Truth is, this video is way to hippie-trippy for me. The tune is wicked and I cranked that ish as soon as i heard the bubbling synths and fidgety breaks come bouncing out of the speakers! But, I just can’t watch more than a minute of the groping hippie hands + nekkid ass hairs blowing in the wind (yeah, totally not “safe” for work among other places)… Bostonian audio/video team Zebbler “Get To The Truth” – the whole truth and nothing but the bare, naked truth:

Press play because the tune is wicked. But don’t be afraid to turn off yr monitor, close yr laptop, close yr eyes and just enjoy the audio onslaught…

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I originally wrote this album review of the new Autechre record – Quaristice – for my “day job” at MOG.com. This is a slightly different version here because you are a different audience!

Longtime fans of Autechre will probably be ecstatic about Quaristice. It hearkens to early Autechre music – more experimental, more chaotic, and less dance friendly than the last 4 albums or so. I’ve been a fan for ages and bought nearly every album they ever released. But I started to pine for their earlier sounds, when they were trailblazing the experimental electronic scene that later became known as IDM. This is the Autechre album I was longing for! If this sounds like you, you need to listen to Quaristice!

Autechre will gain many new fans with this album at the same time they renew most of their existing fan base.

Overall, the album sounds less clinical than many of Autechre’s more recent releases. The sounds evolve more organically and the sequences have more random elements to them. I LOVE it! The synths on Quaristice sound like an Evolver (Dave Smith Instruments) with its quirky sounds and step sequencers. If it isn’t an Evolver, I would still hazard a guess that this music was inspired by some new piece of hardware. It’s just a guess, but this album sounds so much like a return to hardware for the band. Either that or some serious cut-ups and processing like the Matmos albums based on surgery instruments.

Autechre explore new ground with the use of human vocal elements on “IO” (something they rarely incorporate). The human vocal is nicely balanced by one of the most recognizable machine voices ever: a Speak-n-Spell (or Speak-n-Math). The main vocal in “IO” isn’t very comprehensible since it’s filtered through what sounds a bit like a megaphone and a distortion petal. It’s graininess is perfectly complemented by the digital voice of the T.I. toy.

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A few songs into the album, it begins to remind me of certain songs by Coil: experimental synth stuff like Elph vs. Glitch or Music To Play In The Dark or similar… My impression keeps changing with each song, because they all sound so different. The tempo varies widely from one song to the next, from ambient washes to triplets at 120 bpm. However, the closest thing to a dance track in the collection is the schizophrenic hip hop beats of “90101″ that sound like a Timbaland production on 45 rpm.

It wasn’t until Track 17 “WNSN” that I started to hear the Autechre that we have come to know in more recent years. A few tracks later, “Notwo” (track 19) gets so minimal it’s downright zen. “Notwo” and “Outh9X” (the last two tracks of the album) are pure atmospheric bliss, very similar to the planetary music of murcof, and a beautiful way to fade out the album. This is an unexpected pleasure of Quaristice – the music varies so much. No two songs are alike and they convey a range of influences and skills.

Autechre will gain many new fans with this album at the same time they renew most of their existing fan base.

As soon as I saw the lineup for the Bang Face Weekender, I started researching flights to England. It’s that exciting! Alas, the dollar is weak and gas ain’t cheap, so it’s only wishful thinking for now. This happens every year with some music festival or another and the lineups just get more siiiiiick every year. Bang Face hails itself as “A Neo-Rave Explosion of Acid, Jungle, Rave Hardcore, Drum & Bass, Breakcore, Techno, Electronica and Abstract Dance” which only hints at the range of amazing talent presented each year. The 3 day festival takes place at the end of April at Camber Sands and features three different staging areas – the Rave/Jungle/Breakcore Room, The Electro/Bass/Techno Room and a round-the-clock chill-out room. ([More →])

I just received this epic flyer from WARP with loads of news about the new Autechre album Quaristice and a bunch of live shows. I’ll post a full article when I get a chance, I just wanted to share this with you right away. It’s a big image, so it might take a minute to download, but it’s worth it. If you just want to cop the new album, jump over to BLEEP.com now. Check it out: ([More →])

I love found-sounds. Especially whole albums of music that were thought to be lost forever, and then one day found again. Even better is when they are found just-in-time for music that was ahead-of-its-time when it was created, before it was lost. Have I lost you? Case in point: Sun Electric began releasing music in 1990 and continued until 2004, but their last full-length album was Via Nostra in 1999. Their music was at the forefront of technology and soundsystem parties at the time, along with contemporaries Orb, Orbital and Future Sounds of London. Sun Electric were pioneers of what would later be called IDM, perfecting the sound with singles and remixes until 2004. Lost + Found (1998-2000) is a collection of ambient electronica that was created by Sun Electric in the late 90′s, during the recording of their Via Nostra album and shortly after. As for the songs that the 2 men produced in those 3 years: they were lost, collecting studio dust. Tom Thiel, half of Sun Electric, says they recently rediscovered the songs, and to their surprise, the music sounds fresh again, not outdated:

The tracks sound different in the context of today’s music. … There isn’t much music like this now, which makes the songs special, in our opinion.

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We’ve got two grand tours by Ipecac artists: The Melvins with Big Business and Otto Von Schirach with The Locust! The Melvins have announced a jam-packed tour of the US from mid-September to mid-October where they will be screening the new DVD they created with hipster cartoon toy designer Dalek – “Purge of Dissidents” at each show! Big Business will be opening the shows, but first The Melvins play one show with Mudhoney in LA (which will also screen the new DVD). If sludge rock isn’t your mug o’music, but weirdness is, you might want to check out the Otto Von Schirach tour with analog afficionado insectoids The Locust that is winding around Europe! Ahhh, I remember when Otto was just a lad, playing underground warehouse shows in SF and The Locust were scaring kids at The Gilman… ([More →])

I found a remarkable story on the Village Voice today. Part mystery thriller, part treasure hunt, part news. It concerns the discovery of some “new” talent, a pair of electronic musicians who collectively go by the name of Tuss, but who individually call themselves Brian Tregaksin and Karen Tregaskin. Tuss released Confederation Trough in their early days, then the prestigious release that caused electronica enthusiasts to sit up and take notice – Rushup Edge on the elite UK publisher Chrysalis.

The article in the Village Voice mostly reviews this epic album, but seems stuck on the idea that the Truss is no rookie electronica act. The writer instead forwards the notion that has been circulating through lists and forums – that this is another eponymous work by the elusive Richard D James, a.k.a. Aphex Twin. ([More →])

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?