Populous - Quipo

This is one of my favourite electronica albums of the last decade. Released on Morr Music in 2002, and produced by Italian Andrea Mangia, this shows all the hallmarks of a debut album - it is rich with melodic ideas and expression, and no amount of attention to detail is spared. In fact, luscious opener 'Bottom 01' is cut off in its prime at two and a half minutes, when such a gorgeous conflation of melodic bass, sweeping synths, glitchy mesh and morphing arpeggios should ideally play out for about 6 minutes, and probably would on a 3rd or 4th album, when the life's-worth of musical ideas have been used up. I would recommend this to fans of Boards Of Canada, as it obviously inhabits the same sphere - the pace is hip-hop, and it is heavy on the melodic synths. The beats here are somewhat lighter, and skip along more. There is more dynamics created by fading the volume up and down and panning; and there is a more delicate filigree of scrunches and glitches that help move the phrases along. I would say that the best of this album matches the best of BOC: the melodies are often exquisitely turned, and the whole sound is so perfectly at one, it glows with the obviously huge amount of love and effort that went into producing it. Summed up perfectly on the awesome 3rd track 'Flu', which is truly glorious. I actually bought this on cd as well as vinyl, to protect my LP from wear and tear.

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Korea Soundblaster - Korea Soundblaster

From 2003, this album is a wild blast of completely acid-drenched mayhem. It's a full-on, saturated melting pot of metal riffs, deranged warbling vocal samples, bombastic organ, stumbling drums, outrageous dub echo and distorted noise. Not to mention the OTT moog-style burblings, atonal guitar leads, screams, bleeps and unidentified scary noises. All this is mashed together with little regard for niceties such as song structure or pleasing melodies, but it's such good fun to listen to that these absences are irrelevant. The songs tend to fade into each other, making this one long, crazed assault on your senses.
Thanks to Dimitri for this one.

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Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom - The Days Of Mars

Another one of my favourite albums of the decade, and another blissful blast of analogue synthery. Released in 2005 on DFA, there is nothing punky or funky about this disc. It clearly harks back to the 70s peak of soaring, pulsing and oscillating synths, and contains 4 long tracks, all over 11 minutes. There is also a definite 80s feel to this music - not in the crappy synth pop sense, but in the excellent-John-Carpenter-soundtrack sense: the arrangements are a bit more spare; the sounds are slightly less cosmic (only slightly!), slightly harder, and there is a faint sense of menace, of imminent technological danger. There is also none of the stratospheric guitar work from the 70s - it's all synth, and there is also the same authentic sense of techno-about-to-happen: especially in the pumping bass arpeggios of 'Relevee'. You can bet that if this was out in 1981, the Electrifying Mojo would have been playing it on his radio show. The rather lovely cover knowingly represents this wilful embrace of the past, with (presumably?) Delia and Gavin in period dress, juxtaposed with the somewhat sci-fi title.
All this is secondary, though, to the glowing beauty of these four tracks.

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Pluramon - Render Bandits

Pluramon is Markus Schmickler, and this is the second Pluramon album, from 1998, on Mille Plateaux. Schmickler was an early pioneer of of a fairly even mix of acoustic instruments and electronics - the kind of mix and sound palette which Four Tet had subsequent success with.
Most tracks proceed with a head nodding groove played on an acoustic kit, with layers of guitars both spangly and fuzzy; along with bass and an assortment of keyboards, drones and more abstract electronic burblings. Occasionally the grooves retreat, like on 'Flicker', or the end section of 'Formant', and the album fits perfectly with the label - sounding very much like Snd, and the digi/glitch sound the label is synonymous with. These moments provide a nice contrast, but the album is best when the heavy grooves chunter along. When 'Gloop' hits its stride and sucks you into the wake of the stomping groove, loads of distorted, edited and messed up sounds are smeared across the pummelling rhythm.
Like much of my favourite music, this harks back to the more groove-laden German music of the 70s (especially later Can), but the detailed digital processing and editing keep it modern and forward looking at the same time ( as well as trippy). The predominance of acoustic intruments, especially guitar, maintains the warm fuzzy sound envelope and rich harmonics.
Previous album Pick Up Canyon and remix project Bit Sand Riders are also excellent, and Pluramon has gone in a more shoegaze-oriented direction with recent albums reams Top Rock and The Monstrous Surplus, both of which are decent, and feature more vocals.

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Black Heart Procession - 3

Released in 2000, I consider this to be The Black Heart Procession's masterpiece. I suppose this would have fallen under the alt. country banner at the time, but there is something majestic and timeless about this album, and it has probably shed that label in the intervening years. This is a collection of spare, stark and very beautiful songs, with a consistent unity of character. 'Doom Country' I think I have referred to this as, although there is something uplifting in these baleful, resonant songs. All delivered in a downbeat, plaintive voice; and backed by a glorious palette of acoustic instruments, organ, piano, trumpet - all slowly stomping to the funeral march pace.
There are no highlights, because the whole album is brilliant and mesmerising from start to finish, and I'm not going to write any more about it.

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Groundhogs - Split

I'm thinking I should pepper this blog with a few more retro favourites. I love the music of the 70s, and not just the stuff that came out of Germany! Groundhogs were a band like many of their contemporaries that started out as primarily a blues based band, like Fleetwood Mac or Ten Years After, and fairly straight blues rock was the sound of their first two albums. Things changed with their third album 'Thank Christ For The Bomb', and by this, their fourth album, from 1971, they had gone down a far harder, darker and more progressive route. Like the aforementioned bands, Groundhogs had a terrific guitarist - Tony McPhee in this case. Words like blistering and coruscating spring to mind when describing his playing on this disc: he totally destroys. Ostensibly this is a power trio, which is always a great setting for a brilliant guitarist - no matter how much the bass and drums pummel away, there is always space for as much noise as he wants to make. There is plenty of distortion and wah, and utterly compelling dynamics - you can sense an oncoming outpouring of guitar fury, and you can feel the serious intent take hold of you when he steps on the volume pedal and lets rip. It's not just the lead work, though; the move away from the blues resulted in loads of interesting riffs, and open, flowing song structures. McPhee's voice is not the greatest, but is perfectly suited to the music, and just sounds so 70s. They hark back to a more pure blues on the album closer 'Ground Hog', where Tony McPhee shows the range of his skills with some fiery slide on amplified acoustic guitar.

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Savath & Savalas - Apropa't

Rather glorious 2004 album by Guillermo Scott Herren. Possibly better known for his more hip-hop oriented project Prefuse 73, I prefer his output under this alias. Although the beats aren't too far removed from hip-hop, they are usually played live, and have a more jazzy swing to them. There is also abundant use of acoustic instruments, too. There are some marvellous acoustic bass lines on here too, especially the utterly brilliant 'Te Quiero Pere Por Otro Lado...', which is one of my favourite tracks of recent years. This album was co-written by Eva Puyelo Muns, who provides vocals on most tracks, often double-tracked or in chorus. They are very lovely, and an essential part of what makes this album so good. I can't help being reminded of the Brazilian pop and exotica of the 60s and 70s, and especially the Getz/Gilberto albums from that time. Also, there is a vividly sun-baked ambience and flavour of Spain where this album was recorded; and the heat-haze texture also calls to mind Sketches Of Spain. As well as the expertly marshalled acoustic instruments, what raises the quality of this music is Herren's use of electronics - he has a very deft touch: creating an intricate web of complementary sounds. Sometimes there is some restrained processing of acoustic instruments, but the outcome is a tightly defined and consistent sound. I daresay having that man John McEntire in the mix didn't hurt, either.
Buy this album, and his debut as S&S, 'Folk Songs For Trains Trees And Honey', which is also excellent.

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Germ - Gone

1994 - a great year for techno and electronica saw the release of Germ's debut album on GPR. Although this is slightly primitive compared to weird masterpieces such as The Black Chair that Tim Wright would subsequently release, it easily matches his contemporaries, and is still sufficiently weird and freaky to be enjoyable 15 years later. The sounds palette is bleepy and squelchy, with incisive percussion; the kick drum often being a fairly hard techno one, as opposed to the more metallic, crunchy beats being used by a lot of electronica at the time. Co-engineered with John Dalby, it is obvious that there are a couple of studio whizz-kids at work: all the weirdest noises have been coaxed out of whatever keyboards or VSTs they had, and it’s really well edited and mixed. There is an otherworldly sense of menace to some of this stuff – it can be quite dark, and tracks like ‘Ssong’ prefigure Wright’s later, weirder creations, with it’s queasy and disembodied warbling. This abstraction is nicely balanced with some pretty rocking tracks – I used to mix with ‘Blib’ all the time, its mish-mash of brittle syncopated bleeps, wobbling bass and euphorically thrashing synths is very groovy indeed. Elsewhere there is a bit more harshness: closer ‘Gun(Gone)’ has some nasty panning action and dive bombing rave waves. The moody sonar electronica of ‘Sap’ heads almost to gabba speed as the beats are doubled up, and there are disturbing, almost industrial details throughout the album.
I think this streak of darkness, along with the very trippy sound palette, keeps this album still sounding pretty strong and fresh today.

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The For Carnation - The For Carnation

This amazing album came out in 2000, thus qualifies for my best of the decade run down. I still listen to this and enjoy it as much as I ever did, 9 years down the line.
The For Carnation were a post-Slint band, and have featured various Chicago musicians at various times, although the only two major players on this album are Brian McMahon, and John McEntire who contributes some extra instrumentation and who engineered the album (remarkably well). There are many of the hallmarks of post-rock on this album: the predominance of bass and drums; the ease and assurance with which slow pacing is used; mastery of texture. There are far more vocals on this than your average post rock outing, and this probably adds to the lasting appeal. McMahon's vocals are close-mic'ed, and border on spoken/whispered, helping to build a very intimate mood. As I said, this is beautifully recorded, and the slowly rocking rhythms are tight, and almost tense. There is often an ominous throbbing ambience, and delicate touches of spacy synths - heard to great effect on 'A Tribute To'. The sense of melody is gorgeous, yet restrained - the carefully picked out guitar line on opener 'Emp. Man's Blues' is backed by gradually swelling strings to a blissful plateau. After this these two tracks, a sense of foreboding and tension is developed with the very moody post rock of 'Being Held', before another slow and majestic gem in 'Snoother', which sounds somewhat like Tortoise vs Bill Callahan. 'Tales (Live From The Crypt)' is a wonderful spaced out groover; very similar to Do Make Say Think's debut: it's almost a prog-out compared to the rest of the album. Layers of spacey keys, shimmering guitar, and even a Goblin-esque synth line embellish this fantastic track. The last track 'Moonbeams' is probably the most beautiful. A distillation of what has gone before, and a coda, or resolution, too - a release of the slow-burning mood built up through the preceding tracks. A very slow track, laid on a bed of spacious synths drones, punctuated by a lyrical guitar, some throbbing analogue sythns, and seen out with a swell of strings.
I've namechecked a lot of bands describing this, but I think it is pretty unique, and a masterpiece that is amazingly undervalued. They are playing at the forthcoming 10 years of All Tomorrow's Parties festival - I hope this leads to a resurgence of interest and some further recordings.

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Neotropic - La Prochaine Fois

An aural antidote to Portal, and more music by a lady. In this case it's Riz Maslen, and her 2001 album on Ntone. Some of her other work has been more in the vein of trip-hop/electronica with kitchen sink additions of samples and live instruments, but this one embraces the acoustic and organic side to superb effect. There are guitars, harmonicas, wheezy organs and a wonderfully fuzzy and warm envelope of sound. These tracks veer from soundtrack stlye, to post rock, folk, psychedelic 60s rock and beyond, and are remarkably evocative of hazy summer, the countryside, and something just beyond my comprehension that is everso slightly tinged with melancholy. There are many moments of beauty - 'Cornershop Candy', which presumably features Maslen's own (very nice) tremulous vocals, with a deeply reverbed and harmonic guitar backing, along with sepulchral rumblings and mystic ambience creating a raga-like atmosphere. Indeed, much of the feel and pace of the tracks is raga-like, as 'Cornershop Candy' fades into the similarly brilliant 'Train To Katoomba', which is embellished by some 70s cosmic keyboard flourishes. 'Still' actually uses some sitar, along with ethnic percussion; calling to mind eastern tinged folk, but with some backwards loops on top, and a wonderful chant.
There are plenty more high points on this gorgeous album. It will keep your brain warm in winter.

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Portal - Outre

I haven't posted any metal in a while, and thought that this would be an apt choice, as they have an excellent new album out, called Swarth. Although this this is labelled as death metal, don't let that put you off if you are interested in exploring the artier and weirder end of extreme metal.
This band is pretty unique, creating an abstract and disturbing miasma of sound. Grinding and atonal guitars comprise most of the mix, with fairly restrained acoustic sounding drumming - as opposed to the clicky and springy sounding kits you hear in more conventional death metal. The vocals, although guttaral, are more of a despairing roar than a belching cookie monster. Even though the song structures involve time changes, and the playing appears to be excellent, there is a murky mystery, and it's often hard to grasp just what is being played - it seems just beyond the ear's reach, like an unholy mix of My Bloody Valentine and Deathspell Omega with added wrongness.
The result is a weird and unsettling album, and the imagery used only adds to this nightmarish feeling. Definitely a one of a kind mob; I hope they play in London soon.

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Rhythm & Sound - The Versions

2003 compilation of tracks previously released on vinyl. R&S are the dub incarnation of Basic Channel - Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, and have released a succession of spellbinding dub discs since 1996; they have been one of the most consistent acts of the decade, and this is one of my favourite albums of teh last 100 years. There is a sister album to this - "With The Artists", which has the full vocal versions, and is brilliant. This album, though, is utterly sublime. Adorned with only minor snippets - the perfect amount - of the original vocals, the rock solid rhythms, subtle tunes, and brilliant textures are allowed to gently work themselves into your consciousness. Most tracks are fairly skeletal, usually only have two chords, and very minimal bass lines; but they all totally rock. The use of reverb and delay is masterful; the hi-hat sounds are perfection and the grooves are unstoppable. Despite being largely electronic creations, an organic warmth permeates this wonderful album.
All their output that I've heard is worth checking out, including the albums 'Rhythm & Sound', and 'Showcase' with Tikiman.

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Shora - Malval

Another of my favourite albums from the 2000s, this is quite an exceptional blend of prog, metal and post rock: nothing else comes close to its laser-like focus, or naturally brilliant and comfortable blend of styles: even though it feels like one individual and coherent style.
At just over 33 minutes, and four tracks, it hovers between an EP and LP, but could quite easily have been the kind of musical suite that often comprised side one of an album in the early/mid 70s, such is the overall coherence and power. The sound palette is not too dissimilar, either: the standard rock band accompanied by odd touches of keyboard. There is no aimless meandering here, though, and no vague hippy sentiment: everything is tight, controlled and purposeful. Not a second is wasted. At times resembling a metal band interpreting the soundtracks of Goblin or John Carpenter - with martial drums and disciplined tightness displaying their proggy qualities, there are many moments of beauty. Despite being mostly instrumental, vocals are introduced in the final track to quite devastating and gorgeous effect, showing that a band with obvious mastery of heavy dynamics can indulge their lyrical side too, after a hazy drone-like intro, and heavy syncopated sequence.
Magnificent, and very highly recommended - if you like post rock you have to check this out, and this should be listened to as one piece, with full attention. Thanks to Ryan for giving me the promo of this way back when.

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Terminal Cheesecake - Pearlesque Kings Of The Jewmost

Another slagheap of monolithic pounding industrial sludge dub, from 1992. Relentless bass, tons of reverb, drug references aplenty and some terrific samples - the usual excellent concoction. 'Satan Is Real' calls to mind Butthole Surfers, as does a lot of the album, which is of course a very good thing - with a blasting drum machine, and manic samples "I've got The craziest feeling all over my body" and "Satan!" hammering away at your senses, with some great grinding guitar that punctuates most of the album. 'Drug' is a superb psych-dub monster, smeared with delayed vocals and some space rock keyboards. It's all pretty great, really - there are some choice spoken word recordings from British TV news reports about various freakery, which only adds to the whole fucked up sense of abandon and joyous noise.
A shame that they can't reform for a few live shows, when there are so many unremarkable bands doing it these days.

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Eno Moebius Roedelius - After The Heat

One of my absolute favourite albums. This 1978 album combines all the best bits from the contemporary scene: glorious analogue synths, Eno's warped 70s avant pop, pastoral beauty and spacy weirdness. It mixes the usual instrumental sketches that Cluster were releasing around this time, with vocal tracks - including backward Eno vocals on the distinctly odd Tzima N'arki. There are brilliant compositions on here - Base & Apex is amazing - suffused with a luminous warmth as well as a kind of elegaic melancholy. This may have something to do with being engineered by Conny Plank at his own studio, but by this time all three artists were seasoned veterans with a large output behind them. Holger Czukay even adds bass to one track. In fact, I'm just looking at my cds - this was the second album by the trio - 1977 saw the release of the self-titled Cluster & Eno.
The result is totally assured, with deft embellishments where necessary using acoustic intruments; but it also has a perfect sense of space and pace, as if the compositions are allowed to build their own organic momentum, and gently roll on toward their conclusions. Nothing is rushed, there are no extra layers or instruments crammed in. Eno's vocals, and his obtuse lyrics, fit in perfectly somehow, and the result is an object of glowing beauty.
I have the old Sky LP of this, and the Japanese cd reissue I ripped this from has a different running order. The LP had all the vocal tracks on side B, and all the gentler piano led pieces on side A. I listened to side B a lot more, and I get the impression that the LP was supposed to gradually increase the psychedelic quotient, and fry your brain a bit after the gentle opening. The new running order makes it a more even listen.

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Valet - False Face Society

Rather wonderful vinyl-only release from early this year, limited to 500. Valet is the project of Honey Owens, and it's a nice surprise to hear such music being created by a female, although there are obvious beacons within the ambient/space/drone scene such as Grouper and Pocahaunted.
This is a beautifully executed example of psychedelic, droning space rock: the 15 minute Angels Can't Stop is a gorgeous miasma of swirling organ and wispy sounds, underpinned by a distant and cavernous bass drum. A very blissful piece. Dealer vs. Ocean begins with some parping moog-type bass, and builds up layers of vocal chants, violins, organ and guitar/feedback until a dark mass is formed, throbbing in the shadows.
The last track is a cover of Boris' Rainbow, which is most un-Boris like. A light and gentle version, with reverbed and lovely vocals, some light percussion, and a couple of spacy psych-wah guitar lines weaving together this excellent interpretation.
Fantastic stuff, as are the two available albums Naked Acid and Blood Is Clean, both highly recommended, so buy one!

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Tank - Upwards At 66°N

Tank is a one man band from Brest in Brittany, France. Christophe Mevel is his name, and these are a collection of 1998 four track recordings released on English space/psych-rock indie Earworm in 1999. Mr Mevel is obviously influenced by Krautrock, especially Neu, although he goes for the more rocking, motorik end of the Kraut spectrum, eschewing the more ambient/meandering/collage type efforts. Considering these are 4 track recordings, the sound is excellent. The spacy jams generally consist of a propulsive bass line; vintage keys shimmering; Faust-y thrashing guitars; swooping moogs and plenty of backwards loops. A combination of drum machines and live drums are used. A tried and tested formula, it's hard to go wrong if put together with any competence, but Christophe Mevel has a great knack for combining these simple elements in a highly pleasing way, with the ability to get quite beautiful if the urge so takes him. The result is a highly pleasurable listen if you are into all things space rock.

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Biosphere - Shenzhou

I'm going to post some of my favourite albums of the decade in the coming months. I've already posted some: Sinoia Caves & Kopernik, for example.
This 2002 album by celebrated ambient artist Geir Jenssen is a thing of beauty. Constructed primarily from loops of music by Debussy, many sampled from vinyl, this has a real otherworldly feel. The organic woodwind and orchestral parts repeat away, seemingly trapped in some kind of time capsule, competing against the gentle synth backings and cavernous bass rumblings.
Some of these loops were recorded from vinyl, and this only adds to the curious co-mingling of eras - heard to great effect on 'Ancient Campfires'.
This album serves many of the commonly accepted uses for ambient - going to sleep to, putting on in the background etc, as it is soothing and beautiful. But it is just as captivating as any prog album with a million notes. Well, maybe you have to like repetition and minimalism for that to be true, but this album will still serve you as a gorgeous backdrop.

nb. I should have added that Geir Jenssen has recorded quite a few excellent albums as Biosphere, well worth buying: I especially recommend Dropsonde and Patashnik. Not only that, but he has climbed Himalayan peak Cho Oyu without bottled oxygen, which is pretty cool.

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Simply Saucer - Cyborgs Revisited

Fantastic psych fuzz punk from Canada, recorded in 1974/75. Completely out of step with prog and FM pop, and seemingly every other prevailing sound throughout their short career, this band sank into obscurity. A shame, because they had a tremendous sound - one that bordered on deranged: a pummelling rhythm section, psych-surf guitars, and wild use of "recently purchased 'audio generators' and theremin" to quote the liner notes. Add a great vocalist, in the wasted-Lou-Reed style, and a great formula was achieved: and there are cool tunes to match the distorted sonic overload sequences.
As well as the original 9 session tracks are two excellent sides of a 1978 single, and a load of live/demo tracks that don't really add much.

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G.E.N. - Rolleiflex Weltron Time Square

More trippy deep-space electronica from two of my favourite German artists, Khan and Walker, recording as Global Electronic Network. Released in 1994 on Mille Plateaux, and recorded in New York presumably just after Khan had relocated there: I don't know if the title 'Time Square' is intentional or not, as it's pretty apt. I have this on vinyl, and one half is a really nice picture disc with the classic Rolleiflex camera on it; unfortunately the 'Weltron' disc had to make do with a picture of the classic 8 track radio on the label, with coloured vinyl.
Time Square opens the cd, with an epic 15 minute hypnotic track, with great phased ambience swirling around in the background while a host of heavily reverbed analogue synths propel the track, whilst acidic flourishes and weird samples drift in and out. I can imagine these two hunched over their machines, bobbing up and down, twiddling knobs. The same goes for Time Square pt III, which is basically a spacy hypnotic club track; driven by restrained 303 bass and with just enough strange samples panning around to make this successful head music. The two Weltron pieces are short and abstract, where the analogue machines are put through their paces to extract weird and wobbling noises: probably the least diverting pieces.
The two Rolleiflex pieces take up 35 minutes of this album, and show Khan and Walker's creativity to the greatest effect. They are also the most outright trippy tracks on here. Rolleiflex part IV-VIII comes first, fading in the kind of classic Air Liquide/H.E.A.D beat - a shuffling and gentle 808 breakbeat, with bleeping and pulsing acid noises reverberating around, building up a real head-nodding groove. This fades out into some more disturbing and distorted territory, before a pulsing and ominous synth comes in, with what sounds like an acidified warthog trying to sniff your brains through your ear. These sounds hark back to classic German 70s electronica, and are glorious, and very cosmic. The 20 minute Rolleiflex I begins with an off-kilter beat, with some very odd metallic sounds scraping the brain cavity, as the FX units are tweaked. A gentle 303 bass takes over as the beats retreat, and high pitched bleeps usher in a raga like passage, before bubbling and syncopated acid lines come in to finish the track in suitable fashion.
A terrific album of trippy analogue electronica.

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