isolatedmix 57 - Sam KDC

Sam KDC has been an integral part of ASC's, Auxiliary label over the past four years, with a series of EP's, remixes and collaborations. In 2012 Sam partnered with ASC on the haunting Decayed Society, a release which marked a defining period for ASC as he ventured further into the dark ambient realm alongside notorious albums on Silent Season. It also solidified Sam as a strong-arm on the label when it came to ambient music - a style he had only dabbled with on previous releases alongside his many electronica, techno and drum'n bass productions.

A full-length album was always on the horizon, but none of us expected it to take five-years to come to fruition. As Sam goes on to mention below and where many producers often relate, it has to be the right moment, or you need to be in the right frame of mind to make this kind of music, especially the introspective, emotional side of ambient music. 

Sam KDC's new album, Late Night Innominate, is an ode to these very personal moments. Struggling to sleep, struggling to wake. Caught in a state of equilibrium, teetering on the edge of light, only to be pulled back into the shadows: "that feeling of recovery or those glimmers of hope"...

The album pans through heavy shaded textures with glimmers of color, slow burning melodies, haunting vocals and an ever present state of anxiety. Track (1) opens with warmth and optimism, before the more structured (and most relatable Auxiliary influence) on track (2) opens the floor for a more melodic expression. Each of the Untitled tracks are unquestionably yet subtly different, which is extremely hard to do across an ambient album - let alone your first. Pulling influences from his previous production techniques may have carved the way for more experimentation when it comes to the art of simplicity, but his play on loops and gradual builds is masterfully executed. My favorite track (5), concludes with the most energy out of the bunch, before a rumbling bass-driven, choral ending in (6), wraps up a stunning album that you'll find impossible to get lost in. 

Late Night Innominate, was released last week, but I've been following Sam for a while now, collecting his many colorful vinyl appearances and secretly wishing for a purely dedicated ambient album since his partnership with ASC on Decayed Society, so his isolatedmix comes at a perfect time. Sam has revisited the feelings that were invoked during the album's production process with a unique blend of emotional, soul-touching music. Some of the tracklist may look familiar, but in a similar vein to his album, the journey is encapsulating and entrancing, told through some of the purest and most heartfelt of producers and songwriters of our time. 

"I wanted to put together something that gave a little insight into where my mind was while working on the LP. It was a very on and off project because for me to write this type of music, I have to be in a very particular mental state, and it's not a state that's easily induced. It's like that feeling of recovery or those glimmers of hope, almost. Those moments where you've not given yourself over to full blown depression, where you can still function enough to get out of bed and care enough to record something. It's a rare state for me to be in, which is why the LP spans 5 years of recordings.

All of the music in this mix are tracks that have been with me in that special state. Some stemming back a lot farther than others, such as the Deftones or Nina Simone pieces. Some more recently, even coming into my life after the completion of Volume 1 of LNI, but still both nurse and reflect that mental state."- Sam KDC.

Late Night Innominate is available now via Auxiliary on marbled vinyl.

Download.

Tracklist:

01. Klimek - For Zofia Klimek & Gregory Crewdson
02. Mogwai - Helps Both Ways
03. Deaf Center - Oblivion
04. Tropic Of Cancer - Temporal Vessels
05. The Verve - Beautiful Mind
06. Alessandro Cortini - Dell' Influenza
07. Isis & Aerogramme - Stolen
08. Deftones - Be Quiet & Drive (Acoustic Version)
09. Dadavistic Orchestra - Strung Valve Checkout
10. Jenny Hval - How Gentle
11. William Basinski - Melancholia II
12. Dark Dark Dark - Hear Me
13. Nina Simone - Plain Gold Ring
14. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away

Tracknotes:

Klimek - For Zofia Klimek & Gregory Crewdson
I found this piece maybe 5 or so years ago, from a trailer for a film "Moon Lake" that my friend Gloria Petkova (who I worked with on vocals on Survive/Exist a couple of years ago)  was in. It haunted me and took some digging to find out what it was. I was aware of Klimek's work already from his Milk & Honey LP on Kompakt, and finding this piece lead to discovering his Dedications LP which is incredible. This particular piece really stayed with me though. 

Mogwai - Helps Both Ways
Come On Die Young has been in my life since those tender teenage years and I still reach for it regularly. One of those albums that you can just melt to. It was hard to pick just one track from it to play, they're all favourites. 

Deaf Center - Oblivion
A more recent recommendation from ASC. Haven't heard anything from Deaf Center which isn't instantly moving. 

Tropic Of Cancer - Temporal Vessels
When in the state that I spoke about earlier, Camella Lobo's work is perfect. Again, it was difficult to choose a piece of her's to include. "A Color" is probably the track I draw for the most, but I felt it's a little overplayed to include here, and this one fits the bill nicely.

The Verve - Beautiful Mind
It's just perfect. Goosebump inducing.

Alessandro Cortini - Dell' Influenza
Another recent one. I was never a NIN fan, and wasn't aware of Cortini's work until the release of this LP. 

Isis & Aerogramme - Stolen
One to sink into the floor with.

Deftones - Be Quiet & Drive (Acoustic Version)
I didn't listen to any form of electronic music until this side of the millennium, before that I was all about grunge, metal, punk etc, but always had a real fondness of the quieter moments. Nirvana's unplugged was my favourite LP of theirs from it's release and when Deftones released the Be Quiet & Drive single and this was on the flip, it's resonated with me on that very special level ever since then. One of those pieces I will have years between hearing, and then when I do, it's a moment to be fully submersed in nostalgia. 

Dadavistic Orchestra - Strung Valve Checkout
An ASC recommendation again. Bliss.

Jenny Hval - How Gentle
I think this is probably my soundtrack of regret. Not in a dark, remorseful or frustrated way, but in a curious almost playful sadness. A wondering of the possibilities of overcoming certain fears, for putting desire before preservation. That kind of thing. An almost lighthearted/dismissive contemplation of things that really cut to the bone, but pretending that perhaps they don't.

William Basinski - Melancholia II
Hearing Basinski's work for the first time all those years ago was a real turning point for me. I'd been a fan of ambient music for a while, enjoying albums by Brian Eno, Aphex Twin and the like of widely known artists, but The Disintegration Loops spoke to me on a level no other ambient had until that point. It was the first time a piece of music reduced me to tears upon the first time hearing it and opened up a whole new musical world for me. I don't know if I would have ever started writing ambient music if it wasn't for hearing Basinski. 

Dark Dark Dark - Hear Me
I really don't remember how this piece came into my life, but I'm very glad it did. One of those "Hanging on in quiet desperation" moments.

Nina Simone - Plain Gold Ring
I love Nina Simone, and Plain Gold Ring is the ultimate immortalization of longing for the unobtainable. 

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away
More truth from the man. There's few LP's by Nick than I can really enjoy all the way through, as they often have a moment within them that's either a little too saccharine or a little too abrasive. But this album is amazing from start to finish. I would say it's his most accomplished work. The whole album is moving, haunting and very real and this piece that closes the album rings through long after you've finished listening.

todos - Kilchurn Session XIII

It dropped in my inbox as a surprise, the best possible kind of surprise, because todos' Kilchurn Sessions have been known to take quite some time to put together.  It's been nearly six months since Session 12, and with that amount of time under his belt to collect his next edition, you can expect only the very best to hit you in the 13th.

Once again opting for his trademark mix of new, old, classics, edits and samples, todos' journeys have become slightly deeper over the past few editions, and this one is no different, albeit punctuated with a few rather sublime lead vocal tracks.

He has left us all with another bunch of artists to dig deeper into, including, Body Boys, Alaskalaska and Landside, whilst reminding us of a few recent greats by Abul Mogard, Planet Boelex, and Segue, alongside some of the best new productions of the year from Synkro and Rival Consoles.

I always say it, and I'll say it again, todos manages to capture the essence of what a mixtape should be for me - the perfect blend of old and new, painstakingly curated and crafted with care with no agenda - just a journey. 

I've also taken the time to update the download links on all of todos' previous twelve legendary mixes which can be found and downloaded here.

Download

Tracklist

01. Zes - ‘Departure’ Edit
02. Samantha Glass - ‘Different Tissue’
03. Body Boys - ‘Yunnan’
04. Abul Mogard - ‘Slate-coloured Storm’
05. Nils Frahm - ‘Peter’ (Clark Remix) Edit
06. Alaskalaska - ‘Kings’
07. Russell. M. Harmon & Gavin Miller - ‘Vela’
08. Planet Boelex - ‘Moments’
09. DOGMA - ‘The Way Can Be Pretty Long’ Edit / (ghost) - '780.33'
10. Reinehr - ‘Lung’ / Library Tapes - ‘Fragment Li’
11. Lanterns On The Lake - ‘Green And Gold’
12. Ojan - ‘Intro’ / Hakobune & Dirk Serries - ‘The Slow Movement Of Thought’ Edit
13. Brother Blue - ‘Summoning UFOs’
14. Arandel - ‘Section 12’
15. Segue - ‘Identity Dub’
16. Synkro - ‘Overture’
17. Abereiddy Astronomical Society - ‘The Outsider’ (James Murray Remix)
18. Landside - ‘Wasteland'
19. Rival Consoles - ‘Looming’

isolatedmix 56 - Night Sequels: Listen To The Ni-Fi

Throughout my seven years writing and curating on ASIP, every now and then I stumble across an artist that introduces me to a new music style and opens up an entire rabbit hole of discovery. It's why I love doing this; maybe it's a self-preservation thing; a perpetual cycle of discovery and education; but it's artists like Nick Huntington and his aliases that keep me searching.

You may know Nick as one half Freescha - that warm, analogue, bubbly electronica duo (alongside Michael McGroarty) I've talked about for years on here, responsible for superb albums such as Kids Fill The Floor, and Head Warlock Double Stare, which contains one of my favorite electronica tracks (an example of just how much I enjoy Freescha). Talking of favorites, Nick also released music as Christmas Lights, the only album to stem from that name so far, but an absolutely beautiful piece for anyone into warm, downtempo synthesizer focused music.

Nick is also behind, Attacknine, alongside Erik Alwill, a California based label born to release Freescha music, that's ultimately gone on to be an extremely well-respected underground electronica outfit including artists such as Casino Versus Japan.

But it's Nick's more recent, strobe filled, colorful, outer-space themed soundtrack alias Night Sequels that's jumped aboard the isolatedmix rocket. Nick just released teasers and pre-orders for his debut album, The Children Of the Night Make Music, and it's a warm summers evening jam through a spectrum of psychedelic light. It's Freescha on acid, which is sure to be nothing short of astounding if you know and enjoy Freescha. And now, we're lucky enough to get a taste of the hallucinogenic drones, dream-drifting vocals and never-ending filtered warp-holes with Nick's isolatedmix. Featuring music he outright enjoys and previously unreleased Night Sequels tracks and remixes, isolatedmix 56 is another very special addition to the series, with Nick also taking the time to talk us through his selections in glorious detail below.

Never has the artwork been truer to the music in this mix too - take a seat in a dark room, whilst the kaleidoscope of color from the outside world and a small breeze, seeps through the dusty windows. As Nick quotes, "turn out the lights, touch your volume knob, and turn it up". 

Download.

Tracklist:

01. Jerry Goldsmith - Outland Main Titles
02. Claudio Gizzi - Old Age For Dracula
03. Queen - In The Space Capsule (Love Theme)
04. Steve Moore - 248 Years
05. Philip D'Aram - La Valse Grinçante
06. Gary Numan - Down In The Park (Night Sequels Tweak)
07. Night Sequels - All Cats Are Grey (Previously Unreleased)
08. Night Sequels - Mainstreet Meltdown (Previously Unreleased)
09. Black Moth Super Rainbow - Psychic Love Damage (Night Sequels Remix Mk. II) (Previously Unreleased)
10. Brian Grainger - Swamp Bike (Re-synthesized by Night Sequels) (Previously Unreleased)
11. The Beach Boys - Feel Flows (Night Sequels Treatment)
12. Night Sequels -  Star Car Bizarre (Previously Unreleased)
13. Valentyn Silvestrov - Der Bote
14. Tones On Tail - Rain
15. Schubert - Trio in E-flat (Drenched)

You can pre-order Night Sequels' new album here, containing the usual brilliant Attack Nine colored vinyl + tshirt combos.

Tracknotes:

Jerry Goldsmith - Outland Main titles
What can I say, he's amazing.  One of my favorite composers, perfectly capturing the vast isolation of space.

Claudio Gizzi - Old Age For Dracula
From Paul Morrissey's Blood For Dracula. Mike and I (Freescha) are big fans.  The whole score is great, as well as his score for Flesh For Frankenstein.  Incidentally, they've just been reissued on vinyl by Dagored. 
 
Queen - In The Space Capsule (Love Theme)
There is no Freescha without Flash Gordon.  I remember sitting in the theater watching this movie as a little kid, and in particular this scene.  The beautifully eerie synths, billowing clouds of colors, and subtly erotic staging left a big impression on me.  Dream Zone 101.

Steve Moore - 248 Years
I stumbled across this record a few years ago.  Somewhere, this is the music to a New Age of my fantasies.  From the album "Primitive Neural Pathways". Steve Moore Bandcamp.

Philip D'Aram - La Valse Grinçante
From Jean Rollin's film "Fascination".  I was watching this movie on repeat around the time of recording Freescha's "Kids Fill The Floor".  I was in love with the music.  It haunted my nights in the Fall of 2000.

Gary Numan - Down In The Park (Night Sequels Tweak)
The Ruler.

Night Sequels - All Cats Are Grey (Cure cover, Previously Unreleased)
Still my favorite Cure song of all time.

Night Sequels - Mainstreet Meltdown (Previously Unreleased)
A Bob Seger cover.  I remember being a little kid, in the back of some friend's car, their parents driving us home at night, and hearing Bob Seger's "Main Street" come on the radio.  I seem to hear this song on the radio more now than I did then. It was always a treat when it would come on.  I thought the guitar lead was so dreamy, and perfectly captured this feeling of sadness-happiness-yearning.  I've been addicted to this feeling in music since I can remember. 

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Psychic Love Damage (Night Sequels Remix Mk. II) (Previously Unreleased)
In 2013 Tom (aka TOBACCO) from Black Moth Super Rainbow asked if I'd like to remix a track off of their album Cobra Juicy for a remix album*.  I chose Psychic Love Damage, and you can currently hear the remix on Soundcloud.  I liked how the remix turned out, and thought for this mix, it might be interesting to try and do a remix of the remix.  Turns out, it's not interesting.  BUT this alternate remix did come out of that attempt, and I like this one too. *(release date of this album still unknown)

Brian Grainger - Swamp Bike (Re-synthesized by Night Sequels)
A previously unreleased remix.  I have a few incarnations of this, but this one works best for this ASIP mix I think.  The original version of "Swamp Bike" is on Brian Grainger's awesome  "Highschool Guitar", and was also released as a digital single.

The Beach Boys - Feel Flows (Night Sequels Treatment)
As awesome as Brian Wilson is, Dennis and Carl were just as great in their own right. "Feel Flows" was written by the late greats Carl Wilson and Jack Rieley, with Carl singing, and it's a great example of classic Beach Boys piano bass work that I hear pop up in my own playing from time to time..  

My dad played a lot of Beach Boys when I was a kid.  He had all sorts of rarities on reel-to-reel tapes, bootleg vinyl (if my memory serves), and cassettes.  This was long before a lot of this stuff became available in box sets.  There were no CDs yet.  The only way to hear this stuff was to find a friend of a friend of a friend who knew a guy that heard of another guy that knew someone who had some unreleased Beach Boys session recordings.

So I may have heard this song when I was a tyke.  But the first time it made an impression on me and turned me on to a whole era of the Beach Boys that was, for the time (and possibly still is), forgotten, was in the Summer of 1995, when it came on the radio late one night.  It blew my mind, and I immediately had to know who it was, but the DJ never said.  I had a feeling it was the Beach Boys because the voice sounded familiar and the way the bass notes moved around on the piano, I thought the odds were pretty good it was them.  But since I had no idea what it was called, I didn't have a recording of it, and I didn't know the lyrics, it became very difficult to track down.  What made it harder (I would later learn) was that in '95, the albums from this era of The Beach Boys were all out of print on CD and very hard to find, so when I would listen to their CDs at used record shops, this song would never turn up on any of the them.  So I started scouring Salvation Armys and Goodwills, buying any Beach Boys vinyl that I hadn't come across on CD.  I started to doubt that it was even the Beach Boys.  Maybe some other band that sounded similar?  Who could that be?

And then eventually, after months and months of searching through The San Fernando Valley, I found a ratty ass copy of "Surf's Up".  
And Low.
And Behold.
When I flipped it to the B-Side.
There it was in all it's the glory.  The song I'd been looking for.  The feeling of elation when those sweet sweet sounds came out of my speakers I'll never forget.
And thats's my Beach Boys story.
Here it is for you with a little treatment from me, but it's pretty spacey and flange-y even without it.
I hope you dig as much as I do.

Night Sequels -  Star Car Bizarre (Previously Unreleased)
A little jammy I put together that also mixed well coming out of The Beach Boys.

Valentyn Silvestrov - Der Bote
From "Der Bote - Elegies For Piano " by Alexi Lubimov. Things like this make me sad that one day I will never hear it again.

Tones On Tail - Rain
If there is no Freescha without Flash Gordon, I think I speak for Mike and myself when I say there is definitely no Freescha (or Night Sequels) without Tones On Tail.  When Mike and I met in high school, Tones On Tail were an endless source of inspiration for us. They have the perfect sound palette: a balance of weirdness and pop, cool synth sounds and strange guitars. 

Fridays after school, Mike and I would usually drown in the pool during a water polo game, then go to his house and jam in his family's band room for hours, miking  everything through delay pedals, and playing "A Forest" and "Bela Lugosi's Dead" nonstop for hours.  Then we'd crash out, usually listening to Tones On Tail's "Rain".  I remember lying on the floor listening to this, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling and thinking how cool it would be to be able to record music like this. 
There's still nothing that sounds like them.

Schubert - Trio in E-flat (Drenched)
A recording from the 1983 film "The Hunger". This film had a big impact on me.  I love everything about it.  Impeccable style. Neon classical.  And the Bauhaus segment in the beginning was a life changing moment, it was that impactful on my musical and visual sensibilities. A nice place to end this set.
 

ASIP - Silhouettes

“Ascending mountains, shrouded in fog, dark silhouettes guide your path.
”

A dark and introspective techno mix I managed to squeeze in between my move from Portland to LA. Mostly new stuff, including an exclusive by Roel Funcken (half of Funckarma) from his new forthcoming Legiac album, n5MD's latest roster addition, Okada, WNDFRM's defining moment on Prologue, and Sebastian Mullaert's second record from his Wa Wu We imprint. 

Links below link direct to buy and support the artist/label. 

Download.

Tracklisting:
01. Legiac - Transcendental Sea (The Voynich Manusscript) / Forthcoming
02. Tegh & Kamyar Tavakoli - Fractal (Through The Winter Woods) / Hibernate
03. Okada - Vulnerability (Impermanence) / n5MD
04. Sven Weisemann - Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus (Fall of Icarus EP) / Delsin
05. WNDFRM - Monopole (Formal Variant EP) / Prologue
06. Exos - Eastwood (My Home Is Sonic) / Delsin
07. Cio D’Or - Tomorrow Was Yesterday  (All In All) / Semantica
08. Varg - Vitberget (Ursviken) / Northern Electronics
09. Acronym - Back To Understanding (June) / Northern Electronics
10. Donnacha Costello - Blue B (Blue) / Minimise
11. Wa Wu We - 002 B1 (Wa Wu We 002) / WaWuWe
12. Conforce - Artefact From A Higher Dimension (Presentism) / Delsin
13. Aphex Twin - ssnb (Unreleased/ Soundcloud) 

isolatedmix 55 - Loess

I bet you can think of a number of notorious electronica duos you wish had made more music. There seemed to be a certain rarity to them a while back, and in the past ten years or so, many have submerged into the studio never to surface again. They probably live-on through a Discogs vinyl want-list, or a name that sits top of your mind every-time you go crate-digging - I'll just check under 'A' anyway... JUST in-case this shop somehow has an early Autechre record ...

One of these duos are Loess. Formed of Clay Emerson and Ian Pullman, their last release together was in 2009, but their heyday was back in 2002/2003 with an innovative self-titled album on Nonresponse and a defining IDM piece on Toytronic, titled 3D Concepts Part 2  - this slice of orange vinyl gets a reaction every time - an absolutely stunning piece of glitchy-beats underpinned by beautiful melodies. 

Loess then followed up with a limited 7" on n5MD and an album titled Wind & Water. It was this album which seemed to solidify an IDM cult-following and an ever loyal fan-base, which has since been heard echoing the electronic music forums begging for more; comparing them to Aphex Twin or BoC amongst others, and reminiscing the defining days of IDM.

Loess' isolatedmix transports you into the eclectic minds of two producers at the front of the IDM era of yesteryear - what their music and that style has gone on to influence nowadays is unquantifiable, yet their musical heritage can be traced back to numerous styles and influences. From the undeniable sound of Squarepusher, Autechre, Aphex and Boards of Canada, to dub and nordic folk; these are tracks that will always sit top of their minds irrespective of genre: "Each of these songs sound just as good today, as they did the first time we heard them".

A sentiment that's undoubtedly echoed when slipping on a Loess album. Luckily, the duo are working on new material and plan to be releasing new music in the future...

Download.

Tracklist:
01. Augustus Pablo - Burial Dub
02. Squarepusher - Lambic 5 Poetry
03. Arovane - Thaem Nue
04. Aphex Twin - Alberto Balsam
05. Mum - We have a map of the piano
06. Nick Drake - Road
07. Vasen - Slunken
08. Bibio - Quantock
09. Orchestra Baobab - Utrus Horas
10. Rhythm & Sound w/ Shalom - We Been Troddin
11. Plug - DBC
12. Boards of Canada - Everything You Do Is a Balloon
13. Autechre - Draun Quarter