It’s gonna be really hard expressing in words how much I like this track. There’s an undeniable Kraftwerk vibe at work here and more importantly Boom Bip manages to hold his own. “The Move” is the 2005 version of “Tour de France” sans all the huffing and puffing. I obviously have a thing for songs that sound as if they could accompany a sporting event. Having remixed tracks for Mogwai, Sonic Youth, Her Space Holiday, and Lali Puna, I’d be a bit surprised if you weren’t already familiar with his work. If not, start here and dig deep!
Octant
Octant are Tassy Zimmerman, Matthew Steinke, and an automated acoustic drum machine called the AD3, which looks like the kind of drum a one-man band would use only it has a motor instead of a man powering it. The result is a broken android new wave thing that kinda makes me nostalgic for the simple days of the Cold War.
Tiger Baby
I’ve always maintained the theory that no matter what kind of music you grew up listening to, you can find it, recreated somehow, someway in a current band. However, whether or not you’re open-minded to it is another story. Some people get stuck in the past and are happy to be there. Those who don’t read 3hive. So it finally hit me who Tiger Baby remind me of (and I can’t wait to play it for my wife, Alisa, who’s a huge fan of): Claudia Br�cken and her projects Propaganda and Act. Tiger Baby represent faithfully the heart and soul the aforementioned bands injected into ’80s synth pop. We’ll see if my hypothesis holds when these tracks end up in Alisa’s iPod.
schneiderTM
When Old Man Heat and Bitter Hag Humidity slow everything to a muggy crawl — as they have of late in these parts — schneiderTM’s hazy electro pop seems to get a lot more spins on my iPod. Just thought I’d share…
Ligyro
Fuzzy rhythms, blunt beats, and all manner of static and stutters, made by a man (Neil Cain) and a machine (Akai MPC 2000XL), and held together by moments of sonic chill. Thanks to music like this I don’t need to do drugs. All it takes is a pair of headphones.
Applied Communications
Applied Communications is quite an appropriate moniker for the music of Max Hood. Max takes all types of communications and applies them straight to your ears. A cacophonous symphony of electronic sounds, beats, and tones brace up the delivery of almost stream-of-consciousness thoughts and tirades in the combined traditions and styles of Cex, They Might Be Giants, the Circle Jerks, and Henry Rollins. When Max repeats, “I don’t know how to play any instruments” over and over at the beginning of “Do You Know What I’m Saying?”, you realize, well, that’s not really his point, is it?
Ursula 1000
An oldie but a goodie (like 2003 is old!). Ursula 1000 is one Alex Gimeno, a New York DJ who delightfully blends samba, bossanova, and 60’s groove with smart beats. Sure, it’s nothing new, but Ursula 1000 is a leading adherent of the genre, and “Samba 1000” is awfully catchy. Dada…dada..da..da..da…
The Raging Family
Here’s a brief recap of The Raging Family’s bio: raised and home-schooled by bohemians in Upstate New York; lived in Eugene, Oregon until driven from their house by local authorities because of noise and behavior complaints; settled down in an enclave somewhere in the hills outside of town to focus on music and art. If you ask me it all sounds a little cultish, and at the risk of becoming Sharon Tate to their Manson Clan, I’m gonna throw my support behind The Raging Family’s latest “concept” album. Black Holes is ostensibly a journey through space and time, but how they get us there is through an eclectic collection of styles ranging from the knob-twisting and wax-scratching exploits of Land of the Loops and Prefuse 73, the found-sound rebelliousness of Negativland, the electro-clash abandon of Meat Beat Manifesto, the jazz exploration of Miles Davis and Sun Ra Arkestra, and even the psychedelic guitar masturbation of Carlos Santana’s Illuminations period. It’s a whole lot of styles to wrap your noodle around, but luckily the band has posted the entire album on their website for us to take it all in (the links below are just some highlights), and there are other entire albums there fully linked for the taking — but beware, the money you save on music today may go to pay for the cult deprogrammer you’ll need tomorrow.
Bitmap
Bitmap is the solo project of one Luke Barwell, formerly of the British band Salako (not to be confused with former Crystal Palace, Coventry, and Reading winger John Salako, now at Brentford, if you’ll pardon the English soccer reference). For all of you out there wondering what Revolver would have sounded like had Beck been fronting the Beatles, with Brian Wilson as sound engineer, Bitmap’s latest album Micro/Macro will satisfy that curiosity.
David Last
Is there such a thing as dumbed-down IDM? Not inferior, but approaching it from a slightly different angle is David Last, less brainiac and more booty-shaker, moving away from digital detritus and towards more organic dancehall rhythms. Perfect for intimate gatherings. Served to chill. I’m jonesin’ summer BBQs. Can you tell?