autechre / untilted / warp



Autechre has arrived to pummel you over the head with new sounds and rhythms that you have never heard before.
listen: ipacial section
listen: lcc
listen: iera

mitchell akiyama / small explosions / sub rosa

One of Montreal's most notable electronic producers, Mitchell Akiyama's Small Explosions takes somewhat of a classical approach to his arrangements. In many ways his digital manipulations of the piano brought to mind the overall sentiment of Fennesz. Akiyama works in a montage style, layering disparate melodic passages on top of one another and weaving them around digital fragments, but several of these compositions have more semblance of structure than you'd expect. Melodies from acoustic instruments are accented and interrupted with interjections of running water, human voices, breathing, which essentially creates the soul of these pieces and certainly steers the compositions away from the oft clinical nature of laptop constructed music.
listen: but promise me
listen: ghost storms

stephan mathieu / the sad mac / headz

Mathieu collaborates with a long list of traditional instrumentalists (various strings, voice, piano, field recordings etc.), but only slightly abstracting the source and thereby creating a unique sense of space not often found in electronic records. It has the overall effect of some distant memory, sitting just at the edge of your consciousness. An extremely pleasant and warm album that lets each levitating note float just long enough for you to realize the next one is already there.
listen: tinfoil star
listen: imagination

thinner!
If you don't already know about this quality net label, now you do! Thinner is a German electronic music label that distributes all its mp3's for FREE. The artist's range from the best of Canada's electronic music scene to Vladislav Delay. This site has brought me many days of happiness. Check it!

DOPEFIEND, a new Torontontian online magazine; your guide to all things style and art oriented in the city.

toys of one's own - breaking down the boys' club in electronic music
by dimitri nasrallah


dance music's détente - peace breaks out between intellectual and instinctive
by martin turenne

deadbeat / new world observer / ~scape

Montreal's Scott Monteith, aka Deadbeat, aka half of Crackhaus, returns with his third album for the fine ~scape label. Monteith continues to plumb the digital depths set out by folks like Pole, Maurizio, and the early Basic Channel catalog. Still informed by dub reggae's oceanic feel, Deadbeat has more vocals here than on any of his previous work. The biggest presence is that of Montrealian chanteuse, Athesia. She brings a bossa-nova tinged vocal to the table, but rarely does Deadbeat allow them to pass by unprocessed. Instead, he breaks down her lines to a layer of finely chopped phonetics and encoded sighs, making for a fine marriage between the cool of his post-dub spaces and the warm touch that Athesia brings.
listen: port au-prince
listen: little town of bethlehem

solvent / elevators and oscillators / ghostly



Elevators and Oscillators is a collection of singles/12" tracks and remixes that explore Solvent's electropop side. If you've already heard "My Radio" off of 2002's Disco Nouveau compilation, you know what this one's all about: sweet melodies reminiscent of radio-era OMD or Erasure (but produced in an indie kid's bedroom studio), catchy breaks and beats, and love song lyrics sung in a broken hearted robot voice. While the tracks are mostly poppy and sweet, there are a few rockers like Alter Ego's remix of "Think Like Us" and Legowelt's remix of "My Radio".
listen: my radio / schneider tm
listen: devices and strategies

lonely-hearted montag learns to lighten up
by martin turenne

various / state of the union / spectral
- a look at the underground techno scene in Montréal, featuring deadbeat, mike shannon and the mole
listen: sleazy skankin - deadbeat

lawrence / spark ep / ghostly
- deep beautiful magic
listen: wasting a fall

mountains / mountains / apestaartje
Mountains is a collaboration between Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, the label heads behind Apestaartje. Through their combined efforts they've succeeded in creating the greatest electronic album I've heard since Fennesz's Endless Summer. Like that particular album, this one reaches beyond the boundaries of its genre. Too many so-called experimental records are simply content to wallow in a self-inflicted ghetto-isation, never bothering to attempt to bridge the gap between what can be listenable and still artistically forward-thinking and compelling. So what we have here is a rare feat indeed, four slowly unfolding tracks that are artfully and meticulously constructed and which use computers and layers of field recordings as well as various and sundry live instruments to provide a palpable humanness.
listen: paper windmill
listen: down under the manhattan bridge overpass

various artists / minimize to maximize / minus

Nice, new, compilation from Richie Hawtin's Minus imprint featuring all new artists. Minimize to Maximize is full of deep, pumping throb-funk, with the dry minimal production of Perlon mixed with the funk of Playhouse. The tracks develop nicely and generously with sudden shifts and builds that don't rely on played-out, traditional transitions.
listen: magda / the black room
listen: marc houle / east to west

markus guentner / 1981 / kompakt

Markus Guentner is known as being "the inventor of pop-ambient." Guentner's latest release is beautiful ambient textured bliss. Why would anyone want to miss out on this album?
listen: wanderung
listen: wenn musik der liebe nahrung ist
listen: jelly fish
listen: hi-jacked
listen: sommergewitter
listen: umgebung
listen: der wuestenplanet
listen: der hotel shanghai

sam prekop / who's your new professor / thrill jockey

Fans of the Sea and Cake and Sam Prekop's previous solo release will be pleased to hear that his newest solo venture doesn't wander too far from the sound that made him famous. (It also probably helps that three-quarters of the Sea and Cake play on Who's Your New Professor, as well as Chad Taylor, Josh Abrams and Rob Mazurek, the same instrumentalists responsible for his earlier solo album's lighter, jazzy touch.) "Something" opens the record with Prekop's layered, breathy vocals hovering over the sounds of a cornet and bass. The album follows through with a mix of livelier instrumentals and flowing, soothing songs, Prekop's melodies melting into phased-out guitar and gentle rhythms; in "Magic Step," his vocal disappears allowing the warm, Caribbean-inspired percussion to carry the track. Perfectly gratifying for these last (let's hope!) nights of winter.
listen: density
listen: dot eye

masha qrella / unsolved remained / morr

Sweet vocal melodies with experimental indie-tronic pop. "Destination Vertical" by Rechenzentrum and Masha Qrella was also previously released on ~scape's But Then Again five year anniversary album.
listen: destination vertical
listen: feels like

goldmund / corduroy road / type



Goldmund is the alias of Keith Kenniff, a young Berklee student who has previously released an album of electronic music on Merck. This sparse tastefully performed solo piano music is very delicately played, and with only the barest accompaniment, Kenniff manages to create a compelling dramatic arc over the course of the album's 13 songs.
listen: ba
listen: door of our home

minamo / shining / 12k

Japanese electro-acoustic minimalists Minamo have returned with the much-anticipated follow-up to 2003's aptly titled Beautiful. Last year, band member Keiichi Sugimoto released two great solo albums under the name Fourcolor. I was enthralled with his gorgeous processed guitar pieces, but upon popping the new Minamo album into my stereo I realized that I'd forgotten the wonderful intricacies and dynamics of the full quartet's interplay. As on their previous four full-length releases, Minamo have built the album around live recordings and improvisations, with lulling electronic textures and ambient drones building and weaving amidst simple piano and acoustic guitar passages. This is a group that doesn't need to hide behind a massive and dense wall of sound, but instead works with an incredibly light and precise touch. Shining is a fantastic album, quite possibly their greatest one yet. Of the many groups working with laptops today, very few have figured out how to develop this level of organic interaction between the musicians. Minamo makes the process look deceptively easy.
listen: raum
listen: tone

dj hell / ny muscle / international deejay gigolo

DJ Hell borrowed A.R.E. Weapon's track title for his latest album, NY Muscle, and hired some "NY muscle" to help him make a new album of nasty dancefloor rumbling jams. The album is peppered with a few bleepy nouveau electro tracks Keep on Waiting and Wired featuring Jon Selway, plus a cameo by James Murphy adding his muddy/blown speaker, smash-cymbal disco rock vibe to Tragic Picture Show, but the majority of the album is nouveau Chicago: dark, pumping house grooves with a teaspoon of nastiness thrown in. Let's party!
listen: keep on waiting (feat. erlend oye)
listen: listen to the hiss

lawrence / the absence of blight / dial



How could I have missed this album? Beautiful deep minimal house that warms the heart with lovely elegant ambient melodies. Great comfort listening while indoors and avoiding the March winter wonderland outside.
listen: -
listen: fifteen minutes with you
listen: winter green
listen: somebody hold me

top albums each year:

2004: michael mayer / fabric 13 / fabric


2003: ellen allien/ berlinette / bpitch


2002: múm / finally we are no one / fat cat


2001: fennesz / endless summer / mego



new:

montag / alone, not alone / carpark/grooom disques

Montréal resident, Montag aka. Antoine Bédard has sampled sound sources of 17 different classical instruments at the Conservatoire de Montréal to create his second album Alone, Not Alone while including notable guests like Broadcast's James Corgill and Amy Millan from the Stars and the Broken Social Scene to contribute to his album. Bédard's songs are often crafted around '60s-inspired pop melodies, it's what I'd imagine if Stereolab was part of the Morr Music roster.
listen: perfect vision
listen: temps partiel

various artists / triple r selection 3 / trapez

The latest addition to the Selection series on Trapez has arrived. This third Triple R mix starts smooth and dives deep immediately. Starring Dominik Eulberg, Hansen & DJ Daniel, Matthias Rahn, Marcos Cabral, an unreleased Sarah Goldfarb track with vocals by Riley Reinhold, and a plethora of the LTD 12-inches.
listen: only love
listen: coco puffs

agf + delay / explode / agf producktion

This first proper full-length collaboration displays an interesting evolution for the duo. Vladislav Delay's production incorporates more deep house elements from his Luomo project while Laub's Antye Greie embellishes her spoken narrations with warm melodies. Minimal and impressionistic, Explode reveals itself with repeated listens.
listen: explode baby

c-schulz / 5. flicker tunes / sonig

This is the first proper release from C-Schulz in over five years! An elder statesman of the experimental electronic community in Cologne, C-Schulz has been quietly creating carefully orchestrated drone pieces out of layers of electronics, field recordings, and various objects and instruments for well over two decades. His self-titled duo CD from 2000 with frequent collaborator Hajsch (C-Schulz & Hajsch) is considered by many, including myself, to be a classic. His tremendous influence on the experimental scene in Cologne is quite evident in his choice of collaborators over the years -- Marcus Schmickler (Pol), Georg Odijk (Kontakta), Frank Dommert (Kontakta), Andi Toma, Jan St. Werner, Harold 'Sack' Zielgler etc.

While 5. Flicker Tunes is no great departure from C-Schulz's previous efforts, his modest and singularly focused approach serves him well on the eight pieces contained on the album. Fluttering electronics gradually envelope subtle instrumental passages and atmospheric field recordings to create an overall texture that's both engrossing and beautiful. Averaging around six-minutes, the pieces on 5. Flicker Tunes are remarkably economical in means and demonstrate a sense of precision and attention to detail not often found in more recent drone based compositions. An extremely concise effort that rewards repeated listening. Let's hope we don't have to wait another five years for the next installment.
listen: flicker
listen: weilland

ellen allien / thrills / bpitch


out may 2005

listen: i fell in love with a dead boy
listen: cripple and starfish

tiefschwarz / misch masch / fine

The much requested mix and remix collection from Tiefschwarz! Two generous CDs, the "Misch Masch" mix features rockin' electro tracks from acts like Sleep Archive, Max Durante with Keith Tucker, Think Twice, Kiki, Code 6 and Mat Jonson. The other is an 11-track collection of remixes done for artists like Unit, Lopazz, Spektrum, DJ Hell and Mocky.

The mix is exactly what you'd expect from the tasteful German electrohouse production duo. Stomping rock-electro-house where big synths weave and swell when necessary. Their production is a cross between Metro Area and DFA on Bpitchcontrol. Synthy, club-rocking jams with pseudo-natural drums to keep the fists pumping.
listen: quad 1 / code 6
listen: decompression / mat jonson
listen: listen to the hiss / hell
listen: mickey mouse muthafuckers / mockey feat. ad hawk

postal service / we will become silhouettes / sub pop



Two years later, Give Up is the album that keeps on giving. The snail mailed tape exchanges between Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard and Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello seems to have superseded both of their respective main projects, and here's one more single from Postal Service's lone album. The bouncy indie-tronica ode to nuclear obliteration, "We Will Become Silhouettes," is taken from their full-length, but fans will want to check out the three backing tracks. "Be Still My Heart" is a brand new song, while Styrofoam remixes "Nothing Better" and Ghostly International's Matthew Dear puts a nice subtle tech-pulse into a remix of the single's A-side.
listen: we will become silhouettes / matthew dear remix

christo and jeanne claude / the gates / nyc
central park

the mole / meets the bacon smugglers / risquée
bookmat review
listen: mole / lezgo lezgo

polmo polpo / kiss me again and again / intr-version
bookmat review

l'altra / different days / hefty

The Windy City has never been lacking in musical talent. Right now its electronic scene in particular is experiencing a creative boom with acts like Telefon Tel Aviv, Pulseprogramming and Slicker, the musical alias of John Hughes Jr., who also runs the Hefty label. L'altra, is another name that deserves to be near the top of this list. Originally a five-piece ensemble, co-founders Lindsay Anderson and Joseph Costa -- who ended a several year romantic relationship while recording this album -- scaled back the official line-up to just themselves, but among the nine or so guest musicians listed are recognizable names like avant-cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, horn player Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley), and Pulseprogramming's Marc Heller.

Produced by Telefon Tel Aviv's Joshua Eustis, the duo's third full-length, and first with a Hefty logo, isn't exactly electronic in the traditional sense. The programmed beats and sonic textures are rounded out by the warm accoutrements of acoustic and electric guitars, Rhodes piano and bass. It all comes together creating a gorgeously restrained, at times heart-tugging, musical foundation for Anderson and Costa's intertwined vocals. Their sad, hushed melodies are quite sincere, the interplay between the two singers at times reminiscent of Ida's Daniel Littleton and Elizabeth Mitchell.

It's all about slow-building dynamics. L'altra utilize subtle crescendos much in the same way as Efterklang; the lulling tempos of the songs emphasize the lush textures of instrumentation that flow in and out, be it layers of horns, strings or a rare blast of guitar feedback. This is a perfect late night chill-out soundtrack for those looking for something slow, seductive and a little bittersweet.
listen: different days
listen: better than bleeding

bibio / fi / mush

Bibio is in fact an Englishmen named Stephen Wilkinson, who not only has an affinity for playing beautiful, finger-picked guitar passages, but also for impressionistic production inspired by electronic auteurs like Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada, and what sounds to be a love of his four-track. The latter explains the brief, nonsensical album title Fi. His debut album actually blurs the line between hi-fi and lo-fi, Wilkinson processing and layering his cassette recorded guitar passages with unrecognizable drones, tape loops, and nature sounds. During "Puddled in the Morning," the precise fingerpicked notes are almost unrecognizable, overtaken by his guitar's overtones. As the distant melody fades away, what one would assume to be the clicks and pops coming from a stuck groove of an old record suddenly turns into a campfire's crackle.

Warbled tape recordings of Wilkinson's circular folk guitar passages give the album a mysterious, almost timeless quality. One can imagine these songs coming from an unlabeled cassette that had once been covered in moss, unearthed in a damp, English forest. Boards of Canada's Marcus Eoin is actually responsible for introducing the young musician to the Mush label. But while adjectives like hazy, soothing and pastoral can be used in describing both BOC and Bibio, Wilkinson's approach is much more minimalist. Deprived of beats, picture Fennesz processing loops from old British folk recordings or Kevin Shields on a camping trip with Jewelled Antler Collective.
listen: bewley in white
listen: puddled in the morning

alva noto / transrapid + transvision / raster noton

Alva Noto has released two new CD-EPs, each beautifully packaged and printed in a cardstock, fold-over pocket manual sized booklet. The CDs themselves look a lot like the 20' to 2000' CD-EPs from a while back with a few added graphic lines imbedded in the clear plastic. Very nice. Thankfully, the high expectations inspired by the design are rewarded with music that matches the simple intricacy of its package.

The first noticeable quality is its simultaneous closeness and distance to hip-hop. Ultra-sterilized (clinical), isolated bass-bumps, clicks, buzzes and beeps (smaller than 'bleeps') bump, scratch and climb themselves into breakbeats fit for the biosphere -- not that that idea worked, but you know, imagine a manmade atmosphere. (Take the sounds Carsten Nicolai added to the Noto/Sakamoto album and arrange them in fresh, lively, active beat arrangements.)

After hearing both EPs for the first time (and feeling them immediately) it took me a while to realize the obvious: these tracks bear a striking resemblance to recent Pan Sonic releases. I realized that the difference, and the reason that I didn't notice right away, is that here, the hi-fidelity of the sounds is much more inviting; the tracks 'swing' more and are much less static with many buildups and breakdowns -- if Panasonic and Jan Jelinek jammed in a parking lot.
listen: future
listen: j

various / pop ambient 2005 / kompakt

Kompakt releases year five of their Pop Ambient series. Get ready for blissful, warm adventures by Ulf Lohmann, Markus Guentner, Peter Grummich, Triola, Andrew Thomas, Klimek, DJ Koze, Thomas Fehlmann, The Orb, a classic slice of heaven from Gas (culled from his 2000 masterpiece, Pop), and a simultaneously sweet and haunting offering from the mysterious Popnoname. Bubbling synth arpeggios, luxurious drones, textures, washes, smears, wisps, reverberations, and hums…almost all the tracks are absolutely perfect, infectious, satin pop gems. Recommended.
listen: gas - pop
listen: peter grummich - sunbeams

michael mayer works alone
by martin turenne

coming to Toronto 27/02/05

m83's one man drama
by cam lindsay

coming to Toronto 19/04/05

m83 / before the dawn heals us / mute

In spite of the departure of co-founder Nicolas Fromageau, Anthony Gonzalez forges ahead with a new M83 album. Female voices and live instruments are more prominent, but the visceral layers of sound and breathtaking passages are unmistakably M83.
listen: teen angst
listen: moon child


Philip Sherburne's mixes
download

shuttle358 / chessa / 12k

Sweet warm hugs. Subtle beauty that floats by like a creek in autumn. Minimal (with nods to SND, Dettinger, Oval, Pete Namlook and other 'ambient classics') Chessa seems to be about indulging in the mood of the moment.
listen: marchie
listen: duh

a new Toronto techno mag.
KICK

best of 2004:

1.) michael mayer / fabric 13 / fabric
listen: heiko voss / i think about you
listen: richard davis / bring me closer
listen: m83 and benoit villeneuve / run into flowers

2.) loscil / first narrows / kranky
listen: sickbay
listen: emma



3) deadbeat / something borrowed, something blue / ~scape

Tunes Have Become The Big Priority For Swayzak
by martin turenne