Tag: electronica

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Prod – The Artworks Formerly Known As Prints (Kruger music review)

Music review written in July 2008 for Kruger magazine.

Artist: Prod
Album: The Artworks Formerly Known As Prints
Label: Pollinate Records

New artist, new album, new label. Prod could potentially be lumped in with multi-talented producer-soul singer peeps like Jamie Lidell, Mocky, maybe Hot Chip at times… Prod is a street geek who’s mastered skittery 2-step beats and rude bass hiccups. Full marks for the beat science which is tight – and club-friendly in that the rhythms are all quantised. In other words, a DJ might play it and you could dance to it and it’s not really the kind of thing you expect from a trained saxophonist called Duncan. So he knows his way around a small studio. Against the peers mentioned above, it’s the glitch jazz element that’s his unique selling point. And you know, it kind of works too. Despite the busyness of an hour of cut-up breakbeats, live instrumentation, cheeky bleeps and boy-girl soul duets, the whole suite comes over surprisingly focused and accomplished. That said, the quirk factor is high and your reaction to this album will depend on whether you can deal with the earnest whispery blue-eyed soul vocals (see also: Lidell, again). The titular reference to the purple one is no mistake – this is possibly the kind of experimental pop album that Prince himself should be making if he weren’t busy wading through cash and suing YouTube.

More Kruger stuff on this blog.

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Bass Clef – A Smile Is A Curve That Straightens Most Things (Kruger music review)

Short music review of Bass Clef’s first album, originally written in November 2006 and published in Kruger magazine.

Artist: Bass Clef
Title: A Smile Is A Curve That Straightens Most Things
Label: Blank Tapes

Calling all dubheads, young and old. Rest assured, this album complies with the Trade Descriptions Act. Yes, there’s plenty of low-end on these tunes, of the wobbly and tuneful variety. But, granted that he borrows much from dubstep in all its current forms (track 1’s time-stretched ragga chatting, quoted from Ecclesiastes, even evokes the 2-step era of ’97), Bass Clef reunites the beats with latterly neglected dub ingredients like live trombone and theremin. There’s even time for some folky-sounding strings and moments of soundtracky rephlexion. In all, a superb treat. Check his live show if you can.

More Kruger stuff on this blog.

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Underpass makes tunes

Underpass is a Cardiff-based musician and DJ. Above is a video for a new tune from his new album. It reminds me of home.

He and I have a long history as colleagues and friends, including running a club night called Machine Meadow. It was 2004 and we wanted to DJ and book people we wanted to see, like Werk label, Adverse Camber collective and Kode9 (first dubstep night in Cardiff?). Among other things, I also promoted Multistorey EP and plugged it to radio – with some degree of success!

Ability as an electronic musician is partly about songwriting and partly about the art and science of studio production, both of which Lee has been carefully honing for a long time. So here’s to him and his new tunes! The early mixes I’ve been hearing have been splendid indeed, including a tune with multi-instrumentalist and former Placid Casual artist Rhodri Viney (alias Broken Leaf).

Read the Underpass biography or follow him.

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Delia Derbyshire on Ada Lovelace Day

It’s Ada Lovelace Day today and the brief was very open – just write a blog post about a woman in technology who you revere.

So here’s mine. The above video shows Delia Derbyshire demonstrating reel-to-reel music recording and production.

Derbyshire was known for her creative sound engineering work at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (which was itself the subject of some 50th anniversary retrospectives last year). Among those working long-term there in the early days there were three women in total, all of whom deserve credit. But I’m going to focus on Derbyshire.

Although many might know her as the warped genius behind the original – and best – Doctor Who theme, Derbyshire was very prolific. There are countless more fascinating themes, incidentals and effects on her CV, including a big batch of recordings which have only recently been found and reported.

While DJing, I’ve been known to play the spooky, beguiling and downright peculiar tune Love Without Sound by The White Noise, a band in which Derbyshire was a key member. The track is 40 years old but sits quite comfortably (but in a funny way, uncomfortably) with latter day tunes.

The fact that it’s now difficult to find the original vinyl LP, entitled Electric Storm, is some sort of indictment on either the record buying public or the marketing people at the record label. Either way, in 1969 that lack of attention would have been disappointing. But not for me in 2009 because I own and cherish one. W00t!

If you’re curious, the album was reissued last year by the famous (but somewhat oxymoronically-named) Universal Island label. You can hear it on CD, download or on Spotify where such services exist.

Delia Derbyshire was by many first-hand accounts a shy person. Dedication, focus and extremely high levels of patience were almost requirements for the job at the Workshop. These character traits, along with the BBC’s low esteem at the time for this mere “service department for drama“, may explain in part why appropriate recognition for her talents has been late in coming.

But among other luminaries who have been hybrids of performer, composer and producer, she really holds a place. Joe Meek, who was working on similar techniques in the 1960s but in the more mainstream world of pop, can be considered a peer. More widely, the name Delia Derbyshire should really be listed next to visionary producers like Phil Spector, Lee “Scratch” Perry and Brian Wilson (for adventurousness of musical output, it should be said, rather than behaviour).

Here’s to crazy electronica from the 1960s. And here’s to Delia Derbyshire!