Utility Fog

Playlist 26.04.26


Listen Later

Jungle turning up in the darndest places tonight, as is… saxophone? Jazz stretched to its limits, and electronica during wartime…

LISTEN AGAIN in the darndest places – stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here.

Butthole Surfers – Imbuya [Sunset Blvd]

Never thought I’d be playing Butthole Surfers on Utility Fog. Not that they weren’t an impeccably experimental punk/noise band in their earlier days. Not that Gibby Haines didn’t do the greatest impromptu guest spot ever on Ministry’s “Jesus Built My Hotrod“. Not that “Pepper” isn’t a classic ’90s alt.rock/trip-hop crossover hit. But still, they haven’t been active for a long while, so it’s altogether a surprise that they’ve decided to release their “long lost” follow-up to Electric Larryland, the album that featured “Pepper”. For various reasons – label shenanigans etc – it wasn’t released in the form they wanted, with some songs reworked on the eventual next album Weird Revolution. Fans have known about The Last Astronaut, and heard leaked copies for decades, but now we’re getting it proper-like, and whaddayaknow, the second song they give us is alt rock/industrial punk with amen breaks, because jungle will never die. The break gets pretty nicely tweaked in the middle 8, while the guitar chugs along like a sped-up track from that Ministry album.

Picastro – Fell The Family Tree [We Are Busy Bodies/Bandcamp]

Liz Hysen’s band Picastro has been going for a very long time – since 1998 – with a changeable lineup that’s usually left-of-centre, featuring viola or cello (Hysen herself plays violin), with various luminaries of the Toronto scene involved, including Owen Pallett and Nick Storring. Hysen’s songs are often dark & creepy, often uncomfortably intimate, and the strings may be used atonally as often as they’re beautiful. It’s true to say that while every Picastro song sounds like Picastro, every Picastro album is different, and their forthcoming Double On Time may be more electronic, based on this lovely – and yes, creepy – first single “Fell The Family Tree”. Notable for us here at Utility Fog, the album is co-produced by Tim Condon of Fresh Snow, whose debut as Mirrored Silver Sea was a UFog fave in 2008, and who moved from Melbourne to Toronto not long after it was released. It’s great to hear his many contributions here alongside Liz Hysen’s singular vision.

Carl Gari – Swim feat. Polygonia [Molten Moods/Bandcamp]

Most of us know German band Carl Gari from their incredibly strong albums made with Egyptian singer/trumpeter/poet/composer Abdullah Miniawy, on AD93 and Amphibian Records. Between those two releases, the band & singer released a live album on Molten Moods, and it’s to that label that Carl Gari now return for their self-titled album, forthcoming in June. This choppy beats of the second single are joined by multi-tracked vocals from Munich-based Polygonia, herself a producer of bass & other dancefloor music.

james K – On God (Roza Terenzi Remix) [AD93/Bandcamp]

Following her vaporwave-trip-hop album Friend from last year, james K now reaches out for some heavy-duty Friends to remix the album. Roza Terenzi is Katie Campbell, originally from Perth, then Melbourne, now Europe, also one third of trip-hop band trickpony. She takes the jangly indie song “On God” and dubs it out with vocal delays and chunkier beats – one of the best remixes of the set.

Lyra Pramuk – Ending (Djrum Endless Rework) [7K/Bandcamp]

The remix has in a sense always been at the heart of the work of operatically & classically-trained composer & producer Lyra Pramuk, whether it’s sampling and processing her own voice, or commissioning huge remix compilations as on 2021’s Delta. Last year she started her own label pop.soil, but simultaneously joined 7K (!K7‘s classical/ambient imprint that they’re back-referencing as 7Klassik), releasing the beautiful Hymnal in June. In June this year comes Hymnal (Resung), in which her voice and the strings of Sonar Quartett are remixed by seven of her colleagues – and who better than the classical-tuned beatmaster Djrum as the first to be released?

dgoHn – I Couldn’t Remember So I Made Something Up [Planet µ/Bandcamp]

Here are two tastes that sure go well together – the first release by drumfunk genius dgoHn (aka John Cunnane) on Planet µ! All signs point to Tessares being vintage dgoHn, with the melodic focus of label boss µ-Ziq – and dgoHn did have an album with Macc on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label (digital available here), so IDM isn’t exactly foreign to his style of drum’n’bass. I’m certain this will be a joy.

SPECIAL REQUEST – Uncanny Valley (gyrofield remix) [Timedance/Bandcamp]

When techno/tech house mainstay Paul Woolford unveiled his Special Request alter ego in 2012 with a series of 12″s and remixes, it was revolutionary not just for Woolford but for the nascent jungle revival, representing a new take on the ’90s jungle revolution, and pre-empting the still-current jungle revival by at least a couple of years (well it depends how you count it – Sully’s Blue double EP was 2014, despite the Bandcamp date). As you know, Woolford has used Special Request for all music of the hardcore continuum by now, but for Batu’s Timedance he’s dropped a piece of hardcoreish drum’n’bass. It’s backed by two remixes: Metrist‘s bass heavy slow-fast take and gyrofield‘s more abstracted weird-jungle. Weird dancefloors unite!

los pulpitos – ii ii ii [Crammed Discs/Bandcamp]

los pulpitos – Archipelago [Crammed Discs/Bandcamp]
Since the early ’80s Belgian label Crammed Discs has been the home for postpunk and world music of all sorts as well as quite a lot of electronica. Techno & electronica producer Dirk Leyers here teams up with Felipe Salmon of Peruvian duo Dengue Dengue Dengue under the name los pulpitos (the little octopuses). Their debut EP Octopean Union from last year was a lovely piece of underwater electronica, combining techno & acid vibes with friendly drum’n’bass/jungle and those South & Central American percussive forms that Dengue Dengue Dengue nurtured. The new album Tentacletek is similarly-formed and both are absolutely lovely, just the right combo of dreamy & danceable.

Appleblim – Thunderstorm [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp]

Laurie Osborne as Appleblim was a key figure in the outward dissemination of dubstep with the Skull Disco label he ran with Sam Shackleton, twisting dubstep’s template to include technoid rhythms. Since then both artists’ oeuvres have turned sideways into other realms, but Appleblim’s always cleaved closer to the dancefloor. Here he’s joined with Sneaker Social Club for a third time, with melodic, hardware-driven rave tracks that float somewhere between drum’n’bass, 2-step, dubstep, weightless and some kind of acidic disco. Always brilliant.

Rob Smith – Revolve (feat Tony Wrafter) [RSD Bandcamp]

Here’s an unusual project for Rob Smith of Bristol trip-hop originals Smith & Mighty and junglists More Rockers. As RSD, Smith has also made forays into dubstep, indeed since early in the genre’s nascence, as well as dub more broadly. The makers of the underground film Urtobēn – Vienna’s illegal Artforms (more about graffiti and parkour activities than music itself) clearly felt RSD’s urban music styles suited the film’s aesthetic, and now he’s released the soundtrack on his Bandcamp, with tracks from many of his projects and a few fellow travellers. The previously-unreleased (I think!) jungle track I played tonight features trumpeter Tony Wrafter, a longtime Smith & Mighty fellow traveller, who’s also worked a lot with the On-U Sound stable.

Ital Tek – Kill Switch [Planet µ/Bandcamp]

I first played Alan Myson’s music as Ital Tek in 2007, pretty early in the dubstep’s expansion out from East London. He’d made a bit of breakcore/IDM before this, but his dubstep was quickly picked up by Mike Paradinas’ Planet µ, with all four tracks on the Blood Line EP certified bangers. He moved into a more purple phase, and via various other styles – some more ambient, some more industrial – we arrive at Mind Abandon. Here Myson is taking a bit more of a hardware approach, and again is mixing ambient with some more post-industrial expression, not exactly IDM or dubstep but not entirely separate either – especially the track I played tonight goes from punishing industrial bass into cyberpunk ambient synthesis. I’ve found for years now that Ital Tek albums don’t initially grab me, then I come back to them after a bit and I’m like What? This is fucking great. And yeah, this is great. An underrated talent, honestly.

Jensen Interceptor – Flux Entrance [Peder Mannerfelt Produktion]

Sydney-born producer Jensen Interceptor now finds himself based in Stockholm, so it makes sense that his last couple of EPs have been released by Pedder Mannerfelt‘s Produktion. Synthetic Seduction is definitely “future bass”, aimed squarely at the dancefloor; straightforward enough, but melodic and super bouncy.

Rodja – Ajam (Version) [XCPT/Bandcamp]

Pietro De Ruggieri is a producer from Mantera in Italy, releasing music as Rodja, which suggests a particularly Aussie pronunciation of “Rodger”, but presumably isn’t. De Ruggieri has spent some time in Tehran, and some of the music on his new album Third Force was produced there. It’s a phenomenal set of dub techno and other dubby bass music, with slippery production but emphatic beats, beautifully textured. Recommended.

Paperclip Minimiser – TT A1 [Blank Mind/Bandcamp]

Speaking of pitch-perfect updated dub techno, John Howes’ Paperclip Minimiser has the goods. This is far more ascetic than Rodja, a sound that will be familiar if you checked out Howes’ second album on Peak Oil a few weeks ago. Brilliant.

Ptastvo – Bowls With Souls [I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free/Bandcamp]

Ukrainian label I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free (based, with its progenitors, in Berlin since Russia’s war) here brings an album from Volodymyr Ponikarovskyi aka Ptastvo, who uses found sounds along with electronics and musical instruments to evoke the feeling of imbalance and the heightened emotions of living in wartime. It’s impressively varied music, and even at its most electro-acoustic (e.g. the literal metal bowls sampled on “Bowls With Souls”) it retains a connection to dance music, or at least music with beats. Quite an epic journey, one to listen to on a nighttime drive perhaps – or lie back and listen on headphones wherever you are.

Bobby Ingham – Easy Mush [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp]

Bobby Ingham – I Feel So Good I Swear I Could Fly [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp]
On Angel of the North, released on Low End Activist‘s Sneaker Social Club, Leeds-born interdisciplinary artist Bobby Ingham echoes the label boss’s excavation of his Oxford council estate origins, featuring Ingham’s grandmother and Ingham’s own spoken word, with spookily discordant synths and fragmented rhythms tracing a skeleton of UK bass music, from grime to r’n’b-laced trip-hop.

Berndt / Schmidt – Gecko Lazzaro [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp]

Drew Daniel, one half of Matmos, is quite prolific outside of the beloved duo, with a varied solo career as The Soft Pink Truth as well as various collaborations. It’s less common to hear solo or other non-Matmos music from Drew’s partner Martin M.C. Schmidt, so the new album Cloud Machines, which finds Schmidt working with Baltimore experimental mainstay John Berndt, should make us sit up and listen. The humour and weirdness of Matmos is very much present, but its exploratory sound – from the first couple of singles – takes in Krautrock studio experimentation, postpunk out-rock and any other leftfield musical non-traditions.

Harrington, Jaffe, Shiroishi – FRACTAL HASH [AKP Recordings/Bandcamp]

Via LA label AKP Recordings, Making Colors is the second improvised wonder from three talented musicians who work comfortably across genres. Dave Harrington may be best known for his collaboration with Nicolas Jaar, Darkside, Max Jaffe for the art rock/avant-pop of JOBS and drumming in Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones, and Patrick Shiroishi for his solo saxophone & sound-art as well as hardcore punks The Armed, contemporary music ensemble Wild Up and much more. This spontaneous music can sound like postrock at one time, then free jazz or psychedelic noise, or ambient, all filtered through electronic processing. Rad.

Adam Schatz – A Voice Screaming All Aboard (feat. Carmen Quill) [Jealous Butcher Records/Bandcamp]

Speaking of jazzers in smudged genres, Adam Schatz is a saxophonist and keyboard player who’s played with prominent indie artists like Japanese Breakfast, This Is The Kit and many others, and his Civil Engineering Vol. 1 is an enjoyable selection of melodic jazz made even better with the double bass of Carmen Quill on most tracks, and Dawn of Midi drummer Qasim Naqvi on a couple too.

Purelink & Rainy Miller – Barrons Hotel (I, To, Thee.) [Fixed Abode]

Arriving with no fanfare or explanation is this 2-tracker from Manchester producer/singer/iconoclast Rainy Miller, on his Fixed Abode imprint, collaborating with US electronica trio Purelink. Gorgeous smeared electronics with Rainy Miller’s typically morose, yet cutting, work.

Listen again — ~222MB

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Utility FogBy Peter Hollo


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