Songs In The Key Of Chroma: Part 1 - The Upbeat

I've been back on my playlist creation and curation trip again, I wanted to make something akin to mood playlists but didn't want there to be a million and one of them knowing me. So taking a leaf from my art education I divvied them up into your four printing inks, I'll be posting them all so far and giving a quick breakdown of what's within them today.

Cyan 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. If I had to pigeonhole it I suppose it be in the vein of motivational playlists. Think artists like: Röyksopp, Ladytron and Boards Of Canada



Magenta now, there's not as much here as I would like but I'm still building them up (my end goal is 100 tunes for each ink, so stay tuned for updates). In here you'll find all manner of tunes to cut loose to, a mish-mash of gorgeous tunes of the House, Electro, Synthwave persuasion, plus a few more. Think artists like: Perturbator, Carpenter Brut, Macrosss 82-99 and Vitalic



It's been a fun experience, I'm trying to limit myself to 2-4 tunes per artist so there should be plenty variety in there. I already have the other two playlists, Yellow and Key put together on my spotify if you're interested in a sneaky peaky at the upcoming post. Like I said earlier I'll be trying to build each of these up to the 100 mark,so give em a follow if you're into that. I'll be back next week with the other side of the inks which will be a little bit more laid back than this offering.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Out Of Phase

Elmer Bischoff - Figure In Landscape (1957)



Haven't been feeling myself as of late, going to keep the text to a minimum and share some tunes of a more ambient persuasion. Starting with a rare beatless contribution from Flying Lotus, takn from the Ideas + Drafts + Loops compilation he put out some years ago now.



Geogaddi has finally returned to my rotation. In between sinister slices of slightly occult undertones there are some of my favourite lush Boards Of Canada offerings. Over The Horizon Radar will forever be among them.



Squarepusher has few ambient pieces to his name, but those few are all very solid additions. Tommib being one of them, chcok full of gorgeous distrotion and all the things that scratch my itches, but most of all I love the way it subtly fades up to prominence and then just as soon its gone again.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Spotify Monthly Selections January

The start of what I hope will be a regulrarly updating rotation of monthly selections now I've found a suitable streaming replacment in Spotify. January's choices are suitably cold, though it does kick off with a bit of warmth courtesy of the electropop stylings of Röyksopp, keeping it Nordic for a while with Kleerup and Anelli Drecker before moving into more indie pop territory with the likes of Little Dragon. ALl tied together with a suitably ambient ending seciton, featuring recent addition to my listening roster Ocouer. I'm hoping to keep this on a regular schedule from now, so expect a new playlist of what I'm digging aroundabouts the 15th of every month (with some slight tweaks for those weird shorted month like Feburary). See you all next 15th for more!



-Claude Van Foxbat

Standard Protocol

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy - Flower (1925)

A blast from the past as for the first time in I have no idea how long we have an actual, factual shuffle post. These were my bread and butter some years back so it's nice to revisit them once in a while. Speaking of revisiting, I used to skip over this next tune because I wasn't really into the intro, but as the tale's gone so many times before after giving it a little time it turned out to be very much the opposite. The section starting around 2 mins in is extremley powerful, and I wish it stuck around longer. Overall, very nice once you give it the chance.



As for things I don't really dig, this tune is a mixed bag for me. It's incredibly generic at points, even feautring your mandatory EDM style dubstep breakdown towards the midsection. But I can't bring myself ot fully dislike it, for one that ethereal intro is a fantastic reimaging of Beyond The Bounds, and it's already incrdible vocal accompaniment gets a solid treatment here too. I'd love a full-lenght trancy version in the style of the intro, but I can be content with looping it as is for now.



And finally, the final tune and impetus for this post, another tune I'd overlooked because it didn't grab me initially. Once again it does get a little generic in parts especially towards the end but I've grown to like it since. I like the slightly sinister edge to the overall atmosphere, it's like if Distance had some more wobbles going on.



-Claude Van Foxbat

New Year, New Archive

Over the past couple of months (with a holiday break over the end of December, naturally), I've been on a mission to acquire some fairly obscure things not only for myself but so I can post them here and hopefully lessen the search for any others interested in the material. This has been our mission statement with all previous archive posts, the target of today's being none other than Flying Lotus. In addition to the 4000x4000 version of the You're Dead! album art above, I have some tasty findings to share with you all today. More on that in a second, but first a Los Angeles-era B-Side.



First of which is from a bootleg (maybe?) compilation called LA Times. I'd imagine it came bundled with the paper at some point but I can't find any solid info one way or the other, googling "Flying Lotus LA Times" will get you a bunch of results but none in relation to this release. Anyway, I'd recommend it for anyone like me who is in need of more deliciously compressed Los Angeles style wonkiness, it's not so difficult to get a hold of if you tweak your search terms a little. Heat Wave is a short sharp glimpse into that world.

beathop · 05-flying lotus-heat wave 2-whoa

Lastly, the fruits of a collab between FlyLo and Samiyam, portmanteau'd into FLYamSAM. Their stuff appears on a couple of legit compilations, but some kind soul put them all together (and a few bonus ones) onto a bootleg compilation simply called Bootleg Beats. There's some familiar tunes on there but the standout by far for me is The Offbeat, one of the tunes which did appear on legit compilations. It again definitely has that Los Angeles sound to it, with maybe a smidgen of the sounds of Pattern + Grid World too, which is the exact style that drew me to FlyLo in the first place. I can't believe this one was under my radar for so long, I've given it a ton of play over the last few months and now here's hoping you will too.



-Claude Van Foxbat