New Year's Roundup 2015

Dabs Myla - Moonlight Swim (2013)

Another year gone by of me putting words on your screen with occasional musical accompaniment. It's been a long time. If you're new I hope you stick around, and if you're a seasoned ilictronix veteran here's to another 12 months of tunes for you. As is tradition have a trackdump of stuff I'm feelin' to fuel your NYE and as always: stay safe, enjoy the music and I'll see you on t' other side.

Philestine · DJ SHADOW FT LITTLE DRAGON - SCALE IT BACK (PHILESTINE REMIX)

-Claude Van Foxbat

Post-Holiday Quickie

Afternoon all, hope your respective winter celebrations went down well. Now, I'm sure you've heard people moan and groan that nobody makes Christmas music anymore and so we're leftwith the same dregs we've heard for years and years every winter. Well thanks to my buds over at Galaxy Swim Team I was treated to this on my soundcloud feed, a more modern indie-pop syle take on Paul McCartney's original. Not for everyone sure, but I could defintley see a market for this in future (What I wouldn't give for a sleazy electroclash cover of Wham!'s Last Christmas).



And since I'm here I may as well say I wrote and scheduled another annual New Year's post/track dump, and it'll be a tad earlier this year so keep an eye out for it going up on the 30th! Until then I hope you're all havin' a good time, and I'll be back soon.

-Claude Van Foxbat

12 Days Of Tunes (12)

Eyvind Earle - Winter (1981)

Ignoring some schedule cock-ups thanks to blogger, we made it! And I thought I'd try and end it with something at least Christmas related, even tangentially so. I've used up most of my fodder for this time of year but luckily I feel like I can get away with this one. Yoko Kanno's soundtrack to Ghost In The Shell is chock full of cold electronics and strings as it is, which goes in hand with the setting nice enough, and there's a select few with vocals that really stand out from the rest. Think around Homogenic era Björk, and you're in the right kinda area. Hell, there's even a song on the first OST album which is pretty much a cover of Hyperballad.

Anyway, I'll leave you with this for now, have a nice holiday season! I may be back to do another New Year's post, but I have missed them in the past so no promises. Just in case, I'll see you all in 2016!

12 Days Of Tunes (11)

Pyotr Konchalovsky - The Window Of The Poet (1935)

Thought I was hard pressed to find a OPN song to put here that I hadn't already mentioned before, when looking over past posts I found I haven't put this one in yet. I'm quite surprised in all honesty, it's easily among the more accessible parts of the Rifts compilation, and is taken from that vintage VCR style Sci-Fi movie sound of OPN's career that I adore.

12 Days Of Tunes (10)

Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva - Leningrad Summer Garden In Winter (1929)

Another bit from The Flashbulb's brutally titled Soundtrack To A Vacant Life now. This is one of the more electronic pieces on the album, it's been a long time since I've heard this one because I got sick to death of it after foolishly trying to animate a demo reel to it. I'm not entirely over that yet, but it is still fun to listen to.

12 Days Of Tunes (09)

John French Sloan - Six O'Clock Winter (1912)

Something a little more upbeat this time with Omni Trio. Granted it's not as upbeat as the slightly faster one as featured in the Moving Shadow 01.1 compilation, but the album version's still a good listen. Even Angels Cast Shadows might have really unfitting album art, but the cohesion of all the songs on it makes it a joy to listen to even now, I definitely recommend checking it out.

12 Days Of Tunes (08)

Hiroshige - Shrines In Snowy Mountains

Cutting it a bit fine with the 'no repeat artists' rule again, though I suppose this is *technically* a remix. Mad Professor's Dub treatments of Massive Attacks second album Protection are pretty lovely, very roomy with lots of lush parts scattered throughout. Saying that, here's one of the shorter but still just as sweet ones from the album.

12 Days Of Tunes (07)

M.C. Escher - Snow (1936)

You're just in time for another instalment of downtempo treats. Kinda like an advent calendar, only with moody MP3s instead of chocolate. This time it's Mezzanine once again, the LP's reputation precedes itself and it is one that is well deserved. Anyone looking to dive into the rabbit hole of Trip Hop could do worse than to start here. Don't let the title fool you, it's a lot less menacing than it sounds.

12 Days Of Tunes (06)

Jeremy Mann - Rooftops In The Snow

I tried to not repeat any artists given the small timeframe, but this one suddenly came up on shuffle and I had to include it. From the same school as Sparks a couple days ago, this one served the same role just a few years later. A long time this has been with me, and it continues to come back up whenever I need it. Here's to you Röyksopp boys.

12 Days Of Tunes (05)

Hiro Yamagata - Four Seasons, Winter(1987)

I'm aware I've posted a ton of downbeat/ambient stuff so far, but luckily that is about to change! Once again we're revisiting one of the most unique sounds in the electronic world, with incredibly short lived band Plone. I adore their sound to pieces but there's very little releases to their name. But what little there is to go around never stops being just incredibly fun to listen to.

12 Days Of Tunes (04)

Martin Lewis - Stoops In Snow (1930)

I think Plaid never get as much attention as they deserve. Granted I've said a few times that even for me their stuff tends to be hit and miss, and compared to the other Warp IDM powerhouses there is bound to be some gaps. Double Figure is an album of theirs I can definitely point to as a hit though, I just went through it and was hard pressed to find a track I didn't enjoy. Enjoy this especially wintry feeling downbeat piece from it:

12 Days Of Tunes (03)

David Hockney - Winter Tunnel With Snow (2006)

I'm 73% sure it would be a crime for me to be going on about wintry tunes and not mention Boards Of Canada. Normally my go-to would be Olson from Music Has The Right To Children but honestly at the minute I have been digging their aptly named Old Tunes and other assorted rare cassette tapes of their pre-Twoism output. On more than a few of them you can definitely hear the sound direction they'd become known for, see this one for example:

12 Days Of Tunes (02)

Claude Monet - The Frost (1885)

Oh boy, this one has been my constant winter companion since like 2003-ish? It's a contender for my all time favourite from Melody A.M. and rightfully so. Everything from the sparkly intro to the hazy effect over Anelli Drecker's vocals gives me the warm fuzzies. Chalk some of it up to nostalgia like, but still, do ye sen a favour and give it a listen.

12 Days Of Tunes (01)

Remember how a while back I was posting one song and one piece of art a day? well this is kind of like that, only with 12 entries instead of 101 to keep me clear until Christmas. So let's get right in there.

Gustave Caillebotte - Boulevard Haussmann In The Snow (1881)

Ever since I discovered that Hotline Miami EP tucked away in my steam folder I've been revisiting the electro side of things. It's only fitting mind, seeing as that was part of the reason I started coming here way back when. And if I hadn't been such a teenage electro fiend I wouldn't have inherited ownership of the place, strange how things work out like that isn't it?. Anyway, here's Shinichi Osawa with a piece from The One, I still love the album and I mean to pick up more of his stuff but it tends to get pricey with the imports and whatnot, regardless; enjoy.

Little Blue

Things ain't been a treat as of late, but I suppose thins could always be worse. Anyway here are some songs that I am employing during this blue period. Here goes nuffin.

Miwa Ogasawara - Gang 1 (2014)

Leading off with the final non-remix track from Walking Wounded. Don't think it's as fresh sounding as the other ones I've posted from the LP, but I remain a sucker for their breed of melancholy Drum & Bass, and of course it's one of my few time capsules I like to take part in from time to time.



Another final track, this time from UNKLE's follow up to Psyence Fiction. Never, Never, Land also ends in a suitably downbeat trip hop fashion. Couldn't find a credit for the vocal on this one but methinks it may be Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack again, whoever it is nails the delivery, and the production goes hand in hand with it extremely well.



Working on a psuedo-retro project at the minute, and OPN seems only fitting. He's blowing up in popularity as of late and I still have to get around to checking out his latest, but in the meantime I have a couple dozen cassettes worth of his older works to see me through, here's one of my favourites I first heard on Rifts.



-Claude Van Foxbat

A Different Kind Of Hotline

Looking to make space on my HDD I went looking for fat I could trim. There I discovered I've had a Hotline Miami Remix EP tucked away in my steam folder for months without me realising. Well I gave it a listen last night and thought I'd share some of it with you lot.

It doesn't take long for the signature Hotline Miami aesthetic to make an appearance, it's been a long time since I immersed myself in it's neon-soaked world of ultra-violence and the days where I would subsist on a heavy diet of strictly Electro House are long gone. But I'll be damned if the soundtrack isn't full of tracks like this that make me feel the way I used to back in those blog crawling days.



It's not long before the more surreal side of the Hotline rears itself though, though you probably already guessed from the title. Imagine if Mr. Oizo gave his twisted electro styling to the soundtrack of some 80's slasher flick and you're in the right ballpark in terms of sound. I'm not a fan of the kinda cliche air raid siren sample towards the end but even then it kinda works with the vibe, and the rest of the track doesn't put a foot wrong so I'll let it go.



Rounding it out with the last track (and my favourite of the bunch). It errs more on the side of the conventional 'outrun' sound that was big a while ago, and honestly could almost be a remix of Kavinsky circa Pacific Coast Highway in parts. Wouldn't say it necessarily fits the Hotline Miami theme woven throughout the others, but I can't fault Carpenter Brut's touches here, I must remember to keep tabs on what he's up to these days.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Winter Is Coming

A slight miscalculation on my part means that my tactic of waiting out the soundcloud drought ain't happening. There's been more stuff put up since I posted last, but I only put one tune aside for posting, and I wasn't in the mood to go digital crate digging again. So here we are again with another installment of the classic ilictronix™ shuffle post.

Indie184 - Take Me Away 3)

As some of you may have seen, I'm currently animating some dark 3D shapes that hopefully should react to the audio within the scene, and of course you can't talk abstract black shapes without a mention of FlyLo's Los Angeles period. This tune would actually make a great one to animate to if I hadn't already picked one out. Maybe in future I might do just that.



A lot of the smooth techno sounds of Warp's {Artificial Intelligence} series are also assisting me through my arty endeavours. Autechre themselves may try to distance themselves from this LP but for me it's a lovely slice of the era, and one that still sounds great some 22 years after it's release.



Miss Kittin also makes a reappearance, this time with one of a few tunes from Batbox that are almost spoken word. I've seen a lot of divided opinion on on Batbox, and granted it's not the combination dancefloor and home companion that I Com was, but it's clear that Kittin has fun producing and as a result the tracks themselves are fun to listen to.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Another Day

This was supposed to be another soundcloud dealie, but my feed is being understandably slow as of late what with all the holidays. So instead I guess we'll shuffle again and see what comes of it.

Jim Rosenquist - The Kabuki Blushes (1986)

Thought it about time to dig this one out again, I love Rossz Csillag Alatt Született throughout, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that Mr. Funk's breakcore treatment of Billie Holiday's Gloomy Sunday wasn't near the top of the list of favourites. A bit different from the rest of the albums classical angle, but it's a treat to listen to.



Trip Hop has been seeing me through my video experiments as usual, and the more depressive cuts of UNKLE's debut are making an appearance again. Honestly when I get wrapped up in animating or whatever I only really hear the lovely beats + strings combo, which is probably for the best otherwise I might end up being sad.



And to round out the downtempo side of things, a little something from Senior. Dug it out once again as December rolls in, and it remains just as fitting as ever, I would love to see Ryxp try their hand at another ambient style record in the future, here's hoping.



-Claude Van Foxbat