Laika -Sounds Of The Satellites

Another all-time favourite of mine from 1997. Mainly the work of Margaret Fiedler and Guy Fixsen, with Rob Ellis on drums. Fiedler and Fixsen were a seriously creative pair, and forged a unique and beautiful sound on this album especially, although all the Laika albums are pretty good.
Margaret fiedler has a breathy, gentle voice, and this is backed by a dense and rhythmical weave of layered percussion, samples and synths driven along by strong, rolling bass lines and excellent, offbeat drumming. Despite sounding quite alien, sometimes, and the strong electronica element, this music feels very organic: the synths are voice-like, and the massed percussion elements sound like insects chirruping in crepuscluar hedgerows. The sound is best showcased on 'Breather', an excellent song that goes into blissed out dub overdrive for the last two minutes. A relentlessly hypnotic rhythm is embellished with gentle percussion that sounds like it could be from any and no country in the world at once, but the really spaced out textures come from the synths - moogy and gorgeous sounds rise and fall, and weave around a tapestry of samples and percussion with perfect counter melodies. This is a track I would be quite happy to listen to if it went on for another 20 minutes. The opener 'Prairie Dog' is based around what is ostensibly a more trip-hop orientated beat, but again is raised way above the mainly pedestrian output of that genre by the brilliant amalgamation of sounds: electric piano, vibes, flute and an otherworldly, cello-like synth. 'Out Of Sight And Snowblind' has a brilliant, driving bass and drum foundation, with the same briliantly arranged synths in patterned filigree, and judicious use of echo on Guy Fixsen's voice again creating a hypnotic, rolling groove. 'Poor Gal' is a rhythmic beast in 7/8, driven by a pumping bass and punctuated with some aggressive guitar stabs to great effect.
It seems that Laika are unlikely to release any more records, which would be a great shame, as I think this is quite unique, beautiful, and very spaced out (and they were good live!). Guy Fixsen does not seem to have been too prolific as engineer/producer in the interim. However, I thought Margaret Fiedler had quit music entirely but I've just checked Wiki and she toured with Wire as guitarist on tour in 2008, so maybe it will happen.

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White Dot Techno 2

Time for some more techno, I think. 9 more top tunes from back in the day - if you were clubbing a lot in the mid 90s you may well have heard all of these tracks played out, and I'm sure a few of them are still played regularly, particularly Dave Clarke's Red 2 and Red Planet's Stardancer. The latter was absolutely hammered in London clubs when it came out, and it took me a while to track down in the days before the internet, as usually I was too busy going mental to try and see what was revolving on the decks at the time.
As far as I am concerned, these tracks are all brilliant. From the house/techno crossover anthem of Planetary Assault System's Booster; the brain-mashing sound that permeates Teste's The Wipe to the face-punching aggro of Mark Bell's Hardfloor remix.
I think my favourite, though, would have to be possibly the least well known track. Secret Cinema's Jeroen Verheij turns in an epic remix of Yantra's 360. Driven along by a bashing snare breakbeat and razor sharp cymbals and percussion, before a subtle rasping bassline comes in, this track takes off into a weird spacy soundscape with alien synths echoing around. Strange and brilliant, as well as being a terrific techno stormer.
Bitrates vary as before, but it all sounds pretty good to me.
Tracklist:
1 - Dave Clarke - Wisdom To The Wise ['Red 2', Bush]
2 - Dave Angel - Bounce Back [R&S]
3 - The Martian - Stardancer [Red Planet, by Mad Mike Banks]
4 - Teste - The Wipe (5am Synaptic) [Plus 8]
5 - Planetary Assault Systems - Booster [Peacefrog, by Luke Slater]
6 - Yantra - 360 (Flutter Mix) [Music Man, remix by Jeroen Verheij]
7 - Laurent Garnier - Astral Dreams (Speaker Mix) [F Comm]
8 - Slam - Positive Education (2nd Morganistic Mix) [Soma, remix by Luke Slater]
9 - Hardfloor - Strikeout (Orbit Mix) [Harthouse, remix by Mark Bell]

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Back Door - Back Door

Debut album from 1973 by this bass/drums/sax trio. All instrumental, this is a terrific display of musicianship by all three members - playing super-tight, punchy, proggy jazz rock for the most part. The drums and sax are both excellent, but the virtuoso bass of only surviving member Colin Hodgkinson is the real highlight, driving the sinewy melodies with some inspired percussive sounding picking and slapping, demonstrated by the dazzling ensemble playing on 'Catcote' - similar to the super-prog section of '21st Century Schizoid Man'. There are deviations - the gorgeous bass solo 'Lieutenant Loose' is splendid, the lyrical duo of bass and sax on 'Turning Point' is truly marvellous, and the flute and bass track 'Human Bed' grounds the band in the early 70s, sounding more like contemporaries Traffic. Sharp-eared listeners will spot a sample used by the Beastie Boys (on Paul's Boutique, I think) from 'Slivadiv', way back when this was a real obscurity. I actually paid £20 fro this on vinyl back in the early 90s - I was going to photograph the original artwork for this post, but I think it's been in my 'buried' vinyl stack since I got the timely cd re-issue back in 2000. Also the original artwork is not that great.
This is a real unique gem, and thoroughly enjoyable due as much to the good tunes as the playing. I recommend checking out some clips of Colin Hodgkinson on Youtube.

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Tindersticks - Waiting For The Moon

2003 album from this magnificent band. I was going to post the masterpiece that is their second album, but someone requested this one, and it's a beauty. I feel that a band as consistent and durable as this often fade almost into background noise in the world of music - only a trickle of new fans are won, although there is a significant and loyal fan base. I am guilty in this respect - I only realised they had a new album out whilst I was idly browsing discogs. I promptly bought it, and you should too: this band are a glorious institution.
Singer Stuart Staples has a unique voice - a quavering, world-weary baritone that suggests fragility as well as a plethora of hedonism experienced. This a collection of really strong songs, which are only improved by the the great arrangements: string sections along with Dickon Hinchcliffe's lead violin; horns; vintage organ all create a warm, fuzzy, sumptuous envelope around the shuffling songs which inhabit the region somewhere between Nick Cave and Lee Hazelwood (not a huge region, admittedly, but a fabulous one.) This is most evident on the beautiful, string soaked duet with Lhasa De Sela on 'Sometimes It Hurts'.
I first saw Tindersticks in Dublin promoting the second album, and it was pretty incredible - a real emotional revelation that completely blew me away, and is still one of the best gigs I've ever seen.

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I also highly recommend the second album, Curtains, Can Our Love. And everything else by them.

The Necks - The Boys OST

The Necks are an Australian instrumental 3 piece who have been around for over 20 years. The basic formula is piano, bass and drums, and they display a mastery of both their own instruments and their overall sound. This is not expressed in explosive virtuoso passages, even though they definitely play jazz tinged music: they play acoustic instruments, but they also explore the usually minimal themes of their music, with the same kind of repetition and recapitulation of motifs and themes that you would normally find in jazz. However, they usually do it in an elegant and sedate way that owes as much to post rock as it does to any jazz master, and on this album there are understated embellishments, such as small blasts of distorted guitar, some reversed atmospheric echo, and wonderful electric organ. Often their albums and gigs will be a single piece of music, but on this disc, the soundtrack to 1998 Australian film The Boys, there are seven. This does include three ten minute plus tracks to give you a good illustration of their MO, not to mention three versions of the main theme, which is superb - a brooding and noirish piano led theme, full of menace and rippling with atmosphere. Although many tracks and the addition of extra noises to the mix may make this a more expansive and less representative Necks album, they also help it to be fantastically listenable.

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Ausgang - Electric Arc

Another space rock one man band, this was released on the Foundry label in 1999. Similar in many ways to Tank, this consists of spacy instrumental jams and grooves, with a heavier sound, something akin to Tank meets Appliance. Bass and drums groove away, with some nice fuzz guitar lines rocking out, and a thick smear of psychedelia spread over the top. Moogy sputterings, warm organ drones, and lots of tape manipulation comprise most of the cosmic layer, heard to good effect on the 14 minute epic 'Projectile Crockery'. Tapes of various horns are sped up and slowed down manually, and generally messed around with; while the warmly distorted bass and guitars groove away, before it breaks down into a chaotic synthy sci fi soundscape. 'Speak To Me' adds a bit of radio noise to the mix, and there are some more ambient or Krautrock experimental passages, but the albums never strays too far from the template of cheerful freakout, and is great fun.

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Lee Perry - Produced & Directed By The Upsetter

This is probably my favourite Lee Perry compilation. Although Arkology was really thorough, and has some stupendous music on it (notably Junior Murvin's 'Tedious', which has the incredible dubbed out section that isn't on the current cd), it was just a bit overwhelmingly large. What makes this one so good is the strength of the individual songs as much as Perry's studio wizardry. The production varies from the economical and punchy, to the spacious and weird, as you would expect, but every song is excellent, with some superb horn arrangements and vocal harmonies. The vocalists on here range from well known acts like Junior Murvin and The Heptones, to more obscure names like Winstone Heywood and King Burnett. I can't help thinking of the fantastic film Rockers when I listen to these lesser known artists - they knew they had a great song, probably had to fight to get it recorded, and made bugger all money out of it. The lyrical subjects runs the gamut, from relationship traumas, to problems with the police, to politics, and serve up a brilliant snapshot of Jamaica in the mid 70s. Of course, there is a dub for every song, but I think the great element of Perry's genius demonstrated on this disc is his ability to complement the vocal versions with perfect backing tracks.
Also, this one is worth downloading for the utterly amazing 'Guide Line' by George Faith. Apparently this was from an album which he recorded in 1978, just before Lee Perry lost the plot in a big way and burned down the studio. Most of this album was never released, which is a terrible shame.

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Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Akira OST

Fabulous soundtrack from what is still one of the best anime films ever, in my opinion. It's scary to think that this came out in 1988. From the opening peal of thunder on 'Kaneda' this is spine tingling stuff, as a chorus of beautifully musical drums and wooden percussion introduces some brilliantly arranged choral work. It's pretty unique and breathtaking, and one of my favourite tracks ever. The themes are reprised with variations on the epic last track 'Requiem', which adds some serial/minimal keyboards, and even more layers of awesome choral lines. The whole album is a brilliant exploration of what can be done with tuned woody percussion, bells, drums and voices, with some additional sampling and sequencing - the almost techno explosion of rhythm that is 'The Battle Against The Clowns', with voices chopped in, and tiny beacons of melody. There are also the more traditionally synthy sounds on 'Winds Over Neo Tokyo', and the whole album blends these styles in a perfect balance, and the result is a unified suite of almost modern classical composition.
I always thought Geinoh Yamashirogumi was a person, but it's a musical collective. So I'm off to search the web for some more of their output, and I think another viewing of Akira is in order.
There is a shorter Akira soundtrack; this one is the 9 track, 56 minute one.

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Nodern - Nodern

A rather obscure electronica album from 2005 on the Sub Rosa label. It's a shame there seems to be no follow up releases, as this is brilliant, and Nodern clearly has some real talent. This music would definitely be at home on the Rephlex label - it has the same stuttering weird beats and synths as classic Aphex material, and both the beats and the melodies are classy. Their is also a trippy and disturbing element to a lot of this, too - 'The Coal Mine Worker' is a freaky slice of genius, with cut up whisper snippets above mysterious curdling synth drones. 'Letter Puncture Pnx Pass' rocks along with some classic electro sounds and great melodies over a swinging shuffling beat. 'The National Republic Of Hairlip' has more well programmed chopped up speech over springy beats, and builds up a sense of uneasy menace with some brooding, dark synths. Like the best parts of this album, it inhabits a strange place, where the sounds from other realities seem to be leaking in. The tunes are generally melancholic, and this makes a nice combination with the messed up beats and weirdbeard cut up and time-stretched oddments.
I hope this isn't going to be the last Nodern record ever.

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Current 93 - I Have a Special Plan for This World

Released in 2000 on Durtro. This is a single 22 minute track, consisting of David Tibet speaking words by American author Thomas Ligotti, with a minimal industrial/ambient musical backing. The words are remarkably dark, intense and apocalyptic; and David Tibet's voice is perfect for them - hinting at a kind of staring-eyed derangement. The speech is delivered in segments, as if they are being played on a portable tape player, with the sound of the play button being pressed. In between, there are weird granulated speech sounds, and a chilling tomb-like drone throbs all the way through.
Bleak and unsettling - one to listen to on your own, in the dark.

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Bill Wells et al - Pick Up Sticks

Collaborative effort of four artists coming from two distinct (-ish) backgrounds - Scot Bill Wells and prolific trombonist Annie Whitehead from a predominantly jazz background, and the Germans Barbara Morgenstern and Stefan Schneider (also in To Rococo Rot) from electronica. Of course, the boundaries of what these artists produce are not anywhere nearly so clearly defined, but the resulting mini album (just over 20 minutes) seems to be balanced perfectly in the middle. It's a set of 8 sketches that combine horns, both natural and processed, with electronica and the more laid back and glacial end of the post rock spectrum. There are often similarities with To Rococo Rot's excellent debut Veiculo, but the brass definitely adds a lot to the mix. These would perfectly soundtrack a drama of the more sombre type, although there are low glowing embers of warmth and tenderness throughout, as well as moments of stark beauty. In fact 'Three Line Prayer Pt 2' is magnificent, and a real favourite of mine.
A really nice downbeat little gem. Released on Leaf, 2004.

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Roy Harper - Stormcock

This is undoubtedly Roy Harper's masterpice. From 1971, it's ostensibly a one-man-and -his-guitar singer/songwriter album, and begins that way. Harper's beautiful, querulous voice, always betraying his roots in the north west of England, accompanied by his own acoustic (well, two tracks of acoustic). The four tracks on this album, though, are epic in every sense - in length, scope, and arrangement. Roy Harper often double-tracked his vocals, a technique that seemed to suit his voice particularly well, usually with a perfectly rich envelope of reverb, and on the first track 'Hors d'Ouvres' he is backed up halfway through by an otherworldly chorus of his own multi-tracked vocals, and electric organ. This was recorded at Abbey Road, and has that beautiful ringing clarity so redolent of that time and place, like on The Pretty Things' Parachute, or Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother. 'The Same Old Rock' follows, Jimmy Page adding some glorious acoustic lead work. This is an amazing track, switching between yearning and sombre moods as the different sections move along, until Harper is backed again by his own space-choir, brilliantly arranged to spine-tingling and psychedelic effect. 'One Man Rock And Roll Band' has a touch of eastern-raga-blues, with some light phaser(?) type effects on the vocals, and strangely flowing vocal phrasing. The Final track 'Me And My Woman' is an amazing track, beginning with a more traditionally English Folky tune, and some of the most haunting and gorgeous backing vocal arrangements, and some fabulous orchestra, arranged by David Bedford. This ranges from doomy strings, to plaintive clarinet, to Atom Heart Mother-style brass, all the time melding perfectly to Harper's long and winding song structure. It is a truly brilliant way to end this masterpiece of an album.

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Buy it
Also highly recommended is Flat Baroque And Berserk.

Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit - Secret Rhythms 2

Second installment in an ongoing (and hopefully endless) series of collaborations between sound designer/genius Burnt Friedman and Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit. Although this would probably be classified as electronica, there are other musicians on this disc - notably reed player Hayden Chisholm, who I recognise from a number of other Friedman records - and the sound is definitely one of a band, although it's very hard to categorise the exact sound. It's a mellow and spacy blend of electronica, jazz and post rock. The instrumentalists provide backing, and, presumably, sound sources for Friedman to manipulate - there is always a shimmering haze of morphing and drifting ambience behind the picked acoustic guitar, reeds, vibes, and Jaki Liebezeit's springy drums. The temptation is always to describe this awesome drummer as metronomic, as he so often was in Can, but many of the tracks on this disc are in strange time signatures, and he plays around the beat, often adding an accent on unexpected drum hits.
David Sylvian sings on 'The Librarian' (also on the Nine Horses album), and this is probably the most traditional track - a sung song. The following track 'Mikrokasper' shows the other end of the spectrum - very electronic, delicate and beautiful, it sounds like it was created almost entirely in post production from samples. The next track, 'Niedrige Decken', perfectly sums up the rest of the album. Pattering along in 9/8 time, after an introduction by sombre and elegant clarinet, which continues throughout; melodica, and a mesh of intricate samples and picked guitar harmonics. For me these tracks conjure up images of sun-blasted landscapes, with an unreal blue sky, and powerful heat haze distorting the edges of visible reality. Strangely laid back and intense at the same time.
Volume 1 is also great, volume 3 is amazing, and volume 4 is due out this year. Also highly recommended is any release by Burnt Friedman & The Nu Dub Players, and 'First Night Forever', just by Burnt Friedman. This last one features a selection of excellent vocals, creating a weird kind of acid fried electronic soul. Check out all these releases at Nonplace.de, and support the artist!

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Circle - Katapult

Terrific 2007 album by the prolific and inspired Finnish lunatics. Circle have probably put out more excellent music in the last decade than any other band. Their forte is riff-heavy cosmic jamming, often in brain twisting time signatures: the album Prospekt is a good example of this, and I would have uploaded that one if I'd realised that it's currently unavailable. Also, they do space epics (Arkades)...basically, it's hard to go wrong with a Circle album. What I like about this one is that it has a great deal of vocals on it. Vocalist and band mainstay Jussi Lehtisalo has a kind of deranged, sometimes operatic, growling, dramatic delivery, that is at once awesome and hilarious. On this album it is generally smothered in reverb. Opener 'Saturnus Reality' gives a good idea of what is to come as it goes straight for the jugular, but 'Understanding New Age' has some amazing delivery (possibly not all by Jussi Lehtisalo , it's hard to tell). The music is hard to describe, veering from buzzing thrashing walls of guitars (I'm sure I read that this album was their homage to black metal influences). Often the guitars are chugging - the band refer to themselves as NWOFHM - New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, but everything is always refracted through a hazy fog, and there are certainly no harsh edges anywhere. Instrumental 'Tree On The Higher Mountain' evokes a pastoral folky fug, and 'Four Points Of The Compass' is driven along with Kraut type synths. 'Fish Reflection' follows with what could almost be a Saxon riff, undermined by some abstract gentle guitar plucking, and some of the craziest vocals you could wish to hear, and is a work of inspired genius.
Underneath all the derangement, though, there is a lot of beautiful music, which is probably what makes this such a hugely enjoyable and inspiring listen.

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El-P - Fantastic Damage

This is one of my all time favourite albums. It's about as heavy and psychedelic as hip hop can get without imploding, and is definitely not one for hip-hop conservatives, seeing as very little of the instrumentation is made from soul/funk samples, but instead is created by El-p with synths, samples and drum machines. It's the arrangements and mix that make this so excellent, and such a head trip. The opening line sets the scene: a distorted synth, with a slightly chipmunked voice reciting some cheesy but somehow ominous lines of poetry. The remainder of this track is pretty sparse, martial distorted beats and scratches allow the lyrical manifesto to be promulgated with little audio interference, and it's only as it fades into 'Squeegee Man Shooting' that the musical blueprint for the rest of the album is revealed - a tapestry of wah-scratching that peaks almost into a 303 line halfway through; piano arpeggios; driving bass; searing phased synth drones - all backing a relentless stream of vocal which is often cut up, overlaid and delayed. It's definitely a heady and intense mix, one that doesn't let up. The listeners brain is equally divided between the rapping and the music, and the weird pitched-down vocal echoes that weave around the mix fall halfway between the two, making fora disorientating but hugely satisfying listen. This is taken to extremes on what is probably my favourite track, the very weird and fabulous 'Dead Disnee', which is a real brain odyssey. The density of this music means these tracks still blow me away many many listens down the line; the apocalyptic, claustrophobic vibe, and exhilarating swarms of noise and clusters of words that drift in and out of my conscious hearing...makes my sentence construction deteriorate.

An awesome album.

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Richard Thomas - Soggy Martyrs

Rather odd and wonderful offering from 1999 on the excellent Leaf Label. Richard Thomas has definitely got a good grasp of the terms 'weird' and 'wrong', but he keeps it pretty low key on this album; unless you turn it up loud, I suppose. This is like Blue Jam sublimated into purely musical form. Over an often fairly down to earth premise - a shuffling drum beat, say, a whole load of queasily played horns lurch around in a monged fashion over lots of processed samples and unsettling noises. The attention to detail is terrific, but the profound weirdness of it all could easily pass you by, as the general sound is often one that approaches a kind of easy listening - trumpets parp, guitars are strummed, drums are drummed; on 'Manicougan 5', for example - but they are played like a band whose members are on different planets, so to speak. It took me a while to get a handle on this album, and then it suddenly all became clear: what an unhinged master Richard Thomas is. Some of it certainly reminds me of Mike & Rich - Expert Knob Twiddlers, but these tracks are far more freeform in structure, and fade in and out of a hazy, muddy ambience. With extra jazz noodling.

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White Dot Techno 1

Here are a few banging techno tunes, mostly from the mid/late 90s. These have come from a variety of sources, and the bit rate is variable - in one case as low as 128kbps. I thought about this after I'd compiled it, but really, it's banging techno, not Steely Dan. I have changed the album artist for all tracks to 'White Dot Techno 1' (there are more selections coming), so you can find them in itunes - some of the volume levels may need adjusting for consistency.
Tracklisting:
1-Aphrohead-In The Dark We Live (Dave Clarke's 313 Mix) Bush
2-Gaetano Parisio-19.99 A1 Drumcode
3-Grain-Untitled (4th EP A1) FatCat
4-Henrik B-Recollections A1 Drumcode
5-James Ruskin-Dilemma Tresor
6-Joey Beltram-Ballpark Tresor
7-Oliver Ho-Fusion Meta
8-Speedy J-Electric Deluxe Plus 8
9-Secret Cinema-Cartoon Clip no label

Later comps will be slightly different, but this one is heads down car chase/crash music, especially the Secret Cinema track, which is a beast.

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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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