Xander Harris headlined the Not Not Fun showcase at SXSW this year, and he was definitely one of the artists I was looking forward to seeing the most (but every set was fantastic). 2011’s Urban Gothic LP on NNF was a seriously great collection of lo-fi horror-disco, and his performance and recent releases have been equally exciting.
Xander Harris/The Crow: split tape
I bought a few items from his merch table, and I’ll start off talking about the tape he released on C.G.I Friday. I didn’t realize at first that this was actually a split with a group called The Crow, I thought it was just a Xander tape called The Crow. It’s pretty short, there’s 4 songs per side and they’re all around 2-4 minutes long. Xander’s songs have his typical shambling lo-fi beatbox feel, with electro beats and some almost Orbital-ish textures during “Hard Candy”. “It’s The Eyes” has some dialog samples that sound like they’re punched in using the cheapest of keyboards. “Kull Wahad” starts off subdued and downtempo, but launches into a rickety electro beat towards the end. Couldn’t tell you a think about The Crow, but their side is pretty solid synth-pop, with shadowy vocals operating out of one speaker. Curiously, “Syndicate” only consists of drum programming, I’m wondering if there were supposed to be other elements added on top, but somehow only the beats made it to the tape. “Dreams Never End” is also instrumental, but there’s a driving melody to it, and no, it’s not a New Order cover.
Xander Harris/Dylan Ettinger: split 7″
Possibly my favorite Xander Harris track so far is “The Driver” from his split 7″ with Dylan Ettinger, which Moon Glyph released last year. Such a basic, slamming beat, a lovely Italo-esque melody, and hard-panned percussive blasts. Definitely a mainstay of my gym MP3 player. Dylan Ettinger’s “Tipoff” is as awesome as any of his recent synth-pop material, further combining spooky lo-fi synth textures, Italo-inspired arpeggios and echo-slathered vocals. It seems a bit miniature compared to the tracks on Lifetime Of Romance, which is probably to be expected as this is just a track on a 7″ rather than on an album.
Xander Harris: Poison Belt
Last year, Harris released kind of an under-the-radar CDr on Ruralfaune’s SynthSeries imprint, called Poison Belt. This album seems a slight bit more experimental than some of his other stuff, it’s slower and not as dancey, but it still shows kind of a dark yet playful sense of humor. The track “Suburban Gothic” obviously references his 2011 album title, but it also seems fitting as this release seems to be kind of a less flashy, more backwoods variation on his sound.
Grave Command: All Hallowed Hymns LP
Harris contributed a track to a compilation LP last year on Unseen Forces, called Grave Command: All Hallowed Hymns. The artwork is ghoulish and impressive, and the picture disc is absolutely beautiful, but most of the music is various forms of metal and isn’t really my thing, but there’s some highlights. Ghoul begins the album with a couple minutes of church organ and maniacal laughing. Occultation’s “All Hallows Fire” has a really cool delay-heavy doom-psych sound and Nico-ish female vocals, I enjoy that track a lot. The Xander Harris track is called “The Piper Of Soggoth”, and is a lot more of a straightforward horror-synth theme than his usual work, starting out beatless and then surprise attacking you with a bassline and galloping synth-drums before it ends. Danava’s “Grave Command (Main Theme)” ends the album and is pretty short and minimal, has a curious pulsing beat and chirping synths, and ends with a slowing heartbeat, but feels like more of a short segue scene than anything major.
Xander Harris: The New Dark Age Of Love
Earlier this year, Not Not Fun released The New Dark Age Of Love, the proper follow-up to Urban Gothic. I bought it a few months ago but I’m finally just getting around to listening to it now. First track “Night Fortress” made me think it was going to be a whole album of dancier tracks like “The Driver”, but it switches from soundtrack-like pieces to broken electro to slower witch-house tracks. “Vultures Of Tenderness” starts with a slow, ticking beat, and then heads straight up into suspenseful cosmic disco territory, and sounds simply wonderful. “Red Sky Sprawl” has memorable trancey synths and a kicking ’80s soundtrack electro-beat, which goes 4/4 at the end. Album closer “Clear Expensive Skies” has probably the most straightforward pounding beat and progression, and is as clear and shining as its title suggests.
M. Geddes Gengras’ newest LP on Umor Rex has been getting quite a bit of attention lately, but it’s actually a collection of pieces from various limited cassette releases of his instrumental Moog works that he’s been releasing over the years. I have a few of his recent releases and I’ve been meaning to post about them for a while. First and foremost, what really got me into his work was his LP Test Leads which came out on Holy Mountain/Intercoastal Artists. The artwork totally looks like a reproduction of a ’70s/’80s-era Berlin school kosmische LP, the back cover says “New works for modular synthesizer” and features a black & white photo of Gengras in a suit and tie peering over a maze of wires, knobs and switches, and the font listing the songs and times looks straight out of the early digital era. The music fits accordingly, exploring arpeggiated synth textures, but also dipping into some rhythmic beat-based territory, such as the techno track “Night Work”, and getting jittery with the frantic, swarming “Cairo” and the brain-frying “Waldorf (Pt. 3)”. A thoroughly enjoyable LP.
M. Geddes Gengras: Santam Rasa tape
Also pretty great is the Santam Rasa tape which came out last year on Healing Power Records. Definitely more of a paranoid soundtrack vibe, with more atmospheric synth washes and hissing, squealing noises, and also some icy pulsations. It just keeps building and getting more epic and impressive. Hard to say whether I like this tape or Test Leads better, they’re both astounding in different ways.
M. Geddes Gengras: Re-Vision tape
The Re-Vision tape on Cae-Sur-A is a bit different, it’s a lot rougher and murkier, and it didn’t stand out as much on first listen. Still, it has some nice buzzing, rippling textures. It moves pretty slowly, it doesn’t quite hit you as immediately as the other 2 releases, but it has kind of a muddy, airplane-loudly-buzzing-across-the-horizon feeling to it. Much more of a singular vision, not as varied or progressive.
When Mark Fell started releasing new material on Raster-Noton, Editions Mego and a few other labels a few years ago, both as part of SND and under his own name, I tried wrapping my head around it and I just wasn’t getting into it. It just sort of sounded like it was continually butting its head against a wall and didn’t really go anywhere. But gradually, especially since he started releasing material as Sensate Focus last year, it just began to make more and more sense to me. The Sentielle Objectif Actualité album in particular was something I had on repeat for a long time (especially at the gym, oddly enough) and it made me seek out as many of his recent works as both Mark Fell and Sensate Focus as I could. I missed out on the first Sensate Focus 12″ but I have all the others. The first 3 12″s were actually remixed into the Sentielle LP, so it covers similar terrain, some of the same sounds and textures, but they’re still pretty different. Not sure I can say which versions are more accessible, they all seem to follow precise yet oblong rhythms, sort of heading towards 4/4 rhythms but with the corners bent a little. The versions on the Sensate Focus 12″s utilize more vocal samples that suggest house, and some calm atmospheric synths, but the rhythms are still fractured a bit, yet mostly at consistent paces. Hard to tell which of these tracks is the biggest hit, but side X of Sensate Focus 2.5 has a little bit more of a future-pop sensibility to it. Sensate Focus 2 is a collaboration with Mark Fell’s SND bandmate Mat Steel, and seems to blossom a bit more melodically than the previous 12″s. And the latest release in the series, Sensate Focus 1.6, is a collaboration with Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay), and pushes into more complex beat patterns as well as more epic builds. Side Y in particular is a total mind-melter.
Sensate Focus: Deviation Heat-Treated
Most of the Sensate Focus 12″s are on their own sub-label of eMego, but the project’s most full-length statement is the Déviation Heat-Treated LP on Pan, which remixes Heatsick’s lo-fi Casio house into a throbbing, jittery, buzzing epic. The Casio tones aren’t really as evident here, but there are some snatches of voices, and some very finely chopped garage-house synths. As staccato and knotty as the beats and samples are, they’re paced at such even patterns and sometimes combined with airy synths, so it actually gets pretty easy to follow, at least definitely compared to the stuff Mark Fell was releasing 4 years ago. I’ve heard Sensate Focus refer to as “tidy house”, and while it might confuse a lot of people a lot of people who have a pretty clear definition of what house is, there definitely isn’t anything messy about it.
mic break music = Richard Chartier: Interior Field
3:05 AM Kayo Dot ~ Passing The River ~ Hubardo ~ Ice Level Music
3:15 AM Swans ~ Thug ~ Body To Body, Job To Job ~ Young God
3:28 AM Negativland ~ Theme From A Big 10-8 Place ~ A Big 10-8 Place ~ Seeland
3:31 AM Negativland ~ A Big 10-8 Place Part One ~ A Big 10-8 Place ~ Seeland
3:44 AM Westerbur & Rowe ~ side B ~ 10″ ~ Northern Ashram
3:56 AM Polonaise ~ Trocadero ~ Trocadero (played at 33 instead of 45 because it sounds way better this way) ~ 100% Silk
4:05 AM Clay Rendering ~ Vengeance Candle ~ 12″ ~ Hospital Productions
4:11 AM Olekranon ~ Coerced ~ Danaus ~ Inam Records
4:14 AM Stave ~ Gun Control ~ Reform ~ Flingco Sound System
4:19 AM Henry & Hazel Slaughter ~ A4 ~ Endless Power Cycle ~ Fedora Corpse
4:22 AM Dark Day ~ The Exterminations (1 Thru 3) ~ Hands In The Dark ~ Dark Entries
4:25 AM Nagamatzu ~ Nikto ~ Shatter Days ~ Dark Entries
4:35 AM Eleven Pond ~ Turn To Silence ~ Assemblage ~ Dark Entries
4:40 AM Zola Jesus/JG Thirlwell ~ Sea Talk ~ Versions ~ Sacred Bones
4:45 AM Jon Hopkins featuring Purity Ring ~ Breathe This Air ~ single ~ Domino
4:49 AM Moderat ~ Ilona ~ II ~ Mute
4:54 AM Jumpel ~ Monica’s Room ~ Bloc4 ~ Hidden Shoal
4:57 AM µ-Ziq ~ Christ Dust ~ Chewed Corners ~ Planet Mu
5:02 AM Washed Out ~ Weightless ~ Paracosm ~ Sub Pop
5:07 AM Femminielli ~ Le Pacte ~ Fixture Records Sampler 2013 ~ Fixture Records
5:12 AM German Army ~ Discrete Elements ~ Endless Phonics ~ Monofonus Press
5:16 AM Algebra Suicide ~ Waiting For Delmore ~ Feminine Squared ~ Dark Entries
5:19 AM Jackson & His Computerband ~ Memory ~ Glow ~ Warp
5:23 AM Julia Holter ~ Horns Surrounding Me ~ Loud City Song ~ Domino
5:28 AM Julianna Barwick ~ Pyrrhic ~ Nepenthe ~ Dead Oceans
5:38 AM Sarah Neufeld ~ Wrong Thought ~ Hero Brother ~ Constellation
5:41 AM Infinity Shred ~ Mapper ~ Sanctuary ~ Paracadute
5:49 AM Kid Smpl ~ Breathing In Space ~ Armour EP ~ Hush Hush
5:52 AM Legendary Pink Dots ~ Esher Everywhere ~ The Gethsemane Option ~ Metropolis
Come see me (and Tyler, Zac, Nelson and special guest Silent Ech0) DJ at the Elk’s Lodge in Ann Arbor, this Saturday night from 9PM-2AM! FREE!!!!
This was my long-promised all-Italo/space-disco show, because I’ve always wanted to do one. The show started a few minutes early so the first 2 tracks I played (Kano’s “Ikeya-Seki” and N.O.I.A.’s “Stranger In A Strange Land”) aren’t on this archive.
Hour 1
10:00 PM M & G ~ When I Let You Down
10:04 PM Answering Service ~ Call Me Mr. Telephone
10:09 PM RAH Band ~ Messages From The Stars
10:13 PM Cyber People ~ Doctor Faustus
10:18 PM Crazy Gang ~ Every Sunday
10:21 PM Doctor’s Cat ~ Feel The Drive
10:27 PM Hipnosis ~ Bormaz
10:31 PM Koto ~ Visitors
10:36 PM Mr. Flagio ~ Take Chance
10:43 PM Pluton & Humanoids ~ World Invaders
10:48 PM Scotch ~ Penguin’s Invasion (Hot Version)
10:51 PM Fun Fun ~ Happy Station
10:56 PM Sun-La-Shan ~ Catch Hour 2
11:02 PM Hugh Bullen ~ Alisand
11:06 PM Pineapples featuring Douglas Roop ~ Come On Closer
11:09 PM Alexander Robotnick ~ Problems D’Amour
11:15 PM Charlie ~ Spacer Woman
11:22 PM ‘Lectric Workers ~ Robot Is Systematic
11:28 PM Giorgio Moroder ~ Chase
11:35 PM Space ~ Magic Fly
11:39 PM Ayisha ~ Spaceman
11:44 PM Dee D. Jackson ~ Automatic Lover [i still can’t believe this song even exists. my god.]
11:47 PM Breakout Crew ~ Breakout Theme
11:52 PM Gay Cat Park ~ I’m A Vocoder [best song ever? yes. yes it is.]
New alias of chiptune duo Starscream, who had to change their name for legal reasons. This has some element of 8-bit-ness to it, but it’s mostly epic synth-heavy post-rock with downtempo electronic beats, definitely closer to earlier M83, but with post-dubstep/trap drum programming, and some trance arpeggios. Also vaguely reminds me of 65daysofstatic, but I’m not sure why, because it’s not as fast, furious, loud, or guitar-heavy, but it is definitely some form of epic electronic post-rock. Definitely feels like late-night stargazing music. The few of us who actually liked the last Emeralds album will be into this too. “Shadow Jeweler” and “Straylight” seem pretty similar melody-wise, and “Mapper” and “Sanctuary” have synth arpeggios that are maybe a little closer to Umberto and other horror-disco revivalists.
New project of Mike Connelly (Hair Police, Failing Lights, ex-Wolf Eyes) and his wife Tara Connelly. Unlike most Wolf Eyes related projects, this release hasn’t been preceded by dozens/hundreds of ultra-limited tape or CD-r releases; it’s the first and so far only release by the project. Easily Connelly’s most song-based project. Slow and brooding, and with gliding guitars and loudly whispered vocals. Swans-y and apocalyptic, but not quite as abrasive as you might expect. A slight bit of electronic pulse, and some drums that sort of drag behind the rest of the sounds. The guitar feedback seems to take center stage. “Vengeance Candle” ends with a bit of accordion, which is nice.
Spacious downtempo electronic music. Kind of sounds like what would happen if dubstep got its heart completely broken and devastated, but still whimpered along anyway. Disembodied/pitched vocals, airy/watery sounds, lots of echo. Snatches of bass and chopped-up breaks. “Necklace” is the closest this gets to a solid beat, but still not quite worked up to really be considered dance music. “Breathing In Space” is completely ambient, with only flickers of vocals and sub-bass poking out of the wave of synths washing over. Free download at Bandcamp.
I drove to Chicago to see Negativland. I took a lot of pictures of the show, but I took a lot of random pictures walking around town.
Permanent Records (easily my favorite record store in Chicago so far)
Pizza slipmat
Chick Pea
Chick Pea
Movie poster wall @ Chick Pea
Falafel and hummus @ Chick Pea
I found a show poster on the ground that fell off something, so I took it
Kstarke Records (closed at 5PM so I couldn’t go in)
I parked on the street that was closed off for the fair
OK now I finally entered the Empty Bottle after wandering around the Ukrainian Village in Chicago for a while
unmanned merch table
The show started at 7:30, Good Willsmith was up first. Pretty decent guitar/synth noise-drone set.
Good Willsmith
Good Willsmith
Good Willsmith
Illusion Of Safety was up second, his set was pretty fantastic. Lots of glitchy computer-based stuff, and some very minimal guitar drone (unfortunately it wasn’t easy to hear over the crowd talking)
Illusion Of Safety
Illusion Of Safety
Illusion Of Safety
Illusion Of Safety
Negativland consisted of Mark Hosler, Peter Conheim, Wobbly, and Steev Hise on video projections. Their set consisted of analog synth improv plus lots of chopped-up samples, most of which were familiar to Negativland fans (“Truth In Advertising”, “Car Bomb”, “The Gun And The Bible”, “Yellow Black And Rectangular”) plus some new material which they’ve been playing on Over The Edge recently. I took a few pictures of the group playing, then focused on the video projections.
Negativland
Mark Hosler
Steev Hise
Wobbly and Peter Conheim
The Booper
A psychedelic Booper
CAR BOMB!!!!!!!!
Do you know how many time zones there are in the Soviet Union? Eleven. It’s not even funny.
Copyright Infringement Is Your Best Entertainment Value
Olekranon continues to be one of the most prolific under-the-radar experimental artists in music. This is his first release in a few years to have proper full-color packaging instead of a handmade cardboard sleeve, but it’s still a CD-r limited to 100 copies. It also seems more diverse than usual Olekranon releases, moving from hazy industrial drone to minimal techno-influenced beatscapes to bashy MBM-ish breakbeats and samples to bludgeoning feedback and sludgy beats (4) to crisp, crunchy midtempo noise-beat-drone. After a clangy, fuzzy interlude, “Severed” is a horizon-like drone with some crackling feedback at the end. “Marionette” is droning post-rock with crushing beats. “Fayad” is shivery, disheveled drone with a thumpy beat and a trace of sadness underneath all the bitter frustration. “Delicate Times” is a short feedback loop drone, and “Libertine” ends the album with nearly 8 minutes of softly pulsating cloud-drone. Available for purchase at Bandcamp, which also has several older Olekranon releases for download, most of which are free.
The Answer Is In The Beat 