Spooky Sounds

Halloween time, time for tunes. Had some really great picks in the last couple of years and I hope to continue the trend! Without further ado onto he tracks! (no art this time b/c I don't have any scary paintings, so have this picture of a bat)

Starting off with a more recent tune from recently covered Swede Simon Viklund. This tune was made for some Hotline Miami / Payday crossover and it's pretty stellar. It really captures that neon drenched 80s feel of the Hotline soundtrack and the bank robbing vibes of Payday quite nicely. With just a smidgen of inspiration from artists like Danger & Feed Me, this one better be on your playlist for the 31st!



Kittin with the opening track from her suitably spooky album Batbox. Her production is on point as usual, unlike the dancefloor/listening sides of I Com, her second definitely dwells more on the dancy side of things. If there were ever a rave in a haunted mansion, this would be the tune to open it with for sure.



And finally some FlyLo with some wonky disjointed beat action form the Pattern + Grid World EP. It took me a while for some tracks on the EP to click for me, this one included, but when they did it was magic. Save this one or the morning after when everything is still a little hazy.



-Claude Van Foxbat

New Track Reviews(pt. 2)

Hello.

Get ready for the ride of your life.

Reese + Lil Uzi Vert - 400 Degreez(Marcus Dominic + Benny Jets)

Damn that was a long title. But this song is awesome so its okay. 7 stars out of 3 1/2

Black Boots - This Shit Will Fuck You Up

Black Boots graces the world with this Hallows Eve banger, my shit was indeed fucked up after a listen to this.

Syn Cole - Bright Lights( The Voyagers Remix)

No words. Just Listen.

Epic Empire - Doin It

I really REALLY like this, very good for head nodding and general wilding out activities.



Be Easy

- Earl

Down In The Dumps

Saw Stenchman on twitter lamenting his music career recently. We can't have that now can we? as a staunch supporter of all things stinky I had to do something about it, so how about another plug for the stenchman? He's recently put a lot of stuff for free download on his soundcloud so feel free to get your mitts on it; here's some choice ilictronix endorsed samples. Get out there and support the man!



-Claude Van Foxbat

New Track Reviews(pt.1)

Hello

Lets get this started.

Wayward - Ugetsu(EP)

Shout out to Wayward for this awesome EP. 5 stars

Brika - Gold

Brika kills it again with Gold, definitely lives up to the name.

tohska - Lacuna Bloom

The vibe of this track is incredible, i cant wait to see what tohska does next.




Be Easy
- Earl

Gloomy Sundays V: Micro Edition

A whole week without a post. Damn son, been a long time since I seen that. It's alright tho cos we loop back around to being sad again. This one's gonna be quick cos I'm not at my usual PC, but I got some tunes for ya.

Miwa Ogasawara - Aufgang (2013)

Aesop Rock probably isn't your first choice when you consider what we've posted before, but this one is a serious contender for me, I'm sure you'll be able to figure out why if you know me a little and pay attention to Aes' lines he lays down here.

"I love you all with all that's left of me, For helping try to kill what made a mess of me."

I always Ladytron having a much more moodier output than they do. Maybe it's an Electroclash conditioning thing coming off the heels of Kittin & The Hacker's joints. Regardless, when they do go down that route it's always golden. If Gary Numan and Kraftwerk showed us anything it's that synthesizers are brilliant backings for the downbeat.

"Don't want the same ghosts for company this evening"

And finally we're just going to revisit an old favourite of mine. I've written a bit about Seefeel before, granted their not everyone's bag and all but I still say this is probably the finest example (alongside Spangle from the Starethrough EP) of what they do well. This track in particular is just lush with sounds.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Gloomy Sundays IV: This Time It's Personal.

How was your weekend? Awesome? Fantastic? Well unfortunately just like everything else in your life it's coming to an end. So do a line of Prozac, put on your comfiest pair of slippers and wallow together, this week might be your worst yet.

Alex Colville - Horse And Train (1954)

Lets start with a whimper off Arca's new album Xen. Many of you know Arca through his production credits on Kanye's Yeezus, and FKA Twigs EP2 and LP1. His debut full length Xen is unlike anything I have ever heard and is a strong contender for AOTY. The track "Wound" has a beautiful cinematic feel to it with a soaring orchestral backbone. Once the empty and cold vocals roll in the track transcends to the next level. The lyrics are undecipherable and that's OK because the pain you're feeling is also hard to put into words.

Arca · Wound

What happens when you combine the hopelessness and trashiness of Florida with the shame of being associated with Skrillex?  Hundred Waters! Signed to Skrillex's OWSLA label, Florida natives Hundred Waters have a pretty dark brand of synth pop. Their label debut "The Moon Rang Like a Bell", was the soundtrack to countless nights of crying myself to sleep. The highlight of this amazing album is the track"Down From the Rafters". Lead vocalist Nicole Miglis has a beautiful and haunting voice that fills up whatever empty room you're in.

Hundred Waters · Down From The Rafters

Oh hey look its our favorite depressed frontman Thom Yorke! His newest album Tomorrows Modern Boxes is a music lovers "quart of ice-cream after a breakup" One of the standout tracks is "Interference".





The description from Rock Genius sums this one up perfectly:

"In the song, Yorke sings about the transience of our lives, our loves, our identities. We have moments in time that seem to be so eternal, but in reality it will and does come to pass all so suddenly."

How does it feel when the lead singer from your favorite band knows your life is worthless?


Lets close out with a track from Sharon Van Ettens ultra depressing "Are We There?" This one always leaves me speechless so I wont say too much about it and spoil it for you.

Jagjaguwar · Sharon Van Etten - "Your Love Is Killing Me"

I would say this is a good playlist when studying for midterms, but lets be honest you don't need to study, you are going to fail all of them.

-Adam 


I've crawled out of my dissertation den to lay down some additions of my own. When the pressure's on and you have to not fuck up at all because otherwise you've wasted three years of your life, you will not get your degree and good luck getting a job in this post-industrial landscape of Northern England it is difficult to stay peppy. So I don't. Have some existential Brian Eno to help with that.



And when you see them all, somehow managing to live it up, go out an do what your stereotypical students do and manage to write a dissertation too. You wonder if it's all in vain, spending time writing when you could be out with them. If only you lived closer to the town center and didn't have a 1 hour commute to do, perhaps it would be. Don't dwell on it though, distract yourself and sit down with a brew and read over some academia again.



You are again wracked with doubt about whether your work is good enough, or will ever be good enough. As the last render of the night's bar slowly fills to complete, you look outside and wonder if winter is getting darker every year. Shutting down your workstation, you clamber off to bed. Another early morning bedtime. The small things make it worth it, tomorrow's another day and we can do it all again.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Automated 5: Future Proof

Thought I might have some downtime after the last post only to be immediately slammed with more dissertation work. So with that in mind here's another quickie to tide you over until the next one.

Roy Lichtenstein - Reverie (1965)
Click here for huge (3318 x 3974 px)

Dug out Broadcast again, and again another example of how tunes grow on you over time. I skipped over this one plenty just because I'm not a huge fan of the intro, but keep on listening and it just gets better. Nailed it in completely Broadcast fashion, Trish Keenan was a talent gone far too soon.



More from FlyLo's Ideas .rar, This one got a lot of press just from the title alone (which is admittedly pretty great) but they kinda let it overshadow the tune itself. Think the other Jazzy cuts from Ideas like Oatmeal Face and Wake Me and you're pretty much good.



Daft Club gets an awful lot of bad press in the DP community. Yeah it's not the best jump coming straight after Discovery but it has it's moments, like that Slum Village mix of Aerodynamic which is quality. Also the intro is a tune I fall in love with every time, from the nostalgia pangs of the Dial-Up intro 'til the very end. Perhaps one of the most lush tracks the Punks have ever made.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Automated 4: No Such Luck

Turns out dissertations (that'd be Thesis for y'all in the USA) are hard. Do not worry, I'm still with you through the medium of scheduling posts in advance. Onto the music, which is strictly trip hop today.

Jeremy Mann - New York Rains

One of the tunes keeping my head up is tune from fellow Leodensian Nightmares On Wax. Carboot Soul was a worthy successor to Smoker's Delight, and I love the vibe throughout, I think it really captures that pre-millennium feel.



Mezzanine's been back in rotation along with it's bigger brother 100th Window because I love me some moody Trip Hop, even though it's from a year before the N.O.W album above I think it sounds much more modern. It regularly makes the lists of essential electronic albums so deffo give it a listen, it's reputation is well deserved.



UNKLE's debut has it's moments too, long time favourite of the LP I've been hanging onto, Bloodstain was a big part of my winter playlist last year, can't believe I'd slept on this album for so long. I mean, it's DJ Shadow and James Lavelle doing some trip hop, what's not to like?



-Claude Van Foxbat

Automated 3: The End (?)

Here's hoping things have gotten better on my end so I can actually write real time. If not this will be the sole update for a while. Less sentimentality let's get moving!

Jim Rosenquist - Croshatch And Mutations (1986)

Starting things right with an early Knife tune, got real love for their first self titled effort, a far cry from the cold electropop of Silent Shout, this one's more like an lo-fi indie electronic dealio with some dark undertones foreshadowing the direction they'd take.



More 8-bit-esque FlyLo, with a tune I like to listen to on the train because I enjoy musical irony. Leading the charge for the Pattern + Grid World EP alongside Clay, it's a bit of an oddity in FlyLo's output, but a damn good one to be sure. Still as good as when it came out.



Some more from House legend Felix here, though the album was pretty much mixed reaction from the press, I absolutely love the tracks in this style. I can't really think of anything else to compare it to, a lighter, less funky Chromeo maybe? Anyway, enjoy!



-Claude Van Foxbat

Gloomy Sunday Vol. III

The sad train can't stop, won't stop. Almost forgot to put together a list this week but don't you worry I pulled it together last minute. Get ready for some sads. (You may notice a theme here, that may or may not be inspired by a certain movie I re-watched recently. I won't tell if you don't)

Edward Hopper - Sunday (1926)

Something I found recommended to me after I listened to a bunch of Squarepusher's jazzier stuff on Grooveshark, and I instantly fell in love like I did with HEALTH's Pills. The intro had me interested, but I thought it was just an ambient tune. When the guitar came in it quickly shot up my list of favourites. Such a gorgeous atmosphere painted here, I can't even pick a highlight it deserves a full listen every time.



I got turned onto Brook's work after looking over the long list of collaborations Brian Eno's done over the years, adn I was interested to see the ambient label thrown around, I've never heard of him outside of Eno so I decided to look into it. I was surprised to find a fair few soundtracks under his name, and from that I listened to his album Cobalt Blue which is actually really good. The main highlight is Ultramarine for sure, but the tracks around it are just as good. track it down if you dig.



Finally stepping into HEALTH-like territory again, here we get some noisy guitar happenings. When running my selections past a friend this one got the suitable description of an 'Audio Hangover' and I couldn't agree more. Not as pretty as the other two granted, but a nice addition of grit for a gloomy sunday.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Automated 2: Under Pressure

To cover more bases, I've lined up multiple scheduled posts, technology's amazing innit? Anyway by the time you read this I'll probably have another load of work to get on with so let's dive right in again once more.

Art By Shmorky

I still contend Moving Shadow to be up there with the other legendary labels, their output was consistently great, even if I didn't dig every single release they did. Take Calyx's Catapult EP, even the B-sides are sick, love the intro on this one to death.



It took me a while to get into Modeselektor's Happy Birthday! but the staring four or so tracks always struck something in me. If anything sums up the Selektor's modus operandi Godspeeed certainly does it. Another gem from the absolutley incredible year of 2007.



I absolutley love when Fly-Lo goes on a quasi-8-bit jaunt. The man's come out and said he wanted to make stuff that sounded like the NES since he had an NES. The couple that were in his Ideas .rar were pretty special indeed, here's a sample of what's been seeing me home lately. That ending section is gorgeous.

Fact Magazine · Flying Lotus - 'Such A Square'

-Claude Van Foxbat

Nite Time Tunes

                                  The Blood Moon, in it's natural, glorious state.

Hey guys, it's Nite again, after two months of practically disappearing off the face of the Earth! I apologize sincerely for the lack of posting, as College work has been kicking my proverbial ass as of late. To make up for it, I have a bunch of Late Night Time based goodies for you to peruse through whenever you're in need of good electronic music. Shall we begin? Lets!

First off, in celebration of their 20th anniversary since their first Album, Underworld has re-released their LP, Dubnobasswithmyheadman (Yes, you read that correctly) in a remastered format. For those of you who know this group and love them, it's great news! The quality in their remastered tunes are significantly greater than their original 1994 tracks, with amplified sound, bass and other bits in there. To give an idea to what it sounds like,have a listen to one of my personal favorites from them, Surfboy. The freaking atmospheric power in this track is absolutely mind-blowing, to say the least!


Next up on the list is something out from one of my favorite Electronic artists ever, Moby. Now when it comes to Moby, he can be, at times, Hit and Miss (*Cough* Animal Rights *Cough*) But when he hits it, oh boy, he fucking NAILS it, especially with Remixes. Case in point, Moby did a very chill remix of his track, The Last Day, off of his album, Innocents. It's dark, sensual, and overall very enjoyable to listen to. I highly recommend this track to anyone that needs something to zone out to, whilst having a steady beat at the same time.


Next off, is something straight from DJ Koze. Titled Amygdala, this track was put on my Desert Playlist for a reason. It's moody, eerie, yet chilling at the same time. I can't help but be addicted to this tune! (I would seriously check out this album, as the material on there is fantastic!)


The track I have here is an interesting one. You see, I am a fan of Celtic/Tribal Music, and have been since I was a wee lad.  I love it even more when its combined with electronic beats in the background. Combine the two together, and you have Afro Celt Sound System. Fusing West-African and Celtic chants and Music with electronica, This Ethnic fusion group has produced a fair share of tracks that have raised my eyebrows in shock. The track I'm going to share with you is one of those notable tracks. Give it a try. You may find yourself liking the dark, tribal electronic music.


And finally, to conclude the goodies bonanza, here's some Crystal Castles (my favorite track, in fact)!

Au Revoir, Mes Amis!

Nite

Automated

As you may know work is stepping up, that is why I am writing this to you around three days in advance (but don't tell nobody). Here to provide you with some tunes from the past, it's me again.

Dabs Myla - Tokyo Delux

Vaporwave may be long buried but hey I still got love for the vibe. As much as stuff like this gets hated on for being the trendy thing to reblog on tumblr I can't help but dig it just a little bit. Maybe it's because I'm such an Oneohtrix Point Never fanboy.



Speaking of dead genres, have some proper Old School dubstep from Stenchman circa 2010. Nothing to shake your house foundations, but not the same 2-step garage evolution that started it all, probably the best area of Dubsep to be in in all honesty.

Stenchman - Everything [No stream available as of 2020]

Dare I say Acid falls on that list too, but at least it's still being made it's just not blasting out of the Hacienda anymore. Here's a tune from AFX's Analord series, proving that acid doesn't have to be TB-303s screeching their circuits off.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Gloomy Sundays Vol. II

Another week, another weekend session to sit down and get sad. Not sure if Adam's gonna knock up some for ya as well but here we go with my picks.

Alex Colville - Pacific (1967)

More Dania Shapes, where here OPN apes long time buddy and sometimes collaborator Tim Hecker with a piano piece. I recall seeing OPN say somewhere he loves Pianos, and one of the first tracks he recorded as OPN called Grief And Repetition shows this off well. This one is a solid addition to that lineage, sounds like a lo-fi Nanou 2 from Aphex Twin's Drukqs



No mention of ambient is complete without the grandfather of all Ambient as we know it today. Eno has a lot of Ambient under his belt, this one is taken from the soundtrack he made for NASA's documentary For All Mankind. A few times on the album Eno injects some Americana via a country sounding guitar, think The KLF's Madrugada Eterna only more spacey.



And finally with Röyksopp announcing a return to the dark and and introspective end of their conventional studio albums with their upcoming and suitably moody titled The Inevitable End let's look back on their last full on ambient release Senior. I remember most of the tracks here being warm sounding, but right at the end things take a very cold turn indeed. It may not be the best track on the LP, but I can't think of a better way to say goodbye.



-Claude Van Foxbat

City Series Vol. 1 - Leeds (Playlist broken as of 2020)

Putting into motion something I've been wanting to do for a while now, here's a series where we get our writing team to make a playlist for their city. Could be inspiration, could be local acts, could just be you dig the sounds - whatever. Starting with me, I'm up north in the UK in Leeds, so naturally I have to start off with LFO and their amazing Warehouse mix. There's other local flavours in there too, like Soft Cell (Fun Fact: My dad went to college with Mark Almond here), LSK and of course Nightmares On Wax.

So there you have it, tried to cover a lot of bases genre wise so I apologise if the grime/garage/dubstep turn at the end is a bit sudden. Regardless I hop you enjoy and stay tuned for the Atlanta and Chicago installments courtesy of Adam and Evan!

-Claude Van Foxbat