bvdub vs Earth House Hold - Fantasies of the Anachronist

You should know by now our fandom for not only Brock’s mixes, but also his Earth House Hold project. We’re a happy home for his ‘House-ier’ vein as EH, but rarely do you get full DJ mixes from Brock that push into this world. Brock’s latest isolatedmix certainly went darker, and dirtier, but didn’t quite nudge into full House mode - the fledgling roots of the bvdub and EHH sound.

It’s genuinely one of the best ‘DJ’ mixes I’ve heard in quite some time. Brock dug hard for the music contained, presented it in one coherent concept; seamlessly and like any true DJ set, with a solid vibe continued from beginning to end. I say that like im surprised, but every one of Brock’s mixes is approached in this way - this one just a hit a note, as it’s a little different from the bvdub norm.

The mix comes from a new channel on a platform called Currents.fm. This platform looks like it takes some explaining to fully grasp at first, but essentially, you’re paying/tipping (or in Brock’s case, you don’t have to pay) for a curator. I am a firm believer in curation, and its need in culture and pushing music forward, so it’s an interesting aspect that at first might seem weird (“why aren’t I paying the artists/ for the music here?”) Let’s take stock on a couple of points which I think, make this an interesting approach to curation.

One, DJ’s, are (or should be) paid. They spend their life digging to expose music to an audience (good ones, anyway). This could be seen as the virtual equivalent. Sure, not all curators might have “purchased” the music they present like a DJ might have in a record store, but is this better than you going and creating your own Spotify playlist? Times are changing and music is democratized. We need some new innovative ways to funnel $ out of the hands of corporations and back into the creators. With the links to buy and ease of integrations, it certainly makes it easier to support music that watching a live stream or ploughing through Spotify playlists.

Two, on the topic of Spotify, we need authenticity and trust. That ‘Piano Chill’ playlist you might (not)love? Who curated it? Do you trust them as music curators? Or wait, is it just a bot updating a playlist based on popularity and deals with record labels (not to mention the fake artist saga). Blogs are on the decline, and information is on the rise - who’s helping weed out the good from the bad? We need human curators now more than ever.

So while the idea of paying a curator (or in Brock’s instance, the actual artist who doubles as a DJ) might seem detached at first, I’d argue it could also be seen as an interesting new avenue. Just because the music industry hasn’t worked out a model to drip this $ down to an artist yet, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and explore new ways of building community, DJs, music sharing and support. This might just be the first step of many.

Sorry for the tangent from such a great mix, but I thought it was worth divulging on how it’s being presented as well, given its different approach.

You can listen to the mix and ‘support’ Brock (or download for free) on Currents.fm here.

Markus Guentner interview and Live Set for Data.Wave

Markus Guentner has been busy at work the past few months creating new music, and recently took the time to chat to Datawave, whilst also preparing a new and exclusive live set for the platform.

Head over to Data.Wave to read the interview and stream the live set below.

isolatedmix 98 - Windy & Carl

It’s hard to talk about the evolution or history of Ambient music without mentioning American duo Windy & Carl, or indeed their long-time supporting label Kranky.

With releases dating back to the early 1990’s, Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren’s sound can be the purest of textured ambient music, layered with reverb, delay and effects. And then as albums progress, you may find yourself pushed into the Space Rock/Experimental spectrum with their instrumental and guitar-heavy approach coming to the fore instead of the background. At times, oven the course of their ~30 year career, the dreamier (Pop) side of music can even be heard, citing massive 80’s punk and rock influences, and the rare vocal additions that float in and out of their discography.

With such a history, and only so much an intro can do, I took the time to send over a few questions to the duo, with the hope of shedding some light on their inspirations, sound and thoughts on Ambient music in general. Read below for an insightful interview with them both.

This mix comes as a perfect soundtrack for our time, in both this moment and indeed today’s world, where we’re treated to a simple, yet blissful curation of textured music, much akin to the infamous Windy & Carl approach. From the duo’s heavy influences in Durutti Column, to label-mates Labradford, and legendary compositions from Aphex and Suzanne Ciani. Float away with some gentle tones that have inspired Windy & Carl.

The new album by Windy & Carl titled Allegiance and Conviction is out now on Kranky.

Download

Tracklist:

1- Durutti Column - Sleep Will Come
2- Stars Of The Lid - Porch (edit #28)
3- Suzanne Ciani - Paris 1971
4- Aphex Twin - Rhubarb
5- Thomas Koner - Kanon (Part 1: Brohuk)
6- James Leyland Kirby - So Pale It Shone In The Night
7- Aphex Twin - Blue Calx
8- Labradford - Air Lubricated Free Axis Trainer
9- Bark Psychosis - Pendulum Man
10- Fennesz - Liminality
11- Arthur Russell - Sketch For "Face Of Helen"

~

Interview with Windy & Carl Feb/March 2020

ASIP - As a band that traversed many years and ‘fashions', I’m interested to know what you think of ambient music today and it’s apparent big media ‘revival’ we see year-on-year. You guys must get bored seeing that pop-up again and again over the years given how long you’ve been a part of it?

W - Ambient music - that’s funny. I can't tell you how many people went gaga for those Numero and Light In The Attic comps, and then decided they too had to make ambient music, especially with keyboards. And no - we don't fit into that scene nor have we ever really been invited into that scene. We seem to somehow be eternally our own floating orb in this world, and that is fine.

C - I have been enjoying that there have been a lot of re-issues and collections of Ambient artists who were doing this long before the big media revival which has been taking place during the last handful of years. I'm not bored with it at all, but I do find it very curious that people we know who were once in rock bands (Indie Rock, Garage Rock, etc) that are now 'Ambient artists' all of the sudden.

W - When we started, we listened to a lot of sub pop bands - Codeine, Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney - and groups like Sonic Youth, Neil Young, My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Filmstars and Opera and Country and a million other things. We started recording songs and they were songs - short and rather formulaic, and one of our very first reviews said we sounded like the Durutti Column.

As we started making longer form pieces, we had reviews that mentioned Brian Eno. so 1) we have not done a thing that is even close to being Brian Eno worthy as a reference, and 2) the only Eno we had EVER listened to was Roxy Music and the Baby's on Fire album. so we were just plain confused. How the hell was what we were doing in long form pieces like Antarctica any relation to Baby's on Fire? We did not get it at all, until a handful of years later we heard Eno’s Ambient albums. I still don't really feel that what we do is in that realm - we certainly don't use a million effects or computers or processors. What you hear on our records is what we played to begin with, and we don't use a computer to change anything. We have some pedals and a few rack delays, but it's not anything like the set up I see others using. Our music is far more about the technique of playing it - of making it happen - not some kind of studio wizardry.

Sometimes I feel as if our purism (meaning lack of wizardry) in creation sets us apart from so many others, and keeps us from being a part of any scene or movement. Our music comes from inside us, and from this incredible channeling that happens when we play - music that comes through us from somewhere else. I guess I often do not feel as if we are a part of a scene, but I do love being part of the Kranky family of creators, even though even in that world we are unknown in my eyes. Part of my feeling of being left out of everything else is how many years we have run our own record store, and how many people have come in and talked about Ambient music and wanted Tim Hecker or Grouper or Sigur Ros but not had any clue who we are or what we have done. In our eyes, no one knows us. It's weird, its a weird place to be.

So yeah - these pop ups of "new age" or "ambient" cycles come and go and pass us by while we are just doing our own thing.

“We make music because we cannot help ourselves. It has to happen.”

20+ years is a hell of a run for musicians still releasing great records. You had a break in-between and now eight years after your last full length album. I don’t like talking about what’s long or short periods of time as it’s subjective, but are you a band that likes to take your time with music?

W - Well, we have not had an album on Kranky in 8 years, but we released a handful of seven inch singles, 2 different cassette tapes, an almost hour-long piece to help raise funds for our friends who own the UFO factory [BELOW] (their bar was damaged and we made music to help them pay bills while they had to reconstruct the building), so we have not been unproductive at all. Our output has simply been in different forms. We have also been recording that whole time, and we currently have 3 or 4 other full length projects that need to be finished up and then released, including a Jazz album, a tape that will feature 2 tracks of 30 minutes or more each, an album of very dark harsh guitar work, plus more. we have been busy recording and releasing, but not a full length "proper" album on a label.

C: I would rather be able to have albums ready to go much more often that it has been taking us. Since the last W&C album 8 years ago, we have been recording a lot of material during that time. As far as the new W&C album goes, we eventually decided which pieces of music worked well together. Once we had the instrumental songs sorted out, Windy worked on the vocals & concept for the project. We spent a lot of time together mixing the album. We put a lot of time and effort into it, much more than we ever have. The songs we chose were recorded over a period of 6+ years. There is a lot of material we still have to work with. A lot of it does not sound like our typical style. There are some strange jazz-like experiments, some fun synth based songs, some really heavy loud dark stuff too. It was just a matter of time until we assembled the songs for the new album. We have had a lot of fun recording during these past handful of years.

It’s easy to reference you as one of the pioneers of ambient music and on the surface the absence of drums in your music would mean many people automatically put you in this genre, but your sound is much more than that. Do you set out to make “Ambient”? How do your records normally come about?

W- There is no normal with us. There’s a series of events that can happen for us to be making new music. One of us writes, the other listens and offers a layer. Sometimes we play and it just happens.

Antarctica just happened. I hooked up the keyboard to a pedal and pressed a key. I heard Carl running through the house and down into the basement where he hooked up the cassette 4 track we used at that time; then he plugged in his guitar and started to play. I taped down the key I was holding with electrical tape, and picked up my Bass and we simply played. It was spontaneous. Sometimes our music simply happens - it is channeled from somewhere outside of us and is then there coming out of us. Other times, we each have parts that we combine. And sometimes, like in the case of Carl's solo album; I had no ideas; I had nothing to add; because the tracks seemed perfect on their own. (Do you know that Carl has a solo LP? it came out in 2014, and has one of the most beautiful pieces of music on it I have ever heard, and it was so perfect on it's own there was literally nothing I could add to enhance it or to not ruin it.

C- I've always felt that we've never quite been in the Ambient scene or the Dream-Pop scene. There are elements of ambient music in our sound, but we are not just simply ambient. We have much more of a song structure to what we do. Way back in the early years of W&C we thought we needed a drummer to be able to create music. Before we put out our first single in 1993, we auditioned a drummer I knew from a previous band in the late 1980's. We got together one afternoon and improvised together for a couple of hours. We thought it sounded really good & that it might be our way forward. The guy left his drum kit at our house & we didn't hear back from him for about 6 months. It was really disappointing that we never worked again - maybe this is the reason we went ahead without a drummer for the majority of time since then. Sometimes our music comes about from a couple of ideas from either one of us. Sometimes they happen by accident. I think the harder we specifically try to do something, the more time it takes & the feeling of the initial ideas become less interesting. On ‘Depths’, Windy plays most of the main guitar lines and obviously she writes and sings the words. On our new album, I wrote and recorded all of the music myself. There is no formula for each album, we just work with how we feel it should be.

What keeps you going all these years?

W - The same thing that made us start in the first place - an insatiable need to create music. We love music. We hate music. We are huge critics and lovers at the same time.

Before we ever met, we had these intense relationships with music that gave us the longing to be able to create music ourselves, and when we ended up together, it all came to fruition. We were the catalyst we each needed to let out this lifetime of day dreams and emotions and waves of sound. somehow, we seem to only be able to do this together. Yes, we each have solo albums, but we have found that the only way we really feel connected creation wise is when we play together, even if that means one of us starts a piece and the other joins later.

It's too hard to work with anyone else. It's too soul-baring. Making music is hard, and it's really hard if you are shy or nervous or have apprehensions about whether or not what you are doing is any good. We work well together and can actually work on things and find ways to make them better or as good as we can hear in our heads, but need time to figure out. We play and record a lot, and only sometimes do not have the drive to be making music. It's like our own personal illness or demon or addiction or love affair - we make music because we cannot help ourselves. It has to happen.

“This album is a departure in a lot of ways, and we wanted the first track to have an impact and atmosphere that were not our standard style.”

Your new record on Kranky ‘Allegiance and Conviction’- I’m intrigued by the opening track, it was very unnerving but ultimately made the rest of the album feel extremely soothing. Was that the intention?

W - Why do what you always do? Why repeat yourself?

On this record, Carl wrote all the music. I’ve managed to convince him to record more of his playing, because he sits and plays often but does not always record it. This means that in the past chunk of years, he has recorded more than he previously did. As he filtered through recordings, he collected the tracks we used for this record. They spanned about 4 or 5 years. He gave them to me to see what I had to add, and I ended up contributing some samples for track 5 and then vocals for the rest. I wrote song six first, and realized it felt like a story ending, so I wrote the previous tracks as a story and track one is the beginning of the story. The first mixes sounded very much like a typical W&C song, and that just did not feel right. This album is a departure in a lot of ways, and we wanted the first track to have an impact and atmosphere that were not our standard style.

The words and the singing, they took me two full years to do. Two years. I wanted these songs to be better than what I usually do and i was on a mission to sing in tune and in key and to have my voice heard. I know the vocals are a bit louder than on our other records, but I am proud of them and also wanted the story to come through, and you can't hear the story if you can't hear the vocals! While I am normally intensely nervous about my voice - I am very happy with my singing on this record.

It's all sort of a spy story and I wrote it in a way that you can see it from the point of view of either male or female - there are no mentions of gender identification really. I saw it as from a woman's point of view, but it can be from any point of view. Go somewhere foreign, meet your asset, do the job and watch your ass, but find that you have fallen in the old trap - you've fallen in love, and let your guard down, and then been abandoned and in danger.

The end? She gets away, she gets through the forest and to the designated place, but does she live or does she die? You decide. I left it wide open. So in reality - the beginning - it's a feeling of unease is really telling of the rest of the story.

I can hear your aesthetic strongly throughout the mix you provided. Gentle lulls, colors and a focus on some instrumental elements. What was the intention or inspiration with the mix?

W- The mix could have gone in 20 different ways. 1) Other than some old school Kranky cohorts, we stayed away from including friends. 2) We wanted to showcase pieces we enjoyed but that did not have too much movement, and found that most of the Biosphere and Arovane we have was a bit too busy. And so staying away from busy we also had to cut out Charlemange Palestine (whose work I love) and some shorter pieces by Tangerine Dream and Talk Talk. We went for cohesion, a smooth transition from song to song including the texture and tone and frequency of the sound, and then for something relaxing. It does get a bit dark at times, but it's great music for turning off the rest of the world and finding some peace, which we all need these days.

~

Support Windy & Carl on Bandcamp

Merrin Karras Needle Exchange Mix + album breakdown

On the back of his new album ‘Northwest Passage’, Brendan has prepared a new mix for Self Titled Magazine for their Needle Exchange series. Expect influences from across the synth-spectrum rich with Brendan’s signature sound.

Visit Self Titled for a track-by-track breakdown of the new album by Brendan too.

Merrin Karras’ new album is now available.

Tracklist

1. Subheim – Berlin
2. Steve Roach – See Things
3. Hollan Holmes – The Farthest Fringes
4. Lucette Bourdin – Through the Keyhole
5. Mick Chillage – Faxology
6. The Ghostwriters – Slow Blue in Horizontal
7. Michael Hoenig – Departure from the Northern Wasteland
8. Lightwave – Cités Analogues
9. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani – Closed Circuit
10. Max Würden – Format
11. Merrin Karras – Dominions

isolatedmix 97 - Jane Fitz: We Fall Into The Sun

There’s many ways I thought about introducing Jane Fitz, and no-matter which way I went, I couldn’t do her accolades justice. A DJ’s DJ, a producer, a respected digger, event curator, and doing it all for years now… the list goes on. I came back to something very simple. Jane is the first DJ I thought of when we organized our upcoming London Label night. Someone who could spin records in an intimate setting; on an amazing system; have the trainspotters out in force; transition between ambient and [insert pretty much any genre] and ensure everyone has a good time.

My request to Jane to complete a mix for us actually came before the event was on the horizon, but it was serendipitous to say the least and mean’t I would hunt her down every day until she got this one out into the world to give you all a preview of her infamous sets. Those who follow her already know, her live mixes and podcasts are often a deep and winding journey between techno, acid, abstract experimental, straight-up electronica, psychedelia, ambient and more. As a result, they often stretch for multiple hours at a time. Jane likes to take people on a journey - a DJ in the truest sense of the word honing her craft and with a smile to boot. Jane is also a vinyl enthusiast, and I regularly see her name supporting ASIP releases and many other likeminded labels so it’s a true honor to have her a part of the isolatedmix series.

Thank you, Jane, for the considered effort and time that went into all of this. Of course, in true Jane Fitz style, we’ve been treated to a bit of an extended session at 1hr 44mins. We look forward to seeing Jane spin next week. To accompany the mix, I sent Jane a few quick questions, below.

~

How did you approach your isolatedmix? Is there a concept in mind?

JF - Less of a concept and more of a mood - I wanted to create a moment in time with this mix and it's definitely reflective of how I feel currently - a little winter-weary and hungry for sunshine and longer days. I have been playing a lot of long and all-night sets recently and the beginnings generally sound like this, atmospheric, thoughtful, but heady and trippy too, which I set out to capture. It's something I'm enjoying more and more - and I guess this mix takes that long slow build from the set, and just stays in that space, rather than kicking it up a notch. Now it's finished I see it as part of a bigger whole, I have a part two in mind but for something and somewhere totally different.

Where and how was the mix recorded?

JF -At home in my studio in the garden, in one take. Everything is off records. I had been thinking about it for quite some time, trying to describe what I thought makes an ASIP mix and suffering a bit of DJs block. But in the end, once I'd whittled down to about 50 possibles, the records told me what to play and in what order, like they always do.

You're known as a brilliant selector and vinyl enthusiast, how did it all come about?

JF - Thank you! Pure love for music that grew to an obsession and became a longterm relationship. I started collecting records aged 10 and I've had some very full and some very lean periods doing so. But I guess obsessively from my late 20s (so the past 20 years or so) I've compulsively bought as much as my pocket and my space will allow. I just love records, I love the sound of music played on a record and I love storing and filing and rediscovering the music I already own on record. 

What are a few of your secret weapons on vinyl?

JF - Now if I told you the secrets would they still be weapons??

In keeping with the spirit of ASIP I give you this. It didn't make it onto this mix but it features on a tape released by Nachtdigital of my ambient set there a few years ago. And this one, a really lovely record with a dark heart I picked up in New York for very cheap two tracks from this make the mix. 

What are some of your favorite record shops?

JF - Round And Round - Melbourne; Low Company and the Little Record Shop - London; Redhill - Helsinki; Staalplaat - Berlin. Yugovinyl - Belgrade; Clique and Living Inc - Seoul; A1 - NYC; Seance Centre and Invisible City - Toronto; Snickers - Stockholm; EAD and Los Apson in Tokyo. And I have some really secret ones I won't reveal...

What's your digging process? Looking for something in particular? Browsing by art? By genre? Portable turntable?!

JF - I actually just bought a portable turntable recently so I think this might alter my digging habits. I have different ways - if I'm digging in store I just try and work my way through everything and wait ‘til something speaks to me - whether it's label info or cover art. In more modern stores its straight to the bargain bins. Discogs I have a number of ways - I like to obsessively stalk producers and labels. But I also love to set myself weird parameters using the 'explore' function. I always bump into something brilliant that way.

You're set to play our first ASIP label night in London at Hidden Sounds (I can't wait!) what can everyone expect from your set?

JF - Transcendental brain music that fully intends to kidnap you. I'm a sucker for all things psychedelic and druggy and deep and for a night like this (I can't wait either!) I think I need to take people places in their minds but also do my best to create the horizontal-listening rave. Dancing without decibels. Heat without beats. Something special...for you. 

~

Listen on Soundcloud, Mixcloud or the ASIP Podcast.

Download

Tracklist:

01. Legion Of Green Men - Noise Floor /External Opascule #55 (Plus 8)
02. Jay Glass Dubs - Urged To Be Cleansed While Bathed In More Blood (Berceuse Heroique)
03. Aiwa - Etamorph (Banlieue)
04. Sixtyone - Tregnanton (Verdant)
05. Lyterian - What We Left Behind Will Be Lost Forever (Space Cadets)
06. O Yuki Conjugate - Steppe Land (Emotional Rescue) (Wrong speed)
07. Annawooh - Dust From WIthin (Stoscha)
08. Hugo R A Paris - Heliophagis (Jackstone)
09. Andrea Belfi - Plateau (Float)
10. Frazer Campbell - Araline (Elliot Project)
11. Annawooh - Stellar Explosion (Stoscha)
12. Evolution - B-S-W-P-S-S (Chill-Core-Mix) (Gaia Tontrager)
13. O Yuki Conjugate - Rite Of Passage (Emotional Rescue)
14. Fabio Orsi - Moon (Oltrarno)
15. TM404 - Trico (Kontra)
16. KNR - Zabran (Diskant)
17. M//R - Among The Methods (Great Circles)
18. Covert Dub - Spectre Overseas (Orbjects, Overseas And Oceans) (BMG)

Jane Fitz | Soundcloud | RA | Instagram