“as ignorable as it is interesting”

LMYE trying to engage with TU M's beguiling Monochromes Vol.1, from a discussion at disquiet (with a few hindsightful amends): tranquil, languid, subtle, TU M’ exemplify a kind of gentle drone-ambient that is utterly likeable, though perhaps not completely challenging. Long repeated waves of breathy sound at breathing pace, topped with very gradual accretions & embellishments, do what Eno dictated all those years ago ambient should do: provide an immersive music that works as well in the background as the foreground, & allows the listener to vary their stance to it as mood dictates - or in his far snappier version: “as ignorable as it is interesting”!

Foregrounded, the pieces have of course to be accepted on their own terms. Inevitably, their elongation & repetition means that ‘development’ is near-glacial — & limited: more like time spent static than travelling. That feeling is clearly heightened by their being monochromes in the sense of a very restricted palette of tone & mood.

Although far from revolutionary & strikingly narrow in range, they do reward the substantial investment of time (if not constant attention) they demand… But it’s a bit discomforting to ask what difference it would have made if ‘Monochrome 4′ had come in at 17 minutes, rather than 30?

No doubt TU M’s artistic judgement about how long each piece should go on was based on their assessment of that weight & cadence – but as artists like Scanner &, yes, Eno start to make use of the iPhone to offer loops that listeners can run for however long they like, it’s kind of interesting to imagine the Monochromes released in that endless format.

[Scanner's newly-released & currently free Whisper for iPhone/iPod Touch (http://bit.ly/sP8oU), is a strong recommendation in these parts - a haunting, moody loop that feels like an ultra-modern conception & delivery of music...]

Another angle on this. TU M’ put an 8:16 “excerpt” of the unreleased Monochromes 00 up online (it's below). Since we don’t know how long the full version is intended to be, we can only take the excerpt on its merits (it’s as beguiling as the rest, with an occasional sliver of muffled echo somewhat reminiscent of Chris McNamara’s ‘Vague Cities’).

To weigh the excerpt against an unavailable but by definition longer full version, an iPhone-type loop would let you feel your own way to its perfect, Platonic length – if one exists!

TU M' > Monochromes # 00 [excerpt] (unreleased) > Monochromes # 03 [excerpt] (from Monochromes Vol.1, Line)

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

Still inextricably linked

Final instalment of our BreakThru Radio week comes in the form of two recent hacks from contrasting electronica mixes (both freely available): first - & for absolutely & definitely the last time (until November 5, anyway) - this awesome splicing of fairly minimal techno pulses & swirls with soaring Obama rhetoric. We Cannot Turn Back is an LMYE-curated extract from Francois K @ Minitek earlier this year. 

Apologies for the somewhat abrupt ending, & the remorseless re-upping.

Any guidance on the underlying tracks most welcome...

Hope/Progress image by Shepard Fairey.

Second,  from a Blu Mar Ten mix that kicks off in the same brainy ambient territory as the Aphex/Eno mash-up re-upped this week, this lovely thing: To Do Something To Me. 

It splices Eno talking (about dissolving personality, the revival of interest in acoustic instruments, & cultural history & tradition informing performance) with the burbling intro to an Aquasky remix of Omni Trio's Who Are You? (from The Haunted Science; hear both the original & the Eno-free remix at OT's MySpace). 

The Whole History of Piano Music

A tip of the LMYE hat to daniel: he chided us for the Aphex/Eno mash-up re-upped yesterday as part of our BreakThru Radio week - to these ears it's still incredibly moving, so we have to agree to disagree - but also directed us to a Blu Mar Ten mix that kicks off in the same brainy ambient territory. 

This splices Eno talking (about dissolving personality, the revival of interest in acoustic instruments, & cultural history & tradition informing performance) over the burbling intro to an Aquasky remix of Omni Trio's Who Are You? (from The Haunted Science; hear both the original & the Eno-free remix at OT's MySpace). It's a lovely thing. 

Can I tell a short story, again?

Updated repost: Eno versus Aphex Twin - an ambient dream-team pairing brought together in a masterful mash-up (sometimes called Rhubarb & Villages): Eno considers the sociology & human engineering of the Hutterites over an exquisite Aphex vamp with exactly the right reflective, melancholy, ultimately uplifting tone...

Found originally via Art Decade. Image above by 100dbs.

"Randomness, generative situations...you let the thing grow: there's a lot to learn from artists." In classic Eno style, the domed one riffs on from the drama of building & populating a daughter colony into Rawlsian notions of civil society into the use of generative tools & frameworks; allegedly, a longer version is out there somewhere.

Haven't tracked that down yet, but here's a Long Now-sponsored conversation with Will Wright (summary & all Long Now seminars, including Eno on his own back in 2003 - the final one in the list).

Love the description of Eno as a landed Victorian gentleman boffin (by Jim Rossignol, who also links to this 2002 interview).

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Everything That Happens (stream)

"This groove is out of fashion"

Listen to Strange Overtones - the first, given-away taste of the new Byrne & Eno opus, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today ("our first collaboration in about 30 years").

Of course, it's rich & subtle in many rewarding ways. & it's served to you only after marinading in a bucketload of irony & cleverness.

But to these ears it's also quite disappointingly conservative - more Byrne than Eno, you could say, though that's unfair as the song is quite sharp: it's the music, surprisingly, that for once seems behind the curve ("these beats are 20 years old" is fine as a metaphor, but also is disarmingly accurate)...

Compare with the inspired (& also song-based) Another Day on Earth: more than ever, it seems like Eno's masterpiece of this decade.

ETHWHT is released on August 18.

Suitably spacey, nicely off-kilter

Welcome news today that the very fine Marconi Union are self-releasing a new album of their dense, dubby ambientronica, A Lost Connection, at the start of next month. Hear a couple of suitably moody tracks - Endless Winter & Transient - at their MySpace now (while you're at it, check out their b:dum b:dum spin-off - why isn't this monstrous, bass-drenched music available?!)

Download MU's suitably spacey, nicely off-kilter remix of their own Buildings Without People here.



& to mark the occasion, The Contact (from debut Under Wires & Searchlights, now available from MU themselves...) & Interlock by Frank Bretschneider & Taylor Deupree (from Balance). Arguably, the sumptuous latter track is more representative of more recent MU - & certainly of MU/dotca's 'microsound' mixes (see here).

Video:

Scott Walker Film - Official UK Trailer

Scott Walker - 30th Century Man (trailer)

Marconi microsound

Although it's gone a bit quiet lately, there's an exceptional set of dense, subtle microsound mixes by or involving the fine Marconi Union (MySpace/Wikipedia) & fellow dubby ambientronica Dotca label mates like b:dum b:dum.

One of the best of these is the most recent (though hardly super-fresh, since it dates from last May), Prospector's 7.0 [NB: file is 31MB].

Includes such LMYE favourites as Pan-American, Stars of the Lid & Frank Bretschneider, plus Eno (with Robert Fripp). Also MU themselves & Cliff Martinez (minor drummer legend reinvented as a film composer, responsible for the mesmerising soundtrack to the 2002 remake of Solaris).

[NB: Boomkat claim that Eno asked MU to supervise the remastering of something of his, which is quite a compliment if true... There's certainly some connection since All Saints released the second MU album, Distance.]

7.0 is here for your convenience. 3.0 & 4.0 are also both outstanding. All the Dotca mixes are downloadable here; some tracklistings are given too.

Here's some full-length versions from artists/tracks in 7.0.

Pan American - Wing (from Quiet City)

Stars of the Lid (MySpace) - Broken Harbors, Part 1 (from The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid)

Frank Bretschneider & Taylor Deupree - Interlock (from Balance)

Fripp & Eno (Fripp MySpace) - Meissa (from The Equatorial Stars)

Cliff Martinez (MySpace) - Don't Blow It (from Solaris S/T).

MU - The Contact (from Under Wires and Searchlights)

More Martinez in this wonderful Solaris clip:

The Thing Is... Eno Interview (3/3)

The Thing Is... Eno Interview (2/3)

The Thing Is... Eno Interview (1/3)

Music for One Computer

I'd argue that Coldcut's awesome remix of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians is as close as anyone's come to the fusion of Tony Allen & Reich that Eno once said inspired him to make music (apologies if I've cited that comment before...). It's a few years' old now, of course (remix released back in 1999, original from 1976), but still sounds fantastically, inspirationally modern to these ears.

That light, dry drum sound, the bass squelch & boom it offsets, the shimmering grace & build of Coldcut's pacing of the piece, the way its assuredness persuades you that glitchy electronica is Reich's rightful heir: eight years on, it seems more of a masterpiece than ever.

I considered also posting the original in its full 1-hour glory. But it's 80MB, so instead here's 12 great minutes from the world premiere of M18M (think Reich was giving this away during his recent 70th birthday celebrations).

Anyway, the Coldcut comes from an often excellent double CD of Reich remixes (originally one but expanded last year with four more mixes, including a 'Ruoho Ruotsi's Pulse Section Dub Remix' of M18M that I've not heard; buy here or here) by a bunch of interesting late 90s DJ/electronica types (Andrea Parker, DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, Howie B, Takemura, etc).

Here's Reich enthusing about the project (& showing real magnanimity over The Orb's thieving an uncleared Electric Counterpoint sample in Little Fluffy Clouds). Love his comment on his non-classical appreciators: "I think it's wonderful, and it's a kind of poetic justice", as well as the observation about 10/8 time...

& here he is on Coldcut's contribution, which is clearly one of the all-time peaks of their 20 years as sample meisters & taste creators (up there with Say Kids What Time Is It?, Beats & Pieces, the Journeys By DJ megamix & the Paid in Full remix):

bn: What did you think of Coldcut's take on "Music for 18 Musicians"?

SR: I was completely knocked out by it. Their own title -- and it's too bad we didn't use it -- was "Music for One Computer." It's very straightforward: "Here's 'Music for 18 Musicians' done our way."

Here's hoping 2008 brings more music as memorable as this...

Happy New Year from LMYE!

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Future masterpiece

It doesn't seem too popular a view now, but eventually 2005's Another Day on Earth will be seen as one of Eno's masterpieces - in its staggeringly contemporary way, the equal of another magnificent Another: Another Green World.

Of course, it's not flawless. But in tracks like This, Bottomliners, Bonebomb, Passing Over & the title piece I hear an intelligence & a richness & range that 2-1/2 years on I'm still delighting in. I also love its restraint, a kind of mastery of tone & pace exemplified in Passing Over.

Buy it from the man's own online outlet here. & check out the microsite here.