The Answer Is In The Beat

Crush Collision 12/25/14 BEST OF 2014 MIX

December 26, 2014 at 12:15 am | Posted in Crush Collision | Leave a comment

Hour 1
10:01 PM Andy Stott ~ How It Was
10:06 PM Frank & Tony ~ Bring The Sun
10:09 PM Simian Mobile Disco ~ Calyx
10:11 PM Terekke ~ Untitled (A1)
10:14 PM Khotin ~ Why Don’t We Talk
10:18 PM Barnt ~ Cherry Red
10:24 PM Farben & James Din A4 ~ Please Excuse My Face
10:26 PM Leon Vynehall ~ Butterflies
10:29 PM Lone ~ Airglow Fires
10:33 PM Geena ~ Niagara Galleries
10:35 PM Moiré ~ No Gravity
10:38 PM Dntel ~ Fringes of Focus
10:40 PM Ital ~ Coagulate
10:43 PM Esteban Adame ~ Home Sick
10:47 PM Gesloten Cirkel ~ Thomas Mensch
10:48 PM Hieroglyphic Being and the Configurative or Modular Me Trio ~ Calling Planet Earth
10:53 PM The Cyclist ~ Daisy Spirals
10:55 PM DJ Fett Burger & Luca Lozano ~ Totally Tangerine
10:58 PM Head High ~ Megatrap (Real Mix)
Hour 2
11:01 PM Ossie + Phrh ~ Ugly Observation
11:04 PM Throwing Snow ~ Pathfinder
11:07 PM Lee Gamble ~ HMix
11:09 PM Hashman Deejay ~ Sandfish
11:12 PM Population One ~ Inner City Circus
11:15 PM Tessela ~ Rough 2
11:18 PM Untold ~ Strange Dreams
11:22 PM Kangding Ray ~ Blank Empire
11:24 PM Lewis Fautzi ~ UVB-76
11:28 PM Call Super ~ Hoax Eye
11:30 PM Answer Code Request ~ Haul
11:33 PM SHXCXCHCXSH ~ Elocution
11:38 PM Container ~ Slush
11:40 PM Randomer ~ Stupid Things I Do (New School Mix)
11:44 PM Marco Shuttle ~ Sing Like A Bird
11:52 PM Ekoplekz ~ Pressure Level
11:56 PM FaltyDL ~ Dånger

Pod Blotz, Aaron Dilloway, Metal Dungeon & Jimbo @ UFO Factory, 12/20/14

December 24, 2014 at 9:18 pm | Posted in Photos | Leave a comment

Suzy Poling artwork

Sun Ra poster

Parliament poster

arcade games

snack table

Metal Dungeon

Pod Blotz

Jimbo

Aaron Dilloway

Show #271 – 12/20/14

December 20, 2014 at 12:53 pm | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

3:03 AM Autechre ~ Drane ~ Peel Session EP ~ Warp
3:13 AM Arca ~ Failed ~ Xen ~ Mute
3:17 AM Jo Johnson ~ In The Shadow Of The Workhouse ~ Weaving ~ Further
3:26 AM Mica Levi ~ Lonely Void ~ Under The Skin ~ Milan
3:30 AM Bing & Ruth ~ The Towns We Love Is Our Town ~ Tomorrow Was The Golden Age ~ Rvng Intl
3:36 AM Symbol ~ Syn Con ~ Online Architecture ~ Holodeck/Light Lodge
3:42 AM Dalglish ~ Aonaich ~ Dorcha Aigeann ~ Ge-stell
3:47 AM Gabor Lazar ~ IV ~ ILS ~ Presto!?
3:51 AM Lorenzo Senni ~ Forever Headline ~ Superimpositions ~ Boomkat Editions
4:00 AM Chris Herbert ~ Sea Holly ~ Constants ~ Room40
4:06 AM /f ~ (cs)_0(t) ~ pq:f ~ Psalmus Diuersae
4:18 AM Mr. Oizo ~ Torero ~ The Church ~ Brainfeeder
4:21 AM L.O.T.I.O.N. ~ Goodbye Humans ~ Second Audio Document 2014 ~ self-released
4:23 AM Beau Wanzer ~ Mob Boss ~ Untitled ~ self-released
4:25 AM Dark0 ~ Black Rose ~ Fate ~ Gobstopper
4:32 AM Lawrence English + Stephen Vitiello ~ Encased In Blue Marble ~Fable ~ Dragon’s Eye Recordings
4:37 AM Demdike Stare ~ Collision ~ Testpressing #001 ~ Modern Love
4:45 AM Demdike Stare ~ Null Results ~ Testpressing #004 ~ Modern Love
4:52 AM Andy Stott ~ Damage ~ Faith In Strangers ~ Modern Love
4:56 AM Diamond Version, Bikya & Wetrobots ~ DV_BK_WR_06 ~ Ten Cities ~ Soundway
5:01 AM Tapes and Topographies ~ Fits In Your Palm ~ Tapes and Topographies ~ Simulacra
5:07 AM Ian William Craig ~ TEAC Poem ~ A Turn Of Breath ~ Recital
5:09 AM Grouper ~ Made Of Air ~ Ruins ~ Kranky
5:20 AM Dean Blunt ~ X ~ Black Metal ~ Rough Trade
5:29 AM Philip Corner ~ Air of the Order ~ Satie Slowly ~ Unseen Worlds
5:33 AM SALES ~ Renee ~ EP ~ self-released
5:36 AM Sciflyer ~ The Nation ~ They Only Believe In The Moon ~ Clairecords
5:40 AM Itasca ~ Colt In Hiding ~ Unmoored By The Wind ~ New Images
5:43 AM Weyes Blood ~ Bad Magic ~ The Innocents ~ Mexican Summer
5:49 AM Secret Pyramid ~ Her Spirits ~ The Silent March ~ Students Of Decay
5:56 AM Jonathan Badger ~ Sickle’s Compass Come ~ Verse ~ Cuneiform

Best of 2014 shows next week: 12/27/14 12-6AM + 12/28/14 3-6AM

SALES: EP (self-released, 2014)

December 19, 2014 at 6:12 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

SALES: EP

We’re in the no-mans-land time period of the music industry, in between the last week of CMJ charting this year and the first of next, and there’s almost no new music coming into the radio station now. Fortunately, this indie-pop duo waited until now to send us their EP, because this one’s jumping out at me while I’m scrambling to catch up on all the music I missed this year in order to find music for my Best of 2014 shows. This male/female duo hails from Florida and initial press I can find about them seems to emphasize how minimal they are (just guitar, drum machine and vocals), and while their songs are short and compact, they’re catchy and leave enough of an impression that they don’t feel underdone or demo-ish. “Vow” in particular has the type of swoon-worthy chorus melody that causes me to play it several times in a row, and the doe-eyed naive voice of the singer certainly helps. Even though they’re American, these songs wouldn’t sound out of place in a set with any number of sweet-sounding Scandinavian indie-pop groups, although the more uptempo “Chinese New Year” sounds a little closer to a stripped-down Camera Obscura. Closing song “Toto”, the song’s most atmospheric and beat-driven track, appears in two versions: the two-minute original and a remix by xxyyxx, which slows things down and spaces it out to 3 minutes, but somehow it actually ends up feeling shorter and more sketchlike than the original. There may actually be more elements to the song, but they’re spaced out more, and the vocals are treated as samples rather than lyrics. The whole EP is an unexpected end-of-year treat.

Crush Collision 12/18/14

December 19, 2014 at 9:32 am | Posted in Crush Collision | Leave a comment

Hour 1
10:03 PM Aloa Input ~ Rubbish (Sam Irl Rmx)
10:06 PM Demdike Stare ~ Eulogy
10:12 PM glacial23 ~ The Modern Thing (Extra Modern Version)
10:16 PM Romare ~ Roots
10:22 PM Barnt ~ How Do I Know What Solutions X Form?
10:27 PM Geoff White ~ Wedding Party
10:30 PM Khotin ~ Infinity Jam
10:35 PM FaltyDL ~ Rolling (µ-Ziq Remix)
10:38 PM Flug 8 ~ Hohenkammer
10:43 PM Bruce ~ Not Stochastic
10:48 PM Frank & Tony ~ Novella
10:53 PM Leon Vynehall ~ Be Brave, Clench Fists
10:58 PM Hashman Deejay ~ Mercury
Hour 2
11:04 PM Moodymann ~ Iguessuneverbeenlonely
11:06 PM Sumsun ~ Avey Oliver
11:09 PM DVA ~ Polyphonic Dreams
11:14 PM Echologist ~ Confusion
11:18 PM Lee Gamble ~ Caudata
11:22 PM Hieroglyphic Being and the Configurative or Modular Me Trio ~ The Human Experience
11:25 PM Blacknecks ~ Spudgun! Dave Hedgehog!
11:32 PM Answer Code Request ~ Status
11:36 PM DJ Dodger Stadium ~ Trouble
11:39 PM Ital ~ Oche
11:44 PM Gesloten Cirkel ~ Submit-X
11:46 PM Objekt ~ One Stitch Follows Another
11:49 PM Robert Hood ~ Who Taught You Math (Alt. Mix)
11:55 PM Quirke ~ There’s Half A Moon In Your Mouth
11:57 PM Head High ~ Hex Factor

Best of 2014 mix next week!

Jonathan Badger: Verse (Cuneiform, 2014)

December 13, 2014 at 7:22 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Jonathan Badger: Verse

Intriguing album of textural guitar pieces from an artist I’ve not heard of before. He loops, layers and transforms several electric and acoustic guitars, using computers to twist the sounds and create atmospheres, and generally create an orchestra out of relatively few instruments. There are contributions from musicians playing strings and horns, as well as vocalists, but Badger’s guitar playing and manipulations are center stage. There’s definitely some minimalist moments, and some parallels to Dustin Wong’s solo work, but Badger throws in a lot of curveballs and goes in unexpected directions. “The Bear” is a 2-minute raga drone-out with banjo and hand percussion, and it leads into the ambient-Pet Sounds reverie of “Nimbus”, with wordless vocals and gentle guitars, which get chopped up ecstatically in the middle of the song, in a way that reminds me a little of Dan Deacon. The song ends with some of the few lyrics on the album, about pestilence and drinking blood, but ending with the words “we are lucky.” “The Valley Of The Shadow” starts with shifting electronic sounds, and then eventually settles into a human beatbox rhythm, which gets electronically processed and delayed, along with guitars which also have layers of delay and gated effects on them. “Limbec” has a more relaxed post-rock-ish guitar melody, along with somewhat dramatic horns and strings, and some curious electronic beats and effects. “Bouge” uses tranquil yet urgent pianos over pitter-pattering electronic beats, and eventually chorus vocals come in. “Erbarmen” also alternates between pianos, guitar melodies and soft glitchy beats, for another slowly building (and slowly ending) piece. “Sickle’s Compass Come” ends the album on the slow, piano-driven note it’s been going on, this time with more dramatic horns, which get diced up a bit electronically. A really hard to define album which goes off in a few different directions and shows off several sides to this composer in its relatively short runtime (under 40 minutes). Curious to hear more from him.

Show #270 – 12/13/14

December 13, 2014 at 6:24 pm | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

3:01 AM Rob Mazurek and Black Cube SP ~ Oh Mother (Angels’ Wings) ~ Return the Tides: Ascension Suite and Holy Ghost ~ Cuneiform
3:16 AM Jonathan Badger ~ Limbec ~ Verse ~ Cuneiform
3:23 AM Led Bib ~ New Teles ~ The People In Your Neighbourhood ~ Cuneiform
3:28 AM Steve Daubenspeck ~ Beat 82 Dub ~ Black Dog Duppy ~ SMD Recordings
3:35 AM The Bug Vs. Earth ~ Cold ~ 12″ ~ Ninja Tune
3:40 AM Evian Christ ~ Waterfall ~ Waterfall ~ Tri Angle
3:45 AM Borja ~ Resolving Discontent ~ Infinite Journey ~ Droidsong
3:50 AM Objekt ~ Ganzfeld ~ split 12″ w/ Dopplereffekt ~ Leisure System
3:56 AM Gabor Lazar ~ EP3 ~ EP16 ~ The Death Of Rave
3:59 AM Panabrite ~ Balsam ~ Pavilion ~ Immune
4:03 AM Jar Moff ~ Financial Glam ~ Financial Glam ~ Pan
4:29 AM Maxwell August Croy & Sean McCann ~ Column Of Mirror ~ I ~ Students Of Decay
4:33 AM Ian William Craig ~ The Edges ~ A Turn Of Breath ~ Recital
4:39 AM Einsturzende Neubauten ~ How Did I Die ~ Lament ~ BMG
4:46 AM Lorenzo Senni ~ xxx1 ~ Superimpositions ~ Boomkat Editions
4:48 AM Melodysheep ~ Chasing Infinity ~ Midnight Sun ~ self-released
4:54 AM Les Sins ~ Call ~ Michael ~ Company Records
4:58 AM Tapes and Topographies ~ Touch Me, I’m Cured ~ Tapes and Topographies ~ Simulacra Records
5:03 AM Daniel Johnston ~ Dream Scream ~ Rejected Unknown ~ Gammon Records
5:07 AM Martin Bresnick ~ A Message From The Emperor ~ Prayers Remain Forever ~ Starkland
5:18 AM Dean Blunt ~ 50 Cent ~ Black Metal ~ Rough Trade
5:21 AM Andy Stott ~ No Surrender ~ Faith In Strangers ~ Modern Love
5:25 AM Supersilent ~ 12.2 ~ 12 ~ Rune Grammofon
5:29 AM Loscil ~ Catalina 1943 ~ Sea Island ~ Kranky
5:37 AM Dreamcrusher ~ Novokuznetsk ~ Suicide Deluxe ~ Hausu Mountain
5:42 AM Mouse On Mars & F.X. Randomiz ~ Fromm ~ 21 Again ~ Monkeytown
5:45 AM Boylan ~ He Watching Us ~ Teklife: Next Life ~ Hyperdub
5:49 AM Fhloston Paradigm ~ The Phoenix ~ Hyperdub 10.4 ~ Hyperdub

Led Bib: The People In Your Neighbourhood (Cuneiform, 2014)

December 12, 2014 at 11:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Led Bib: The People In Your Neighbourhood

Super-fun spacey funk-jazz. Heavy grooves, horns, smashing drums, and tons of cool keyboard sounds. Almost kind of Acid Mothers Temple-ish in how they use spacey keyboard sounds, but in more of a jazz idiom. Not quite out there enough to be Sun Ra, but nobody is. “Giant Bean” starts out sounding like it’s quoting “Black Sabbath”, but then it goes into a different direction. But it still has that heavy plodding feel to it, just with a bunch of wailing saxes, before the tempo picks up. It cuts off very sharply at the end, as if to say “screw it, it’s over, just cut it, no need for a proper ending.” “Angry Waters (Lost To Sea)” starts out quiet and deceptively solemn, and surely isn’t as playful as some of the other tracks, but it gets a bit worked up by the end. “This Roofus” has a bit more of a festive feel, and gets frantic and a bit spacey as it goes. “Imperial Green” plays with a “Little Drummer Boy”-esque melody. 10 brings back some of the spacey synths, but on many of the other tracks they keyboards use piano or more Rhodes-sounding tones. Closer “Orphan Elephants” crawls along for 9 minutes, and gets really quiet for a while in the middle, before inching towards its finale. A pretty long, drawn-out album, but it’s pretty enjoyable.

Steve Daubenspeck: Black Dog Duppy (SMD Recordings, 2014)

December 12, 2014 at 9:53 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Steve Daubenspeck: Black Dog Duppy

Unexpected dub-inspired album from a former member of Granfaloon Bus. Opener “New Year Dub” is straight-up instrumental dub, with melodica and trippy fx. He sings on most of the other songs, and he has a high, reedy, almost Jad Fair-esque voice. “Departure” is where the reggae influence comes to the forefront in the songwriting, with horns and lyrics about “moving out of Babylon”. “Dubtonic” has a basic drum machine beat and some patois (“nah go break I”) and lots more trippy fx. “Latin Ripoff” has some sax and hand drums and reminds me slightly of early Ween in some ways. “Drone Of Druid” isn’t dubby at all, but more droney and spacey, with some distant spoken/whispered vocals, some piano, horns. Maybe more of a tension-building soundtrack feel. “Rocker’s Delight” is a feelgood uplifting song with non-reggae electric guitars and some additional vocals joining in on the chorus. “Beat 82 Dub” is a long dub instrumental. Best of all is closer “We’re Gonna Make It”, which is pretty different from the rest of the album, more of an early ’80s minimal-synth sound, with drum machines, cold synths and bass guitar. RIYL: Brenda Ray/Naffi Sandwich.

Rob Mazurek and Black Cube SP: Return the Tides: Ascension Suite and Holy Ghost (Cuneiform, 2014)

December 10, 2014 at 11:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Rob Mazurek and Black Cube SP: Return the Tides: Ascension Suite and Holy Ghost

An extention of Chicago Underground composer/cornetist Rob Mazurek’s Sao Paulo Underground project, this is a revelatory session of ecstatic, noisy, distorted psychedelic spiritual jazz. The album was recorded 2 weeks after the passing of Mazurek’s mother, who told him before she died that no matter where she was in the universe, she would always hear him. So this is a truly enraptured session filled with rattling percussion, thundering drums, ecstatic voices, and crushing distortion. Opener “Oh Mother (Angels’ Wings)” rides a groove and melody that would be commonplace on plenty of Thrill Jockey post-rock albums, but then 10 minutes later it dovetails into blown-out chaotic frenzy. After about 6 minutes, this finally launches into “Return The Tides”, which blends Brazilian percussion and spicy trumpet with a heavy rhythm and violin shredding reminiscent of Zappa’s “Willie The Pimp”. This one also seems to drift off into a harsh, furious space after 10 minutes, and “Let The Rain Fall Upwards” follows, a truly strange 18-minute trip of backwards percussion and keyboards, and a few moments of almost terrified-sounding vocals. “Reverse The Lightning” does just that, shifting us back into forward drive, with a hypnotic rhythm propelled by tumbling drums and freewheeling cornet soloing. After 9 minutes, everything goes silent, but it’s not quite over. There’s some very quiet humming/chanting, which grows in numbers until it’s this ghostly fog of vocals. An unbelievably moving album.

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