Most discussion these days revolves around the latest releases, this
year's top 10, the over-hyped albums of the year, etc. You know what
I'm talking about. And people talk about the same artists over and
over, slowly and surely building the pedestal underneath them - you know
who I'm talking about. This is all not without merit - those releases
and artists deserve to be talked about at least because people want to
talk about them.
But as time goes by, many other releases fall by the wayside. Good
music comes out that is missed, looked-over, underappreciated. We all
catch a few here and there, but don't talk about them much, and the
community as a whole doesn't recognize them because only a few of us
have fallen in love with them.
So I'm curious, what are a few of your favorite releases that you feel
have gone unnoticed and deserve more attention? Especially from artists
that stopped making music, drifted away, but left behind a gem or two of
classic IDM... what few releases do you love that have that classic IDM
sound, releases that you think are exceptional - or at least that are
really hitting you this week - but that you don't think have been
mentioned on the list at least within the last year or two, if at all?
Let's have a roll call of these lost echos of the scene... and avoid the
"big names" for awhile.
I'll start with two:
System Error - "Nothing" (headphone records)
I think this is a stellar IDM release, with composition not unlike
some early Autechre, but possessing its own unique flavor. A project of
Bobby Bird (Higher Intelligence Agency) and Brian Duffy (?), it's less
ambient than you might expect, and a one-off that can be appreciated on
its own merits. I come back to it a lot to chill out and to be reminded
of the great creativity just waiting out there to be found.
Lewis Overton - "Something Like Close To This" (sprout recordings)
The last release from now defunct Sprout, which was an offshoot of
the also now defunct Hydrant Records (which gave us Proem), this EP was
quite a surprise. I didn't really appreciate it at the time, and I
still feel that most of the Hydrant/Sprout material was pretty mediocre,
but this one EP has grown on me over the few years since its release.
It's definitely a throwback to the old Artificial Intelligence sound,
but unlike much of the "me too" AI copycat material out there, this one
does it well and wants to be heard again and again.
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