Thursday 22 September 2011

DOWNLOAD: Twilight Owls - I've Never Been To The Sea






Another deeply enchanting ep from Moscow's solo drone pioneer Twilight Owls. This one is picked out a little bit more than his previous locked tone movements, as he clambers over the rockpools on his first foray to the seaside.  There's the humid air of Ducktails permeating the first part, a dense tropical twang rocking gently to the delay and reverb settings, along with that oddly East/West modal tone and sense of nostalgic aura that Real Estate creates so well too  The picked notes eventually get washed into the waves of drone that form the second track, but like the action of the tide itself they are eventually pushed back to the surface and on to the beach for the closing cycles.




He also recorded an seemingly infinite loop cover of John Maus' excellent Cop Killer:

Wednesday 21 September 2011

STREAM: Gnod - Vatican (DrumCunt Remix)


Hydra psych collective Gnod's epic, monolithic lumbering beast of a track has been given an even bassier rescrub by the deviant production techniques of London's DrumCunt.  Pitched down into the deep dark earth, exhumed and pulverised, Vatican finds itself rerendered as a slow motion drum and bass rumble that verges on the kinds of drag remixes that were pouring out of the walls last year.  This is great.

Tuesday 20 September 2011

VIDEO: Three Trapped Tigers - Reset



Matt Berry fronted epic 11+ minute sci-fi video for Three Trapped Tigers' "pretty huge" Reset track. 

This is actually incredible. Jaw-dropping, time-stopping head-turning. Not sure if you're watching a real sketch show, short film or one of the greatest music videos commited to tape.  It helps that the music of TTT is so polymorphously perverse that it could be soundtracking any of those things - from 2001 to Look Around You. Deadly serious in it's tounge in cheek luminosity.

Play this full screen size if you can, and on the biggest one you can find.

VIDEO: Ghosting Season - Washed Ashore

Monday 19 September 2011

last.fm

Weekly listening stats.  YES!

Celestial Last.fm


01. Warm Ghost - 73
02. At The Drive-In - 47
03. Allo Darlin' - 29
04. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - 24
05. Robel Synthesia - 23
06. Balam Acab - 21
06. Village of Spaces - 21
08. Future Shuttle - 18
09. Wolves in the Throne Room - 15
10. Andy Stott - 14


1 – still can't stop listening to Narrows. It's released next week and I expect to see it get hyped; Bowie / Numan retro style with nu-retro chillwave and more. Pretty addictive.

2 – played Relationship of Command to my 3 year old. He went fairly nuts

3 – Got their album after End of the Road. It's quite nice, got some good lyrics and lovely harmonies.

4 – Incredible classical drone album from Stars of the Lid member Adam Wiltzie and pianist Dustin O’Halloran, as you're probably already aware. On Friday night I played this then Nest, Balam Acab, Future Shuttle and FRKWYS Vol.7 one after the other and I think I did some permanent realigning of some neural networks.

5 – Chillwavey electronica that maps an afternoon in the life of. D/L for free: http://robelsynthesia.bandcamp.com/album/neon-island

6a – First couple of plays of Wander/Wonder and I think I might get hooked in. Doesn't sound like an electronic record at all, so lush and organic sounding; like he mic'd up a petri dish.

6b – Awesome psychedelic acid-folk album, similar if not better to all those 60's bands from UK and USA. Sounds like both sides of the pond and beyond.

8 – First full ep from NY based synth-space duo is a total trancer. Produced by Blondes, indebted to just about any synth player ever and very heavy on the gorgeous vocals.

9 – New WITTR. OMG! USBM FTW.

10 – The title track on Passed Me By is some kind of sublime elevated techno, no?


TOTW:

GIG PREVIEW: Be Nothing Presents: Sun Glitters @ Green Door Store



New young promotions duo Be Nothing are putting on the liquid delicious Sun Glitters in Brighton town in just a few weeks. SHame we never got a sumemr hot enough to match the soporific heaviness the music this bad evokes. maybe turnign up to this gig will give you heatstroke from standing too close to the PA. 



Support comes from Brighton's own F.L.A. - a solo female electronic producer making propulsive dreamy beats, in a similar vein to the more Balearic tracks from Memory Tapes and the lush shimmery beatscapes of Universal Studios Florida.  Check out the F.L.A. Soundcloud for plenty more

  YOUNG LOVE REMIX DEMO VERSION by

Be Nothing are also DJing with Fokkawolfe and Xanadu at new club/live band night Abuse, also at GDS on the 23rd September. Free entry so fill yr brain cells up til they turn grey with a night of red strobe light, witch house, dark wave, technicolour noise and what-not-gaze.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

DOWNLOAD: I Am Blip - Sept 2011 live promo


Been a fan of Glasgow's I Am Blip since the early days of NFR, regularly playing his smoothly exhilirating electro-techno out our club nights and featuring them on our monthly mixes.  Here's a brand new live set to give you a taster of what he's currently coming up with.

Tracklist:

See These Two Fingers
So What?
Blockade
Jaguar

Tuesday 13 September 2011

STREAM: Hind Ear - Space & Yellow Yellow



Two new tracks from from Brighton's dreamiest post-rock outfit; Hind Ear - another winner of my title of Best Brighton Band.  These are intended for a full album which will see a release as soon as someone agree to press them up for the band. Anyone with a keen ear and a label should be on that like a shot.

Previously named Revenge of Shinobi in homage to the release of birds in the ending sequence of the game, the music is introspective but expansive, whimsically evocative but never twee.  Subtly building clusters of looped instruments and vocals usher in incremental progressions of the kind Italo-Disco overwhelms the senses with, and Hind Ear have their own parallel universe glitterball to serenade. The organ stabs and bass thrust of Spaces complement its rolling atmosphere, reminiscent of Holy Other yet more Earthly than cosmic. Yellow Yellow is an airy, ethereal, soul influenced dancefloor number that builds in density and intensity as it progresses, sounding hauntingly similar to The Antlers with celebratory whoops in the place of crushing dread.

Space

  


Yellow Yellow
:

  

Thursday 8 September 2011

STREAM: Bernholz - Consequences 2 (Faking It) & Austerity Boy


A while ago I reviewed the excellent debut release from Brighton based electronic producer Jez Berns, aka Bernholz. This is the second part in his ‘Consequences’ series asnd it comprises one long rehearsed improvisational loop jam titled 13. It was originally intended for the debut but Jez says it ran too long and was too rough to be ready in time so he's redone it in higer resolution and tweaked it. The title is a reference to this book he has been fascinated with recently, which questions the role of authenticity in popular music.

The track is available for free download from Brighton based label Anti-Ghost Moon Ray, a label you should be getting to know from releasing the stunning Gazelle Twin album - an artist who should really have had a much stronger showing on this blog by now.

Jez has mooted plans to release a limited cassette run of the two Consequences projects later in the year, which would be very nice indeed.


 



Secondly, there will be a new ep released in October titled Austerity Boy with brand new tracks - the teaser for which you can hear here.  Keep your eyes here on on his Facebook for that


Wednesday 7 September 2011

SONIC ROUTER: Roll The Dice Interview


"...it’s a victory for us because we started out with no real ambitions for it. When we got the first two tracks down that felt like a victory, then we had an album finished then it took almost a year before someone released it and that felt like a huge victory..." 
- Peder Mannerfelt


My most recent piece for the Sonic Router is up now: An interview with Swedish analogue kosmiche outfit Roll the Dice. They have an inspired new album out on Leaf next week followed closely by a show at Cafe Oto in London - and on the basis of the interview, it should really be one far out event.

READ IT HERE

DOWNLOAD: Pictureplane - Post Physical (Ritualz Alien Trance Remix)






Absurd. Brilliant. Pictureplane Vs. Ritualz.


Monday 5 September 2011

GIG PREVIEW: The Outer Church - VHS Head + Anna Meredith + Mass Roman

Morning you spawn.

This month's Outer Church preview, diligently reposted here for your audio-visual preparatory pleasure. 

Be there.


Doors: 7.15pm
Admission: £5.00

Tickets available from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/130938



VHS Head is Adrian Blacow from Blackpool. Signed to legendary Manchester label Skam (Autechre, Gescom, Boards Of Canada), Blacow distills his vast collection of ex-rental videotapes into riotously funked-up brutalist dream collages demonstrated to tremendous effect on last year's Trademark Ribbons Of Gold and forthcoming EP Midnight Section.





VHS Head will be joined by video artist and long-time OC collaborator Jade Boyd, fresh from her live collaboration with John Carpenter associate Alan Howarth.



London-based composer Anna Meredith is building a reputation for her eclectic electronic work. She has supported These New Puritans and performed alongside James Blake, Seb Rochford, Broadcast, Max de Wardener and Mira Calix. Meredith plans to release her debut EP Black Prince Fury over the coming months. Live visuals will be provided by Eleanor Meredith.





Mass Roman is a Brighton based polymath with his fingers in many peculiar pies including improv shock unit Passiondale and the wistfully melodic Minor Sounds. For this event, however, he presents a solo set of wonked-out electronics. Sample his Mr PM album for deep - if disturbed - joy.


  Last Chance by mass roman 




Friday 2 September 2011

DOWNLOAD: End of the Road Mix



I'm off to End of the Road, so here's a mix for you to get us all in the mood. 

DOWNLOAD

The tracklist can be a surprise for you.

I have thrown this together with the kind of wild abandon I hope to be experiencing. Don't let me down EotR!   It's my first festival since having a baby. He's 3 next week so it's time to take him out.  He is very excited to see Lykke Li, Woods, Wooden Shjips, Wild Beasts.  Good boy.  Tempted to take a 3 year old to see Mogwai, probably not a great idea.  Not even the greatest ear defenders on earth could protect his fragile little ears from that.

Anyone else going?  Tweet me, yeh.

Thursday 1 September 2011

REVIEW One Unique Signal - Hey Alchemist / Neuralgia (Genepool)



One Unique Signal smashed straight into my foveal vision with their first full length album Tribe, Castle & Nation back in 2007, every year they have managed to put out one essential release every year, be it a two track download or longer EP (the Dismemberment ep, we at NFR put on the release party for. Hands up, I claim conflict of interest - I already love this band).  Just ten seconds into any of their songs will illustrate why it took me approximately two seconds from receiving Nick's email to hitting the download link:  A gritty grey-skied UK version of A Place To Bury Strangers apocalyptic noise walls mixed with Wooden Shjips psychedelic strung out eye-ball blazing transcendence. Plus those textbook touchstones when piling the sound high - MBV, J&MC, Sonic Youth;  Whilst they are less heavy on the sheer volume than APTBS (but they do play ceiling collapsingly loud), they are no less intense, making up for painful levels with layers and layers and layers of textural guitar pulse, ebb & flow, drone and agonisingly ecstatic incremental shifts in the riff structure; there's the soul and distortion of those aforementioned bands, then then weight and nuance of a band like Sleep lurking about in there. Bass lines that possess your body, drum beats that replace your heart consuming your body's synchronicity and marching it around in thrall to the all consuming rhythm - and if that doesn't get you the sheets of guitar will envelop and constrict you into submission.

Some of you may get turned off on repetition, some of you might have just had all your switches flipped to On. Well, some of you Lose.  To paraphrase Ripley Johnson's comments in the recent Stool Pigeon interview; the riff doesn't stop you just lock into it from the continuum in which it exists and morph it to your own requirements and desires, bend it to your will, release yourself to it, into it and with it, and that's exactly what One Unique Signal do: Bad ass, killer zoned out/zoned in synapse-frying head-rush mind-fuck trance

This new EP is being released by Genepool who have released four of the band's six releases - the other two being self-distributed downloads.  This EP is two songs, the 6 minute Hey Alchemist! and the 7 minute Neuralgia - The melding of neurology and alchemy being this bands signature sound in a nutshell.  The first track drops straight onto the riff, leading with a snarling brute downstroke that drives forward with malicious momentum boiling to a finish of feedback and warped vocal loops.  The second track is more limber, elastic and loose, the Raw Power rock and roll of The Stooges stretched out and rolled over and over until the whole band stops it dead, leaving you suddenly alone in the empty cosmos of silence feeling all insignificant and quiet against the vastness of sound that just dumped you. Until you press play again and the whole thing picks up where it left off ad infinitum.

No links, previews, or edits to tease you with for this release, you'll just have to take my word for how good it is.  Head over to the bands website to download their previous free eps for a taster and order this from the label now. Digitally released on 5th September for just £2 from iTunes, the Ltd Ed 7" will be out on Oct 3rd on GenepoolThere is also an interview with Nick about said single on The Blog That Celebrates Itself, here.  

On top of that there's an essential date for Brightonians diaries - OUS play the Prince Albert in Brighton on the 18th September with The Telescopes - another key influence to their sound and a band they have been working closely with as promoters and producers for the last couple of years.