THE RETURN or THE STORY THUS FAR

     It's been too long. A number of you emailed me asking me to update, and it's because of you guys that I'm writing. 

     I've been wrestling with the idea of keeping this blog going, because I've come to see myself as contributing to the problem of music piracy. So, first things first, what this blog WON'T be is a place to download music I like. You can do that on your own, but I'd rather you streamed and then bought them.

     I've left some stuff up, mostly compilations and older releases. These you can find on your own and enjoy. 

     For the record, Lurker of Chalice received the most downloads, which I think is pretty funny. Gloomy black metal will always be more popular than headtrip electronica

     The blog will be more text-heavy, not so much a music review site as a place for cultural analysis. This might include movies, TV shows, etc., we'll see. Contributions are welcome! Send me articles you'd like posted!

     I didn't wanna delete this blog because of the followers, but if you have any idea where it could move comfortably, let me know.

     I'm gonna be figuring out how and about what I wanna write, so bear with me. I'll try to be regular, but we've seen how that's worked out.

     As always, thank you guys. 

James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual

Note: this isn't listening music, it's an art piece.
As such, it utilizes the same themes chillwave relies on (nostalgia, a DIY approach, de- and re-contextualization of old, even dated material) to mock that genre and all its associations. The message of the album is quite complex: Ferraro is asserting that originality of material is unnecessary in art (which has been a topic in the art world at least since Duchamp), but he also seems to think that our current culture is devoid of originality. Whereas the tape culture Ferraro came from prefers to make its references unrecognizable by way of distortion, elongation, etc. (and this can certainly be applied to any and all music influenced by the proto-sampling of early Tape Music, up to and including Hip Hop, Techno, Pop, etc.); on this album the focus is on using these processes without masking the source material. In effect, the result is a demasking of the past, say, decade of electronica, but more importantly of American culture at large, which certainly seems (to me, at least) to often be a collection of rehashed tropes.
This is why it's fairly useless to comment on particular sounds; the fact that the Skype sound is more recognizable than another corporate sample is only coincidence, and Ferraro intends all of them to be on an equal footing with the shitty preset synth sounds throughout the album. Indeed, even to speak about individual tracks seems futile, because the approach is what's revolutionary here, not the auditory result. By creating such a raw—and at times, ugly—work by essentially inverting modern music, Ferraro shows that American culture often presents nothing other than decoration. This in itself is worth noting (it's also a major theme in Klimt's work), but I would assert that Ferraro goes one step further to show that this culture is not simply ornamentation, but a ruse.
Despite the tongue-in-cheek irreverence, this is a truly honest album, and, like Swift's "A Modest Proposal," it is a premonition of our society's future based on current trends. Ferraro's past career was very much hit-or-miss, but he cements his status as both an artist and a social commentator with this forward-thinking album.

Essential listening.

http://www.mediafire.com/?l7ad4rnbbp3pv02

Andy Stott - Passed Me By

Sorry bout the wait. I've been greedily listening to music, neglecting you. I'll be back, bby.

This album? Consider it a parallel to Actress's Splazsh, only without the latter's eclecticism; a focused, single-minded album pushing modern bass music into bafflingly new territories. It sounds like London being buried. I dunno, just listen (with headphones or on loud).

From FACT Mag's review:

It’s as if Stott has awoken from some long and laboured sleep, emerging haggard and caked in petrified dirt: everything here sounds broken, sawed-off, obfuscated, even Hellish.

http://www.mediafire.com/?97ld772q7ndydje

Young Montana? - Limerence

Dubstep producers have restlessly been reaching into more and more disparate musical territories to infect with 2step rhythms and chop into melody snippets. Perhaps one of the most successful accomplishments of this trend is Young Montana?'s Limerence, a hyperactive journey bounded only loosely by dubstep's hazy sound and UK Funky's persistent beat. Perhaps I should call it future garage to highlight its forward-thinking approach (not to mention distance it from frat house bass music), but the truth is this album embodies the malleable nature of dubstep in its infancy.
Having found out about the album through techno circles, I was amused to see it classified as Trip Hop on rateyourmusic. Yet the label is valid, because YM? works like a British Dilla: short episodes are cycled around a basic groove which keeps the track moving. The result is always fresh, if somewhat disjointed, but the erratic jumpiness of the album is certainly part of its charm. One of the most cohesive tracks on the album is its effective opener, 'Sacré Cool,' which is a high contender for groove of the year, with the help of some expert vocal manipulation. Producers have been overusing this technique lately, and YM? shows his subtlety by keeping the melody to a few well-timed vocal stabs against the pulsating rhythm section.
I expect this album will usher in a couple more meticulously crafted but flashy dubstep records which will all inevitably be throwaway. Young Montana? shows that virtuosity is useless in itself; most producers of frantic dubstep lack any sort of artistic control and their ideas get muddled. Young Montana? succeeds—for the most part—at exploring concentrated ideas from wildly differing perspectives.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7nqi4ivqh19kpkz

Actress - Splazsh

I've thought about putting this album up for a while now, but always concluded that sharing such a widely-lauded album would be frivolous, because so many people would already have it. I have decided most definitely to jump on the bandwagon though, because it rivals FlyLo's Cosmogramma as possibly the most important electronica album of 2010.
Actress is from London, and it shows. Splazsh makes allusions to most, if not all, of today's trends in electronic music, which makes for an incredibly varied listen. Opener 'Hubble' is one of my personal favorites, presenting a bastardization of deep house which sounds ultra-modern while staying entirely familiar. He's not afraid to reach back for sounds: 'Purrple Splazsh' explicitly investigates the relationship between disco and modern techno, leading into a track that disassembles dubstep. For me, at least, most of the pleasure I get from listening to this album comes from the deconstruction of source material coupled with wonderfully original compositions. The fact that they groove like hell also helps.
The disparate styles present on the album might appear to be a lack of focus, but I would contest that Actress's method is exactly the opposite. Most of the tracks are built up from only a few elements, and are relatively static, giving the listener enough space and time to take in every button tweak, synth stab, and rhythmic twist. This is where the more esoteric tracks really shine, because they are designed to make you think about current music, not just shake your ass. Occasionally, like in 'Always Human', he manages to bring these two elements together, and it's moments like these which make the album required listening.
Only albums as ambitious and expansive as Splazsh have a chance at truly changing the musical landscape. Watch out for Actress, I expect his future work to be quality as well.
He's already off to a good start with this single, released in 2011.

http://www.mediafire.com/?aglewdvwwb49z99

Moonface - Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums

It's always nice to see someone succeeding at making pop music the old-fashioned way; by creating an object based on and informed by a familiarity with a larger musical context that would be inaccessible to the untrained ear. In a sense, a pop song should be as contemporary as it is outdated, allowing the previous work of the underground to shine through without the hostility of avant-gardism. This is certainly a simplification of previously extreme ideas, but the collage-like nature of pop music allows for many strands to be woven together into a final product that is ironically much more personal than the cold, refined methods of art music.
But those boundaries have clearly fallen, given the ease of using the term 'art pop' to describe a vast amount of music. Technological advances have certainly helped; writing arrangement parts and screwing around with the sequencer on a drum machine is arguably easier these days than getting a band together ever was. Lady Gaga and Kanye have certainly brought artistry into their work, redefining it as a multimedia performance complete with music videos referencing European art house cinema, elaborate costumes and shows, and an artificial persona that seems to be entirely detached from reality— They are clearly pop stars.
Yet there exist musicians for whom this dream presents no allure, those who fittingly evolved out of the 90s indie scene. Spencer Krug has been a part of many of the heavy-hitters in this circle, most notably Wolf Parade, and here he presents his ideas solo as Moonface. Most notable is the presence of marimba throughout the EP's one twenty-minute track, which shows an indebtedness to Steve Reich that is supported by Krug's penchant for layering instrument on instrument to create heavily rhythmic, driving episodes. The piece is essentially a suite connected by marimba, and motifs enter and reappear in a highly sophisticated fashion. Krug's lyrics are characteristically cryptic, and although I won't attempt to analyze their possible poetic meaning, their effect within the overall structure is notably fitting. "I am making hissing sounds with my mouth," Krug declares right before the end of the piece, giving a sense of the deeper otherness that remains to be heard under his well-crafted harmonies.
Marimba and Shit-Drums would never be played on Top 40 radio, yet it is clearly a great accomplishment of pop in which fans of techno will find minimalism treated in a remarkably different way, and fans of pop will hear how far the medium can be changed.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ckicp6cth3fqexc

The Tired Sounds of - Stars of the Lid

Stars of the Lid exists in that halfway realm that all drone/ambient projects should strive for: emotional honesty and an artistic vision to control it. There are various methods of going about this: Celer created miniatures that interacted, Natural Snow Buildings brings hazy folk in, etc. Stars of the Lid have gained a following based on their liquid masses of sound that each seem formed with perfection in mind. Perhaps I should offer a lesser-known album than The Tired Sounds Of, but the truth is that I only just recently got this too. It is a cornerstone of the genre for a reason, and does encapsulate it. When compared with today's drone, its influence is felt even stronger, and its power is more than apparent. The amount of textural music today (dubstep, chillwave, house, post-minimalism, black metal, kosmische, etc.) that branched off in some way from the drone movement that Stars of the Lid were at the helm of becomes much clearer after listening to some good old slowness.
Any discounter of drone needs to hear the craftsmanship that went into each sound.

http://www.mediafire.com/?af1r36xa4tqn57u

End of the year excuse & End of the year list

I know I made a best-of list last year, but I'm not sure I can do so again this year. The truth is the posts on this blog have been analogous to my own finds this year; they were focused on delving deep into certain genres in order to see their influence on modern music. The result of this of this has been that I haven't posted too much music released this year.
Although there are certainly exceptions, BfB has become a de facto electronica blog, which is also a bit of a misrepresentation of my own tastes. While I do clearly listen to a lot of techno/house/electro/etc., I've failed to give an accurate representation of my tastes.

Maybe I should just post more.

So! I'll take this space to post some stuff that I liked but never got around to posting, or would not have fit in with the general theme of the blog. As usual, just ask for any of these.

Subjective Album of the Year

Mark E - Mark E Works 2005 -2009: Selected Tracks & Edits
Mark Evetts' work with the past encapsulates everything the current music scene is about. Techno has always been about looking backwards to create the future, and this aesthetic has arguably taken over pop music as well, most notably with Ariel Pink. Disco is still very much a part of our contemporary music, despite most things not sounding like it. This set of 8 tracks bridges the gap, and shows how much current house owes to disco. The fun, then, is seeing how pop is influenced by underground electronica.

Thought I'd also reference this video, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore by British artist Mark Leckey, which also deals with the concept of memory and evolution in dance music. As any dance music enthusiast will tell you, it's not just about the music, but the community and ideas around it.

http://vimeo.com/5632791

Albums

Ajilvsga - The Origin of the Chaul
This is pitch black drone from Brad Rose and Wolf Eyes' Nate Young, which is probably the reason it's been so overlooked. I usually go for drone/ambient with interesting textures, whereas this is the exact opposite. It is synaesthetically cold and almost sickeningly desolate, but achieves what most drone albums lack: a sense of emotional attachment. Drone is inherently difficult; both performer and listener must, to truly connect with the music, be able to give their attention to the music for extended periods of time. There is nothing worse than apathetic drone, which is unfortunately what the majority of drone ends up being. Ajilvsga has achieved something spectacular by capturing emotions which one often does not want to hold on to and forcing them into the listener's attention. Characteristic of drone and noise, the atmosphere gradually becomes less uncomfortable, enacting a true response akin to cleansing.

Zs - New Slaves
Here is yet another recommendation to listen to Zs. Those that enjoyed last year's Music of the Modern White should grab this immediately, because it's an extension of that style. To me, this band's evolution is one of the best things in music; they have unfailingly become sharper and sharper in their aggressive avant-gardism while retaining the ability to make their works sound sonically disparate from each other. The world of atonalism/free-improv/electro-acoustic music is not easily approachable, but Zs is probably your best bet. It needs not be said that this is difficult music, but it must be emphasized that it is also rewarding.

Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
Kanye I'ma let you finish but etc.
Big Boi's chops as a rapper destroy most of the MCs currently working, with very few exceptions. This album was widely praised in hip-hop circles, but I'm not sure why it never reached the awareness of pop. Big Boi continues the OutKast tradition of fusing unflinching hip-hop craftsmanship with highly experimental production and somehow making accessible pop out of all that. This album is criminally underrated.
That said, a few words about Kanye:
Kanye was hugely important this year. The "film" for Runaway was a true work of art, and elevated pop music in a way that only Lady Gaga had done recently. His work as a producer is much more important, and I'm just waiting for him to team up with an MC that can match his beats (Related: R.I.P. Child Rebel Soldier). My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has too many juvenile mistakes that some have misinterpreted as honesty for it to be truly great.

Ultralyd - Inertiadrome
I like to think of this album as what Meshuggah should have evolved into if they took the fantastic rhythmic interplay they helped pioneer and went somewhere with it. Ultralyd come from the Norwegian jazz scene, which has been producing some of the most innovative music not only within the boundaries of jazz, but everything they can get their hands on. This album is no exception. I'm not saying the jazz slant will be obvious from the start, but the incorporation of noise of the free-jazz sort should be apparent. Anyone that likes rhythms as much as me should give this a listen.

EPs

Kayo Dot - Stained Glass
Yet another offering by Toby Driver, my longtime musical idol. Toby's obsession as of late has been to use synths in a classical setting and using wind instruments as synths, to blur the line between the two approaches. Here, he explores the vibraphone's long tones, interplaying them with the cold, electronic sound of the keyboard. His melodic atonalism here is probably the best it has ever been, slowly evolving through the 20 minutes.
Yes, the crescendos of the early albums are gone, but we knew that by Blue Lambency Downward, and he barely even references that style anymore, so the endless comparisons are moot. Blue Lambency was a decisive break, and it was immature, but Toby is clearly sharpening his ideas. After Tartar Lamb II and this, I'm just waiting in anticipation for a full length in this style. Coyote was an interesting take but the goth-rock vibe held it back a bit, at least for me.
Anyone that wants the old albums is missing the experimental nature of Kayo Dot.

Ehnahre - Alpha/Omega
A setting of two W.B. Yeats poems. Black, death, and sludge metal, noise, free jazz, twelve-tone atonalism are all present. This band is one of my favorite rebuttals when people accuse noise or metal of being mindless, because this music is, above all, highly intelligent. Musicianship is easy to find in metal nowadays; YouTube alone will show the abundance of shredders who are more like cannon fodder than musicians. The pacing on this album, the themes, the composition are all masterful to the point that I'm tempted to call these art songs, despite the aesthetic.
They also have an album, Taming the Cannibals, out this year, but I figure this is a better introduction.

Singles

Chasing Voices - Acidbathory
This one reminds me of the infamous Villalobos remix in that it takes the current electronica scene and simply corrupts it into an 11-minute track of evil. The genre is, as expected, dubstep, but it's equal parts drone.
I think it was only released on one-sided vinyl in England, so just save yourself the hassle and listen here.

ndf - Since We Last Met
The original track is by Bruno Pronsato. The remix is by Ricardo Villalobos.
Just get this, for real. It's what dreamy dance music should be.
But don't you dare call it chillwave

Happy new years, y'all.

Reagenz - Playtime

I happened upon this album while browsing for some deep house, the most recent sub-genre that I've immersed myself in. What struck me was the exactness of the sound, more akin to microhouse than the bass heavy drifters that deep house producers usually produce. The deep is definitely here though, as heard in the first track, which floored me in a way that no other techno has in a while, since probably Kris Wadsworth. The groove is just incredible, laid back, perfect headphone music, and driving to this is insanity. The rest of the album holds up, gradually getting more and more low-key until the 24-minute closer, a great ambient track in its own right, and a great counterpoint to the beat-oriented tracks, showing the wide range of this distinctly original sound.

Highly, highly recommended, and worth the download for the first track alone.

http://www.mediafire.com/?r1lzf705uu11m0w

Zs - Arms / Extra Life - Secular Works

What follows is an awkward essay comparing modern composition to techno:

Few modern groups can be compared to Zs. Even those comparisons would have descriptions like "as experimental as" or "striving for", because nothing really sounds like Zs. Zs don't even sound like Zs, from piece to piece (because that's what they are). What connects these 7 tracks is a constant drive to stretch, subvert, or destroy any and all characteristics of rock music from the inside. Side-stepping prog-rock's charred corpse, they work on the model of modern and contemporary composed music to create a sound spartan in structure, relentless, equally abrasive and hypnotic, and astoundingly complex. Working with what is essentially a chamber group, the members use rhythm more than color in novel ways to ensure that the compositions never lose their edge.
So doesn't that sound like techno? No really, just go with it for a sec. Anyone that follows this blog knows my fascination with minimal techno, and mainly because of its, well, sparse atmosphere and repetitive, complex rhythms. So what if Zs don't have a four on the floor? What if there's no synths? What if this whole review doesn't make sense? Check it out.


And how about applying that modern view on monophonic chant?
Yeah, why not.

This is Charlie Looker, ex-Zs but guitarist on Arms, with slightly less challenging music. And by that, I don't mean not challenging.


Arms: http://www.mediafire.com/?oie9brmgrvc
Secular Works: http://www.mediafire.com/?dl55we9a036hsqa

Carlo Mombelli & The Prisoners of Strange - I Stared into My Head

Upped by request

I only listened to this by recommendation from someone else, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's not in the style of what I usually post, but I figure most of what I post is fairly open-minded, so don't let that keep you from listening to it.
I guess the cover is a nice place to start: Weird dream-like African Dada kind of sums up the music. In the broadest sense this would be jazz, but each band member's talent allows this to have the creativity of a RIO album without any of the bullshit that usually covers that territory. The band's willingness to introduce electronics is checked by their musicianship; it all feels organic in the most original kind of way. For example, the first track has Coltrane-like sax wailing over African rhythms, later there's traces of Webern's strings, and it's not clear who or what is making these sounds. In any case, some great new jazz that's passed most people by due to its humble South African origins, so check it out.

http://www.mediafire.com/?lrjy8v662q96z74

Genghis Tron - Dead Mountain Mouth

I don't wanna describe this as cybergrind because the genre generally sucks, so let's just called this really aggressive electronic post-hardcore inspired by Eliot's The Waste Land.

Upped by request.

http://www.mediafire.com/?y5el180u170x1kz

Basic Channel - BCD-2

Brain exercise: What does the phrase "German Techno" bring to mind? Sparse? Well, spartan is a better word. Harsh? For extended periods, sure. Emotional? Yes, and only so. The techno scene in Berlin that developed in the early 90s was known for its stripped down aesthetic, showing an aggressive side to our emotions rarely expressed in pop music. Disco, the form out of which techno evolved, was for the most part dance music, but Berliners Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald saw through this. Avoiding the funky rhythms of Detroit Techno, they started Basic Channel, both a moniker and a record label that put out a string of records that portray the darker feelings of an urban night. Loneliness and anger were prominent in their early work, but this compilation highlights their later masterpieces, when they turned completely away from any semblance of a melodic line to focus on visceral energy.
They weave bare strands together to form incredible texture; the opening synths of 'Enforcement' form a chord progression that unrelentingly repeats throughout the track (It's thirteen minutes), only to be further squared off by the percussion. New layers enter, and a counterpoint develops made only of repeating figures, all so dry on their own. And yet it's all so human. It has the foreboding of what I imagine to be Berlin at 2 a.m., and is anything but dance music. It is repeating to the point of nausea, but not boredom.
It is the sound of unrest, discontentedness, and the inability to change. Polyrhythmic and robotic, it must be listened to as conceptual music, willfully limited to one palette. BCD-2 captures the state of a nation by focusing acutely on highly personal emotions; it is lonesome and cold.
Despite this, the album has become hugely influential. For one, microhouse such as Bruno Pronsato or Villalobos is largely dependent on Basic Channel's economy of sound. Everything after that resembles it seems to be a way of taking its core and making it more accessible. Its soul, however, comes from its uncompromising nature, and for this reason any album I listen to after this seems too hurried, too varied. In six songs averaging thirteen minutes each, the German duo makes us feel what they feel, ironically through such an unwelcoming medium.
Get lost in this one night and go for a walk. Let it sink in, you might hear silence a different way.


http://www.mediafire.com/?hpia67fhqx577ya

Bruno Pronsato - Why Can't We Be Like Us

Upped for CG Pinesworthy and BryFly

Back in the techno vein, I have a fantastic microhouse release from '08. Although it seems to have been looked over by the masses, I suspect the aesthetic has something to do with this; microhouse as a genre can certainly be described by the word "reserved", a descriptor which doesn't bring strong emotional reactions. And it's true, Pronsato's music plods along sparingly, and cool sounds seem to be wasted by appearing only once before another one comes in to push them out. But perhaps the appeal is strangely part of this. Minimal techno is armchair music, and following the trail Pronsato leads us on is certainly enjoyable because of how winding it is, and how much attention is required to notice that it's a trail at all.
There is an inevitable connection to Ricardo Villalobos, someone whom I am not alone in considering the godsend of microhouse, and techno in general. The interesting thing, however, is that this album to me sounds like Villalobo's Thé au Harem d'Archimède, probably one of his weaker efforts. If Bruno Pronsato made an album like Fizheuer Zieheuer, it would most likely fail, because Villalobos is better at slow, monolithic works, while Pronsato can keep things fresh with quick changes.
I wish this whole Villalobos meandering wasn't necessary, but most of the negative criticism I've seen towards this album has been that it's derivative. I would strongly counter this, because in such a stripped down genre, Pronsato is doing a surprising number of innovative things, and certainly owes more to other producers than Villalobos.

PS Perfect driving music

http://www.mediafire.com/?0h6gd8p09cgvf5v

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

This one is up by request, but I am glad someone asked me for it, because although I haven't posted too much of his work on here, I am a huge admirer of Charles Mingus. While enormously respectable as a composer, his work truly shines when one listens to his work specifically as jazz and realizes how far Mingus stretched the idiom. While jazz composition frequently is nothing more than a melody which establishes the framework in which the players improvise, Mingus found ways in which his own vision coexists with the musicians' creation. In his own words, "Each man's own particular style is taken into consideration, both in ensemble and in solos". This leads to an extraordinary connection between all players of the ensemble, one that is hard to find except in smaller, usually bebop and post-bop groups. It also opens up possibilities for "collective improvisation", a phrase Mingus used to describe his work. The important thing about this process is that it is very flexible, and hugely responsive. Mingus' big bands are only marginally connected to, say, Ellington's, because there is always a feeling of suspense from the framework being stretched by the current improvisers.
This is perfectly exemplified by The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, possibly Mingus' crowning achievement in large-scale composition. The motifs return and intermingle like characters, an effect Mingus deliberately worked in, judging by the titles of the movements, yet each phrase is expanded upon by jazz musicians in top form. Thus, the melody is used as a springboard (the fundamental principle of jazz), and Mingus' arrangements form the chordal structure, as well as an undeniably cool atmosphere. Though highly experimental, Mingus' work is just as listenable, and truly must be heard.

LINK REMOVED BY REQUEST

Open question:

I wasn't exactly sober when I decided to move to Tumblr, so it's up to you guys:

Continue with this, tumblr, or both?

Moving

http://bowlingforbears.tumblr.com/

It's just easier. and the RSS will still be available.

J Cole - The Warm Up

Review to come.
Too busy listening to this.

For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o9dXLNuXic

For real:
http://www.mediafire.com/?vhcwoh8z218u1yk

Zs - Arms

If for nothing else, then this album is worth hearing just for the sheer uniqueness. It goes from spartan minimalism to astoundingly intricate writing that would make any New Complexity composer proud. This is technically closest to math rock, but that's like saying Justin Bieber is a male; the comparison is worthless. From the first measures of B is for Burning, you'll hear these guys are on a different level. It's composed music, so treat it as such. Except when singing along to Nobody Wants to Be Had.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ydyim2mmy52

Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Victoria

Uploaded by request, although I still have a guilty pleasure stance towards this album. Modern World, I'll Believe in Anything, It's a Curse, etc. It's too good pop to ignore.

http://www.mediafire.com/?m2dntmttwta