We got songs of all sorts tonight and non-songs for most sorts too. Take your pick! LISTEN AGAIN – you can stream on demand @ fbi.radio or podcast here. Abigail Snail – Good Grief [Romac Puncture Repairs] Abigail Snail – Attach Bayonets [Romac Puncture Repairs] You can get an idea of the experimental roots background of London guitarist Stef Ketteringham, usually known as Stef Kett, from his 10-year-old Guitar Arrangements (2016) and its sequel More Guitar Arrangements from the following year – a loose, free jazz approach to bluesy guitar, the outer limits of American Primitive. It’s not that far from there to punk rock, but nor is it far from the swamp. Garage rock is more the touchstone with Abigail Snail though, when Kett, on vox, guitar & bass, teams up with the incredibly versatile drummer Will Glaser, who’s played with the likes of Sly & the Family Drone, Yazz Ahmad, Ruth Goller and many other luminaries of the London jazz scene, and released an incredible solo album last year. The music’s a kind of hysterical, broken-down form of garage rock, dragged into swampy blues-jazz with the addition of James Allsopp on tenor sax & bass clarinet, a fixture of London’s jazz & experimental scenes for the last 2 decades. The album bio describes them as “London spray band Abigail Snail”, and the raucous-yet-vulnerable music here could well suit this new genre (as you know, we at Utility Fog love ridiculous new genres). Anyway, stick this on your boombox and scare pedestrians as you cycle to work next week. Jungstötter – Overturn [Unguarded/Bandcamp] Fabian Altstötter founded his solo project Jungstötter some years after his postpunk band Sizarr went on hiatus. Solo, his music draws from the dramatic experimental songwriting of Scott Walker & David Sylvian – on 2023’s One Star, his rich vocals were offset by industrial rumblings and shifting electronics, muddled in pitch-shifted shadows of themselves, mashed beats interrupting the flow, horn and string arrangements that grow raucous. New album Sustained is now announced, and single “Overturn” is very pared down – just that voice, some percussion, sparse electric piano, field recordings of children’s voices and occasional single note hits from horns. Oh, and the scrabbling guitar at the end, all suggesting something creepy around the corner. No doubt this will be an excellent album. Massive Attack x Tom Waits – Boots on the Ground [PIAS Records/Bandcamp] The most unexpected release of the century? Given that Tom Waits‘ last solo album Bad As Me came out in 2011, we could have been forgiven for expecting that was the end, but Massive Attack (who have stuck to random singles with feature artists for the last decade) convinced him to create this anti-war anthem, clattering percussion straight out of Tom’s Bone Machine, piano straight out of many of 3D’s productions, and Tom’s barked vocals which could refer to ICE or US troops in Venezuela, Iran, or heck, Vietnam. It’s proper chilling stuff. Loraine James – Flatline ft. Miho Hatori [Hyperdub/Bandcamp] From her soon-forthcoming album Detached From The Rest OF You, Loraine James here works with Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto on absolute thriller of a song, the beats a Loraine glitch-bass special and Hatori’s vocals spoken and sung but always cut-up. This is her “pop” album lol… Well, it’s full of great singers and James herself sings on more than a few tracks, but it’s still super experimental. Naavikaran & Simo Soo – For You Page (FYP) [Naavikaran Bandcamp] On her new EP MYSTIQ DISCOTHEQ, Naarm-based rapper Naavikaran puts a South Asian spin on her EDM-influenced rap & pop, enlisting Simo Soo to help bring out the deconstructed club vibes. Across the EP, Naavikaran raps and sings in Tamil, Marathi, Hindi and English, covering life as a disabled, LGBTQI+ refugee. Impressive and entertaining. deafkids – REFLEXO [Neurot Recordings/Bandcamp] Brazilian band deafkids may nominally be classed as “punk”, but hardcore punk mixes with industrial and noise in their sound, along with electronic music of all shapes. They released the incredible uncategorizable Metaprogramação on Neurosis‘ Neurot Recordings in 2019, and then when the pandemic hit, they put out a series of EPs that mixed Latin rhythmic complexity with guitar pedal and software experimentation, collected now on the album Ritos do Colapso. Except before that in 2020 came their collaboration DEAFBRICK with cross-continental noise-metal-industrial-electronic duo PETBRICK. So with various collabs and oddities in the interim, their forthcoming CICATRIZES DO FUTURO (Scars of the Future) is their first album proper since Metaprogramação. It looks to be more electronic, more intense, more angry than ever, a visceral reaction to the state of the world. Highly rhythmic and danceable, it shifts between hardcore punk, industrial, Latin American and club sounds with abandon. I can’t wait to hear the whole thing. james K – Doom Bikini (Hesaitix Remix) [AD93/Bandcamp] Following her vaporwave-trip-hop album Friend from last year, james K now reaches out for some heavy-duty Friends to remix the album. Hesaitix is the alias of James Whipple, better known as M.E.S.H, pioneer of “deconstructed club”. Here, though, he’s taking james K’s “Doom Bikini” and adding accelerated breakbeats in a lightweight jungle style. Very nice. Zoë Mc Pherson – Bang Bang (Nziria remix) [SFX/Bandcamp] Zoë Mc Pherson – Ambient Snake (Yushh remix) [SFX/Bandcamp] One of the leading lights of deconstructed club music (as we probably don’t call it anymore), Zoë Mc Pherson, releases the remix collection from last year’s Upside Down album, via their own SFX label. A great collection of various sorts of experimental bass music, including here some frenetic jungle/breakcore from Italian DJ & producer Nziria, and some ambient technoid lushness from Bristol’s Yushh, who will be playing here soon – at the Sydney Opera House, no less – for DUNJ’s Vivid Live event, also featuring Carrier and our own gi and Autogenesis. ARTISOMA – Boraq [YUKU/Bandcamp] Ravensburg, Germany-based producer Sarah Rendle ARTISOMA, debuting on YUKU with the Mobilya EP, exploring various configurations of UK bass and percussive techno. Quality production, as expected from anything on YUKU. OD Bongo – crystallinoron [Carton Records/Bandcamp] It’s almost inevitable that whatever is next released by French label Carton Records will be unlike whatever you’ve previously heard. Amédée de Murcia (aka Somaticae) on synths and Édouard Ribouillault aka C_C on drum machines, samplers & fx make up OD Bongo, whose second album Bongoville is technically co-released by Carton, zamzamrec, Prix Libre Record and basalte (whoever they are). This multiplicity of co-presentations is quite common in France it seems. Whoever you’re encountering it via, you’re in for a treat: hardware samplers, synths & drum machines produce a psychedelic cacophany of dance music styles, drawing in trap, juke and gqom with their bass-heavy techno – and a dub sensibility is ever-present. That’s got to hit the spot if you’re a Utility Fog listener! Haydn Douet Lukies – Amolador [Colectivo Casa Amarela/Bandcamp] Colectivo Casa Amarela are one of those Portuguese labels that you know will come through with the goods, even if you’re not sure what those goods will be. In the case of Old Dark Champagne, percussionist Haydn Douet Lukies uses his environment as his instruments – in this case the watery soundscape of Cacilhas, an industrial area in the estuary of Tagus River (Lisbon is built around that estuary), along with rusting chains, architectural surfaces and so on. But from these ingredients he makes music whose rhythms and sounds are linked to the beats of jungle, UK drill, industrial dub and other bass musics, as well as Arabic percussion and the Lisbon-centred, Afro-diasporic sounds of batida. It’s only an EP, and leaves us wanting more. Tristan Arp – Forking Paths [Kapsela/Bandcamp] Objekt‘s label Kapsela continues to be essential, now releasing an EP, Re-Weave, from the brilliant percussive techno sound-artist Tristan Arp. Case in point, tonight’s track “Forking Paths” starts with blissful synth arpeggios, but a minute and a bit in, rolling snares and a light but prominent “tok” on the 2nd & 4th beats drop in, switching into a syncopated bassline, and these various parts undulate and shuffle through the course of the track. The title is a reference to Borges’ classic story “The Garden of Forking Paths”, but also to the EP’s dedication to weaving mycelial networks and labyrinths. Beautiful. Yunzero – Cool Skunk [Yunzero Bandcamp] Naarm’s Jim Sellars makes some of the most weirdly crunchy, alternate-reality sample-based music of the last decade or so, under the name Yunzero. As the quote says on this new 2-tracker, “there’s something off”. If you wanted a summary of Utility Fog’s favourite kinds of music, “there’s something off” is a pretty good one, and it’s not a bad description of the jittery, rhythmic pieces on show here. Hora Lunga – Hearing through the Wall ft. Junge Eko [Hora Lunga Bandcamp] One album I loved from last year came from Argentinian cellist Violeta García working with the Swiss composer/producer Hora Lunga. The two musicians melded sound-art and noise with acoustic gestures, post-club sub-bass and glitched ambiences. Now Hora Lunga presents his New Age Music Vol. 2-3, which couches new agey soundscapes in post-modern irony (check the CD-R edition, which comes enclosed in repurposed pop album packaging). Deliberately awkward edits cultivate a sense of unease, only emphasised with guest vocals from the likes of Junge Eko aka Catia Lanfranchi, whispering over stop-start breaks. García appears with a vocal performance that pairs with industrial beats remini
