March 2, 2010
Beaumont Hannant “Psi-Onyx (Autechre Mix)”
Is there anything better than stumbling onto new-to-you tracks from a favorite period in a favorite artist’s discography? I just heard this song on Autechre’s Oversteps Radio stream (they’re mixing it live right this minute, and it’s very much worth listening to) and someone in the chat box there (which is maybe not as worth listening to) identified it for me. It sounds straight off Tri Repetae or Anvil Vapre, which is far and away my favorite Autechre musical period, and probably always will be (can’t say I’m super impressed with anything after the still-stunning LP5). Here’s a five (!) year old post I wrote featuring a couple gorgeous tracks from this era. The sense of infinite atmospheric space, crystalline precision and future-nostalgic yearning they had going back then still gives me chills. Since then they’ve gotten murkier and way, way less melodic. It’s (mostly) all texture, and sloppy texture at that. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for a return to form, but in the meantime, this will do. And maybe *cough* this too.
December 22, 2009
November 10, 2009
Finally, Nice Nice on Warp →
Nice Nice is an experimental electroacoustic duo (I guess?) from Portland, Oregon. They’re one of my favorite live bands ever, and I saw them many, many times when I lived in Portland.
The above video shows Nice Nice playing the PDX Pop Now! festival in 2005. I booked the festival that year, and was super excited to put them on the big stage, where they could be seen by an audience larger than the people who typically check out arty, jammy noise bands. They totally brought the house down — seriously, people were FREAKING OUT — and sold out of every piece of merch they brought to the show. They were pumped, I was pumped, it was awesome. Definitely one of my peak Portland music memories (as was the entire festival, actually).
Here’s a crappy cellphone video I took at a house show in 2005:
Warp Records signed Nice Nice in 2006. It was/is a perfect match, and as a longtime Warp fanboy, it pretty much made my year (alongside Blitzen Trapper getting signed to Sub Pop — that was a damn good year). Then I didn’t really hear anything for a few years, though friends assured me the band was still together (phew!) and carefully crafting their Warp debut.
Which brings us to the present. Starting today, someone besides me and Portland can finally start getting excited about these guys, because Warp just posted free MP3s of both tracks from the One Hit 7”. They sound good, and I’ve embedded them below. I’m pretty sure “One Hit” is actually the same song they’re playing the first video above, which is kind of a trip. “Ark Drum” is brand new to me, and really exciting. Nice Nice could get into this amazing black-lit tropical funk mode when you saw them live, but it never really came out on the records. It does here. The production sounds immaculate too — glossy, lush and detailed. Guess they weren’t just sitting around for those three years, eh?
These tracks will be followed by the full-length, Extra Wow, in April of 2010. Get excited!
September 11, 2009
September 3, 2009
Hudson Mohawke “Oops!” (buy me)
Apparently this came out in ‘08, but I’m only just hearing it now, thanks to this Wireblock mix at XLR8R. It’s a remix of Tweet’s original, which I’ve actually never heard (UPDATE: it’s rad). Anyway, this is really great. One of the YouTube commenters called it “massive” and that feels about right. Haven’t wanted to replay something over and over like this since “Wearing My Rolex” (which still absolutely slays). I’m suddently way more interested in his new Warp album.
May 1, 2009
The cover art for RAC’s Diversions, as mentioned in the last post. Not sure who designed it, but it definitely looks like an early Designers Republic joint. Simple, clever, and effective. And hey, kinda fun!
Warp’s new website is up, designed by Universal Everything. It’s dangerously close to information overload; it took me a second to figure out where exactly I should be looking for what. But I think it works. I’m definitely into the use of huge images and streaming media — audio AND video — which can be embedded other places. Also cool to see their various film efforts integrated into the main site; I assume this is the reason they changed the domain from warprecords.com to simply warp.net.
In related news, I just downloaded this old Warp release off eMusic, and I’m totally enjoying it. Some if it sounds like what might have happened had Bleep decided to step a little closer to Trance, and that’s totally OK with me. Once you go there — which I totally did, in high school — you can never fully go back. Maybe.
April 22, 2009
Tim Exile “Don’t Think We’re One” (buy me)
This track is totally doing it for me right now. Takes the glossy IDM/synthpop stuff — and IDM/bleep has always had a major synthpop undercurrent going on, maybe because they all come from the same place — that Plaid has always done so well, and successfully creates an “actual song” out of it (note the quotes). The chorus is super catchy, I love how the arrangement just keeps building throughout (yeah, I’m totally a sucker for killer arrangements), and the lyrics make being anti-social and fucked up (the dark side of “nerdy”) feel somehow sexy and cool. Also crazy. Unfortunately the rest of the album takes every element that works on this song, and indulges their worst characteristics. The IDM parts get all fussy and fart-noisey, and the pseudo-Depeche vocals get poncey and repetitive. There’s also a general showy smartness to it that gets grating — “Look, I made a (anti!)pop song about the credit crisis, and the time signature totally changes multiple times in it!! Also I made my voice sound like a fax machine!” — and is, sadly, very IDM. Oh well, one awesome song is still totally invaluable in my book.
April 20, 2009
http://www.warprecords.com/666/
Forgot how wonderful this is.
April 8, 2009
Nice article on the recently departed Designers Republic. These guys pretty much ruled my world in the 90’s/early 00’s, based mostly on their excellent work for Warp. This stuff was my first real entry point into graphic design appreciation, so I’ll always owe them one for that. Weird how some of these images look really dated now, but seemed so crazy, bleeding-edge futuristic at the time. A lot of it still looks great though — the image above, the Warp 10 artwork, etc. They’ll be missed.
