Monday mix - Spatial (FACT Magazine)

Nice way to start the week: Infrasonics head honcho Spatial has put together a seriously fine looking mix for FACT magazine, bringing together some of his own, uber-sparse sci-fi garage productions with new aces from Hot City, Xxxy, Ike Release and more.

Geddit here.

Fabriclive 50: Autonomic [Fabric]

It's been a fine old start for 2010 for the people at Fabric. Not simply content with hitting the big five-oh in style with mix CDs from Martyn - and now Instra:mental & dBridge - they've also put out a serious early contender for unmixed compilation of the year in Elevator Music. A decent way to spoil aficionados of UK-centric bass music's ongoing evolution then.

Instra:mental & dBridge's Fabriclive 50 mix is worthy of the position it's been given in the series' history. Less a dancefloor oriented artefact than a document of the d'n'b innovations that the Autonomic crowd have been pushing over the last couple of years, it's a reminder that there are still producers of interest working in a medium that seems increasingly hackneyed. Stripping drum 'n' bass back to its bare bones, and subtracting that horrible 'emphasis on dance energy at the expense of pretty much everything else' tendency, it strikes a well-pitched balance between sit-down listenable and jump-around-your-bedroom fun (in the last twenty minutes or so, at least).

I reviewed the record in full for DiS - it's up here.

"The moment Autonomic drifts hazily from the speakers, the first thing you become aware of is just how immaculately programmed it is. Such is the careful dedication with which this mix has been put together that it’s nigh on impossible to pick apart consecutive tracks. In fact at times it’s almost possible to detect the ghostly remnants of a tune that went by three or four tracks hence – the melancholy strains of Loxy & Genotype’s ‘Farah’s Theme’ weaving into the backdrop of D-Bridge’s stunning remix of Scuba’s ‘Tense’, or the tightly interlocked trio of Instra:mental tracks that form an early highlight. Its impressive 31 track length doesn’t allow much time for any individual to take centre stage: Autonomic flows like a night out, a series of short, interconnected but often ambiguous vignettes that together constitute a formidable whole."

http://www.myspace.com/instramentaluk
http://www.myspace.com/exitrecords

Bonobo/Floating Points/Appleblim & Komonazmuk [Ninjatune]

For better or worse, I’ve always lumped Bonobo in with the ongoing legions of fluffy, post-club chillout artists who manage to piece together tracks with a wonderful list of contributing influences and absolutely no real substance or originality. It might have been an unfair judgement, as his new single ‘Eyesdown’ is a pretty nice little thing. Yes, it drifts by almost unnoticed on a cloud of downtempo warmth, and it’s got the requisite smooth female vocal, but Andreya Triana’s honeyed tones are the same that graced the astral glide of Flying Lotus’ ‘Tea Leaf Dancers’. The line she treads between passion and aloof detachment, along with an airy two-step bounce, just manages to elevate the original mix above the surrounding hordes.

However, all this having been said, there’s always a risk of being outshone when you draft in some of the most exciting operators around to remix your music. This is certainly one such moment, although perhaps not entirely to Bonobo’s discredit, as it would be tough to better Floating Points’ delectable refix. Applying his stargazing fusion of styles to Triana’s untouched vocal, he wraps her in fast-paced currents of synth that layer up then peel away in a deep house/UK garage hybrid reminiscent of his Planet Mu release ‘J&W Beat’.

Warrior One takes ‘Eyesdown’ into funky/bashment territory, all sliced vocals and perpetual dancefloor motion, but Appleblim & Komonazmuk pull a similar trick to Floating Points in far bettering the original. Sticking to the precedent set with their previous collaborations – stunning reworks of Sideshow’s ‘If Alone’ and Harmonia & Eno’s ‘By The Riverside’ – they stretch the original into a dubbed-out house session a world away from either producer’s solo work. Even if it’s not quite as fascinating or compulsively listenable as either of those remixes, it’s largely to do with the simplicity of the source material, and carries its own charm – a blissful bit of vocal house for a chilly Sunday.

And in a standard 'swap your details for tunes' move, they're giving away Warrior One's remix for free at Bonobo's website - might be worth that little bit of extra spam in your inbox.

Hot City - XLR8R Mix

An appropriately upbeat early start to the weekend - Hot City has recorded the latest in XLR8R's ever-essential series of mixes, kicking through an hour of neon-bright post-garage, four-to-the-floor goodness. A good way to begin a Friday.

Download it here.

Scorching tracklist below:

01 Hot City "What Am I Doin"
02 Terrence Parker "Why After All This" (Seventh Sign)
03 Karizma "Neccessarry Maddness" (R2)
04 Justin Martin "Beat That Bird With a Bat (Donk Boys Remix)" (Dirtybird)
05 DJ Zinc "Because" (Bingo)
06 Mike Dehnert "Umlaut2 (Levon Vincent NY Basement Mix)" (Clone)
07 Shams "Watch You Foam at the Mouth and Try to Swim Today" (Vicious Pop)
08 Cubic Zirconia "Josephine (Egyptrixx Remix)" (Don't Cry)
09 Grevious Angel "Move Down Low (VIP Mix)" (Soul Jazz)
10 Hot City "Another Girl"
11 Tolfrey/Ramirez "Bounce To Me (Lauhaus Remix)" (Phonica)
12 DJ Assault "In The Club"
13 Black Box "Ride On Time (Zombie Disco Squad Remix)" (AATW)
14 Jay Robinson & Screama "Down (Original Mix)" (Monkey Beats)
15 The 2 Bears "Be Strong" (Southern Fried)
16 Nochexxx "Sandspur"
17 Jodey Kendrick "Dirt Devil" (Rephlex)
18 Jimmy Edgar "B There" (Hypercolour)
19 SBTRKT "Laika" (Brainmath)
20 Harmonimix "A Milli" (Harmonimix)

Field Music (Measure)

I've just reviewed the actually-very-good new album from Field Music, who I've always admired rather than loved, for Middle Boop. It reminds me a lot of Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping, had Kevin Barnes reined in his glut of ideas and actually managed to stay focused long enough to avoid flying off on random tangents. This, of course, is a good thing. Oh, and the album artwork is lovely as well.

"It seems that pop has always been defined by the seemingly irreconcilable tension between its makers’ restless quest for immortality and their music’s fundamentally ephemeral nature. Yet at its basest level pop music aims to freeze-frame a moment in time – a moment when its creators will forever be wrinkle-free and that song means as much as it ever can, or will. The song itself should be the immortal medium, remaining identical long after the people who sired it have slipped off this mortal coil. The very essence of the ‘rock star’ is flawed – if your music really matters it will outlive you, and the fountain of youth will preserve a memory as fleeting as the period when Dorian Gray saw his true reflection in a portrait.

Fatalistic? Sure, but this undeniable truth is what lends those fleeting moments such gravitas. Take Field Music’s closest contemporaries and sometime bandmates, The Futureheads, who in a dizzying twist of luck (or fate) managed to craft a perfect pop album first time round, and since have suffered at the hands of the law of ever-diminishing returns. So in some ways you’d expect the same fate to have befallen the brothers Brewis – they write guitar songs with perfectly executed triple-layer harmonies; Beach Boys, Beatles and post-punk influences present and correct Saah. Undeniably pop musicians in every way then. So why is it that three albums down the line they remain as difficult to fathom as ever – and all the more rewarding for it?"

Review up here.

Apple Pips, Fabric, 19th February

Appleblim's Apple Pips label has some seriously good stuff coming out in the near future, a lot of it from local Bristol producers - established ones like Komonazmuk, as well as upcomers Al Tourettes, Arkist and Orphan 101. He's just recorded a staggering mix for Fabric, his first longform one for quite a while, as a promo for the upcoming Apple Pips takeover of Room Three on 19th February. It's going to be a massive one, featuring sets from Greena, Al Tourettes, Wedge and Gatekeeper, as well as the boss man himself.

Mix and interview up at Fabric's blog here.

The tracklist looks something like thiiis:

Data - The Fall of Phaeton (dub)
False Prophet - Wake Up [Spatial remix] (TAKE Records)
Gatekeeper - Atmosphere Processor (dub)
Arkist - Switch (dub)
Scuba - You Got Me (Hotflush)
Wedge - Worry Dolls (If Symptoms Persist)
Headhunter & Gatekeeper - Jellyfish (Transistor)
Addison Groove - Footcrab (Swamp 81)
Al Tourettes - She Shimmers (Apple Pips)
Joe - Untitled #2 (Apple Pips)
Greena - Actual Pain (Apple Pips)
Hard House Banton & Roska - Warning (dub)
Atki2 & Dub Boy - Tigerflower (Idle Hands)
Midland & Ramadanman - Your Words Matter (Aus)

That Midland & Ramadanman tune is something else entirely.

Zomby Vs. Actress - 'Nothing'

More new, slightly terrifying Zomby and Actress music? Yes please.

After a pair of Zomby & Actress tracks appeared a month or so ago, another one has emerged today courtesy of Zomby's Twitter. Like the last two, 'Nothing' is a slow, sketch-like piece of dystopian atmosphere, glitching and roiling for a couple of minutes before swiftly cutting out.

Whether these are the full tracks, chopped in typically contrary Zomby style, or some kind of tease for an upcoming proper release (hint, hint), it remains to be seen, but they're quite lovely in a nocturnal, council estate kinda way.

Photo: 'New River' by Nico Hogg

Harmonimix - A Milli/Bills Bills Bills [White]

There’s a cheeky sense of humour (not to mention copyright infringement) about the Harmonimix bootlegs that certainly warrants a release on an anonymous white label. Of course, in the information age it’s next to impossible to stay anonymous for too long. The fact that these ‘alternative’ versions of Lil Wayne’s ‘A Milli’ and, brilliantly, Destiny’s Child’s ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’ should be attributed to a certain Mr. James Blake has swiftly become common knowledge.

Even if they hadn’t previously been outed as his work, both tracks here have Blake’s sonic hallmarks stamped all over them. In a similar manner to his ‘Stop What You’re Doing’ remix, he takes the source material and constructs a new track over the top, adding layer upon layer of increasingly dissonant harmony until the music simply can’t support its own weight any more. It’s testament to his version of ‘A Milli’ that it stands out amongst its hordes of other remixes, the use of saccharine toy keyboard melodies somehow managing to convert the original’s bragging aggression into something surprisingly heartfelt.



The detuned dementia of ‘Bills, Bills, Bills’ is the real winner here though. It’s not simply because Destiny’s Child’s original has managed to avoid the kind of ubiquitous overplay Weezy’s been subjected to - although it has - but due to the sheer balls it takes to recast a silky smooth piece of modern R’n’B into this crunked-up robot chorus. There’s a little of the disorientation of his Hemlock release ‘Air & Lack Thereof’ in its staggering gait, but by the time he introduces a long-awaited human element in the final chorus it’s become obvious that Blake is following a pretty unique trajectory. Just like Ikonika, Untold or tourmates Mount Kimbie, once again a producer initially lumped in with the dubstep crowd is proving to be something quite different, and quite original.