tropics • nautical clamour

After last year's excellent Parodia Flare, a collection of "unreleased material, old and new" is quite a nice surprise. B-sides? Sounds pretty damn good to me.

grimes • visions

Grimes, one Claire Boucher, has been consistently getting better as time passes. Visions, with its array of pop, dance and electronics, including Boucher's ethereal yet somehow energetic vocals, is a fun listening experience that showcases Boucher's ability to combine elements of many styles yet also be creative. The song "Circumambient" is posted below, tell me what you think.

marcus fjellström

Whilst searching for songs to post from his new album Library Music 1 (and failing, miserably) I came across this gem, a audio-visual piece that Fjellström did. It's a rather interesting concept, info on which you can find below the video.

Commissioned for the Unsound Festival 2010, Lichtspiel Mutation 1 is the first part of a planned series of audiovisual music drama pieces, closely resembling the silent film performances of cinema's infancy.

The underlying idea behind the Lichtspiel Mutation series is to use old films in the 'public domain' as raw material, to be de- and reconstructed into new pieces of experimental music drama. The original film constitutes the seed of its own rebirth; themes, arch and narrative from the film are kept intact, as well as actual moving image material, but 'remixed' into a completely new form; a poetic visual/musical work that conceptually shares similarities with opera and/or ballet, but becomes something completely different altogether.

This first work in the series is based on Hugo Fregonese's 1953 film "Man in the Attic", a Jack the Ripper narrative. Lichtspiel Mutation 1 opened the Unsound Festival in Kraków, Poland in october 2010, featuring an expanded 45-piece Sinfonietta Cracovia and a guest appearance by fellow Miasmah artist Elegi (Tommy Jansen) on live electronics.

This version is based on a recording of the rehearsal session with the Sinfonietta Cracovia (conducted by Daníel Bjarnason), and is edited together with an electronic music track that slightly differs from the one used at the 2010 premiere in Kraków (the most significant difference being the omission of Elegi's live electronics).

dimlite

One of the great musical tragedies of the 00's is that Swiss beat magician Dimlite did not set ablaze the electronic/hip hop world. Perhaps it is better to say that he did set it ablaze, only everyone is asleep and have yet to realize the impending doom. Time to wake up people.

2006's This Is Embracing was and is a monumental release. I like FlyLo as much as the next guy but those who write off Dimlite as an imitation, as many have, are confused. Flying Lotus' album 1983 came out the same year, which musically is a few steps removed from Dimlite's "sound." It wasn't until a couple years later with Los Angeles that FlyLo started gravitating toward a similar, more nuanced, creative and cosmic style. Either way, for my ears, where FlyLo sometimes sounds forced Dimlite sounds organic and effortless. Not to mention his creativity is off the charts. But I digress...

After years of waiting and only getting an EP and a handful of tracks, Dimlite has returned in 2011 with Grimm Reality. Whereas Embracing was refreshing and new in 2006, this year Dimlite continues to do things his own way and dismiss more conventional approaches to electronic and hip hop. I'm not much into reviewing albums these days, thus I will merely tell you that Grimm Reality is fucking great and provide you with a few cuts from the album so that you can see what you think.

moon wiring club

Often times December releases get forgotten in the rush for magazines to publish their end-of-year lists. In the end who really cares, other than that projects like the enigmatic Moon Wiring Club get less recognition than they deserve. Earlier this year MWC released Somewhere A Fox Is Getting Married, a rather strange tribute (perhaps?) to the Royal wedding. Quite frankly it was underwhelming, but here in December we have received Clutch It Like A Gonk which sounds much more fine-tuned, if you will. At any rate, it's among the best of MWC's work and is keeping electronic music interesting.



Gotta love the strange video as well.

andy stott, laurel halo

Despite seeing Passed Me By all over the place this year, I slept on it until December. This year has definitely seen techno and house music make a bolder statement, what with Laurel Halo, Surgeon and others dropping releases that have been quite excellent. Andy Stott deserves a nod for his contributions as well. Dark, dub techno goodness. Don't forget to turn up the volume.



edit: might as well include a track from Laurel Halo's Hour Logic EP. Very good.