VS02 – Virtual Soundtrack: The 2008 Review (launches iTunes)

Matmos: Rainbow Flag
Supreme Balloon, LP, Matador

Populous With Short Stories: Breathe The Best
Drawn In Basic, LP, Morr Music

Flying Lotus: Roberta Flack [feat. Dolly]
Los Angeles, LP, Warp Records

Minilogue: Hitchiker’s Choice
Animal, LP, Cocoon Recordings

Encomiast: Azazel
Encomiast, LP, Lens Records

Portishead: Machine Gun
Third, LP, Island Records

Hercules And Love Affair: You Belong
Hercules And Love Affair, LP, DFA

Leila: Little Acorns [feat. Khemahl & Thaon Richardson]
Blood, Looms And Blooms, LP, Warp Records

Arve Henriksen: Sorrow And Its Opposite
Cartography, LP, ECM Records

Janek Schaefer: Extended Play – Radio Jodoform
Extended Play (Triptych for the Child Survivors of War and Conflict), LP, Line

Paavoharju: Kevätrumpu
Laulu Laakson Kukista, LP, Fonal

Lindstrøm: Grand Ideas [Johan Agebjörn Remix]
Where You Go I Go Too, LP, Smalltown Supersound

Air France: Collapsing At Your Doorstep
No Way Down, LP, Sincerly Yours

Wire: Hard Currency
Object 47, LP, Pink Flag

Luomo: Nothing Goes Away [feat. Johanna Iivanainen and Sue Cie]
Convivial, LP, Humme Recordings

Mercury Rev: Senses On Fire
Snowflake Midnight, LP, V2/Yep Rock

Autechre: Outh9X
Quaristice, LP, Warp Records

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON
Fordlândia
CAD2812CD
4AD 2008
11 Tracks. 67mins03secs

The fifth album by Icelandic classical composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, Fordlândia takes its name from a megalomaniac project of Henry Ford, who bought 10,000 km² of land in Brazil in the 1920s to produce the rubber that would be used for the tyres of Ford cars. The project ran into trouble after the indigenous workforce grew discontented with working conditions and rampant Americanisation. By 1945, Fordlândia was given a further blow as the use of synthetic rubber increased greatly, forcing Ford to sell the land at a considerable loss.

How much this actually filters through Jóhannsson’s latest opus is debatable, although the album was partly inspired by the idea of nature reclaiming the territory once invaded by industrial activities. Jóhannsson also notes a strong connection between this album and his previous work, IBM1401, A User’s Manual. Indeed, both pieces rely on swirling melodic themes and rich and contrasted emotional palettes which develop over the course of the respective albums, tainting each composition in a particular light while giving the overall album a very distinctive tone. Jóhannsson’s orchestral work has become more ambitious over the years, and, with Fordlândia, he continues to affirm his position as a composer. The opening and closing pieces alone show his ability to generate a whole range of emotions through extremely elaborate pieces. On the former, Jóhannsson works from a series of recurring musical phrases which are emphasised differently throughout the first ten minutes before descending into a much slower phase, while on the latter, he creates a much more nuanced sequence, which rises slowly from a soft organ part to form gentle waves before gaining momentum and finally explode into great streams of strings before slowly returning to a more minimal form. These two compositions, bookending this album, while very different in many respect, are amongst Jóhannsson’s most ambitious and mature.

The Rocket Builder (Io Pan!), Fordlândia – Arial View and Chimaerica, placed at the centre of the album, are more subtle and gentle pieces, which, while using similar forms, appear more introvert and delicate. Like Fordlândia, The Rocket Builder (Io Pan!) is partly built around recurring phrases, set as a form of dialogue between piano on one side and string formation on the other, which constantly swell and retract to reveal a beat in the background. Arial View and Chimaerica are even more minimal in structure, the latter, based on an organ part, with processed strings drizzled over it, giving an impression of desolation. A series of shorter pieces, Melodia I-IV, based on a series of variations recorded by clarinettist Guðni Franzson, recorded a few years ago and developed into Melodia (Guidelines For A Space Propulsion Device) later on, act as solemn punctuations and give this album a particular depth. A similar feel is applied to the beautiful The Great God Pan Is Dead, with at its core a text taken from a 19^th century poem by English writer Elizabeth Barrett Browning telling of the death of god of the forest Pan and paganism, and the rise of monotheism, which Jóhannsson eventually links to industrialisation. In comparison, Melodia (Guidelines For A Space Propulsion Device) is a much lighter and upbeat, served by an underlying pulsating beat and melodic variations developing over the nine minutes of the piece.

In recent years, Jóhann Jóhannsson has developed rich and vibrant works, and his style has gained in maturity and expression. With Fordlândia, he continues to establish his highly personal style and creates a very confident piece of work.

4.4/5

Jóhann Jóhannsson | 4AD
Buy: CD | iTunes

This time of the year again. We’ve absorbed twelve months of music, digested it and featured some of it on this site. Here, we compile the definitive milkfactory top 20 albums of 2008, as voted by our regular contributors. And, we’ve also got the individual lists available here. Was this the best of 2008? It was for us.

1.

PORTISHEAD
Third
Island Record

2.

LINDSTRØM
Where You Go I Go Too
Smalltown Supersound

3.

AUTECHRE
Quaristice
Warp Records

4.

LEILA
Blood, Looms & Blooms
Warp Records

5.

MINILOGUE
Animals
Cocoon Recordings

6.

PAAVOHARJU
Laulu Laakson Kukista
Fonal Records

7.

GRAHAM LAMBKIN & JASON LESCALLEET
The Breadwinner
Erstwihle

8.

POPULOUS WITH SHORT STORIES
Drawn In Basic
Morr Music

9.

LUOMO
Convivial
Huume Recordings

10.

WIRE
Object 47
Pink Flag

11.

STEPHAN MATHIEU
Radioland
Die Schatnel

12.

FLYING LOTUS
Los Angeles
Warp Records

13.

ARVE HENRIKSEN
Cartography
ECM Records

14.

JANEK SCHAEFER
Extended Play (Triptych For The Child Survivors Of War And Conflict)
Line

15.

AIR FRANCE
No Way Down
Sincerely Yours

16.

ENCOMIAST
Encomiast
Lens Records

17.

MERCURY REV
Snowflake Midnight
V2 / Yep Rock

18.

MATMOS
Supreme Balloon
Matador Records

19.

JEREMY BIBLE & JASON HENRY
Vryashn
Gears Of Sand

20.

HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR
Hercules & Love Affair
DFA

David Abravanel
Robert Rowlands
Max Schaefer
themilkman

My 2008 best-of list is one of the more eclectic I’ve assembled.  As usual, I owe much to themilkfactory writers and readers for introducing me to some delightful sounds, including Leila, Alexandre Navarro, and Minilogue.  Other factory favorites just missed the top 20 and bear honorable mention, including Ólafur Arnalds, AGF, and B12 and The Black Dog.

2008 was a good year for interesting surprises, from the hard data dots of Ryoji Ikeda to Hauschka’s gentle prepared-piano pieces.  A number of old favorites came through again as well, from Jamie Lidell’s soul-stomping Jim to Jason Pierce’s gorgeous meditations on Spiritualized’s Songs In A&E.  Perhaps the best story comes from Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who many-times-upped Radiohead by releasing The Slip, easily his best record since 1999’s The Fragile, for free, in a multitude of high-quality formats.  Rounding everything out are the playful albums, The Dream seeing the Orb return to silly form, and Supreme Balloon charting Matmos’ lush, synthesized excursions.  In the end, Italian producer Populous and his understated emotional pieces, with Doseone-esque vocals from Short Stories, takes number one.

1.

POPULOUS WITH SHORT STORIES
Drawn In Basic
Morr Music

Continue Reading »

It has been the year of the credit crunch, the year moneyed ease took a clobbering, the year having a job suddenly became something you couldn’t take for granted. But a listen to most of the music made in 2008 shows few links with the panic in the markets or the shuffling of feet in the Job Centres. Any art form is only linked second hand to the era in which it is forged, but much of what has come through this year – especially in electronic music – has been the music of the good times, the music of the high point before the wave collapsed. Vampire Weekend epitomised that as well as anybody with a guitar this year. But in electronics, it was the beatific sound of artists such as Lindstrom and Air France that seemed to dominate. Sure, there were dark sounds out there – with Portishead’s gloomy opus Third perhaps the most obvious example – but the prevailing mood was not down but up. As the recession sinks in, and as the musical zeitgeist takes another twist, the music of 2009 may well have a far gloomier ring to it.

1.

MINILOGUE
Animals
Cocoon Recordings

Continue Reading »

When I was a kid, I clearly remember my parents telling me that the older you get, the faster time seems to pass. At the time, of course, I had all eternity in front of me, and time was never passing fast enough. I couldn’t wait for school holidays, birthdays or Christmases and dismissed what they were saying with all the contempt I could gather. I have since understood how right they were. It seems like I was putting together my end of year list for 2007 only last week, but it’s well and truly been a whole twelve months, filled with countless pocket-sized tales of blood sweat, tears, re-invention, revival, weird explorations and revived hopes.

Perhaps above all, 2008 has been marked, for me at least by the stunning return of Portishead, once one of the many jewels in the Bristol crown, now a totally revitalised and more powerful than ever formation, and by the faultless first album proper of Norwegian disco lord Lindstrøm. There were also magnificent albums by Arve Henriksen, Paavoharju, Peter Broderick and Nico Muhly, while Leila and Twine both released new albums after years of silence and Dark Captain Light Captain proved to be one of the year’s best newcomers.

1.

PORTISHEAD
Third
Island Record

Continue Reading »

Before the year leaves we acknowledge our debts, we try and address those with and through whom we live.  While discrete exchanges of information happen nearly all the time today, those who approach with a face and speak to us remain few and far between.  Musically, this is achieved by those who, against a backdrop of emulsion, of input-output, and controlled chain reactions, resist the draw of the digital download or the anonymity of standard jewel casing and interrupt, confound, and challenge with a body of work whose meanings are quite insidiously written all over it.  My thanks, then, to the following labels who seek to maintain this dimension in music: Spekk, Symbolic Interaction, And/Oar, Helen Scarsdale, Crouton, Mystery Sea, Room40, Gears of Sand, Die Stadt, Twenty Hertz, Edition Sonoro, Sedimental, Afe, Data Bloem, Data Obscura, Noble, Cronica, The Land Of, Experimedia, Kvitnu, 12k, Line, Winds Measure Recordings, Infraction, Dynamophone, Die Schachtel, Sirr, Leerraum [], Staubgold, Samadhisound, Schole, Flau, Elevator Bath, Palace of Lights, and countless others.  A few noteworthy pennyworths:

1.

GRAHAM LAMBKIN & JASON LESCALLEET
The Breadwinner
Erstwihle

Continue Reading »

KWAIDAN
Kwaidan
HPLL030
Highpoint Lowlife 2008
02 Tracks. 23min27mins

Kwaidan is a one-off project from Mat Ronson, who usually officiates under the Fisk Industries banner, released on the ever-excellent Highpoint Lowlife imprint as a digital-only EP, available to buy straight from the label.

With this release, Ronson turns his attention to dark and dense urban electronic by cutting two thick slice of haunting and caustic dubstep-infused techno, each clocking at over eleven minutes. Continue Reading »

STEINBRÜCHEL
Home
SLAAPWEL4
Slaapwel Records 2008
01 Track. 33mins36sec

Steinbrüchel’s high quality manipulation of guitar recordings from Daisuke Miyatani is pleasantly calming, almost indifferent, as though a light squall of rain at sea.  The instrumental colors are constrained, the harmonics scant, but the texture and friction is delightfully varied and yet fluent.  Rich, vibrant chords first lap up against scratchy textures and humid atmospherics, until they settle into a slow breathing that forms an organic polyphony with stately, levitating electronic tones and waves of low end fuzz. Continue Reading »

B. FLEISCHMANN
Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung!
MORR085
Morr Music 2008
09 Tracks. 54mins48secs

Bernhard Fleischmann’s habitually dark electronic textures and minor key harmonics luxuriate in fresh, expansive grooves on Angst Is Not A Weltanschauung!, his most explicitly pop album yet.  An embryonic indie rock quality is whipped into shape on a number of pieces by stuttering drum machine hi-hats and cockily affirmative vocal twists.  At times the accessible minor key phrases evoke the grinding of large bodies and come off rather well.  The brooding, sexy male-female vocalizing of Last Time We Met At A T&tt Concert, for one, entwines effortlessly with a cavernous, tub thumping rhythm. Continue Reading »