Puddles of light

Compelling, expansive sounds from recent collaborators (Naked Island) Felicia Atkinson & Brian Pyle - FA in another trans-Atlantic, male/female pairing (La Nuit), this time with Peter Broderick. 

Where La Nuit's Road Snakes is a writhing, echoing vamp adhesively shaped around that intimate but distant voice's swerves between English & French, Ensemble Economique's From The Train Window, Red Flowers On The Mountain is all lulling wide-screen stillness - a tranquil, glowing tone poem. 

Broderick on La Nuit: "after she left I treated those words as lines of an opera under which to make a ghostly string arrangement"...





Back-dated bonus tracks:





NB: artwork at top by Felicia Atkinson. 

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

Our tidal flats

It's not just the national cricket team working up a head of steam down under as the year closes. Lately Australia's Room40, LMYE's label of 2011 (joint with Experimedia, trainspotters!), has unleashed a gleaming raft of essential 'editions' that add lustre not only to an already benchmark catalogue but to 2013's output more generally...

This new batch underlines the label's characteristic anti-generic open-earedness. From Eugene Carchesio's manic glitching to Heinz Riegler's therapeutic lullabies, via major statements from Simon James Philips (the gloriously, grandly pealing Chair) & Rafael Anton Irisarri (the crepuscular, clankingly pensive Unintentional Sea), this disparate outpouring somehow reaffirms the uniqueness of Room40's voice. 

Moreover, the label still has the great Chris Herbert's Constants to come (some earlier blather). A delectable, delicate freebie EP, Wintex-Cimex 83, only stokes the appetite for the return of an all too rare releaser - now due in February...

& that's not even to mention head honcho Lawrence English's magnificent collaboration with Liz Harris (Grouper), Slow Walkers - though that's a somewhat less recent vintage (even more so in the video below)... 

Simon James Phillips - Poul

moth to taper by simon james phillips  


Simon James Phillips - Set Ikon Set Remit

Rafael Anton Irisarri - Lesser than the sum of its parts


Rafael Anton Irisarri - Daybreak Comes Soon

rafael anton irisarri - the unintentional sea (excerpts)

Chris Herbert - Soft Quasars

 
Eugene Carchesio - Day 3

Eugene Carchesio - Day 12

Heinz Riegler - SLEEP HEALTH (Side A Excerpt)


Wake - Slow Walkers




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

Serpent patching

A deliriously pulsing, proggy-in-a-good-way Leyland Kirby remix of Cedric Stevens serves as a footnote to not one but two recent-ish posts - one referencing another LK remix, of John Cale, & another featuring the Stevens original. 

From The Syncopated Elevators Legacy (Discrepant), a hefty retrospective/crate-delve that also features remixes by LMYE luminaries Sylvain Chauveau, Fennesz & Motion Sickness of Time Travel. All feature in Experimedia's SEL previe/review ("bubbles of early 21st century electronic futurism, the kind that starts with a steaming, industrialized landscape vibe before panning up to a crystal clear, multi-colored skyline...") below. 

Also below, some enticing indications of Stevens' post-SEL direction - the exquisite, groaning 'guitar drone' of the recent Stardust/Monsoon Loop 7" (again, on Discrepant) & a dense, buzzing live tampura excursion to Benares Crescent. There's also the vault-excavating The Politics of Weakness (originally on Subliminal Toy Crash) & a richly murky new SEL-era discovery, Celestial Sundiving.

All this also serves as a roundabout way of noting that LMYE is going fairly dark for the next six weeks. Apologies to labels & artists who have sent music over for review, but an offline project is nearing its non-negotiable deadline. So posting is likely to be minimal to the end of next month - will try to make up for that with an epic final quarter...

Cédric Stevens - The Siamese Level (Leyland Kirby Remix)

The Siamese Level (playground emulation) by Cedric Stevens


The Siamese Level from Martina Ampuero

Cedric Stevens: The Syncopated Elevators Legacy

cedric stevens - the syncopated elevators legacy (album preview)

Monsoon Loop by Cedric Stevens

Cédric Stevens - Stardust (7'' preview)

benares crescent (live @ la filature) by Cedric Stevens

Celestial Sundiving by Cedric Stevens

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

Lend Me Your Sequence

Coat-tailing on Futuresequence's monumental third SEQUENCE compilation to resurrect 'Lend Me Your Shorts' (also here & here), my clumsy effort at 'curating'/avoiding writing: anyway, a first pass yields eight compelling, compounding explorations of tone & colour from Cinchel, Field Rotation, Machinefabriek, Nils Quak, Mike Shiflet, Swartz Et, Talkingmakesnosense and, er, Tone Color.  


SEQUENCE3 comes with FS fast mutating into a must-hear imprint. Radere's thrilling epic I'll Make You Quiet in particular (post to follow: no, really...) marks it out as something quite special. More, please!  

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

Herds of fools

These ears have been twitching in anticipation ever since Vladislav Delay disclosed his first album for Raster-Noton in a recent interview with LMYE. The first excerpts from Vantaa seem to redeem all that expectancy - Narri ('fool' if your Suomi needs work...) in particular is a beautiful, beguiling piece in which a lop-sided rhythm, something like a wind-up toy starting to spasm, meshes with a shifting bed of ratchet, scrape & jangle to freight a moving, blurred theme. 


To name it our Track of the Day is the bathetic least we can do...


Blurb: "Even though complex electronic manipulations are used, Vantaa wants to sound like a piece of nature, resulting in a mixture of techno/dub and organic textures. The tracks oscillate between a decadent, greyish, post-industrial sound cloud and the intimate atmosphere of a vast and desolate Finnish landscape. Ripatti plays with tiny rhythmic bricks that drift and collapse, but nevertheless create spaces that radiate calmness and tranquility. Being an experienced producer, he uses his know-how to layer compact sound fabrics in unusual ways. In this case, these elements arouse associations with gushing water, crackling wood, or growing grass. The tracks on Vantaa merge into each other and their density escalates with „Lauma“ into an energetic climax, which is all at once the ecstatic, shamanic and truly moving peak of the album."

Vladislav Delay - Narri (excerpt)


Vladislav Delay - Narri (Excerpt)



Vladislav Delay - Lauma (excerpt)

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

Swan vs gull

Delicious new Oneohtrix Point Never again paired with other Daniel Lopatin output - after FRKWYS last time out, his rich body of collaborations, remixes, live takes & offcuts (almost all downloadable, by the way). & while his self-made video for the new release's haunting title track puts a kind of self-mocking emphasis on neo-kosmische's cartoonish side (drawing on the "saddest version of the most violen soviet cartoon ever", according to one YouTube commenter) - oddly, in a way, since Replica is an affecting, sober meditation - another film technique stands out from his off-piste collection. 


The drama & impact of Lopatin's jump-cutting is most obvious on remixes like those for Antony & the Johnsons' Swanlight (a connection immortalised in last year's majestic take on Returnal, of course) & FRKWYS fellow traveller Laurel Halo's Metal Confection. But it also illuminates live performances (this London 'outro', for example, or this college radio work-out) & experiments such as The Martinellis Bring Home a Desire System...


Not that all is jump-cut. Streams below end with a trio of more trademark arpeggiated bliss-outs. As often with OPN/Lopatin, these - a Harold Grosskopf remake, an Emeralds collab &, especially, a "free looping" piece for radio - generate an unexpected emotional heft....





ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS - SWANLIGHTS (remix) by Oneohtrix Point Never



Swanlights by Antony and the Johnsons


LAUREL HALO - METAL CONFECTION (remix) by Oneohtrix Point Never


SEAGULLS OUTTAKE (GROSVENOR, LONDON March 18th, 2010) by Oneohtrix Point Never

RARE FREQUENCY LIVE JAM (WZBC July 23rd, 2009) by Oneohtrix Point Never


MASQVES - OCEAN OF TEARS (HAUSCHILDT / OPN COLLAB)


Masqves at Paris London New York West Nile (5/14/09)

TRAUMA 2010 by Oneohtrix Point Never

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

Tote bundler

A minor-key piano figure makes its stately, affecting way across a sound stage of buzzing riffs, cloudy fuzz & squealing tones: the arresting restraint of Replica, the delicately balanced title track of the new Oneohtrix Point Never, contrasts markedly with the earlier Sleep Dealer's pot pourri of squelchy synth gestures...


Also, proving a point recently nailed on Disquiet, the live debut of Lopatin's chamber-kosmische supergroup FRKWYS 7 Ensemble is - enlightenedly - already up on SoundCloud for the global audience that would have loved to make it to Pittsburgh last Friday night... Hear its often compelling, sometimes grandiloquent set (mostly improvised, according to the "electronic jam band"'s intro) below too.


Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica


Oneohtrix Point Never - Sleep Dealer


FRKWYS 7 Ensemble - Live at VIA Festival (Oct. 6th 2011)


"Room audio from the debut performance of the FRKWYS 7 ensemble feat. David Borden, James Ferraro, Samuel Godin, Laurel Halo, and Daniel Lopatin at Carnegie Mellon University's Kresge Theater on October 7th, 2011. Part of VIA Festival 2011 in Pittsburgh PA."

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

End of the plain

It's all too easy to forget, but Sohrab is still out there & still needs support: one powerful & gratifying way of providing some is to buy his solidarity releases - You Are Not Alone, You Are Not Alone II & Shouting At Dictators. Not only do all proceeds help fund his appeal for asylum in Germany, but the trio also adds valuably to A Hidden Place - the two thrilling sets of remixes by leading Touch artists linking arms with Sohrab by conjuring rich new takes on one of last year's key albums (featured in LMYE's Festive 50 of the releases that mattered most to us in 2010 & a driver in naming Touch our pioneering label of the year). 


Philip Marshall's urgent yet dreamy meshing of, presumably, Somebody & the title track (definitely part of the outstanding You Are Not Alone II, in any case) is a personal highlight. But each of the three downloads repays investment handsomely. 


Worthwhile piece from Reinspired here. Previous LMYE coverage of Dictators here. 

JG Thirlwell - Susanna (Uxorial mix) 4:48 | Achim Mohné - Milan Knizhak mix#1 (side a) 6:05 | Jóhann Jóhannsson - Zarrin (remix) 6:01 (Mixed by Jóhann Jóhannsson at NTOV, Copenhagen, 24th May 2011) | Anonymous - Triple Exposure 9:10 (Mastered by a different Anonymous 24th May 2011) | Leif Elggren - No One Really Knows (destroyed) 11:46

Daniel Menche - Zarinn (menche mix) 11:45 | Jana Winderen - Susanna 7:00 | Philip Jeck - Susanna (remix) 5:23 | Philip Marshall - Somebody, Hidden 7:45 (Mastered by BJNilsen, Berlin, 20th May 2011) | Michael Esposito - Somebody's Ghost 6:47

Sohrab - A Hidden Place (samples)

Sohrab - No one Really Knows (free to d/l)

Sohrab - Tanhayi - Live in Tehran (free to d/l)

Sohrab - A Hidden Place (Spotify)

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

Textured manuscript

Talking of Oval, a sandblast from the past - a woozily abrasive track of the day from his monumental Ovalprocess album (Zomba, 2000 - stream in full below, along with the following year's Ovalcommers). 


Ovalprocess - Untitled 05 by Oval 

Ovalprocess - Untitled 02 by Oval


Ovalprocess - Untitled 12 by Oval


Ovalcommers - Untitled 04 by Oval

Ovalprocess by Oval




Blurb: "Ovalprocess is a flowing, textured manuscript that utilizes sublime low end rhythm and directive pulsation in a manner that eases the listener into a soft and pillowy world dominated by electronic bleeps, glitches and moans.

Ovalprocess equally represents an innovative music software application, designed by Popp, as much as it serves as the core engine to an innovative Oval sound installation. The installation is centered around one or several publicly accessible sound terminals running the Ovalprocess application, rendering the exhibit a customizable, collaborative workspace.

Making the installation accessible in a public space is the ideal aesthetic that Popp craves-he feels it is far more effective than offering a cdrom or another option that would make the application available on a more individual basis. The Ovalprocess installation allows the public to use sounds that are found on the album to produce their own Oval-like music."


Ovalcommers by Oval 


Blurb: "Popp describes Ovalcommers as a 3D musical obstacle course, a friendly and accessible invitation to complexity. Ovalcommers surprises with poetic and playful elements (organs and layers of guitar feedback), making room for understatement, sophistication and a new, almost absentmindedly casual atmosphere. Haunting emulations of processed brass, string and woodwind sections are carefully added to the otherwise still angular desktop rock. Listeners will leave Ovalcommers with a new perspective on Oval in general, as Popp's strategy becomes clearly visible: A friendly, yet relentless fanaticism to experiment and innovate musically."

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

Forest root

Let's party like it's 1998*. The soundtrack? A sudden, notable eruption of new music from the near-holy trinity of Jan Jelinek, Oval and Pole, three pioneering titans of experimental electronica. 


Jelinek has just launched only his second release as Farben since 2004 - a self-released 12" of deviant disco, like its predecessor. Stefan Betke is about to unleash his first as Pole in several years (also his debut under his own label & again a 12").


Meanwhile, the past year's outpouring of Markus Popp's reinvented Oval is poised to continue with - somewhat unimaginably, given his torrential recent output - the 'lost tracks' of OvalDNA. In contrast to his peers' vinyl-clad modesty, Popp's maximal "much more than a regular music CD" package is also to include a DVD & software).


To these ears, Popp's playful, textured workouts are particularly compelling. Inevitably, though, Farben's warped loops & Pole's bassy warmth offer much as well. 


Anyway, the comparison is probably witless & certainly unfair. OvalDNA excavates 17 years in unearthing its 35 tracks, even if some are recognisably of the zithery, twangy 'new' Oval (others are clearly not, as inspired glitches like Gegenlesen & Savvy below underline - "I am almost sure there will be a lot to like about this record, especially for fans of the classic Oval sound," Popp says). 


Jelinek & Betke's releases document their notable efforts to still be making new music after all this time. Still, OvalDNA manages to sound rather more contemporary than either (despite being the opposite, of course) - perhaps reflecting the constraints imposed by Farben & Pole's closer adherence to genres, especially Betke's willingness to keep mining dub techno tropes. Happily, Jelinek seems to smuggle in a little breadth to his palette from the Oramic sci fi territory he's been exploring as Ursula Bogner.  



Oval - Glass UFO


*OK, so Oval's legendary 94diskont. came out a few years earlier. But the point - unexpected, welcome resurgence of 90s legends - stands... 

farben - xango (album preview)


Farben - Xango EP - clips

Oval - Gegenlesen 30s preview


Oval - Pockyrocky 30s preview


Oval - Savvy 30s preview


Oval - Stealth 30s preview


Oval - IV 30s preview



Navigating Oval

Blurb: "As the next step in the evolution of a legendary producer, on September 1st 2011, Stefan Betke is founding a new artist label named “pole.” 

Made for the music of pole, this new imprint will keep Betke’s large back catalogue available, as well as give his forthcoming releases an autonomous structure for experimentation and creativity.
For over a decade, Stefan Betke has been working as a label owner, publisher and mastering engineer, contributing his experience to the development of electronic music.
The artist label “pole” is intended to create a place where pole´s original and unique sound can be developed further, and combined with new production methods and ideas.
In the second half of 2011, pole will re-release his full back catalogue digitally, including classical records such as “1,2,3,” “Steingarten” and “Steingarten remixes,” as well as his new music on a series of 12 inches released on vinyl and digital. 

As Pole puts it: “My new music will sound very warm, has a lot of bass and stands in a strong relation to my musical history."

Wurzel - Excerpt by pole


Wipfel Dub - Excerpt by pole


Wipfel - Excerpt by pole


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