It’s a little less than a month until Graz, Austria’s Elevate Festival gets underway, but in the meantime, the folks running the whole thing will be giving out free MP3s through a podcast series on their website. Tunes from the likes of Girl Unit, Walls, Altered Natives, Chrissy Murderbot, and Elektro Guzzi, among many others, will eventually surface in the coming weeks. The first giveaway is a DJ Spinn (pictured above) production called “Jazz 4 Ya Azz.” You can nab that track here, and get locked in to the rest of the forthcoming goods here.
Man, are we loving the new rave-leaning sound that Lone‘s been working with lately. Nottingham-based producer Matt Cutler (pictured above) has switched out the slowed-down, hazy beatscapes of his notable Ecstasy & Friends and Lemurian albums for a quicker-paced dance sound, which he’s now releasing on his own label, Magic Wire. We’re happy to see the style also remains within his musical canon when it comes to remixes. Lone’s re-work of The Count & Sinden’s “Addicted to You” is full of heavy percussion, ’90s-rave synths, soulfully tweaked vocal samples, and a steady four-on-the-floor beat. The whole thing is brimming with an unbridled energy and glowing enthusiasm that is simultaneously naive and self-aware in its ‘I’m just dancing with my eyes closed, but isn’t it so much fun?’ motif. We sincerely hope Lone’s dance party never stops. The “Addicted to You” single will be released on November 9, and The Count & Sinden’s Mega Mega Mega album is out now.
Berlin-based electronic minimalist Marc Houle just released his follow-up to 2006’s Bay of Figs via Minus, entitled Drift. Houle’s eight-track LP is said to include bits of tweaked analog synths, plenty of playfully esoteric sounds, and loads of vocal elements—all helping to flesh out his intense techno soundscapes. As the producer put it himself, “This album is about the cold, dark, grey Berlin winter.” Drift is available for download now through the label’s website, here, and physical copies should start showing up in the early part of October. You can check out the cover art and the CD and vinyl tracklists below.
CD Tracklist: 1. Inside 2. Seeing In The Dark 3. Sweet 4. Drift 5. The Next 6. Hitcher Man 7. Melting 8. Hammering
Vinyl Tracklist: A1. Drift A2. The Next B1. Inside B2. Seeing In The Dark C1. Sweet C2. Hitcher Man D1. Melting D2. Hammering
News has come in that Aaron-Carl Ragland, better known as Aaron-Carl, has passed away after a short battle with cancer. Though Facebook and Twitter updates show that he had been in a positive frame of mind regarding his diagnosis and treatments, the disease took him from us earlier this morning.
Over a two-decade career, Aaron perfected a Detroit style of deep house production, releasing countless singles on labels such as Mahogani, Ovum, Underground Resistance sub-label Soul City, and his own Wallshaker Music. Perhaps best known for the chart-topping “My House” and the sultry “Homoerotic” from his Uncloseted full-length, Aaron knew how to move a crowd with an unprecedented warmth and love. In addition to his own productions, he also lent his smooth tenor to numerous other projects.
Aaron and I became friends after I spoke up about him on a Resident Advisor forum a few years ago. Since then, we had messaged each other frequently, and I can honestly say that I’ve never encountered a more genuinely caring person as Aaron—when I was going through tough times, he was always there to offer support. His person and his productions will be sorely missed by his fans, friends, and family.
Aaron, if there is a heaven, you’re surely there right now. Rest in Peace, brother.
It was the news heard ’round the blogosphere: Brian Eno is going to release a new album via Warp. We’re sure just about everyone is still dying to hear what that record will sound like, so rejoice, we’ve got the first leak from it right here. “2 Forms of Anger” is a darker moment in Eno’s forthcoming Small Craft on a Milk Sea album (that’s the cover up top), which will be out on November 2, and finds the legendary producer working a whole hell of a lot with percussion, electronics, jangly guitars, and omnipresent atonal noise. To break it down even more simply, it’s kind of like what we imagine Tortoise might sound like if they were more interested in goth music than jazz. Well, you can check it out for yourself, below.
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The lazy electronic pop of “Blue Steel” first caught our attention last year, especially when we spotted the song’s oddly compelling video, which is basically a series of slow-motion shots of a station wagon running into inanimate objects. Since then, we’ve profiled the car-obsessed French duo, and on October 25, the pair will be releasing its debut album, Babylon by Car. However, before the full-length is officially unveiled, Benjamin Boguet (a.k.a. Cosmo Vitelli) and Julien Briffaz have commissioned the Blue Steel Remixes EP, which comes out next week. The record includes re-works by Azari and III, Para One and Tacteel, I Cube, Hannulelauri, and this take from NY duo Still Going. The DFA affiliates have taken the original, bumped up the tempo, excised a few snippets of its dreamy vocals, and turned in a banging Italo cut full of bright melodies and vintage synths. It may not be suitable as the soundtrack for a slow-motion car crash, but it will definitely work on the dance floor.
Tristan Perich‘s 2005 release, 1-Bit Music, presented an idea so straightforward, it was a little revolutionary: By inserting a single microchip, along with a headphone jack and some simple controls, into a CD jewel case, he replaced recorded music with a device that literally recreated the music each time it was turned on. Five years later, he presents a sequel of sorts: 1-Bit Symphony, an electronic composition in five movements that manages to cram more musical ideas (and more executable lines of code) into the same 8 kilobytes of storage. We asked the New York-based composer and video artist to describe his process and his continued fascination with digital audio’s smallest unit of exchange.
Genesis 1-Bit Music was a beginning that needed a conclusion. For 1-Bit Symphony, I returned to my role as a composer, writing music for traditional classical ensembles but strangely accompanied by 1-bit audio. Somehow combining beautiful old instruments with harsh electronics seemed entirely logical. I spent a lot of time thinking about the identity of these traditional instruments versus the identity of electronics. They clearly come from different places, but it’s surprising how much primitive electronics shares with those old things.
Speaking in Code My first 1-bit album was composed entirely in code. This came out of the fact that its pitch system was based on mathematical ratios and didn’t map to ‘regular’ instruments very well. For 1-Bit Symphony, I wrote all the code from scratch, employing our traditional Western pitch system of half-steps, so finally my musical ideas could translate more directly to encoded composition. I sketched ideas for the music in desktop audio software, which connected to a special version of the electronics that I created to take input from a computer. That way I could work on the level of music instead of data.
New Directions Music has always involved programming languages. Traditional sheet music instructs performers on what to do. On 1-Bit Symphony, I’m instructing the microchip to create sound by doing some calculations here and there and outputting their results. It’s this low-level approach to process that interests me.
Mystery Man Somehow everyone finds the process of downloading code onto a chip extremely mysterious. Maybe it’s reminiscent of movies, where someone has their brain rewritten with new software, like Dark City or something. In my case it’s a little like synching an iPod, but closer to flash-upgrading the software for your 56k modem in the ’90s. The chips plug into a programming interface (in my case, the tuxgraphics AVR-USB), which connects to my computer, which downloads the software with some open-source tools.
How We Do I run a sweatshop out of my New York studio, where I have four assistants who dutifully assemble each copy. A lot of work goes into the process, including drilling the case, preparing and gluing the components, soldering the circuit, testing, and packaging. If anyone somehow gets a copy that doesn’t work, please write me and let me know, and I’ll fire somebody.
Lover of both culturally rich sounds and modern electronics, New Jersey-based Chico Mann will release his eclectic Analog Drift album on October 26 via Wax Poetics. The record is said to incorporate elements of Afrobeat, the sounds of Cuba, the Latin flavors of 1980’s Miami and New York, and the pulse of electro, much like this track from Drift, “Ya Yo Sé.” Producer Marcos García’s song kicks off immediately with a high energy beat, bright neon synth melodies, funky guitar plucks, and a slightly distorted bassline. It immediately grooves, and Mann’s lively croon floats over the top of the music—sounding not unlike the buoyant voice of fellow pop archeologist El Guincho. We can’t quite understand all of the lyrics, but to us, it sounds like Mann spends the whole song trying to incite all those listening to groove along with him.
Here’s a pretty massive collaboration on the horizon: Carl Craig’s Planet E label is gearing up to re-release one of his tunes produced as Paperclip People, “Throw”, sometime in October, and the a-side of that record will feature a cover of the song by James Murphy (pictured above) and his merry band of music makers, better known as LCD Soundsystem. LCD Soundsystem has been using its cover of “Throw” in live sets for some time, and even made the recorded version of the track available for download on iTunes along with the recent This is Happening record, but the Planet E release will be the first time the studio rendition has been made available on wax. Keep your eyes peeled for the actual release date. (via FACT)
If it wasn’t readily apparent from our review of last year’s Continent by CFCF, we were definitely into that record. Canadian producer Michael Silver showed us a great combination of vintage pop, Balearic and Italo disco, modern house, and soulful R&B, among other styles, and as this cut from his new EP, The River (inspired by Werner Herzog’s massive cinematic masterpiece Fitzcarraldo), shows, he’s ready to expand on it all. “Before and After Light” is epic in the truest sense; it swells gradually with the continuing addition of new sounds over the course of five minutes, it sounds compellingly large in sonic scope, and it’s simply a beautifully crafted song. However, there is no climax to this particular CFCF saga. Instead, he uses “Light” as the grand introduction to his new body of work, but we’ll have to wait until October 12 to hear the tales those other five songs have to tell. If you need more of a CFCF fix in the meantime, check out a new mixtape that Silver put together exclusively for the RVNG website here.
