We’ve already told you why Mark Van Hoen’s The Reverant Diary record is a must-listen. Here are 10 YouTube tracks that influenced the producer/multi-instrumentalist in the past few years, as timed to his special free Unsound performance with Maria Minerva today at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. They’re on right at 4, so be sure to arrive early for guaranteed entry…
Continue reading »
“I like to make mixes as if they were movie soundtracks,” explains King Britt. “This one would be to a film starring Elena Anaya and directed by David Lynch.”
And with that, we’re off on a very strange trip indeed—a slow-burn excursion through the producer’s experimental side that’s light on beats and heavy on atmosphere. Which makes sense when you consider how expansive Britt’s latest project is. As heard on a freshly pressed Hyperdub EP, Fhloston Paradigm is a strictly analog tribute to the sci-fi scores Britt grew up with, from the obvious (Blade Runner, all things John Carpenter) to the outré (Ultraman, all things Japanese).
In the following exclusive, Britt shares some details on his next move—an album, and a Shabazz Palaces side project—and blends Moroder, Stockhausen and Eno in the most bewildering manner possible…
Continue reading »
The Artist: Fripp & Eno, (No Pussyfooting) (Island, 1973)
A Short Review: We’re not sure what’s more painlessly cool about Fripp & Eno’s first ambient LP: the space age coke den cover—complete with mirrored cubicles and pinup playing cards—or the fact that it sounds like a Growing album from the early ’00s. And while Fripp’s guitar parts are wankier on this record than they were on Evening Star two years later, the “Frippertronics” fusion of his widescreen solos and Eno’s tape loop tactics are both timeless and telling, marking just how far ahead of the curve the duo was in the ’70s.
So far, in fact, that Island Records—fresh off releasing Eno’s much more accessible Here Come the Warm Jets—and Fripp’s King Crimson bandmates both despised the disc’s hypnotic hooks and dovetailing riffs.
Available At: Amazon
Lilacs & Champagne had us at goodbye—namely the line in their bio that promised “something like the sound of Nurse With Wound collaborating with J Dilla.”
Not that any of this loop-led tomfoolery should be all that surprising. After all, Emil Amos—one half of the Grails-related duo alongside Alex Hall—lent us a library music mix in late 2010, calling the cult favorites a “hidden pinnacle for those who can afford to dig around in the upper echelons of obtuse record collecting in these troubled times.”
Luckyily, the following artists have done the digging for us over the years…
The Artist/Album: Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason, SÓLARIS (Bedroom Community, 2011)
The Reason(s) We Can’t Stop Listening: The eerie, deeply emotive subtleties of this alternate reality soundtrack—cut for the cult favorite Solaris—passed right through us when we first saw it performed at Unsound‘s New York festival. Not because Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason can’t string a composition together. (They’re actually two of Iceland’s strongest rising stars.) No, the problem was Brian Eno’s visuals, which fell surprisingly flat despite his efforts to turn Andrei Tarkovsky’s stunning sci-fi film into “another strange loop of computer-generated distortion.”
Taken on its own, SÓLARIS is one of the year’s most sinister song suites, a startling miasma of prepared piano, cutting chords and strings that seem to be strangling your speakers ever so slowly. And when all those taut terror tactics suddenly segues into pure silence near the end, it’s as if you just watched something truly awful happen and the clouds parted at a moment that can only be described as “too late.”
Brian Eno has announced yet another entry in his ongoing relationship with Warp Records. Due out November 8th, Panic of Looking features six new tracks that “continue the exploration of how lyric and songwriting are perceived.” Find out just what the hell that means after the jump, and pre-order your copy here…
Continue reading »
We’re still on the fence about Brian Eno‘s second Warp album, Drums Between the Bells. Due out this Tuesday and streaming below thanks to Wired‘s Underwire blog, it sounds a bit like a Selected Ambient Poetry Slam at times, but that’s okay, because a double-disc version of the rather experimental album features an entire slab of instrumental takes. Let us know what you think in our comments section or on Twitter!
Continue reading »
The Artist/Album: Brian Eno, Drums Between the Bells (Warp, July 5th)
The Details: According to a press release, Eno “first came across the work of Rick Holland in the late ’90s during the Map-Making project; a series of collaborative works between students of the Royal College, the Guildhall School of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the National Youth Orchestra and the English National Ballet, among others.” The pair’s first sessions were sparked in 2003 and they’ve worked in the studio together on and off ever since. Drums Between the Bells ties up all of the loose ends from those tracks with one tidy album featuring Holland’s words, several guest vocalists, and Eno’s music.
You can check out the complete tracklisting after the jump, along with a streaming version of a spastic little song called “glitch”…
Continue reading »
Photo: Bjarni Grims
Words by Andrew Parks
When I interviewed Michael Gira for a Decibel story last year, the Swans frontman asked if I’d ever heard of someone named Ben Frost. The mood manipulator was apparently a prime candidate for some remixes, so I proceeded to tell him how perfect the pairing would be and that he really should see Frost play sometime. After all, the last time I witnessed one of his profoundly visceral sets, the raw power of it all literally left my teeth rattling. Kinda like a solo, instrumental Swans show, really.
Gira found it hard to believe that someone could be that intense with nothing but a guitar and a laptop, but he eventually tapped the multi-instrumentalist for Swans’ Brooklyn stop, so something must have worked out. Or as Lustmord—the godfather of dark ambient music—told us when asked about his own computerized performances last week, “I wouldn’t pay to see someone in front of a laptop. But seeing Kraftwerk do it [well] made me think, ‘Well, I guess you can do something cool if you have really good sound.’”
Continue reading »
The Artist/Album: Brian Eno, Discreet Music (EG, 1975)
A Short Review: As Baroque as we wanna be on a frostbitten Sunday night. Meaning: one side-long meditation on “furniture music” (the title track, which could pass as an infinitely looped Boards of Canada interlude), followed by three sweeping variations on the same Johann Pachelbel composition. Discreet Music is also an album of firsts—the first to stamp Brian Eno’s full name on its sleeve, and the first to feature purely ambient pieces. (Ambient 1: Music For Airports didn’t arrive for another three years.)
© 2012 Pop Mart Media | Find us on Twitter & Facebook Site Built by PAPER TIGER