Glossata - Moss & Ivory (2014)

Emily Griffiths, who made some killer dub techno under the name Alteria Percepsyne and then branched out into her own style under the Glossata moniker, is back with a new release that just dropped in my email a few minutes ago. The cover reminds has an Asian ghost film vibe (think 'Ringu' or 'The Eye') so I'm really curious to see what she has to say.

A 'Buy It Now' offer, show some real support (with both Echospace and Arms & Sleepers dropping albums, my 'entertainment' expense account has gotten away from me).

Check it out 

HERE

Sunday Morning Acid

Interesting story behind this one. Haven't dug too deep into the samples but it appears that there were some uncredited and unapproved samples used on this. It's since been pulled which is unfortunate since it's quote good.  However, the world being as it is, the album is still out there, forever.

Info

Cleaning Out The Archives

Sometimes albums cross your path that don't really fit into the categories that generally fill your playlist and tracking how they ended up there isn't so easy. Such is the nature of virtual digging. These are some of the albums that I wouldn't normally seek out but have since stood out as unique. As such I recommend all of them. If anything, as was the case with me, these will add some nice flavor to the usual fare.

Great label behind this one. A standout.

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Chilled jazz from a label known mostly for the chilled part.

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Another great label behind this one. A variety of musical styles found around world from an artist out of Europe with a great groove to drive it all.

Info

Discovered this one because of this album.

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Futur​[​e​]​cho 2014

Get it. The music is exponentially better than the hear giveaway price. Free mp3 version will be available Friday but show support if you are able

HERE

If you missed the first three of these comps you missed out. The first volume introduced me to the label and was on non-stop rotation for days. It's still a playlist staple.  It's a 'Name Your Price' offering but the other two are worth every penny.

Futur[e]cho

Futur[e]cho 2

Futur[e]cho 2013

Run by a small indie label (from a small indie musician) run out of Lawrence, Kansas, show some love.

Monday Afternoon Dub

Missed my Sunday Dub this week so here's an attempt to patch that up. Been a bit busy with work and with life in general. Things are happening and changing and life feels as if it's about to veer in a different direction. Hang on for the ride.

DeepWarmth & Textural Being - DW​/​TB: Split EP (2010)

 

This one goes back a ways (I missed it first time around) but this should force you to tap into the depth of releases on this label (currently at 56 with more on the way). Show love and support

HERE

Deep Diversity - Deep Electronics Compilation (2014)

An unfamiliar label which features some familiar names. Name Your Price offering, you know what to do.

Get your dub (techno) on

HERE

SEQUENCE8 - Compilation, Free Download

Amazing, amazing compilations put out by this label. This is number 8.

Unfortunately, it sounds as if this is it for the label:

This is the last edition of our free download compilation series. After 3 years, 310 tracks and 27,000 downloads it felt like the right time to end things. The process of receiving and curating submissions has been at times a mammoth task, but always enjoyable. 

Introducing us to a range of new artists, some of who went on to release individual works with us, SEQUENCE has been integral to the development of Futuresequence into a label. A huge thank you to all the artists who have submitted tracks for each of the albums - those whose appeared and those who didn't. Thanks once again to friends Pascal Savy, Ed Hamilton and Karl McGrath who gave their time and ears to listen to all 200 or so submissions and help curate the final tracklist you see here. 

 Thank you for listening, and supporting us over the past 3 years. We hope you enjoy the album, please do share on your networks, this really does help with its success and brings these artists to new ears.

Tracklist and commentaries along with the download link

HERE 

Don't sleep. There is amazing music still being made.

Dub For Days - Cold Tear Records

Cold Tear Records, run by Girius Dvasios, by far one of the best netlabels on the Web, especially if you are fan of dub techno, has free downloads on all of their releases, including lossless formats, through Wednesday.

I encourage offering up any support you can to allow the music to continue. Somehow, some way, I'd love it if these artists were able to support touring, whether in festival fashion (I envision a beach, or a forest, for some reason) or just in a small venue.

Either way visit the site and look at the amazing offerings of musical treasures available.

Dub on brothers, dub on.

The site is 

HERE

Ondine (1994)

Guaranteed you will not find this anywhere else on the Web and it is something very few people have ever heard. Another exclusive to HTCIS and a pretty cool tale.

In 1994 I had quit a good paying job in the Midwest and, by living on the cheap, saved up a nice fat nest egg and hit the road. Stayed with friends, hit the Youth Hostel trail and camped both in National Parks and basically anywhere I found space out under the open skies.

Too many stories to tell, too many drugs and way too much existential angst (though I had the epiphany of all epiphanies at the top of Yosemite Falls, a true "before and after" moment that changed everything).

Anyhow, I ended up in Seattle. This was right at the apex of the grunge thing. Kurt  Cobain had just died (I was on I-5 on the way down to L.A. when I heard the news). I was over the grunge thing by this time. It had peaked and the word 'alternative' now meant 'popular', its meaning neutered, the sound of suburban kids thinking they were somehow underground. No longer could you count on $1 pants and $.50 shirts at the Goodwill and with grunge 'outfits' going for hundreds of dollars at the mall thrifting had gone brand name. I still blame grunge. 

I would soon stumble across Moby's Move EP and fell headlong into a love affair with electronic music, dove into the burgeoning rave scene, discovered Underworld's "Cowgirl", experienced my first Dead show (and my first acid drop) and a host of other memories emblazoned into my brain if only I could only retrieve the memories. I burst out of the confines of the obligatory rites of passage of youth and into an entirely new universe.

Met some truly great people, all trying to navigate life.  Lots of tales of experiences and discoveries but many such things are better left unspoken.  I have a journal of sorts from that period but it is a whole lot jibberish and cryptic writing that I have yet to interpret. A sign, perhaps, but out of an entire year I think I may have had two rolls of film documenting the journey. Experience doesn't leave much room for photos (which is probably a very good thing).

Enter Ondine. Music is a memory extractor for me and this one pulled some of those memories out. I lived with these guys for a while until I became a burden crashing on their floor pretty much baked all the time. But I got to see the 'inside' of the Seattle music scene and the making of a band with all its highs and lows and just how incredibly difficult it is to knit together four personalities, all with different motives, to create music. Saw them many times live which was pretty cool from rehearsal to the stage and the excitement surrounding this CD release.

It is definitely not grunge, don't worry. There is an 'artistic' flare to the music but it is really quite solid and they do have a sound that is their own. They attracted a small following during my stay in Seattle but, as often happens, they seem to have disappeared as a band a short time thereafter. 

I have had a cassette copy of this since that time and have periodically pulled it over the years and had lately been considering ripping it to digital just to preserve it. Imagine my surprise when I found a copy on an auction site. Snagged it immediately and it arrived today.

I've been checking out the names of those involved to see how they ended up once the music was over and smiled as I browsed the Web. No pangs of regret, no illusions of what that period of time was, just grateful for the experiences and the people I was so privileged to meet.

So, for your pleasure, check it out 

HERE

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For Ex-Covers Only

Discovered this on one of the best blogs out there. It was a Jesus and Mary track on here that took me back to that time of youthful discovery when alternative meant something but there was a youthfulness to the version here that felt fresh rather than soaking in the rot of wistful nostalgia.

Check out the track list below and dive in. Leave that 'the original was better' pretense behind (as we are all wont to do if we were around for the originals, some over 20 years old) and embrace the songs as if hearing them for the first time.

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Sunday Morning Dub - Ayqix

For your Sunday listening pleasure allow me to introduce Ayqix, an up and coming artist out of Argentina. 

He's got a plethora of releases on his Temiong Recordings label Bandcamp page at a 'Name Your Price' offering and the site also features some other artists on the label including some remixes by him and other of the more well known dub techno artists out there (e.g. Axs, among others).  

His latest one is out and is up for sale (just picked it up this morning). It seems the reality of needing financial support to continue finally hit home so do your thing and give some real support in any way you are able. Most importantly, enjoy the music.

Solid tracks all the way around.

Bandcamp site is

HERE

Projekt Label Sampler 2014

In many ways my life, through music and through this blog, have come full circle. I stumbled across the Projekt label a while ago and have been receiving emails on the status of things in the music world through their lens. Some of the most interesting writings on the subject of labels, music and production and the financial thread that inevitably touches all of it.

The label was founded by black tape for a blue girl (whose Bandcamp page is here) leader Sam Rosenthal in 1983 as a way to release his own solo electronic music. However, it was the sublabels that caught my eye, one in particular: Darkwave. I know the label through TCH's release Sinflower and its association with the Dorobo label which, if you've been here for a while, you know is one of the formative labels in my music trajectory.

I know the name more, however, because he holds a copy of both The Trial: A Musical Reinvention and The Yammouni Files (of which I am actively seeking a physical copy of both). Not sure there's a connection between the two names but there is in my brain. Serendipity, baby.

So there you have it, full circle.

As for the music, take a look at the track list. Steve Roach should be a name familiar to all but definitely take a dive in and discover other artists who are also making some incredible music.

Pay as you wish offering but you know what to do:

HERE

Cut Records - Subscription, Recommended

Looks like a definite winner here. Recommended by our friends at Dub Techno Blog (whose weekly broadcast on Mxlr is highly recommended). Subscription cost is only $1 a month and it will get you each release that comes out (currently a goal of an album a month) from a variety of artists currently featured on the label.

It's beyond reasonable as the cost of making, producing and hosting music online isn't cheap and it certainly isn't free. Help a brother out and show some genuine support, see where it goes.

I currently subscribe to Giriu Dvasios' site as well for $1 a month. As label founder of Cold Tear Records it's a bargain as that label has some of the best musical offerings to be found online.

Info on the Cut Records site and the subscription can be found 

HERE

An interview with label founder DFRNT can be found

HERE

Sunday Morning Dub - Message For Extraterrestials Live (2009)

This compilation is yet another sentimental favorite from 2009, a great introduction to the "new" wave of dub techno pioneers post BC/DC/ES, a sound still looking for expansion.

Out of print and overpriced on the resale market it's here for your pleasure.

Info

P.S. Notice it's not terrestrial, it's terrestial (which I of course noticed too late as I type this). 

And, on an aside, check this video out from Monoaxial. It's posted here because he's on the Area 51 label (from which the comp posted here comes) but also because it's a pretty cool twist on the introductory scene from Pina. All the world's a remix.

Less

Beatless.

Sounds good at 0 mph.

Info

Trust

Pitchfork dissed it far too easily (Pitchfork tends to be a hype machine anyhow). A more telling review is this one:

"[He] has successfully bridged the gap between trance at the dawn of the decade and trance at the end of it. It’s not that this is “Too Good to Be True,” as [suggested]. It’s just about being in the right place at the right time." (Source)

My review: sounds really good at 70 mph.

Info

Claire Wieck (2014)

You will love this. Infectious.

'Name Your Price' offering but you know what to do.

Enjoy

Sunday Dub - Dub Techno Blog Live, Mixlr

For your Sunday pleasure, allow me to introduce Dub Techno Blog Live on Mixlr.

Last week's mix can be found here:

 

You can download it here.

Check in every Sunday at 8 PM GMT at Mixlr for an hour's worth of dub techno here:

Dub Techno Blog Live

I'm pretty sure you don't have to sign up to listen but you'll need to sign up/log in via Mixlr or FB to post but it's a nice hour's worth of discovering some dub techno (and other styles) in one sitting.

Show some love and enjoy.

P.S. Convert your time zone here.

Electronic Explorations - Ike Yard

The DJ mix has become ubiquitous and wading through the universe of mixes leads to a certain blandness and sameness as DJs often share the same tracks amongst themselves, especially when you are into a certain genre and come across mix after mix of the same tracks reused like one gigantic universal DJ mix that becomes the air you breathe.

That being said, occasionally a mix emerges that catches your ear and sends you traversing through a different wormhole. This was one of them.

It's a mix that does an incredibly fluid job of revealing where a certain punk aesthetic and a certain strain of techno aesthetic morph which leads to, on a more singular level, a parallel understanding how a band like Joy Division morphed into New Order. 

The mix runs the gamut from the late 70s to the now and back in a fashion where the whole trip has a timeless element to it. 

Essential.  

You can download it 

HERE

01 - A Certain Ratio: “All Night Party” – [Factory Records, UK 1979]
02 - Les Vampyrettes: “Biomutanten” – [EMI, Germany 1980]
03 - Plastikman: “Ekko” – [NovaMute, UK 1998]
04 - Basic Channel: “Phylyps Trak” – [Basic Channel, Germany 1993]
05 - Sandwell District: “Immolare (Function version)” – [Sandwell District, UK 2011]
06 - Autechre: “Further” – [Warp, UK 1994]
07 - VioletShaped: “cX310” – [Violet Poison, Germany 2013]
08 - Andy Stott: “Expecting” – [Modern Love, UK 2012]
09 - Young Gods: “Percussionne” – [Trance Records (Germany), Switzerland 1987]
10 - Suicide: “Harlem” – [ZE Records (UK), US 1980]
11 - Mars: “3E” – [Rebel Records (France), US 1978]
12 - Pop Group: “3:38” – [Radar Records, UK 1979]
13 - Ike Yard: “Kino” – [Factory America, US 1982]
14 - Aphex Twin: “Schottkey 7th Path” – [R&S Records (Belgium), UK 1992]
15 - British Electric Foundation: “The Decline of the West” – [Virgin Records, UK 1981]
16 - Ike Yard: “Carbon Night” – [Unreleased, US 2013]

Trax

Driving home from work the other day and "B_rn in the _S_" from this comp drops and I'm blown away. That album dropped originally in the summer of my sixteenth year and it was the album of the summer. It wasn't the hit single from the album (that dancing thing, sure he's still kicking himself), it was the other tracks that made that summer memorable as I grew up in a town with a similar feel.

The last album of his that had any resonance was "Gh_st of T_m J_ad" but the politicizing and overall idolatry associated with his name has rendered him and the music but a memory in the annals of my life filed away as relic.

So with that context and twenty plus years later in which that context has morphed, this version really hit that sweet spot and sounded so, so good. There are a few non-memorable versions on here but some of them sound so much better with the extra layers of cynicism that have enabled the sentimentality of the original to take on a new light.

Highly recommended.

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Bats /​/​/ A song for Ukraine by Lights Dim (2014)

Stunning track (and stunning music on their bandcamp site) that caught me by surprise this morning and set the mood rather than fit the mood I was already in.

It's socially aware and was part of a compilation to raise awareness about the situation in Ukraine.

You can get the free download

HERE

The compilation for which it was created is available

HERE

The money earned will be for organizations helping in the unrest. Who says music can't help, even if just a little, change the world?

Dub For A Week - Kyoto Digital

Going to be down for at least a week so I leave you with this special treat for those who don't already have it or for those who only have some of these.

Kyoto Digital was a netlabel based in Denmark with the aim of releasing deep minimal music, where sound aesthetic and function are merged into an entity of hypnotic movement and form. Each release was available for free in 192 kbps mp3 format for a limited period of time. Some of these are available as vbr and 256 but most are 192 kbps. Would be great if there were a re-issue of these in higher bit rates.

This is a testament to some early releases in the "new" wave of dub techno artists that emerged out of the shadows of the Basic Channel and Deepchord/Echospace template circa 2004 to 2007 when the label closed. It may sound a bit odd but it is a little piece of history including, for example, what I believe is Mr Cloudy's first piece of released music.

For your listening pleasure all 15 are packaged here.

Files

Info

(Numbers 05 through 15 are freely available at archive.org so a special thanks to you know who for the first four in the series)

It appears that Xoki and Hieronymous (along with vocalist Nana Jacobi) have resurrected some semblance of the label as Kyoto Inc. So far they've released three EPs as a series called 'Kolortown'. You can find more info on the label

HERE

Sunday Morning Dub - Crackles

2xCD version of one of the best dub techno records on, well, CD (check out the current sale price on Discogs; part of the impetus for keeping this blog going). 

From the now defunct ZeECc label, a must add to any dub techno mix. Familiar warmth but with a style that follows its own trajectory.

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Trim Silence - Walking On Thin Air (2013)

Great little EP I stumbled across somewhere while virtual digging. A little heavier than my usual fare as of late but it held my attention enough to listen to it in full. Here's the background:

The story is very simple. It's about astronaut who was thrown away in the depths of the cold space. This is the 30 minutes road from the panic and apathy to the dreams of salvation. At the end of his falling the astronaut was burned in the Earth's atmosphere. Fire brings us all closer to our roots.

A variety of styles, a little electronica smattered with some Burial-ish vocals mixed with some instrumental, almost post-rock, space music. Some of those background "mission control" sound effects makes this a nice little trip.

He has a new sampler out in anticipation of a full scale upcoming release which, from the sounds of it, will be a win.

Name Your Price, you know what to do.

Check it

HERE

Conspiracy Theorists Of The World Unite

Get mad, get militant, do something.

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Benefit Compilation for Japan (2011)

"Benefit Compilation For Japan" is dedicated to the victims and survivors of the March 11th Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and to those affected by the ongoing nuclear crisis.

All proceeds from the sale of this compilation will be donated to assist in the rebuilding of peoples lives and the recovery of the devastated areas. The proceeds will be split between the Japanese Red Cross Earthquake Relief Fund and the special accounts set up by the regional governments of the affected areas for the acceptance of monetary donations.

Ok, so this one's a bit old and it isn't the only compilation out there but it's an amazing roster of 76 tracks. Saw a few names I recognize, most I don't. Judging by some of the names, something tells me this is gonna be interesting.

'Name Your Price' offering but give a little bit to help out if you're able

HERE