Showing posts with label 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 April 2008

mY Indie Soul # 23

mY Indie Soul # 23

Electronic | Experimental | IDM | Alternative | Punk | Electro

Artwork by Ray Caesar



Download | Listen

Raz Ohara and the Odd Orchestra - Where he at [ Apparat remix ]
" Apparat - Things To Be Frickled " - 2008

Raz Ohara is a native of Denmark who’s been resident in Berlin for some time. His first two solo albums for the Kitty-Yo label, Realtime Voyeur and The Last Legend saw Raz’s alter ego grow from quirky, original new-kid-on-the-block to confident, accomplished artist, consolidating the wit and intelligence which have made him an underground sensation. Flitting effortlessly between house, hip-hop, ambient electronics, reggae, downtempo, indie and Prince-esque soul inflections, Raz earned comparisons to US renaissance man Beck. Remixed by the likes of Richard Davis, Matthias Schaffhauser, Smash TV, Pier Bucci and Geiger, Raz Ohara was rightly earmarked for great things.
Raz Ohara and The Odd Orchestra is without doubt the most unusual album Get Physical has yet released, and it may prove to be one of their best. An album of real artistic integrity, this is avant-garde pop music at its most deep, timeless and affecting.



Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Seen
" Maander " - 2001

Kammerflimmer Kollektief began as the one-man experimental excursions of Thomas Weber. Trapping ambient noise, live and synthetic drums, guitars, strings, upright bass and keyboards into interlocking rhythmic explosions, Weber expanded the group to a live six piece in 1999 and has been brilliant and busy ever since. From their Karlsruhe, Germany home base, this ensemble effortlessly blends experimental electronic elements and moody free-form jazz to stunning effect.



Plat - Paling (Muse)
" Compulsion " - 2005

Plat is another in an ongoing stream of groups hailing from Iceland, but the group's sound is radically unlike that of its better-known compatriots Múm and Sigur Rós. To some degree that's attributable to Arnar Helgi Adalsteinsson and Vilhjalmur Pálsson's unusual creative approach as the duo records virtually everything they play and later sculpts the material into final form. Their hallucinogenic acoustic-electronic mix sounds both organically fluid yet deliberately considered—cool, experimental music perhaps, but one that never loses its soul.



Zoe Keating - We Insist
" One Cello x 16: Natoma " - 2005

Armed with just her cello and a small box of electronics, Zoë Keating has performed outdoors in the Nevada desert, in medieval churches, in punk clubs, and before thousands of screaming teenagers in mainstream rock venues across North America and Europe.

Classically trained from the age of eight, Zoë developed her signature style improvising for late night crowds in her San Francisco warehouse space. Her album "One Cello x 16: Natoma", which rose to #2 on the iTunes Classical and Electronica charts, is the direct result of that experimentation. Inhabiting its own territory somewhere between classical and electronica, Keating's works for layered cello have been called luminous, haunting and complex.



Apparat - Steinholz [ Monolake Remix ]
" Things To Be Frickled " - 2008

Apparat is the bridge over the German gap of melancholic glitch between Manchester and Laptop-USA. His smart wiring of emotions produces a virtual musical reality, which is based upon different genres, depending on the surrounding of the “apparat”. In his studio, dense, dark and majestic clouds of elegiac pop and heavy Electronica built up to a coherent and emotionally charged atmosphere. Live, on the other hand, the dance floor seems to be repelled to rave from the Bermuda Triangle with its axes Techno, IDM and Elektro. Those styles cannot necessarily be distinguished and heard on every of his releases, but since he started out with a much harder pace of electronic music in the early nineties, his influences are definitely Techno and Elektro as well.



Sebastian Tellier - Divine [ Midnight Juggernauts Remix ]
" Divine EP " - 2008

‘Divine’ is a supremely uplifting slice of electro funk with beach boy-esque harmonies and the single package comes complete with added doo-wop, and significant re-arrangement, in its new Radio version form and also with killer remixes from Australia’s Midnight Juggernauts and France’s latest exciting electronic producer/artist Danger.

Sebastien, France’s inspired choice as their 2008 Eurovision representative, will also perform Divine at this year’s Song Contest to be held in Belgrade on 24th May. !!!! This will be the first time in the history of the contest that the French entry will be sung entirely in English.

Now, even more than ever, Sebastien is the one true artist who clearly connects the vanguard of France's modern generations of musical magicians, from Gainsbourg to Air, through Mr.Oizo and the new electronic Ed Banger exporters. The gel which joins are the genial pioneers, Daft Punk, one half of which, Guy Manuel De Homem-Christo, has produced this and the seminal new album.



Tortoise & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Love Is Love
" The Brave And The Bold " - 2006

The Brave And The Bold chronicles an iceboat journey of co-captains Will Oldham and Tortoise into the charted but frozen waters of pop and rock’s thinning edges. As they soldier through, both singer and band rest and bathe in the comfort of what they've done recently and successfully. The rabid yodel of Oldham's quasi-Appalachian hillside adjudication, so predictably central to the Palace era, never once bubbles through the molasses yawn here. The languid drawl given to so much homespun obscenity pours itself in nicely empty molds of words by Springsteen, Elton John, and Richard Thompson, among others.



These New Puritans - Infinity Ytinifni
" Beat Pyramid " - 2008

In common with their influences, These New Puritans' sound is eclectic. In a recent interview with The Cuckoo Press Magazine, Jack said that "Wu Tang Clan are massively influential. "'Spitting the code', as Roots Manuva puts it, is what I do". While The Guardian said that "These New Puritans make stern threatening punk inspired by The Fall, Franz Kafka and Elizabethan magician John Dee". Artrocker Magazine has described TNPS as sounding like "Sheffield and Berlin synths, '90s alt rock Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo drones; Underworld beats, and all in the most contemporary of contexts," while in a review of Beat Pyramid, Vice Magazine said "Sharp, strange and enchanting, there aren't many bands around like These New Puritans. Contrary to this though the NME review of their album states "Somebody once attempted to convince us that These New Puritans are original. They failed: onstage, the guy looks and twitches just like Ian Curtis, and musically, they sound pretty much exactly the same as The Fall." Barnett often states that he really doesn't think much about influences.



Duchess Says - Ccut Upp (Original Version)
" Anthologie des 3 Perchoirs " - 2008

Duchess Says was created in late 2003 in Montreal by four influent members of the Church of Budgerigars who decided to collaborate together in a common musical project. Their goal was to insure a faithful representation of the message of the Duchess (or spiritual budgie) through a precise artistic dialog. Composed of A-Claude (vox, keytar, guit, programmations), Ismaël (keyboard,guitar, programmations), Phil (guitar, bass,feedbacks) and Simon Says (lo-fi beats, drums and doubtful noises). Duchess Says is serving a repertory of “moog rock” songs strong in images and enormoustly intense live performances! Their musical influences range from no wave, new wave, punk, to cinema and visual arts. If you pay attention, you could see them perform in the most unusual places such as golf courses, shop windows, vacant buildings, etc. Duchess Says has the mandate to decontextualise the rock and to promote simultaneously their Church on the way.



Does it Offend you Yeah - With a Heavy Heart i Regret to Inform You
" You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into " - 2008

Does It Offend You, Yeah? are often compared to dance-oriented acts like Daft Punk, Justice and Digitalism.[attribution needed] However, NME has also compared them to bands like Muse and !!! due to their heavier, more 'live' sound. The group are known for their raucous live shows, which often end in stage diving and broken instruments

The band revealed the origins of their name as being from British sitcom The Office. In an interview with NME.com, synth player Dan Coop explained: "Everybody thinks the name is some kind of statement but it's a quote from David Brent in an episode of 'The Office'. "When me and James Rushent first started writing music together we decided to put it up on MySpace. We needed a name to put as our profile name so just put what was the first thing that was said on TV, we switched it on and Ricky Gervais said 'Does it offend you, yeah? My drinking?' so we just went with that. No thought went into it whatsoever."



Digitalism - Yes, I Don't Want This
" Moshi Moshi EP " - 2008

DIGITALISM is dirty electro pogo shit hammered by the two studio junkies Jens "Jence" Moelle and Ismail "Isi" Tuefekci and comes directly from the underground electro-indie scene.
It all began a while ago when Jens was working in Hamburg's "Underground Solution" record store , same store where Kid Alex began his career as a record seller - when Isi stepped in the store and had a first chat with Jens. Shortly after they went in Jens Studio and DIGITALISM was born. Jens did have keyboard practice for around four years and vocal practice for a year. He is writing the lyrics and sings them in his post-punkish way while the music is written and produced by the two knock-out musicians together.



Holy Fuck - The Pulse
" LP " - 2007

Holy Fuck is a lo-fi improvisational experimental band from Toronto/Halifax, Canada. They are a part of Dependent Music, a music label/collective that began in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in 1994. Called “Toronto’s evil supergroup”, Holy Fuck includes, at various times, members of other notable bands King Cobb Steelie, By Divine Right, Wintersleep, Enon, and Blue Rodeo.

Holy Fuck mimics modern electronic music without using modern fail-safes like laptops and programmed backing tracks For 2005’s NXNE festival they armed themselves with a drum set, a bass guitar, a myriad of toy keyboards, guitar pedals, mixers, and even a 35 mm film synchronizer and hit the stage, without even rehearsing.



The Bloody Beetroots - Mac Mac
" I Love the The Bloody Beetroots " - 2008

The Bloody Beetroots are an electro/club collective currently ripping up Italy with their own heavy beats, and continuously throwing out remix after remix as they make themselves known to the rest of Europe.

As well as featuring on Hostage’s ‘Gluttony’ EP - along with Felix Cartal - The Bloody Beetroots have remixed tracks by the likes of Fox n’Wolf, Etienne De Crecy, The Toxic Avenger, and their own take on Michael Sembello’s ‘She’s a Maniac’

The Bloody Beetroots are currently making their way around Europe with a number of slots on the continent and in the UK.



Ascii Disko - Black Summer
" Total Destruction is The Only Solution EP " - 2007

Daniel Holc, born in Hamburg (Germany), known in electro-music world as Ascii.Disko.
He played guitar in the band Slown and now plays keyboard and guitar with his other band of indie-rock Sci-Fi, Venus Vegas.
He is able to do new sounds that fit between electro and indie, and his albums sound between acid house and 80’s techno, similar to italo-disco.
Ascii.Disko(2003) and recently Alias (2006) are his two albums.

Thursday, 24 April 2008

Datassette - Datassette ( 2008 )



Chances are you've heard of Datassette though his alias of 'Datashat' and the BusinessFunk series, a compilation of 80s corporate motivational songs turned into mixtapes that were inspired and daft in equal measure. John Davis' interest in goofing around hasn't quite died out on this long player, but the hours and hours he's spent in his bedroom studio over the last two years have clearly tempered his taste for the peculiar with a degree of seriousness and the kind of anorak passion that can produce the very best electronic music. Which is what this record is.

Datassette is all the more impressive for the fact it's John's first album. He's worked up to it with home-pressed CDR EPs and a split EP with Plant 43 back in 2006, also on Ai. But for a first proper outing, it's no exaggeration to say the 27-year-old web designer has done extraordinarily well. A fair chunk of Datassette is a lopsided take on electronica with a robotic fun(k) element to it, built around jerky breaky/brokeny/electro beats with odd noises thrown in. It's the kind of music you could easily imagine machines on a car production line dancing to, especially given the effects include what sounds like a big metal ball sliding down a big metal slide and hitting a big metal wall ('Worms') or an 'urghh' that resembles a piston beatboxing ('Fallblattanzeige').

But then just when you think you know Datassette, he shows you this whole other side, or rather I should say sides. The most impressive thing about the album is that John takes on so many different styles and nails them all. There's an Andy Stott Datassette on 'Damage Report', a track which seems to sustain itself with the just the slightest of neon flicks, and a New Wave Datassette on 'Minus Fourteen', where he picks up the tempo and adds in a spine-tingling guitar melody. 'Remains' and 'Running Away' have a stunning trashscape appeal, the latter of which reeks of Orchestra of Bubbles in the way the synths and horns seem to ripple up and out of the track and give you an Oh-so-Ellen moment, only now it's Oh-so-John (Yes, I know, that doesn't sound half as good).

The album's two slower tracks, Pluck' and 'Melting Faces' are equally mesmerising. 'Pluck evolves like a spiders web of harp strings, whilst 'Melting Faces', the last track on the album, could be the closing credits from Blade Runner. John's only tribute to businessfunk comes in the form of 'Box' which rocks in a frenzied computer says 'ERROR!' kind of way. But don't worry, that's about as close as we get to oversized shoulder pads, bar charts and permed hair. The rest of Datassette explodes beyond such semi-ironic tomfoolery and instantly establishes Mr. Davis as a serious talent to watch. Daniel Bates - Residentadvisor

" Datassette " - Airecords - 2008

Mp3 | Datassette - Minus Fourteen
Mp3 | Datassette - Damage Report


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Datassette

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago ( 2008 )



Justin Vernon moved to a remote cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin at the onset of winter. Tailing from the swirling breakup of his long time band, he escaped to the property and surrounded himself with simple work, quiet, and space. He lived there alone for three months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. This special time slowly
began feeding a bold, uninhibited new musical focus.

This slowly evolved into days filled with twelve-hour recording blocks, breaking only for trips on the tractor into the pines to saw and haul firewood, or for frozen sunrises high up a deer stand. All of his personal trouble, lack of perspective, heartache, longing, love, loss and guilt that had been stock piled over the course of the past six years, was suddenly purged into the form of song. The end result is, For Emma, Forever Ago, a nine-song album comprised of what's been dubbed a striking debut by critics and fans alike.

Bon Iver (pronounced: bohn eevair; French for "good winter" and spelled wrong on purpose) is a greeting, a celebration and a sentiment. It is a new statement of an artist moving on and establishing the groundwork for a lasting career. For Emma, Forever Ago is the debut of this lineage of songs. As a whole, the record is entirely cohesive throughout and remains centered around a particular aesthetic, prompted by the time and place for which it was recorded. Vernon seems to have tested his boundaries to the utmost, and in doing so has managed to break free form any pre-cursing or finished forms.

For Emma's tracks consist of thick layers draped in lush choral walls, with rarely more than an ancient acoustic guitar or the occasional bass drum providing structure. Vernon sings the majority of the record in falsetto, which painfully expresses the meanings behind its overt, yet strangely entangled words. This newfound vocal path acts as each song's main character and source of melody.

Despite its complexity, the record was created entirely by Vernon with nothing more than a few microphones and some aged recording equipment. This homemade aspect shows itself in sections as creaks and accidentals are exposed in the folds of the songs, but is hidden well by the highly impressive and almost orchestral sound that Vernon managed to produce by his lonesome, within the creaky skeleton of his father's cabin.



" For Emma, Forever Ago " - jagjaguwar 115 - 2008

Mp3 | Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act I And II)
Mp3 | Bon Iver - Flume

Video | Bon Iver - The Wolves (Act I & II)


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Bon Iver

Sunday, 20 April 2008

These New Puritans - beat pyramid [2008]



One of the key acts in the great 2008 hype frenzy, These New Puritans could hardly sound more 'now'. You can hear the influence of perennially hip new wave touchstones like The Fall and XTC in here, but this band's grasp on excitable, electronically reinvigorated rock music is bound to see them touted as 'this year's Klaxons' (along with any other indie band you could dance to). Deerhunter would also be a valid name to throw into the mix, particularly when you consider short vignette tracks like 'Doppelganger' breaking up the flow of acoustic four-to-the-floor rhythms. Don't let any of this fool you into thinking Beat Pyramid is derivative or standard-issue in any sense though. There's a real intelligence behind the album in terms of its writing, its instrumentation and the way it's all presented. The song titles alone should give some indication of how distinctly non-standard all this is, reading like a list of randomised, computer-generated text ('C. 16th ±', '£4' and '4' spring to mind immediately) and tending to flow like some shuffle-generated playlist based on what you'd imagine Thom Yorke's iPod to be filled up with. While the record is structurally very smart - very in keeping with the anti-album zeitgeist - there's a real intelligence behind this music in terms of its writing and instrumentation, from the impeccable, angular pop of 'Elvis' and 'Mkk3' to the jerky glitch textures of 'En Papier', it's all flat-out brilliant. An enormously impressive debut album this, and one that comes very highly recommended. - Boomkat



" Beat Pyramied " - Angular - 032 - 2008

Mp3 | These New Puritans - Numerology aka Numbers
Mp3 | These New Puritans - Infinity Ytinifni


Videos | These New Puritans - Elvis


Click here to watch the whole concert!



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These New Puritans

Saturday, 29 March 2008

Does it Offend you yeah - You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into ( 2008 )



Does It Offend You, Yeah? like doing things the hard way. They called themselves Does It Offend You, Yeah? for a start, thus inviting daily Nathan Barley gags before they’d even seen the show. They’ve embarked on their famequest with two hired hands; drummer Rob and mainman Morgan are reputedly only on contract for a year, leaving the band open to the possibility of losing their frontman to his side-project, Plugs.

Now, rather than releasing 2008’s equivalent of Justice’s ‘†’, and condensing their rock/rave hybrid into a scorching debut, they’ve risked overreaching themselves. Maybe their over-ambitiousness is all Klaxons’ fault. By melding disparate genres together while still harnessing a pop sensibility on ‘Myths Of The Near Future’, they set the bar incredibly high for bands of a similar ilk. On the evidence of their debut, DIOYY want a piece of their precursors’ pie: the Mercury Prizes, the transatlantic messianic status and the celeb endorsements. So what began as an effort to bolster two blokes with laptops into a full rock band proposition has burgeoned, no doubt spurred on by the industry vultures that swarm every hyped new band, into an album that tries to please everyone at once. Worst of all, though, it has a crack at mastering ‘pop’. Thus we have ‘Being Bad Feels Pretty Good’, which, despite its bass slaps, cowbell hits and searing guitar lines, remains a pretty flimsy ’80s pop pastiche. Meanwhile, ‘Dawn Of The Dead’ is either a heartwrenching classic or vapid parody depending on what your feelings about the use of digital steel drums in a song are. Elsewhere, ‘Doomed Now’ sees vocoders singing full-track vocal lines like robots taking part in Skynet Idol and is aimed at Daft Punk but can’t quite shake off Cher.nme

You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into -
Virgin Records / Almost Gold - 2008

Mp3 | Does it Offend you yeah - Let's Make Out
[ Feat. Sebastien Grainger - MSTRKRFT , ex-Death From Above 1979 ]
Mp3 | Does it Offend you yeah - We Are Rockstars


Video | Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Let's Make Out
Video | Does It Offend You, Yeah? - We Are Rockstars
Live @ (Channel 4)


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Does it Offend you yeah

Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair ( 2008 )



Forget disco for a second. The most significant thing about the debut album from New York's Hercules and Love Affair has less to do with revival than arrival-- that of a compelling new voice in American dance music. Not Antony Hegarty's, of Antony and the Johnsons, even though his pipes are an integral part of Hercules' aesthetic, but Andrew Butler, a twentysomething resident of New York who has made one of 2008's great albums, and one of the best longplayers from DFA. (DFA's Tim Goldsworthy surely deserves some of the credit as well, as the album's co-producer and the programmer behind most of the record's beats.) Butler got his start writing music for art projects in college-- "like a remake of Gino Soccio's 'Runaway' done in the style of Kraftwerk," he told Fact magazine-- but Hercules and Love Affair's music doesn't require Fischerspooner-type theatrics. This debut album is a self-contained, self-assured, 10-song set that runs vintage styles through a restless compositional imagination to create something joyfully, startlingly unique.Philip Sherburne, Pitchforkmedia

Hercules and Love Affair - EMI/DFA - 2008
Mp3 | Hercules and Love Affair - Blind - [ Feat. Antony Hegarty ]
MP3 | Hercules and Love Affair - Athene

Mp3 | Hercules and Love Affair - Blind - [ Frankie Knuckles - Mix ]
Mp3 | Goldfrapp - A&E - [ Hercules and Love Affair - Mix ]

Video | Hercules & Love Affair - Time Will - [ Feat. Antony Hegarty ]


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Hercules and Love Affair

Headman - Catch Me ( 2008 )



The new HEADMAN album is here! After amazing remixes for THE GOSSIP and CHROMEO the Berlin based ROCKDISCO pioneer Robi Insinna aka HEADMAN you can imagine what this third HEADMAN album could sound like: A wild mix of hard drums, 70ies Disco, Hacienda Rave, and Housemusic.You might have heard the frist single CATCH ME IF U CAN already on the KITSUNE/BOOMBOX compilation. But there's much more: Check out DREAMPIECES which features Jeremy Kerr - of UK whiteboy funk legends A CERTAIN RATIO. We think this is HEADMAN best recording since his discopunk debut from 2001!Gomma


Catch me - Gomma - 108 - 2008
Mp3 | Headman - New
Mp3 | Headman - Catch me Medley


On - Gomma - 68 - 2006
Mp3 | Headman - Everybody [ Vocals - Ben Rymer , Erol Alkan ]

Video | Headman - On and On

Download | Headman DJ Mix @ Polaroid Leeds 02/07

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Headman