Robomanticism

Edinburgh Art/Music collective FOUND unveiled their emo-robot band creation, Cybraphon at the open of NewMedia Scotland's Edinburgh Art Festival exhibition at the InSpace gallery yesterday.

Cybraphon embodies the type of new-old-new aesthetic I was talking about previously. "Cybraphon consists of a number of instruments, antique machinery, and found objects from junk shops operated by over 60 robotic components, all housed in a modified wardrobe" (although the majority of Cybraphon's functions run off custom software). For the how, go here. The why, go here. It reminds me a little of Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller's "Opera for a Small Room" that was exhibited last year.

Cybraphon is resolutely modern too, being obsessed with social networking and the web, to such a degree that its prowess and popularity online impacts on its emotional state, which in turn has an effect on the music it composes. There are rumours that Richie Hawtin consulted with Cybraphon on Myspace and stole some of its ideas in surveying fans about what they'd like the return of Plastikman to look like.

Cybraphon, like many others, is naturally livid with Hawtin. Not because he stole his idea but because Cybraphon only sees the online component of its existence as informing rather than directing its practice as an artist.

There's a face off between FOUND and Cybraphon next week, unfortunately the website is saying it's sold out. Hopefully Cybraphon will notice I've written about it and grant me some sort of special robo-guestie.

We're jammin'

As the weekend approaches I wearily notice I haven't updated this in an age.

Work is the curse of the discursive classes. Or some old winsome guff like that.

Any road. This week is the last chance Edinburgh residents will get the chance to check out the unmissable Francesca Woodman retrospective. Anyone who doesn't bother to do so is on the shit list forever. Or at least goes into the book as a philistine who chose not to take a rare opportunity to gawp at a distinctive and unnerving body of work by a fascinating and obviously uniquely talented photographer.

There's some great background information and online galleries at the Ingleby site for those of you who can't make it along but it's well worth the trip. There's a limnal, haunted melancholy to Woodman's work, the circumstances of her death (by suicide, aged 22) amplifying the already creepy and disturbing erasions and distortions in the pictures- it's absolutely incredible to think that many of the earlier pictures featured in this exhibition were taken by Woodman when she was (by my calculation) only 13 or 14. This poignancy is heightened by the knowledge that few prints saw the light of day during Woodman's lifetime.

The exhibition coincides with a smaller collection of Woodman's work in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art as part of the Artists Rooms series.

The experience of being in the Ingleby pristine, quiet, sun-drenched gallery is slightly disconcerting as the building previously housed Edinburgh's legendary dark, sweat and booze encrusted "Venue".

Anyway. Event of the weekend is the Firecracker night at Jam the Box in GRV.

Local friendly vinyl pusher Fudge Fingas goes back to back with Linkwood Family member House of Traps in a three hour vinyl pile-up. Hopefully it'll whet appetites for the forthcoming Disco 3k weekender in Croatia.

Deviants may want to check the bizarro burlesque bacchanal Confusion is Sex tonight with FriendOfClom Kris Wasabi playing bangers in the main room after Gutter Klinik, a band "specialising in gayer-than-cum-on-a-moustache pop". Indeed.

I'm tempted but I'm a one-night a weekend man this weather.

More to come soon, I promise, including something about all these fuds who've retrospectively decided they never liked Sonic Youth because they were never really a band anyway more a late-capitalist curatorial project enslaving us all in some sort of po-mo whorl of tasteful countercultural signifiers until you just can't tell what's properly avant-garde anymore! Or you can obviously, and do, with a side order of obfuscatory dialectical mince.

Waxy treats.

Things that are making my life worthwhile.

Nacho Patrol- Futuristic Abeba- Danny "Legowelt" Wolfers' new album is getting a lot of attention and i'm looking forward to checking it out but this, his second release as Nacho Patrol, is a surprising beautiful slice of african influenced, organ-soaked joy. Everything is so organic, summery, warm and delicious. Quite different to last years spiky imaginary soundtrack "The Maze of Violence" (a record my wife forbids me from playing when we have company round!).

Juju and Jordash- Dekmental 001 12"- Dutch producers first release on their own new label. Great, bit more driving than usual but retains the interdimensional galaxian feel that they always bring to the table. The end of "Super Blue Meanies" stopped me in my tracks when the lads in Underground Solushn played this when I asked for it. Made me go immediately to Levon Vincent's "Six Figures" from earlier in the year. Lerosa remix on the b-side is a loping dubbed out treat too. Online mixes provide a superb introduction to their sound, a rich, varied no-boundaries style that i can't get enough of.

Hieroglyphic Being- So much noise 2 be heard- Impeccable future machine jazz. Geniunely mindboggling emotion and feel from pretty much everything on these two 12"s. Hard to classify, there are just so many ideas. Everything feels so, so, so right. Sensational in every sense of the word. Checked out the Les Aeroplanes 12" on Mathematics that's getting a lot of attention just now. It's also very good but times is hard and I had to leave it.

Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics- Inspiration Information- Was really looking forward to this and not disappointed. Saw Heiliocentrics live a few years ago at Headspin and was really impressed with the way they manage to keep it weird as all hell and so tight at the same time. Reminds me a little of the underrated Up Bustle and Out when they went to Cuba and really opened up their sound but there is a lot more depth and experimentation here. I always get the sense that UB&O were never given the credit due to them, especially for the slightly demented feel of their later, live sessiony stuff. Mulatu Astatke is a complete legend, there's a nice piece on him (and further stuff about Soundway, Strut and Analog Africa) here.

Banda los hijos de la nina luz- Dejala Corre/El Sapo/Crees Que Soy Sexy- Demented Afro/Latin medely version of If you think I'm sexy on Soundway 7". Woot!

Dirty Deeds Done Dead Cheap

Amazing stuff here with an inventor/creator/mad genius making an instrument a day for a month. There are so many great ideas here, the best/most useful design is probably the mobius strip but i think the garden turntable (pictured) is the barkingest, most wonderful thing I've seen this year! Photos, videos, sound samples; follow the link.


This was a part of a wider "Thing-a-day" project where people made one item per day for the entire month of February, the kind of thing that makes me feel phenomenally lazy.

Seen on and stolen from AudioLemon.

A square peg in a round (k) hole

The seemingly endless theoretical wrangling over the existence and extent of the fabled "Hardcore Continuum" reaches something approaching a tabloid bunfight today as noted theory gonk, Simon Reynolds (someone for whom the existence of the HC represents a something of a meal ticket) kicked wonky to the HC curb for ideological heresy.
The crime? Not fitting neatly with Reynolds' thesis and key producers rejecting Reynolds' analysis (and possibly implying that he's, like totally old). What emerges from this little narrative can be summarised thus:

Reynolds

doesn't really like wonky. He can't dance to it. It's influenced by musics outside those universally decreed to be part of the HC "canon". Some people might take Ketamine at dances. It smells. Luke Vibert probably did it first. It involves producers from outside London engaging with a broader community, enabled by the internet. There are no 'zines. Or if there are the 'zine authors are insufficently conversant with Marxist theory and refuse to engage with an overwrought dialectical style birthed by hip young journalistic gunslingers in early 90's London.

Heaven forfend! The struggle for the discursive high-ground regarding wonky fails to see the energy, invention and excitement in that "scene" at the moment.It seems Reynolds would prefer if the major players conformed more to geographical or ideological boundaries, he seeks to

compare/contrast it with sounds that have a more philosophical basis. He doesn't seem to want them running around, hanging out, collaborating and learning from producers from all over the world. It's disappointing that a writer, who professes allegiance to the energy, anarchy and vitality of hardcore seems so intent on decrying ideological heresy among young producers.

I like Reynolds' writing, he's written some superb analyses of significant recent music history. But there are limitations to how far you can apply theory to reality. Throughout the history of dance musics there has been a "folk" element to certain scenes, locality and the sense of community that's formed through friendships and going to the same parties, listening to the same records, hanging out in the same pubs all contribute to productions.

Disco in 1970's New York was a diverse genre with certain clubs forging a distinct musical identity. From this chaos history is made, certain records were deemed "Garage" records, certain ones "Loft", certain ones "Studio". The Glaswegian Numbers crew are clearly influenced by Dopplereffekt and other US musics, undoubtedly through the Club 69/Rub a Dub crew. This is its own continuum, one that doesn't begin and end at the Watford Gap.

The Scottish Hardcore continuum (if such a thing even exists) is a significantly different beast (and has a different legacy) to that of, say Ireland. Through donning the straitjacket of Reynolds' theory we only see part of the picture, and one that is possibly seen through the rosy tinted specs of hindsight.

In a recent post, ISM's Pipecock really articulates the excitement of discovery, the simple joy of playing, listening to and losing your mind to records; looking to a musical continuum that isn't theoretical, one that's personal, that's formed through friends, great parties and just fucking doing it without fully understanding it.

One that "inspired damn near everyone I know to go buy record by cats like Drexciya and Basic Channel and start throwing them in the mix with any old funky electronic shit we could find."

Amen to that.

So much, so little

Apologies for lack of action in recent weeks. My work life has taken a turn for the hectic. In all a good thing, but exhausting.

Hoping to get some time over the weekend to write up a few things.

In the meantime here's a haul of some recent, thoroughly irresponsible purchases.

STL- 51 North (Something): Gold. Absolute gold. Insistent, hypnotic, mysterious house music. This completely transports you without seeming to actually go anywhere. Was looking to get some STL having heard the name discussed in end-of-year discussions. Was buying the doublepack and my local record dealer told me to take this too. Gorgeous. To such an extent I sent an incoherent gushing and obviously drunken email to all the staff at the record shop about how much I loved it. So now.

Zomby- Rumours and Revelations (Brainmath): The usual high quality from someone who's going to be huge next year. I'm very, very annoyed that I couldn't find a copy of "Liquid Dancehall" earlier on this year. Eagerly awaiting spending more of my dwindling funds on Hyperdub 16.

$tinkworks- Coelacaenth (strange life records): *Blub*. This record makes me feel funny.

Mikkel Metal- Peaks and Troughs ep (part3) (Echocord): Bought the last one for the Pole remix. And this for Mike Huckaby. Beautiful stuff,

DJ Stingray- Aqua Team 2 (WeMe records): Don't really know what to say about this yet. The usual Drexcian malarkey but I think records like this give up their secrets slowly. Or something. *Update* This is superb. The second record has a stateliness and poise that's all too rare these days. Like being in a deserted church at midnight. For fans of Tri-Repetae period Autechre.

Reggie Dokes- Rain Redemptive Love EP (Philpot): Class. Bought as a few people on InfiniteStateMachine were boosting it as one of the tracks of this or any year. They're not wrong. All three tracks are superb.

Moodymann- KDJ23: I've passed over this record loads of times thinking "Nah, I'll just get it some other time". Having missed out on a couple of beauties this year I decided not to leave it to chance. The bells on A1 remind me of being surrounded by pealing bells while walking through a park.

Peverelist- Clunk, Click, Every Trip (Punch Drunk): Sweet. Yet more goodness from Punch Drunk high heid yin, Peverelist. Serious Underground Resistance business going on here. A sister piece to his Shackleton remix earlier from this year. And he released Gemmy's fantastic "Bk 2 the future". Is there nothing the man can't do?

I'm off to the Giant Tank/Missing Twin Christmas Party tonight for some Usurper/Muscletusk insanity and the drinking of strong beer.

~Scape sound

Thanks to everyone who came down to the Voodoo Rooms last night.


Great turnout for a Monday night. TR I/O FON were absolutely fantastic, scrambling brains with scattergun clatter early doors. Inspired me to pull out Autechre's Envane EP to follow up.


Played Donnacha Costello's newie too before Araya followed on with a gorgeous set of bright shiny shimmer. Really looking forward to forthcoming releases. Then a few more tunes, Photek's 2 sword technique giving way to Peverelist's awesome remix of Shackleton on ~scape, those technoey kicks sounded brilliant over the Voodoo's sound system.

Then Pole came on and flattened everyone with a great set, starting with his rework of Shackleton's Shortwave and blasting through some Steingarten goodies and the forthcoming 12" "Alles Gut/Alles Klar". A great set from an absolute gent that neatly dispelled the notion that Betke's music is all about the sound design, really physical and great fun. Dancing amongst Edinburgh audiences is as rare as hens teeth and it was nice to see the floor moving!

Superb photos of the night by William Stark.

Pole, Dancing

Exciting weekend coming up, between going out to see Prins Thomas at Ultragroove for Kris Wasabi's birthday and then playing records between the acts at Pole in the Voodoo Rooms on Monday.

Support on the night from Benbecula's Araya as well as dub techno trio TR-I/O-FON. I've never heard of them but if there's a phrase that gives me a warm tingly feeling just saying the fucking words it's "dub techno trio" so get there on time.

Your ticket also entitles you to go along to Pole's production workshop at 2pm in Alison House at the University of Edinburgh.

On sale in Ripping, Underground Solushun and for our wild western buddies Rub a Dub and Monorail.

Thanks to Gav for asking me to do this, I'm a big fan of Betke and his superb ~scape label.

My love is like a Red Nord Lead.

Today is Notional Poetry Day.

I was going to celebrate this by inflicting a poem on readers.
Then I got lazy, and couldn't manage to squeeze anything out.
So, as some sort of consolation here's some poetry-related malarkey.

Don Paterson wins award with poem about Georgian electronic musician.

Colour me seriously conflicted.
I love Paterson's work.
I also love obscure electronic music.
But this entire article makes me queasy.

There are excerpts from the poem at the end of the article.
Copy & paste them into a more forgiving viewer to read them if you must.

I'm not entirely sure this is the best introduction to his work.
Get Landing Light, Gods Gift to Women, or, if poetry isn't your thing dive into the Book of Shadows and giggle wickedly to yourself late at night over too much booze.

Skittery Jittery

Thanks to Gavros for booking me to do a wee dj support slot for crackly German dub hero and ~scape records founder, Pole in the Voodoo Rooms on Monday 3rd November.

I'm a bit nervous about this because I'm not really a "DJ" dj, it's been a good 4 years since I've played in public!

Expect dub, of the -trad, -techno and -step variety along with a raft of dated electronics and disembodied grumbling.

If you're in Edinburgh come on down, it should be a belter.
Betke is giving a talk in Edinburgh University (Alison House) on the afternoon, entry included on your ticket (which you can buy from Gav at Ripping Records or the other Gav at Underground Solushn').

Proper support from Araya fresh from his great live set at the recent Benbecula label showcase.

Droids, Slugs, Riddims.

The wearie-curated Blogariddims series is coming to an end, the second last installment is just up.

Droid and Slug joining the dots between todays fractured dubby electronic output and a previous pulse of fractured dubby electronic output.

Just get along and get listening.

"Krib" off Autechre's Cichlisuite EP retains to power to alter my reality.

When the cat's away...

...the mouse will go through to the Weej, buy records and go to gigs.

With the wife back in ireland this weekend I toddled across to Glasgow on Saturday for some record buying and gig going.

Started at Rub a Dub and spent a lovely hour going through a big stack of vinyl. Made some good purchases and heard probably the worst house track I've ever come across in my life. Was interested in hearing it as it's very early and thought it might be worth investigating. Enormous mistake. The years have not been kind to this forgotten slice of House history. Maybe I'm missing something here but it was disappointing.

Ended up picking up some good new stuff there and the staff at Rub A Dub are dead friendly and helpful.

New purchases include:
MLZ- Crossed Swords (Modern Love)
Nubian Minds- Africa Man EP (Delsin)
Gescom- A1/B1 (Skam)
Shackleton- Death is not final (Skull Disco)
Deep Chord- Coldest Season EP2 (Modern Love)
Dubbyman- Dubtroit EP (Deep Explorer)
nsi.-Non standard institut (Cadenza)

Pretty varied stuff there- I'm most happy with the nsi. and nubian minds releases- both are really up my street. I love the bonkers satie-esque piano sounds on the nsi.

Then it was on to Monorail where my pal wanted to pick up an import CD of Japanese Geniuses/Idiots Afrirampo. I saw them live a few years ago and they were fantastic- a really fun witty show by two absolutely amazing musicians. While I was there I found myself idly browsing through the racks and couldn't resist picking up remixes of Delia & Gavin Russom "Revelee" and the new LCD Soundsystem 12" "Confuse the marketplace". I'd promised myself I'd buy these for a while, largely for the Carl Craig remix on the former and "Hippie Priest Bum-Out" on the latter. There's a really good dubby remix of "North American Scum" on Confuse the Marketplace too. I also bought a couple of 7"s because they were conveniently located on top of the cashdesk. I can't help myself sometimes, especially on the weekend of payday and I'm off on my own with no-one to rein in my excesses.

With the record buying part of the mission over it was on to the gigs...

Started with Monade at Nice n Sleazys. This is a side project for Stereolab's Laetitia Sadlier and some of her pals. Support was from the Phantom Band. I wasn't overly impressed with the Phantom Band, they were ok but tracks meandered on trying to take in lots of ideas and influences without really going anywhere. Suggestions of Neu, Gram Parsons, David Kitt and Sunburned Hand of the Man. Which unfortunately promised more than it delivered. Maybe it was just one of those evenings and they're actually fantastic.

Monade came on around ten and played for an hour. They're not enormously different in sound and tone to the poppier end of the Stereolab spectrum. They reminded me a little of Deerhoof but loungier. Loungehoof so to speak. The deerhoof similarity comes largely from the fact that a lot of the songs feature radical time and key changes which gives a real sense of dynamism and spring to some of the songs. Everything was beautifully balanced with Marie Merlet and Sadlier harmonising sweetly along to spirals of choppy guitar and neat tones from Nicolas Etienne's keys. The last few numbers, from new album Monstre Cosmic were really good despite the crowd seeming quite distracted. You hear a lot of guff about Glasgow crowds being more up for it than boring old tweedy Edinburgh. Tonight wasn't one of those nights with people standing around chatting rather than really engaging with the band at all which was a pity, because Monade are a fantastic grown-up dreamy pop band that doesn't need to hide behind sexy design and arch theatricality.

Then it was off to the Art School for Numbers birthday party and Autechre in all their live glory. I'm an Autechre nerd and have been throughout their many incarnations so i was very excited about this. A charge often levelled at Booth and Brown is that their music is too "cerebral"- I've always taken issue with this, yes the later records from LP5 through to Untilted have been quite process-heavy and contain tracks that require repeated listens to unpick their secrets but Autechre in concert have always been an exhilarating and eminently danceable prospect.

SND started the night off and were diverting for a while. I prefer the whole glitchy thing on record a lot more than i do live. Although I did have a bit of a boogie to a couple of the more funky electro moments. Then we were treated to Skam head honcho Rob Hall lashing out a scatter of clatter which seemed to warm up the crowd a little. There was little of Glasgow's fabled ambience here either- although I did meet one cheeky wee west coast headcase who was completely out of his knackers with his t-shirt tied around his head well before midnight. I love these guys. Particularly at gigs like this where everyone's got their big serious faces on.

By the time Autechre came on the room was pretty full but strangely there wasn't a huge amount of movement from the crowd with the majority of people content to just stand about. This is surprising because straight from the outset Autechre seemed determined to get people dancing. The hour and a half live show used much of the source material from Quaristice but put it through the distinctive Autechre live blender- everything is slightly hectic, twitchy but still distinctively rhythmic. We were even treated to a rare suggestion of humanity with actual human voices breaking through the clattering storm of breakbeats on Quaristice's "IO". What a bunch of sellouts! The insistence amongst critics of Autechre's post-Tri repetae material that it's too cerebral but in the live arena Autechre completely destroy this notion- on this tour it appears they're casting off the mythical stereotypes of them as unsmiling mad-professors running their equipment for days and inventing their own software to generate the music from nothing. This is Autechre in more relaxed form and enjoying the live environment- to which their music is better suited than people seem to assume.
This was what they did from the outset; the material has always approprated elements of dance music before scrambling it out of shape then pulling it all back together again. Live versions of "Perlence", the dark digital hip-hop of "Rale" and particularly the chiming musicbox chords of "Simmm" from the new album have echoes of older material like Envane, Cichlisuite and Chiastic Slide. It's interesting that Autechre critics who decried their move away from the original sound are now the ones who are down on the new albums conservatism. Basically Autechre are caught between a rock and a hard place, unable to make all their fans happy all the time and therefore deciding to please themselves. Listening to them tear their way through a rumbling version of the dubby "90101 51 1" you'd need a heart of stone not to smile and get that ass bouncing. (Update: There was an interview with Autechre on the (gawk)Today Programme which covered their gig at a car park in London. A lot of overintellectualising from the journos but the punters seem to have enjoyed themselves. Still, at least the Beeb journalists made an attempt to engage with the music unlike Dave Simpson's mean spirited Guardian gripes.)

Following on from a discussion about men and women dancing in clubs over at House is a Feeling I was inspired to make a random headcount of the split. The stereotype does have some basis in reality as there was a hefty 70:30 split in favour of the boys. I have extensive data on the ubiquity of square spectacles and architectural t-shirts that are available on request. Despite conforming to all the sneering demographic stereotypes about an IDM/Glitch night by the time Autechre had hit their stride there were at least some people (of both sexes) interested in getting down. In fact, the area in front of the stage the split was down to about 50:50. Unscientific it may be but it seems the dancefloor, heady as it may have been was where the majority of the ladies appeared to be. What does this mean, probably that women would prefer to dance in a club than sit around trying to figure out how the music is being made.

It's been 16 years since I'd first seen Laetitia Sadlier and 12 since I first saw Autechre. Time passes so quickly! Both Autechre and Sadlier have been around a while and amassed a phenomenal body of work, it's encouraging to discover that neither seem to be stepping off the gas in terms of developing new ideas and new ways of working.

Then Rob Hall was back on with more clattering acid before a brief stop off in the bar for an ill-advised last pint and a bit of a boogie to the Castaways "Liar Liar" before taking to the insanely windy streets of Glasgow.

I am now looking down the barrel of a very lean month during which i will eat nothing Spaghetti Hoops on toast.