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