armchair dance music. i kind of like that. it has a nice
ring to it, and it would allow us to avoid the endless
debate over the "i" word. what are the chances of changing
the list name?
speaking of music, i recently obtained the following titles.
thanks go out to the urbansounds crew for enabling me to hear
a couple of these before committing my hard-earned dollars.
lithops - uni umit (sonig): a delightful 12" from a couple
of months back, this release offers a half dozen harmonically-
rich sound sculptures with varying amounts of rhythm. it's a
well-balanced ep for those of us who enjoy textures, as well
as rhythms that would empty a dance floor in about 3 seconds.
two thumbs up.
roupe - transport solutions (dot): this one would go off on
some dance floors, but i mean that in a good way. the slow
beats hit hard on track 1, just before an innocent synth
cord turns into a wall of drone and then into a deep, wavy
bass line. the friend remix retains the bass line, but ups
the tempo to create a lounge track with attitude. the closer,
a metamatics remix of the second roupe track, tops off the ep
with some tight mid-tempo breaks and swirling synths.
boards of canada - music has the right to children (warp)
i don't own this yet, but i did hear it. it's what i hoped
it would be - sort of lo-fi in that boards way, without any
annoying interuptions like "nlogax" from the skam 12". my
vocabulary can't do this thing justice so just buy it.
kandis (karaoke kalk 1)
i got kk2 before kk1, and i must say i was was expecting
something diffent from kk1. now i guess i'll have to buy
everthing this guy puts out, because this is ace! "senking"
drifts along in a zone that is, to my knowledge, previously
unexplored. my only complaint is that 14 minutes of relentless,
steady, deep, entrancing beats is not enough. so i slow the
record to -8 for this track. "luna corona," a little ambient-
electro number, is the best track in this entire post. and
"treasure island" closes the ep with another chilled sub-bass
line reminiscient of some andrea parker material.
angular art - andrea parker and david morley (infonet)
found this 1995 gem for $5.99. only the deepest of basslines
are on this record; thanks andrea. half of this thing sounds
dated but the title track balances some sweet armchair breaks
with a heavy bassline, piano strokes, and timely breakdowns.
"after dark," as the name suggests, is a late-night flip
flopper for the ambient headz.
freeform - heterarchy (worm interface)
i disliked "prowl" so much that i almost lost faith in
freeform, but i finally picked this up anyway, thank god.
it differs much from both prowl and the skam 12". when
rhythms appear, they have to force themselves above a dense
layer of harmonic anarchy. at times this thing sounds like
tod dockstader for christ's sake. is anything else by freeform
this good? i mean, i love the skam release but this thing
is so much more dynamic.
mouse on mars - vulvaland (too pure)
found this on vinyl and couldn't resist even though it was
$16. the pressing quality is kind of low but i like the
way this record plods along, especially side one. if i had
heard this record in 1994 i would have hated it. it's that
good. after an initial listen, it sounded kind of dated
but it reveals more each time i drop it (especially side one).
youngman - electrostep II (serotonin)
more dancefloor oriented than the other stuff on this list,
but still functional armchair music. i think youngman took
a minor step backward from the first electrostep ep. this one
probably sold better, but it lacks the hangable auto bulb-ish
intricate drum programming and the heavily filtered sweeps
that made the first one fun.
that's all for now. hope you don't mind the age of some of
these releases.
matt