Milieu

Earth Monkey Productions is a net label based in Barrow Island in Cumbria. They release free music with a focus on experimental, electronic, sound art and spoken word, and currently have 13 releases for download.

I downloaded the latest, emp013: 4th Alternative - New Dawn to try and get an impression of the kinds of things Earth Monkey releases, and I was impressed. New Dawn is a four track collection of ambient pieces, spanning 41 minutes. Each track has a lot of space, with rich timbres, subtle diversions and infinite patience.

4th Alternative is Rob “Bombardier” Davies. A classically trained pianist who like many musicians searched for expression outside the accepted norms. This led to experiments in music making using radio noise, synthesizers, and whatever instruments came to hand

On the surface, New Dawn sounds like classic 90s ambience, but remains simple and elegant throughout. There’s no zany samples, just sweet spacious ambience to immerse yourself in at your discretion. Sunburst is interesting because it features a more live or improvised sounding guitar, and very subdued and heavily processed vocal samples. These can be quite surprising sometimes, but fit in with the rest of the track’s aesthetic.

Dark Angel is denser than the other tracks, with more dynamic melodic development and some classic FM sounds. It’s difficult to describe the last track, Submerged. On one hand it’s reminiscent of the current crop of contemporary artists who process field recordings, but on the other there are sounds and melodies that remind me of more typical ambient music. It has the same gentle touch that the other tracks on the EP have.

If you like the sound of this, have a look at the Earth Monkey Productions site and see what else you can download. They’re also into last.fm, so see what you can find digging around on their last.fm page.

1bit Wonder recently celebrated their first birthday by releasing Celebration Compilation #2. I was going to review it, but started listening to Home is… by Kultobjekt and it was so good I just had to write about it!

Kultobjekt, also known as Mirsch - one of the founders of 1bit Wonder, previously released Bitte 1Bit! last August. He writes downplayed techno with elements of dub. On Home is…, he goes for several tracks of simplicity, then unleashes a few surprises. The strange vocal samples in Sanfrando, No Good Boy, Alter Rost liebt nicht make these tracks the highlights. Some Like It Smooth, the last track on the EP, takes cues from ambient and funk artists and stays true to the title.

Kultobjekt knows how to pace tracks, leaving out complex sounds for just the right moments. His choice of sounds is also well-balanced, bringing in almost noise-like high frequency percussive sounds in Lasmedo just as ambient pads start to rumble in, creating an interesting apex. Read more and download on the label’s page.

Grant Kidd, from the Seattle-based Red Couch Music, emailed details on The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Matt Batey. It’s an album of acoustic lofi indie tracks, pleasant enough to fill a Sunday afternoon. Yet something about The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea keeps me listening. The production is interesting - Batey appears to be double-tracking the vocals and employing other effects to make gain more presence. The guitars are crisp, and again layered to fill up the lack of other instruments. Batey’s MySpace page says:

There is a Band-Shaped void in my heart.

After the intro track, Pontiac Fiero is your first full-on encounter with Matt Batey. It starts off distorted, like it was recorded with a Dictaphone, and then renders itself in full, larger-than-life stereo. Stopping and Going has some of the best production I’ve seen in a copyleft indie release. More layered guitars and vocals, but this time everything is perfect, with the melody superbly paced.

Me and You is another high point, a very minimal track that says a lot with very little. Like the other tracks on the album, this is personal and succinct. Teach Me How reminds me of taping lofi bands on cassette that John Peel used to play when I was a teenager, and that makes me heartily recommend it. The last track, Outro, has some sampling and drums added to the mix, so it’s a slightly different direction to the other tracks. It still fits in well, and I’d like to hear more stuff like this from Batey.

Batey’s MySpace page has people discussing his music and saying how good his live performances are. I wonder if he just gets up there with an acoustic, or if he does clever stuff with samplers? Anyway, go download the whole album, he’s only got 73 downloads on archive.org, and this kind of talent has no reason not to be on your MP3 player when it’s free and remixable (it’s released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5)

If you’re into the kind of hectic acid released on Rephlex, have a look at the Dutch netlabel Auxar. They’ve got mp3s up for download, and handy web-based players so you can check things out before you commit them to iPod.

I thoroughly recommend Mike Fear’s stuff. Incantation V7.5b would mix perfectly alongside some of the tracks on Analord, and Dirty Acid Dancing is almost Bogdan Raczynski in places.

Auxar’s site has links to podcasts, allowing you to easily hoover down new releases. One thing the site misses is some background on the musicians and covers, but it looks like they’ll be adding more content in the future.

The tracks are all released under a Creative Commons license, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0, so you can copy them as much as you like (but a donation would be appreciated judging by the paypal button).

Boards of Canada have released their first ever video, Dayvan Cowboy. If you’re a Boards of Canada fan, you can probably imagine their ideal video: some kind of diverse natural history footage, with a slightly kaleidoscopic edge, all spliced together on faded analogue tape.

This is exactly that. It’s the most perfect match for their music - inherently Boards of Canada and utterly breathtaking. Thanks to Warp, you can download the full Quicktime video, or a format suitable for for your iPod.

Revolution Void is a project by producer and jazz pianist Jonah Dempcy, mixing jazz and breakbeat. You may remember acclaimed musicians who decided to produce drum and bass, and it turning out as complete garbage: nothing there for jazz fans, nothing there for drum and bass fans. Increase the Dosage, however, combines breakbeat and melodic electronica in a charming way that makes for something not only worth listening to, but also something you’ll keep coming back to for years to come.

With bass by Matthew Garrison, sax by Seamus Blake and Darryl Estes, and guitars by Nicolas Manel, there’s a lot of serious musicians contributing some excellent material to the album. This, and careful production, makes Increase the Dosage an exceptional package. Surprisingly, it’s free to download, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

Opening with Invisible Walls, we’re introduced to the main elements of the album: clever tricks and processing on the percussion, with Dempcy blending live drums and loops with electronic backdrops and riffs. Yet despite this infusion of electronica with jazz, there’s always enough space for the live performers to express themselves. The sax on Invisible Walls is never drowned out by the electronic pads and lead lines Dempcy brings in. This is also the case with Habitual Ritual, a slightly denser and more hectic piece.

Factum par Fictio has some amazing bass and keyboard playing, and I was somewhat reminded of Squarepusher’s live performances after Garrison’s barrage of notes had finished. If you want to relax, there’s more downbeat tracks like The Modern Divide and Headphonetic.

Amazingly, Dempcy can scratch using a variety of techniques, and he does this excellently on Double the Daily Dose. Instead of just sounding pasted on, as you’d find with similar jazz/breakbeat crossovers, it’s part of the music.

Revolution Void is a serious release by a serious producer, and I’m still amazed that Jonah Dempcy’s only 21. Increase the Dosage was originally released in 2004, and it looks like he’s recently put it up for free download, so check it out: Increase the Dosage