MATMOS
Supreme Balloon
OLE799
Matador Records 2008
07 Tracks. 59mins21secs

Since they appeared, over ten years ago, with their eponymous debut album, Matmos, the then San Francisco-based project of two truly eccentric and inventive artists, Drew Daniel and Martin C. Schmidt, have redefined the boundaries of their own experimental universe with each new release. In many cases, Matmos have devised a record around a specific rule and have adhered to it, most famously on their 2001 A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure, which was painstakingly constructed out of noises and sounds sourced from medical equipment, surgical interventions and body fluid, or on its follow up, The Civil War, which made good use of ancient musical instruments.

With Supreme Balloon, Matmos have turned their own experimentation on its head by dropping their usual paraphernalia of found sounds, collected in more or less unusual situations, to create an entire album based on sounds created using all sorts of vintage synthesizers, the list too long to mention here. Continue Reading »

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SKYPHONE
Avellaneda
RCD2071
Rune Grammofon 2008
11 Tracks. 52mins53secs

It has taken four years for Danish trio Skyphone to follow Fabula, their rather stunning first album. Formed of childhood friends Mads Bødker, Thomas Holst and Keld Dam Schmidt after years propping up dead end rock bands, the trio began to experiment with electronic music and put down the foundation of Skyphone toward the end of the nineties. In 2004, the band’s debut was released on Rune Grammofon.

Like label mates Alog, Skyphone are primarily concerned with intricately woven sonic structures that rely on myriads of minute pieces, but instead of processing acoustic instruments into dense formations, Holst, Schmidt and Bødker focus on musical purity and dip their compositions in luxurious sound pools to bring up the natural textures of the instruments used, while discreet field recordings sprinkled all over the course of the album give the compositions a truly pastoral feel. 24 free ringtones | sprint pcs ringtones | download ringtones motorola | dash mobile ringtones t | cricket phone ringtones | download free cingular ringtones | ringtones for nokia phone | disney free mobile ringtones | c139 motorola ringtones | sprint download ringtones | free cingular wireless ringtones | free ringtones for sprint phone | free ringtones for verizon phone | mobile ringtones converter | nextel ringtones | free ringtones for nextel phone | free kyocera ringtones | download free ringtones nokia | cell phone ringtones wallpaper | ringtones for nextel phone |
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YASHUSHI YOSHIDA
Little Grace
CXCA1228
Noble 2008
09Tracks. 46mins46secs

The cleft that separates this second fledgling of Yashushi Yoshida from his firstborn is its organic and free-flowing nature, the fact that it is determined by the multiplicity and perversity of nature rather than the studios technical demands.

Compositions are still structurally condensed, but Yoshida now endeavors to allow the notes to sound their natural timbres, to be infused and partially directed by the traces and contingencies of the atmosphere. The ensemble - which consists of violin, cello, clarinet, saxophone, saws and drums - therefore swoops and sweeps through the terrain, plucking, gliding, swerving and bending as they follow a wildly varying and versatile vision. Continue Reading »

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Favourite Places
AB016
Audiobulb Records 2008
10Tracks. 54mins04secs

A foray into the psychological swamp of todays practitioners of experimental electronica, the simple though direct and ultimately telling quality of the question that underlies this compilation shines through the ensuing compositions like light through a stained glass window. “What is your favorite place in the world?” the label asks and Aaron Ximm, Taylor Deupree, Biosphere, and Leafcutter John, amongst others, are those who give voice to their private sentiments on the matter.

Apart from the aural evidence provided, each artist scrawls a brief gambit concerning their selection, where the sounds are protruding from and why it seems pertinent. It is pulled off with poise and a certain sense of importance, and this makes it something in which investments can be made, won, and lost, rather than something that asks for little and is content to be thumbed through casually. Continue Reading »

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PETER BRODERICK
Float
TYPE027
Type Recordings 2008
10 Tracks. 35mins46secs

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, multi-instrumentist Peter Broderick moved to Copenhagen in the second half of last year when Danish folksters extraordinaire Efterklang invited him to join their touring caravan following the release of their excellent Parades. Not one to miss a golden opportunity, Broderick dropped everything and took his quarters in the Danish capital, and has spent the last six months criss-crossing Europe as part of the band as well as alternating opening slots with Danish singer Anna Brønsted, aka Our Broken Garden.

Following Broderick’s debut single, released on Type last year, and a limited edition mini album of solo piano works, Docile, released last November on Swedish imprint Kning Disk, Float collects ten compositions which expands on the delicate pieces of Docile to incorporate voluptuous orchestral swathes and other instrumental textures. Continue Reading »

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MEAT BEAT MANIFESTO
Autoimmune
ZIQ202CD
Planet Mu 2008
10 Tracks. 50mins38secs

Meat Beat Manifesto have been on the music scene long enough now for the term veteran to seem almost painfully apt. Yet after ten albums and more than twenty years spent riding the choppy waves of contemporary music, they have somehow remained on the outskirts of things while like-minded artists have lapped up the applause. One need only think of what happened to Orbital after the brown album to see the vastly different trajectories the two superficially quite similar bands have taken in the last decade and a half. Indeed, while the Hartnoll brothers were almost instantly deified following their first appearance at Glastonbury in 1994, MBM moved to Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records and promptly slid out of view. But several records have followed since, and while the Orbital bandwagon has long since shuddered to a halt, Jack Dangers remains, his status assured through longevity as much as anything else. Continue Reading »

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Magnetism, That Electricity
HPLL026
Highpoint Lowlife 2008
12 Tracks. 74mins46secs

For some time now, the excellent Highpoint Lowlife have refocused their outputs by publishing extremely limited hand crafted CDR editions, but the quality of the music released has in no way waned, as recent releases by Tigrics and Erstlaub have shown. Magnetism, That Electricity is the latest project initiated by label head Thorsten Sideb0ard, and follows the Analog For Architecture DVDR compilation released a year and a half ago. The project was devised primarily to be pressed on vinyl and released as a double EP, with four very different acts from the HPLL stable given the full run of a side each. Answering the call are atmospheric drone rockers Mandelbrot Set and electronic outfits Fisk Industries, The Village Orchestra and The Marcia Blaine School For Girls. Continue Reading »

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TICKLEY FEATHER
Tickley Feather
PAW22
Paw Tracks 2008
20 Tracks. 33mins53secs

Parenting has never been the sort of topic that easily lends itself to good music. In fact, it’s often the sort of thing that comes around when a musician leaves behind a rock and roll soaked youth as they approach quieter, less turbulent – less musically interesting - times. That at least is one way of looking at things.

Annie Sachs, though, a single mother and the woman behind Tickley Feather – the latest addition to the Paw Tracks roster – is with this album taking an entirely different tack altogether. Putting together an assortment of Casio-crafted four-tracks during late nights spent at home with her young son, with this debut she holds up a weird, distorted mirror on the world of raising children. Lonely and innocent in equal measure, the album could be about anything, so hard to unpick are the half-whispered lyrics, but the sense of an artist working at the margins is undeniable. Continue Reading »

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CHRIS DOOKS
The Aesthetic Animals Album
BEN540
Benbecula Records 2008
10 Tracks. 39mins43secs

Strange and elusive animal, is Chris Dooks. His first incarnation was in the shape of Bovine Live, a fiercely experimental and eclectic project which saw him transmit from his bedroom, via the Internet, and collaborate with musicians from around the world. Not unusual these days, but back when Social Electrics was recorded, between 1997 and 1999, the process was still pretty new and, as broadband hadn’t yet become the norm, not perhaps the most obvious choice for this kind of endeavours. With this album, released on the ever-excellent Bip-Hop, Dooks worked from found sounds and electronics, which he threw bouncing around on the web and which, caught and treated by a myriad of other like-minded artists, where sent back and assembled into a coherent body of work. Followed a handful of contributions to one of Bip-Hop’s home brewed compilations and a collaboration with German artist Frank Bretschneider, AKA Komet, for the first in Bip-Hop’s short-lived Reciprocess series. Continue Reading »

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Originally hailing from Portland, Oregon, multi-instrumentist Peter Broderick currently resides in Copenhagen, where he moved to toward the end of last year after Efterklang inviting him to join the band for the tour that followed the release of Parades, their album of last year. Broderick has recently released a beautiful mini album on Swedish imprint Kning Disk entirely made of instrumental piano compositions, and his debut album, Float, is about to be released on Type. We caught up with him as he was about to embark on yet another leg of the Efterklang tour to talk about the multiple facets of his work, living in Europe, recording on a shoe string and endorsing a one-man band persona on stage. Continue Reading »

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