RECOMMENDED: Hype Williams – One Nation [Hippos In Tanks]

After hearing the vaguely mysterious Berlin/London duo’s album, 'Find Out What Happens When People Stop Being Polite and Start Getting Reel,' from last year on I couldn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. Maybe it was the auto-tuned crying baby or Pokemon samples that put me off a bit, but all the blatant use of samples just didn’t work for me. The ideas were good but it never really sounded like it worked that well, plus plenty of other people (labels like Not Not Fun, Editions Mego, Olde English Spelling Bee) have been doing this hazy, spaced out, slow motion, genre clusterfuck thing well enough for Hype Williams not to hit home too much. So when their latest album One Nation arrived on the Hippos In Tanks imprint, the fact that i bonded to the content took me by surprise.

There are four tracks in particular that make One Nation. The first is the opener ‘Ital’ and it’s screwed, smeared atmospheres, pulsing warm bass lines and those dissonant synth sounds that morph in speed and texture like they’re being played on a broken tape deck. It’s a key sound to the album that appears again and again and puts it head and shoulders above previous material. The sample baiting has been addressed here too, with the duo making them less obvious; notably the only time a sample is really prominent is with with the spoken word stoner wisdom on the second standout, ‘Untitled;’ the contortion of the melodies is tantalizing and when the bass drops through them the muffled euphoria really comes.

The hyperactive hi-hat workouts on ‘Warlord’ offer a quicker, more serious, junglist edge - whether or not it’s a juke influence at work here remains to be seen but the tempo fits, as do the drum machine cow bell flourishes. ‘Mitsubishi’ feels like a warped take on Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works all slow, shape shifting house complete with child like lead lines. The production, or seeming lack of it, means that it doesn’t really punch like house music does, but it’s a hazy take on the sound but it works a treat amongst the static of the other tracks.

The brilliantly titled ‘Your Girl Smells Chung When She Wears Dior’ has a sunny shimmer, complete with hip-hop drums it plays out like an opening to a movie fucked purposely into new shapes. The hazy glow of ‘William, Shotgun Sprayer’ sounds like your favourite summer jingle being played on the last dregs of battery life through your walkman whilst while ‘Jah’ is the most intense noise exploration on the album, giving off a anxiety soaked train ride through a dystopian city sort of vibe. The album soon melts back into that sweet hazy bliss though when ‘Break4Love’ enters the equation and Hype Williams let its widescreen mellowness, sink in.

Primitive in its processes, One Nation is almost blissful, but completely blazed out; the most mature approach to date from an act whose ramshackle experiments in sound are on everyone’s – including Hyperdub boss Kode 9, who has confirmed they’ll be releasing an album on his label at some point in the future– lips right now. Much like the work of Actress, the production techniques may sound like you’re listening to the album through someone else’s iPod on a noisy tube train, but inherently, therein lies some of its out of body charm.

Words: James Balf // Out: Now

RECOMMENDED: Ekoplekz – Memowrekz [Mordant Music]

Ekoplekz might well have first come into view via the 20th release on Punch Drunk late last year, an unexpected and downright refreshing 12" for the label that acted like a jagged edged palette cleanser. Label boss Peverelist was simply (once again) indulging his penchant for the sonic curve ball with two cuts of dubbed-out beat-less noise, fully allowing the analogue freakout. Given it probably wasn’t what the world was expecting from one of the leading lights in the, for want of a better word, dubstep scene for their landmark release, but Pev’s open policy of putting out pretty much anything he’s feeling from his surrounding Bristol geography has paid off in droves.

Upon further digging the move makes a lot of sense sonically. Noisy freakouts aren’t so far removed from dubstep’s outer limits (see The Bug and or Cloaks) and the label under the microscope here, Mordant Music, have been working alongside one of dance music’s most warped producers, Shackleton, for years. You can connect these threads further afield too, Ben UFO pretty much played a experimental noise set the other night on Rinse, debuting some extreme guitar excursions by Andrew Coltrane from Trilogy Tapes - the label who’ve dropped a 12” from Dro Carey who has been known to get a bit fractured with his samples, whilst keeping his dancefloor slant rolling – and the same goes for a producer like Egyptrixx, whose work is distressed and frayed yet decisively melodic.

Memowrekz is an epic thirty three track workout of dub infused dissonant synth music, and as such, it’s kind of a tough one to pin down. It’s a dystopian vision but one that draws you in; it’s discordant but never gets overtly confrontational. Incredibly tough to draw comparisons, the record sits somewhere within that bunch of freaks on Olde English Spelling Bee: Stella Om Source and maybe even Forest Swords; it’s got the synths of one and the heavy dub of the other. You could also draw parallels with the Not Not Fun stable: Sun Araw’s and Peaking Lights dub-psych jams, both the heavy and breezy angles... It even fits next to Oneohtrix Point Never, but in a way it's more free flowing and compelling.

The improvisational manner in which Ekoplekz works really shines and pays dividends here. His deep synthesized squiggles get shaped and treated before your ears; beats bubble up and under – when they appear at all – and echo drenched surges of noise build upon themselves atop layers of warm synth tones. Intertwining the odd bass and guitar line, dropping them deftly into the synthetic ocean of sound, Memowerkz makes for a really enjoyable listen. The blissful bright passages mark a tonal change in mood and texture and they really pop out during the full listening experience. The extremities in sound are balanced with ease though, giving Ekoplekz and Mordant Music a killer combination of industrially tinged experimental composition.

Words: James Balf
Out: Now

Catch Ekoplekz’s freshly uploaded mix for Electronic Explorations, show #146, here: http://electronicexplorations.org/the-show/146-ekoplekz/

RECOMMENDED: Peaking Lights - 936 [Not Not Fun]

Eagle Rock, LA based label Not Not Fun has been producing the goods for well over a year now with nare a single mistep in its release schedule. Run by Britt and Amanda Brown NNF has been a focal point for heavy lidded lowest-of-the-lo-fi straight to tape bejewelled, silk-screened rumbling and mumblings since 2004, but in the last couple of years has been ramping its output up into the stars with an accelerating trajectory of future household names that has included Abe Vigoda, Ducktails, High Wolf, Matrix Metals, Sun Araw, Dylan Ettinger, Magic Lantern and of course, a lotta Pocahaunted. Now they have released the second full length 12” from Peaking Lights, the similarly wedded couple Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis (formerly of the propulsive angular guitar band Numbers). 936 is a release set to blaze this band's name into the firmament.

After a couple of split singles they released their first full album Imaginary Falcons back in 2009 through both Night People and Not Not Fun to some seriously wowed acclaim. In 2010 they released a split with Wet Hair on NNF's Bored Fortress 7” series and then the Space Primitive cassette on Night People and again on 12” through NNF. All their releases so far have involved fantastically spun out psychedelic embraces of themes, woven through spatial enhancers, psychotropic distorters, emotional compression, circuit bent trinkets and charmingly weathered keyboards that belong from within the realms of the junk-rock circuit, but none have quite hinted at the full potential realised in this release.

A mossy collage of root-bound tape-loop drone opens the album, offering a sense of intuitive awakening from the sleep since Imaginary Falcons, that tips the listener gently into the album itself with 'All The Sun That Shines.' The lead track released several weeks ago with the crate-digging collage video by Amanda Brown lays a big hook into the listener with a fat island bassline that throbs through its core, marking this out as a different entity to their former work. Comparisons to Amanda Brown's final album with (the NNF supergroup incarnation of) Pocahaunted are easy to make with the distinct dub and reggae influence a common thread amongst much recent NNF releases, but Peaking Lights are the band to have incorporated the most essential essences of dub experimentation cast from the desk of the Black Ark, ingesting and regurgitating them instinctively into the noise-band psych-folk of the West Coast US.

Long slow moving King Tubby basslines appear on several tracks, providing ample cushioning for the raft of cosmic effects and reverbed chords to flutter off into haunting repetitions of increasing opaqueness, snatches of circuit bending burst apart and melt back into the ether in increasingly deep and psychedelic successions. The suitably epic closer 'Summertime,' heralds what sounds like it could collapse into a huge speaker destroying wobble, then settles into a malleable pulse, Indra's cool vocals smoothing over what could sound demented without her presence. Joined by a lead melody tone that is both chilling and uplifting her vocal loop ushers in a host of glitchy rattling and humming opening a portal through which exotic otherworldy entities spill through.

The third track is potentially the highlight, dealing in the most sensual sonic experimentation of the record; the bobbing bottom end of 'Amazing and Wonderful' is sprinkled with soft feedback ringing out in fading ripples of delay, echo heavy guitar vibrations and an intimate tapestry of muted arpeggios descend down melody lines that cross each other like dancing lovers. What made Imaginary Falcons such a warming and beatific experience is blushed through this one track, and it's soporific euphoria that transcends all that came before it.

This album is one long slow, sustained process of sensual enlightenment. There's a total awareness of which sonic textures best nurture each other, with noises offering more in the way of melody and musicality than just surface aesthetics the relationships each element of the mix has to one another, of the space each incorporates, the dynamics that can be achieved by the anticipation of sound in the silence. This is elevated, intimate music making that may never appear from the hands and minds of another artist. This incarnation of Peaking Lights exists on another creative plane of being, like star crossed lovers set adrift on hypnagogic bliss.

Words: Meatbreak
Out: Now

Link:
www.myspace.com/peakingfix
www.notnotfun.com

RECOMMENDED: Surf Kill

Anyone who’s followed Belgian producer Dynooo, either through his music or though his social networking, will know that there’s a strong aesthetic that runs through him. Posting as many animated gifs as he does snapshots of 70s style home living, there’s a strong sense of looking back to create his art. Its homespun and always rich in colour; take the artwork for his Gum Dragon EP - which caught out ear back in April - it’s an almost symmetrical collage built out of patterns, textures and photographs of forests that invites your eye in further with its layered sense of depth.

A few months back we got wind of a new label project Dynooo set up with a crew of likeminded people. Called Surf Kill, it came to life with a split single from Dynooo and Cupp Cave, a fellow Belgian producer whose tracks on Dynooo’s SR mix stood out masterfully. Delightfully messy, it was awesome; full as much of stumbling drums and synthesized swirls as boogie and funk it was a tight statement of intent - in keeping with what the world knew of their music. Surf Kill 002 however, was a handmade monochrome zine crafted by Dynooo. Only 50 were made.



“Surf Kill is a label me and some friends started,” Dynooo told us after we got all excited when he brought word of new projects and started hassling him on email. “I guess you could say we offer an alternative approach to music and presenting it: we print and design our own cover art, put out zines and create visuals filmed with VHS cams. DIY has always been the ideology.”

“As far as genres, there's nothing we won't do, he continues. “The first release was kind of on some bass music; deep and synthy offbeat stuff. Distributed worldwide by Rush Hour we're lucky to say it near sold out. We've just now added two upcoming geniuses to our roster (Munch Room and the unknown Ssaliva), each bringing forth rather minimal, feel-good as well as desolate soundpieces.”

Dynooo’s words definitely hit the nail on the head. Munch Room’s self titled mini album (SK004) is incredibly moving. Like a study of drawn out tones and processing it’s a beatless collection of sonic ideas. From the bit crushed, engine deep rumbles on ‘Toyota Dreams,’ woozy keyboard tones on ‘Hoop Girl’ to the awkward, juttering noise of ‘Cross Colours’ it all has an unweilding charm. Like a fuzzy un-hyped experiment, that actually has production value.



Meanwhile SK003 is a 22 track album project called Mercury Coast by the anonymous Ssaliva. Sharing an affinity to the early Bibio albums, where it was just endless torrents of guitar loops, Ssaliva’s work feels furiously DIY. The tone of the guitars is at times choked by the recording equipment, but the intent of the loops really grows out of that. You know how a lot of people (myself included) describe Actress’ music as sounding muffled and scuffed, as if your outside the club listening to the rhythms through the walls? It’s that same kind of thing here and tracks like ‘Laps,’ ‘School Rave,’ ‘Witchrack’ and ‘Red Sky & White Floor’ seem to shine out amongst the roughness, their droning voices amplified again by the space and static they employ.



Words: Oli Marlow
Out: Both albums are available now via Surf Kill

Link:
http://surfkill.tk

INTERVIEW: Downliners Sekt [disBoot]

Followers of the writing that appears on this page and the stupefied textures that appear in our radio show should be aware of our penchant for weird abstractions. Long since a fan of Murcof and Philip Jeck, players that harness the full power of white (and pink) noise and - at the risk of sounding like a complete thundercunt - of the fulfilling kind of solace listening to the unfurling of a drone can provide, we like going to art galleries, and or big white painted spaces to listen to a heavy set Japanese dude detune a banjo for an hour and three quarters. Alt-rock band Fog remain one of the most important bands in this blog's editor’s musical history, and in a sense, they hit the nail we’re trying so hard to paint upon, on the head. Fusing conventional pop song melodies with awkward glitches, propelling drum lines and full on horn wig out sections, they’re weird enough to engage our elevated opinions and have pretty enough songs to make us listen to them way more than once.

Downliners Sekt are another one of the acts that appease all sides of our tastes. Ethereal enough to be ceremoniously stamped with a Burial influence, it’s the crackle of static that is the outfit’s biggest star on their June released Hello Lonely, Hold The Nation EP - put out as the first part in a trilogy of EP’s on Barcelona’s disBoot label - and it’s with their acre deep crunch that we’ve so openly bonded. Largely anonymous, never conversing using names, the rotating group began producing music under the Downliners Sekt moniker back in 2004...

“It's the classic story of a bunch of all time friends sharing the same cultural interest,” we’re told by the vocal representative of the group over the course of several emails, “but unlike most bands, we started working together when we got separated and were all living in different cities.”

“Thanks to the internet we broke the gap between us and started collaborating. Back at that time we were more or less involved with different major signed bands that were taking most of our time and energy. Downliners Sekt started to take shape back then, coalescing from individual projects, waiting in the shadows and growing slowly but immaculately from deadlines, budgets schemes, and formats. Because music it's always been a priority to us, we've been arranging our time to keep making it happen. We never know what's coming next, but after a lot of crucial changes and 6 releases, it's good to see we have a history backing us up.”



Stretching across two albums, 2005’s Statement of Purpose and 2008’s The Satire Wave the Sekt have built a catalogue that swims in diversity. From the early dubstep bass weight of Statement of Purpose’s opener ‘Benz’ to the blitzing textures on Hello lonely…’s closing track ‘Negative Green’ and the guitar infusions on their entire Satire Wave album, the group have skewed themselves across almost every genre, style and process. It’s only now, with the gift of hindsight, looking back through their discography and at the time they were constructed, that it becomes so evident how far ahead of their peers the group was, and are now.

“We were teenagers in the 90's so that's where most of our musical influences come from. We could be viewed as an indie/noise/garage band entirely submerged on a rave/DJ/party/drugs culture. With our second album The Saltire Wave, when we were working on it, we took a break from the machines, plugged in our guitars and the album was perceived by some listeners as post rock, which to us sounds a little bit reductive.

"when something we are producing begins to sound too clubby or too fancy we feel like taking an AK47 and shooting that whole dancefloor we've just imagined."

“We're never really sure of what sonic direction we are taking but we get more fun out of a huge noisy bass than a cheap 80's synth preset. We work on a very spontaneous way of producing tracks which is avoiding clichés, pre-made loops and stuff like that. To us it's about creating and destroying. It's like when something we are producing begins to sound too clubby or too fancy we feel like taking an AK47 and shooting that whole dancefloor we've just imagined.”

Positioning Downliners Sekt’s music in a club is another, wholly welcomed contradiction. Sharing little aspects of the beat scene – in that sometimes there is a beat and that the kick drum of that said beat thumps powerfully – their most recent work impacts upon speakers with a stuttered grace. Organic vocals float behind the powerpunch percussion on tracks like ‘Selfish G,’ and, in a traditional lazy point of music journalism reference, echoes the work of Mount Kimbie, whose constructions fuse similar uncomfortable frequencies, beat patterns, vocal snatches and reams of bassweight.

“We've been changing setups and methods of working since day one, but right now its basically laptops and drum pad controllers. Since we started working with computers we've always tried to avoid the machine taking control of our sound and the sequencer taking control of the rhythm patterns. At the end, the computer became just another sophisticated multitrack recorder to us. We've been recently trying some external analog gear, like vintage mixers and preamps but nothing really flashy. The final touch comes from the mastering studio when we work closely with the engineer and try to achieve the kind of sound we have in mind. He brings the gear and techniques while we suggest him to take some directions he wouldn't usually take.”


Downliners Sekt – Negative Green (video by Enrique Muda)

On the cusp of their 2nd EP in the trilogy, We Make Hits, Not The Public, it seems the troup are honing in on the glitches, fully making a feature out of those little crackle powered moments; always letting the snares rip through the mix with the stabbing high end snap of white noise.

“This trilogy is more like an album fragmented into three parts,” we’re informed. “It was a matter of urgency. After the release of 'The Satire Wave' came a long period of experimentation and when we got together again to start working on new material we realized that, because the way we work, it would've probably taken another year or so to complete an album. The guys at disBoot label were thinking on 7" singles or 12" so we started working in that line. It happens that this, more frequent sequence of releases is giving us more constant exposure than releasing a full length in that same period of time.”

On We Make Hits... the poignant roughness of tracks like ‘From Under Spinning Lights’ seeps out in fits, with the jagged edge of the chorus juxtaposing the layered vocals – that are actually just layered, and multi-tracked rather than chopped into fragments and rearranged into make shift sentences in that way so many producers seem to be fond of doing. ‘Incertia Gloria’ hits heavy with electrified kick drums piercing though the current, whilst ‘White Dawn’ paces things slower, making the most out of the sparse percussion and high pitched vocals and ‘Selfish G’ flutters impatiently, almost amplifying the aching anxiety of the whole release with its roughly sampled pads. Making music from such a broad palette can be daunting at times, having too much of a wealth to draw from can sometimes produce a work thats not streamlined enough to work as a whole, but Downliners Sekt make their genius sound casual. The perfect mix of the rugged and raw and the resplendent.

“It's not tough at all to categorize our music,” the anonymous producer ponders. “We have a whole list of styles that fit. When we have to tag our mp3 files we usually fuck around with made up genres: 'electronoise for breakbeat initiates,' 'slower but faster,' 'dawntempo,' 'r&k,' 'heavy mental,' 'noize in the woods,' '(under)grounded,' 'after hours post rock,' 'save as,' 'en descente de Portbou,' 'down the line,' 'by the way'... Really, people shouldn't spend too much time trying to categorize music; its better just listen to it."

Words: Oli Marlow

::

All the releases mentioned are available to download from the Downliners Sekt webstie. We Make Hits, Not The Public is out now.

You can download Downliners Sekt recent mix for the highly regarded Electronic Explorations podcast series, in show number 127 here: http://electronicexplorations.org/the-show/127-downliners-sekt/

Link:
www.downliners-sekt.com

DOWNLOAD: WNCL - Mrs Fingers (Ekoplekz Replekz)

Long since a bringer of joy and great music to our inbox, West Norwood Cassette Library’s Bob Bhamra’s enthusiasm for the game is infectious. After hearing DJ C in Untold’s FACT mix he made it his own personal mission to track him down and snag a few of his unreleased cuts for his label, and it’s this commitment to going that little bit further to chase something he believes in, which has so genuinely struck a chord with us. As a producer Bharma’s anthemic ‘Blonde on Blonde’ is set to be the first release on the brand new TEAL imprint - hitting like Martyn does with his new trademark booming, relentless kick its coming correct with a deconstructed Pearson Sound remix on the flip – and his ‘What It Is’ track from the first WNCL release still stands out in any mix it’s wheeled out in.

In the wake of his label’s 3rd vinyl release, ‘Mrs Fingers’ - Bhamra’s self styled tribute to Larry Heard, placed over a stripped down dubstep template - he’s not only roped in Echochord’s dub techno don Quantec for a remix on the vinyl version but he’s also sought out Punch Drunk’s most recent artist, Ekoplekz, to submit a version.

“Ekoplekz surprised me this week by sending me a remix (or replekz, if you will) of ‘Mrs Fingers,’ completely out of the blue,” Bhamra recalled to me recently. “I was mostly surprised because his performances (live and recorded) are strictly analogue and improvised so I wasn't sure any remixes were ever on the cards... anyway, I checked the remix and it’s pretty bonkers.”

An experimental musician residing in Bristol, Ekoplekz just released the 20th 12” on Peverlist’s Punch Drunk label, a move that astounded many. Moving acres away from the usual oddball dancefloor pressure the label is so good at housing the two tracks, ‘Distended Dub’ and ‘Stalag Zero’ are pure sound experiments, reportedly made on nothing but analogue equipment. ‘Distended Dub’ takes a suitably heavy bass pulse and splatters it with sheet noise and swells for 8 minutes whilst ‘Stalag Zero’ veers through atmospherics and tortured Indian string instruments in a decidedly ‘BBC Radiophonic Workshop’ kind of way, igniting the ghosts of Delia Derbyshire and John Baker as it careers through its textures.

So to put it simply, we’re stoked and indebted to be able to bring you the premiere of the Ekoplekz ‘Replekz’ version of ‘Mrs Fingers.’ Taking the tonal qualities of the original version’s main riff, Ekoplekz thuds the whole thing out, deploying barrages of distorted kick drums, diamond edged stabs of noise and a severe talent for unleashing the requisite amount of reverb at any given time. It’s a sound experiment that really works; a dark and subtle almost beat-less (in the conventional sense) progression that stamps the Ekoplekz production process all over it while just hinting and the melody of the original.

DOWNLOAD: West Norwood Cassette Library – Mrs Fingers (Ekoplekz Replekz)



Both WNCL003, ‘Mrs Fingers’ b/w Quantec Remix and DRUNK020, Ekoplekz’s ‘Distended Dub’ b/w ‘Stalag Zero’ are out now. TEAL001, WNCL’s ‘Blonde on Blonde’ b/w Pearson Sound Remix is out 20th December.

Audio of nearly all of these is available at our Hivemind.fm show archive: mixcloud.com/sonicrouter

Links:
http://westnorwoodcassettelibrary.blogspot.com
http://ekoplekznews.wordpress.com

DOWNLOAD: Future Sounds Of Highpoint Lowlife Mixtape

To link you up with a bunch of forthcoming music business on his own Highpoint Lowlife label Mr. Sideb0ard has spun together an eclectic session mix for you featuring bits from The Village Orchestra, Calika and Production Unit...

A special mention goes in right here for 10-20, whos forthcoming EP series I've been lucky enough to hear in their entiriety. Something very special is coming.

DOWNLOAD: Future Sounds Of Highpoint Lowlife Mixtape

Tracklist:

Rare Villains - We Love Slice
Depakote - Calculator
10-20 - Hallow
TVO - non-euclidian
Erik XVI - Unionens sista dagar
Brassica - show me what music is
Dalglish - Ap3p.W9
Calika - Gioconda
Production Unit - It's Personal

Link:
http://highpointlowlife.com