Nonwrestler Blog

Weekly mp3 #99: Anduin - Lovers In Transit

Stream and/or download the track from The Internet Archive.

Deep, slow-moving drone track with a two-note, chiming riff and occasional kick drums. There's not much to say, but you already know whether it's worth your time checking this out.

Anduin is American producer Jonathan Lee.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #98: Lindstrøm & Christabelle - Baby Can't Stop (Aeroplane Vocal Remix)

Available all over the shop, try Better Propaganda I s'pose.

80s vocal disco vibes - dirty punky disco rhythm section + Christabelle's vox sound a lot like ESG, but there are lots of blippy synths and distant lines that could be a soaring electric guitar. Sometimes there's slap bass and loud, stabbing organ and other times it's all spaced-out, echoing Jean-Michel Jarre synths. There's acoustic guitar being punchy rather than being soft-cock.

France's Aeroplane made this track a lot more "space disco" than the original, which is weird given production by Lindstrøm whose 'I Feel Space' totally brought back that sound a few years ago. The Norwegian duo of Lindstrøm & Christabelle have an album, which could be a promising thing, although I confess to liking this remix much more than either of their original tracks I've heard.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #97: 48/4 - Hlibt

Hopefully when this post gets published you can still listen to this track on Hlibt's Myspace, because it's only available as a download as a zipped up album, New Weird Australia Vol 3.

A nice melody on what sounds like a harp or acoustic guitar with grainy clouds of sound ascending skyward around it. Glicky (Yeah, "glicky" muddyfunster!) sparse beats take it into that "I've obviously heard dubstep, but is this still dubstep?" territory. None of that leaden bass that bores the shit out of me - in fact the vibe is kind of light. Reversed and obscured vocals loop around and come and go. Restrained. Layers of near and far stuff add up to good doses of niceness. Yeah, I said it.

48/4 (pronounced "forty-eight four") is Hamish Dixon from Sydney. You've got his myspace link at the top of this entry, according to his artist page on the New Weird Australia site he studies electroacoustic / acousmatic composition.

I played this on the Australia-themed Malty Media show last December.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #96: The Goodie Mob - Is That You God? (Dabrye Remix)

You can download this from a page that automatically loads really loud music when you go to it. It's part of a free album of remixes of Atlanta hip-hop artists, and I reckon it's the stand-out.

Gospel harmonies courtesy Cee-Lo Green and fam, singing over a nice swung hip-hop beat and bassline that actually gets it right. So much of this kind of beat falls flat, IMO. This is supposed to be hip-hop, but there's just one rap verse a bit over half way in, and otherwise the harmony vox lead the way. Lots of great squeaky synth bits.

I've raved about Dabrye on more than one occasion. I think I called him my favourite producer. So, yeah, Goodie Mob. Basically gospel-infused hip-hop from back in the 90s, recently reunited. Cee-Lo has been cruising around as half of some outfit called Gnarls Barkley, doing a smash hit or two. Pretty sure he produced the Pussycat Dolls' version of 'Don'tcha' - it's definitely him on backing vox.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Nature:1 Electro-acoustic Composers: 0

Someone linked me to these amazing sounds of ice cracking, which sound a hell of a lot like lasers from Star Wars. Go click and listen, they're amazing.

I don't know the details of the physics, except inasmuch as I understand that it relates to the speed that the different frequencies of sound travel through the medium of ice. So the high frequencies travel faster, the low slower, and that results in these huge glissandi (aka doo! doo! laser zaps).

Ages back another friend linked me to this footage from a Herzog documentary, where scientists are listening to the sounds of the Weddell seals. It's quite amazing, bordering on unbelievable.
If you can read this it means you're missing an embedde video. Click "View Original Post".


I got suspicious to the point where I went hunting around for more. Thankfully some institute called the Macaulay Library has hours and hours of streaming audio examples of the Weddell seals doing their thing, as well as plenty of recordings of Bearded seals (or, "Xenakis seals" as I like to think of them). Man. It's doing my head in.

There's a great recording from the 60s where you heard the recordist saying "I'm now switching on my hydrophone". :D

Labels: music

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Weekly mp3 #95: Major Lazer - Cash Flow (Classixx Glass-Bottom Dub)

Mad Decent, Major Lazer's label, have this track up for download under the title What did they use of the original Classixx remix!!!" Punctuation aside, it's a fair question. Some little bits of vox. Same chords?

A downtempo house beat starts things off. In comes a bit of synth bass and some absurdly big handclaps. Breakdown to some echoing vox and ... hey, whaddaya know? It's a downtempo house track. Plenty of different parts weaving around - lots of 80s synth vibes. Some distant slide guitar and arpeggiating synths combine at times to make something suspiciously like Tangerine Dream's oft-sampled / covered / re-hashed 'Love on a Real Train'.

As this track has close to zero to do with Major Lazer, I'm not even going to bother linking to them. If you like this at all you'll be more interested in following up on Classixx who are two guys from LA. Throughout 2009 I listened to a lot of this kind of gear and I reckon Classixx actually write decent licks (lixx?) more often than most.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #94: Toro Y Moi - Blessa

Download this absurdly sunny tune (and 3 others if you like) from RCRDLBL.

Backing vox of the drawn-out "Ahhhhh" variety start the track, half-suggesting a contented sigh as much as 60s pop. A loud burst of slide guitar drops in seemingly out of nowhere, bends completely out of shape in a way I can't even begin to do justice to, and then surges up again in a canyon-size wash of reverb. Turns out that's just the intro, and the track switches direction with a bouncy backbeat and bassline, the backing vox laying out some chords. The guy starts singing, and it's hard to say whether he's harking back to Brian Wilson or just been listening to Panda Bear or Atlas Sound doing the same. From here it's basically just a really mellow little pop song. Somewhere towards the end, everything breaks down to a shambling guitar lick and then the song gives up the ghost.

Although this is a full song, the overall feel reminds me quite a lot of the El Guincho mix of Kuroma I wrote about 40 weeks back...

Chaz Bundick is a wild enough name, so not sure why the guy goes by Toro Y Moi for his music. I was not exactly shocked to hear he's from Southern California. Am really hoping the album is as good as the best of the MP3s I've heard.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #93: Hulk - Elephant Memory

The Frozen Elephants Music net label released this track on its first compilation, The Map Is Not The Territory.

Little snippets of a woman singing give way to plucked strings. A higher plucked instrument is fitfully accompanied by pizzicato bass. Is that muted brass or distant foghorns passing through? Are we lost at sea? Should I be happy about this? (Because I'm pretty stoked.) The vocal fragments come and go and the track shifts restlessly. Higher drawn out notes might be strings. Lower drawn out notes definitely are strings, and are playing something quite beautiful. Is that an old film projector left running after the end of the reel?

Irish producer Hulk evidently runs a label called Osaka. He's released some other good stuff and seems to be good. I picked up his most recent album last year via Amie Street and it's pretty good.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #92: Mulatu Astatke & Menelik Wossenatchew - Fikratchin

Get this from The Fader magazine.

Heavier rhythm than the tracks from the Broken Flowers soundtrack, which is surely the most famous Mulatu Astatke stuff outside Ethiopia, and this is a vocal track rather than being led by those huge modal horn lines. Classic jazz rhythm section - drums played with brushes, bass (well, guitar) and piano. There's a pretty solid backbeat there, but there's also enough craziness in the timing on both bass and drums to mess with my head whenever I pay enough attention. Mr. Wossenatchew's got a light tone and the whole thing's pretty restrained.

These guys are both from Ethiopia and this track was recorded sometime between 65 and 75. There have been some interesting interviews with Astatke online, such as on the StinkInc blog and The Quietus.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #91: Bot'Ox - Blue Steel (Azari & III Remix)

XLR8R for the download.

Menacing house, basically. Those who know Get Physical stuff, it's a lot like if Booka Shade decided to turn to the dark side. Doofs along with a repeating distorted noise filling in as a bassline, some acid bits squelching about, trancey stabs that swell and fade. When the vocals from the original come in they're often distant and ringing, like she's singing through a long pipe. Flurries of handclaps add to the cold rush of the thing...

Bot'Ox are a French duo, consisting of the guys pictured in the above shot. Cosmo Vitelli is the one I knew of beforehand. They seem to have a car thing going on. On this track they have a guest singer, who I guess is the passenger in the back seat.

My heart's yearning, cos Paris is freezing.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #90: Taken By Trees - My Boys

Farewell 2009. Here's something 2009-enough to close out on, and summery enough for the time of year here - nice cover of Animal Collective's 'My Girls', with one of the guys from Studio producing it and the recordings done in Pakistan. Better Propaganda gives up the goods.

Handclaps, tuned percussion and a harmonium / pump organ. Chipper guitar melodies and plucked bass sounds that makes me think of Cuban music. The singer sings in a hazy way that makes me think of a euro version of Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval. Street sounds of Pakistan can be heard at the end, but sadly it cuts off cos that flows into the next track on the album. Oh well.

The Swedish singer behind Taken By Trees is someone I'd only heard doing the Bardot-ish deadpan on Peter Bjorn & John's 'Young Folks'. Turns out she's done three albums under this name, as well as fronting a band called The Concretes outside that. Ah well.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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Weekly mp3 #89: Universal Robot Band - Barely Breaking Even (Club Version)

The Fader was one of several sites that linked to this tune in 2009, although it's from 1982...

Um, huge (13 minutes) 80s disco number, male vocalist, amazing keyboard licks, great beat. A massive party about being broke.

I think the original mix is actually a bit better, but this is not too far from that and still awesome.

The Universal Robot Band were active in the mid-70s, were big on the New York disco scene, and reformed for this one tune in the early 80s. The famous members were producer Greg Carmichael, keyboardist Patrick Adams and songwriter Leroy Burgess. This mix is by John Morales and is contemporary with the song's initial release.

Labels: music, weekly mp3

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