Top Albums of 2008

It would have been nice to have a top 10, however my lethargic nature prevents me to look through my entire music collection to see what was actually released this year. So instead, here is a list of the albums that have a solid place in my heart and mind for years to come. There is no number one, they are all equally and indisputably awesome.

Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke
(Modular Records)
A very late discovery, but possibly the happiest record of 2008. Contemporary candy pop disguised as 80's New Wave. Although the Stevie Niks' influence sounds all to familiar, this has a distinct and unique resonance to it, a perfect soundtrack for those lonely walks and slow motion party montages that you see in your mind...or maybe that's just me.

Deerhunter - Microcastle
(4AD/Kranky)
Their previous efforts on Cryptograms was a noisy but lush experiment. Mature is an apt but patronizing description of the new album. All together more coherent with added longevity, this release wraps your ears in glowing melodies and washes of brittle guitars chords with every track seamlessly intertwining along the impeccably produced journey.

Pivot - O, Soundtrack My Heart
(Warp)
Just awesome. Tears your face off with bone crushing force and militant rhythms, a subtle hypnosis of cellophane encased synths and unceasing riffs. For fans of Battles searching for their filthy nemesis.

Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals
(We Are Free)
People fail to see the sense in my '80's Gospel Folk-Rock' tag for this band, however i can see no greater description. Hall and Oates meets Boston in a Medieval battle of the bands is perhaps an accurate but confusing metaphor. Regardless, this album is an uplifiting and exoctic endevour i continue to enjoy.

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
(4AD/Jagjaguwar)
Frosted whispers and chain rattling apparitions haunt your speakers as Justin Vernon and his angelic chorus swell your heart with effervescent voices. An inescapable numb, a warming chill down your spine so achingly beautiful it cannot be justified by cheesy reviews.

Frequency Four

Limerick resident Tenaka asked me to do a remix for his forthcoming release: 'EPonymously Titled'. Its really heartfelt lo-fi folktronica, gonna be killer. He also got my EP a couple of sweet reviews on some Irish blogs and a mention in the Irish Independant! Thanks dude.
He introduced me to some wonderous music.

Bon Iver
Stunning singer-songwriter from Wisconsin. Obvious favourites are 'Flume' and 'Skinny Love', just achingly beautiful songs.

On a different note, Teej has made a blog for his end of year University degree project. Some kind of live looping one man band utilizing technilogical gizmo-gadgetry...
Its looks...interesting, but incredible! What a magical creature.
http://projectteej.blogspot.com/


PROJECT TEEJ - PRESENTATION VIDEO from Teej on Vimeo.

Frequency Three

Teej, insane drummer of our band and one my many infinite sources of musical wisdom led me to an interesting band the other day:

Yeasayer
Feels like 80's Gospel. Folk undercurrents and slap-back delay vocals.
Check their tune '2080' - it looks like you can get it free here.

Unforscene
Not one of Teej's suggestions, yet an awesome find none the less. Forget the winter chill and dream of summery fields with these guy's funky hip-hop fused beats and soulful melodies. They do a collaboration with the West-Coast marshal word-smith Epcot on their album 'Fingers and Thumbs' available on Tru Thoughts, also home to one of my favourite producers Quantic.

Fluid Mix - Hypnotize

So this is my first mix for Fluid-Radio, i don't have any fancy mixing software so the mixes are pretty medieval....but it means you get to hear the whole tune, so there.
Friday 19th December
7pm GMT
www.fluid-radio.co.uk

Halogen - Hypnotize (Fluid Mix) by Halogen

NOISE

I've been taking an increasingly added interest in all thing generally noisy. Tiny little machines of wires and circuits that create dense oscillations and waves of ambient sounds...
I recently purchased an FM3 Buddha Machine 2.0 from boomkat.com. A very concise and dainty piece of equipment that houses 9 different loops, i aim to buy several more to have my very own orchestra.


You can also download all the WAVs of the loops here:
http://www.fm3buddhamachine.com/site/?page_id=29

On a similar note is the awesomeness of bleeplabs.com.
They make strange little robot people with flashing minds that emit pulsating death rays of sonic chaos and digital madness. Soon they will be mine.

Recycled Broadcasts EP

My debut release is now available for FREE download!
I'm really happy with the result and appreciate all positive feedback and help i got making it.
It includes 4 tracks and some really beautiful comissioned artwork from Laura Gibson, Stephen Tyrell, and my 3 year old niece.

Tracks:
01. Not The Remix
02. Mainlla
03. Previous Future
04. Transmission

DOWNLOAD LINKS:
MaternityMedia.com(320mp3s and full artwork)
archive.org(VBRmp3s and partial artwork)
Jamendo.com(VBRmp3s with no artwork)

you can read a review of the EP on the Fluid Motion blog by Becca Dakini here.
A big thank you to Dan Fluid for sorting this out. You are the king.

Frequency Two

Wow, my posts are churning out at an average of one per month.
Super focused.

so new musical gems are:

Wixel
Belgian band make fuzzy tape scratched atmospheres with out of tune guitars and xylophones.
Very pretty, all thanks to this guy - www.brandoninvergo.com for introducing me to them.

TheMalm
Regular Podcasts of awesome music, also make trippy ambient minimal and crazy beats of the tea and toast variety.

ZXYZXY
Unsigned maestro of beautiful electronica with a certain Eastern post-rock timbre, his track 'Kmode' is available on the IDMF InDepthMelodics compilation. Dope.

Frequency One

The posts are slow, but i assure you they are steady. 'Frequency' will be a series of posts dedicated to current musical findings: albums, songs, websites, sandwiches etc.

Net-Labels

Some of the best music i have heard recently has not been bought, but downloaded (and no, not illegally). Net-labels provide quality EP and albums for download complete with artwork, all for free. Most music is held under the beautifully tame jurisdiction of the Creative Commons License, an alternative to Copyright.

some of my favourite's:

http://www.acroplane.org/
- An incredible collection of free releases from "Irelands best free net label".
Mostly deals with music of IDM/Electronic tendencies.

Recommended downloads:

• Barry Lynn - 98 ep

A melodic and rolling hip-hop ep similar to Dj Shadow's 'Entroducing' album from Barry Lynn aka Boxcutter.

• Koen Park - Pastoral Pioneer

Glowing synths and crisp beats immersed in glitchy tape saturated warmth.


http://www.net-lab.co.uk/
- Another electronic music orientated net-label that also includes a some very inspiring independant short films.

Recommended downloads:

• TV Youth - Dawn EP

A must have. Some tracks are jaw-droppingly beautiful.

• Michael Manning - A Week At Night EP

Moody textures and sharp half-step rhythms centered around vocal loops and samples.

• pani K - Tramway

A short documentary about the tramway in Poland. Beautifully shot with interviews with the tram drivers. Who knew trams could be so interesting?

Albums

Pivot - O Soundtrack My Heart
(Warp/Inertia)
I started a math-rock band called Penguin with some friends from uni and Teej, the drummer, recommended we all listen to this album. Pivot are a three piece from Australia creating seizures of post-rock instrumetation with a distorted sheen. Squealing guitars over minimalist synths all underpinned with a thumping rhtyhm section. Maybe not for everyone, but it should be for everyone.
http://www.myspace.com/pivotpivot

IDM Forum Compilation

One of my tracks was picked for a lovely little EP by very special website:
www.idmforum.com, they made their own Netlabel and InDepthMelodics is the first of many free download albums they're releasing.
There are some really incredible tracks on here, my personal favourite our by 'ZXYZXY', 'Binary Pulses' and 'JWilson', but they are all pretty stand out tunes.
A special mention to the Mastering engineer: Altered Tensions, who did a stellar job.

Download here

Bent Wires

Here's something the Snoot sent me via StumbleupOn.com (no.1 all time procrastination tool). It's certainly one of the more brutal devices i've seen, doubles up as a weapon complete with a blood curdling scream to alarm enemies. More info and videos at www.pinktentacle.com.
I'm building a collection of broken, borrowed and stolen kids toys to rewire in the hope to create my own Modified Toy Orchestra. These guys are insane, no midi, no synths, just crazy modified toys.

Bent Not Broken - A short documentary about a group of circuit benders




Useful Circuit Bending Sites:

Wikipedia - Circuit Bending - Brief article on the history and innovators of the experimental process.
Modified Toy Orchestra - The official band wesbsite.
Circuitbenders.co.uk - Mod shop, tips and tricks for all your circuit bending needs.
Anti-theory.com - Rewiring pioneer, Reed Ghazala's personal website.
Casperelectronics.com - Crazy gadgets and custom creations.
GetLoFi.com - Diagram for circuit bending the infamous 'Speak n' Spell'.

Music made with Rubik's® Cubes?

The website reads:

"The Cubing audiovisual performance explores performative gestures through the relationship between colour and sound. The manipulation of simple Rubik's® cubes under video cameras sets off a chain of introspective synthesis and digital treatment. In this setup, the cube is an intuitively and precisely controllable audiovisual instrument."

So basically its two guys moving coloured blocks at cameras and creating insane glitchtastic textures. There's two movies demoing what the stuff is capable of here (35min.) and here (7min.).

Future Music @ The Scala, London

Friday 19th September, 10pm - 6am
Friday 17th October, 10pm - 6am
275 Pentonville Road
London, N1 9

OK, i'm bias. Blood Tribe is hosting a room at this events so obviously i have a duty to promote, but it's my first post and i'm going to post something i know.

The guys I work with run by the ethic: "we only put on parties that we would want to go to" and in my opinion, they have it nailed. 4 rooms, each with a designated genre aesthetic, Breaks, Minimal, Dubstep and Glitch are the core environments but are peppered with curiously named futuristic sub-genres of the neo-culture: Future Funk | Glitch-Hop | Tech-Funk | Tech-House to name a few. But don't let these cross-pollinated titles confuse you, they are all just other names for dirty, squelchy, beats and bass. Call it what you will, it all sounds incredible to me.


As well as a generous handful of UK producers the Future Music boys have flown in some of the freshest talent off the other side of the planet;

Epcot and Salva - San Francsico based MC and producer writing funky glitched out mid-tempo tunes with a super sheen, only to be played loud.

VibesquaD - Stripped back bass driven funkaphonics from Colorado based, Aaron Holstein.

The Glitch Mob - These guys are like the rock stars of the West Coast Glitch-Hop scene (to me anyway), flawless production from Ooah, Boreta, Kraddy and edIT.

Nosaj Thing - LA resident and Electronic criminal mastermind, Jason Chung, marries moody melodies with sultry hip-hop rhythms, currently unsigned, but sure to snapped up by the major label moguls..Warp anyone?

Hol Baumann - OK France isn't on the other side of the globe but this guy's music is incredibly moving and powerful. Downtempo electronica with a distinctive 'woody' tone.

Krill.Minima - Again, Germany, not so far away. No matter. Mega ambient and luscious melodic textures from this Native State Records resident.

If all goes to plan, world domination is imminent for Future Music (not to be confused with an equally excellent electronic magazine, but that could also be interesting).

For more info click the flyer or go to www.myspace.com/futuremusicevents

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