radioSpin

VECTOR LOVERS
iPhonica

Here inside the apps and tablets hi-tech era, it’s kinda strange seeing Martin Wheeler pull out one of the earliest iOS DAW‘s to craft his latest album, while finding ways to fill the gaps in time waiting for trains or sitting in coffee shops. There is almost an interesting tangent to the acoustic performance within iPhonica: rather than being stripped back to electric free instruments, it is an environment with minimal VSTi’s and all toys of the trade made unavailable. In this situation only true musicality can shine through with no tricks or plugins to hide behind. At the end of it all you have to ask if it is a good album, or whether it is a good album considering the restraints of technology. Everything should, in our opinion, be judged on the former, and Vector Lovers‘ iPhonica doesn’t fail to deliver.

ARTIST: Vector Lovers
TITLE: iPhonica
LABEL: Soma
RELEASE DATE: March 25, 2013
TIME: 1:08:49 min.
WEB: http://www.vector-lovers.com/
PURCHASE: price – 9.99$

01. Nakadori [04:39]
02. Warm Launderette [04:10]
03. On Kastanienallee [04:03]
04. Simulant [04:53]
05. Stargazing [05:43]
06. Monologue [04:56]
07. Replicator [06:11]
08. Yesterday Is Gone [04:26]
09. Reception [03:27]
10. Vigil [03:46]
11. Clandestine [03:27]
12. Big City Loner [03:52]
13. Patience [03:39]
14. Final Wish [05:03]
15. Senter to Knowhere [03:42]
16. Let’s Go Home [02:52]

PREVIEW: Vector Lovers – Simulant

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APPARAT
Krieg und Frieden (music for theatre)

In order to fully enjoy Krieg und Frieden, all you need is a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and a scene. Any scene will do, really. It could be as simple as watching people wait for transit, or perhaps staring thoughtful outside your window. Where you choose to observe is irrelevant, but don’t skimp out on the headphones. You want the full power and effect of Apparat‘s 10th album, created initially for a stage production of Tolstoy’s Krieg und Frieden (War and Peace). Music for Theatre can transform any everyday mundane occurrence into something full of tension and mystery. That is the power of a good score and this is a great soundtrack for film, theatre or your life.

ARTIST: Apparat
TITLE: Krieg und Frieden (music for theatre)
LABEL: EMI
RELEASE DATE: February 18, 2013
TIME: 43:05 min.
WEB: http://www.apparat.net/
PURCHASE: price – 9.49$

01. 44 [02:38]
02. 44 (noise version) [05:23]
03. Lighton [05:23]
04. Tod [02:47]
05. Blank Page [04:40]
06. PV [06:46]
07. K&F Thema (pizzicato) [03:12]
08. K&F Thema [04:19]
09. Austerlitz [03:22]
10. A Violent Sky [05:11]

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AUTECHRE
Exai

Following this modus operandi, Autechre, perhaps more than any of their musical brethren, successfully tread the middle ground between ancient and modern, analogue and digital, composition and improvisation. Over the course of a generation they’ve explored each of these fecund landscapes to the horizon and beyond, all the while manipulating music into contractions that, whilst quite amazingly uncomfortable, never cease to amaze with their richness and variety. And, to their everlasting credit, Rob Brown e Sean Booth have never been stingy with their bounty: that some of their work divides opinion so sharply is testament to their adventurous, uncompromising nature (and perhaps their willingness to imbue machines with compositional powers). If one has to compare this new Exai with anything in recent memory, The Seer, funnily enough, forms the natural parallel. Whilst both Autechre and Swans stand as polar opposites to each other musically, both demand great attention from the listener before offering any reward in return: as artists they craft enormous colossi of sound that require blind faith as much as rational attention. And both have finally delivered creations that are the awesome culmination of their respective artistic visions.

ARTIST: Autechre
TITLE: Exai
LABEL: Warp
RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2013
TIME: 2:00:39 min.
WEB: http://www.autechre.ws/
PURCHASE: price – 15.58$

01. Fleure [04:51]
02. Irlite (get 0) [10:01]
03. Prac-f [04:20]
04. Jatevee C [04:14]
05. T ess xi [06:43]
06. VekoS [06:42]
07. Flep [06:43]
08. Tuinorizn [03:40]
09. Bladelores [12:20]
10. 1 1 is [07:18]
11. Nodezsh [08:40]
12. Runrepik [04:35]
13. Spl9 [07:06]
14. Cloudline [10:13]
15. Deco Loc [05:27]
16. Recks On [09:22]
17. YJY UX [08:24]

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DIVE
No Soul

Dive is Fabian Tombers, from Cologne. Dive is the newest entry in the glitch electronic and dream pop scene. Dive shakes. And he does with No Soul: a chillwave heaven, a summer beat-driven soundtrack full of ambiance sentimental landscapes painted in orange, a soft orgy of noisy and colorful beats.

ARTIST: Dive
TITLE: No Soul
LABEL: Waking Ghosts
RELEASE DATE: November 15, 2012
TIME: 31:29 min.
WEB: http://divemusic.bandcamp.com/
PURCHASE: special offer – FREE DOWNLOAD!

01. Lindisfarne (James Blake remix) [04:02]
02. Seven Chimes [03:03]
03. C10H12N2O [01:31]
04. Capetown [03:36]
05. Cloudy [02:33]
06. C8H11N [03:03]
07. Nebelweg [05:55]
08. Wrong (DrDr remix) [04:05]
09. No Soul [03:41]

Dive – Capetown

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NOSAJ THING
Home

It’s been three years since the release of Nosaj Thing‘s highly acclaimed debut album, Drift, and now it’s time to mark a new chapter for the 27-year-old producer, musician and DJ from Los Angeles. With a new album, label and imprint for Innovative Leisure, Home marks the first time Nosaj Thing has incorporated guest vocalists. Having remixed and worked with the likes of The XX, Flying Lotus, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Beck and Kendrick Lamar, it was time to incorporate a few collaborations of his own with Toro Y Moi and Kazu Makino (Blonde Redhead) providing ethereal vocals for two of the tracks on Home. The rest of the album is rounded with Nosaj’s signature cinematic soundscapes that explore the space from where Drift left off. The year has just started, but one place in the best-of future charts is already taken.

ARTIST: Nosaj Thing
TITLE: Home
LABEL: Innovative Leisure
RELEASE DATE: January 22, 2013
TIME: 36:39 min.
WEB: http://www.nosajthing.com/
PURCHASE: special offer – ONLY 7.49$

01. Home [02:40]
02. Eclipse / Blue [04:29]
03. Safe [03:49]
04. Glue [04:18]
05. Distance [03:17]
06. Tell [02:50]
07. Snap [03:26]
08. Prelude [01:41]
09. Try [04:03]
10. Phase III [03:23]
11. Light #3 [02:43]

Nosaj Thing (feat. Kazu Makino) – Eclipse / Blue

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AA.VV.
RS Top50 2012

So here we are again: just like every late December, it’s summing-up-time! It has been a really really hard work (but someone’s gotta do it, you know) to select the best albums of 2012. As usual, no claim to be exahustive round here: it’s a matter of musical taste, and surely we’ve missed some fantastic release (we pre-apologize for that), but we’ve tried, and here are the RS-TOP20 album between the ones featured on radioSpin.
Let us know what you think about it.

01. BAND OF SKULLS – Sweet Sour
02. ALT-J – An Awesome Wave
03. PINBACK – Information Retrieved
04. ARCHIVE – With Us Until You’re Dead
05. HUMAN DON’T BE ANGRY – Human don’t Be Angry
06. CHROMATICS – Kill For Love
07. DIVINE FITS – A Thing Called Divine Fits
08. REDRUM ALONE – De Redrum Natura
09. GRIZZLY BEARS – Shields
10. GIARDINI DI MIRÒ – Good Luck
11. Fairmont – Automaton
12. ORBITAL – Wonky
13. JASON LYTLE – Dept. of Disappearance
14. TWIN SHADOW – Confess
15. SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS – Ghostory
16. TINDERSTICKS – The Something Rain
17. SOULSAVERS – The Light the Dead See
18. BRETON – Other’s People Problems
19. CALEXICO – Algiers
20. SOUNDGARDEN – King Animal

Here below (and, of course, inside the concerning section) a slighlty mixed exclusive podcast (downloadable at the end of the post) with the previous tracks.
And then, in the end, like last year, the rest of the chart, from position 21 to 50.

21. CLARK – Iradelphic
22. THE SHINS – Port of Morrow
23. dEUS – Following Sea
24. YEASAYER – Fragrant World
25. TWILIGHT SAD – No One Can Ever Know
26. DRINK TO ME – S
27. DINOSAUR JR. – Silent Running
28. CAT POWER – Sun
29. SOFA SURFERS – Superluminal
30. SWANS – The Seer
31. METZ – Metz
32. LOTUS PLAZA – Spooky Action at a Distance
33. TY SEGALL – Twins
34. PAUL KALKBRENNER – Guten Tag
35. MARK LANEGAN – Blues Funeral
36. THE EYES IN THE HEAT – Program Me
37. PURITY RING – Shrines
38. SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO – UnPatterns
39. MIAOUX MIAOUX – Light of the North
40. ERRORS – New Relics
41. THE XX – Coexist
42. BETH ORTON – Sugaring Season
43. BAT FOR LASHES – The Haunted Man
44. LANA DEL REY – Born to Die
45. BLOC PARTY – Four
46. APOLLO 440 – The Future’s What It Used to Be
47. DEFTONES – Koi No Yokan
48. CRYSTAL CASTLES – III
49. SCUBA – Personality
50. SQUAREPUSHER – Ufabulum

AA.VV. selected by radioSpin – RS TOP20 2012

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VIDEO OF THE WEEK – #135
as seen on radioSpin

ARTIST: Clark
TITLE: Black Stone
ALBUM: Iradelphic
WEB: YouTube

directed by The Vikings

INDIAN WELLS
Night Drops

Italian downtempo beatmaker Indian Wells smashes the dubstep target with eight shuffling, atmospheric bass tunes in the form of his debut record, called Night Drops, an album about electronica, mystery and tennis. The title track roots the producer’s scatterbrained, ephemeral loops in deep kicks, light clicks, and swelling waves of warm synth tones. It all creates an atmosphere that is as relaxed and pensive as it is melancholy, a sound that you can continue to indulge in by checking out the rest of Indian Wells‘ new release, after the jump.

ARTIST: Indian Wells
TITLE: Night Drops
LABEL: Bad Panda
RELEASE DATE: September 21, 2012
TIME: 37:36 min.
WEB: http://indianwells.bandcamp.com/
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Wimbledon 1980 [05:39]
02. In the Streets [03:36]
03. Golden Shoes [04:09]
04. Deuce [05:10]
05. Love Frequencies [04:10]
06. Night Drops [04:35]
07. After the Match [04:53]
08. South Beach [04:38]

Indian Wells – Deuce

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CLARK
Iradelphic

Chris Clark has been on a journey. The adventure started three years ago after the release of previous album Totems Flare. He recorded Iradelphic in Australia, Berlin, Wales, Brussels, Cornwall, Norway and London using a diverse range of tools (from the vintage to the cutting edge modern). For the tracks Open and Secret he even enlisted the vocal talents of Massive Attack‘s Martina Topley Bird. A producer known for his dark, heavy techno derived sounds on the Warp roster, Iradelphic sees a transcendence to Clark’s most accessible album to date. Clark stood up from the drum machine, computer and keyboard to learn piano and guitar, which highlights many of the tracks including the epic three-part suite The Pining.
Iradelphic promises to fulfill Clark followers and capture the ears of a brand new audience.

ARTIST: Clark
TITLE: Iradelphic
LABEL: Warp
RELEASE DATE: April 3, 2012
TIME: 39:59 min.
WEB: http://warp.net/records/clark
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Henderson Wrech [02:23]
02. Com Touch [04:24]
03. Tooth Moves [03:19]
04. Skyward Bruise / Descent [02:00]
05. Open [03:19]
06. Secret [03:44]
07. Ghosted [03:39]
08. Black Stone [02:03]
09. The Pining (pt.1) [04:21]
10. The Pining (pt.2) [03:11]
11. The Pining (pt.3) [02:42]
12. Broken Kite Footage [04:54]

Clark – Com Touch

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MKAIO
A Far Off Horizon

Mkaio (a.k.a. Matthew Kammerer) is an independent artist, where “independent” means he’s doing everything himself, where “everything” means everything. And he’s doing it well.
Yes, because Mkaio‘s music does not conform to any style or convention, but rather plays on audio archetypes & expectations, fusing field recordings, acoustic performances, electronic elements & engineering occassionally with vocals and lyrics. A Far Off Horizon is his debut album, an electronic jewel entirely composed, recorded and produced in his bedroom, but escaping to real wider atmospheres then four simple walls. This record is dedicated to Matthew’s best friend, Jennifer Perkins, who he lost to an aggressive and rare form of neuroendocrine cancer: the final three track on the album compose the Suite for Jen, and they contain the first music Mkaio began writing for this record and are the heart of the album.
A warm, cosy and beautiful heart.

ARTIST: Mkaio
TITLE: A Far Off Horizon
LABEL: self-released
RELEASE DATE: June 12, 2012
TIME: 78:04 min.
WEB: http://www.mkaio.com/
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. A Far Off Horizon [03:42]
02. The First Kiss [04:44]
03. The Gold Was On You [04:51]
04. Light at the End [06:13]
05. Hold On But Not For Me [04:05]
06. Tried & True [06:30]
07. Summer Heart [04:54]
08. All Night [04:11]
09. Fall For You [03:43]
10. Naked in the Moonlight [05:24]
11. Brush of the Cheek [03:20]
12. Maui [02:30]
13. Is This Love? [03:45]

14. A Prelude [02:52]
15. Sunsets [05:41]
16. Adagio for Jen [11:39]

Mkaio – Tried & True
Mkaio – All Night

removed by request

TEENGIRL FANTASY
Tracer

Second album for Teengirl Fantasy: Tracer is experimental ambience that sounds dreamy and catchy. The layered pop samples from their debut LP 7AM are absent, but the duo still builds from the past, sculpting something both innovative and vaguely familiar. Logan Takahashi and Nick Weiss produce material indebted to R&B moving and extending to dance floor jams: your ears should thank them.

ARTIST: Teengirl Fantasy
TITLE: Tracer
LABEL: True Panther Sounds
RELEASE DATE: August 21, 2012
TIME: 39:40 min.
WEB: http://www.myspace.com/teengirlfantasy
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Orbit [03:14]
02. EFX [03:40]
03. Eternal [04:27]
04. Pyjama [03:34]
05. Mist of Time [03:06]
06. End [04:08]
07. Vector Spray [04:04]
08. Inca [03:37]
09. Do It [04:37]
10. Timeline [05:20]

Teengirl Fantasy – End

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NATHAN FAKE
Steam Days

Nathan Fake returns with exuberant third album Steam Days, a breathtaking landmark on his road to musical maturity. Crowning a decade of deftly-executed production versatility, Steam Days oscillates effortlessly between both ends of the electronic spectrum to unify both the soothing melodic indulgence and heavy dancefloor assault of Fake’s albums of yore. Nostalgically immersing himself in his Norfolk heritage and the delicious analogue richness of his beloved collection of vintage tape machines, Steam Days is the visceral translation of the innately musical producer s instinctive technical mastery into an astounding idiosyncratic musical reality.

ARTIST: Nathan Fake
TITLE: Steam Days
LABEL: Border Community
RELEASE DATE: September 3, 2012
TIME: 48:57 min.
WEB: http://www.nathanfake.co.uk/
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Paean [03:54]
02. Cascade Airways [02:44]
03. Iceni Strings [05:30]
04. Old Light [03:07]
05. Harnser [04:33]
06. World of Spectrum [03:50]
07. Rue [03:49]
08. Sad Vember [03:54]
09. Neketona [03:53]
10. Glow Hole [07:56]
11. Warble Epics [05:47]

Nathan Fake – Paean

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FOUR TET
Pink

It’s strange to think of Four Tet as one of today’s most important creators of dance music. Even when taking into consideration his collaborations with fellow heavyweights Burial and Thom Yorke, the artist born Kieran Hebden has always been a masterful musician and producer whose style of electronic music has often sounded more like it was inspired by the dancefloor than actually meant for it. Proving not to be an anomaly in his repertoire, Hebden soon started dropping solo 12″s via his Text label, all of them boasting similarly beat-centric tunes. As months passed and the releases piled up, each one bolstered the notion that something big was around the corner for Four Tet, some kind of sea change in his work. Now, we have the eight-track Pink LP, the culmination of Hebden’s recent run of club-appropriate singles and easily one of the best electronic albums to be heard this year.

ARTIST: Four Tet
TITLE: Pink
LABEL: Text
RELEASE DATE: August 20, 2012
TIME: 61:04 min.
WEB: http://www.fourtet.net/
PURCHASE: http://www.amazon.com/

01. Locked [08:30]
02. Lion [09:01]
03. Jupiters [05:48]
04. Ocoras [05:24]
05. 128 Harps [04:52]
06. Pyramid [08:27]
07. Peace for Earth [11:23]
08. Pinnacles [08:21]

Four Tet – Ocoras

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ASC
Out of Sync

One might wonder about the past two years of drum’n’bass wunderkind and Autonomic regular ASC’s career: after dropping his would-be crowning achievement, Nothing Is Certain, in 2010, perhaps the most significant brick in the d’n’b canon since dBridge and Instru:mental’s Fabriclive 50 mix, James Clements hucked himself off the reservation. Figuratively and literally. Well, maybe it’s not all that melodramatic, but he did finally drop the beat-oriented pretenses last year to release an ambient record titled The Light That Burns Twice as Bright, he also found time to drop an EP on the UK’s foremost industrial techno label, Perc Trax, earlier this year, and now there’s Out of Sync. One might wonder about what this new release might mean for ASC. Is this just a stop off like The Light That Burns Twice as Bright seemed to be? Is ASC shaking his tail feathers at what’s expected of him after Nothing Is Certain? These questions may perhaps be a little sensational, and the answer can’t be so dramatic: it might not even matter. Clements’ ties to Autonomic have put a youthful spin on his career, but ASC has been going strong for more than a decade. And Out of Sync feels like an album delivered by a producer long in the tooth enough to follow whatever might be of interest at the immediate moment. Thankfully, the results are more than worthwhile.

ARTIST: ASC
TITLE: Out of Sync
LABEL: Samurai Red Seal
RELEASE DATE: June 18, 2012
TIME: 64:41 min.
WEB: http://theasc.blogspot.it/

01. Spheres [05:20]
02. Glass Walls [04:38]
03. Oneironaut [06:32]
04. No Love Lost [05:22]
05. Disintegrate [02:43]
06. Talisman [04:55]
07. A Song for Hope [04:43]
08. Prometheus [04:57]
09. Blurred Pictures [05:42]
10. Stay True [04:32]
11. Plume [15:17]

ASC – Glass Walls

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VIDEO OF THE WEEK – #114
as seen on radioSpin

ARTIST: Glitterbug
TITLE: Passages
ALBUM: Cancerboy
WEB: Vimeo

directed by Ronni Shendar

WALLS
Coracle Remixes

The duo of Alessio Natalizia and Sam Willis, a.k.a. Walls, have released a remix package of their 2011 album Coracle. The remixes take each track deeper into the lo-fi ambient vibe that characterized the original album. Synth murmurs and minimal drum machine beats leave you feeling lost in a dreamy haze and provide a perfect soundtrack for an afternoon laying in the grass under the sun.

ARTIST: Walls
TITLE: Coracle
LABEL: Kompakt
RELEASE DATE: May 24, 2012
TIME: 41:37 min.
WEB: http://www.kompakt.fm/artists/walls

01. Sunporch (holy other mix) [04:43]
02. Drunken Galleon (john tejada mix) [06:23]
03. Sunporch (perc mix) [09:41]
04. Into Our Midst (esperanza mix) [09:08]
05. Raw Umber / Twilight (voigt&voigt mix) [05:57]
06. Into Our Midst (capracara mix) [05:45]

Walls – Sunporch (holy other mix)

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