Techy

Apologies for the last couple cop out posts, I've been (and still am) hecka busy. But I thought I'd at least try make a proper post for once this week so here we go. Feeding my journey in animating is this lovely bunch of songs right here:

Atelier Olschinsky - A.D. 2099 - 2311 (01)

I've been re-living memories of the late 1990's when I decided to go track down the PS1 Ghost In The Shell game. Tuns out it has a whole album of late 90's techno goodness alongside it stocked with some familiar names. I must admit that before this I wasn't big on Beltram. Of course I knew OF him, but as I can remember I'd heard a few things a long time ago and not dug it, but tastes do change. If I can find some more tunes like this in his catalogue, I can have my techno itch scratched for years to come.



Ellen Allien now, I wasn't too hot on the minimal parts of Dust, but I do adore track 4 Sun The Rain. Maybe it's my weakness for processed vocals speaking, or even my recent love of more downtempo songs but I cannot stop looping this while I work, it helps the tedium of keyframing go by that much quicker.



Revisited Autechre's Anti EP too, and while Flutter is by far and away the standout track, both in terms of sound and the whole concept behind it as a protest song, the other two songs on the EP have their own merits. This one for example sounds like it could easily be a prototype for Amber (which came out that same year, and is the Autechre boys' most prolific album.) Especially on the outro, which caps the song off nicely.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Mix Point Never

Apologies for the cop-out soundcloud post again, I'm kinda busy and all that jazz. Anyway, I thought I'd finally post one of my favourite mixes I drag out once every 6 months or so. Lopatin's output under Oneohtrix Point Never is experimental at the best of times, and when he did a mix for XLR8R I expected nothing different, there's crazy variety here, from Autechre to Kraftwerk, Kanye West to Kenji Kawai's Ghost In The Shell Soundtrack. It's very well done throughout, my personal favourites being when Virtual Crime is introduced, and later on when one of my all time favourite ambient techno tracks, Nitedrive by F.U.S.E comes in. Normally I would paste the tracklist, but like the genres on show, there's a crazy amount of variety and the numbering system only covers like half the tracks. So check out the actual soundcloud page for the tracklist!

Complications...

We've been hit with a wave of DCMA's recently, most notably on some of the Warped History posts focusing on Aphex Twin. I was actually considering making them stream-only a while back because I'm proud of 'em and want em to be read forever, and now I will!. As of right now, I have put the entire Warped History series in stasis. But once I edit all the posts to be stream only they'll come back, it's just gonna take some mind numbing HTML edits to do so. But for now, here is a jumbo sized selection from Warp themselves, because I still love 'em to bits.

Soundcloud Roundup

Apologies for being all quiet on my end as of late, I'm enjoying my free time now Uni is done. Anyways I made my rounds on soundcloud again and caught up on some stuff I missed. Leading e chrge is HudMo who dropped his second LP recently. Now I haven't listened to it yet, and even if I had I don't consider myself the leading source on HudMo anyways, but even so I am in love with this tune he's put up. I needed more sugary sweet anthem-style synths in my life since taking fellow Glaswegian Rustie's Glass Swords out of rotation again.



And catching up with a bloke I found on reddit a while back, dug deep in his 'cloud and found this. Like he says it's less of a remix and more of a cover of the oiginal, but I think it stands on its own merits. I adore the original track and this is an interesting angle on it for sure.



Digging sounddcloud has been petty great, because thanks to people reposting songs you can go down an infinite rabbit hole of tunes. This is one such case, now I may be biased considering my love for hip hop instrumentals, but I think this one's pretty neat. My only complaint is I ain't really feeling the intro but I stop caring once the main body of the song hits.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Sudden Stop

Opening night over, just got to watch over the exhibition tomorrow for 4 hours and then thats it until we take it all down on friday! So that's it. Ain't no more dissertations, ain't no more coursework. Less of a slow end and ore of a breakneck surprise you have nothing to do type deal. Not complaining mind, here's some music I'm diggin' at the mo'.

Miwa Ogasawara - Double (2014)

As you may have seen, I've been trying to make my own ambient tunes and as such I've been dissecting and examining all my favourites and seeing what I can do with 'em. Of course OPN is up there, he's served me well though University for being a reference point, and Memory Vague will continue to do that with it's often arpeggiated goodness.



Take a trip back to '99 with Moby now. Moby of this era has the tendency to stick safe with the whole piano + beats combo which to be fair he's actually really good at. Not that Play needs the extra press or anything mind, everyone's probably already heard 80% of the album by now.



And of course I can't go without mentioned my unsung hero of the cyberpunk binge I went on, Vangelis. I'll forever be in love with the synths on show here, and not just because I have a well documented love for synths. No, Blade Runner's is defintely befitting of the setting and one of the cards I pull when I hear the silly 'Electronic Music has no emotion' argument. We're coming up on 30 odd years since the film's release and the soundtrack was recently re-issued once again on vinyl, it's influence goes without saying, and I highly recommend both the film and soundtrack.



-Claude Van Foxbat

More Celadon

Apologies for the long weekend folks, had my final exhibition which was a rip-roaring good time. As penance have some more stuff from Celadon City and his Safari collective crew, a cutesy backronym meaning Sounds And Friends Always Rebirth Imagination. Check 'em out.



Find more Safari on:
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Out In't Garden

Recent music buddy of mine Celadon City finally got around to putting out his latest release deal. And it's pretty gorgeous. You know how every time I posted a tune from Icarus I've been saying it's instantly in my summer playlist? Yeah they're all well and good through the day but Mr. City here, much like Pretty Lights before him, makes tunes for a more homey environment. Or as the man himself pus it: "garden-party electronica"



But wait there's more. Even with the cold breeze plaguing us here in England at the minute, these tunes are doing their bit and making everything feel a little bit more toasty. I'm in love with the second half of this one, it's chock full of little flourishes and gorgeous sounds.



Not to say there's nothing on offer here if you're lookin' for more upbeat dancy stuff. There's also a remix of the title track that gives it a little house injection that does actually sound a little like the Icarus stuff I've posted. I was skeptical at first (as I am with 90% of remixes) but it's a very nice compliment to the sweetness on offer here.



Find more Celadon City on:
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-Claude Van Foxbat

Exhibition Beats

Pretty sure I'm at least 80% done with my final exhibition prep now, not that I had much to do compared to some people. The joys of doing video art include not having to put shelves up for your work among other things. But enough about that, let's talk music as usual.

Roy Lichtenstein - Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But... (1964)

More Seatbelts this time, because I am addicted to future jazz (literally future jazz in this case). Taken from the limited edition box set verison of the Cowboy Bebop OST, this one takes a little whileto get goign but when it does I cannot stop grooving to it. Ridiculously smooth, just what you need on a Tuesday afternoon.



A recent return to my library, there's not a bad mix present on Everything But The Girl's Blame EP. Taken from their brief foray into drum & bass, but it's very well done indeed and that's not just my 1999 nostaliga talking. Since I've already given the rundown on my favourite mixes of the track I think it's high time I post the original.



More from Viklund again, this time its one of his more downbeat contributions to the soundtrack. Still a little dramatic with the strings in the background, but I love the tune and it's slow post-rock style build to the final section.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Icarus Again

The Icarus boys the FFRR people were so nice to tell me about back when have been on the up recently, not only did I see a poster for them playing in my hometown but in my inbox was their latest est courtesy of FFRR PR!



I think you can forgive me fr being skeptical at first seeing as we've seen so many promising electronic musicians go down the shitter after they get some popularity under their belt (such as Mr. C. Harris.). But like all I'd covered from them before it opens very strong indeed, a far cry from the ravey nostalgic piano stabs they were using before. This is also the first of theirs I've heard with an actual vocal accompaniment which again could have been hit or miss, I couldn't find a credit for whoever did the vocal here but it's one of the more unique ones I've heard in dance music for a while and compliments the track well. The track is excellently structed also, it's nice to see more artists breaking the 30-second-intro-then-drop rinse/repeat mold, and with it they've easily slotted another entry on my summer playlists.

Find more Icarus on:
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M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

It's my pleasure to introduce you all to the world of Mississippi Jones, A duo of J@$ and Mississippi herself. I've known for some time now thanks to me having some back-and-forths with the woman herself on twitter. She seemed nice enough which is always a plus and based on what people were saying about their stuff I was inclined to like it, yesterday she was nice enough to hook me up with some of their latest music. Let's dive in.

Y'all know I'm no stranger to moody stuff, and seeing some comparisons with Portishead I was well prepped to get my sad on. Imagine my surprise when after the intro out of my speakers comes this sound almost like if La Roux did a collab with Amy Winehouse. There's other comparisons I could draw too, some of the more synthy tracks from Little Dragon's self-titled debut and maybe a smidge of Au Revoir Simone but the point is it's very, very well done.



I had barely enough time to recover before I got slammed in the chest by the next track. I haven't been taken unawares by bass like that since James Blake's cover of Limit To Your Love. A little change in direction here, definitely more on the electronic side, certainly some of that dubstep feel present on Blake's work. The production is on point here, well balanced and compliments the vocal talents of Mississippi well throughout, especially on the intro.



Ending with more of a poppy feel again, not that that's a bad thing mind, in fact it's something I've been meaning to pick up more of for a while now. More shoutouts to the production here, with yet another gorgeous intro and killer bassline. Not to discredit Mississippi herself, who is giving me major Martina-Topley Bird vibes here. this one's probably my favourite vocal of the three.



Mississippi Jones will be releasing the second part of their Recourse: Elemental series on July 20th digitally. I'll definitely be keeping tabs on them from now on, the variety on display here is promising and I'd very much love a band to fill the Broadcast shaped hole in my heart since we lost Trish Keenan.

Find Mississippi Jones at:
Bandcamp
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Official Site
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Blue

Back home for a brief spell, going to knock out a quick post again. And just to make it a little easier, there's goign to be a not-so-subtle theme throughout, see if you can pick up on it.

Jim Dine - Blue Clamp (1981)

More from Mr. Scruff again, this one's a cheeky bonus track included on the 10th anniversary edition of Keep It Unreal. A lot of the bonus ones are allegedly from early album sessions and they certainly fit for sure but they are a little unrefined in spots, my only complaint for this one is that it runs on a little longer than I'd like it too. Still, I'm not one to turn my nose up to more Scruff for my buck.



Second is a real throwback from years ago. I remember picking this one up after hearing a snippet of it in a David Fith cartoon circa 2007 or so. I have some other Svahn floating around on my HDD too, I should catch up with him and see what he's up to these days, he had a bunch of tunes up on his site last I checked.



Remember me moaning that the extended mix of Poison Lips was relegated to a B-side of an EP? Well that's not the biggest crime of the EP. No, it's that the headline track of the EP is probably one of the finest in Vitalic's catlogue and could have easily been put on Flashmob without sounding out of place. But I digress, I have it in my libary now, and you should too!



-Claude Van Foxbat