Highpoint Lowlife is one of those little-known labels that puts out music of such furiously consistent quality that it’s a wonder more people aren’t aware of its existence. It’s a shame – quite aside from anything else, Thorsten Sideboard’s label is leading the pack right now in terms of digital distribution. Every new release is available to buy though the HL website for an almost shockingly small amount, as well as through larger digital distributors such as Boomkat for a little more. When coupled with the label’s impressive output – in the last few months they’ve released, amongst others, glitch-ridden electronica from 10-20 and a wonderful ambient EP by Pausal – it instills a real sense of loyalty and a ‘buy-before-you-try’ mentality that’s increasingly important at a time when it’s becoming ever less financially viable to release music independently.
Ruaridh Law, the artist more commonly known by pseudonym The Village Orchestra, has a long history with the label. As a producer he’s quite impressively prolific, during this year alone already releasing an hour-long ambient improvisation under the title I Can Hear The Sirens Singing Again and a more dancefloor-directed 12” on Stuff, The Dark Is Rising. His latest as TVO, The Starry Wisdom caps off a good year then, and on a particular high – it may well be the best thing he’s done yet.
Ostensibly a techno record, The Starry Wisdom’s core tracks twist and shift like some kind of cosmic Rubik’s cube, themes interlocking and forming oddly tessellated shapes for short periods at a time before disengaging again and floating off into the ether. Opener ‘Aklo Cut With Saffron’ is driven by a rippling 4/4 stomp worthy of Berghain in its relentless forward momentum, yet on headphones it’s as powerful an experience as it would be on a massive club system, underpinned by an almost intangible melodic drift that remains long after the beat dissipates. The diffuse percussive webs of ‘Arkham, Mass.’ are even worthier of Berlin status and a little reminiscent of T++, their mechanical stylings progressing through several distinct patterns across the track’s seven minutes.
Best of all though is the EP’s least immediately club-driven moment. The twilight electronics of ‘The King In Yellow’ are stained a deep nocturnal purple, lit by sudden flashes of light that elongate like car headlights trapped in a long exposure. If the recent reissue of Kraftwerk’s classic albums has managed to collectively remind a generation of their immense impact on modern dance music, ‘The King In Yellow’ epitomises just how far their influence extends in 2009 – still traveling at a consistent pace down the midnight autobahn, still moving relentlessly forward to the insistent pound of an engine that continues to extend as far as the eye can see. Right now, it looks as though Law will continue the journey to its logical conclusion.
And the entire thing only costs three pounds. That’s less than a pint if you live pretty much anywhere near London, and you don’t even have to leave your seat. http://www.highpointlowlife.com/
Postscript: Close compadres Sonic Router are giving away 'The King In Yellow' for free, courtesy of HL. Grab it here.
As is becoming customary, due to the massive amount of material we miss out on covering in detail at CB/OB, this weekend presents a round-up of the finest new (and old) music that’s made its presence felt over the course of October.
Album of the month: Shackleton - Three EPs [Perlon]
With his Perlon debut, a collection of three 12”s entitled Three EPs, Sam Shackleton has gone that difficult step of further bettering his awe-inspiring music for Skull Disco. Paradoxically lighter of touch and yet more all-encompassingly dense than ever before, here his music flits between nocturnal flights of fancy and remarkably elegiac laments for a world gradually subsuming beneath its own emotional weight. As with all the best trilogies (the one notable exception being Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom), its middle 12” is Three EPs’ high water mark, moving from the voodoo whirl of ‘Mountains of Ashes’ to a climactic Himalayan devotional hymn on ‘Moon Over Joseph’s Funeral’. Utterly exceptional.I reviewed the record for Drowned in Sound - read the entire piece here.
Hudson Mohawke - Butter [Warp]
Hudson Mohawke is fast establishing himself as a curious national treasure. Whilst his debut EP for Warp, Polyfolk Dance, was still audibly connected to the kind of music his LuckyMe contemporaries were making, his first full-length Butter is drenched in dazzling synths and the eighties’ decadent cocaine nights. Its sheer oddball charms can become a little overwhelming at times – ‘Joy Fantastic’ verges slightly towards the irritating – but the wealth of ideas contained in its relatively short runtime drench the listener in constantly shifting bursts of grinding darkness and pure pop nous. More on Gigwise.
Do Make Say Think - Other Truths [Constellation]
With Other Truths, Do Make Say Think continue to cement their reputation as Constellation’s most furiously consistent band, stretching their folk and jazz influences into four longform, widescreen jams that take in long stretches of twilight contemplation before sudden illumination launches them skyward in a flurry of brass and thrashed guitar. Their live show in London this month was similarly essential, showcasing the band’s considerable talents in the form of both supports, Charles Spearin’s Happiness Project and Ohad Benchitrit’s Years. Full review on Drowned In Sound.
Broadcast & The Focus Group - Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age [Warp]
James Cargill and Trish Keenan’s collaboration with The Focus Group’s Justin House is frequently spectacular, inhabiting that odd region between nostalgia, innocence and sheer terror (if there even is such a place). The album’s few complete songs are isolated nodes in a sky clouded with noise from the thousands of other stars surrounding them. Between each asterisk of Cargill and Keenan’s burnished pop, House draws lines in fractal, broken samples and a carnival/funeral of strange and often unsettling instrumentation. Nonetheless, it’s often strikingly pretty, especially during the softly lilting ‘The Be Colony’ and the whistling winds of ‘Round And Round And Round’.Full review up at Middle Boop.
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - White Lunar [Mute]
I’m not entirely sure whether this falls under bona fide album or reissue territory, but as far as I’m aware a large proportion of the music on Nick Cave & Warren Ellis’ soundtrack compilation has never been made commercially available, so it’ll go here. Gathering the peak points of their scores for several films and documentaries, White Lunar makes an impressive introduction to their quite astonishing creative partnership. Away from the sexually charged dynamics of the latest Bad Seeds and Grinderman records, these scores draw the connection explicitly between Ellis’ piercing instrumentals with the Dirty Three and Cave’s balladeering later days, all wrapped up in alternating tension and release so tangible you could cut it with a knife. As winter begins to set in, its dry and dusty atmospheres are a welcome contrast to the damp of Bristol in November.I've just written a full length spiel here, on DiS.
Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport [ATP Recordings]
Tarot Sport explodes from the starting line with the eardrum-shattering noise that defined the Buttons' debut Street Horrrsing, but harnessed into Ibiza-worthy melodic shapes the experience is positively euphoric, constantly engaging and disengaging with the listener like a perfectly balanced DJ set. They’ve been playing closer ‘Flight of the Feathered Serpent’ live for the past couple of years and have honed it to breaking point, the perfect balance between tension and released achieved in the album’s final technicolour explosion. Full article here.
Hyperdub - Five Years of... [Hyperdub]
I devoted an entire column this month to Kode9’s label and its five-year anniversary compilation – it’s just that good. Anyone with even a passing interest in electronic music or some confusion about the maze-like structures dubstep seems to be forming as it matures should already have picked this up.
Reissue of the month: Max Richter - Memoryhouse [FatCat]
Over the last couple of weeks the BBC have shown a series of documentaries about the GDR and the final fall of the Berlin Wall, to coincide with its twentieth anniversary. From the vantage point of 2009 it seems almost impossible to reconcile the idea that such a monumentally different Europe still existed only two decades ago. Like his beautiful score for Ari Folman’s animated documentary Waltz With Bashir, Max Richter’s ‘lost’ debut, Memoryhouse could soundtrack any number of these programmes, capturing in its starkly drawn lines the strange contrast between what our memories tell us and the reality of what occurred. I reviewed the record in full for Drowned In Sound, here.
Hotflush have just put up the fifth in their series of podcasts, and true to past form (previous mixes have come from label head Scuba, as well as London's dub-tech explorer Sigha and a host of others) it's a good 'un. Jus Wan's mixing is like the eye of a storm, generating a strange sense of meditative calm even as fast paced elements of dubstep and techno form a dizzying whirl around him.
Download it here, and marvel as a fast-paced garage workout gradually dissipates into the Zen centrepiece of Shed's remix of Peverelist's 'Junktion'.
I watched Kieran Hebden DJ in Bristol this weekend. It certainly wasn't the slowed down techno pulse I'd expected from previous outings and his regular appearances at Border Community nights in the past. Instead his two hour or so period on the decks jumped stylistically from the swirling minimalism of his hypnotic 'Ringer' - a track which comes to life in a club like no other - to shuffling funky from the likes of Roska and Hard House Banton and a sudden, oh-so-right emergence of So Solid Crew's 'Oh No'. From the sounds of it, he's been absorbing and processing a host of welcome influences - his new 12" 'Love Cry', released last week with the minimum of fanfare, climaxes with a chorus of chopped female vocals and stuttering bass straight out of a UK funky track.
Today FACT have gone one better and confirmed that connection further - Hebden's new Four Tet album is to be released on January 25th. Entitled There Is Love In You, it will be preceded by a remix 12" later this month from none other than Roska and Joy Orbison. This is going to be big. Four Tet's recent work has been uniformly stunning - expect no difference here. Also, nice picture. http://www.fourtet.net
I’ve already discussed the merits of Shackleton’s meditative remix of Harmonia & Eno’s ‘Sometimes In Autumn’, back when it was free to download from RCRD LBL, but it bears repeating. In light of his staggering Three EPs album (which I reviewed in full for Drowned In Sound), already a strong contender for best of the year, it showcases a little of the new direction to his sound. Both intangible and incredibly forceful at the same time, it’s of a more widescreen nature than his material for Skull Disco, allowing sudden sunlight to lance in through occasional breaks in the cloud. It’s finally released on wax this month through Amazing Sounds, the new label from DJ/producer duo Allez-Allez, along with a second remix through Bristol boys Appleblim & Komonazmuk.
Both remixes stay true to the spirit of the originals, emphasising Eno’s talent for ambient texturing and lending each track a motorik sense of calm embedded in trancelike, repeating elements. Of the two, Appleblim & Komonazmuk’s take on ‘By The Riverside’ is the more oppressive, as the duo fill every space available with a sampleadelic wash of percussive and melodic shards as though viewing the original through a kaleidoscope. The result is a deep, limpid pool of sound that seems to draw the listener ever further from lucidity.
In another exciting remix development, FACT announced today that Shackleton has created a full remix EP of London band Invasion, entitled Invasion vs. Shackleton: Wizards In Dub. Expectant ears are imagining some sort of crossover not a million miles from Massive Attack & Mad Professor's No Protection album. Appetite suitably whetted.
Dave Huismans operates at the cutting edge between genres, bleeding dubstep’s fractured shell into a kind of hyperactive take on modern dance that melds cavernous junglist bass weight to the propulsive perpetual motion of several generations of house and techno. His mix for FACT Magazine was an exercise in how to DJ several styles of music the right way, flitting seamlessly from 4/4 techno pulse to shockingly vibrant broken beats from Hyetal, Shortstuff and Martyn, and his live sets are becoming steadily more fluent in their magpie-like approach.
It’s fitting then that the distance between the opposite poles of his work – the greyscale atmospheres of 2562 and the futurist house and techno released under his A Made Up Sound moniker – is ever decreasing, as aspects from each seep into the other to produce an inseperable hybrid. With the release of his second 2562 album Unbalance coinciding with the first 12” from his A Made Up Sound label, Rework/Closer, the two lines come ever closer together, albeit without ever quite converging.
Similarly, A Made Up Sound’s ‘Closer’ is bathed in a bubbling, ever morphing ocean of synth ripple, rises and sudden drops continually engaging and disengaging with a shuffling, deconstructed beat. In terms of sonics, it’s as unusual as anything on Unbalance, yet bristles with a forward energy often downplayed in his role as 2562. The same is true of ‘Rework’, a phenomenal ascending techno workout that builds, beatless, to a groaning drop that gains then loses layers of sound as though shedding excess clothing.
If A Made Up Sound is currently allowing Huismans to fulfill his dancefloor requirements in the most straightforward way he seems capable of, 2562 has fast become home to his more unconventional abstractions. The result is a collection of tracks that feels less like a compilation of dance music and more like an actual, coherent album. The title track drifts in on a two-minute long wash of feedback that underpins its entire length, shifting menacingly under its ungainly steeping beat before disappearing in a wash of delay that ushers in album highlight ‘Superflight’. Buffeted on all sides by shrieking gusts of wind, Huismans’ delicate synthetic melody somehow manages to stay adrift, buoyed by the thermals generated by an ever-present sub-bass rumble.
The flight metaphor is an appropriate one – throughout Unbalance every individual element maintains a perfect distance from one another as though traveling in a flock formation. Production-wise it’s a fair distance from his closest stylistic bedfellow Martyn’s Great Lengths LP, eschewing that record's warm, soulful vibe for something of a wintry chill. As far as these ears are concerned, that's entirely a good thing.
Basic Channel duo Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus have been responsible for some compelling and truly beautiful music, but nothing simultaneously touches the neural centres controlling both aesthetic appreciation and contemplation like ‘Smile’.
Released under their Rhythm & Sound alias, usually better known for its work with Paul St. Hilaire, Von Oswald and Ernestus cloak Savage’s barely audible ruminations in tessellated layers of static wash; the entire history of dub’s studio experimentation locked in an eternal battle with itself as a metronomic pulse drives it ever-forward. For something so minimal it’s strikingly emotionally charged, a sense of aching loneliness captured in tense chord stabs and Savage’s striking admission, ‘Every time we fight/We lose’.
Rarely has a track composed largely of white noise sounded so fully realised.
A video for the Vladislav Delay piece 'Toive', taken from his wild and elementally brilliant Tummaa album, has been commissioned by The Leaf Label. Directed by Carolina Melis and Lorenzo Sportiello, it sets his crystalline textures and slow decay to their very reverse, as ice structures gradually coalesce out of nothingness. I don't usually watch music videos but this one's a gem, perfectly fitting Sasu Ripatti's deep purple and green brushes of ambient texture and sudden shards of melody.
Highpoint Lowlife is one of those little-known labels that puts out music of such furiously consistent quality that it’s a wonder more people aren’t aware of its existence. It’s a shame – quite aside from anything else, Thorsten Sideboard’s label is leading the pack right now in terms of digital distribution. Every new release is available to buy though the HL website for an almost shockingly small amount, as well as through larger digital distributors such as Boomkat for a little more. When coupled with the label’s impressive output – in the last few months they’ve released, amongst others, glitch-ridden electronica from 10-20 and a wonderful ambient EP by Pausal – it instills a real sense of loyalty and a ‘buy-before-you-try’ mentality that’s increasingly important at a time when it’s becoming ever less financially viable to release music independently. 
