Leftfield Recommendations August 2012

Review: The Surgeon General sees the mysterious Sandwell District alumnus Rrose launches a new imprint in typically unconventional style, once again working with iconic synth musician Bob Ostertag. Surgeon General was recorded by Ostertag a quarter of a century previously and it starts with what sounds like the forlorn whistle of a steam train, weaving its way in and out of silence for a few minutes. Then there follows a deconstructed rhythm that drips like rivulets of water down a wall and bursts of eerie ambient sounds. Despite the fact that Ostertag used basic equipment and the composition predates contemporary electronic music, it has aged extremely well. Rrose's creepily titled "Her Insides Laid Bare" remix is an atmospheric ambient arrangement, with the occasional anti-rhythm clanging away in the background. He/she adopts a different approach on the "No Child Left Behind" reshape. There, dreamy, filtered chords unravel over a skipping rhythm and pinprick beats, as a swirling but nonetheless forceful filter lends it the requisite momentum. If Surgeon General is indicative of where Eaux is heading, then he is clearly seeking to use his new label to push experimental electronic music.

Review: Following the disintegration of seminal British experimentalists This Heat, multi-instrumentalist Gareth Williams collaborated with Mary Currie on Flaming Tunes, a cassette release of lo-fi experimentalism. A beguiling album filled with half-uttered vocals, music-box melodies and a dusty, rickety charm, the album was lost until 2009 when it was released on CD on Life and Living Records. Here it receives its first vinyl edition courtesy of Blackest Ever Black, who present it with iconic new artwork. For fans of This Heat this is essential, but comes highly recommended for those wanting to experience a genuine treasure.

Review: Producer, DJ and budding travel almanac editor John Roberts returns with his first original material since that superlative debut album Glass Eights. The four tracks that make up Paper Frames are described by Roberts as "a wonderful journey into sound design, sample research and contemporary club music" and see him experiment further with preconceptions of what club music should sound like - something that was evident on recent remixes of Blondes and George Fitzgerald. The Opening short "Untitled II" retains all the mastery of delicate instrumentation shown on Glass Eights, though it's combined with jagged rhythmic edits and acts as a neat prelude to where Roberts goes on the subsequent title track. Perhaps best described as Roberts chopping up the sounds of a bull rampaging through a Denmark St shop, it's an excellent track and the highlight of a welcome return on Dial.

Review: Sam KDC seems like a perfect fit for the Samurai Red Seal label, the UK producer having previously proved himself more than capable of crafting finely judged atmospheric soundscapes for exemplary labels such as Auxiliary and Nu Directions. Between Dreams is a natural progression for KDC, with Samurai Red Seal granting him the freedom to burrow deeper into elegant and emotive layers of sound, with the title track an all too woozy and intoxicating blend of blissful textures and contemplative moments. "Downpour" introduces an element of darkness and could quite easily be mistaken for one of Demdike Stare's more rhythmically driven moments. Superb.

Review: Confessions is a new 7" label courtesy of ever-surprising London based label Blackest Ever Black, who take their enthusiasm for industrial techno and scorched post-punk and apply it to the 7" template. With appearances from techno hero Regis, cult underground artist Vatican Shadow, and post-punk outfit Black Rain in BEB's short lifespan, noise legend Pete Swanson's appearance on the first 7" is yet another indication of the respect the label is gaining among the underground noise, industrial and techno community. His track, "Positive", is a searing piece of dread which is perhaps even less accessible than his recent Man With Potential album on Type, while Moin's "Elsie" is an example of typically scorched industrial post-punk in the spirit of Tropic of Cancer. Strictly limited to 300, the intricate artwork is complemented by a dinked 7" with vintage stylings.

Review: Having previously befuddled dubstep purists with releases on Mala's Deep Medi Musik, Old Apparatus are now striking out on their own with their freshly minted and aptly titled Sullen Tone imprint. There's rarely much joviality to be found in the murky underbelly of electronic 'composition Old Apparatus inhabit, and this 4 track Derren EP is their strongest artistic statement yet. There are moments on Derren where you can hear discernible links to the UK bass world that Old Apparatus seem have slid out from under. "Dealow" has a tribal-industrial rattle that captures the finest dread-fuelled DMZ workouts, falling around the 140 bpm mark without making it too obvious. What makes this EP so engrossing is the deft crossover between organic and electronic - it's nigh on impossible to tell where the found sound ends and the synthesised tone begins. There's also a staggering dynamism to these tracks; they rarely sit still on the same idea for long before turning down another darkened corner where the walls crawl with forlorn drones and wraith-like percussion hovers in and around you.

Review: The mysterious German outfit Tase return on Atelier for one of their occasional rounds of outer limits electro experiments. While their last record took the template of house and created their own warped lo-fi impression of it, this record is frankly beyond categorization. "Eyes" takes electro drum patterns and warm house chords and puts them through a thresher, while "Security" on the flip places a beatless washing machine pulse atop a barely audible monologue which must be heard to be believed.

Review: Gunter Schickert was roadie and assistant to German cosmiche pioneer Klaus Schulze, and as such was exposed much of the experimental sounds of the 70s. Bureau B have seen fit to reissue his 1979 album Uberfallig, undoubtedly a lost gem of the era. "Puls" owes an obvious debt to Schulze, rippling as it does on a wave of arpeggios, but the folky "In Der Zeit" has echoes of Nick Drake. "Apricot Brandy II" and "Wanderer" successfully merge the two in a sea of delayed strings and gentle electronic textures.

Review: The sixth installment of Bjork's wide-ranging Biophilia remix project sees sound adventurer and new head of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Matthew Herbert at the helm for three unique reworks. First up is his "Teutonic Plates mix" of "Mutual Core", which sees a barrage of dubstep-inspired bass buoying up Bjork's lithe vocals, while his "Pins & Needles mix" of "Sacrifice" sees a backdrop of prickly, glitchy drop-outs accompanying the lead vocals. Finally, his "Fever mix" of "Virus" sees him adopt a more stripped down electronica approach.

Review: It's hard to approach Rispah, the long awaited second album from The Invisible without taking into account the unfortunate events that surround it. Both the name and much of the melancholic mood are taken from the unfortunate passing of front man Dave Okumu's mother in the early days of tirelessly busy London trio setting out to follow up their Mercury nominated debut album, whilst Okumu has suffered further near fatal tragedy more recently when he was electrocuted on stage in Lagos. Produced in conjunction with UNKLE type Richard File, Rispah proves to be every bit as bewitching as their self titled debut, and the power of Okumu's vocals resonate all the more stronger given the obvious feelings running through him at the time

Review: Previously released as two separate CDs, the dream collaborations between ambient composer Harold Budd and the Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie here see a richly deserved double vinyl edition. Complimenting each other perfectly, the haunting piano soundscapes of Budd are given rich texture by Guthrie's ethereal guitar, turning in two albums of sumptuous and beautiful music.

Review: With their debut LP Exo, Gatekeeper continue their endeavors to be viewed as "an immersive audiovisual experience" as opposed to a mere band. Much like Giza, their EP for Merok, was accompanied by a VHS tape of music videos rendered in 3D, the ostensible album format of Exo is part of a wider concept, with a purpose -built video game environment to accompany the music, with a different level for each track. Album opener "Imax" is aptly titled as the plush sound design whooshes around you like a quintessential pre-movie indent, begging to be flung across the room on a 5.1 surround sound system. From this brief intro Gatekeeper take you on a fast-paced romp through all manner of bold electronic styles. Still, that underlying nausea that comes from such a rush of information to your ears has an addictive quality that begs for high volume immersion.
Whether this album stands strong independently of the video game analogies is debatable. The context is needed to justify the production pec-flexing, and does anchor the bombast of this kind of electronica. It's impeccably realized, and presented in the right way it will undoubtedly draw you into a world where sound and vision fuse seamlessly in your head.

Review: Having previously released music from the likes of Bristol's Ekoplekz, British electronic music pioneer F.C. Judd and Brooklyn's ADR, Public Information continue their survey of the outer fringes of avant-garde electronics by shifting their focus to USA's West Coast, presenting the debut record from Austin Cesear. Even in terms of America's rich underground of contemporary producers Cesear seems like an outsider; where his contemporaries are content to rework well worn tropes into bright retro pastiche, Cesear's music is warped and decayed, existing in a dark, parallel version of Chicago and Detroit's musical past. Cruise Forever is an album of two halves, combining dense techno in the vein of Actress or Andy Stott and digital, tape looped ambient that is somewhere between Daniel Lopatin, Fennesz and Steve Reich. Far from being a pretender however, Cesear puts his own bold stamp on these influences, reconstructing them with his own rusty building blocks and delivering an album that is one of best debuts we've heard this year.

Review: Unearth marks the follow-up to Grasscut's 2010 Ninja Tune debut 1 Inch: 1/2 Mile, sees the duo continue to develop their unique blend of electronica and good old fashioned song writing, featuring ten songs supposedly shaped by landscape and memory, each inspired by a specific location in Britain. It is a uniquely British album, whose folky quality is enhanced with guest spots from the likes of Robert Wyatt and Seb Rochford, with their electronic textures bringing to mind the whole spectrum of Britain's electronic heritage, owing as much to the Radiophonic Workshop as it does to Four Tet.

Review: The Newcastle based Signals collective have been delightfully unpredictable in their short existence to date, with releases from artists as varied as Legowelt, John Heckle and Oppenheimer Analysis also demonstrating an ear for quality that ensures the casual observer should always check in on their latest release. That honour falls on two local North East acts in the shape of sometime Claremont 56 artist Four Hands and iconic industrial figures Zoviet France. This clear twelve inch is the most creatively ambitious record from Signals yet, with the original material from Four Hands in essence a remix he did of "Mammoth Mountain", a track from the Manchester based artist Caro Snatch. Reimagined as a luscious ambient music with real attention paid to musicality, "Sea Of Love (Mammoth Mountain mix)" is a beautiful slice of music that can't fail to captivate across the almost eight minutes of its duration. Accompanying this, Zoviet France submitted two remixes, with the first - "November 2011, North Northumberland (Zoviet France dub)" - actually a recording of themselves playing the Four Hands version on a mobile phone while one of them chops wood. Complementing this slightly odd version is a sublime thirteen minute ambient piece that truly refigures the magic of Four Hands' original piece in Zoviet France's own inimitable style.