| #610 |
|
2002 |
Perilous 610 Audiogalaxy bites the dust. Chalk up a victory for the RIAA, but certainly not one for artists or consumers. Audiogalaxy provided an excellent resource for checking out tracks from artists you’d never heard of and its capabilities to find the most obscure of things made it far more useful than the more dispersed P2P options like Gnutella which tend to be flooded with porn, warez, Hollywood movie rips, and mainstream music. Whereas in the past it might have been possible to hear new music on the radio, the opportunities for people to hear new and interesting music are few and far between and in many ways Audiogalaxy was fulfilling a much needed role as a provider of new and unfiltered music. Now its back to the dictatorship of major labels and major label dominated commercial ‘entertainment’ radio to hear ‘new’ music. But the changes that the net has ushered in won’t go away. Quark Kent has just released his latest album, 16 Neptunes, as a free MP3 download from his site www.quarkkent.com. 16 Neptunes was recorded early last year and was due for release prior to his departure overseas. The release never happened and so he felt it best to get the tracks out to people so he could start writing new material. 16 Neptunes is more of that trademark Quark Kent melodic chill sound and is well worth the free download. Quark Kent also features on another site alongside a host of other Australian electronic producers at the online-only label Monotonik (www.monotonik.com). Monotonik has been running for years and is full of excellent tracks from some of the best IDM producers from around the globe. Atom Heart has a new release out as Geeez ‘n’ Gosh on Mille Plateaux. The Geeez ‘n’ Gosh project is probably best described as glitch gospel-meets-house. Nobody Knows is the second album for the project and sees Atom Heart sampling, chopping, and processing Christian music from southern gospel to wacky fundamentalist preachers. These sample sources have been cleverly manipulated, pitch-shifted and changed into strange rhythms and blurts of sound which fall into place over some highly polyrhythmic glitched-up house (is that a tautology?). Like Herbert, Atom Heart has been playing with the 4/4 house formula and has been coming up with new ways of invigorating a very conservative genre, and Geeez ‘n’ Gosh plays like a fantastic parody. Another producer working wonders with sample sources is Scott Heron. Heron is best known for his work under three name – Prefuse73, Savath & Savalas, and Delarose & Asora. Despite relocating to Barcelona he also runs the Eastern Developments label which has been putting out material by other producers working in a similar vein such as Dabyre. Prefuse73 has a retrospective compilation out shortly on Warp which covers a lot of early material from his chopped up hip hop project. Savath & Savalas, a more organic jazz/postrock oriented project also has a new EP out through the excellent Hefty label in Chicago. The new EP, Rolls & Waves, whilst short, is superb. Full of detail you hardly notice the electronics as rich astral jazz textures fill the stereo field. On closer listening the haze of laptop static and minutely chopped samples reveal themselves. An excellent follow up to the Folk Songs For Trains Trees & Honey, you can track down a copy of Rolls & Waves as well as other excellent Hefty titles at www.heftrecords.com. And, finally, to Frigid. Frigid has a World Cup final screening and accompanying musical football on the 30th, and then some surprise guests on July 7. Keep an eye on www.snarl.org for details. Yellow Peril (www.snarl.org)  Goto
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