Today's listening 26 july 2010

Unknown Artist - Numbercult 3 (Numbercult - NC003)

In the constant stream of half-arsed, half-produced and/or watered down digital releases it is easy to lose faith in whatever has "digital" in the release details.

But then comes Numbercult out of nowhere and shatters my pessimistic illusion.
Not only is it digital, but it is also FREE(!?).
The Glasgow label does however release on vinyl as well, in limited editions of 300ish copies. Kudos!

First track, 'Hinterland' starts like any other house/minimal techno track but quickly transforms when the very attentive melody kicks in. The track unfolds to something that is somehow reminiscent of the classic DJ Hell track 'Music For Films'. Truly inspiring!
Following up is the kickless and sublime 'Hidden Symmetry' which is an excursion in harmonies and synthesizers and in its minimalism proves that drums are never necessary even in "electronic dance music".
Lastly we have 'Splinters' which with its very cold and thin springs makes me feel that winter is here even though the sun is unusually persistent outside!


Samples:



The free download here
The vinyl here

Today's listening is:

Digitonal - Be Still My Bleeping Heart: A Digitonal Retrospective (Just Music - TAO035)





Was recommended this CD by Nuutti (aka Dcom) @ The Nursery.
It's the most beautiful piece of music I've heard in a long time. I had never heard of Digitonal before and apparently this CD is "a remastered collection of older, rare Digitonal material", which obviously leads me onto a googling frenzy. Nothing beats the feeling of discovering a yet unheard artist with a big reservoir of releases.

Anyways, the music itself is a mixture of electronica and classical. This might not be something groundbreaking, but as far as I know the usual is for artists to work with samples whereas Digitonal actually play the instruments themselves. This results in a warmer and more vivid element of classical music than what I have heard before.
I started writing about every song on the CD, but I won't even though most deserve it.. But really, if you like Plaid, (early) Autechre, Arovane, Bola etc. you really must check out this compilation. A good starting point would be "Cantus V" which is one of the darker and more "dissonant" (a al Plaid) songs. "Snowflake Vectors" is also a gateway with its more classic 90s Warp sound, or "Maris Stella" featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw of Opus 3.

I am off to hunt down the rest of their back catalogue now, you go listen below:



Order the CD here
Or do like me, buy the MP3s for instant gratification

Additional info:
Digitonal webpage
Digitonal discogs

Why the blog has been dead

Dear readers, apologies for not posting anything in the blog for almost 6 months.

In april I was in a rather severe motorcycle accident and have spent over 3 months in hospital and 1 month (so far, more to go) in rehab. I really am happy to have survived, it was a close call.. I am truly grateful to all the people who give blood, I will start doing so myself as soon as my health is OK again.

Anyways, I am back home now and have started to walk little by little again. Needless to say my music life has been suffering a lot during this period so there's not much news on that front.
But bare with me! There's more techno that needs to come out of this injured Swede.

'Made Tomorrow EP (SECT5R)' is due in september as well as a remix of Voidloss coming on Dynamic Reflection.

Today's listening is: Roof Light - Kirkwood Gaps (Highpoint Lowlife - HPLL052)
Found this during a random music googling night.
Digi-only album stretching from Boards Of Canada vibes to Flying Lotus madness to more conventional/contemporary dubstep. Nice summer home-listening.