The noughties have seen probably the most radical changes in the music industries since the advent of the record. Consumption habits have dramatically moved from traditional to digital formats, music has been increasingly seen as something to steal rather than to buy, and listening habits means that nowadays, the album is becoming increasingly redundant. Or is it? Whereas it had, at least in some circles, become totally acceptable to fill records with substandard music, it is now essential for artists to create consistent pieces of work if they want to retain the attention of their audience. The last ten years have delivered their fair share of hits and misses, and this list doesn’t pretend to be in any way shape or form exhaustive. This is just, in no particular order, the definitive list of the 20 albums that have defined the noughties at themilkfactory.

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Experimental French imprint Bip-hop, which has just delivered the first studio album by Brighton-based artist Bela Emerson and the ninth instalment in its excellent Bip-hop Generation series, will be celebrating ten years at the forefront of experimental music with an exclusive CD given away to subscribers with the March issue of The Wire.

The label, spearheaded by music activist Philippe Petit, a music journalist, radio DJ and musician, amongst other things, has released music by artists as diverse as Si-Cut.db, Twine, Spaceheads, Scanner, Angel, Iris Garrelfs, Rothko, Bovine Life, Janek Schaefer or the third collaborative effort between Max Eastley and David Toop, and featured the likes of Murcof, Burnt Friedman, Arovane, Datach’I, Schneider TM, Phonem, Ilpo Vaisänen, Taylor Deupree or FM3.

In 2002, the label started a new series of collaborative efforts entitled Reciprocess +/vs. in which two artists offered common compositions and remixes of each other’s work. So far, two volumes have been made available; the first one was a collaboration between Scottish artist Bovine Life, AKA Chris Dooks, and German artist Komet (Frank Bretschneider), and the second documented the collaboration between Stephan Mathieu and Douglas Benford. The CD given away in next month’s issue of The Wire is the third installment in this series, but this time, the project is curated by Philippe Petit and will feature eighty minutes of material from Aidan Baker, Chapter 24, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Simon Fisher Turner, Klangwart, Douglas Benford, Martkovo, Bela Emerson, Kumo, Eugene S. Robinson, Severin 24, Jason Forrest, Lydia Lunch, Jean-Hervé Peron, Strings  Of Consciousness, Sybarite, Jeru and dDamage.

Bip-Hop | Philippe Petit (MySpace)

TWINE
Violets
GI59
Ghostly International 2008
10 Tracks. 58mins42secs

Greg Malcolm and Chas Mossholder met in high school in the late eighties and began collaborating as Twine toward the end of the nineties, after having spent part of their formative years in various bands. Their first album, Reference, was released on AdAstra in 1999 and was quickly followed by Resource, a split album with Horchata. Since, the pair’s complex and emotional mix of glitch, dense atmospherics, reminiscent of 4AD at its haunting peak, and intricate electronic structures adorned with found sounds, has been constantly refined, redefined, and applied on three magnificent albums, released over a three year period, from Circulation (Komplott, 2001), to Recorder (Bip-Hop, 2002) and Twine (Ghostly, 2003). Since, despite being announced for over three years, Violets had remained mysteriously out of Ghostly’s release schedule, until now. Continue Reading »

Ghostly International have announced detailed of the long-awaited and many times delayed sixth album from fine purveyors of electronic music with a strong guitaristic twist Twine. Five years after their last, self-title offering, the duo are set to release Violets on 17 June 2008 on CD and digital format. The album was recorded shortly after its predecessor was released, in 2003, but has inexplicably remained under wrap until now. Continue Reading »