Ilictronix Podcast: The Winter One

"Claude and Adam close out the year with some festive tracks and winter themes."

We are live with our (potential) final podcast of the year! I immediately betray my 'no downtempo selections' idea I've been throwing around for the last couple of episodes. BUT in my defence, all of these are tracks that have never featured on my previous winter downtempo lists, (with the exception of The Knife) which is the reason I used them for this one. It's a real mixed bag of stuff anyway, starting off with the all time cult classic Santa Claus from Le Knight Club; one of my favourites from Crydamoure no matter the season, and all the more apt right now. After that I take you on a tour of my winter themed selections, starting with an actual factual Christmas song from Röyksopp, then I wax lyrical about the old 'chillout' records I used to pick up in a bit of a roundabout way: by first sharing yet another piece from my all time top soundtrack provider Yoko Kanno that wouldn't sound out of place on those kinds of albums, before revisiting one of the few pieces from Alpinestars' White Noise that I think has still held up all those years later. This episode marks the first appearance of The Flashbulb from me as well, one of my favourite not-mainstream producers of the already non-mainstream experimental electronic in that Aphex Twin and the like vein. Like I say in the episode, there's an intimidating amount of work in his back-catalogue, but the album that the tune I chose is from Soundtrack To A Vacant Life is a good starting point if a little on the long side. I round things out with The Knife's absolutely stellar opening track from their equally stellar album Silent Shout which I've already talked about at length in previous posts. It's good stuff.

Adam also shares his selections in this style. They're predictably more upbeat than mine as you might expect, it's a fantastic cross-section of Adam's listening and certainly one to have on as we approach the 31st. There's a whole host of stuff to get yourself stuck into; from vintage and slightly sleazy house from Paul Johnson, to the brilliantly modernised filter house of the outro track Harry Parsons' We Can Only. I'm kinda kicking myself for not adopting Adam's end-of-year theme as well, it would have been nice to do one of the old-style NYE track dumps I used to do in podcast form, but hey there's always next year! Tracklist and the rest follows.

Tracklist:
Intro:
Le Knight Club - Santa Claus

Claude’s picks:
Röyksopp - Le Cantique de Noel
Yoko Kanno - Strangers
Alpinestars - Snow Patrol (Part 2)
The Flashbulb - Warm Hands In Cold Fog
The Knife - Silent Shout


Adam’s Picks
Stash Magnetic - Things Fall Apart
Paul Johnson - Suck My Candy Cane
Rimbaudian - Drop It On EmM
The Higher - The Core
V.I.C.A.R.I. - Pascia

Outro:
Harry Parsons - We Can Only


Show Notes:
There are none for this week as far as I know! I'll give the show a listen once I'm done with work for the year and update if need be though.



And that may very well be the final podcast of the year, Adam may be throwing up some NYE stuff closer to the time or maybe in early '19 tho. I'll wrap up by thanking y'all for sticking with us for another year, especially during the latter half. We had a real spanner thrown in the works around August time which meant I had to take the site offline for about a month I think. That's all behind us now, and I appreciate those that have stuck with us during the format change from posts to podcasts as well. It hasn't been easy for us and I imagine the same goes for all you as well. But it's keeping us to a schedule, myself and Adam have had some really good talks and shared some really interesting songs along the way, there are still some growing pains and issues to iron out for sure, but overall I think it's been very successful. Here's to more podcasts to come in 2019! I'll close out with what's fast becoming my line: Stay safe, and enjoy the music out there all of you. We'll leave the light on for you.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Spotify (And Bonus Soundcloud) Selections December

As I was prepping this December's playlist, I almost fell into the trap I set for myself every year of going down a downtempo rabbit hole. So, this year I decided nah let's swap hemispheres for a change and inject a little bit of warmth into our end of year selections. Starting with a little something I've had sitting in my inbox for a long time now (apologies to the artist!), it unfortunately came to us during the time where I had to take the site down for a little while to sort some stuff out. Regardless it stayed on my radar and I've been trying to find a spot for it and now seems as good a time as any to deploy it and now seems as good a time as any.

Jean Sean is someone we've covered before here a couple times in the past, and the remix fiend didn't disappoint this time. As much as I like to abuse this analogy, this rework took me straight back to the blog house days, more specifically to the like of Crookers (crikey, remember when Fidget House was a thing?) and of course more specifically Major Lazer, who thanks to this remix I found out are still active and making stuff too so I owe Jean Sean thanks for that too. It's not all going to be this bombastically dancehall-esque sound unfortunately, but I think it sets up the anti-downtempo selections I have n mind quite nicely indeed.



Starting off, we're keeping the "They're still around?" theme going, with a two-for-one from Mylo AND Louis La Roche. Mylo was a big deal in the mid 00's, he did a real good house album called Destroy Rock & Roll that had some quality singles on it; Paris Four Hundred, In My Arms and Doctor Pressure and then just kinda dropped off the face of the earth. Only on checking out Spotify was I informed that he'd done another EP this year! and with former 'French Touch' blog house darling Louis La Roche to boot. To be fair to Louis, I don't think he ever went away or stopped making tunes, I just didn't keep up with anything he did post 2010 or so. and it seems that he's left the side-chaining sample laden production of his past behind, at least the blatantly late 90's french house type. There's some samples and the like on here that make me questio nwhether they're chasing the 'tropical house' trend but still, it's nice to hear from 'em.



Naturally, I couldn't just leave it at that, so for the next couple tunes I went back into my memories and dug out some house from days gone by. Starting withprobably my first non-Talking Heads exposure to David Byrne in the gorgeously smooth Lazy from X-Press 2 (that's only a little bit depressing with it's lyrical content). Followed that up with the delightfully funky bonus track Fit Your Heart from Benjamin Diamond. I had to restrain myself from going all out with the funky stuff at this point, so I limited myself to just a couple more in this style. Modjo was a natural choice here, and hipster me wasn't just going to go with the shoo-in of Lady, instead I opted for Music Takes You Back, which I've had several people confuse for Jamiroquai when it's appeared on playlists. The last quarter when it all comes together is where it really shines. What would a dive into funky stuff be without a dash of Chromeo? I thought about putting on a bit from Business Casual here as I recently talked about it on the Podcast, but man Fancy Footwork is just so damn good, here we are 11 years after release, and I'm still madly in love with all the little synth hits and twinkles on the title track.

Ok, so I might've lied about keeping it totally upbeat, but we managed halfway! Besides, it's fast becoming winter at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere. We're keeping things a little bit funky tho, with the original Electric Counterpoint from Steve Reich. I talked about the Royksopp edits of this one that they did as freebies some time ago, and as much as I like them I've grown a real fondness for the original. It's a funny clash of electronic style composition with more traditional instrumentation. I'd hesitate to call it drone but if you swapped out the guitar for some lush synth pads it'd probably fit right in. Speaking of, when I was throwing around ideas in my head for this playlist I was running some errands in the rain when my shuffle decided to serve this one up to me. I do't think any of these playlists has had Tangerine Dream on as of yet, they've enjoyed a recent bump in popularity after working on the OST for Grand Theft Auto V of all things, (I'd love to get my hands on the limited edition CD they made from the OST, songs like Mission Possible are just gorgeous). Some questionable album art choices aside, I firmly believe they're a must have in any electronic fan's lists.

On a similar vein, Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack should be familiar to any electronic music fan, if only for Blade Runner Blues alone (though again I am biased because I absolutley could listen to that brassy analogue synth sound all day). Spotify doesn't have the expanded re-release of the Blade Runner OST, and I didn't feel like dropping the 8-minute synth Jam of Blade Runner Blues on you so I went with Wait For Me instead. Though a little more dated in terms of sound than Blues, especially with those MIDI horns, Wait For Me remains an evocative piece and one of my favourites from the OST. Rounding out my suddenly vintage selections is Kraftwerk, of course. They hold a special place in my heart as I've mentioned several times in the past, partly nostalgia and partly my weakness for techy sounds in general. Computer World 2 is a tune I've been meaning to talk about for a while now, I think its by far and away the most obvious tune to point to when it comes to the evolution of electro, and eventually techno. It's almost too easy to draw the line between the Underground Resistance and similar productions myself and Adam have been talking about and Computer Love 2.

And finishing this week, I've included Koshkina from Dispak that I included on last week but one's podcast. I've been doing some menial file management on-and-off all week and the lush sounds of the EP have been making it not as much of a slog as it could have been. Coming hot off the heels of me finding new appreciation for songs like Akira Takemoto's Island In Video Casset as well, it's been an interesting change up of sounds for me. I've just realised that the code to link to their bandcamp was broken in the original post too so I've not only fixed that, but will be including it again here. If you likewhat you hear you can stream it on Spotify (obviously), but if you like what you hear and want to pick it up, head on over to Their Bandcamp, the page has a full description of the process behind th eEP#s recording as well which makes for an interesting read and an insight into the inner workings of the EP. If you enjoyed the sounds of Koshkina I highly recommend the full thing out.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Bumpworthy for NYE

"Claude and Adam share their favorite tracks of the week. In this episode Claude brings a selection of rare beat music and shares the impact of Adult Swim bump music. Adam explores tracks he will play for New Years parties."

We are back with our penultimate show of 2018! And I couldn't have picked a better summary of our two selections styles than this episode right here. As the short description above says, I take you all on another digital crate digging tour of my drives, sharingsome stuff from nearly decade old mixtapes, and some insider scoops I've gotten from long-time friend of mine and the blog Evan, who's producing now under his EVK95 moniker. Adam switches things up and does a complete 180 on my downtempo beat-focused selections and uses this episode as a testing ground for his potential New Year's mix content. I enjoyed the insight though, takes me back to when I used to put together New Year's track dumps that had bits and pieces of every genre in there, from Drum & Bass to Trance and the like. Anyway, the show's a little shorter this week but only due to my selections being fairly short by nature, the amount of tunes is the same and we have some good talk to boot. As always: stay safe, enjoy the music, and we'll see y'all next week!

Tracklist:
Intro:
Taraval - Aardvark

Claude’s picks:
Ev K - Sweet
Stevo - Can I
Knxwledge - Rude
Deadbeat Demon - The Dealio Sounds
Flying Lotus - Slow It Down


Adam’s Picks
Perko - Rounded
Roman Rauch - Hausware
Kaytranada - It Was Meant 2 B
Ruffneck Revival - Saturday Love
DJ Bone - Circus World

Outro:
MF Doom - Saffron


Show Notes:
There are many sites that sought to archive all things Adult Swim bump related out there, the one I had in mind (and the title of this episode) is Bumpworthy.com, which is by far and away my most used back when I was super into them. It displays artist and track names too, so if you feel like looking up your faves you can, but more importantly if there's a tune you particularly like there's a high chance of the site having the info!

Predictably, it was a bit of digital crate digging to find Stevo's Muffins (and google getting confused with the actual Steve-O) but the original Mediafire (cor, remember that?) link is still up, and it works! Those of you looking for Stevo's one and only release can find it here. Be aware that Mediafire has become a bit of an ad-riddled mess in the interim years, keep an eye out for malicious pop-ups and the like.

I'm just going to reserve this spot down here for later, I'm fairly sure that Adam had some stuff to go in the show notes that I'm forgetting about. But like always I'll fill this in when he gets back to me, or I listen to the episode and find out whichever comes first.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: The Unintended Videodrome + Adam's Best Of Brainfeeder

"Claude and Adam talk about their favorite tracks of the week. This episode Claude shares his favorite songs that he can never skip. Adam lays out the best Brainfeeder tracks of all time."

We are live for this week! What started as a selection of tracks I can't skip whenever they come up, it fast turned into a cross section of music videos as I was writing the show notes as I ended up including a video for each tune other than the Felix track from the intro. That tune I picked for the opening as well is one of the few where I'd describe the bassline as fat, which we talk about a little in the opening preamble. I touch a little on my thoughts on the album it's from (Kittenz & Thee Glitz) which I also wrote down way back when, I'm saving that in-depth discussion for another day though. Other than that, it's a fairly usual selection form me, frequent readers of the blog in the past will see some very familiar names as we take a trip down trip-hop lane courtesy of Massive Attack and Björk, a touch of The Knife and The Chemical Brothers followed by Squarepusher's second appearance in as many weeks.

Adam also takes us on a whirlwind tour of Brainfeeder once more, something that I certainly appreciated as I am incredibly unfamiliar with any output of the label other than Thundercat and the like. I was aware of the breadth of sound that the label had to its name, but having a curated list makes it that much easier to digest (this is something we also touch on in the episode, actually). It makes what would be a deep dive a much more targeted process, any artists you like the sound of from Adam's picks you can use almost like a springboard to others that take your fancy. Full tracklist follows as per usual.

Tracklist:
Intro:
Felix Da Housecat - Sequel 2 Sub

Claude’s picks:
Massive Attack - Protection
Björk - All Is Full Of Love (Radio Mix)
The Knife - Heartbeats (Live)
The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar
Squarepusher X Z-Machines - Sad Robot Goes Funny


Adam’s Picks
Martyn - Masks
Teebs - Arthur's Birds
Jeremiah Jae - Guns Go Off
Tokimonsta - Bright Shadows
DJ Paypal - Slim Trak

Outro:
Mono/Poly - Ra Rise


Show Notes:
A whole heap of music videos this week! Going in order of my picks, we kick off with Massive Attack’s Protection, which has a lovely evocative video that’s filmed in a really unique top-down perspective that can be a little confusing at first (it makes sense after watching it for a bit, trust me).

The first video I actually mention; Bjork’s All Is Full Of Love. By far and away the least disturbing of Chris Cunningham's directorial works, I highly recommend checking this one out, if only to see how amazingly well the practical FX + minimal CG combo has held up.

The live version of Heartbeats is a treat for the eyes and ears, Andreas Nilsson’s visual direction is on point, and the sibling duo are delightfully weird as always. Theatrics aside, the live version is beautifully evocative. Karin Dreijer was one of my favourite vocalists ever anyway, but performances like this seal the deal for me. For anyone interested, the Full concert film is also on YT here as well

The cult classic Chemical Brothers video next too.. I gave the gimmick away in the actual podcast, but it’s still a solid watch, if a little bit pandering to the 3AM stoner TV demographic. Some of the CG is a little janky in parts but it’s still an absolutely iconic piece of electronic music media, both it’s visuals and audio.

The promo video for Squarpusher’s Z-Machines collaboration finally, seems like this is the only video of the song on YT as well oddly enough. I still love it all these years later, even if those constant cuts in the video edit get on my nerves more than a tick. I’d love for the entire vid to be made up of those lingering close up shots as seen in the intro, but alas.

Ilictronix Podcast: Tech (And Relationship) Issues

Claude and Adam discuss and play their favorite tracks of the week. This Week Claude shares a user submitted track from Dispak and shares cuts from Apparat, Modeslektor and Wisp. Adam processes a breakup and shares a comforting playlist

This week's ilictronix podcast is now live! I carefully skirt the idea of just using cuts from my Cyberpunk playlist once again, instead focusing more on a specific 'techy' sound. I don't mean techno by that, and I hope my classification becomes clear after the first couple of songs. Opening with Squarepusher's deliciously smooth Plug Me In, before sharing a submitted track and diving deep once again into the semi-obscure of my collection with a host of Aphex Twin bootlegs from Wisp. Adam changed up his selections last minute in response to the situation mentioned above, nothing like the super depressive Gloomy Sunday playlist we used to make; Adam takes us on a tour of his mind and share some audio-based comfort during his trying times. An interesting (if unfortunate in terms of circumstance) methodology, always interested to hear what he comes up with and this week was especially good in that regard. We had some slight technical issues during the first few songs, but thanks to our method of locally recording our inputs we've managed to work around it with little to no other issues! Tracklist and show notes follow as always:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Squarepusher - Plug Me In

Claude’s picks:
Dispak - Koshkina
Apparat - Get Out Of Your Krib
Modeselektor - Don't Panic
Aphex Twin - Z Twig (Reworked By Wisp)
Ben Prunty - Mantis (Battle)


Adam’s Picks
Drexciya - Aqua Worm Hole
Basic Channel - Q Loop
Mala - Alicia
Millsart - Gamma Player
Fingers Inc. - Can You Feel It

Outro:
Golden Donna - Should


Show Notes:
A lot of show notes this week, starting off with Dispak's EP that I talked about as my first selection You can pick up their EP on bandcamp, the EP also has the full description I was trying to read when talking about the EP (only to be foiled by my internet dying as it was loading). It's a short one at 3 tracks, but if you enjoyed the sounds of Koshkina or any of my other choices this week I highly recommend checking it out.

I was slightly wrong about the Wisp Reworks of Selected Ambient Works 2 they were actually released way back in '04, but on a now-defunct net-label called TavCOM Records. It's not a high quality release, the tracks vary from 128-192kbps but they're still a nice listen. I managed to find the arcive site where I'm pretty sure I originally picked the EP up from. At any rate, you can find the link here to grab the EP if you so choose (It's a direct download of a .zip).

And finally, as mentioned on the show, you CAN get FTL's soundtrack from Steam, but if you want it in 320/FLAC I'd recommend buying it from Ben Prunty's Bandcamp, where you can ot only find his soundtracks for FTL and Into The Breach, but his other music projects too. As mentioned on the show, the FTL soundtrack is well worth picking up, and even comes with extra goodies like the notes from Ben himself about the tracks. And also be sure to get the expanded FTL: Advanced Edition Soundtrack too, it's a handful of extra tunes Ben did for a big update for the game and is well worth your time if you've enjoyed what you've heard so far. it's a name-your-price release so you can scoop it for free if you want also.

The British Bonanza (Podcast Supplement)

Holiday season means there'll be no traditional podcast episode this week, instead we have a kinda mixtape dealie from yours truly Van Foxbat. The running theme, as you might have guessed from the title is that all artists featured hail from the ilses I call home. I've had this selection half baked in a forgotten section of my HDD for some years now, I took it out and spruced it up a little bit, gave it a few extra tracks and here we are.



So please enjoy my slightly eclectic seletions for this week, we go from the skeletal electropop of Broadcast into some more folky stuff courtesy of the Grape Dgging Sharon Fruits, before making our way into drum & bass territory by way of a house tune from Commix; leading us into the gorgeous and etheral Timeless from Goldie, and the supremely lush Sanctuary from Omni Trio before coming to a close with The Chemical Brothers' Surface To Air, one of my all time favourite final tracks from an album. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week! Formatted track-list can be found below as usual. Me and Adam will be back to usual schedule next week, (at least until the December holiday season) see you then!

Tracklist:
Broadcast - I Found The F
Grape Digging Sharon Fruits - Man-Made Reservoir
Commix - Burn Out (Fade Away)
Goldie - Timeless
Omni Trio - Sanctuary
The Chemical Brothers - Surface To Air

-Claude Van Foxbat

Spotify Monthly Selections November

I tried for this month's selections to return to a form I've used the past when Fall starts to draw in. We kick off with my upbeat side of the playlist, the 4 covers making up the playlist cover all being lovely shades of purples and pinks (fitltingly, some of these tunes are taken from my Magenta playlist). Opening with the very un-MSTRKRFT like remix of Zhu's In The Morning, which also makes an appearance on my fictonal nightclub playlist and it's not hard to see why, from the sound of it alone I can almost see the strobes. We get a little crate diggy with the next one, Felix Da Housecat's (previously exclusive to copy of Mixmag of all things) Son Of Analogue has appeared on Spotify. Despite the date listed on Spotify It's originally from 2011, which is fitting when you dive into the meat of the LP. Felix's post-electroclash slightly funky pop style that formed the backbone of He Was King is in full effect here, featuring the vocal talents of his long-time collaborator Harrison Crump we have I Just Want To Be The One.



We take a turn into more dancefloory stuff with another helping from Laurent Garnier. I haven't been able to get enough of Shapes Under Water, and it's been doing a bang up job of clearing the dustoff my shelves with it's relentless basslines and heavy kicks. Vitalic makes an appearance with one of my favourites from the expanded re-issue of OK Cowboy in You Are My Sun. Again my bias is showing a little bit here because the combination of a fantastic electro melody and vocoder should tip some of you off to why it's one of my faves. The purple covers end with another bit of electroclash from Fischerspooner. #1 isn't as sleazy as I remember, especially compared to other releases in the genre around the time, but it does have its moments. As much as I loathe to call a tune 'sexy' I think it's unavoidable to mention when it comes to Turn On, a fairly sedate tune accompanied with some sultry vocals it definitely fits the bill.

We return briefly to the dancefloor for the anthem to excess in Röyksopp & Robyn's Do It Again. The lyrics totally wouldn't be out of place on an electroclash tune, and Robyn's delivery is on point as usual. Some of the lines might even cut a little too deep for my liking, especially during the breakdown, almost certainly one for the "Why I'm Crying In The Club" playlist. We dive further into that feeling though, with CFCF's remix of HEALTH's Dark Enough making the tune a huge juxtaposition in sound and tone. On the surface it sound like a fairly standard 'indie' electronic remix which is inoffensive enough but the lyrical accompaniment by HEALTH relally pushes it into something else; "Does it make a difference if it's real? As long as I still say I love you". Anyway, be sure to stay tuned for the deliciously 90's house-esque break at 2:55 too!

We round out with Kleerup's bittersweet 3AM, like much of his self titled debut it carries on that Juxtaposition of sound I was talking about just above, though with a more electropop streak to it. I'd recommend it doubly hard if you really liked Röyksopp's Junior, it's got that same vibe to it and even shares a guest vocalist in Lykke Li. The penultimate track is a band I've liked from a distance for some time now, they haven't had much mention just because it was difficult to fit into any playlists, but now's the perfect time to deploy some Trembling Blue Stars. I really enjoy all I've heard from them but it's definitely one to enjoy in small doses because hoo boy do they have A LOT of sad songs. Ironically enough one of my favourites of theirs is No More Sad Songs which almost made the cut.

Playing us out is Clark's The Autumnal Crush from Body Riddle. It finishes the album and does it ever finish it. It's a tour de force of Clark's sound and by far one of the most intense listening experiences I've had. The understated intro ends after 30 seconds or so with a voice saying "And I still miss... you" before giving way to an absolute explosion in sound. And not content with that, Clark notches the intensity up even more after 40 seconds or so, where the drums come in full force. And that's only the start of the ride; the gradual distortion of that main melody over the runtime is something to behold. It's not for everyone, granted, but it's one of the key examples I hold up when people say Electronic music has no emotion, I often describe this one as crushing to listen to and I don't think that description is too far exaggerated.

And that's this month's selections! I Apologise for the slightly inconsistent days they update, I try and keep them all up for around the same amount of time which has meant shifting the dates around a little. Regardless, I hop you enjoy this months admittedly eclectic offerings, and I'll be back next month with more!

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: The Season Of Tech

Claude and Adam share and discuss their favorite tracks of the week. This week, Claude digs deep in his techno crates and Adam plays his darker tracks for the changing seasons. Featuring tracks from Galaxy 2 Galaxy, Aphex Twin, Bjarki a new track from Clark and more!

This week's ilictronix podcast is now live! I changed the idea I had for my selections based on Adam's opening choice, I talk a little bit about it in the intro chat of the show, but the short of it is that I canned a planned generic Cyberpunk rundown from my spotify playlist of the same name and instead went all in on the techno front. It's of course front loaded with Artificial Intelligence-era Warp stuff but stay tuned, I pull out a couple of rarities towards the end! I also say later on in the episode, but I wanted my choices to be a nice grab bag of techno I like, so that it could serve as a nice jumping in point for anyone listening who's interested, because 'Techno' is an incredibly broad label to tackle. Adam also hits it out of the park with his choices, diving deep intro darkness, treating us to yet another annual installment of his Fall-come-Winter playlists as the brutal Chicago winter begins to take hold. I always enjoy hearing what he comes up with, and especially when I get yet another reminder to pull my finger out and update my Clark-related listening. Tracklist and show notes follow as always:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Nebula - Deep Space

Claude’s picks:
F.U.S.E - A New Day
Aphex Twin - Polynomial-C
Musicology - Telefone 529
Joey Beltram - The Vertical
Bryan Zentz - Floating Point


Adam’s Picks
Bjarki - This 5321
Jensen Interceptor - Battery Assault
Clark - Harpsichord E.C.S.T.
Smerz - Worth It
Vtgnike - Gkbeats

Outro:
Galaxy 2 Galaxy - Jupiter Jazz


Show Notes:
The video Adam was talking about of Squarepusher live at Fuji Rock was easy enough to find, on Squarepusher's own channel of all places. He's appeared there a few times since but this is most definitely peak classic 'pusher, the VHS artifacts and the downright vintage laptop he's using only add to that. Joking aside, it's great to see not only the man himself, but also the crowd be super into it, even if it does get a little experimental at times. 'Pusher was nice enough to include a tracklist in the video description too; the set's split into two parts: Part One and Part Two

I thought I'd also link the details of the Ghost In The Shell albums I talked about. Kicking off with Megatech Body, where I apparently had my own Mandela Effect moment because it's actually called CD and not Co? I guess it would make sense with the vinyl pressing too. Anyway, there's a discogs page with all the different pressings in and all their deliciously 90's graphic design; very handy if you're looking to avoid the Taiwanese bootlegs that exist. If you're looking to pick it up remember to look for the LTD. edition one, it has an extra CD that almost doubles the tracklist!.

The same goes for the tribute albums, I thought that discogs only had the bootleg pressings listed but that seems to have changed. There's a few for sale on there too if you'd like your own slice of obscure techno history! The first album, with the endearingly Japanese title Tribute Category:Techno Style seems to be a little cheaper than the sequel, I can't think of why other than the Scan X track having an incorrect name on the booklet (it's labelled 'Reflections' on the pack when the tune in question is 'Higher', and unlike the Zentz track I mentioned in the episode, they did see a release beyond this compilation.) The second, dubbed in suitably technological fashion Tribute Category:Techno Style Ver2.0.0 is there too, but there's no traclist errors to speak of here. I will say I like discogs new system of showing you the release history of a track if you click on the title of it, makes it easy to make sure I'm not spreading misinfo. I used to to make sure that I was right when I said the Zentz tune only appears on that comp, which it does.

Just as a final aside, if you fall down the rabbit hole of trying to track down soundtracks and similar stuff to the above, another helpful resource other than discogs is VGMDB, as it's name suggets, it's essentially discogs but for animated series' and videogames. Makes it handy to track down catalog numbers and cross reference tracklists if need be. It also has a marketplace like discogs, so it's definitely worth checking out in this case. It's not as populated as Discogs' marketplace, but it can help if you're looking for something super obscure!

And that should be it for the show notes this week, if there are any missing I'll update the post as and when I'm made aware of them as I re-listen to the episode. I'm really happy with how this week's tunred out in therms of selections and talk, despite my slightly cobbled-together tracklist I think I did a good job of nailing what I like about techno, and of course it's always nice to have someone else's selections to get stuck into too. Myself and Adam will be back next week with more of the usual, until then, stay safe and enjoy the music all! We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Sample Stories & Adam's Mini Mix

Claude and Adam talk about their favorite tracks of the week. Claude takes listeners on a story of sampling and shares how different tracks can use a sample. Adam shares a mini mix.

We return! This time we both tactically deploy little somethin' somethin's we've been holding in the wings. I lead the episode by using The Nightmares On Wax track to set up my three-in-a-row set of songs revolving around one sample (and the original too), with some more funky stuff courtesy of Chromeo and Thundercat rounding out my choices for this week. Adam treats us to something he's mentioned a few times in the past, in lieu of our usual tnes 'n talk combo, Adam instead gives us a mix he did the night we recorded! It's an idea I've mulled in my mind when there's been a few scheduling conflicts that might have made me unable to appear, so I'm more than happy to see it work out so well. Also I apologise in advance for the slightly rambling tangent I go on towards the end of the sample stories section, I make some good points and all but we were having connectivity issues, in the interest of keeping our audio synced I went a little off the cuff! Of course, the full tracklist and show notes follow as always:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Nightmares On Wax - You Wish

Claude’s picks:
Chromeo - Don't Turn The Lights On
Gary Low - I Want You
Miss Kittin & The Hacker - The Beach
Washed Out - Feel It All Around
Thundercat - Heartbreaks + Setbacks


Adam’s Mix
Geography Of Heaven - Pinky Promise
R.M - Chikyu-u 002
Cosmjn - Sunset Soul
Viceversa - Flat Earth
Rimbaudian - Let Me Beat U
Rythm Plate - String Thing
Lousie Chen - Reach (Raw Mix)

Outro:
Ian Pooley - Feel It



Show Notes:
Oh boy here we go. Starting off with the sample I mentioned at the beginning, You Wish HEAVILY takes elements from Judy Clay & William Bell's Private Number, like from the word go. Which is funny 'cos I was holding onto this to make another instalment of sample stories, because it's also heavily sampled in Pretty Light's Finally Moving too in pretty much the same fashion.



A little light on the show notes this week, and I can **guarantee** that I will have forgotten a couple, it's late here in the UK so I'll have a proper listen over the next couple days and fill in any I find. To repeat what I said at the end of my section of this episode, I ask you all to be safe out there and of course to enjoy the music naturally. See you all next week for more from Myself and Adam, we'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: The Halloween Special 2018!

It's a Halloween Special! Claude and Adam share their favorite spooky tracks.

Right on time this week, with our suitably spooky selections to trick or treat your ears. Our trend of going ironic with our intro tunes continues, what could top our hardstyle 4th of July special? well, some Skeletonized trap might do just that! Outside of that, my selections are a far cry form my old days of posting dancefloor-orieted tunes I take a dive into my library and dust off some of the darker sounds I have on offer; the downtempo streak continues with my first offering being some gorgeously macabre Dark-wave (though not before the terrifying spectre of eurobeat makes a very brief cameo in the intro!) Adam takes us on an eclectic ghost train of selections, ranging from Industrial to House and Acid and back. I didn't want this ep to descend into slightly spooky dancefloor stuff and I think we pulled that off spectacularly, Apologies in advance if these selections aren't your bag, we'll be back to our usual programming come next week! Tracklist and show notes follow as always:

Tracklist:
SPECIAL FAKEOUT Intro:
Mega NRG Man - Back On The Rocks (ends at 0:22)
Spooky Scary Skeletons (NoXuu Remix)

Claude’s picks:
Suilen - Zakuro
Clark - Vengeance Drools
Akira Yamaoka - Nightmarish Waltz
Hayato Matsuo - Badrick
El Huervo - Ghost


Adam’s Picks
Blawan - Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?
Nine Inch Nails - Sin
Jenny Hval - Female Vampire
Bam Bam - Wheres Your Child?
Sax - Don't Turn Your Back On Me (Halloween Mix)

Outro:
Carpenter Brut - Escape From Midwich Valley (Live)


Show Notes:
I immediately found that Dr. Dre produced tune I mentioned offhandedly with some vague googling, contrary to what I said Dre isn't ON the track but rather produced it. It's called (fittingly enough) Monster Rapping by Laylaw, released in '85, it's a far cry form the G-Funk and gangsta rap stuff that would make Dre's name much later.

Adam's contribution to the show-notes came in the form of a link simply labelled SKINNY PUPPY - LIVE 1986, definitely worth a peek if you want to hear what Adam was talking about, doubly so if you're like me and just like peeking at different aesthetics of genres and decades!

A little light on the show notes this week it seems, I have an itching feeling I've missed a couple but give me a day or so to have a proper scrub through the full cast and I'll add any that are missing. I'm goign to echno wat I said towards the end of this episode and just ask you all to be safe out there no matter what you're doing this eve (or this weekend too) and of course to enjoy the music. Myself and Adam will be back next week with more of the usual, I think we've figured out the background noise issue but you'll all know when I do. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Replacement Pod Service

Claude and Adam discuss their favorite tracks of the week. This week Adam shares a list of his favorite tracks for this summer and Claude talks about Japanese bonus tracks and cuts from two different Akira's. *Uploaded late due to Adam being very sick.*

This slightly late instalment of the ilictronix podcast (due to technical issues we recorded in two parts, and Adam is ill as mentioned above, but hey it's the first time we've been late!) is coming to you to make your Monday this week, just before we get into our super spooky special selections for next week; I return to my usual routine of downtempo vibes, with a cross section of tunes I'm feeling at the mo, including a Japanese Bonus Track from Flylo's Until The Quiet Comes to kick things off, and of course what would some patented Van Foxbat selections be without some soundtrack stuff? The two Akiras that tripped Adam up: Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame, and Takemoto of Serial Experiments Lain. Adam gets all nostalgic for the sounds and times of Summer now we're deep into Fall, sharing a variety of tunes and telling us why they're on his list. TBH that's part of the reason I started this while podcast thing back up again so I'm super into it, I absolutely love hearing the accompanying tales for various tunes. Anyways, full tracklist follows as per ususal:

Tracklist:
Intro:
DJ Tonka - Summerthang

Claude’s picks:
Flying Lotus - The Things You Left (Japanese Bonus Track)
Casino Versus Japan - Metrobolt
Boards Of Canada - Music Is Math
Akira Yamaoka - The Reverse Will
Akira Takemoto - Island In Video Casset


Adam’s Picks
Peggy Gou - It Makes You Forget
Scan 7 - The Resistance
Special Request - Brainstorm
Lab79 -Test Two
Mhysa - Strobe

Outro:
DJ Mehdi - Survivol


Show Notes:
The full fanpage breakdown of Boards Of Canada's Geogaddi with a big old list of the references, samples and even transcripts of some of the harder to hear and reversed samples on Geogaddi can be found over here on Bocpages, it's even got some interesting interviews from the band themselves, as well as extra fan theories and the like. It's an enthralling, if at times slightly unsettling read.

The fan-made mixtapes I mentioned compiling all the trip-hoppy and lighter ambient stuff Akira Yamaoka's made for the Silent Hill Games over the years are both on YouTube: the original mix here and the recently-released updated one Silent Chill Redux here, be aware that the tracklist seems to be using the fan-made titles for some of the songs rather than the ones on the actual release. (IE: on the old mix "Pizza & Bowling" is actually called Alone In The Town on the actually relased SH2 OST)

My print-based Spotify playlists can be found on my spotify profile! but to save you all some searching I'm going to link them all independently here: (C)yan is a bit of a mixed bag, in here you'll find a slightly downtempo leaning collection sprinkled in amongst little bits of electropop, some ambient selections and other various lush sounds. (M)agenta next, which is home to all manner of tunes to cut loose to, a mish-mash of gorgeous tunes of the House, Electro, Synthwave persuasion, plus a few miscellaneous selections to get lost in. (Y)ellow: Home of all things downtempo, with a strong hip hop/trip hop lean to it, with some slightly funkier numbers in there for good measure. And finally, (K)ey. Which is where all the darker parts of my music collection lie. Full disclousre it's not all electronic!

And just because I'm in my playlists, if anyone's big into the Cyberpunk aesthetic like I am, I also have a huuuuge playlist of tunes that fit the genre I'm constantly curating, you can find that here

And once again, that *should* be that for this week. As I've learned doing these, there may be one or two things I've missed or otherwise forgotten to put in the show notes. If so just stay tuned, I give the episodes a quick run through after the posts go up, and I'll edit this post with updates should I have missed any! That's it until next week, join us once again where Me and Adam will be back with more hot takes and even hotter selections. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Spotify Monthly Selections October

Slight noise issues prevented us from recording a *full* episode of the podcast today, so we're going to pick it up again tomorrow. But that actually gave me a chance to looky at the post list and notice I hadn't posted this months spotify playlist and a rundown of my choices. So let's put it on and have us a little dance shall we?

Well, I say that like the selections don't have something in common with my podcast selections for this week. That is they lean on the downtempo side of things. It's also a bit of a nostalgia dive into what I was listening to (and what was new) when I was at university. A lot of these tracks were excellent backing for my AfterEffects animations, starting with the fantastically detuned and distorted sound of Clark's Tooth Moves. We keep it Warp for the meantime with one of my favourites from Cosmogramma after me and Adam gave our mixed opinions on the album I thought I'd at least talk a little bit possibly about it.



A tune I made the mistake of animating a show-reel to, I can now just again appreciate SBTRKT's Never Never however many years after I've graduated, I'd completely forgotten about that incredibly deep bassline for one. Sampha's vocals in combo with the production make for a deliciously smooth package that I've fallen for once again. I remember writing a review of Moderat's II when it was released, and I distinctly remember immediately being head over heels for Let In The Light. Admittedly you all know I have a massive weakness for distorted vocals of any kind, but lately I've been all about those thunderous drums.

Similarly another album I reviewed at the time, Squarepusher's Shobaleader One d'Demonstrator (which actually got a follow up not too long ago finally). It received mixed opinions at the time but man I will always adore that intro track. Once again, full disclosure I love me some vocoder/talkbox goodness but hot damn talk about establishing an aesthetic effectively. I've seen a lot of comments comparing the album to Daft Punk oddly, I can see similarities to bits of Discovery sure but even then that's a stretch, I much prefer the descriptor I've used since a few weeks after the review: Space Jazz.

Which somehow made me think of Ladytron's Destroy Everything You Touch, one of the standouts from Witching Hour, with Marnie's vocals on point as usual. Another dive into my University listenings with the beautifully laboured strings and beats combo of Apparat's You Don't Know Me, and the surprisingly downtempo Green Light Go from Modeselektor. Rounded out with a random pick of a Tokimonsta tune I like (reminder to me to actually pick up some of her stuff finally). Rounded out with the absolutley crushing Amarillo from the Gorillaz's slightly underrated album The Fall, a fantastic sound if the "mostly composed on an iPad" tale is to be believed.

-Claude Van Foxabt

Ilictronix Podcast: Out In The Garage, A Trip Down Memory Lane

Claude and Adam discuss different topics and share their favorite tracks. This week Claude shares a selection of UK Garage and Dub cuts while Adam brings some house tracks. Both go into detail about their music libraries and discuss youtube rips.

The ilictronix podcast for this week continues the running theme we've had for the past couple, I talk a bit about some garage tunes from my days of yoof, and how they eventually morphed into early Dubstep. Adam talks about one of the cornerstones of ilictronix with a rundown of all things house including one of the all time smashers from Crydamoure, The Eternals' Wrath Of Zeus. As mentioned above we get into the nitty gritty of our respective collections and a whole lot of other technicalities; it's also another really long one due to our choices of tunes as well. I know that's probably not for everyone but sometimes it can't be helped, a whopping 9 minutes of it is soley dedicated to Armand's mix of Spin Spin Sugar and frankly, it deserves it! Full tracklist follows:

Tracklist:
Intro:
The Streets - Has It Come To This?

Claude’s picks:
Sneaker Pimps - Spin Spin Sugar (Armand's Dark Garage Mix)
Artful Dodger - Movin' Too Fast
Skream - Summer Dreams
D1 - Chocolate Orange
Pangaea - Router


Adam’s Picks
The Eternals - Wrath Of Zeus
Sweely - My Devotion To You
DJ Romain - All Day All Night
Ian Pooley - Feel It
Champagne Bubbler - Give You (Real Love)

Outro:
Jeanie Tracy - Picture This (Club Remix)


Show Notes:
The Streets video with the dartboard I mentioned was actually recently uploaded to their official channel! so you can enjoy a decent quality look into the life and aesthetic of a northern English working class lad circa the early 2000's. Bad haircuts and questionable jewellery choices intact. This tune is actually a side of The Streets I failed to mention, in addition to tunes like Let's Push Things Forward and Has It Come To This? they have tunes like the above which are more tongue in cheek that I remembered when I mentioned that Prodigy sample but didn't want to jump back to the start with topics.
A more true to life one would be the video for Has It Come To This, there's so many hallmarks of the era that does a great job of placing it. That focus on the Nike trainers around 40 seconds in for starters, fairly sure I had that exact pair. Even though I was much younger than the demographic Mike Skinner's representing in the video, a lot of it is exactly the stuff we did as kids (minus going to the pub, naturally.), hanging out in naff café's and playing PS2 at the one friend's place who had one at the time. To abuse the phrase once again, a real time capsule.

The vintage dubstep forum thread Adam talked about can be seen here. As someone who occasionally stumbles into old forum threads about music, games and more I always like seeing them still up. It's nice to see with hindsight the thoughts of the time, both good and bad. I know that there's posts from a 14-ish year old me on some Daft Punk fan forums out there that I do not care to go find. I find it hard enough to read my old blog posts from when I was 16 as it is never mind that.

And that *should* be that for this week. As I've learned doing these, there may be one or two things I've missed or otherwise forgotten to put in the show notes. If so just stay tuned, I give the episodes a quick run through after the posts go up, and I'll edit this post with updates should I have missed any! That's it until next week, join us once again where Me and Adam will be back with more hot takes and even hotter selections. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: The Drum & Bass Showcase

Drum & Bass special! Claude and Adam share some of their favorite Drum and Bass tracks and talk about Flying Lotus and Brainfeeder. Adam digs out some Paradise Garage tracks. Claude goes through his personal history with the Drum & Bass genre.

The ilictronix podcast for this week is a whole mish-mash of all sorts. Completely coincidentally, me and Adam both turn on the spotlight to a bit of a contentious genre within the electronic umbrella: Drum & Bass. I talk about my past and present listenings in the world of D&B, giving a chronological rundown and background for each of my picks, Adam tries to merge the aesthetically opposite genres of Paradise Garage and Drum & Bass bypicking one of each back to back. Along the way we talk Daft Punk's Filmography, the latest info from Flying Lotus about an upcoming album (and break off into a tangent about FlyLo as a whole, particularly his sound evolution and what's what with Brainfeeder), as well as asking what exactly makes 'Liquid' Drum & Bass?

Tracklist:
Intro:
Dom & Roland - Aliens

Claude’s picks:
Soichi Terada - Time Station
E-Z Rollers - Movin' On
Omni Trio - First Contact
Chase & Status - Take Me Away
Netsky - Let's Leave Tomorrow


Adam’s Picks
Beard In Dust & Arsenaii - Hey Hey
Lemon D - This Is LA
Caroll Williams - Have You For My Love
Tango - Understanding
MCB - Time Is Right

Outro:
Everything But The Girl - Blame (Fabio Remix)


Show Notes:
The Moving Shadow mix I was talking about, 01.1, is up on youtube in full, the use of First Contact as the intro hypes me up till this day. And the adaption with a slightly different tracklist and the Afro-Carribean MC that I mentioned being featured in GTA III as MSX FM can be found there too, despite being set in the USA, it does a fantastic job of capturing the feel of a psuedo-pirate radio station, down to the slightly naff audio quality on the MC's mic.

If anyone's really interested in hearing the (admittedly subtle) differences between the release version of Time Station and the in-game one, here's two videos for each version: The released "Originape Soundtracks" version and the in-game one (I could only find this half hour loop unfortunatley). The difference is more pronounced on other tracks from the game, for example the main synth on Crabby Beach is almost completely different. Whether that's a compression to fit on the game disc issue or Terada just re-recorded it I don't know, but interesting nonetheless. I'd love to hear the technical details about the limitations of PS1 audio if I ever get the chance.

The documentary Adam talked about, Jungle Fever, is available online here via Dazed themselves. it features Fabio who remixed the Everything But The Girl track used for the outro, and Grooverider who almost made the cut with my selections, and also has my second favourite mix of the outro track you can find here (though the nly ones I could find are a little different than on the EP: Everything But The Girl - Blame (Grooverider Jeep Mix)

Adam's Twitter bot he mentioned is @garageclassics on twitter, give 'em a follow if you liked what you heard this episode and want your daily dose of more. Twitter is also telling me that Busy P of Ed Banger Records fame follows said bot which makes sense but is still pretty interesting!
And that *should* be that for this week. As I've learned doing these, there may be one or two things I've missed or otherwise forgotten to put in the show notes. If so just stay tuned, I give the episodes a quick run through after the posts go up, and I'll edit this post with updates should I have missed any! That's it until next week, join us once again where Me and Adam will be back with more hot takes and even hotter selections. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: The Synthwave Special

Its a Synthwave Special! Claude and Adam share their favorite tracks of the week. Claude digs deep in his Synthwave collection and Adam digs through his recent Bandcamp finds.

The ilictronix podcast for this week is up and running! Ditching my MO from previous weeks, I swap out my usual downtempo leanings and instead give a rundown of a few of my favourite things in the ever-expanding and increasingly filled with umbrella genres known as 'synthwave' (though I will admit that the HEALTH track doesn't exactly fit that definition), and Adam takes a leaf out of my book from last week, and talks us through some odds and ends that he's picked up from Bandcamp, Beatport and a variety of other digital storefronts in his time for his own instalment of Digtal Crate Digging™. So don't let the fancy thumbnail mislead you, it's not all a retro synthwave fest like it implies, we have some pretty interesting discussions this episode inbetween the tunes too. Tracklist and notes follow as per usual.

Tracklist:
Intro:
Max Coveri - Running In The 90’s (Sytricka Vaporwave Glitch-Vocals Remix)

Claude’s picks:
Carpenter Brut - Maniac (Live)
HEALTH - Drugs Exist
Scattle - Inner Animal
Garoad - Every Day Is Night
M|O|O|N - Dust (Carpenter Brut Remix)


Adam’s Picks
Mujipuki - Nhubu 2.0
Quasar - We Belong Together
Melodymann - Borderline
Adam Berecki - Nobody
Shanti Celeste - Nu4him

Outro:
Lone - Pulsar


Show Notes:
You can see the live visuals I was talking about for Carpenter Brut's live cover of Maniac here. The visuals also include all the lyrics on screen too, which is a bonus, and in the video description Carpenter Brut helpfully has a vocal credit that I overlook in my episode prep, the vocals are by a one Yann Ligner from KLONE. You can see as well here that he has a live drummer which I forgot to mention and find pretty interesting for an electronic act! It also gives you a glimpse into the absolutely mental atmosphere created, I spotted at least 2 people from the crowd climb the stage and... well... stage dive in my brief scrub through.

You can find the site for the Cyberpunk Bartending Visual Novel I talked about, VA-11 HALL-A, at the fantastic URL that Adam mentioned: waifubartending.com, if you're interested in picking it up it's available on both Steam or GOG. Unlike Hotline Miami and it's ilk, the soundtrack isn't available as DLC for the game, instead the soundtrack is available over on Garoad's bandcamp as 3 separate releases. Every Day Is Night, my selection for this episode is taken from the Second Round OST.

The twitter thread between Lone and friends re: alleged Black Eyed Peas plagiarism can be found here, it's not the first incident of it's kind and it probably won't be the last, I distinctly remember something like this happening between Breakbot and Bruno Mars some years ago.

And with that, we are done for another week of Podcasting! Me and Adam will be back with more same time same channel next week. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Digital Crate Diggin'

Claude and Adam play and discuss their favourite songs of the week. Claude tells the story of one of his rarest tracks. Adam learns about Freestyle and UK Hard House.

Tracklist and notes follow as per usual.

Tracklist:
Intro:
Rhingo - Without Your Love (Dub)

Claude’s picks:
Blu Mar Ten - I Wake Up
Röyksopp - Sparks (Live)
Repeat - Studio 6.1.22
Alpinestars - Brotherhood
Golden Boy With Miss Kittin - Rippin Kittin (Alexander Polzin Mix)


Adam’s Picks
Jitterbug - Dream Memory
Sidney Charles - House Lesson
Ossie - We Mad
Shinichiro Yokota - Do It Again
Brame And Klansee - They’ll Be

Outro:
Projections - Escaping Sao Paulo


Show Notes:
Miss Kittin's archive of the Alexander Polzin mix is here, I'd reccomend her playlist section to all artists as a 'how-to' when it comes to archiving your work!

The remix of Shinichiro Yokota's Do It Again that Adam mentions is the Fabio Monsei Remix, which you can listen to here, it appears on this EP called The Far East Transcripts by Soichi Terada and Shinichiro Yokota

ANd once again for this week, the list that Adam linked me to a big list of tunes this guy on discogs hates, including a huge teardown of Stardust (and various other cult and other big electronic tunes) you can find here. It's the complete opposite of how I try approach criticism but if you need your daily dose of vitriol it's an interesting read, if some iffy reasoning for some of the entries.

And with that, we are done for another week of Podcasting! Me and Adam will be back with more same time same channel next week. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: The Juxtaposition Edition

Claude and Adam share their favorite tracks of the week and talk about; Minimal, Orbital, IDM, My Love is Underground, and more. Adam shares his list of, quote, "CHUNKY DJ BOMBS I'VE JUST ABOUT RINSED".

The ilictronix podcast for this week is live! We have opposite moods when it comes to our selections this week, but that's part of the reason I wanted to start doing the podcast again, as you all know I adore peeking into other folk's listening histories. Speaking of, this episode is much more conversational than our last few, we kinda drift from topic to topic which might not be for everyone but is again another reason I really wanted these to return. It's not often these days I get to talk electronic at length, so I have to thank Adam for that, as well as editing the whole thing together. Tracklist and notes follow as per usual.

Tracklist:
Intro:
B12 - Hall Of Mirrors

Claude’s picks:
Felix Da Housecat - Marine Mood
Marshall Jefferson Vs. Noosa Heads - Mushrooms (Salt City Orchestra Out There Mix)
Ginrei - Hello, Weather
µ-Ziq - Hasty Boom Alert
Ochre - REM Sleep Research


Adam’s Picks
KMA Productions - Cape Fear
NY Stomp - The NY House Track
SE62 - True Force
Paris Underground Trax - Sexy Thing Remix
Bicep - Keep Keep

Outro:
Dreamer G - I Got That Feeling


Show Notes:
I talk in this show (and maybe a few in the past. And probably will in the future too tbh) Ishkur's Guide To Electronic Music which is a really neat resource if you're looking to discover stuff from specific genres (though I take issue with some of the names Ishkur applies to them), but even if you're not looking for new stuff to pickup, it's pretty interesting as a interactive map of genres roots and their histories!

Adam just linked me to a big list of tunes this guy on discogs hates, it's similar to the review he mentions in the show and includes a huge teardown of Stardust (and various other cult and other big electronic tunes) you can find here. It's the complete opposite of how I try approach criticism but if you need your daily dose of vitriol it's an interesting read, if some iffy reasoning for some of the entries.

And with that, we are done for another week of Podcasting! Me and Adam will be back with more same time same channel next week. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music. We'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Spotify Monthly Selections September

A synthwav-y themed selection to start this month's playlist off with. As much as I like the genre every now and then, I do loathe how formulaic the track titles for anything with that sort of sound have become, the spotify recommended additions served up cliché after cliché. Things quickly take a turn into more electropoppy territory though, first teasing it with a little bit from Kleerup's debut album before sliding full on into the gorgeous synth noodling of Games' (now known as Ford & Lopatin) Midi Drift. My favourite track from La Roux's sophomore album after that, hard to believe it's been four years since it came out. A different Au Reviour Simone tune this time too, taking a break from Somebody Who, my usual go-to electropop example of theirs, instead opting for the much more uptempo sounds of Crazy from the same album (Move In Spectrums).

A slightly indie-tinged remix of HEALTH, definitely a far cry from the all out-abrasiveness of the album the original comes from, DEATH MAGIC, I assure you its sound earned it the place in the playlist. Get a load of that deliciously retro house breakdown around 3 mins in. My long-time favourite tune from Ladytron's 604 after that; the backbone of my "their debut album is electroclash and I don't care what the band says" argument, Playgirl certainly fits the bill with its moody monotone delivery and simple electronics. To be fair that's true for a lot of the album, but Playgirl is definitely Exhibit A in that regard.



The new Gorillaz single next as their barrage of new singles from The Now Now continues. I'm not sure what Damon's planning to do here with so many singles, Plastic Beach was full of good tunes and didn't get this much treatment. Though I suppose a lot has changed in regards to music streaming and the like since 2010 and all. One of the instrumentals from Ford & Lopatin's Channel Pressure to round out the retro aesthetic running throughout the playlist and a bit of an abrupt turn into ambient territory to play us out just because that's what I was feeling at the time. A delicate piece from Tim Hecker's An Imaginary Country brings us to a rather sleepy end to this month's playlist.

Me and Adam should be back this Wednesday with another installment of the Podcast, I hope that my month's listening rundown tides you over until then. I know I'm a day late on this instalment of the monthly playlist but they're all archived over on the left side so you can relive each month's going back to the first (or second?) from November last year! As always stay safe and enjoy the music all.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Ilictronix Podcast: Detroit Edition

Claude and Adam talk about Detroit Techno, Vaporwave and Other People Place between sharing the favorite tracks of the week.

The ilictronix podcast for this week is live! Join myself and Adam as we talk about all things Detroit techno/electro, and go off on a pretty lengthy digression about vaporwave. You'll be pleased to know that my audio quality is much improved over last time after a bit of fiddling on mine and Adam's part. Clocking in at just shy of 2 hours long, i's our longest podcast to date, though we had a little helping hand from our track choices in that department. Tracklist and notes follow as per usual.

Tracklist:
Intro:
Mallard - Surface

Claude’s picks:
Japanese Telecom - Virtual Origami
ADULT. - Nite Life
The Other People Place - Let Me Be Me
DMX Krew - I'm All Alone (Cylob's Mix)


Adam’s Picks
Pepe Badrock - 4
Larry Heard - Missing You
Jana Rush - Divine
Gnork - Tokyo Beats
Mad Mike - Hi-Tech Dreams

Outro:
Jack Peoples - Song 02
The Other People Place - Sorrow & A Cup Of Joe

Show Notes:
As mentioned in the show, Lifestyles Of The Laptop Café was reissued on vinyl in 2017 (but not on CD.) Digital versions, both in .WAV and .FLAC as well as 320 MP3s available from Bleep.com, Warp's digital storefront.

And with that, we are done for another week of Podcasting! Me and Adam will be back with more same time same channel next week. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Bk On R BS (The Podcast Returns)

Claude and Adam are back at it again sharing their favorite tunes of the week. Discussions this episode include: The new Justice live album, DJ's in GTA 5, Ghost in the Shell and the landlord stab

We are back after an unintentionally extended break! it was a lot of fun to come back to, though we still have some hiccups here and there (thankfully not literally.) So please enjoy a new instalment of us talking about music, as mentioned above we have some interesting topics this time and it was great to have an actual conversation with Adam about them. Extra thanks to Adam for editing all of this together! Tracklist and notes follow:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Bôa - Duvet (ScummV Remix, JJ's Another Edit)
NOTE: Due to an editing goof (that was partially my fault), this track is both the intro and outro, the intro was *supposed* to be the original ScummV Rmeix

Claude’s picks:
Hideo Kobayashi - Navi 3.0 (Wasei "JJ" Chikada Remix)
zircon & Jillian Aversa - The Search For Ambrosia (NYC Streets)
D∆WN - Serpentine Fire
Cornelius - Ghost In The Shell: Arise
Yoko Kanno - Crystalized


Adam’s Picks
Cajmere - Chit Chat
Spok Da Rok - We Dance (Intr0beatz Remix)
Cybonix - Make This Party Live
Kalisha - I Got Something Here
Underground Resistance Ft. Yolanda - Living For The Night
Landlord - I Like It (Blow Out Dub)

Outro:
Bôa - Duvet (ScummV Remix, JJ's Another Edit)

Show Notes:
Duvet (ScummV Remix) is available for download from ScummV’s Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/scummv/boa-duvet-scummv-remix), check the track description for a link.

Hideo Kobayashi - Navi 3.0 (Wasei "JJ" Chikada Remix) appears on the album Cyberia_Layer 2, which is available to buy Digitally and Physically from JJ’s site, wasei.tokyo, and is available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music etc.

The Search For Ambrosia (NYC Streets) appears on Deus Ex: Sonic Augmentation, which is a free fan project that is still available to download from it’s mini-site over on OCRemix (augment.ocremix.org), either as 8 individual tracks spanning the entire Deus Ex series or the whole thing in one package. It comes with a selection of album art in the style of each of the games too which is pretty neat!

As of the time of writing, the 2016 Adult Swim Singles collection can still be streamed (but not downloaded) from the mini-site at (www.adultswim.com/music/singles-2016/), it can be a little tricky to navigate, but it’s neat nonetheless. There are some mirrors of the .zip and blogs that host the tracks from that year’s program though, so if you do a little bit of virtual crate digging you can still pick them up.

And that wraps up this installment! Me and Adam will be back soon with more in due time. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Present Day, Present Time

Some things never change, in the midst of arranging things for the 10 year anniversary for ilictronix, behind the scenes I've spent after spending the better part of a month back-and-forthing over a copyright issue. I've been planning to put this up for a while anyway, but this just gave me an even better reason to. Besides, it's been ages since I used this Soundcloud account for anything anyway.

Yes we weren't the only ones celebrating recently: super surreal psychological cyberpunk series Serial Experiments Lain also turned 20 this year. One of the contributors to the soundtrack Wasei Chikada celebrated in kind by releasing a sequel to the soundtrack to the fictional Club Cyberia, fittingly called Cyberia Layer_2. The original album Cyberia Mix has been a favourite of mine since I went down a Japanese techno/trance hole a few years ago so naturally I snatched the sequel up ASAP. I was actually going to review the album, but I didn't feel comfortable doing it when it wasn't on any streaming services for me to embed, and it's since fallen by the wayside.



Thankfully though, as a bonus for picking up the LP in physical format, Wasei hooked me up with a promo EP that consists of his rework of ScummV's bootleg remix of Bôa's Duvet (which is brilliant) and the actual live mix he did at the Serial Experiments Lain 20th party. The mix itself is mostly made up of tunes from Cyberia Layer_2 as you might expect from the title, and as such it's a pretty fantastic summary of the album, it's a real mixed bag of genres as the first Cyberia Mix was, dancing effortlessly between Electro, Techno, and House; it even gets a little synth/vaporwavy at one point which is actually very fitting given the source material. Some of the tunes from the original Cyberia Mix also make an appearance to boot, which is a nice touch. There are a couple of hip/trip hop tracks from Layer_2 that I'd have liked to make an appearance, but it's a real solid mix regardless, the appearance of Prototype K towards the end absolutely side swiped me, it's one of my favourite ambient pieces and it's put to downright sublime use here. I've transcribed a tracklist below! all tunes are by Wasei himself unless otherwise stated, and all songs are from Cyberia Layer_2 other than Antidepressant 044, Professed Intention And Real Intention and Prototype K.

Tracklist:
Antidepressant 044
Accela (Original Mix)
Accela (Ko Kimura Remix)
"s"peEd (JJ's Rework)
Got THe Mic
Hideo Kobayashi - Navi 3.0
Cloudy, With Occasional Rain (JJ's Rework)
Kuroshio (Thousand Knives Mix)
Professed Intention And Real Intention
"s"peEd (Q'hey Remix)
Antidepressant 044
Akira Takemoto - Prototype K
Sarasvati


It's been a long time since I've had a live mix added to my collection, I think the last ones I added were a bunch of Ed Banger crew bootlegs around about 2009 or so. it's been pretty nice actually, it's certainly made the commute more interesting that's for sure. Serial Experiments Lain means a lot to me; both the soundtracks and the series itself so I was very happy to see it's 20th anniversary celebrated by so many people, both fans and those involved in both the audio and visual side of things! Enjoy, and I'll see you all next week.

プレゼント • デイ
プレゼント • タイム
-Claude Van Foxbat

Spotify Monthly Selections August

Got my nostalgia cap on for this month's choices. After being asked to put on "like, some electro" for a friend's party playlist I decided to dive my old stomping grounds of electro house and see what was on offer. And once again I'm pleasantly surprised by the selection they have. So I started it with a tune I'd lusted after for ages until it finally got a proper release, Boxer is a masterclass in bombastic electro, I can't get enough of that brassy sound that it has going on. Similarly, before they became purveyors of a song often abused song for memes, Bag Raiders were legit (I say that like they still aren't), this remix was a highlight of my early electro explorations. It takes a little while to get going, but when it does, it does. Tune into 1:46 for the drop.



The rest of the list is a bit of a who's-who of Ed Banger; starting with the criminally underrated soundtrack to Steak from Mr. Oizo, the GOAT Thomas Bangalter edit of Signtune, and of course the absolute grind of SebastiAn's remix of The Kills. No real downtempo turn this time, though things do calm down not long after the Ed Banger block with the sliding scale slowdown of Apparat's mix of Shine Shine bringing this month's flashback fuelled selections nice and softly to their close.

-Claude Van Foxbat

10 Years Of 'Tronix

The new schedule means I've missed the exact date slightly but 2018 is the year that ilictronix has been surfing the digital waves for a decade and if you're into synchronicity, me and the blog actually share the same birthday!. A lot's changed in that time: trends have come and gone, my list of things to add to my collection has grown ever bigger, as has the collection itself. I'm not sure if I ever expected to reach this milestone, I can count few websites that I've frequented for 10 years or more so it's pretty mind-blowing to have my own site hit that.

A special shout out to all the staff we've had over the years, without them ilitronix wouldn't have grown like it did, and I always enjoyed a peek into other people's music collections and to hear their opinions on various releases. An extra special thanks goes out to Jordan too; original site owner for both his continued behind-the-scenes support after I took over, and of course for taking me on as a writer all those years ago, if it weren't for him I'd not be typing this right now.

What's in store for the future of ilictronix? Well I think I've had a nice groove the past few years so more of the same, with some occasional experimentation with formats and the like as you've come to expect. There have been hard times and I may not always have been the most consistent at posting for a while but I'll always keep coming back to have a natter about my latest additions or old favourites. I'd like to thank all who've read over the years, I'll keep writing and I hope you'll keep visiting. Here's to another 10!

I leave you now with a cross-section track dump of my past favourites from last 10 years of ilictronix. This is actually the severely cut down version too, otherwise I could be here all day. Regardless, It's been far too long since I've done one of these!

We've come a long way, baby

ScummV · Bôa - Duvet (ScummV Remix)

Saki Kaskas · Callista (1998)

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

Here In My Car

Roy Lichtenstein - In The Car (1963)

In a remarkable case of serendipity, my shuffle on the way to work served up not one, not two but three vehicular themed tunes in a row. So I thought I'd make a post outta it. First up is fairly recent addition to my library, the first half of the 2004 adaption of Appleseed is chock full of electronic goodness. Some of it's leaning super heavy on the experimental side, but some of it's more conventional which makes for a weird mix. Here's one from a bloke that gives Aphex Twin a run for his money when it comes to aliases, Atom™. It caught my ear from the get go, laying down those bleepy Jimmy Edgar-esque sounds, which only continued when the vocals kicked in. Those of you who've been with us for a while will those distortion effects really press my buttons and the dramatic pitch shift at 1:15 is an incredibly well done and is an absolute treat to listen to on headphones.



Oddly enough the tune that came up next has a fair bit in common with Atom, both in terms of sounds and the vocal distortions as it turns out, though this one is a bit more raunchy with what's going on in the lyrics. My Red Hot Car was one of my first loves from Squarepusher, and truth be told I actually slightly prefer this version from the single than from Go Plastic which is a little bit glitch-ier in it's execution. It's fairly accessible as far as Squarepusher's catalogue goes, those no dramatic turns into IDM territory here, just a lot of Amen Breaks and some lovely electronics. A distinct lack of Bass guitar on here however.



And finally a bit of a left turn (pun intended) into Hip-Hop territory. ANother piece from the relativley obscure and forever impossible to google LA Times compilation FlyLo did for the publication of the same name. The whole thing is a treasure trove of unreleased, unheard and alternate versions of FlyLo's stuff. And this one is an example of that, from the sound of it it's probably from the early days when he was all about making [adult swim] bump-worthy tunes. It wouldn't sound too out of place on the other beat tapes he's had leak out from around the same era like July Heat. It's a bit short and doesn't really evolve over it's runtime but it's still welcome addition to my collection of instrumental hip-hop.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Fest Reminisce

Friedensreich Hundertwasser - 626 The Way To You (1966)

Was talking to a friend about his recent fest trip; and in doing so revisited some homegrown bands that I think I often overlook. Starting with Basement Jaxx, this tune in particular falls into that category of so many forgotten dance songs in that I knew it pretty much from the opening but I'd long since forgotten about it. And I love how fantastically unapologetically bombastic it stats out, that bassy synth and Lisa Kekaula cutting thorough the soft strings of the intro in spectacular fashion. Her delivery is on point too, giving the bitter lyrics a rally cathartic edge. Definitely getting an honorable mention in future for sublime album openers.



Second is one of the actual reasons for this post; I've said a million times before I feel like I don't like The Chem Bros. as much as I should, they're always popping up in my recommends over on discogs and the like but I'd say I'm only passingly familiar with them at best. That is apart from Push The Button, which I know pretty much back-to-front thanks to a friend lending me a copy way back when. I've mentioned a bunch how good Surface To Air is as an album closer (and I almost did again) but I think it's time to give another shout out to another of my favourites from the LP. Hold Tight London is one of my go-to long haul travel tunes, (Ironically enough with all my train travel it should've been Star Guitar) it's seen me many places over the years and every time it feels just as sweet as the first.



Another tune I think falls into that same category is Miss Kittin & The Hacker's Hometown. Released a few years before their big comeback with the album Two, it sheds the techno/electro/clash sensibilities of their work prior and embraces this more House-y sound. The outright vulgarity of Kittin's lyrics is gone too for this single, the debauchery of Frank Sinatra replaced instead by more poetic musings. It's up there as one of my favourites from the duo, and much like Hold Tight London it's progression lends itself well to long-haul listening. I will always adore those synths that back the chorus, as much it feels like The Hacker is teasing you with them until they come round again. Get a load of the nostalgia-laden video:



-Claude Van Foxbat