Bavarian Fire Drill - British Space Programme (Milgram Records - ambient synth)

A new Bavarian Fire Drill EP. More ambient synth gurgle. Loosely based around the history of the British Space Programme. An interesting short piece about that is here - http://lapsedhistorian.com/an-empire-of-stars/.

Mordy Laye and the Group Modular - The Mystery of Mordy Laye

Just going through Fact Mag's Top 20 Bandcamp Releases of 2013 list and came across this

Radiophonic library funk moog doings. Ghost Box gone bachelor pad? Stereolab but dustier? Quality stuff.

Motion Sickness Of Time Travel - The Perennials

pleasant synthesizer doings

Vladislav Delay

Fact Mag have a rather good run down of the essential Vladislav Delay.. From that, I discovered that Vladislav Delay has a bandcamp page with loads of his albums and EPs on.

Vladislav Delay is pretty much essential if you're into electronic music and the more experimental end of techno. it's all ridiculously well produced and thought out.

Worth tracking down the issue of The Wire with a massive interview with him. Just look at these pictures of his studio!

Makthaverskan - II

80s synth pop and Cocteau Twins style indie pop stuff from Sweden. Dead nice.

Orgone Accumulators - august 2013 demo

THE GREATEST MUSIC YOU WILL EVER HEAR IN YOUR LIFE!!!!!

Yeah, I'm a bit biased cos I made it but it is worth a listen. Started as an attempt to make an electronica version of Man Or Astroman? Ended up as some kind of synth-y lo-fi indie thing?

Meridian Brothers - Desesperanza (Soundway)

One of those bands that's impossible to describe. Think a mix of The Residents, Ethiopiques compilations, 60s surf instrumentals, old 60s electronics and Latin American psych stuff like Os Mutantes and that Tropicalia compilation Soul Jazz put out.

This Colombian band are dead tuneful but in a really bizarre way. Highly recommended though.





Oh, and they've also done one of the strangest covers of Purple Haze I've heard



Boomkat is the place for FLAC of this

Arc Neon - Blood Sport 2092

John Carpenter 80s film soundtrack synth worship that's not a million miles away from what the likes of Umberto, Zombi and Gatekeeper are doing.

This is the plot of the film:

"Welcome to Blood Sport, where the only prize is to die quickly."

"Set in the far corner of the galaxy this barbaric test of rage and evil is the only form of entertainment that's deemed legal by the Ultra-Mega Corps who now control the the intergalactic slave population. Each year the contestants are dropped on the dying planet of Zothique to do battle until only one stands victorious. However this year the body count might just be quadrupled..."

-You are condemned to Blood Sport.

Someone should make it.

gets a bit euphoric euro-trance towards the end of Remembering Past Winners though ;-)

Not Waving (ex Walls)

new Not Waving album is streaming over at Dummy

It's half of Walls (the Kompakt one not the Iron Lung one) and it's similar kind of fuzzy synth oooze. They've got some EPs on the bandcamp as well which are also lovely.

Vakunoht - Gagarin's Start

"The missing link between XTC, Nomeansno, The Cardiacs and Motorhead?" according to a friend. I reckon something like Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum or maybe APATT doing a metal band.

Occasionally I hear glimpses of things like Tarot Woman by Rainbow but mixed in with Devo.

What about if the folk in Circle/Pharaoh Overlord tried their hand at a pop rock band?

Apparently they've got a new album coming which is going to be even wilder than this one. Can't wait.

Umberto - Confrontations

If you like 70s synths and the old 70s/80s film soundtracks they were used on then this is right up your street.

Total John Carpenter territory!

Umberto has been honing his craft for quite a while now and it shows. This is seriosuly accomplished stuff. Admittedly some of his earlier stuff could be dismissed as pastiche but not this.

It's intricate, well produced and superbly done. The synth lines have real tension and it has real form rather than just aimless meandering.

Really, all it needs is someone to make an awesome straight-to-VHS film for it.

Om Unit - Aeolian EP

Some top notch post dubstep/UK garage underground beat stuff.

Bits of it even remind me of things like Tricky and Massive Attack. Particularly Dark Sunrise with Tamara Blessa. It's worth posting the video for that as well.



Shifts in between kind of dark down tempo stuff like that to full on drum and bass spliced up breaks. Kind of a nice surprise as you don't hear them too often now. At least not in stuff like this.

Boomkat are also selling it - http://boomkat.com/downloads/549904-om-unit-aeolian-reso-sweatson-klank-mixes

and this is their blurb which is probably a better description:-

Something of a producer's producer, Jim Om Unit rarely disappoints in his releases, but recently he seems to have found a particularly rich vein of form and is producing some of the most confident, club-destroying and ear-kissing gear of his career. 'Ulysses' is a more delicate take on the juke-jungle hybridising of he and Machinedrum's Dream Continuum project, with nods to the original garage ravers but moreover the rain-slicked cityscapes evoked by Kuedo and the sighing, synthed-out R&B vistas of Clams Casino et al. 'Dark Sunrise' is an out-and-out dubstep killer, with irresistible vamps, ruffneck subs and spry, impeccably LDNish vocals courtesy of Tamara Blessa. 'Fumes' and 'Lightworkers Call' (a Kromestar collaboration) are satisfying syntheses of dreamy instrumentation and rudeboy stoppage, and as with 'Dark Sunrise' the rhythms deftly suggest that hip-hop and dubstep might be closer cousins than is usually admitted. The footwork futurism returns for 'Slowfast Matrix' and Sweatson Clank's remix of 'Ulysses', and the same track gets a fabulous, unexpected d'n'b makeover - with shades of circuit-fried Rephlex/Warp braindance - by Reso.

Holly Herndon - Movement

One of my favourite albums of 2012. Holly Herndon seems to be among the very small handful of musicians really doing something genuinely new and unique with experimental electronic music.

I mean there's occasional 4/4 beats lurking about and odd bits of squelchy 303-style basslines. However, when I say odd I also mean bizarre.

The third 'song' Breathe is really unsettling. Starts off with lots of odd sounding breaths treated loads and layered. Just sounds completely alien. The kind of thing that could really give you nightmares. Some of them end up almost as the gurgles of someone dying. Not the kind of thing you'd have on your headphones walking home at night down a dark alley.

However, if you happen to be in charge of soundtracking a horror film I've got exactly what you need right here.

There's treated male voice on a later song combined with treated female voice. That one sounds a bit more fun though. Almost like they were sat around making the noises of speeding racing cars at a baby. Total doppler effect stuff going on. Some strange harmonies as well.

It's one of those albums you could probably write a whole essay about if you were that way inclined. I'm happy enough to just say it's brilliant and enjoy listening to it a bunch more.

Pye Corner Audio - Sleep Games (Ghost Box)

FLAC available from Boomkat for £6.99

A synth soundtrack to a memory of 60s & 70s concrete Britain.Somewhere between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and John Carpenter. John Carpenter at his most restrained though. Not in a bad way, just it's not bombastic soundtrack stuff. More like if John Carpenter wore tweed and did a soundtrack for Kes.

It's on Ghost Box so you know full well it's going to be high quality. It fits quite nicely into the whole hauntological Ghost Box thing besides Belbury Poly and The Advisory Circle. The artwork is typically top notch. Maintains that 60s/70s Open University look. Also has some great liner notes. I always like an album with liner notes. Feels like there's a bit more thought gone into it.

The liner notes are all about "parapsychological disturbances" are public buildings made of concrete. There's JG Ballard quotes and something about "inorganic demons" infiltrating people by Reza Negarestani from something called Cyclonopedia: Complicity With Anonymous Materials. All very odd but all a very perfect fit the music and the artwork.

It's a step up from the Black Mill Tapes double LP we reviewed earlier this year - http://spoonfuloftar.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/pye-corner-audio.html. The music on those was fantastic but this feels more complete as a conceptual whole. Music is still fantastic though.

Definitely on my "best albums of the year" list.

FLAC available from Boomkat for £6.99

And here's their blurb which should entice you even more (oh, and it also made The Wire's Top 50 of the year as well):-

Pye Corner Audio's darkling synthetic transmissions had been hovering under the radar for a couple of years before 2012's Black Mill Tapes collection on Type brought them to a wider and grateful audience. Now, Martin Jenkins finds himself equally lauded by the likes of Sandwell District's Juan Mendez and Minimal Wave's Veronica Vasicka as by the UK hauntological set - a testament to the scope and adaptability of his stygian productions. Nonetheless, this album release feels right at home on Ghost Box, and it follows Jenkins' contribution to the label's 7" Study Series last year. If The Black Mill Tapes focussed on the unheimlich but decidedly driving meta-techno side of the Pye sound, Sleep Games gives as much time to exploring its more abstract and oneiric peripheries. Nonetheless, rhythm is foregrounded throughout: from the woozy, tape-warped Boards of Canada-ism of 'Sleep Games', via the Xander Harris/Umberto-esque giallo-disco chug of 'The Black Mill Video Tape' through to the distant, dubby pulse of 'Palais Spectres' and the rolling toms of 'Underneath The Dancefloor'. Eschewing the tweeness which has arguably softened the impact of recent Ghost Box releases, Sleep Games is refreshingly drug-hazed and zonked-out yet shark-eyed, minimalist and full of post-apocalyptic, cold-wave menace: you can more easily imagine this stuff soundtracking a car ride through the deserted industrial zones of coastal America than a ramble round the Belbury parish and its bucolic environs. At the same time, this feels like a Ghost Box release through and through: 'Print Through' is a radiophonic seance right from the grimoire of Eric Zann, 'Deep End' has the school textbook sci-fi sigh of classic Belbury Poly and 'Yesterday's Enemy' the occult public service broadcasting vibe of early Advisory Circle.

Lee Gamble - Diversions 1994-1996 LP (Pan)

Lee Gamble 'Diversions 1994-1996' (PAN 33) from PAN on Vimeo.

Buy here - http://boomkat.com/downloads/593097-lee-gamble-diversions-1994-1996

It's on Pan so you know you're in for some top notch experimental electronic music. It's had rave reviews everywhere and I'm not going to dissent here. It's definitely one of the most interesting things I've heard in a while. Both the idea and the execution are spot on.

Basically, it's a cut up mix of the ambient bits on old jungle mixtapes. As a teenager this guy collected them (presumably between 1994 and 1996). He takes the bits where the million mile an hour drums stopped. The calm in the middle of the storm bits. And turns them into something new.

Musically it stands up without needing to know the concept as well. All woozey and hazy.

Give the video above a spin. If you like that you'll like the whole thing. Bought the vinyl as Pan's record packaging is always spot on but Boomkat are selling the FLAC for a quite reasonable £4.99 - http://boomkat.com/downloads/593097-lee-gamble-diversions-1994-1996

Orgone Accumulators EPs on Grindcore Karaoke

This is the best piece of music ever produced. Better than anything else in the world ever. Download immediately.

Shameless sock puppetry aside, give it a listen.

Also, check out the other stuff on Grindcore Karaoke. It's a net label that J Randall of Agoraphobic Nosebleed runs. Tons of releases available and all for free. Oh, and all available in FLAC. Definitely an interesting use of bandcamp.

Listening Center - Example One

The fantastic GHOST BOX records put a new blog post up about some new releases they're doing - http://jimjupp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/listening-centre.html

One of them is going to be a 7" by Listening Centre (including a remix by Pye Corner Audio!.

Never heard of them before but have given this album of theirs a few listens today and they fit right in with the whole Ghost Box thing (even though they are from New York).

Just look at this picture from their facebook page:-

Says everything! If you don't quite get it yet here's their bio:-

Researching imaginary pasts and lost utopias.

Listening Center is the alias of drummer and electronic musician, David Mason. Drawing primarily from influences such as the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, lost film/TV soundtracks, and Kosmische Musik, Listening Center presents a patchwork of imagined pasts/futures, in which the listener can make his or her way through an undergrowth of dream-like melodies and electronic sound palettes which have the effect of being now reassuring, now unsettling. Having grown up in Ireland in the 1980s, David evidently internalized similar effects of synth-based incidental music from sci-fi and schools programs which found their way from the BBC to the TV set in his parents' living room. His formal musical education began at the Cologne Music Conservatory in 1995, and he completed his studies at the New School in New York in 2000. During this time he studied jazz drumming with highly-esteemed players such as Keith Copeland, Billy Hart and Joe Chambers, and thereafter embarked on a career accompanying artists as diverse as Art Farmer, James Hunter, and Natalie Walker. Since then, he has also collaborated with the novelist/musician Michael Idov and filmmaker Miranda July, and since 2010 has held the electronic drum chair in multi-instrumentalist Mikkel Hess's project, Hess is More.

Abul Mogard - s/t

This is some pretty interesting stuff. It's kind of experimental noise/synth stuff. However, it's all done by a retired Serbian factory worker with synths he's made himself.

The Outer Church have an interview with him here - http://theoriginalouterchurch.tumblr.com/post/30388556632/abul-mogard-was-born-in-belgrade-an-ex-factory that is well worth a read.

The album is available as pay-what-you-like digital download but also in a really elaborate wooden/plexiglass handmade edition.

Here's the blurb:-

Abul Mogard approached music in old age. He was born in Belgrad and spent most of his life working in a Serbian factory.

When he retired, he felt that his accustomed environment with all the acoustic noises he had been listening to during his working years, was gone.

Music was a way to somehow recreate these surroundings, and not having a formal musical education he realized that using electronic musical instruments would make this possible.

These machines could also make similar sounds to the ones he remembered. He started working with synthesizers and other devices, some of which he has built himself over the past few years.

Mark Fell - Sentielle Objectif Actualite (Editions Mego)

Bought this from Boomkat this morning. Go get it here - http://boomkat.com/downloads/550998-mark-fell-sentielle-objectif-actualit

This is Mark Fell who is one half of SND who've put plenty of stuff out on Mille Plateux and Raster Noton. We're talking super chin scratchy abstract electronic stuff. With this project he's gone a bit more house.

According to Resident Advisor:- The package centres on remixes of the three 12-inch singles so far (3.333... should drop shortly) on Sensate Focus, the Editions Mego sub-label set-up at the start of 2012 to house off-kilter house explorations from the Snd member. While traditional genre tropes were fully utilized on the recordings, Fell tampered heavily with house's rhythmic structure to evoke "slightly unusual beats," sounded out by Roland drum machines and the like.

And yes, even by underground house standards this is "unusual".

It has a really nice effect though. You get the clinical, cerebral Raster Noton thing but with nice washes of sound and hints of an actual tune. Definitely something for repeated listens.

Stratus - As The Crow Flies

Pye Audio Corner make up half Stratus so you know it's probably going to be good. There's some real instruments thrown into the mix with the synths. The words folk and psychedelic are mentioned and that's fair enough. Perhaps if the last Belbury Poly LP went a bit Stereolab.

The psychedelic stuff is quite restrained and pleasant. Controls being set for the heart of the living room with a nice cup of tea rather than the centre of the sun.

I can't quite place what other bands this reminds me of. A good thing I suppose. Occasionally it sounds like old film music but not quite to the point of being library music. The fuzzy guitar bits sometimes sound like the really mellow bits on a total funk OST.

Their owns words seem to explain things quite well:-

Stratus are Mat Anthony and Martin Jenkins, two English gents whose love for warped soundtracks, fuzzed-out psychedelia and analog aesthetics is distilled in the bittersweet harmonies and wistful bliss of their songs, taking in everything from sublime pastoral electronics through to string-laden cosmic rock.

Their long-awaited second album 'As the Crow Flies' is the follow-up to their acclaimed debut 'Fear of Magnetism' (which spawned the epic single 'Uplink') and was recorded over the past few years with both parties taking time out along the way - Mat producing psych edits and surf noir for Vintage Rockers and Martin making solo releases for Joakim’s Tigersushi label and the haunting synthesizer transcripts of the Black Mill Tapes trilogy as Pye Corner Audio.

A fascination for French cinematic composers of the 60s and 70s such as Francois de Roubaix and Jean-Claude Vannier was fuelled after remixing Serge Gainsbourg in their early days as a production duo and these influences weigh heavy in lush orchestral arrangements, stripped psych rock rhythms, enigmatic synths and music-box melodies. Fragments of guitar and piano combine with celestial strings while occasional vocals swirl through with pedal steel, driving brass and organ drones drenched in worn spring reverb. As the Crow Flies offers a glimpse into hidden places at the edge of memory... an unhurried, bittersweet soundtrack that revels in elegant disrepair and bucolic delight.