Utility Fog

Peter Hollo
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Utility Fog teeters on the cusp between acoustic and electronic, organic and digital. Constantly changing and rearranging, this aural cloud of nanotech consumes genres and spits them out in new forms. Peter Hollo curates each episode around a narrative of genre-plasticity, deep-diving into artist histories, side projects and influences. Challenging sounds are contextualised within musical movements, surprising connections are uncovered, unfairly overlooked works are revisited. Come on a journey through music in all its ugly beauty.

  1. HACE 4 D

    Playlist 08.02.26

    I’ve been away for two weeks in Japan (it was amazing, needless to say). Huge thanks to Holly Conner (ilex) and Lachlan Stevens (Heyes) for brilliant shows on those two Sundays. Tonight I’m excited about the selections available – intense experimental electronic rock, protest rap, free jazz-tronic poetry, glitch-folk, sound-art, jungle & idm, post-techno post-bass(?), and acoustic instruments distorted, processed, and played live. Mandy, Indiana – Sevastopol Mandy, Indiana – I’ll Ask Her B Dolan – How I(CE) Could Just Kill A Man The Odes – You Owned It Bara & Isa – 2×2 (Verschrin Tulip Mix) Concrete Husband – As the Sun Falls Concrete Husband – Procession of the New Sun Toni Geitani – Ruwaydan Ruwaydan Toni Geitani – Wasla Glasser and Melati ESP – Vine (Melati ESP Remix) Xylitol – Falling Suburban Architecture – Rising (Kloke Remix) dgoHn – 4.37445 Yards Bruce – It Ain’t Over Till… Shackleton – Contagious Illusion Pharoah Chromium – IA JEBEL SARFIT 2 Nicolas Van Belle – Veel en alleen Nicolas Van Belle – Allenig waren we Taroug – 1995 Fabels – luister Lueenas – Diana Emily Wittbrodt – Lied Emily Wittbrodt – Coda Kourosh Kanani and Matt Davies – Lay Laye – feat. Amena Max Ridley, Eleanor Elektra and Nat Mugavero – How Can I Explain?

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  2. 18 ENE

    Playlist 18.01.26

    Mid-January, we’re very much on the way with 2026’s new music, but I’ve got a few 2025 catch-ups in here too. I’ll be away in Japan the next two weeks, and Holly Conner on the 25th and Lachlan Stevens on the 1st of Feb will be your excellent hosts. Puma Blue – Hush Pebble Seven – Strangers Alev Lenz – Domestisizer (on F) Alev Lenz – Mother Tongue (on B) Kee Avil – itch Mi3raj معراج – Medley ميدلى Dééfait – Molokh ∞ Zu – Pleroma Zone Null – There will be poems (condensed) Richard Francis – Phase effect on wet road Damian Valles – Pt.4 Pita – 4 Luís Fernandes + Pierce Warnecke – Culatra II (excerpt) Travis Cook – 9am Atte Elias Kantonen – EEEE Atte Elias Kantonen – Aluhart Leif – Yes No Joanna – Gardeners World – ddwy Remix DJ Punx – Gas ugne&maria – a tidal pull ugne&maria – slip False Aralia – Borgesian Term 04 Erdfisch – Honig

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  3. 11 ENE

    Playlist 11.01.26

    Welcome to the first new music show of 2026 – and thanks to Giulio aka Parcae for his great selections last week! We have a certain amount of catchup from last year, but we also have a surprisingly large amount of new music already, either released this week or last, or forthcoming. LISTEN AGAIN in a new year. Stream on demand from fbi.radio or podcast here. hidden_attachment – sorry this was just something i had to do [ky/hidden_attachment Bandcamp] hidden_attachment – in moncton i spent all my money on pinball and beer [ky/hidden_attachment Bandcamp] In November I played a track from Ky Brooks, the Montreal artist who recorded an album in 2023 called Power Is The Pharmacy for Constellation under the name Ky. They appear under various aliases, the most current of which is hidden_attachment, and they were previously known for making noise-punk with Lungbutter and freeform experimental stuff with Nag, among many others. The new hidden_attachment release is an EP described as “a tiny horrible opera”, which seems misleading – horrible is a matter of opinion, “opera” perhaps less so, but this is a small epic of practically ever genre other than opera. Jangling indie rock, electro-pop, bedroom drum’n’bass, bedroom punk, experimental ambient pop… ish. It’s weird & fun! Silvia Tarozzi – Lucciole [Unseen Worlds/Bandcamp] Silvia Tarozzi – Le ossessioni [Unseen Worlds/Bandcamp] When US label Unseen Worlds introduced us to Italian violinist/singer/composer and more Silvia Tarozzi, it was her first album Mi specchio e rifletto, an album that reflects her broad musical experience, from working with groundbreaking minimalist electronic composer Eliane Radigue to contemporary music with Ensemble Dedalus, to the folk music of her local region, improvisation, and playful studio experimentation. There was more than a hint of Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Then in 2022, Tarozzi released another extraordinary work, Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore (“Songs of war, work and love”), with the cellist Deborah Walker, presenting a collection of music inspired by folk songs from rural Emilia which came from working class women involved with the partisan resistance in World War II, including songs sung by choirs of female rice field workers – music that the pair had grown up with. In April 2025, some of us were incredibly lucky, in Sydney and I think Melbourne, to witness Tarozzi & Walker performing these songs together, with just their instruments and voices – one of those occasions when musicianship seems like magic. So there’s a lot of anticipation with this new solo album from Tarozzi – or there would be, except that Lucciole appeared seemingly out of nowhere, available digitally on Bandcamp on December 12th. We’ll have to wait for April this year for the LP and CD, but the whole album’s there if you’re willing to stump up $10USD. Once again this is a wonderful tapestry of an album, with brass ensemble arrangements that set it somewhere between classical & folk music, along with synths, field recordings and turntables bringing modern twists. Her voice is lovely and some of the songwriting evokes the baroque pop of Sufjan Stevens in the best way. Winged Wheel – I See Poseurs Every Day [12XU/Bandcamp] Winged Wheel – Speed Table [12XU/Bandcamp] A US experimental rock supergroup, Winged Wheel began as a filesharing process between various musicians including violist Whitney Johnson aka Matchess, resulting in the 2022 debut album No Island. But for their new album Desert So Green, the band (expanded further to include, among others, Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley) had toured extensively, and headed into the studio together. The result is an album with psych-kraut-rock intensity and rhythmic drive, blurts of postpunk harshness, shards of viola, and vocals at times. It’s a real surprise, and really worth digging into. Èlg & la Chimie – La ville cachée [Murailles Music/Bandcamp] I don’t speak much French, not well anyway, but there’s just scads of great music from France – and francophone artists from Belgium, Switzerland and Canada, not to mention other former colonies – and you know I’m happy to play music in any languages as much as instrumental music. But understanding the pure breadth of francophone music is still challenging, so I’m happy when French artists fall into my lap. The entity known as Èlg is Laurent Gérard, and he’s been involved in experimental rock, sound-stuff, weird electronic etc for a good couple of decades. La chimie (chemistry) was a project of his in 2013, made up of weird electronics and loops – but now it’s also his band, in which he plays amplified guitalele (ukulele/guitar hybrid) and keyboards, with Marie Nachury on bass, electroncis and percussion, and Johann Mazé on drums and drum triggers. All three also sing, and they make a righteous noise, sometimes starting off as normal-sounding songs until something super-weird happens; in particular, often magnificent grooves on booming, clattering drum kit, and thumping bass. No two tracks are anything like each other, but there’s a through-line of unchained inspiration. Truly something else. JJJJJerome Ellis – Evensong, part 3 (for and after Jessica Valoris) [Shelter Press/Bandcamp] This wonderful album came out in November, but I didn’t properly get to it until too late to include it last year. JJJJJerome Ellis is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, academic, cross-media artist and more; they are of Grenadian-Jamaican-American heritage, and they’re a disabled person with a stutter – something that they’ve ingrained in their practice, including in the spelling of their first name. This album, Vesper Sparrow, draws from Black American and Caribbean culture as well as pop and experimental music, while being placed primarily in a composed jazz context. Most of the tracks are written for, and sometimes feature, fellow artists, poets and theorists. Alongside granular processing and sampling, Ellis’s stutter features and becomes a structural part of the music – but whatever the theoretical basis, this is beautiful and incredibly creative music. Toni Geitani – Ya Sah [Toni Geitani Bandcamp] Toni Geitani – Wasla [Toni Geitani Bandcamp] Originally trained in filmmaking, Lebanese musician Toni Geitani has since gained a Masters in live electronics in Amsterdam, where he is based now. His Masters thesis is titled “Sampling as a Political Medium”, which sounds fascinating. In his music, he melds Arabic vocals with classical instrumentation and experimental electronic production – the three preview tracks from his forthcoming album Wahj are stunning. “Wahj” (وهج) means “radiance”, and Geitani invites us to look through the collapse we see around, and seek that light. Obelisk – Salty Lemon Air [Geometric Corruption/Bandcamp] FBi’s own Ryan O’Rourke, presenter of Mithril for all things heavy & experimental, also makes music as Obelisk. It’s heavy and experimental for sure, but very electronic, very deconstructed club with aspects of breakcore, groaning distorted bass, trance keyboards and glitch. Obviously it’s awesome. Kloke – Silk [Subtle Audio/Bandcamp] Huuuuge jungle/drumfunk/drum’n’bass compilation incoming! Limerick, Ireland label Subtle Audio put out a series of great 2 or 3CD compilations in the mid-’00s with early drumfunk and jungle-inclined drum’n’bass – at the time it felt like the best source of really great beat production around. Many years later, here’s another 3CD set: Our Atmosphere has 2CDs of original tracks and tracks taken from label releases in a broadly “atmospheric” jungle, drumfunk and drum’n’bass, with a huge list of great producers, plus a DJ mix from label head Code on the 3rd disc. Oh – and the CDs arrived in the mail just as we hit the new year, but the digital version (without the 3rd disc) won’t be available until Feb 6th, so this is a sorta-kinda exclusive of Naarm’s own Kloke, one of many highlights here. Aftawerks & Earl Grey – Swingfunc Jungle [Earl Grey Bandcamp] Nathan Firman aka Aftawerks has been plying his trade in funky acid, IDM & jungle for over a decade, and Jim Earl Grey released an EP of his on his Hyperchamber Music label way back in 2013. I’m a pretty big fan of Earl Grey (in fact I first heard his stuff on those Subtle Audio comps back in the day!) and this collaboration between the two is just mad shit in the best way. Homemade Weapons – Leviathan (HW Remix) [Weaponist/Bandcamp] Seattle’s Homemade Weapons has his own particular take on the minimal/tribal drum’n’bass championed by Samurai Records, and as well as releasing on that label (and others) he runs his own label, Weaponist. The latest label release is the Bumura EP from the artist himself, with two new tracks and two remixes he’s made of tracks that were originally collabs – tonight’s cut was originally made with Sacramento’s Red Army. I do appreciate the way that elements of jungle are dropped into the very minimal d’n’b feel. BMA – Middle Age REFLEKT [Industrial Coast/Bandcamp] Moa Pillar – Fight Them Back [Industrial Coast/Bandcamp] The Industrial Coast label is based in Middlesborough, about an hour’s drive south of Newcastle, so fairly grim-up-north territory (I actually lovely Newcastle when I played there last year). The label is pretty dedicated to the cassette as a format, and generally most of the music on Bandcamp is unavailable digitally without the physical objects (set at £999) – but they do do retrospective compilations, and open up other releases briefly at times. So Deconstructed Reconstructed Retrospective is a double-compilation, in that it collects tracks from the labels Deconstructed/Reconstructed series of compilations in which industrial & experimental artists cover or remix artists such as Crass or music related to movements l

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  4. 28/12/2025

    Playlist 28.12.25 – Best of 2025, Part 3!

    Heya, so here we are, the end of 2025. Good riddance I say. As is traditional, this is a DJ mix – almost 2 hrs, with a bit of speaking at the front. It’s pretty strange, this one, although there’s a lot of dance music. There’s also a lot of detours and oddities, but that’s what UFog is about, so I hope you enjoy! You can stream on demand from fbi.radio, or you can listen right here: Perera Elsewhere, Andy S – Fuck Le System [Friends of Friends/Bandcamp] I loved Sasha Perera aka Perera Elsewhere‘s 2022 album Home, an album of “doom-folk”, but actually experimental electronic pop songs. The following year she put out an album of remixes with some excellent contributors, and now there’s finally another album, Just Wanna Live Some. Her musical net is cast wide, mixing UK soundsystem culture in with music from different parts of Africa, Indonesia and Europe (she’s based in Berlin). The first double single features two tracks with Ivorian MC Andy S, rapping (mostly) in French over infectious beats. Harry The Nightgown – Bell Boy [Leaving Records/Bandcamp] A band that call themselves Harry The Nightgown are just gonna be an art pop kind of affair, right? For their debut album the LA band were engineer/producer Spencer Hartling aka tp Dutchkiss and sound engineer/singer/guitarist/etc Sami Perez, but they are now joined by Luke Macdonald, who tours with one of Perez’ bands, Cherry Glazerr. There’s no way of telling who played or programmed what, but the first single from Ugh (an album with a title for the times if ever there was one) is complex & melodic, skippy junglist beats with a sped-up funk bassline and lopsided maybe-sample, skittering into groovy synth chords that could come from an early James Blake track. It’s glitchy, catchy and super-cool. N-Type & Kromestar – Don’t Be Afraid ft. Sgt Pokes & Breezy Lee [Wheel & Deal Records/Bandcamp] I don’t play a lot of dubstep on the show these days, simply because it doesn’t always fit in, and the same goes for grime “as such”, although I love those genres. So unfortunately this lovely song that melds trip-hoppy r’n’b vocals, grime and dubstep, wasn’t played during the year – but here it fits nicely in this space between electronic pop and dub. Both N-Type & Kromestar go back to the early days of dubstep, and the voice of Sgt Pokes has been heard at many a dubstep night. Breezy Lee also has been associated with the UK bass scene for a while, as well as jazz & cabaret, and she brings just the right amount of soulfulness to this tune. Modeselektor featuring Paul St. Hilaire – Movement [!K7 Records/Bandcamp] We’ll get back to Paul St. Hilaire in a minute, but I have to confess I’ve always had a soft spot for Modeselektor. They are essentially a Berlin take on bass music and techno, and through their long career have often found great collaborators to join them on their albums and mixes. It’s nice to see them doing what’s surprisingly their first DJ-Kicks mix, inserting a good quantity of experimental stuff, and of course there are some exclusive tracks. “Movement” is a thudding, bouncy piece of bass techno, and the echoing voice of Paul St. Hilaire (fka Tikiman) provides great atmosphere to what’s really a skeletal track (which is all it needs to be). Kvedarkvintetten – Brest [Heilo Records/Bandcamp] Tagal is the latest album from Norwegian vocal quintet Kvedarkvintetten, featuring music composed by Jorun Marie Rypdal Kvernberg. The title translates as “to keep silent” or “mute” or “wordless”, so these songs feature almost no text. The quintet’s previous work was primarily based around their interpretations of the traditional vocal music of the Hallingdal region of Norway, so even though Kvernberg provided musically notated scores, the group brought their own interpretation. This is highly melodic music, performed with dedication and emotion. Simon Henocq – CONCOURSE A [Carton Records/Bandcamp] French record label Carton Records gregariously supports artists across just about all genres, and many of their releases have the genre-free je ne sais quoi of Simon Henocq‘s We Use Cookies. Henocq is a sound-artist, producer and self-taught musician who also convenes French collective COAX, a gathering-together of musicians of all genres along with dancers, visual artists and more. I would loosely define Henocq’s album as noise, but it coalesces into a kind of industrial techno often. At other times you’ll get a fizzling, crackling tone that slowly grows into a snarling miasma. Paul St. Hilaire & Gavsborg – Confidential [Kynant Records/Bandcamp] Until about 2003, the Jamaican vocalist Paul St. Hilaire was known as Tikiman, under which name he collaborated with many experimental electronic musicians including The Bug and Tarwater, but most famously Berlin techno heads Mark Ernestus & Moritz Von Oswald of dub-techno labels/projects Basic Channel, Chain Reaction and Burial Mix, particularly under their Rhythm & Sound alias. These releases were ground zero for minimal techno and dub techno, quite unlike anything else heard at the time. While many 12″s featured Tikiman on vocals, there were others, and eight tracks with eight different vocalists were collected on Rhythm & Sound w/ The Artists. So that’s the starting point for Paul St. Hilarie – w/ The Producers – nine tracks here, with ten producers from the dub & techno worlds, channeling (by and large) the Basic Channel template. It’s really an excellent album, but among the highlights was the track from Jamaican producer Gavsborg, of the experimental crew Equinoxx, whose track is utterly stripped back. Also notable: Eora/Sydney DJ & producer Cousin (aka FBi’s Jackson Fester), who keeps things beautifully smooth and minimal, supporting St. Hilaire’s repeated phrase “Back Inna Business”. gyrofield – Vegetation Grows Thick [Kapsela/Bandcamp] If you know the music of now-Utrecht-based Hong Kong producer Kiana Li as gyrofield, you’d know her as an insanely talented jungle & drum’n’bass producer, whose earliest Bandcamp tracks are from when she was 15. A scant few years later she was being released on labels like Critical Music and Metalheadz. But with that head start, it’s not too surprising that since the age of about 21 she’se been branching out from drum’n’bass into mutated forms of other genres – and given that, Objekt‘s new label Kapsela is a good place to be stretching forms. Each of the four tracks on Suspension of Belief is a different kind of weirdness. Opener “Vegetation Grows Thick” juggles backmasked vocals with pulsating bleeps and skittery hi-hats before the thumping kick drums enter. Sebaas – No Plastic [unreleased on Sebaas.Waveform Bandcamp] Amsterdam-based producer Sebaas has a couple of releases under his belt, which he describes as “multifaceted floor-groove”. Seems about right – percussive bass music, whether techno or on a more 140 tilt. “No Plastic” is based around a sample of Spanish singer Nathy Peluso rapping “I’m a nasty girl, fantastic / este culo es natural o no plastic” (found here), switching up the minimalist reggaeton for high-energy bass-heavy breaks. I received a promo of this and it doesn’t seem to have ever come out – perhaps copyright issues. Mac Seldom – ILUVU [Hotflush Recordings/Bandcamp] Hotflush Recordings was founded by Paul Rose aka Scuba in 2003, at the very cusp of dubstep’s advent, but it always featured pre-dubstep sounds like UK garage, and increasingly the dub techno that Rose as Scuba was hybridizing into his own dubstep. Gradually the label has turned its focus more to techno & other 4/4 genres, but I still follow for the gems. Newcastle Upon Tyne producer Mac Seldom spent years making music for film in Berlin, but Dance W/ Me collects three tracks of pristine uk garage/bass house stuff with heaps of bounce and syncopation. Kalabash – Major ft. Jelani Blackman (Radio Edit) [Tropopause Records/Bandcamp] UK singer and rapper Jelani Blackman brings out the grime in this new track from London-based collective Kalabash, who planned to release their Decompression Tapes Vol. 1 in 2025, but it hasn’t eventuated. In any case, Blackman’s lyrical prowess is on show here, over a high-paced beat and production that seems to draw from all over. Also noting that their 2-track single from earlier in March showcases two other sides: “Decompress” is tough jungle-techno with a cinematic interlude, while “Concrete” is a tense 4/4 number. Muskila – JAH NAM (INTRO) [YUKU/Bandcamp] Bass music here, YUKU-style, from Muskila, who was born in Copenhagen with North-Kurdistani roots. The percussive backbone to all the rhythms here, and Muskila connects with Nigerian rapper Aunty Rayzor, and remixers from Cairo (Hassan Abou Alam) and Jordan (Toumba). Low-slung and minimalist, these tracks have a strong sense of style. Vier – VAI PULANDO [Machinedrum Bandcamp] Some kind of dance music supergroup here… Travis “Machinedrum” Stewart here teams up with Thijs “Thys” de Vlieger of Noisia, Dutch producer/academic Salvador Breed and Portuguese DJ/producer Miguel “Holly” Oliveira. This is intensely soudn-designy bass music, but also very ravey and dancefloor-friendly. Two of the quartet are Dutch, so they named the group “Vier” (four). “Vai Pulando” is Brazilian Portuguese on the other hand, and means “Keep Jumping”. I concur. Pushlock – Scarecrow [XCPT/Bandcamp] Over to Italy now with the XCPT label, which last year released an excellent album from Naarm/Melbourne’s Barking. Here’s adventurous Italian bass music producer Pushlock with his third album on XCPT, Stuck in a Cell. It’s a good example of how bass music styles are mixed’n’matched by a lot of producers these days – jungle breaks slipping in & out of the mix, with a general dubstep feel. It’s not slow-fast eithe

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  5. 21/12/2025

    Playlist 21.12.25 – Best of 2025, Part 2!

    Tonight it’s Part 2 of Utility Fog’s best of 2025, which encompasses all the music that’s not vocal-driven or beats-driven. So there’s contemporary jazz, abstract sound-art, glitch electronics, glitchy postrock, field recording, tape manipulation and more. There’s even voice at times. LISTEN AGAIN and sound your art – stream on demand at fbi.radio, or podcast here. Laura Jurd – Praying Mantis [New Soil/Bandcamp] There has, I think, been more “jazz” on Utility Fog this year than in previous years – but there’s always been some, often in a faux genre of “post-jazz” that I’ve used to lump together glitchy hybrid-jazz with electronics. But in general jazz is a living genre that can’t help but draw from everything from punk & metal to electronica and folk. One of the jazz highlights this year was the new solo album from UK trumpeter Laura Jurd, who had stepped away from music to tend to her family, but returns here in astonishing form. Jurd’s Mercury-nominated band Dinosaur embodied the “fusion” aspect of whatever post-jazz wants to be, using synths along with a spiky rhythm section that funks out where necessary. On Jurd’s Rites & Revelations, the folk aspects (also present in Dinosaur) are often to the fore, and that’s all kinds of folk including Scottish and English, but also Eastern European and Western Asian to my ears. And as well as Jurd’s usual drummer Corrie Dick and contemporary UK jazz mainstay Ruth Goller on bass, the band features accordianist Martin Green and violinist/violist Ultan O’Brien. It’s an album unlike any other, drawing deeply on the past while pointing in new directions. Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werliin – Panj [Drag City/Bandcamp] Ghosted III is the third album from the trio of iconoclastic Australian experimental guitarist Oren Ambarchi with the Swedish rhythm section of the incredible Fire! – bassist Johan Berthling & drummer Andreas Werliin. It’s still driven by the wonderful cyclic basslines and rhythms of Berthling & Werliin, but on this album it opens up its scope from those patient cycles. It’s still deeply embedded in these artists’ oeuvres: the krautrockain period of Ambarchi’s that started with “Knots”, the centrepiece of 2012’s Audience of One, and similarly the hypnotic sound of Berthling & Werliin’s groundbreaking earlier band Tape (one album on Bandcamp) as well as the freer Fire! and Fire! Orchestra. Opener “Yek” (the titles are the numbers 1-6 in Persian) has chiming post-postpunk guitars over a skipping bassline and drums, and it’s followed by the starker “Do”, which could be a long-lost Tape track. But there’s still minimalist blues like “Panj”, on which Ambarchi’s guitar sounds like a droning organ. These musicians’ careers have intersected multiple times in their swerving trajectories. Long may they reign in this trio formation! TL;DR – Cumulus (edit) [Earshift Music/Bandcamp] Following his tenure as leader of the Australian Art Orchestra, Naarm trumpeter/composer/producer Peter Knight hasn’t stopped to rest. The wonderful Hand To Earth was formed as a project of the AAO but continues as its own thing. TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) is a new quartet with three younger musicians in the Naarm jazz scene. Brilliant bassist Helen Svoboda is here playing basslines but also showcasing her melodic bowed harmonics and her voice; guitarist Theo Carbo, like Peter Knight, contributes electronics as well as his instrument; and Peter’s son Quinn Knight brings 15 years of experience improvising with his dad to the fore. This is dreamy music, ambient-dub-jazz – and the internet-jokey name aside, the cloud titles are perfect for these floating, soulful pieces. Alister Spence Trio – The Gathering [Alister Spence Bandcamp] Alister Spence – Interior Signal [Room40/Bandcamp] Sydney pianist Alister Spence is a key part of this city’s jazz and improv scene, and his trio with Lloyd Swanton of The Necks and drummer Toby Hall is a unique, evocative partnership (all three were also part of Sandy Evans & Tony Gorman’s legendary Clarion Fracture Zone). In Februrary this year, the trio released their latest album of melodic, energetic jazz, Gather. But Alister’s creativity takes him in all directions, and his Within Without album is perfectly conceived for the Room40 label. Here, his creative impulse swoops away from the piano, and often away from the keys altogether, diving inside the beloved, chiming, throbbing heart of the Fender Rhodes (an instrument Spence has very much made his own too, over decades of playing). Prepared piano is now a well-established way to draw new sounds from the piano, and highlight its inner workings; so here’s Alister Spence’s prepared Rhodes. His suite of effects is never far away, but mostly we’re hearing the insides of the instrument, tapping and buzzing and yes, chiming. It’s hard to make the Rhodes not beautiful, and its inherent warmth is not denied or countered even in the most abstract pieces here. Delicious. Alexandra Spence – The Spring [Students of Decay/Bandcamp] Staying in the experimental space, we join Alexandra Spence, a brilliant sound-artist who works with field recordings and found objects to tell a story about place and memory – and who happens to be the daughter of Alister Spence. Her last two albums (from 2022) arose from a fascination with oceans and waterways; the scope is wider here, from mountains to backyards, but the ecological and geological also interact here with the personal. As well as recordings of places and non-musical objects, Spence (a clarinettist) here uses sounds from Serge Modular synths and a custom-built lyre, and even the voice and instrumentation of French composer & musician Delphine Dora. Spence is a master at combining disparate sounds – when performing live she uses contact mics and found objects which meld with pre-recorded field recordings and other in-the-box sounds in a way that can only be described as alchemical. Kate Carr – spring back and creak [Flaming Pines/Bandcamp] OK but if we’re talking about field recordings and found sound and music, Kate Carr (originally from here but London-based for ages) is a master of the art, and tirelessly promoting others through her Flaming Pines label. Rubber Band Music is a particular sound experiment, using homemade devices of wood, metal and rubber bands. So we’ve got sproings and buzzes and wobbles, slowed down, filtered, rebuilt. Abstract yet physical. Ipek Gorgun – Edgelord [Touch/Bandcamp] Turkish composer/sound-artist/musician Ipek Gorgun released her last solo album Ecce Homo seven years ago. In the meantime she’s had works performed in prestigious venues, but has also been through multiple traumas – electrocution, cancer treatment, anaphylaxis… So her remarkable new album Earthbound is an act of defiance as well as an act of surrender. The darkness of these years is audible here, but so is an earthy sense of liveliness and humour. There is endless detail in each of these soundworks, but some do stand out, especially those incredible swooping glissandi in “Edgelord”. dogs versus shadows – Ghost Artery Part 1 (radio edit) [Flaming Pines/Bandcamp] Nottingham artist dogs versus shadows appears on Kate Carr’s brilliant label Flaming Pines with a kind of narrative about the River Trent, that winds through Nottingham and has been subjected to various forms of degradation through human activity. This highly polluted river has dangers lurking beneath its surface, and dogs versus shadows dredges these up with the use of “field recordings, tape loops, dying vocals from broken dictaphones and snatches of shortwave radio”. The two full tracks are a little under 15 minutes each, and each is an engrossing quasi-narrative of watery field recordings and seemingly unrelated sounds – chopped up snippets of speech, electronic pulsations and almost-rhythms. It’s fascinating and you’ll probably want to go back and listen again when it’s over. António Feiteira – Ghost Hiss, Resonant Hip [Eastern Nurseries/Bandcamp] Eastern Nurseries is one of a number of Portuguese labels that reliably turns up surprising new sounds from unfamiliar artists. So here’s a brilliant debut EP from Porto-based percussionist and sound-artist António Feiteira, titled Performing the Heimlich on an Ouroboros. I love the first track, played here: a contemplative, crackling glitchscape. The middle track “Synthesized Chronos Turned Organless Aion” retains some of the glitch textures, but foregrounds Feiteira’s drumming. A really great EP. A little later in the year, Feiteira released a self-titled album with Francisco Pedro Oliveira as Amuleto Apotropaico, on another Portuguese label, Perf. Fascinating stuff, including an appearance from cellist Ricardo Jacinto, also recommended. She’s Analog – danse macabre [Carton Records/Carton Bandcamp/Torto Editions/Bandcamp/She’s Analog Bandcamp] The second album from Italian trio She’s Analog is a compelling mix of (post-)jazz, postrock, electroacoustic music and more, co-released by the great French label Carton Records and Italian Torto Editions. At times they can sound like a minimalist jazz piano trio, at other times like a motorik, minimalist postpunk band. It’s clearly put together from partly improvised elements, but there’s also careful composition here, drawing different moments from the album together, with electronic elements also pointing to the way this music was crafted in the studio. But there’s also a real melodic sense that draws you in for repeat listens, which it certainly received from me this year. BirdWorld – Opposite Hinges (feat. Sara Övinge) [Dugnad rec/BirdWorld Bandcamp] When I discovered BirdWorld in 2018, it was love at first sight – a cello and percussion duo? And yet so much more? Cellist Gregor Riddell and percussionist Adam

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  6. 14/12/2025

    Playlist 14.12.25 – Best of 2025, Part 1!

    It’s December, with 3 Sundays left of the year, so that’s Best of 2025 Parts 1, 2, and 3! Tonight it’s “songs” – well, that includes raps. I’ve had to leave SO much out, y’all! As usual, the amount of music being released only goes up, and it’s not like the years are getting longer… As always, you can LISTEN AGAIN on stream-on-demand at fbi.radio, or podcast right here. clipping. – Night of Heaven (feat. Counterfeit Madison & Kid Koala) [Sub Pop/Bandcamp] So yeah, back in March, clipping. released one of the albums of the year… or did they? If so, then what’s this? Why does my CD now seem to be missing tracks? It’s because Dead Channel Sky Plus is in town, baybee! I love clipping., but I hate these insta-deluxe reissues that the digital age has brought us. I mean fine, the additional tracks are rad, but you just released the album 6 months ago in various physical formats… Annnyway, an album more fitting for the digital age could not exist – this is clipping. doing cyberpunk, employing Daveed Diggs’ incredible wordsmithery and Jonathan Snipes & William Hutson’s backgrounds in noise, breakcore, soundtracking and more to bring to life the genre that’s both decades out of style and horrifically descriptive of our current-day dystopia. So, finally we have the “pt. 1” to the original release’s “Mirrorshades pt. 2” (the deadly Molly Millions in William Gibson’s cyberpunk ur-text Neuromancer “wears” mirrored sunglasses – except they’re permanently sealed into her skin; a couple of years later Bruce Sterling edited a definitive anthology of early cyberpunk titled Mirrorshades). Needless to say, following their previous concept albums on afrofuturist space opera and horror & blaxploitation, clipping. nail the cyberpunk genre here, both in terms of “style” and intertextuality. But anyway, not only is “Mirrorshades pt. 1” a certifiable banger, but on “Night of Heaven” clipping. collaborate again with the astonishingly-voiced Sharon Udoh aka Counterfeit Madison, with cuts provided by Kid Koala. My CD player aches with jealousy. Note: clipping. did a brilliant Tiny Desk Concert late in the year, with electro-mechanical percussion, harmonium and the aforementioned Sharon Udoh on piano and vocals, and while every rendition is a highlight, this song is the second-last, and Kid Koala hops up on the turntable! Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Dogeared (feat. Kapwani) [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp] It’s been a huge year for Backwoodz Studioz, and a few others of their releases appear tonight, but here’s the second full-length album from Studioz boss billy woods and E L U C I  D‘s Armand Hammer working exclusively with The Alchemist. Like Haram, their first collaboration, Mercy benefits from The Alchemist’s commercial experience, but the producer perfectly mindmelds with Backwoodz’ aesthetic, with bizzaro samples that are by turns wonky and sinister – but whatever the loop is that “Dogeared” is built around, it’s the most earwormy sample of the year, and Kapwani brings beautifully melodic vocal layers along with it. In his verse, a woman asks woods, “What’s the role of a poet in times like these?”, and while he’s still grappling with it by the end of the song, it’s not unfair to say that it’s this very grappling that’s their added value – as well, I’d like to suggest, as their pure artistic worth. billy woods – Waterproof Mascara [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp] The most notable hip-hop release of the year – albeit with much competition – must be Golliwog, the intense new album from billy woods. The sinister imagery of the deeply racist ragdoll character that gives the album its name is a pointer to what’s inside. It’s a kind of take on horrorcore from a Black perspective, and as usual it’s got brilliantly murky production with weird interludes and great guests on beats, instruments and verses, sparsely but smartly used. The murky production from Preservation on “Waterproof Mascara” underlines a truly disturbing autobiographical story from Woods. SUMAC & Moor Mother – Scene 1 [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp] Last year, alongside their remarkable, heavy-as-fuck album The Healer was released, sludgey hardcore supergroup SUMAC released an EP called The Keeper’s Tongue with two remixes: recent Wire Magazine cover star, Pulitzer Prize-winner Raven Chacon, and the brilliant avant-garde hip-hop/free jazz genius Moor Mother. And what a combo the latter was! SUMAC leader Aaron Turner was singer & guitarist with two of my favourite post-metal bands, ISIS and Old Man Gloom (the latter not in past tense), but SUMAC feels like his purest vision, engineered with precision along with the rhythm section of Baptists drummer Nick Yacyshyn and bassist Brian Cook of hardcore legends Botch and post-metal legends Russian Circles. Turner also ran the greatest metal/experimental label in the world, Hydra Head, and now has a smaller – impeccably curated – operation with his wife Faith Coloccia called SIGE. After the incendiary impact of that Moor Mother remix, it still came as a surprise to discover that this full album collab was just around the corner. The Film is one large work split into tracks, with as much (disquieting) quiet as crashing noise. And who but Moor Mother could compete with Aaron Turner’s roar? Poetic and deeply political, scathing about colonialism and capitalism, it’s incredibly powerful. doseone & Steel Tipped Dove – Restaurant Not [Backwoodz Studioz/Bandcamp] It’s been so lovely reading the background of this album. Adam Drucker aka doseone was one of the founding forces behind alt. hip-hop or whatever you want to call it in the last 1990s and early ’00s, founding with various other hip-hop outliers the Anticon collective and label (it took me ages to realise that the name referenced their “ant icon” logo). He’s played a part in a lot of the music that was this here radio show’s bread & butter for many years, including collabs with indietronic/postrock bods like Hood and The Notwist – and the album Circle that he made with Boom Bip way back in 2000 was massively influential. In 2018, beloved fellow Anticon founder Alias passed away from a sudden heart attack, and Anticon slowly fizzled out. So yeah, years later dose started hearing the output of billy woods’ Backwoodz Studioz – specifically I believe a ShrapKnel album – and felt the creative spark that he’d been missing in grief and isolation. He hooked up with frequent Backwoodz producer Steel Tipped Dove, and they quickly created a whole body of new work. Some of the anything-goes abandon of Jel & Odd Nosdam’s early Anticon productions can really be heard here (and, I’d suggest, across the Backwoodz catalogue), and Dose spits out his poetic, circumspect lyrics with all the energy of the best of Themselves, Subtle and the rest. It’s nice to see Andrew Broder aka Fog – a frequent Anticon collaborator and lately a brilliant producer – adding turntable to all tracks, and there are notable features across the album from hip-hop legends like Mykah 9 and Antipop Consortium’s M.Sayyid, Open Mike Eagle, and Backwoodz’ own billy woods. The second track here, “Restaurant Not” has a deconstructed Anticon-style beat that upturns dose’s vocals perfectly – and it also has a fun, colourful video. Haykal, Julmud, Acamol | هيكل، جلمود، أكامول – A’saab أعصاب [Bilna’es/Bandcamp] Cross-media artistic duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Ramme formed the record label & publishing platform Bilna’es along with producer Muqata’a as a space for artistic expression & criticism in Palestine & beyond. Along with the amazing productions of Muqata’a, a highlight was the 2022 solo album from Julmud, Tuqoos | طُقُوس. Now Julmud teams up with label founder Abbas, the latter under the name Acamol (Arabic for Panadol/paracetamol), along with Palestinian rapper Haykal on a new album Kam Min Janneh | كم من جنّة (How Many Heavens). The beats, produced by Julmud & Acamol separately & together, present a glitched version hip-hop drawn from the music & percussion of the MENA region, while Julmud & Haykal swap verses evoking the life of dispossession under occupation, colonization & genocide. It bears mentioning that while the killing continues in Gaza despite the so-called ceasefire, settlers continue to violently disrupt the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank with impunity – destroying property, beating and killing people and blocking access to their own land. In that context, this is a powerful work of resistance and solidarity (and some injections of humour). As I’m writing this late, you can read Emad Al Hatu’s excellent article on fbi.radio, as this was made album of the week at the beginning of November. Nadah El Shazly = ندى الشاذلي – Kaabi Aali [One Little Independent/Bandcamp] In July 2018, The Wire put Nadah El Shazly on the cover as part of an in-depth look at the underground music scene in Cairo & Egypt – a couple of months after featuring a fantastic playlist from El Shazly of experimental Egyptian music. I already knew a few of the players in the diverse, experimental and creative Egyptian music scene, but her playlist and then interview were the introduction to many more, and showed what an important figure El Shazly herself was in that scene. She’s now Montréal-based, and her beautiful 2024 soundtrack The Damned Don’t Cry was recorded at the legendary Hotel2Tango studio mentioned above, with Radwan Ghazi Moumneh on the mixing desk, and Canadian musicians like the brilliant harpist Sarah Pagé contributing essential performances. Laini Tani, El Shazly’s second album outside of soundtracks & collaborations (many, many collaborations), was also recorded with Moumneh at Hotel2Tango, with one of Cairo’s most creative electronic musicians, 3Phaz,

    2 h

  7. 07/12/2025

    Playlist 07.12.25

    So this Friday was the last Bandcamp Friday of the year, and even with that aside, it was a big release day for new music. It’s insane, but because of this I’m not doing best-of-2025 till next week. Here’s a whole slew of excellent new music across every genre imaginable. READER’S NOTE: as I’m so far behind with my write-ups, I’m concentrating on the Best of 2025 posts, and will try to return to these for full text as soon as I’m able! Water From Your Eyes – Born 4 Alev Lenz – Ivory Tower (on D) HAYWARDxDÄLEK – Antiphony HAYWARDxDÄLEK – Breathe Slow Bomb A Lil Joy – Everything U R Doing Bomb A Lil Joy – Saigon Too Blarke Bayer – The Prophet’s Paradise SUMAC and Moor Mother – SCENE 1 (Shapednoise Remix) Obelisk – Sanctuary Hitori Tori – Eurofling Indicator – Malopropist Heavyweight – Straight Outta London VIP Ruffkutt – Your Time Abstract Drumz – Alone (2025 Remaster) Noémi Büchi – I was almost there Luz González – Drawing Dinosaurs (Where can I hide my anger?) Jad Atoui & Jawad Nawfal – The Celesta Incident NEUE DEUTSCHE KUNST – Der Sputz der Tagropronisten NEUE DEUTSCHE KUNST – Keine Nichtmusik Drei Géraldine Eguiluz & Michel F Côté – Territoires perdus #2 Géraldine Eguiluz & Michel F Côté – Territoires perdus #3 hidden_attachment (ky) – Cartoon Land (Memory/161 to Wilderton remix) Freda D’Souza – I’ve missed the rain Emily Wittbrodt – Lied Otto Lindholm – Lessizty Connor D’Netto – interlude/nails Laura Altman – A Call to Water Listen again — ~217MB

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  8. 30/11/2025

    Playlist 30.11.25

    As we swiftly approach December, tonight is the second-last “new music” show of the year. There’s a lot of music coming out on December 5th! But then that’s it, the next 3 will be Best of 2025. Keen listeners will be surprised that I’m mixing up the structure tonight. Really, it usually goes the way it goes due to thematic and tonal segues, and this time round, the jazz & ambient(ish) stuff just fitted best after our early songs, and the beats are the bulk of the second half. READER’S NOTE: as I’m so far behind with my write-ups, I’m concentrating on the Best of 2025 posts, and will try to return to these for full text as soon as I’m able! The Notwist – X-Ray The Notwist – Magnificent Fall Muyassar Kurdi – Child of the Sun (feat. Chris Williams) Peter Knight – The Coiling of the Tide Laura Jurd – Praying Mantis Má Estrela – Top Suki Girl BLACK HAUGE – Papiret (Radio Edit) Dina Maccabee – Outbreak Joni Void – Walker Joni Void – Lighters Samuele Strufaldi – Musica Invisibile Mac Seldom – ILUVU Om Unit – Lost Stories (Bok Bok Remix) Om Unit – The Chase (Alter Echo & E3 Remix) Ghost Dubs – Hope Fatwires x Atsushi Izumi – Ga UNTECHCIRCLE – Dying Light UNTECHCIRCLE – not just chaos Mattr – Tayl CHEAHDX – Earthbound dreadmaul – No Shade Low End Activist – Hope III (Demdike Stare Stressed Version) Listen again — ~224MB

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Información

Utility Fog teeters on the cusp between acoustic and electronic, organic and digital. Constantly changing and rearranging, this aural cloud of nanotech consumes genres and spits them out in new forms. Peter Hollo curates each episode around a narrative of genre-plasticity, deep-diving into artist histories, side projects and influences. Challenging sounds are contextualised within musical movements, surprising connections are uncovered, unfairly overlooked works are revisited. Come on a journey through music in all its ugly beauty.

Ficha técnica

  • Creado por
    Peter Hollo
  • Años en activo
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodios
    51
  • Clasificación
    Explícito
  • Sitio web del podcast
    Utility Fog