Promos
Mordant Music: The Tower Parts VIII-XVIII
It seems like ages since I was sent the first "Tower" CD. Bleak is the operative word here: repetitive synth dirges and Loop-(the band)-like growling/prowling slow-burning guitar strum.
Mordant Music: Carrion Squared
40 miniature drones commissioned by the Boosey and Hawkes library label. Perhaps not as satisfying as The Tower? My favorite MM stuff is quasi-Techno (eg "Plant Room") that's why I enjoyed stuff on here like "Deportivo Suppressant".
You Are Hear Compilation
Imagine if rather than burn up a compilation of your favorite tunes you: set up a radio station, invited artists to record sessions over a four year period, combed through the live studio recordings for the best performances and then (with the backing of the National Lottery) released a CD into the shops? Quite a lot more work. Although I gravitated towards the Xylitol-like electronic recordings here (Jim Backhouse is one half of You Are Hear), stuff like Asja Auf Capri, Vanishing Breed and Carter Tutti, I also enjoyed the idea of Resonance FM's Hanway Street studios imparting some atmosphere to all the live elements of the tracks. Special mention must go to Momus's "Going for a walk with a line" which was great.
Battles: Mirrored
There's not a great deal I like about this I'm afraid, though marginally less off-putting their first low-key release. One of the things that is made a lot of with Battles is their instrumental virtuosity. The cover shot of all the band's gear laid out, kind of comically, like an rock arsenal underscores this. As you'd expect all the tracks sound like "jams", there's no real compositional meta-structure which betrays the absence of thought. Post-Rock was never Prog. It was about deconstructing rock.
On a more positive note I'm very much looking forward to WARP's new signing Flying Lotus.
Black Moth Super Rainbow: Dandelion Gum
One of Simon's faves this year I wholeheartedly recommend this for instant purchase. Daft-punk-fixated stoners play taught Crazy Horse-style Hip-Hop-friendly breaks in real time with attendant Mellotron.
John Eden: Best of 2006
Absolutely "W" for wicked selection of JA Dancehall tracks which was enough to convince me (where many others had failed) I'd been seriously missing out. Not commercially available. Beg John for a copy!
RVNG Presents Justine D
From the same people who bought us the legendary Crazy Rhythms CD another mix-illogical classic.
Mount Vernon Arts Lab: The Seance at Hobs Lane
This reissue is certainly a fitting release for the Ghost Box label.
Andrew Pekler: Cue
With tracks conceived around Library records strap-lines. For example take the words: "Driving piano-led theme, w/ uplifting feedback sweeps and coda" and work forwards from there. This, appropriately enough, is somewhat like a groove-laden Focus Group.
Connect_icut: 'Moss' and 'They showed me the Secret Beaches'
Aka Blogger Sam Macklin. Hesitant and tender glitchwork which remind me, not unpleasantly, of the sort of discs I used to have to review at The Wire. Sam's stuff is pitched somewhere between the electronica with spirit of Coil's "Musick to play in the Dark" and Fennesz's modernist abstractions.
DMX Crew: Snow Cub EP
Of all the electronic records here, the one which leapt most dynamically from the speakers was this vinyl EP by DMX Crew. Ed doesn't march under the banner of "analogue" but nevertheless none of these tracks have been near a computer. It shows. There's an urgency and physicality to the sound of these razor-sharp, old-skool genre moves which, in spite of their sonic familiarity, is immediately engrossing.
Robert Logan: Cognessence
This is kind of awesome. The last word in studious electronica's re-imagining of Grime and Dubstep. At moments it is preposterously architectured, like a housing estate built by Iannis Xenakis hellbent on fully exploring the possibilities of concrete.
Charles Cohen and Ed Wilcox: Those are pearls that were his eyes
A truly lovely improv recording that I keep returning to. Made fascinating by its unusually sexy instrumental palette. Comparable to many heavyweight 1970s and 1980s records, its exquisitely rich production sets it heads and shoulders above many of them.
Lullatone: Plays Pajama Pop for You
I've had this sitting on my desk for ages now and I only just managed to check it out. The logical extension of the Indie fascination with all things cute and Japanese. Reminiscent of Satie but also of artists like Roedelius and Klimperei. Simply charming!