again.



(I realize this isn't electronic music, but I haven't seen anyone blogging about this song and I've been waiting for an opportunity to post it.)

Well, looks like I've got $150 to raise, so I'm gonna go weed through my record collection and see if there's anything I can part with. Ciao!

Silver, Silver

I meant to put up the single dealie along time ago before computer trouble came along. Anyway, Warp Mainstay and lo-fi tune crafter Bibio has been teasing at upcoming LP Silver Wilkinson for a while now, and Warp has a new tune from it up for streaming on their soundcloud.



To my delight it's another cut and chopped hip hoping number that Bibio's been known to chuck in there every. The nice and dreamy intro gives way around a minute in letting that wonderfully chopped sample to slide on in and sit itself down in the mix lovely stuff indeed. Keep listening after the fadeout and you'll be treated to a lovely hazy soundscape that is no doubt influenced by Bibio's self proclaimed favourite album Music Has The Right To Children.



Also of note is this live version of Take Off Your Shirt from the T.O.Y.S single, cleverly and rather cheekily called Take Off Your Skirt. Like in Röyksopp's live shows he brings a totally different vibe to the tune, normally a fast paced indie style number. Also like Röyksopp live, this version features some liberal vocoder/talkbox working which just melds perfctly with the style. The reprisal at the end is pretty sweet too.

Gone Fishin',
-Claude Van Foxbat

Selektions

I was a latecomer to the Modselektor camp, I'd tried before to explore their sound but nothing gelled with me too well. That all changed come their third LP Monkeytown and since then I've been all over their stuff, lucky they have material spanning from here to 2003 then, there's a lot of variety to be had here.

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Starting off at the far end of things, I found this one just streaming youtubes one day. It's a brilliant slice of 'IDM' as they call it, and for sure an interesting look into how flexible the duo is as an aside to their usual electro style output. See if you can spot the cheeky amen breaks in it.



On the flipside again, I was used to Modeselektor sounding fairly dark throughout their work (minus Siriusmo's contributions to Green Light Go) but again I was wrong. Buried towards the end of their debut LP Hello Mom! is this little lighthearted number that does actually remind me a bunch of Siriusmo (think Nights Off)



And of course I couldn't let you go without letting a little of their usual in there. Happy Birthday! took me the longest to get into for sure cos it's a long(ish) album, bu one thing remains certain, the opening duet of tracks is borderline perfect.



Monkeying Around,
- Claude Van Foxbat

More Stuff

As you may have heard, Empire of the Sun is returning with a new album this June, and it's about damn time. Empire of the Sun put out some great stuff in the '08-'10 period (those 3 years when everything was just awesome), and I've been waiting for more brilliant tracks like We Are the People or Walking on a Dream ever since. It seems we might be getting just that.



I know some of the readers here are friends with me on Facebook, in which case you know that I'm a big Ellie Goulding fan. If she were an anime character and a I was a wiabu, she'd be mai waifu. But since I'm not that corny, she's just my favorite female pop artist, which is a much classier distinction. People may also have heard that I'm not a fan of Louis La Roche. Well I'm not. A lot of his strikes me as distinctly unoriginal, and I still don't believe his claims that he didn't intentionally impersonate Thomas Bangalter to promote his Peach EPin 2008. This remix kinda goes to prove my point- it's just dripping in Together. And also in Surkin. It's like he just superglued pieces of Surkin to Together with Ellie Goulding vocals. Meh. I dunno. I'm biased. Either way, this is still a very cool remix. I'm hoping to pick up the Halcyon Remixes album that Nike put out the other day to review it.



Also on Soundcloud, Magna posted this thing.



If you don't remember, Magna is an awesome American electro artist who released an EP on Power Glove Records a couple years ago and then quickly left his labelmates in the dust and became like a Super-Saiyan of production, and has been wowing everyone with crisp, fresh, genre-bending electro and house ever since. He's a pretty cool guy.

Giving Up on Giving Up

Never give up something crucial to who you are to please other people. You'd think that no one should have to say that, because it should just a given, but perhaps its not. Sacrifice is admirable, but there are some things you just shouldn't sacrifice for anyone, one of those things being your taste in music. When I left the Ilictronix writing staff around two years ago, it was something I didn't really want to do, but I was under a lot of pressure from important people in my life to 'grow up', and one of the things that clearly had to go was my childish love of cheesy, shallow dance music, and wasting so much time on the internet.

Yeah, that was idiotic. It's taken me years to redefine myself as myself after finally throwing off the yoke of controlling, perfectionist peers.

There's be a bit of a paradigm shift within, and I still can't bring myself to appreciate the light-hearted jams I used to be in to. I call this the 'Grumpycat Syndrome', which has made it hard for me to appreciate anything fun and lighthearted, which is pretty much most of my old playlists. It's so bad I can't even listen to Discovery anymore. I mean, wtf, amirite?

The first thing that really brought me back though was one Mr. Sebastian Akchote. There's something about this guy I just can't figure out, but everything he produces speaks to me on a deep emotional level. I guess you really have to be an electrohead for instrumental electro tracks with awkward rhythms and bits and pieces of music dashed to tiny pieces and sprinkled all over it to be 'deep' and 'emotional'. But it is. And to heck with you if you tell me it isn't! Coming on the tail-end of my re-transformation was the new Kavinsky album, which left me with a lot of new house-shakers for rainy house cleaning days.

So that's kinda where I've been for awhile now, and I want to share with you some of the songs I've had on rotation for the last month or two. You've probably heard most of them before, but sometimes a nice walk through the Room of Playlists Past is a little refreshing.

Ed Banger records · Sebastian - Embody Kavinsky Remix

Stay true, everyone.

The End Is Nigh

Bass virtuoso and former Suicidal Tendencies member Stephen Bruner dropped a single and a new album announcement yesterday. The follow up to The Golden Age Of The Apocalypse is fittingly titled Apocalypse and is out worldwide come July.

His funky vibes are a definite highlight in Brainfeeder's catalogue, and with Apocalypse dropping in the middle of summer I'll definitely be giving it some play and with label owner and hip hop maestro Flying Lotus is down as an Executive producer so this can only get better. Check out the single Heartbreaks + Setbacks below.



Plain To See,
-Claude Van Foxbat

Shame & Fame

I'm back! after a complete re-casing of my trusty PC (and a little upgrade why not?) we are officially back in action. Just in time for the end of spring break which is a bit of a bummer. But enough of that, I'm on a seedy electoclash kick again like it's 2003 and I'm a moody tech head in Berlin. Tracks and more after this delightfully crass artwork from the re-issue of Mount Sims' Ultrasex

Right, into the meat (no pun intended) of this release. Mount Sims is Matt Sims, and this is his debut LP before re-forming with a band as Mt. Sims in 2005. It's a sleazy electro-tech record that is very much a product of its time. But it is another fine example to the collection, far removed from the self lamenting bubblegum pop stylings of Golden Boy & Miss Kittin's Or, this record pulls no punches much like Frank Sinatra before it. But first, an instrumental.



It's not long before we're treated to another fame bashing number that's expected of the scene by this point. Ultrasex is a nice meeting point of all the styles I've outlined so far, we have the Los Angeles longing much like Felix Da Housecat, the wistful musings in the vein of Golden Boy, the monotone culture critique of Miss Kittin & The Hacker and of course the all out filth like Peaches (which this album has in spades, especially on Hate Fuck).

I also found this gem on my travels from our favourite distributor of electronic smut International DeeJay Gigolo Records. This is actually an alias of detroit man Gerald Donald of Arpanet and Dopplereffekt fame. The name is really befitting of the tunes, a lot of them do sound like kitschy Japanese advertising jingles, however much like in his Arpanet work, he really has a way with sounds that I really dig. Check it out if you're looking for a obscue-ish detroit electro style record.



This starts very nicely, then about halfway through it turns from this laid back electro stlye jaunt to some rumbly techno goodness. The transition is smooth all things considered, and I dig both sides of the track though I have to say I do like the first half a little bit more than the second, cheesy as it may be.



And finally, bringing us back around to familiar tech territory, Miss Kittin & The Hacker's cover of Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams from their early Intimités EP. Hacker's production breathes a new vibe into the tune, and Kittin's delivery is spot on, they cover tunes like this a lot when they play live and its a shame most don't see a proper release. Enjoy regardless.



Good Service,
-Claude Van Foxbat

A Glitch Is A Glitch

The forces of the internet collided the other day when beat crafter Flying Lotus spun a tune for cult cartoon Adventure Time.

The tune is a lovely return the the chiptune style that opened FlyLo's debut 1983 back in '06 with some elements from the Pattern + Grid World EP showing through at times. Its a free download from the mans soundcloud so check it out for sure! I apologise for the link, by my pc is down and embedding is pretty much impossible on a phone, regardless, enjoy!

What Time Is It?
- Claude Van Foxbat