Sufjan Stevens

Sufjan made the album I wished for Radiohead.

There I said it.

I got all jazzed and crowed about it, but even after a few listens and some pep talks - it just doesn't put me into the pupil-dilation, catatonic state I craved. I did some discombobulated jigging, sure, and that was fun. But the album that has had me looking off into the middle distance since October of last year is Age of Adz. Syncopated, psychopathic, melodramatic, swirling, electrocuted wildness. And goddamn bold, "Impossible Soul" is a hefty 25:35, nearly as long as The King of Limbs in it's entirety, and just as diverse.

The second half of this particular track makes me want to run screaming over the rotting boards of a frayed cable bridge. In the best way possible.

Sufjan Stevens // I Want To Be Well

FINALLY

Pitchfork! You did it!

I've been searching for this goddamn Fever Ray track ever since I saw the vapid, yet annoyingly hot, Little Red Riding Hood trailer. Click here.

Trentemøller - teddybear robot

{image by Karen Rosetzky}

Moody March 1.

Anders Trentemøller, a Copenhagen-based Danish producer, was already lauded High Wizard of Electronica by the release of his 2006 Last Resort. Several years and numerous bad-ass remixes later, Trentemøller warmed up his minimal techno sound with 2010's Into The Great Wide Yonder. Go on and cuddle right up to guitar-twang, oxymoronic organic synth and melodic vocals. Admittedly I'd prefer stalking through rain-soaked alleys to this particular soundtrack, but it's all you sugarbear.

Trentemøller // Sycamore Feeling

Ellie Goulding

When I was a fresh young thang, I danced. I'm not talking your fingersnap with the toetap and the head bob. And I'm not talking seven years at the barre, mashing my peds into trollfeet. I mean I ardently believed wild and tribal blood sang through my veins demanding that I get down wit my bad self and do somethin. In cars, in yards, in bars, by myself, with a girl, with a boy, it didn't matter. I would just give myself over and dance the fuck out.

Now it takes a bit more before I tilt over the edge. At a stately 26, I'm not as emphatic about rhythm-inspired profuse perspiration. I can easily keep myself from hurtin nobody when frequenting shows like Fleet Foxes and Bowerbirds. But sometimes....sometimes....

Before Ellie Goulding's studio debut, Lights, she had won both the BBC Sound of 2010 poll and 2010 BRIT Award. So no pressure, right? The UK singer/songwriter partnered with Fin Dow-Smith, aka Starsmith, who produced and cowrote a few tracks. The result is a lace up of 1980's electroacoustic pop vogue and a dash of conservative folk to keep it anglo-friendly. I'm nodding my head but raising an eyebrow. Deviating from the popular chanteuse mold made for a lukewarm album reception, but I'd bet money another release or two and she'll be standing on terra firma.
Or she just needs to move to Iceland or Sweden and be more readily accepted for all the ABBA she could be.

Two remixes of the *E*uphoric Starry Eyed that have me applying WD-40 to my creaky joints and snapping on sweat bands. If you listen to the second track with headphones on, your brain's gonna throb. Just looking out.

Ellie Goulding // Starry Eyed (Monsieur Adu Remix)

Ellie Goulding // Starry Eyed (Jakwob Remix)

Active Child

Well...erm...
Can't really top that behemoth post of a mixed tape. Ever ever. But I do hope all the feudal Lords and Ladies of the Empty Skeleton Kingdom revels in the soundwaves of my birthday tribute as much as I do.

Only feasible followup is to wax poetic over some favorites - cuz I know you want all the smutty slutty deets. I mean, along with the music! Right?
What are you really reading this blog for, anyway?

All right, Active Child = Pat Grossi, former member of the Philadelphia Boys Choir until his father packed up the family and took them cross-country before Grossi cleared the frightening forest of puberty. It was a necessary move - Daddy Grossi worked for Priority Records, a major rap label that required him in the West office. So Grossi grew up with full reign to listen to dirty gangster rap and shake hands with Snoop, Dre and other greats.

For some reason this trips me out when you check out the tracks, which sound like an evangelical rave.
But, as I think about it, raves have more in common with evangelical gatherings than most any other comparative event.

It took some time, some experimentation, but Grossi finally elicited a heady potion to combine electro synth with monastic hallows and his otherworldly tenor. Layers and loops later, you got yourself an EP my friend.

If you didn't catch it earlier.

Active Child // Wilderness

Phantogram

Sometimes you don't realize just how good you have it until you go and fuck things up. You spit on the hand that feeds you and it doesn't want to feed you anymore. Then it's all you can do to get one more glance at the fingernails. Those fingernails are the inspiration for today's post.

It's been a long time since I've posted anything of merit. Or anything at all really. Mainly because I've been absent. But even I can't be invisible to something this overpowering. The beats and sweet electronic melodies from Phantogram make time slow down. The music just reaches through the space, grabs a hold of whatever air you're harboring behind that epidermic mask you wear, and simply makes you high. But not like a crack high, more like a pure air clarity high (RE: Woody Harrelson).

This duo from Saratoga Springs, New York, consisting of darling keyboardist Sarah Barthel and guitarist Josh Carter, with their latest album, Eyelid Movies, have made the perfect collection of baby-making tracks that will occasionally make you think about things that are important. Things like you. "'Cause you are the Ocean. And I'm good at drowning."

Phantogram // You Are the Ocean
Phantogram // When I'm Small

Big Spider's Back

A DIY project out of Seattle, Yair Rubenstein is another musician coming out of his bedroom studio and hanging in the clubhouse with the likes of Atlas Sound, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Animal Collective and Neon Indian.

Just listen to the first 120 seconds of this track. First there's acoustic strings, maybe ukulele? Add synth percussion. Stir in tin bell jangles. Splash on shimmery light. Pound on piano keys. Sift on two-picked electric guitar chords. Blow in river reedy vocals on the lower keys. Keep up the loops of both electric and acoustic guitar to wrap it up in a tight cocoon you wouldn't mind climbing in to yourself.

You'll want to listen to most of the tracks on his debut EP, Warped, on "repeat one" so you don't miss anything.

Big Spider's Back // Perfect Machine

Broken Bells

Once upon a time, in 2004, Brian Burton was roaming the grounds at Roskilde - happy to quiet his overactive genius since finishing up production of "Modern Guilt." He stumbled upon James Mercer, willing himself into hypnosis at the Bugge Wesseltoft show. After some "heyhowareyas," the two gents got to talking.

"Danger Mouse," James claps. "I gotta say, I'm a real fan of your work. What you're doing with that Dark Night of the Soul project - that shit's insane. I don't really get it, but the stills I've seen with David Lynch are pretty fucked. Respect."

"Jimmy," Brian smiles. "Can I call you that? Solid. Jimmy, I've been listening to The Shins since before caring was creepy. I know you're overhauling the lineup, but whadya say after the dust settles - we get a little thing going? See what happens, make a little magic, fry up some aebleskiver?"

"I'm not down with aebleskiver, I'm off white sugar - " Brian sweeps the air with his hands in dismissal, throws his arms around the shoulders of his new friend and they off the head into the sunset.

(*note: i might be fibbing a bit. Regardless, it's the basics of how Danger Mouse and James Mercer have partnered up as Broken Bells - an effort, they say, is taking them to uncharted territory on their musical maps. Danger Mouse has forsook sampling for held-in-hand instruments. James puts his vocals in ranges not oft climbed on previous recordings. The first single gives us a taste of spacey sound effects, melody, a little darkness and a splash of soul. Surreal video to match and a self-titled album out next month.)

Broken Bells // The High Road

RIP Jerry Fuchs

Widely and wildly respected drummer, Jerry Fuchs from Maserati, Juan MacLean, !!!, and LCD Soundsystem, tragically died Sunday morning in a freak freight elevator accident. I wish I was just being me and making this up, but unfortunately one of the great ones has left us for good. He was 34. See the full Rolling Stone article here.

Some of his magic:
Maserati // Monoliths
Maserati // No More Sages
The Juan MacLean // The Simple Life

XX

Warm, dark, lascivious, and un petit diret du noir - this London teenage quartet's skeletal electro pop manages to have layers with minimal instrumentation. It may take a few listens but the breathy exchange of male and female vocals, dark romanticism and fluidity will catch you up to leave you hovering on the thermals. If the music doesn't get your attention, the NKOTB haircut will. What number razor is that, anyway?

"I don't have to leave anymore
what I have is right here.
Spend my nights and days before
searching the world for what's right here"

Next week it's thrasher aorta thrumming tracks ONLY, scout's honor. xx chirgo

XX // Islands

Jason Lytle

Love this guy. Did his thing with Grandaddy for a long while and could never really lift the poor bastards off the ground. Apparently after their last show, he set his guitar on fire and moved from California to Montana to record this album, Yours Truly, The Commuter. Copycat (RE: Bon Iver). I guess the point was to reinvent himself with his music. While I like this album a lot, it basically sounds to me like the next thing from Grandaddy. Although, definitely better than their last few.

Jump from your secular diving board into this abyss for a while, forget who you are, where you're from and that you have a job. Then get divorced, sell the kids and move to Montana. And whatever you do, don't take a shower.

Jason Lytle // Fürget It
Jason Lytle // Brand New Sun

ocdj

BALTIMORE. ocdj's album Hooray came out back in 2007 but the label, Wildfire Wildfire, just sent it (along with rest of their entire catalog) to WRIR.

ocdj is Dan Gaeta. Independent radio fact: Gaeta started volunteering at WFMU at age 14 and eventually became a dj there.

He's toured with Dan Deacon, Video Hippos, Jana Hunter, and DJ Dog dick, and when he performs he wears stuffed animal masks. Goof.

However, he's not performing much right now because he's traveling around the Atlantic on a sail boat. He previously circumnavigated the globe as a hand on this guy's yacht.



More downloads here.

Mochipet

FROM TAIPEI. via the Bay Area.

does a bitchin resume of labels a label whore maketh? he's recorded on the following:

-Bpitchcontrol (Berlin) [Ellen Allien's label]
-Tigerbeat6 and ViolentTurd (Oakland) [Kid 606's labels]
-Component (CT)
-ExNihilo (Belgium)
-Detroit Underground [awesome]
-Voxxx (Chemnitz)
-Deathsucker (UK)
-Intellectos (Boston)
-Schematic (Miami) [Otto von Schirach's label]
-Reconfiguration (China)
and his own Daly City Records (Daly City)

Many people consider this hip hop, and Mochipet himself claims that his favorite music is "anything not electronic." Well, then.


Mochipet at Bangface, London

Mochipet // Master P on Atari

Two Fingers

If you've ever listened to Amon Tobin you know he can go deep and tribal. He was spreading Brazilian sound around before Crookers and the Twelves took over blog house.

His new project with Joe "Doubleclick" Chapman, Two Fingers, takes that deep down to the next level of the inferno, mixing that DEEP (did I mention it's deep? and tribal) sound with a lavish recordful of British and American MC's. They. Bring. It.


Two Fingers and the MC, Sway, recording in Montreal

Two Fingers // High Life featuring Sway

Miwon

Continuing to swim around in the huge heap of Deustch sent to me by Forced Exposure. I feel like Scrooge McDuck.

Miwon hit up das Berlin club scene as a DJ for awhile but it seems he's more into his studio these days. He's been recording on a label City Centre Offices, based in Manchester y Berlin, with which I am heretofore not familiar but seems pretty tight.

This track, "A to B," is indeed the most accessible on the album. That's why I chose it. It takes from Fleetwood Mac with singers Maho Masuda, from Japan, and Sibylle Fendt, who also took the photo below. If you know Fleckfumie, their guitarist Nick Gloeckner is also on here, along with Galaktlan, who is from Estonia, on synths.



Miwon // A to B

Shitkatapult - Strike 100 compilation

Shitkatapult is the mostly electronic label out of Berlin started in 1997 by Marco Haas, who is also the artist T Raumschmiere. Sascha Ring, who is the musician Apparat, helped run it for a while but has gone back to strictly makin his own music.

Strike 100 came out at the end of last year to mark the 100th release by the label. It's 2 discs of ambient fuzz that alternates between soft and prickly with also some environmental sounds, though many of the songs do have annunciated beats, and vocals even.

Man it's really hard for me to decide what to upload.

Okay okay okay. One from each disc: Felix, for whom google turns up sparse info, at least in English, and Fenin, whose English isn't very good but who knows the word "homies." A lot of these guys seem to cite reggae and dub as influences, which I find interesting.


Flier for an Apparat CD release party. I might have died.

Felix - Outside on a Cold Day

Shitkatapult // Fenin - Lastkahn

B Fleischmann

From Vienna, B Fleischmann started out as a drummer, touring with bands all over Austria. In 1998 he turned into a laptop nerd, but he still uses real drums and other acoustic instruments, too.

This song is from his newest album, Angst is Not a Weltanschauung!, on Morr Music. The album includes a rework of Daniel Johnston's "King Kong" and vocals by Sweet William Van Ghost and Marilies Jagsch (in this track).



B Fleischmann // 24.12.

If you like this, B has more downloads on his site, plus links to some of his own favorite music.

Forced Exposure

The IDM boat draweth nigh, along with a bunch of other stuff. For real, WRIR got this massive shipment in from my favorite music distributor of all time Forced Exposure.

I won't bore you with the details, but my love for Forced Exposure is so great that I as an audience member once made David Day, another audience member and at the time Forced Exposure's college radio contact, stand up in a room of maybe 200 at a CMJ panel discussion to talk about his company.

In the 80s and early 90s Forced Exposure was a zine published out of Boston (on newsprint), focusing on punk and obscure music as well as literature, with contributers like Lydia Lunch, Mission of Burma, and Sonic Youth.

Now they distribute music, ranging from rereleases of 1920s fiddle music from Baghdad to the entire Shitkatapult catalog to re-pressed Norwegian psychedelia from the 60s to free jazz and composers and ambient noise to English warehouse bangers. Look at their index of releases for March. Dazzling.

Basically half my career as a music director has been spent begging FE to send me stuff. Incidentally, they supply a lot of the electronic vinyl to Plan 9, too.

So anyway I am fulfilled, and guess what, I consider it both my job and my pleasure to share my musical joys with you. My next several entries will all draw from this boomshower of sweetness that arrived in the mail last week.

So there, too, music distro isn't dead after all, is it? Just shitty music distro. Thank you, Forced Exposure.

Hell

Hell has been active as a dj and producer for 30 years. He is also the founder and boss of the label International Deejay Gigolos (Miss Kittin & the Hacker, Dopplereffekt, Terence Fixmer, Fischerspooner, Tiga, Vitalic, Jeff Mills...).

This track I'm posting is from his new album Teufelswerk. He's divided it in two by the themes of Night and Day; Kruder of Kruder and Dorfmeister helped produce the Day half. Drops in late April and I completely cannot wait... there's a Hawkwind cover on it. Hell's last album, NY Muscle, is so so brilliant.

Hell is short for Helmut btw.


The Angst & The Angst Pt 2


Hell was German GQ's Man of the Year in 2003.

Bonus: In 2006 Hell also produced this track, which I love, for G Rizo.

Eye Wanna C U

Here We Go Magic

DIY DIY DIY DIY DIY DIY

so down for polyrhythms

ATAVISM RESULTING FROM OVERCULTIVATION OF HUMAN SOCIETY

face paint and amniotic fluid have turned out to be pretty hip among civil types in the end, though, haven't they? my ski instructor lives in yogaville.




Only Pieces

god, i keep liking stuff that's been featured on npr. decrepit. only bangers after this, fur real.