Blanketed by melody

Closing skies want to
wear autumn's clothes. Aurora
will wait for next time.

Pixieguts has listened to a lot of Adrian Carter over the years. Their joint tracks, for instance Black River, feature hazy vocals evoking the edge of consciousness. Right now that is the wrong mood to be tapping into, much as I'd love to be on the river punting. This track jumped out, seized my ears, and won't let go. It's an epic bleepfest from 2006, just right for late summer productivity.

Adrian Carter: Abattoir Saws

Late one evening

Flying, turning, stop.
Graceful wings, joyful cries. Light
fades slowly up north.

Too Wonky Traktors spent a year coercing two instances of Ableton to talk to each other. This collaborative setup leads to subtly layered tunes, built from eclectic source material. I'm not very fond of genre classifications, but wonky does seem appropriate here. This track is quite minimal, but has the polished edge of something finely wrought. I look forward to catching them live.

Too Wonky Traktors: Summer Blossom Chat in The Park

Vaxadrin mystery EP: Life After Math

This is a little odd. I found an EP on my hard disk, apparently downloaded in April 2008 and lost among all the great free music that I'm still digging through. The MP3 release is tagged as by Vaxadrin, and is called "Life After Math" (of course it could be mistagged and may actually be the EP Vaxadrin by Life After Math). Could someone provide a pointer to what this is and where it could be located? My Google-fu fails to locate a source; there is no such artist at Musicbrainz or Discogs; Archive.org knows nothing. My puzzlement about the lack of trace of artist or release on the net is that this is rather excellent music, and it would be great to spread the word! But it is a bit odd to be forced to say "I found these great tracks on my hard disk, sorry I have no idea of their status". Please help!

The five tracks are listed as:

1. Starry Sky
2. Know Yourself
3. Mythical Creatures
4. Wall Of Sound
5. Breathing Deeper

Three of these are worth heavy-duty listening, and I would wholeheartedly recommend this release for anyone keen on lush melodic electronica with pop sensibilities, a dose of minimalism, a dash of glitch, and a nod to dubstep. Alas, no links until I have worked out the status of these tracks...

Summer tufts

Many things to do.
Cool breeze, riverside picnic
Ants in the grass? Smile.

Today's "super chill" track (or otherwise, lush melodic instrumental electronica) is by James Kirsch (a.k.a. General Fuzz). The beats and careful arrangement stop the piano and strings from pulling the composition over into the abyss occupied by Andreas Vollenweider. As a wee lad I did spend far too much time down there, but I'm much better now. Take a journey to the land just a shade this side of Easy Listening, but be careful of the edge.

General Fuzz: Second Thoughts

Midwinter plains

Long-distance skiing:
cutting new tracks, exhaustion.
Also, elation.

The midsummer heat brings forth nostalgia for coolth and winter light. Last year I posted about Boreal Network's track Cloud Map, but turning down the brightness seems key to long term resonance. As a brief look at my Last.fm profile confirms, another track from Aviation Weather turned out to be the long term stayer. Cole Johnson has been rather prolific since this album. I mentioned Bikehigh USA 2 a while back, a new EP Phase With The Moon is in the pipeline, and there are four other releases in between! If you liked Paramnesic's Last Breath or The Night Before, this lives in the same nostalgica territory.

Boreal Network: Wetland

Dazzled by sunlight

It's not complicated: dance!
Do it now, do it.

Oxford's Space Heroes of the People tap into the Soviet-nostalgia of their name. Track names such as "Cosmodrome", "Motorway to Moscow", and "Steam Driven" evoke a slightly rusty but perfectly functional sort of proto-steampunk. The link between Soviet tech and the glories of the freewheeling DIY spirit was perhaps first made in the English language by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson in their 1983 story "Red Star, Winter Orbit". (Let's not worry here about the less glorious aspects of living in such a society.)

On this deeply happy track from the 2007 EP "Motorway to Moscow", minimal electronica meets New Romantic pop sensibilities. The hooks are simpler than most lullabies, and the approach is certainly sparser than others fishing in the same waters, such as MGMT. The strong use of repetition hammers home the singalong tune. This skips us right past irritation and over into fascination with the blocks of sound from which the song is constructed. In low earth orbit, you must dance with Colonel Korolev!
Space Heroes of the People: Shiny Shiny

Cycle trail

Clear skies, gentle breeze.
It's a good day to ride fast,
Alongside green fields.

A while back I wrote about Boreal Network's Aviation Weather. Changing modes of transport, Cole Johnson returned late last year to a cycling theme. Bikehigh USA 2: Nettles Revenge is a sequel to Bikehigh USA, from 2007. These new tracks somehow didn't make an impression while the skies were grey in late 2009. But now, with some kind of spring finally in progress, pumping, crunchy electronica beckons with a happy grin. Get on your bike!

Boreal Network: Regional Trail

Gee skweee

Bleep, bloop, bleep again
Casiotone in a loop,
or essence of sound?

Minimal electronica is not usually my main beat. I like walls of sound, analogue distortion, and Moog melodies. So nostalgica, and more generally melodic electronica, are my staple subgenres. However, I really liked the sounds of Rymdreglage's 8-bit trip, and DJ Mujava's Township Funk was part of any definitive 2009 experience, so it seems time to re-explore this part of the landscape. I'll try to avoid thinking about Plastikman and my past bafflement with it all.

This is rather catchy, from an album released earlier this year. Thanks to Karl for the pointer!

Beem: Automan