Neither being nor non-being

Put on the spot about the dancefloor preferences of the great post-structuralists, most of us'd probably plump for Michel Foucault over Jacques Derrida when it comes to an inclination for minimal techno. Nonetheless, Hauntologists is, in its mysterious way, an impeccably Derridean conceit - barely there (a group whose only 'presence' is a Twitter account, more or less uniquely), two-sided ('produced in Duesseldorf & Berlin') & named for one of Jacques' portmanteaus...

Quite sincerely, I've no idea how much - if anything - to read into these Derridean trappings. Perhaps it's enough to simply say Hauntologists is To Rococo Rotter/Mapstationist/September Collectivist Stefan Schneider collaborating with Monolake co-conspirator Jay Ahern on minimal techno.

But East Germany is one of several huge spectres haunting modern Germany, of course. & there's a host haunting today's techno too...

In Hauntologists' case, there's also the 'other' of Schneider's extensive body of work (a long-standing LMYE enthusiasm - see here & here, among others). But I hear fairly little of those groups' idiosyncracies here.

Instead, we're mostly in austere, intensely reduced post-Basic Channel territory, with an unexpected, quite refreshing tendency towards - yes, really! - acid...

Hauntologists > B1 (from EP 1, Hardwax) > A1/EP 2 Samples [LMYE hack] (from EP 2, Hardwax) > Live (Part 1)

Hear other EP tracks in full at last.fm, by the way...

Sincere thanks to Jay for his help.

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Rushing raucousness

Despite its intensity & ambition, its rushing raucousness & huge, mesmerising bass, & the enthusiasm of some respected ears, I haven't yet got into the first instalment of Battler Tyondai Braxton's new solo record - on the contrary.

But others are no doubt as excited about hearing it, in view of his & its lineage, as I definitely was (& am still hopeful of finding wonder & thrills in Central Market - "Stravinsky let loose in a toyshop", according to@joemuggs). So here it is - for a few days only, as always here - for you to judge for yourself.

Tyondai Braxton > Uffe's Woodshop (from Central Market, forthcoming on Warp)

Warp hype: "Composed, arranged and produced by Braxton, the 7-track set features guitars, vocals, electronics, percussion and the Wordless Music Orchestra, unified to create orchestral music re-imagined for the 21st century, and perhaps the 22nd as well.

Central Market introduces Braxton as an exceptional addition to the world of New Music composers, while maintaining a strong hold on the poly-rhythmic and technically awe-inspiring creations he is already known for.

If you were wondering - instrumentation on ['Uffe's Woodshop'] features vocals/whistling, kazoos, violins, violas, synths, electronics, piano, 6 guitars, bass and drums/percussion."

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Dusty brush rustles

Deliciously spacey, effortless & unexpectedly endearing (those kiddie synth lines, the little tambourine shimmers) - all the time pushed along by poised, deceptively tough drums & dusty brush rustles like rubbed tracing paper.

FaltyDL > And I Really Know... (via xlr8r)

Plus pyrotechnic keys in two Shapes (especially To Come's fireworks) & other jazzy, post-Detroit delights:

The Shape To Come > To New York > Paradise Lost > The Shape Has Come (clips/rcrdlbl link from Love Is A Liability, Planet Mu)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

"the ant-eater trying to play its tail?"

A kind of jazzy restlessness of styles, wrapped in a cloak of anonymous pseudo-mystery: Hassellian smears, tin-can rattle, martial clump, droney gesture, unhinged, echoey oscillations, & even an occasional cheery, riffy groove...

Oni Ayhun > OAR001-A [sample] > OAR001-B [sample] (both from OAR001, self-released) > OAR002 [sample] (from OAR002, self-released) > OAR003 samples [LMYE hack] (from OAR003, self-released)

Thanks to mnml ssgs for the tip.

"OA’s music is (about) drama. OA makes records that combines disturbed dance music on the border to insanity with free dreamy drone stories without a beat. Like a surrealistic musical with a narrative based on associations, abstractions and confusions, the music is a journey through different settings and scenes. Each record features a handmade engraving, unique for each release.

OAR001-A, is an attempt to tame cheesy fusion-jazz into a new free fusion between sharp electronics and organic textures, elastic funk and rubber set in an odd shady environment. Is it a big animal playing its nose, a beast, or is it the myth about the ant-eater trying to play its tail?

OAR001-B, is it the bees humming about their life by the concrete factory? Or is it about the people living under acid rain singin their story? Or is it just diary notes from OA’s everyday life..?"

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Glyph or sigil

Difficult not to get clumsily hushed & reverential in approaching the music of Richard Skelton. Under his own name & in a host of guises that include A Broken Consort, Carousell, Clouwbeck, Harlassen, Heidika & Riftmusic, he's making music of such emotional intensity & profound beauty that sombre genuflection can seem the only appropriate response.

It isn't, obviously enough. Much of this music's resonance comes from its plasticity - its slow, creaking weight, its acoustic pings & rattles, the groans of its bowed strings, its imperfect perfection. Engagingly, it repeatedly tells you how human, how literally hand-made it is.

So too does its exquisite packaging (using & commemorating his late wife Louise's artwork): "The idea is to create something resembling a glyph or sigil that encapsulates each release". His deep connection with locality & histories - underlined by the 'Landings Diary' & album - reinforces the point.

Excellent interview with Richard by mapsadaisical here (predictably insightful reviews here & here). Many thanks to Richard & Josh at Tompkins Square for permissions.

A Broken Consort > An Elder Lie (from Box of Birch, Tompkins Square [re-issue])

Extracts (from A Broken Consort > Mountain Ash (from Crow Autumn Part Two/Carousell > Artery (from Black Crow & Other Songs), both Sustain-Release)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Dappy hay

Could there be a better way to celebrate Canada's just-ended National Day than by revisiting an artist who exemplifies national reasonableness & avuncularity? Apologies for the clumsy set-up but, well, yes, there could.

One of the many admirable aspects of the country's incredibly rich experimental music 'scene' -almost certainly not anything unitary, but rather a host of separate little pockets of people doing interesting stuff - is how forcefully it gives the lie to the Canuck stereotype. In LMYE's canon of wonderful music from Canada, which runs all the way from Loscil's scintillating Vancouver microsound to Mark Templeton's fragile Edmonton delicacies to Godspeed (& countless spin-offs)'s furious Montreal roar & Tim Hecker's vast, draining soundscapes from the same city (I think), reasonableness & avuncularity are in thankfully short supply.

So too with the the great Aidan Baker. I cherish his music for its unreasonable duration & quantity, its unreasonable fixation on a limited palette of sound, & its anything but avuncular intensity.

See here for an earlier piece (& here for occasional collaborator & current European tour partner thisquietarmy).

After the solo music, the rewarding wider-screen trio settings of Whisper Room & his earlier ARC guise: haven't quite got there with his Nadja yet (though here's parts of a couple of their sometimes magnificent 'covers' of solo tracks like Wound Culture & Beautiful Beast on Belles Betes [Beta-Iactam Ring], to be going on with; NB: blame BIRR's samples for the brutal endings...).

Whisper Room's dense Birch White (Elevation) is highly recommended. ARC's more 'tribally'-inflected stuff too, though it can be difficult to find (but Glassine II due soon, according to A Silent Place).

Hear an earlier near-kraut, spacious version of Whisper Room live & ARC's blissful pulsing & clanking - also with some notably kosmiche flavour (including an occasional riff-out too many for these ears, though don't let that put you off...):

Whisper Room > live at the ambient ping [extract] (from last.fm; possibly originally from Unravelled Brown Cassette Tape Lying on the Highway - Live at the Ambient Ping, Arcolepsy)

ARC > Buddleia (from Sans Titre, 2001-2004, taalem)

ARC > Arise > Four (from The Sun is Bleeding & Has Black Hands, Kokeshidisk)

Sans Titre also features Aidan Baker > acstcfive; Sun is Bleeding > Untitled > Clairvoyance

Interesting interview here, by the way (but can he really mean it when he says that, Whisper Room, Nadja, ARC & solo notwithstanding, "it would be nice to play in another band"?!).

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Criminal clonk

Bracing vigour & spikiness in this exemplary, lithe exhibit from Strut's forthcoming retrospective of Ze's punk-funk/no wave/cowbell clonk - by a group overlooked at the time by at least one of LMYE's co-authors, despite his ownership of Mutant Disco (& who, indeed, are still obscure enough to not make the Ze 30 cover ahead of even Marie et les Garcons...).

Exemplary except for the criminal harmonica breakdown at 1:55 (& again, only worse, at 2:24), that is... Disco re-editors*, start your engines!

Casino Music > The Beat Goes On (from Ze 30: Ze Records Story 1979-2009, Strut; originally on Jungle Love, Ze)

Comically hostile review by Metal Bastard Goes Soft here.

* Talking of whom, try Mau: he almost redeems fairly loathsome Fleetwood Mac track with some lovely Swedish "violation" (those hi-hats & keys!). His remorseless eclecticism also takes in Black Sabbath, Buddy Guy, Cocteau Twins, Bruce Springsteen &, most successfully, Roxy Music...

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.