White Noise is reissuing their debut LP, An Electric Storm! Originally released in 1969 by members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the recording has been remastered and will be reissued on July 2nd in the UK. ([More →])

Last week I mentioned that Ninja Tune and Big Dada would present an event curated by Mary Anne Hobbs in London on the 7th of July. I received more info about this event, so I want to share them with folks who will be in the London area that week.

Ms. Hobbs states that her desire for the lineup she has chosen is, “To bring together dark exotic underground textures of sound from the UK and internationally..”

You Don’t Know Lineup

Downstairs
Mary Anne 9:00 -10:30
dj’ing all the experimental sounds in her record crate
Ben Sharpa & Konfab 10:30-11:30
South Africa’s hottest hip hop duo. formerly known as SA’s best underground hip hop act, they’ll have to drop the underground tag now that they have received so much attention and radio play. They were recently added to the mega-huge Glastonbury music festival.
Oris Jay 11:30 -12:30
ever-extending the limits of grime and dark garage sounds
The Bug 12: 30 – 1:30
best live dancehall mashup madness you can get! if you don’t already know about The Bug, check out his music$pace page, and Ninja Tune which recently signed him onto the ninja squadron… On this particular evening, The Bug will be assisted by Ricky Ranking (Roots Manuva) and Ras B pon di mics.
Virus Syndicate 1:30 – 2:30
extra-London grime and dubstep, great stuff, original ragga influenced dubstep styley
Vex’d 2:30-4:00
Vex’d will be unveiling some new tracks from their upcoming album on Planet Mu.

Upstairs
DJ Red 6
The Sandals Of Justics

This event will be the last YDK at The Big Chill House in London. Ninja Tune/Big Dada/Counter Records will be busy with other projects over the summer months, and then will relaunch the monthly club night in October in a new venue.

LINKS

Ninja Tune
YDK music$pace
Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC Radio1

Twas the middle of May when I reported that Leyode would be coming out with a new album on Prefuse 73′s label Eastern Developments. Today I have much more information about the release, Fascinating Tininess, which came out last week.

Tracklist for Fascinating Tininess:

01. Intro
02. Sophie
03. Irene
04. Isabelle
05. Clementine
06. Dominique
07. Hassami with Savath y Savalas
08. Soft or Gentle?
09. Elizabeth Chateau
10 Eilene (Leb-Laze Bonus Beats)

“Sophie”:

“Isabelle”:

Leyodian Links

Music For Robots has a great review of the album.
Eastern Developments
Fascinating Tininess on Amazon

JAHTARI performed a digital dub/reggae set for Mary Anne Hobbs show on BBC Radio 1 last week. If you missed it, you can still listen to the stream of that show until the new one airs on Thursday Night/Friday morning depending on your time zone.

You can listen to the show while you read by clicking here to open a new window with the player innit.

Highlights From Playlist

Burial – ‘Stairwell’ (Demo)
Flying Lotus ft J Dilla & Phat Kat – ‘Game Over’ (White)
Magnetic Man – ‘Ligma’ (Dubplate)
Cdatakill – ‘No Brakes’ [Detritus remix] (Ad Noisium)
The Bug & Flowdan – ‘Jah War’ [Loefah mix] (Ninja)

The Download
Local – ‘They Are Local’ (Betulla)

MED – ‘Rhymes With An L’ from Peanut Butter Wolf presents Chrome Children Vol 2 (Stones Throw)

Jahtari Live Digital Laptop Reggae Set

Laurie Anderson – ‘O Superman’ (Nonesuch)

Burial starts off beautifully, lovely bass and dark synths. Hobbs keeps rolling out the dubstep for a while, including a fantastic dubstep riddim by The Bug with Flowdan pon di mic. This combo is amazing! Flowdan is pure spitfire Rastafari – like Ninjaman meets Sizzla inna concrete jungle! BIG TUNE! An interlude into experimental electronica and noise that sounds like Squarepusher left alone in a room with a toddler and a Casio, some relaxing dub frequencies that step up to UK steppers dub, building suspense, building intrigue for all these spacey sounds…. unless you skip ahead. A unique set from JAHTARI kicks in at 16:50 (BBC radio players use the time of the show). All spaced out, relaxing, digital dub. Beautiful stuff. Lay down with a warm wet cloth over your eyes or something, really relax and listen to this lovely sound. Enjoy! Then wake back up to a little Laurie Anderson and enjoy the last half hour of the show.

More JAHTARI News On HearingTest:

- includes links to where you can download or stream a lot more digital dub tunes….

JAHTARI on Tour And BBC Radio – HearingTest
JAHTARI Net Label – HearingTest

Oh that’s it. If I don’t build, buy, or otherwise acquire a teleportation device soon I’ll go mad! It started with the Roadburn Festival, then the upcoming Dour Festival, and now this – the lineup for the All Tomorrow’s Parties curated by Portishead… ([More →])

Icelandic water does it again. The septet known as Mum is finally coming out with their first new album in 3 years, go go smear the poison ivy, due out Sept-ember 24th on Fat Cat Records. Someone else already reported about the album awhile back in mog news, but I am unable to find that post to link to it here. In more recent news, the single “they made frogs smoke ’til they exploded” will be released on August 27th. The band describes it as a “chirpy song about animal cruelty, it’s backed with ‘the amateur show’” and as a “wonky insect-circus instrumental.” And they have added dates to their tour, see below.

Tracklist for go go smear the poison ivy

01 Blessed Brambles
02 A Little Bit Sometimes
03 They Made Frogs Smoke ‘Til They Exploded
04 These Eyes Are Berries
05 Moon Pulls
06 Marmalade Fires
07 Rhuubarbidoo
08 Dancing Behind My Eyelids
09 School Song Misfortune
10 I Was Her Horse
11 Guilty Rocks
12 Winter (What We Never Were After All)

Tour Dates

02 Jun – ATP stage – Primavera Festival, Barcelona, Spain
09 Jun – Villette Sonique Festival, Paris, France
17 Jul – La Mer De Musicas Festival, Murcia, Spain
24 Jul – Sync Festival, Athens, Greece
28 Jul – Afisha Festival, Moscow, Russia
19 Aug Helsinki, Finland – Loop Festival
24 Oct Los Angeles, CA – Orpheum Theatre
01 Nov Chicago, IL – Logan Square Auditorium
09 Nov New York, NY – St. Paul the Apostle (Wordless Music Series)
10 Nov New York, NY – Society for Ethical Culture (Wordless Music Series)

Links

MumSpace
Fat Cat Records youTube Channel
Mum on BLEEP – listen/download

Mum – “Summer Make Good”:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/M_89wjka81c]

Experimental music enthusiasts who also enjoy the Suffolk forest in UK will welcome the combined forces of the Faster Than Sound music and arts festival as part of the larger Aldeburgh Arts Festival. The event takes place at Brenwaters Airbase on Saturday June 9th.

MUSIC

Murcof
Muziq
Philip Jeck
Pierre Bastien
Colleen
Dat Politics
Mira Calix & Tansy Davies
Exaudi CHoir
Plaid & Zoe Martlew
Philip Neil Martin
Mayming
Modified Toy Orchestra
Powerplant
James Saunders
Camberwell Composers Collective

Click over to the festival site to read a bio about any of these artists.

INSTALLATIONS

Throbbing Gristle
Jem Finer
Minimaforms
Bathysphere
Loop.ph
Mike Challis
Touch
Davide Quayola
Tom Taylor

MULTICHANNEL PERFORMANCES

Haswell & Hecker
Hildur Gudnadóttir
And pioneering classic electronic music including work by Luigi Nono, Iannis Xenakis and Luc Ferrari diffused by Sonic Arts Network

The website describes the cross-pollinated interface thus:

Artists from a wide variety of backgrounds will collaborate and explore the worlds of electronic music genres, contemporary classical practice and interactive visual arts. A range of immersive installations, musical collaborations, a wireless walk in the woods, illuminated cold war military buildings and a large dome filled with inspiring sounds…

I might be mistaken, but this looks a lot like DJ Scotch Egg from their gallery of 2006 performers…not sure though since the photos are not labeled:

Then again, who else is going to serenade a gameboy like that?

I did it! I finally headed over to youtube and created a channel for HearingTest! Now i will be able to post videos here immediately!

On that note, let’s get to the Sonic Boom show review!

The digs – Hemlock Tavern, San Francisco, April 8th, 2007.

An absolutely lovely night in SF, already starting to hint at the warmth of summer, with the soothing moisture in the air that is ever-present from the nearby beaches. My mates and i filled our bellies at the late-night diner just up the hill from Hemlock Tavern, because you can’t get fries and root beer floats at the bars here.

There were 2 bands that played before Sonic Boom :
Stevenson Ranch Davidians
LSD and the Search for God

Even when I was at the show I couldn’t figure out which was which, so we’ll skip that part. They were both fun to listen to live, and both were at the mercy of the person doing sound who seemed to have no idea how one was supposed to run sound. When one singer asked through the mic for the monitors to be turned up, they got no response, and no action. So, they had to wonder if it sounded right. In front of the stage, where the audience was, it sounded great. To the side of the stage and on stage, it sounded weird. Luckily, the crowd thought it sounded great. Note to sound tech people – take your earplugs out once in awhile to gauge how it sounds, especially when changing the volume on different things! This person did not, and consequently kept turning up the volume on a microphone that was picking up the cymbals. To the audience, it was way too loud and shrill, yet they kept turning it up….

OK! On to the good stuff! Mr. Sonic Boom played an absolutely wonderful set! He had crazy old digital electronic instruments, like a Yamaha synthesizer, a Dr. BOSS Sampler (which he never used the sequencer of, he triggered each sample by hand as he needed it!), an Electribe (i think it was the sampler version, I don’t think he used the sequencer on this one either!) and some strange little box marked Casio that made drum rhythms akin to old organ percussion beats! You know, samba, foxtrot, rock…. For some reason, i expect this type of gear to make crazy techno or noise or dub or similar. SB made gorgeous ethereal music that was delicate even as it expanded to fill the room. The one man show consisted of songs that he has played in the bands he has been part of previously, mostly Spectrum music. You can hear little bits of the songs in the videos.

As much as I love Hemlock Tavern, and will keep going there because they host many of my favorite musicians, they really need to work on their ventilation. Every show I have ever seen there, I ended up out in the alley trying to cool off and get fresh air. Even with the big door open in the back of the room, it is impossible to stay in the throng of people pressing as close to the stage as possible because it just gets too sweaty hot. And it’s only April now. In July, it is much worse. Some people theorize that this is part of the rock and roll experience, but that’s dumb. I have never enjoyed a show less just because it was comfortable. Just read my review of ISIS at Bimbo’s 365 Club for proof. But don’t get me wrong, Hemlock is still one of the best venues to see music – the stage is only a little bit elevated from the floor, so you can get in real close (which is how i can read itty bitty type on plastic boxes of obscure electronic devices), the sound is usually good, the drinks are proper, and the staff is so dang nice.

Here are the videos, with the slideshow from last week repeated at the end of this post :

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ_WbJ8YPzU]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35AWEpHjShA]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mINTesKP4sY]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Ymp4SzAyA]

Sonic Boom is also the purveyor of a fantastic website, so make sure you check it out : http://www.sonic-boom.info/

So, this is actually just another tease…. I was lucky enough to see the wonderful performance by Sonic Boom in SF this month. Sonic Boom is the genius behind the aural experimentations known as E.A.R. and he is also the voice and half the music of Spectrum AND he is one of the Spacemen3. Busy Boy. Well, he is touring the US and has shows in the UK as i earlier posted about. The show at the Hemlock Tavern was fantastic! i will do my best to write a proper report about it this week. i will definitely have a series of 1-2 minute videos with sound to post up here very soon. i haven’t posted movies yet, so i might have to figure out how to do that within wordpress. Maybe it’s time to start a youtubular account…. ([More →])

there is a super cool show happening in NYC tonight. drop the lime will be debuting as alter ego “curses” for nicky digital’s 1 year celebration…
grime, bmore, dubstep, crunk, electro, french hip hop and electronica, and more!

featuring…
BOYS NOIZE/ PARA ONE / CURSES! (a.k.a. DROP THE LIME)
plus Lauren Flax, SMC & Alex English
Celebrating Nicky Digital’s One Year Anniversary
Hosted by Warp Records and Bleep.com

FREE w/ RSVP: boysnoize

GBHtv has a great page with descriptions of tonight’s featured artists, such as :

Apart from being a great producer, Boys Noize has remixed Tiga, Depeche Mode, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, Teenage Badgirl, The Living Things, Lutzenkirchen and others. He is one of the best known artists on the European electro scene, releasing music on Kitsune, Turbo and his own Boys Noize Records,

Intstitubes producer Para One produces French hip-hop act TTC, and is one of the most visible new French electro-house producers emerging today. He was a highlight of the most recent Ed Banger tour and has pioneered the new French electronic sound. He has remixed Daft Punk, MSTRKRFT and Bloc Party, and has been remixed by MSTRKRFT, Surkin, Boys Noize and many others. Check out the video for his rather excellent single ‘Dundun-dun’ here.

dang yo! i can’t believe i’m not in NYC this week! can you feel how much i’m hurtin? i’m passing on to you the life i would have lived this week…. party hard in NYC for me.

for more info on Drop the Lime look at one of his artist pages

oh, and that GBHtv also has free music from all kinds of bands, even arcade fire, on their HOME page, so be sure to check that out too!