Twelve months compiled into just twenty albums. From the thousands of records released each year, it is difficult to get even a handful on the site, and even more difficult to decide which ones were the best of the lot. This is however the twenty albums that have marked the 2009 for themilkfactory.

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Pete Judge and Paul Wigens form Eyebrow, a trumpet and drums duo which is found somewhere on the cool headed side of jazz. With pretty impressive CVs under their respective belts, each having performed alongside the likes of Super Furry Animal, Cousteau or Natasha Atlas, the pair were first to take the stage at the Union Chapel this rainy November evening. In the twenty minutes or so of their set, Eyebrow created a rather impressive series of jazz-infused tracks. Judge, on trumpet, assisted by a delay pedal borrowed from Vladislav Delay, and a few effects, provided the melodic structure, often in light floating strips, over Wigens rather delicate drumming. Continue Reading »

VLADISLAV DELAY
Tummaa
BAY72
The Leaf Label 2009
07 Tracks. 66mins03secs

CD: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Boomkat LP: Amazon UK | Boomkat

In over ten years, Finnish dub master Sasu Ripatti has, under the Vladislav Delay banner, created one of the most consistent body of work on the electronic scene, releasing music on labels such as Mille Plateaux, Chain Reaction, Staubgold or his own, Huume. In recent years, Ripatti’s increasing involvement with other projects has slowed down the flow of releases of his flagship project, the last Delay album, Whistleblower, dating back to 2007. Having joined the ranks of The Leaf Label, Ripatti is back with his most ambitious record to date.

With Tummaa, Ripatti has taken a rather different path, ditching the electronic overcoat of previous work and replacing it with acoustic instruments and has, for the first time, brought on board two additional musicians to bring his haunting soundscapes and beats to life. Continue Reading »

Finnish artist Sasu Ripatti returns with his latest album as Vladislav Delay, his most emblematic project, and this time, it is a primarily acoustic record. Recorded with British composer Craig Armstrong and Argentinean musician Lucio Capece, Tummaa is opening up a new chapter in Ripatti’s work. We take this opportunity to ask the man about the new direction with this project, his return to drumming and his other projects, including working with Jake Shears on his last Luomo album and his part in the Moritz Von Oswald Trio project. Continue Reading »

AGF/DELAY
Symptoms
BPC193
BPicth Control 2009
12 Tracks. 56mins14secs

Buy/Stream: CD | MP3 | iTunes | Spotify

Four years on from their previous outing as an creative couple, Antye ‘AGF’ Greie and her life companion Sasu ‘Vadislav Delay’ Ripatti rekindled their collaborative project and serve another slice of angular space-age pop, where clean cut electronics and dub-infused moods form a warm and vibrant cocoon for AGF’s ice-cool breathy vocals and miniature tales of every day life.

The pair’s first collaborations were documented on Explode, an album released on AGF’s own imprint, and was rapidly followed with a second collaboration, this time between the pair and composer Craig Armstrong, as The Dolls. Since, both have been busy on various solo projects and productions jobs. Symptoms returns to the original AGF/Delay template and give it a new definition. Continue Reading »

VLADISLAV DELAY
Multila
HUUME09
Huume Recordings 2007
07 Tracks. 71mins87secs

For over ten some odd years now, Vladislav Delay has been exploiting a simple collection of elements – dub, techno, ambient – and the different sets one can form out of them. In so doing, paradoxes and inconsistencies set in – on no seldom occasion, they were coddled, understood, and integrated, but at yet others, they remained an antagonistic challenge, representing a crisis and critique that sustained, on Sasu Ripatti’s part, an endless sliding from one motif to another. Continue Reading »