The excellent London-based imprint Highpoint Lowlife will host a label showcase at the Luminaire, Kilburn, North London, on Saturday 26 January from 8pm, with live performances from The Marcia Blaine School For Girls, The Village Orchestra, Fisk Industries and Mandelbrot. The evening will also feature a special turntable DJ set from Production Unit. Check out the HPLL website for more information.

Highpoint Lowlife | The Luminaire

RIVAL CONSOLES
The Decadent EP
ERATP5
Erased Tapes 2007
06 Tracks. 20mins23secs
Format: 10″ / Digital

Rival Consoles is the project of twenty-one year old Leicester-based Ryan Lee West. Although this is his first outing as Rival Consoles, West has previously released an EP, already on Erased Tapes, in early 2007 under his Aparatec moniker. Claiming influences stretching from Debussy to Autechre, it is no surprise to find the Decadent EP combining orchestral and electronic textures into tight and angular pieces.

With The Decadent EP, West takes the listener on a journey ranging from the twisted electro of Seventeen and the elegant orchestral swathes of Juncture to the incendiary rush of Kitsch, the warm synthetic waves of The Decadent and the soothing tones of Vari. Continue Reading »

FREDO VIOLA
The Sad Song
BEC5772159/BEC577216
Because Music 2008
04 Tracks. 16mins23secs / 02 Tracks. 15mins36secs
Format: Digital, 10″ / 12″

Fredo Viola was born in London where he spent the first few years of his life before his parents moved to Rome and then New York and Los Angeles where he spent most of his formative years. He studied to become a film director, but music took him on a different path. Strong from a recent collaboration with Massive Attack, Viola follows a couple of MP3 releases with his debut EP, The Sad Song EP, on French imprint Because Music.

The Sad Song EP features three of Viola’s delicately crafted songs, showcasing quite a wide range of styles, starting with the elegant vocal layering and melody of the title track, with only discreet electronic textures added in the background. Continue Reading »

Details of the forthcoming Autechre album, their ninth, have been revealed in a recent Warpmart newsletter. The album, entitled Quaristice, is due to be released on 3 March and is the follow up to Rob Brown and Sean Booth’s 2005 Untilted album. The album will feature no less than twenty tracks. The cover, designed, for the first time since the Cichli Suite EP, by The Designers Republic, was also unveiled.

Full track listing as follow:

1. Altibzz
2. The Plc
3. IO
4. Plyphon
5. Perlence
6. SonDEremawe
7. Simmm
8. Paralel Suns
9. Steels
10. Tankakern
11. Rale
12. Fol3
13. fwzE
14. 90101-51-1
15. bnc Castl
16. Theswere
17. WNSN
18. chenc9
19. Notwo
20. Outh9X

The band will embark on a full European tour to coincide with the release of the album. Dates as follow:

FEBRUARY
29 Manchester, UK, Music Box

MARCH
01 Glasgow, UK - Arts School
02 Newcastle, UK - Digital
03 Birmingham, UK - Med Bar
04 London, UK - Venue TBC
05 Koln, Germany - Stattgarten
06 Amsterdam, Holland - Melkweg
07 Antwerp, Belgium - Petrol
08 Hamburg, Germany - Hafenklang
09 Berlin, Germany - Berghain
10 Katowice, Poland - Jazz Club
11 Budapest, Hungry - Merlin
12 Zagreb, Croatia - Kset
13 Graz, Austria - Post Garage
14 Italy - Town and venue TBC
15 Rome, Italy - Venue TBC
16 Italy - Town and venue TBC
17 Lyon, France - Epicerie Moderne
18 Strasbourg, France - La Laiterie
19 Paris, France - Rex Club
20 Geneva, Switzerland - L’Usine, Electron Festival

Autechre (MySpace) | Warp Records

CANON BLUE
Halcyon EP
Rumraket 2007
04 Tracks. 17mins10secs
Format: Digital

Following the release of his debut album as Canon Blue, New Orleans-based Daniel James dropped a perfectly formed four-track EP in Rumraket’s stocking just before Christmas. The EP, which is available to download for free from the Canon Blue Myspace and Rumraket sites (see below), features four brand new tracks, recorded in November 2007 in his bedroom, with a handful of friends lending a hand. Halcyon is, according to James, a celebration of winter, a period during which he feels particularly creative.

Set in a similar style to James’s excellent Colonies album, the songs collected here denote however a gentle evolution in the way James assembles his pop songs and gives them a definite edge. The melodies appear more confident and refined, the soundscapes are increasingly cinematic and the vocal performances have gained in definition, yet the songs still have a subtle air of naivety about them.

As the opening title track rises from initial processed guitar stutter and progressively swells into an intricately layered orchestral noise cloud before dying all too suddenly on a single note, James clearly reassess the space within his music by bringing forward real instrumentation and taming down his more technological side so it works in perfect symbiosis. Ennui, (French for boredom), shows a similar approach as a piano cascades down on a catchy melody which appears in turn uplifting or melancholic, while the firmly paced beat which seats in the background works as a tempered counterpoint to James’s vocals. Avatar Furr is a much more upbeat and pressing affair, but the melody ebbs and flows as the beat retires for a moment, leaving for a moment the orchestral drapes and swirling piano lines to lead. The highlight of this EP comes with the cinematic closing piece, Kingfisher Sweet, as James the singer steps back to leave James the musician sole at the helm of this ambitious miniature pop epic.

With this excellent new EP, Daniel James refines his sound and steps up the pace from his debut album, revealing a much wider and evocative sound while retaining the very essence of Colonies. Not to be missed!

4.3/5

Canon Blue (MySpace) | Rumraket