AITANNA 77 [SPAIN]
love is colder than death mp3
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IRISH [JAPAN]
coma and pray mp3
a great find this week – the unassuming porteguese net label, test tube, home of beautiful abstract electronica, soundscapes, alt-folk and more. first up here is mikel martinez from spain, and his aitanna 77 project. his e.p. is entitled ‘spring is coming soon’ and features one of the few instances where folktronica genuinely gets it right. too often for me, folktronica seems to be just an retro-fit electro remix of straight-up folk. here the two seem to co-exist much more effectively, it’s glitch as an instrument, the electronics are at the centre of the piece, and married seemlessly with acoustic guitar and xylophone. further back in the releases we find japanese artist irie yoshihisa, confusing known as irish. here there’s lush, warm electronica at play – it’s almost by-the-book IDM were it not for the japanese vocal that injects itself into the track in a way that’s both reassuring and utterly disturbing. irish also has to be commended for releasing a track with the title ‘we played for about one hour but only 20 minutes had been recorded’. full length e.p.s from both these artists, and more, can downloaded for free from test tube. go and get lost in the music right here.
CHICA AND THE FOLDER [GERMANY]
daleko (dinky rmx) mp3
another example this week of being thrown off-balance by a vocal – this time from monika’s chica and the folder. monika, along with shitkatapult and b-pitch control, are one of the killer berlin labels at present. the 19 months saw great releases hit the market from their stable – barbara morgenstern’s ‘nichts muss’, robert lippok’s ‘falling into komeit’, cobra killer’s ’76/77′ to name but three. rightfully, there’s a label retrospective now on the shelves entitled ‘monika force’ and it’s where this little twitchy remix hails from. there’s not too much info on chica and the folder out there – this piece takes an interesting view of the original album, where the writer talks him/herself out of their own theory that the band are ‘nothing more than a joke’.
ULTRASOM [BRAZIL]
hey mick mp3
from the same label that brought you tetine (see post 030405), ultrasom are a six piece from sao paolo, commandeered by mainman adriano cintra. the band was re-formed in its second (and current) incarnation via an apochryphal story involving cintra losing out to carol parra in an arm-wrestling contest – the forfeit would seem to have been that she joined the band. the above mp3 has a hook and a swagger that takes me right back to the stranglers and proves (after what seems to have been a long fruitless search) that rock’n’roll is alive and well in brazil, despite being lambasted by the mighty forces of samba, bossa nova, drum’n’bass et al over the years. [label site]
god bless vice recordings – for picking up one of the greatest japanese bands of all time, the boredoms, and releasing their previously japan-only new album ‘seadrum/house of sun’ on may 10th. the album consists of two 20-minute pieces, which – according to pitchfork – are “the result of editing down a bunch of boredoms sessions from the past few year”. epitonic still has some old mp3s from the 98 album ‘super ae’ for download, but if the boredoms follow their own traditions, expect the unexpected from the new album. [vice site