Utility Fog

Hip-hop, glitch, dub, bass, jungle, hardcore… rhythmic acoustic & electro-acoustic, drone-folk, experimental folk, sound-art, ambient techno… Here we are, let’s go. LISTEN AGAIN, you deserve it! Stream on demand @ fbi.radio, podcast here. doseone & Height Keech – Human Satan Saul Williams – Conspiracy (feat. Moor Mother) Anysia Kym & Tony Seltzer – Speedrun – umru & username flip Anysia Kym & Tony Seltzer – Picture This – Black Noi$e flip AVA RABIAT – Znak Zapytania House of Skin – U Turn Spitbender – Nothing Here But the Recordings WAAASS – Tight Joe WAAASS – Dial 808 Sebaas – too much of that Slacker & georg-i – Brittle Forms nCamargo – Assertive Dub Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – Phantom Pain (Metal Gear Solid Mix) Nick Storring – Bryn OTHER:M:OTHER – Resolution Lifted – The Ice Chewers (Opening Credits) Alev Lenz – Domestisizer (Drone version by Jas Shaw) Jo Mango – The Bed Jo Mango – The Windowpane Alison Cotton – I Am! Magic Tuber Stringband – Marker of a Drowning Magic Tuber Stringband – Woodpeckers ai yamamoto – Winter clay teeth – Glazed Jad Atoui – Reaching Heart Listen again — ~217MB

Songs heavy & dark, glitchy & light, raps in English & Turkish, beats bassy & percussive, jazz upbeat & minimal… It’s Utility Fog! LISTEN AGAIN, you might have missed something the first time? Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here. YHWH Nailgun – Burns YHWH Nailgun – Innocent Sigh Big | Brave – verdure Big | Brave – holding tongue Tujiko Noriko – Only on Love Mariam Wallentin & Vestnorsk Jazzensemble – Blanket Dance Laura Misch – Kairos Love Is Yes – Motionless ear – Threads ear – F Alif Hilal – Reality (Lyra’s Dhikr al-Qayyum Rework) Wu-Lu & POiSON ANNA – West Window Jesse Draxler – Ctrl Alt Del ft. HOLLY & Ho99o9 X.A.Cute feat. Ethnique Punch – Paradox feat. Ethnique Punch Carl Gari – Disco Lights feat. Sensational Carl Gari – Wünschelrute Rotgland – Skux (ft. Cherry Rype) Low End Activist – Ultramarine Rutger Zuydervelt – Not Good Enough Rosa Brunello – Line Unbroken Alexander Noice – Third Corso Berndt / Schmidt – The Sound of Glink Driftwood – Restless Earth Microfiche – Cascades clay teeth – How Can I Help U? Listen again — ~220MB

From experimental dub to spoken word with electronics, processed percussion, dub techno mutations and more… LISTEN AGAIN for a good time. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here. Lee “Scratch” Perry & Mouse on Mars – Spatialee Lee “Scratch” Perry & Mouse on Mars – Yayaya Sandy Chamoun – Wa و Sandy Chamoun – Shahed شاهد Jungstötter – Tag 10 Jungstötter – Elastic (Avenue) BAG – ‘Oumuamua BAG – Floor Phlegm Hue Naná Rizinni – The Right Side of the Escalator Naná Rizinni – Under the Quiet Medium + SIMM + Flowdan – Simple Stuff [Submerged VIP] Margenrot – Annushka FRIEND LESS – Transcend (James Plotkin remix) Cinna Peyghamy – Zur زور Cinna Peyghamy – Glass Teeth 94 Forest Drive West – Node K Wata – Radio Embrace Leverton Fox – Sounding Balloons at the Kármán Line Anthony Lyons – Murmuration Anthony Lyons – Sacred Signals Martyna Basta – Weeping Willow Martyna Basta – 2674 (feat. Rainy Miller) Helen Svoboda – Veins (feat. Selma Savolainen) Listen again — ~222MB

It’s a strange old world we live in, so let’s have some strange new music shall we? Foetus – The World Is Broken Murex – Massacre memotone – Laimèti Pavyksta (feat. Ugnė Uma and Typesun) memotone – Round The Bend (feat. guest) whait – Communion Lesley Mok – berserk Gloorp – Jeggings Gareth Psaltis – Closer On Water Droplets Spitbender – Global Overgroove Synkro & Tom Jarmey – Midnight The Selva – OBSIDIANA The Selva – SUSSURRO Aaron Martin – Capture Aaron Martin – Carnival Microfiche – I Sat In One Place Until It Became Many Cyparissus – Cimmerian Cyparissus – Amplexus Driftwood – The Sky Wide Open Magda Mayas – Embodied Olivier Alary – Movement III Listen again — ~214MB

OK so, like, there’s this thing called music, right? I’m not sure what it is, so I’m spending 2hrs per week on the radio trying to work it out. Help me, please. LISTEN AGAIN, if you dare. Stream on demand @ fbi.radio, podcast here. 1000 Rabbits – White Horse 1000 Rabbits – Rubik’s Cube Marcus Whale – Extra Life Travis Cook – Fingertips like fairydust Egg Meat – What a Performance Egg Meat – Elegy BAG – Moth Ball Holland Andrews x Methods Body – Speechless Loraine James – Habits and Patterns ft. Tirzah Loraine James – A Long Distance Call Antoine Ferris – La nèu ft. Louie Z Antoine Ferris – Cataplasme Ester – Bad news Pugilist – Corporate Consultant Gets Fed Through Wood Chipper dj vadim ft motion man – terrorist jungle 98 booty Heavee – Mainframe Arcane – Aguila Polska – Art feat. Dan Samsa Boards of Canada – Prophecy At 1420 MHz Frudha – One Pointedness O’Flynn – Sekete (ft. Swordman Kitala) Vladislav Delay Quintet – thirteen Vladislav Delay Quintet – nineteen Dog Plug – Dakkerha دكّرها Lachlan R. Dale – Pyrrhus (feat. Mitch Clews & Chris Allison) Lawrence English – Sodium Vapour Halo (alone) Listen again — ~215MB

Lovely songs and weiiird songs, vocal manipulation, lots of variants of jungle/drum’n’bass/IDM, processed guitars, prepared piano, avant-garde flute. LISTEN AGAIN to the avant-garde of the avant-garde. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here. Jesca Hoop – Playground Jesca Hoop – Signal To Noise Helen Svoboda – Void Of Space Buffalo Daughter – Harm No More sandscape – nisa neon light ELUCID & Sebb Bash – First Light (feat. MATTIE) Seefeel – AM Flares plunderphonics – tooBillies – naked origin vocals Stephen Vitiello and Edwin Torres – Easy with tle Dogs Versus Shadows & Nicholas Langley – Slapdash And Bouldered Dogs Versus Shadows & Nicholas Langley – One Magic Camera gi – stemmed gi – spel Steve Flato x Yapping Portal x datewithdeath x Carl Kruger – Drum Machine Fell Into The Bath (Again) Low End Activist – Indigo HLZ – Oracles dan le sac – Monark Bass Mantra – Unit 4-5 Ah! Kosmos & Hainbach – Shelter Lasus – Street Lasus – Undo Alister Spence – Rain Phase Alister Spence – Searchlight Juli Deák – Brisk Juli Deák – Contact Listen again — ~219MB

Jungle turning up in the darndest places tonight, as is… saxophone? Jazz stretched to its limits, and electronica during wartime… LISTEN AGAIN in the darndest places – stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here. Butthole Surfers – Imbuya [Sunset Blvd] Never thought I’d be playing Butthole Surfers on Utility Fog. Not that they weren’t an impeccably experimental punk/noise band in their earlier days. Not that Gibby Haines didn’t do the greatest impromptu guest spot ever on Ministry’s “Jesus Built My Hotrod“. Not that “Pepper” isn’t a classic ’90s alt.rock/trip-hop crossover hit. But still, they haven’t been active for a long while, so it’s altogether a surprise that they’ve decided to release their “long lost” follow-up to Electric Larryland, the album that featured “Pepper”. For various reasons – label shenanigans etc – it wasn’t released in the form they wanted, with some songs reworked on the eventual next album Weird Revolution. Fans have known about The Last Astronaut, and heard leaked copies for decades, but now we’re getting it proper-like, and whaddayaknow, the second song they give us is alt rock/industrial punk with amen breaks, because jungle will never die. The break gets pretty nicely tweaked in the middle 8, while the guitar chugs along like a sped-up track from that Ministry album. Picastro – Fell The Family Tree [We Are Busy Bodies/Bandcamp] Liz Hysen’s band Picastro has been going for a very long time – since 1998 – with a changeable lineup that’s usually left-of-centre, featuring viola or cello (Hysen herself plays violin), with various luminaries of the Toronto scene involved, including Owen Pallett and Nick Storring. Hysen’s songs are often dark & creepy, often uncomfortably intimate, and the strings may be used atonally as often as they’re beautiful. It’s true to say that while every Picastro song sounds like Picastro, every Picastro album is different, and their forthcoming Double On Time may be more electronic, based on this lovely – and yes, creepy – first single “Fell The Family Tree”. Notable for us here at Utility Fog, the album is co-produced by Tim Condon of Fresh Snow, whose debut as Mirrored Silver Sea was a UFog fave in 2008, and who moved from Melbourne to Toronto not long after it was released. It’s great to hear his many contributions here alongside Liz Hysen’s singular vision. Carl Gari – Swim feat. Polygonia [Molten Moods/Bandcamp] Most of us know German band Carl Gari from their incredibly strong albums made with Egyptian singer/trumpeter/poet/composer Abdullah Miniawy, on AD93 and Amphibian Records. Between those two releases, the band & singer released a live album on Molten Moods, and it’s to that label that Carl Gari now return for their self-titled album, forthcoming in June. This choppy beats of the second single are joined by multi-tracked vocals from Munich-based Polygonia, herself a producer of bass & other dancefloor music. james K – On God (Roza Terenzi Remix) [AD93/Bandcamp] Following her vaporwave-trip-hop album Friend from last year, james K now reaches out for some heavy-duty Friends to remix the album. Roza Terenzi is Katie Campbell, originally from Perth, then Melbourne, now Europe, also one third of trip-hop band trickpony. She takes the jangly indie song “On God” and dubs it out with vocal delays and chunkier beats – one of the best remixes of the set. Lyra Pramuk – Ending (Djrum Endless Rework) [7K/Bandcamp] The remix has in a sense always been at the heart of the work of operatically & classically-trained composer & producer Lyra Pramuk, whether it’s sampling and processing her own voice, or commissioning huge remix compilations as on 2021’s Delta. Last year she started her own label pop.soil, but simultaneously joined 7K (!K7‘s classical/ambient imprint that they’re back-referencing as 7Klassik), releasing the beautiful Hymnal in June. In June this year comes Hymnal (Resung), in which her voice and the strings of Sonar Quartett are remixed by seven of her colleagues – and who better than the classical-tuned beatmaster Djrum as the first to be released? dgoHn – I Couldn’t Remember So I Made Something Up [Planet µ/Bandcamp] Here are two tastes that sure go well together – the first release by drumfunk genius dgoHn (aka John Cunnane) on Planet µ! All signs point to Tessares being vintage dgoHn, with the melodic focus of label boss µ-Ziq – and dgoHn did have an album with Macc on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label (digital available here), so IDM isn’t exactly foreign to his style of drum’n’bass. I’m certain this will be a joy. SPECIAL REQUEST – Uncanny Valley (gyrofield remix) [Timedance/Bandcamp] When techno/tech house mainstay Paul Woolford unveiled his Special Request alter ego in 2012 with a series of 12″s and remixes, it was revolutionary not just for Woolford but for the nascent jungle revival, representing a new take on the ’90s jungle revolution, and pre-empting the still-current jungle revival by at least a couple of years (well it depends how you count it – Sully’s Blue double EP was 2014, despite the Bandcamp date). As you know, Woolford has used Special Request for all music of the hardcore continuum by now, but for Batu’s Timedance he’s dropped a piece of hardcoreish drum’n’bass. It’s backed by two remixes: Metrist‘s bass heavy slow-fast take and gyrofield‘s more abstracted weird-jungle. Weird dancefloors unite! los pulpitos – ii ii ii [Crammed Discs/Bandcamp] los pulpitos – Archipelago [Crammed Discs/Bandcamp] Since the early ’80s Belgian label Crammed Discs has been the home for postpunk and world music of all sorts as well as quite a lot of electronica. Techno & electronica producer Dirk Leyers here teams up with Felipe Salmon of Peruvian duo Dengue Dengue Dengue under the name los pulpitos (the little octopuses). Their debut EP Octopean Union from last year was a lovely piece of underwater electronica, combining techno & acid vibes with friendly drum’n’bass/jungle and those South & Central American percussive forms that Dengue Dengue Dengue nurtured. The new album Tentacletek is similarly-formed and both are absolutely lovely, just the right combo of dreamy & danceable. Appleblim – Thunderstorm [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp] Laurie Osborne as Appleblim was a key figure in the outward dissemination of dubstep with the Skull Disco label he ran with Sam Shackleton, twisting dubstep’s template to include technoid rhythms. Since then both artists’ oeuvres have turned sideways into other realms, but Appleblim’s always cleaved closer to the dancefloor. Here he’s joined with Sneaker Social Club for a third time, with melodic, hardware-driven rave tracks that float somewhere between drum’n’bass, 2-step, dubstep, weightless and some kind of acidic disco. Always brilliant. Rob Smith – Revolve (feat Tony Wrafter) [RSD Bandcamp] Here’s an unusual project for Rob Smith of Bristol trip-hop originals Smith & Mighty and junglists More Rockers. As RSD, Smith has also made forays into dubstep, indeed since early in the genre’s nascence, as well as dub more broadly. The makers of the underground film Urtobēn – Vienna’s illegal Artforms (more about graffiti and parkour activities than music itself) clearly felt RSD’s urban music styles suited the film’s aesthetic, and now he’s released the soundtrack on his Bandcamp, with tracks from many of his projects and a few fellow travellers. The previously-unreleased (I think!) jungle track I played tonight features trumpeter Tony Wrafter, a longtime Smith & Mighty fellow traveller, who’s also worked a lot with the On-U Sound stable. Ital Tek – Kill Switch [Planet µ/Bandcamp] I first played Alan Myson’s music as Ital Tek in 2007, pretty early in the dubstep’s expansion out from East London. He’d made a bit of breakcore/IDM before this, but his dubstep was quickly picked up by Mike Paradinas’ Planet µ, with all four tracks on the Blood Line EP certified bangers. He moved into a more purple phase, and via various other styles – some more ambient, some more industrial – we arrive at Mind Abandon. Here Myson is taking a bit more of a hardware approach, and again is mixing ambient with some more post-industrial expression, not exactly IDM or dubstep but not entirely separate either – especially the track I played tonight goes from punishing industrial bass into cyberpunk ambient synthesis. I’ve found for years now that Ital Tek albums don’t initially grab me, then I come back to them after a bit and I’m like What? This is fucking great. And yeah, this is great. An underrated talent, honestly. Jensen Interceptor – Flux Entrance [Peder Mannerfelt Produktion] Sydney-born producer Jensen Interceptor now finds himself based in Stockholm, so it makes sense that his last couple of EPs have been released by Pedder Mannerfelt‘s Produktion. Synthetic Seduction is definitely “future bass”, aimed squarely at the dancefloor; straightforward enough, but melodic and super bouncy. Rodja – Ajam (Version) [XCPT/Bandcamp] Pietro De Ruggieri is a producer from Mantera in Italy, releasing music as Rodja, which suggests a particularly Aussie pronunciation of “Rodger”, but presumably isn’t. De Ruggieri has spent some time in Tehran, and some of the music on his new album Third Force was produced there. It’s a phenomenal set of dub techno and other dubby bass music, with slippery production but emphatic beats, beautifully textured. Recommended. Paperclip Minimiser – TT A1 [Blank Mind/Bandcamp] Speaking of pitch-perfect updated dub techno, John Howes’ Paperclip Minimiser has the goods. This is far more ascetic than Rodja, a sound that will be familiar if you checked out Howes’ second album on Peak Oil a few weeks ago. Brilliant. Ptastvo – Bowls With Souls [I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free/Bandcamp] Ukrainian label I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free (based, with its progenitors, in Berlin since Russia’s war) here brings an album from Volodymyr Ponikarovskyi aka Ptastvo, who uses found sounds along with electronics and musical instruments to evoke the feeling of imbalance and the heightened emotions of living in wartime. It’s impressively varied music, and even at its most electro-acoustic (e.g. the literal metal bowls sampled on “Bowls With Souls”) it retains a connection to dance music, or at least music with beats. Quite an epic journey, one to listen to on a nighttime drive perhaps – or lie back and listen on headphones wherever you are. Bobby Ingham – Easy Mush [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp] Bobby Ingham – I Feel So Good I Swear I Could Fly [Sneaker Social Club/Bandcamp] On Angel of the North, released on Low End Activist‘s Sneaker Social Club, Leeds-born interdisciplinary artist Bobby Ingham echoes the label boss’s excavation of his Oxford council estate origins, featuring Ingham’s grandmother and Ingham’s own spoken word, with spookily discordant synths and fragmented rhythms tracing a skeleton of UK bass music, from grime to r’n’b-laced trip-hop. Berndt / Schmidt – Gecko Lazzaro [Thrill Jockey/Bandcamp] Drew Daniel, one half of Matmos, is quite prolific outside of the beloved duo, with a varied solo career as The Soft Pink Truth as well as various collaborations. It’s less common to hear solo or other non-Matmos music from Drew’s partner Martin M.C. Schmidt, so the new album Cloud Machines, which finds Schmidt working with Baltimore experimental mainstay John Berndt, should make us sit up and listen. The humour and weirdness of Matmos is very much present, but its exploratory sound – from the first couple of singles – takes in Krautrock studio experimentation, postpunk out-rock and any other leftfield musical non-traditions. Harrington, Jaffe, Shiroishi – FRACTAL HASH [AKP Recordings/Bandcamp] Via LA label AKP Recordings, Making Colors is the second improvised wonder from three talented musicians who work comfortably across genres. Dave Harrington may be best known for his collaboration with Nicolas Jaar, Darkside, Max Jaffe for the art rock/avant-pop of JOBS and drumming in Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones, and Patrick Shiroishi for his solo saxophone & sound-art as well as hardcore punks The Armed, contemporary music ensemble Wild Up and much more. This spontaneous music can sound like postrock at one time, then free jazz or psychedelic noise, or ambient, all filtered through electronic processing. Rad. Adam Schatz – A Voice Screaming All Aboard (feat. Carmen Quill) [Jealous Butcher Records/Bandcamp] Speaking of jazzers in smudged genres, Adam Schatz is a saxophonist and keyboard player who’s played with prominent indie artists like Japanese Breakfast, This Is The Kit and many others, and his Civil Engineering Vol. 1 is an enjoyable selection of melodic jazz made even better with the double bass of Carmen Quill on most tracks, and Dawn of Midi drummer Qasim Naqvi on a couple too. Purelink & Rainy Miller – Barrons Hotel (I, To, Thee.) [Fixed Abode] Arriving with no fanfare or explanation is this 2-tracker from Manchester producer/singer/iconoclast Rainy Miller, on his Fixed Abode imprint, collaborating with US electronica trio Purelink. Gorgeous smeared electronics with Rainy Miller’s typically morose, yet cutting, work. Listen again — ~222MB

We got songs of all sorts tonight and non-songs for most sorts too. Take your pick! LISTEN AGAIN – you can stream on demand @ fbi.radio or podcast here. Abigail Snail – Good Grief [Romac Puncture Repairs] Abigail Snail – Attach Bayonets [Romac Puncture Repairs] You can get an idea of the experimental roots background of London guitarist Stef Ketteringham, usually known as Stef Kett, from his 10-year-old Guitar Arrangements (2016) and its sequel More Guitar Arrangements from the following year – a loose, free jazz approach to bluesy guitar, the outer limits of American Primitive. It’s not that far from there to punk rock, but nor is it far from the swamp. Garage rock is more the touchstone with Abigail Snail though, when Kett, on vox, guitar & bass, teams up with the incredibly versatile drummer Will Glaser, who’s played with the likes of Sly & the Family Drone, Yazz Ahmad, Ruth Goller and many other luminaries of the London jazz scene, and released an incredible solo album last year. The music’s a kind of hysterical, broken-down form of garage rock, dragged into swampy blues-jazz with the addition of James Allsopp on tenor sax & bass clarinet, a fixture of London’s jazz & experimental scenes for the last 2 decades. The album bio describes them as “London spray band Abigail Snail”, and the raucous-yet-vulnerable music here could well suit this new genre (as you know, we at Utility Fog love ridiculous new genres). Anyway, stick this on your boombox and scare pedestrians as you cycle to work next week. Jungstötter – Overturn [Unguarded/Bandcamp] Fabian Altstötter founded his solo project Jungstötter some years after his postpunk band Sizarr went on hiatus. Solo, his music draws from the dramatic experimental songwriting of Scott Walker & David Sylvian – on 2023’s One Star, his rich vocals were offset by industrial rumblings and shifting electronics, muddled in pitch-shifted shadows of themselves, mashed beats interrupting the flow, horn and string arrangements that grow raucous. New album Sustained is now announced, and single “Overturn” is very pared down – just that voice, some percussion, sparse electric piano, field recordings of children’s voices and occasional single note hits from horns. Oh, and the scrabbling guitar at the end, all suggesting something creepy around the corner. No doubt this will be an excellent album. Massive Attack x Tom Waits – Boots on the Ground [PIAS Records/Bandcamp] The most unexpected release of the century? Given that Tom Waits‘ last solo album Bad As Me came out in 2011, we could have been forgiven for expecting that was the end, but Massive Attack (who have stuck to random singles with feature artists for the last decade) convinced him to create this anti-war anthem, clattering percussion straight out of Tom’s Bone Machine, piano straight out of many of 3D’s productions, and Tom’s barked vocals which could refer to ICE or US troops in Venezuela, Iran, or heck, Vietnam. It’s proper chilling stuff. Loraine James – Flatline ft. Miho Hatori [Hyperdub/Bandcamp] From her soon-forthcoming album Detached From The Rest OF You, Loraine James here works with Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto on absolute thriller of a song, the beats a Loraine glitch-bass special and Hatori’s vocals spoken and sung but always cut-up. This is her “pop” album lol… Well, it’s full of great singers and James herself sings on more than a few tracks, but it’s still super experimental. Naavikaran & Simo Soo – For You Page (FYP) [Naavikaran Bandcamp] On her new EP MYSTIQ DISCOTHEQ, Naarm-based rapper Naavikaran puts a South Asian spin on her EDM-influenced rap & pop, enlisting Simo Soo to help bring out the deconstructed club vibes. Across the EP, Naavikaran raps and sings in Tamil, Marathi, Hindi and English, covering life as a disabled, LGBTQI+ refugee. Impressive and entertaining. deafkids – REFLEXO [Neurot Recordings/Bandcamp] Brazilian band deafkids may nominally be classed as “punk”, but hardcore punk mixes with industrial and noise in their sound, along with electronic music of all shapes. They released the incredible uncategorizable Metaprogramação on Neurosis‘ Neurot Recordings in 2019, and then when the pandemic hit, they put out a series of EPs that mixed Latin rhythmic complexity with guitar pedal and software experimentation, collected now on the album Ritos do Colapso. Except before that in 2020 came their collaboration DEAFBRICK with cross-continental noise-metal-industrial-electronic duo PETBRICK. So with various collabs and oddities in the interim, their forthcoming CICATRIZES DO FUTURO (Scars of the Future) is their first album proper since Metaprogramação. It looks to be more electronic, more intense, more angry than ever, a visceral reaction to the state of the world. Highly rhythmic and danceable, it shifts between hardcore punk, industrial, Latin American and club sounds with abandon. I can’t wait to hear the whole thing. james K – Doom Bikini (Hesaitix Remix) [AD93/Bandcamp] Following her vaporwave-trip-hop album Friend from last year, james K now reaches out for some heavy-duty Friends to remix the album. Hesaitix is the alias of James Whipple, better known as M.E.S.H, pioneer of “deconstructed club”. Here, though, he’s taking james K’s “Doom Bikini” and adding accelerated breakbeats in a lightweight jungle style. Very nice. Zoë Mc Pherson – Bang Bang (Nziria remix) [SFX/Bandcamp] Zoë Mc Pherson – Ambient Snake (Yushh remix) [SFX/Bandcamp] One of the leading lights of deconstructed club music (as we probably don’t call it anymore), Zoë Mc Pherson, releases the remix collection from last year’s Upside Down album, via their own SFX label. A great collection of various sorts of experimental bass music, including here some frenetic jungle/breakcore from Italian DJ & producer Nziria, and some ambient technoid lushness from Bristol’s Yushh, who will be playing here soon – at the Sydney Opera House, no less – for DUNJ’s Vivid Live event, also featuring Carrier and our own gi and Autogenesis. ARTISOMA – Boraq [YUKU/Bandcamp] Ravensburg, Germany-based producer Sarah Rendle ARTISOMA, debuting on YUKU with the Mobilya EP, exploring various configurations of UK bass and percussive techno. Quality production, as expected from anything on YUKU. OD Bongo – crystallinoron [Carton Records/Bandcamp] It’s almost inevitable that whatever is next released by French label Carton Records will be unlike whatever you’ve previously heard. Amédée de Murcia (aka Somaticae) on synths and Édouard Ribouillault aka C_C on drum machines, samplers & fx make up OD Bongo, whose second album Bongoville is technically co-released by Carton, zamzamrec, Prix Libre Record and basalte (whoever they are). This multiplicity of co-presentations is quite common in France it seems. Whoever you’re encountering it via, you’re in for a treat: hardware samplers, synths & drum machines produce a psychedelic cacophany of dance music styles, drawing in trap, juke and gqom with their bass-heavy techno – and a dub sensibility is ever-present. That’s got to hit the spot if you’re a Utility Fog listener! Haydn Douet Lukies – Amolador [Colectivo Casa Amarela/Bandcamp] Colectivo Casa Amarela are one of those Portuguese labels that you know will come through with the goods, even if you’re not sure what those goods will be. In the case of Old Dark Champagne, percussionist Haydn Douet Lukies uses his environment as his instruments – in this case the watery soundscape of Cacilhas, an industrial area in the estuary of Tagus River (Lisbon is built around that estuary), along with rusting chains, architectural surfaces and so on. But from these ingredients he makes music whose rhythms and sounds are linked to the beats of jungle, UK drill, industrial dub and other bass musics, as well as Arabic percussion and the Lisbon-centred, Afro-diasporic sounds of batida. It’s only an EP, and leaves us wanting more. Tristan Arp – Forking Paths [Kapsela/Bandcamp] Objekt‘s label Kapsela continues to be essential, now releasing an EP, Re-Weave, from the brilliant percussive techno sound-artist Tristan Arp. Case in point, tonight’s track “Forking Paths” starts with blissful synth arpeggios, but a minute and a bit in, rolling snares and a light but prominent “tok” on the 2nd & 4th beats drop in, switching into a syncopated bassline, and these various parts undulate and shuffle through the course of the track. The title is a reference to Borges’ classic story “The Garden of Forking Paths”, but also to the EP’s dedication to weaving mycelial networks and labyrinths. Beautiful. Yunzero – Cool Skunk [Yunzero Bandcamp] Naarm’s Jim Sellars makes some of the most weirdly crunchy, alternate-reality sample-based music of the last decade or so, under the name Yunzero. As the quote says on this new 2-tracker, “there’s something off”. If you wanted a summary of Utility Fog’s favourite kinds of music, “there’s something off” is a pretty good one, and it’s not a bad description of the jittery, rhythmic pieces on show here. Hora Lunga – Hearing through the Wall ft. Junge Eko [Hora Lunga Bandcamp] One album I loved from last year came from Argentinian cellist Violeta García working with the Swiss composer/producer Hora Lunga. The two musicians melded sound-art and noise with acoustic gestures, post-club sub-bass and glitched ambiences. Now Hora Lunga presents his New Age Music Vol. 2-3, which couches new agey soundscapes in post-modern irony (check the CD-R edition, which comes enclosed in repurposed pop album packaging). Deliberately awkward edits cultivate a sense of unease, only emphasised with guest vocals from the likes of Junge Eko aka Catia Lanfranchi, whispering over stop-start breaks. García appears with a vocal performance that pairs with industrial beats reminiscent of Atari Teenage Riot; meanwhile there’s angelic voice and distortion on “Doom Metal”, which is actually more like shoegaze, while Sam Portugal brings something more like black metal vocals to the dubbed-out “When I”. The double-album lurches from one genre to the next, never alighting on “new age” as such, but embodying the new, the post-, at all times. Joseph Branciforte & Jozef Dumoulin – ⊐ [greyfade/Bandcamp] With his greyfade label, NY composer, sound-artist & designer Joseph Branciforte presents music at the crossroads of contemporary classical, contemporary jazz and experimental electronic, especially where they meet in minimalism. This has led to some remarkable ideas, like the Folio edition of an acoustic reconstruction of Taylor Deupree‘s ambient-glitch classic Stil. Glitch, though, is a hallmark of the label, especially with Branciforte’s own works like the label’s debut release LP1 and its follow-up, which paired Branciforte with brilliant jazz singer Theo Bleckmann, with Branciforte on electronics and Fender Rhodes. That instrument brings us to this new collaboration, with Belgian Rhodes player Jozef Dumoulin. Both artists play their own Fender Rhodes, re-sampling and processing in realtime, and the music is (re)constructed from small fragments – but don’t think this is austere studio deconstruction; Joseph & Jozef are seasoned improvisers, and their intuitive connection is found throughout. In addition, a lot of the “editing” was done live in Branciforte’s realtime editing software. The album is released in a special deluxe edition with the whole 70 minute work on one CD, and an additional 4 CDs which contain the tracks spread out across them, to be re-sequenced or even layered if the listener wishes. Jonas Cambien – Tre – RADIO EDIT [Sonic Transmissions Records/Bandcamp] Rhythmic sounds here which hint at glitch-edits but are purely prepared piano, from Oslo-based Belgian pianist Jonas Cambien, whose Man Eating Tree is released by Norwegian label Sonic Transmissions Records. The release consists of four pieces, I believe part improvised and part composed, of rhythmic movement and minimalist gestures on prepared & unprepared piano and electric organ. Lovely stuff. Microfiche – Number 7 [Earshift Music/Bandcamp] One of Eora/Sydney’s best jazz bands, Microfiche, have their third album With Time coming out on June 12th. The album marks 10 years together as a band, and bids farewell to pianist/keyboardist Novak Manojlovic – replaced live now by the brilliant guitarist Hilary Geddes, although Novak still plays on the album, along with clarinettist/violist Phillippa Murphy-Haste, bassist Max Alduca, trumpeter Nick Calligeros, saxophonist Sam Gill (recently awarded the 2025 Freedman Jazz Fellowship) and drummer Holly Conner (who you’ve heard filling in on this show on a number of occasions). All of them are interested in music across genre, all are composers and improvisers and producers one way or other. The first single from the album is composed by Novak, and it’s a beautifully restrained piece with subtle details, clusters of virtuosity inside small musical gestures. The whole album’s special, stay tuned for more! Mariam Wallentin & Vestnorsk Jazzensemble – Basel [Hubro] Here’s a new single from an album that’s coming… sometime… from the great Norwegian label Hubro. Mariam Wallentin is one of the most extraordinary singers of our age – known for her postrock/pop/experimental duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums with her husband, drummer Andreas Werliin, and for her immense, emotive vocals with Fire! Orchestra, the Nordic free jazz big band centred around the Swedish trio Fire! formed by Werliin along with bassist Johan Berthlin and saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. Wallentin also has a solo project as Mariam The Believer which is perhaps more pop but still involves many experimental/jazz musicians. Here she is working with the Vestnorsk Jazzensemble, a jazz ensemble based in Bergen in the west of Norway, who commissioned a collaboration with Wallentin which reworks material from Mariam The Believer and even going back to Wildbirds & Peacedrums. However, “Basel” is a new song, a slow jazz groove with a pensive melody. Can’t wait to hear the rest. Claire Dickson – Waterfeel [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp] New York’s New Amsterdam Records are notionally a classical label, who tend to put out contemporary classical-adjacent pop, indie and experimental music as much as full-blown orchestral/ensemble work such as Sarah Kirkland Snider‘s compositions. On her second NewAm album Balance, Berlin-based Claire Dickson writes beautiful, laid-back songs around patient synth & piano patterns, fluttering strings, twinkling harp… Even when Lesley Mok‘s drums and Zoh Amba‘s sax are in the picture, it’s the slow-paced ostinati that call the shots. Dreamy & lovely stuff. Freda D’Souza – unravel (when ya comin back?) [Freda D’Souza Bandcamp] Speaking of low-key… Freda D’Souza is a London-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist who you may have heard me bugging you about before – or not, because she is the exact opposite of prolific. Her Windowledge EP from 2023 is small but perfectly formed and “The Love Song of J Alfreda D’Souza” speaks to me both on the pun level and also just as a wondrous song & performance. Anyway, how lucky are we then that she’s just pushed out a tiny single, with the lovely “lullabye” as the lead but backed up with a blissful Björk cover! The glitched, twinkling electronics of Vespertine (still my favourite Björk era) are replaced by layers of her voice and strings. Then again, if you like doom & post-metal, Freda’s band Wēven have just released their Wychelm EP, which is highly worth your time too. Listen again — ~214MB

While the new world struggles to be born, people all round this dying old world cannot help but keep making music. Too many, frankly. Please stop. Anyway, I cannot help but keep playing you all this incredible music, postpunkindustrialdubjunglegamelanglitchjazzfolkclassical, as those in the know call it *taps nose* LISTEN AGAIN to the music of the spheres. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here. Laeter – Isolate [Laeter Bandcamp] Laeter – Leibowitz [Laeter Bandcamp] Liam Bosecke is based on Kaurna country, in Adelaide, and he’s founded a creative community called Empty Frames that aims to raise mental health awareness. His latest album as Laeter is released via that platform, but is of course available on Bandcamp (and in a handsome CD edition!) Blanket Doubt is a wonderful thing that kind of answers the question, “What if indietronica except slow-moving industrial dub?” Intense distorted drum machines and synthetic screeches underscore almost-spoken vocals, or shudder and crash under New Order-esque synth melodies. Pure perverted pleasure. Damos Room – All Shall Go [Long Gone/Bandcamp] Damos Room – Gullet (Dirty Protest) [Long Gone/Bandcamp] Last time I played Damos Room on the show was a mere month ago. I wrote at the time: I’m not sure who Damos is or what’s in their Room, but signs point to it being three guys: Luke Miles, Nicholas Elson & Huw Oleskar. I’ve just found out (because they told me, nothing underhand) that Huw Oleskar is also known as Elijah Minnelli, responsible for some of the most interesting and lovely dub-folk hybrids in recent times, ostensibly under the auspices of Breadminster County Council. As for Damos Room, you can find a series of fantastic, weirdly-shaped releases on their Bandcamp, including a mixtape of two bizarre 40-minute radio pieces, some quasi-singles of abstracted dub/spoken-word/electronics, and the experimental electronics of their collaboration with rapper LYAM, which I played on this show a few years back. So, a month ago I played something from Walk With The Militia, a vaguely-album-shaped item that wasn’t actually their new album – rather it’s a mixtape, entirely in keeping with the mystery what all this is about. It collects – I said – a whole lot of weird shit, but it’s all dub-based experimental electronics, with Minnelli’s distinctive spoken word & low-key singing, odd radio interludes and noise bits and so on. It’s really fantastic. So how about All Shall Go, their new album which is really released now? Well, it’s just as murky, weird-shaped and all as the prior mixtape and earlier works. And as with earlier works, there are also some head-nodding beats and bass, and tracks where Oleskar’s voice chants and sings in nearly melodic fashion. Don’t expect pop, dancehall or grime here, but do expect music that’s evocative, challenging, ancient and modern. Do go deep, but don’t miss that mixtape, or 2020’s Commencement either. Carl Gari – Pick’n’Peel [Molten Moods/Bandcamp] Most of us know German band Carl Gari from their incredibly strong albums made with Egyptian singer/trumpeter/poet/composer Abdullah Miniawy, on AD93 and Amphibian Records. Between those two releases, the band & singer released a live album on Molten Moods, and it’s that label that Carl Gari return to now for their self-titled album, forthcoming in June. This is the first single (by the time of writing I’ve heard the second), and it’s just what the doctor ordered – dark, insistent minimal drum’n’bass if it was produced by Depeche Mode circa Songs of Faith and Devotion, a very specific reference that probably only makes sense to me 🖤 Fez The Kid & BRUK – Original Secret [RuptureLDN/Bandcamp] Two young junglists from Bristol tearin’ it up on this new EP, their first for the iconic jungle-revival label RuptureLDN. These guys really know their jungle originals and are making the kind of tracks that wouldn’t have been out of place in an East London club circa ’93. Both Fez The Kid & BRUK have a number of EPs to their names, but have also worked together for a while, and DJ back2back as well. Turn up yr subs and feel the bass pressure while the snares go renegade. Rrrrrrrince out! A.Fruit – I Left You [YUKU/Bandcamp] A.Fruit – Choice [YUKU/Bandcamp] Anna Derlemenko aka A.Fruit is a Ukrainian music producer, born in Moscow, but her family relocated to Spain after Russia’s war on Ukraine. She co-runs the Distorted Barcelona club and does a lot of music production training & tips on her Patreon – in fact, the first track I played tonight is the subject of a full track breakdown there, and she’s shared the full Ableton project. Her productions are consistently adventurous, mixing up genres and manipulating sounds while remaining dancefloor friendly, and that’s certainly the case on her new EP Choice for the one & only YUKU. She’s an artist I’ll never not recommend. upsammy & Valentina Magaletti – Superimposed [PAN/Bandcamp] upsammy & Valentina Magaletti – It Comes To An End [PAN/Bandcamp] Dutch producer & DJ upsammy (who visited Sydney recently for Soft Centre) has previously worked the built & natural environment into her music: Germ in a Population of Buildings in 2023 created a whole environment of hallucinatory fauna and automata, repurposing IDM in a similar-but-different way to Eora’s own gi. Valentina Magaletti is one of the most versatile drummer/percussionists working at the moment, found in the postpunk-electronica band Moin, but also remaking kuduro & batida with Afro-Portuguese producer Nídia, a kind of postpunk dub with electronic producer Al Wootton, and plenty of other avant-garde stuff. upsammy & Magaletti’s collaborative album Seismo (yes, it means “earthquake”) came out of a commission from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, for which they sampled the sounds of the museum itself, using its spaces as percussive surfaces, and much of the joy of the album comes from the blurring of live drums and other acoustic rhythms with electronic programming and manipulation. Around & amongst the percussion are snippets of voice (a callback Mageletti’s work with Raime and Moin, albeit applied very differently), strange fragmentary samples of guitar & bass, piano notes stretched thin, slow melodic synths. Mostly delicate, mostly the opposite of an earthquake, these are musical giants striding across our world while imps dance in their footprints. It’s a wonderful album. Hoavi – Song of the Forgotten [Peak Oil] Hoavi – Colossus [Peak Oil] And speaking of imps dancing, Russian producer Hoavi is one of the exemplars of music that sounds like skittering insects and tumbling waterfalls, drawing jungle-ish IDM into dub technoid waters. His second album for Peak Oil, Architectonics, takes those aspects into newer territories, with a bank of samples of percussive sounds from around his house, and inspiration taken from Indonesian gamelan and minimalist composition. For all this though, it’s vintage Hoavi – rhythmically complex, deep sound design. Genius. Foote/Dickow – Underwater Welder [Geographic North/Bandcamp] Peak Oil is run by two Bria/ons – Brion Brionson is the “o” guy, and the other is Brian Foote, who’s been kranky‘s media guy forever as well as running various labels (including Peak Oil just above here!) and playing in various bands. Brian’s also a connoisseur of IDM, electronica & rave in all its variations (solo as Leech), and here he teams up with Paul Dickow, best known as Strategy, maker of much dubwise, ambient & technoid musics and himself co-founder of the Community Library label. High Cube is their first outing together as a duo, and you can feel their shared musical heritage in its bones. Skittering IDM glitchbeats hover above a dub techno skeleton, and there’s a jazzy sensibility to the keyboards. Charming. Richard Pike – III. “August” [Salmon Universe/Bandcamp] Sydney’s Richard Pike, alum of PVT, is now based in London. He can be found in various ensembles, including with Joe Quirke, with whom he co-runs the Salmon Universe label, and under his own name has been making ambient-techno-hybrid-orchestral soundtracks for TV. Outside of that, he’s released solo music under the alias DEEP LEARNING on Oxtail Recordings, based around subtly rhythmic glitchy loops, but now returns to his own name for album that mixes late-night piano and glitchy dub-techno. It’s not surprising to discover that the creation of this music was directly triggered by the death of Ryuichi Sakamoto, but the music takes darker paths than the Japanese master. The full album’s out later in May, and the last single brings in something of the jungle-meets-dub techno we’ve heard a lot of tonight. Laurence Pike – Guardians of Memory [Balmat/Bandcamp] It’s lovely to find Laurence Pike – brother to Richard above – coming out on Philip Sherburne & Albert Salinas‘ Balmat label in late May. Pike was drummer in Pivot/PVT and Triosk, and the hallucinatory melding of live jazz and micro-sampled loops has remained central to his DNA since the start. There’s a trickery at the heart of Possible Utopias for Jazz Quintet, hinted at with “possible”: while there are guests on these tracks, it’s never a jazz quintet, and still predominantly Laurence solo. The “utopias” denote an idea of freedom which Pike is reaching for, in continuity with his last album The Undreamt-of Centre – that people are not atomised individuals but exist interdependently with their environment. And for all that this is a solo album, Pike begins the album with a substantial, sumptuous feature from Eora/Sydney pianist Novak Manojlovic. Utopian indeed. David Norland – E-Car Soul reNYX [Denovali] English composer David Norland, who lives between LA & London, is best known as a soundtrack writer for film and stage, as well as a composer of electronic and experimental choral music. He has an album coming via Denovali called La Source, which is not a soundtrack, but incorporates choral music into its beat-driven electronic framework. Strangely, I didn’t hear the single “E-Car Soul” as choral, but the “reNYX” by UK vocal/electronic collective NYX reworks it into their image, with vocal harmonies and rearranged electronics. Carl Stone & Asuna – Ulna As Ancestor [Room40/Bandcamp] A pioneer of live laptop music, Carl Stone has been at it since the 1980s, and has had a renaissance since Unseen Worlds released a series of his early music on triple LP sets. Stone has for a long time lived between LA and Japan, and on this new CD he’s collaborating with Japanese artist Asuna Arashi, whose toy instruments are sampled and processed by Stone and then handed by to Arashi for her to rework and… send back to Stone. With all these layers of processing, it’s not often easy to make out the original toy instruments, but it’s pretty immersive, experimental but friendly. In keeping with a lot of Stone’s own work, the titles are all anagrams of “Carl Stone Asuma”, all of which are unreasonably good (“A Nacreous Slant”? “Nascent Arousal”!) Loom & Thread – Spheres [Macro/Bandcamp] A few years ago, German jazz trio Loom & Thread released their debut album Island Grammar on macro rec. Pianist Tom Schneider is known as “frontman” of the live techno act KUF, playing as lead instrument the sampler. On Loom & Thread’s debut, Schneider at least played piano primarily, albeit sampled and processed live, as were the double bass of Tobi Fröhlich and the drums of Daniel Klein. For their follow-up Bandcamp, Schneider is well and truly a sampler-player (although yes, piano’s in there too), triggering & manipulating samples of two saxophonists and two vibraphone players (one of whom is drummer Daniel Klein). The samples’ use can range from chaotic scatter to undulant layers, around which is constructed a form of contemporary jazz. It’s weirder than their first album, but just as enjoyable. You can see them playing some of this live here, with Fröhlich also alternating between double bass & sampler. Christian Wallumrød Ensemble – Not new to [Aspen Edities/Bandcamp] It’s seems like yesterday – well OK, it was only last week – when I was talking about the richness of the Norwegian (and generally, Nordic) music scene(s), highlighting among others the stunning new solo album from saxophonist, singer, composer etc Espen Reinertsen. Reinertsen’s album was released on SusannaSonata, run by the artist known as Susanna or Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, who is also Susanna Wallumrød. She’s the youngest of a family of musicians – as well as their cousin, jazz pianist David Wallumrød, her brother Fredrik Wallumrød is a drummer of mainly rock & pop, and the oldest of the lot is pianist Christian Wallumrød (born in 1971 – Susanna was born in 1979), a renowned jazz pianist & keyboard player, whose eponymous Ensemble have released a series of albums on ECM Records. Christian & Fredrik also release music made of drum machines & synths as Brutter (also here) – glitchy, arhythmic synthetic grooves. Anyway, last week I remarked on the uncanny beauty of Reinertsen’s album, and there’s something similarly bewitching, gorgeous but slightly wrong about the music on the Christian Wallumrød Ensemble’s latest album Non Sonett, released by Belgian post-folk/jazz label Aspen Edities. The label specialises in acoustic experimental music by and large, but does slip sideways into electronics at times, and so does this latest album, where minimalist jazz compositions sidle up to Norwegian folk and haunted electronics, while remaining utterly restrained throughout. You may think this would sound cold & difficult, but it’s not: it’s engrossing and delightful, like Penguin Cafe Orchestra recording Talk Talk’s last albums, Keith Jarrett jamming Sunn O))), Henry Purcell discovering free jazz. If you only listen to one Norwegian jazz/folk record this week, make it this one (but don’t stop there). tokesmo – 02.02 [tokesmo Bamdcamp] tokesmo – 01 [tokesmo Bandcamp] Andrea B of doom/psych/metal trio Morkobot is tokesmo, a project in which he combines field recordings and found sounds with electronics. Two EPs launch the project; on tksm 01 it’s more sound-art and noise than rhythms, while tksm 02 transforms found sounds into percussive instruments for its IDM-meets-industrial beats. Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart – paper folding | disappearing [International Anthem/Bandcamp] Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart – laundry | blood [International Anthem/Bandcamp] Last year I played a track from a trio of Chicago-based women who were all string players and singers – in fact, I loved it so much I played it in Part 2 of my Best of 2025. Whitney Johnson on viola, Lia Kohl on cello and Macie Stewart on violin don’t just all sing – they all operate various tape machines, into which they feed their sounds and alchemically transmute their playing & singing into dusty loops. You can see this gorgeous transformation happening in real time in this video. Last year’s “stone | piece” was one partially improvised composition that’s part of the BODY SOUND album now released by Chicago (post-?)jazz institution International Anthem. There’s a surprising variety of sound here – string drones melting into tape hiss are part of it, but so are plucked prepared cello, loops glitched through manipulated recording heads, deconstructed folk melodies and quasi-classical accompaniments to angelic singing, squalling loops played at triple-time and roaring bass as the cello is pitched down multiple octaves. An extraordinary album like no other. Hara Alonso – A Second is a Choir (feat. Lia Kohl) [FUU/Bandcamp] Lia Kohl also turns up as one guest on the brilliant new EP Music of Many Nows from Stockholm-based Spanish sound-artist Hara Alonso. Here, Alonso combines accidental and casual recordings of life going by, combined with recordings of a nearby choir, a found piano and a couple of guests, and makes beautifully cracked vignettes, much deeper musically than this method would suggest. Honestly this couldn’t be more Utility Fog, and I love it so much. Daniel O’Toole – Breathing Colour [Cascade Rumble Records] Naarm-based artist & musician Daniel O’Toole was based here in Eora until a few years back, and was responsible for a lot of well-loved street art under the name Ears. Accompanying that were a few albums of funky instrumental hip-hop as Captain Earwax, but these days Daniel is emphasising the more abstract, gallery-friendly side of his art – gorgeous colour gradients and textures that you can sample here – and musically he’s making incredible custom-built instruments alongside his own strings, keyboard playing, percussion etc: check out the particle plate and the particle drum. Hand-made gestural instruments like this are at the core of O’Toole’s new album Outer Magnolia, but equally there’s a lot of acoustic sounds here – folktronica but not like your Daddy made it. Euan Alexander Millar-McMeeken – Nothing Moves In Me [Sleep In The Fire Records] London-based Scottish musician Euan Alexander Millar-McMeeken has recorded a lot of solo ambient music as glacis, and led indie/folk band The Kays Lavelle for many years. He has a substantial number of collaborative projects, many of them duos, all of them wonderful: Graveyard Tapes with Matthew Collings and Civic Hall with Craig Tattersall, Bird Battles with Jesse Narens and now Yoal with Satomimagae. In 2024, Euan released his first album under his full name, All The Weather Of The Human Heart, a deeply moving work that’s a meditation on loss, in which the central vocals & piano are cracked & smudged through digital & analogue means. Similar approaches to sound design are found on the solo follow-up Framed Insects – fragile songs and tape hiss interrupted by distorted beats or glitched into strange structures. Just gorgeous. Listen again — ~217MB

Songforms of conventional and highly unconventional sorts tonight, taking in folk traditions from around the world, jazz, the outer limits of metal and more, plus strange twistings of clubforms, impressionist composition of the early 20th century, field recordings and more… LISTEN AGAIN, unconventionally. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast right here. Wendy Eisenberg – Take A Number [Joyful Noise/Bandcamp] Wendy Eisenberg – Curious Bird [Joyful Noise/Bandcamp] We’ve heard from brilliant guitarist, sometime banjoist, songwriter, improviser & composer Wendy Eisenberg in many contexts in the last couple of years: there’s the amazing postpunk/art-rock trio Editrix, Bill Orcutt’s Guitar Quartet, their avant-garde songwriting collaboration with Caroline Davis, and most recently their appearance on their now-partner Mari More Eaze Rubio’s brilliant solo album sentence structure in the country. But the highlight for me remains Eisenberg’s breathtaking final track, “In The Pines”, from their 2024 album Viewfinder. So for all their jazz guitar chops and restless experimentation, I’m already primed to love Eisenberg’s most pure songwriting on this album. There’s definitely a statement in self-titling a mid-career album, and Wendy Eisenberg presents as a straightforward album of songwriterly storytelling, deeply grounded in their newfound love with Mari Rubio. There’s definitely more than a little country in these songs, as well as folk-revivalist styles from Britain, Appalachia etc, but whatever genre, Wendy’s particular melodic sensibility comes through. Supporting this, however, are the utterly essential, sumptuous string arrangements from Mari Rubio, who also co-produced the album with Eisenberg and added pedal steel and synths. With longtime bandmates Trevor Dunn on bass (known for Mr Bungle, Secret Chiefs 3, many John Zorn-related lineups etc) and Ryan Sawyer on drums (of too many collaborations including a time in At The Drive-In and long-ago UFog faves Stars Like Fleas), there’s a homely feel to these songs, songs which contemplate identity, life’s trajectory, past trauma and coming into a hard-won happiness. Margareth Kammerer – Gift [Ftarri/Bandcamp] Margareth Kammerer – Amor [Ftarri/Bandcamp] Weirdly, when I did my DJ set for Art After Hours/Liquid Architecture/Sydney Biennale in March (stream it here) I decided to play a track by Berlin-based Italian singer & composer Margareth Kammerer, and only a day or two later I discovered that she’d just released a new album, The Garden. I’ve been a fan of hers since, I would say, the mid 2000s, when she released the extraordinary album To Be an Animal of Real Flesh, full of odd, experimental songs. Following a few years later came two wonderful, mysterious albums with The Magic I.D., a quartet with Christof Kurzmann on electronics and vocals next to her own guitar & vocals, and the two clarinettists, Kai Fagaschinski & Michael Thieke, who also play bewitching, alien music as The International Nothing. So it’s reasonable to say she’s been deconstructing and re-examining songform for some decades by now. Released by Japanese label Ftarri (also a tiny experimental music venue & store in Tokyo), The Garden is of a piece with her earlier albums – the last of which came out a mere 12 years ago… Her oddly beautiful songs are supported by many important fellow travellers including our own Chris Abrahams of The Necks etc, double-bassist/electronicist Werner Dafeldecker, experimental musician Valerio Tricoli and experimental cellist Bo Wiget. I remain in awe. Espen Reinertsen – Til noens dype muskelvev [SusannaSonata/Bandcamp] Espen Reinertsen – Skal jeg følge deg til havet [SusannaSonata/Bandcamp] What astonishing beauty to stumble upon without warning! Espen Reinertsen is a name I’ve known for a while, as his saxophone and woodwinds – or his mixing skills – are credited on many a Norwegian release, including those from Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, Erik Honoré, Kim Myhr, Jenny Hval and Christian Wallumrød Ensemble. But these are his own songs, with sparse live drums and drum machines, sparse keyboards and gorgeous woodwind & trumpet arrangements which frequently shift into unexpected voicings and harmonies. You’ll hear a lot of Radiohead here – albeit more jazz-informed – but it’s also one of those rare cases when the post-rock-as-in-Talk-Talk tag is completely justified. Reinertsen’s melodies are simple until they spin off into some harmonically distant galaxy, and his layers of woodwinds are delicately emotive, merging invisibly with synthesizers just as Erik Nylander’s acoustic drums somehow have the precision of drum machines and also the sparkle of jazz drums. What a blessing. Marianna Sangita Angeletaki Røe & Trondheim Jazz Orchestra – Kori [Puritone/Bandcamp] So, Trondheim Jazz Orchestra are a collective with a varying lineup of Norwegian improvising musicians, who enlist different musicians to collaborate with them, with reliably extraordinary results. On this album, they work with Greek-Norwegian singer & composer Marianna Sangita Angeletaki Røe, who has titled the album ΣΠΙΤΙ (SPITI), which is Greek for “Home”. Marianna Sangita explores her own search for belonging, caught between two very different places, and she sings in four different languages: Norwegian, Greek, English, and Sámi, the latter being a people indigenous to the Sápmi region across northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and part of Russia. The music, too, draws from many different traditions, with Greece’s proximity to the area Europeans call the “Middle East” evident in its traditional musical forms, and the combined vocals of Sangita, Ina Sagstuen and Sissel Vera Pettersen (and other musicians at times) evoking Eastern European musics as much as Nordic. The musicianship is uniformly brilliant, the songs sparkling, moving, joyful. Highly recommended. Mayssa Jallad – Taamir (Bahriyyeh) [Ruptured Records/Bandcamp] A few years back, Beirut label Ruptured put out an amazing album by Lebanese singer/songwriter and researcher Mayssa Jallad called Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels. In touching experimental songs, Jallad chronicled the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, in which Christian Nationalists and pro-Palestinian leftists fought a violent battle amongst the high-rise hotels in Beirut, leading to the Green Line dividing the city, a rift that lasted for 15 years. Since then the album has been remixed in spectral dub fashion by Civilistjävel!, and in 2024 Mayssa created a stunning piece about a Palestinian woman displaced from her village in the Nakba. That single was created out of an instrumental track by Tunefork Studios & Ruptured Records’ Fadi Tabbal, and her new song “Taamir (Bahriyyeh)” is a musical collaboration with Tabbal, featuring drums from Postcards & SANAM‘s Pascal Semerdjian. Jallad is an urban researcher as well as a musician, and urban history is the basis of all these works. This song is about the Taamir social housing project, built in the wake of a destructive earthquake in 1956. By the time the project started, the Ain el Helwe refugee camp had already existed for 8 years, and the juxtaposition of Palestinian refugees, unfortunates who lost their homes in the earthquake, and those more fortunate, is explored by Jallad in this moving, experimental piece, with rumbling, clattering drones and field recordings surrounding Jallad’s voice. Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Frédéric D. Oberland – Squeal Of Swine خنخنة خنازير [Constellation/Bandcamp] Montreal’s storied Constellation label here brings together a Canadian and French artist for their first duo work. Radwan Ghazi Moumneh has been deeply involved in the Montreal postrock & experimental music in Quebec for over 2 decades, and he’s the co-owner of the mighty Hotel2Tango, originally a performance & artists’ space co-run by members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mt. Zion, but his main musical outlet has been Jerusalem In My Heart, begun as an audiovisual project with Erin Weisgerber, with Moumneh’s stunning melismatic vocals fed through granular processing to create a contemporary Arabic music ahead of its time in the mid-2010s. Frédéric D. Oberland is a key figure in Paris’s psych & avant-rock scenes, although he also began making films on Super8 & video. Among many bands & collaborations, he leads the incredible Oiseaux-Tempête, a collective whose music draws on psych, krautrock, postpunk and electronic music, with many collaborators and a deep connection to SWANA artists. Moumneh & Oberland had worked together via Oiseaux-Tempête and other projects, but had long intended to collaborate as a duo. Some works were started at Hotel2Tango in 2023, but as Moumneh puts it, since the genocide began he’d experienced sever writer’s block, so he took himself off to Paris in 2024 to complete the work. Four of the seven tracks do feature Moumneh’s voice, but here it’s Oberland taking more of a driver’s seat. Nevertheless, as well as Moumneh’s pain-filled voice Moumneh plays both buzuk and rababa, and there’s daf in the mix along with lots of electronic drones, drum machines and Oberland’s sax and clarineau. This is immersive music of great emotion. Maryam Saleh – Nedaa نداء [Simsara Records/Bandcamp] I first heard Egyptian singer Maryam Saleh as part of the magnificent trio release Lekhfa back in 2017. There, Saleh’s voice combined with the voice and instruments of Palestinian-Egyptian musician Tamer Abu Ghazaleh and the production wizardry and music of Maurice Louca – a masterpiece of Arabic indie music. As far as I can see, her new album, coming some 9 years later, is her first since that collaboration. Produced by Maurice Louca, it also features multiple instruments and creative mentoring from Paris-based Palestinian musician Kamilya Jubran, who founded the organisation Zamkara in Paris to support artistic projects. After three years of development, the result is Syrr سِرّ, the Arabic word for secret, which also happens to be the name Saleh gave her daughter. The album is imprinted by heavy events in Saleh’s life, particularly post-natal depression and divorce. Released by Sarah El Miniawy‘s Simsara Records, this is a creative take on Arabic music, leaning into trip-hop at times, into acoustic instrumentation at other times, carried by Saleh’s beautifully expressive voice and the confident hands of Jubran and Louca, and the impeccable musicianship of the other instrumentalists who join them. But one of the highlights is “Nafas نفَس”, in which Saleh is accompanied solely by Jubran’s oud and exquisitely-harmonised vocal shadows from the two of them. All in all, not to be missed! Taroug – Sirocco [Denovali/Bandcamp] On his second album with Denovali Records, Chott, Düsseldorf-based Tunisian musician Taroug (aka Tarek Zarroug) presents a highly varied mixture of styles. When Zarroug wants to make beat-based bass music, he hits all the right production notes with a healthy dose of north African percussion, while elsewhere there’s dreamy postrock with vocals by the artist himself. Honestly it’s uncanny how the album flits between genres, displaying Zarroug’s ancestry here, slipping into UK bass there or indie guitar music elsewhere. A really impressive album. Wraz. – Twist [Deep Dark & Dangerous/Bandcamp] Rites, the second full album from Montreal dubstep master Wraz., is released through Deep Dark & Dangerous, the label run by New Zealand’s longstanding dubstep duo Truth. As usual, heavyweight dubstep gear, sci-fi aesthetics, surprising melodies… Battery Operated – Stutter [YUKU/Bandcamp] Battery Operated – Casting Shadows [YUKU/Bandcamp] It should be obvious by now that YUKU delivers the goods, but here they are again with something insanely great. The artist behind Battery Operated is also known as PS95, an outlet for mangled jungle breaks that draws our attention to the fact that the Playstation was launched in 1995, the heyday of jungle. On the other hand, Battery Operated has thus far been an alias for deliciously lo-fi tape loops – see their Instagram for videos of their beautifully-modded cassettes & players. But the debut Battery Operated album for YUKU, TYPE I, combines these two strands in stunning fashion. From what I can tell, PS95 & the recording artist Battery Operated are the same person, but the tape loop “art” projects are done with his brother. So this ain’t dance music, not primarily, but nor is it dreamy loop-jelly. Breaks surface from tape hiss, tape loop experiments are layered & sequenced into melodies and sonic narratives, often sounding like a half-analogue/half-digital current-day version of IDM. Wonderful. Thugwidow – IT DIDN’T NEED EXPLAINING [Thugwidow Bandcamp] Thugwidow – pristine heart [Thugwidow Bandcamp] Jungle may be having a renaissance right now, with no end in sight, but Welsh producer Alex Lowther-Harris was on the jungle train way before most. The first Thugwidow releases were around 2017, and for a few years he was fiercly prolific, released mostly on cassette and digital, with a couple of CDs and some vinyl further down the track. His lo-fi early work gave way to slicker production chops as time went on, and the creative firehose slowed by around 2021-22. So it was a joyful shock to see something new appear on his bandcamp, only… it’s a swan song? Yes, SWUN SUNGZ does do what its title suggests, but it also shows that this prolific artist had more up his sleeve – it’s just that the pleasure had drained from it, he was feeling stuck… So here’s *ahem* 121 tracks, going for almost 11½ hours, and there’s a lot of quality material here, including a bunch of collaborations, and productions ranging from hardcore jungle-techno to advanced rhythm science. It’s a helluva way to go out! Note also that not only is all the money likely going to the British bird & wildlife charity RSPB, but he says most of his earnings from the project were always given away to charity. CRZKNY – 009 [Virgin Babylon Records] Japanese experimental electronic producer CRZKNY (which I’ve just learned stands for “CRAZY KENNY”) has brushed shoulders with experimental genre-mashing legend (and seminal UFog artist) World’s End Girlfriend before, on WEG productions and on his label Virgin Babylon, but this is a bit of a special release – a bit like Thugwidow’s above, this is a massive collection of unreleased tunes, here all just numbered as they’re pieces that CRZKNY has played at the Nagoya club GOODWEATHER. CZRKNY put this collection together to help support the club’s founder Eri Ishii after she suffered both an aortic dissection and a cerebral thrombosis, leaving her in a coma for some weeks. She is now on a long road of rehabilitation, and CRZKNY wants to give back to a person who built this perfect live space for his music. Lots of great techno, including glitchy shit and tasty breakbeats, for a good cause. deafkids – CICATRIZES [Neurot Recordings/Bandcamp] Brazilian band deafkids may nominally be classed as “punk”, but hardcore punk mixes with industrial and noise in their sound, along with electronic music of all shapes. They released the incredible uncategorizable Metaprogramação on Neurosis‘ Neurot Recordings in 2019, and then when the pandemic hit, they put out a series of EPs that mixed Latin rhythmic complexity with guitar pedal and software experimentation, collected now on the album Ritos do Colapso. Except before that in 2020 came their collaboration DEAFBRICK with cross-continental noise-metal-industrial-electronic duo PETBRICK. So with various collabs and oddities in the interim, their forthcoming CICATRIZES DO FUTURO (Scars of the Future) is their first album proper since Metaprogramação. It looks to be more electronic, more intense, more angry than ever, a visceral reaction to the state of the world. Highly rhythmic and danceable, it shifts between hardcore punk, industrial, Latin American and club sounds with abandon. I can’t wait to hear the whole thing. Lint – Balsam of Peru [Lint Bandcamp] OK so, you know, like Scattered Order? A band who I have referred to in the past as “Sydney postpunk/post-industrial/experimental electronic legends”. Mitch Jones is a founding member of said legendary band, active since the early ’80s or possibly slightly earlier, post-etc as described above. Drusilla Johnson aka Dru Jones has been a member of said legendary band at times, and has contributed some brilliant artwork in various phases of their existence. She’s also Mitch’s wife, and they live now in Mt Victoria, in the Blue Mountains on Dharug and Gundungurra country, and at times they release music together as Lint. It’s instinctual, artistic, splashes of colour washed over detailed line drawings… It’s the sound of Air in the taps, but it’s also the sound of over four decades building and trashing and rebuilding a musical language, and you can hear it in every dialogue sample and every wonky beat and the occasional guitar noise solo. It’s so lovely to have a seemingly endless font of new music from these folks in many changing combinations. Roman Rofalski – Ondine (radio edit 1) [Puddle Label/Bandcamp] Last time we heard from German pianist Roman Rofalski – only a few weeks ago – he was deconstructing his piano… again, following his wonderful Fractal from 2024, which shredded piano and prepared piano into constellations of granular sound and rhythm. Ravel Reimagined does just what it tells you – but to be clear, Rofalski does it really well. Over four tracks, Rofalski excerpts four celebrated piano works by the beloved impressionist composer and deconstructs them – and it’s notable that these are live performances, with Rofalski playing grand piano and simultaneously sampling himself, then reworking phrases into loops & glitchy constructions, overlaying them with synths and even beats at times. Maurice Ravel was famously prickly, was not fond of the borrowed artistic term of “impressionism” being used for his music (nor was his elder, Debussy), and was underappreciated in his time. He’s also one of my favourite composers, who I believe advanced composition in directions hitherto unimagined. Rofalski’s extrapolations push Ravel far beyond his imaginings, and it’s quite likely he would be horrified to hear what’s been done to his pieces – but now we’re imagining a composer unmoored by over a century from his origins; these prickly pieces require decades of context to situate them here and now. The virtuosic pianism outlining harmonies full of augmented and diminished intervals, whole-tone scales, melodies woven through corruscating hemidemisemiquavers (hear the original here) are thrown immediately into digital reverberation and gradual distortion until they’re glitched and chopped, then crash into long-ringing tones, a fragmented sample bleating around Ravel’s melody as the piece comes to a close. Bravo. OD – Arrival [Driftworks/Bandcamp] Alex O’Donovan is a recording & mixing engineer, but as OD he makes his own music. On Svalr, O’Donovan documents time spent in Svalbard, an island archipelago in the Arctic which is also home to Norway’s Global Seed Vault (the subject of another beautiful sound work by Ecker & Meulyzer). This album is part of a new project called SITE, co-curated by Audiobulb and Driftworks. O’Donovan took extensive field recordings of the diversity of natural sounds (including glaciers!) as well as the built environment, and found commonalities in all these sounds that formed the basis of his compositions. Remote as it is, Svalbard is inevitably encroached upon by anthrogenic climate change, and as the EP goes on, the sounds of water & ice & animals are swept up in almost industrial impulses, and glitched beat constructions. OD’s Svalr makes compelling music around its highly engaging field recordings. Sandscape – half closed eyes [Octopoda Records/Bored of Works/Bandcamp] Sudanese-Scottish “ethereal grunger” Eliza Shaddad and screen composer Daniel Sonabend team up as Sandscape on the forthcoming album Phenomenology, and first single “half closed eyes” is like hearing a dusty 7″ record playing in a different room of your house – a beguiling piece of ambient-dub-jazz with both artists’ vocals, soft but saturated piano, and muffled drumming from Liam Hutton. Unexpected harmonisations flow over the looping music, but not long after it fades away like a dream – “half closed eyes” indeed. The album promises noise-laden trip-hop, muffled jazz and an exploration of the mixed Arab/British/Jewish heritage between the members… Keen to hear more. Stine Janvin / Morten Joh – Leaving home – O Verden, Hav Da Gode Nat! (feat. Lucy Railton) [Futura Resistenza/Bandcamp] Stine Janvin / Morten Joh – Before the burial site – Jeg Raader Eder Alle [Futura Resistenza/Bandcamp] Returning now to Norway, we finish with beautiful strangeness from Norwegians Stine Janvin and Morten Joh, adapting funeral procession music (“Liksongen” = corpse songs) from Ryfylke, Norway. Janvin’s voice forms the basis of these works, but the ceremonial music is rendered alien through extensive electronic processing and additional electronics, and occasional vibraphone from Joh. Two guests, both with innovative approaches to their instruments, contribute further: Berlin-based Australian guitarist Jules Reidy and British cellist Lucy Railton. But one of the most magical moments must be when Janvin’s voice is shadowed by its electronic twin in warbling harmony. On the second last track, the alien elements mostly give way to the acoustic sounds of voice and vibraphone, although the album concludes with stentorian synths playing J.S. Bach. Not for the faint of heart, but rewarding listening. Listen again — ~208MB

Quite a journey today, through genres, countries & continents, emotions and BPMs. This is how we do it in the house of Utility Fog. Snakeskin – Lost Today The Bunny Tylers – Let There Be Light Akram Hajj – Day 2 SANAM – Aykathani Malakon (SAFA remix) dälek – By the Time We Arrive in El Salvador james K – N’Balmed (JASSS Purple Remix) Antoine Ferris – shame’s coming ft. natacha kanga ŽIVA – Hesitation Esther – Critical Ruby My Dear – Iterations ZULI – Half Empty ZULI – 44 Marco Simioni – Dot With Illumination (Delta Division Remix) Dro Carey & Pinz – Hellish Plasma Korsain – +55 Paperclip Minimiser – II A1 Commodo – Deep Harbour ft. Alfa Mist Nicolas Remondino – boku ga (feat. Adele Altro) Nicolas Remondino – hìeratico KINACT – Cercle de Tambour Kinact KINACT – Cercle de Tambour Kinact avec Manza et Ikembe FRANTX – BARBIECUE Andrea Giordano, Kalle Moberg, Jo David Meyer Lysne – D’antorn a lor Zela Margossian Quintet – Repentance Caroline Davis – She Know She Is Water Penelope Trappes – Thou Art Mortal (Julia Holter Rework) Listen again — ~220MB

World is fukt. Music, not surprisingly, reflects that. But there’s joy and dancing and energy to be found here as well as anger and only a bit of sorrow. Dance a new world into being! LISTEN AGAIN and enjoy something whyoncha. Stream on demand from fbi.radio or podcast here. Oh and by the way, I DJed on Friday night at White Bay Power Station for Art After Dark / Sydney Bienalle, curated by Liquid Architecture. Mara Schwerdtfeger did a beautiful set, and we were graced by a set from Tujiko Noriko as headliner. I recorded my first set, which opened the evening, a pretty wide-ranging mix that I’m sure you’ll like if you’re a follower of this show! Stream it here: https://soundcloud.com/frogworth/omphalo-centric-mixture-live Youniss – TakeThat ft. Pink Siifu Youniss – Gits Worse ft. Petite Noir Kim Gordon – No Hands BAYANG (tha Bushranger) & Kuya Neil – Copy + Paste BAYANG (tha Bushranger) & Kuya Neil – Luzon Bleeding Heart (ft. Sevy) Grasps_ – Dream On Travis Cook – unfinished symphony Laces – Doormen world’s end girlfriend & samayuzame – Sweet Suicide (Syndrome) Uriel’s Bath – Beautiful Hats The Leaf Library – The Reader’s Lamp Xylitol – Bowed Clusters (with The Leaf Library) Xylitol – Sudwestwind Rutger Zuydervelt – Gas hoyah חיה – talmuds (feat. Derya Yıldırım) hoyah חיה – sol datewithdeath – (aar) Skee Mask – Greensleeve Attack Rob Clouth – Gummy Clusters Untold – It’s Not My Fault but It Is My Problem Whisker Floater – Overshoe 3 Scattered Order – Daisy and Lucy more eaze – sentence structure in the country Jessica Roch – Par Listen again — ~216MB

Electro-acoustic sound-manipulation rubs shoulders with extended techniques on acoustic instruments, while influences from ’80s industrial, ’70s krautrock, ’00s folktronica and ’90s dub techno can be found alongside indie rock, breakbeat, and good ol’ classic freeform noise. It’s Sunday. It’s Utility Fog. LISTEN AGAIN to good ol’ classic freeform ‘fog. Stream on demand at fbi.radio, podcast here. Bibi Club – A Different Light [Secret City Records/Bandcamp] Bibi Club – Le Styx [Secret City Records/Bandcamp] The Montréal duo of Adèle Trottier-Rivard and Nicolas Basque are Bibi Club, a name which presumably makes more sense to French speakers, but their songs are split fairly evenly between French & English. Their quirky indie pop, part jangly guitars and part electronic, owes something to the British-French band Stereolab (who they covered last year), as well as Francophone indie music that often gets tagged with “chanson”, the French word for “song”. From their lovely third album Amaro, I started tonight with a driving piece of postpunk that clearly shows their debt to Blonde Redhead, which segues into an instrumental that loops part of the krautrocky groove and introduces hovering drones and sampled operatic voices. This might just be the emotional avant-garde indie rock you’ve been looking for. The Notwist – The Turning [Morr Music/Bandcamp] In 2001, German band The Notwist, having begun as hardcore punks and transitioned through emo to some kind of indie rock, released their breakthrough album Neon Golden – a significant date only in that a couple of years later was when I started Utility Fog on the newly-official FBi Radio. Arguably with their 1998 album Shrink, The Notwist were well on the way to their hybrid genre that we perhaps briefly called “indietronica”, with influences from IDM, drum’n’bass and techno as well as krautrock combined with indie rock. Meanwhile, Thomas Morr founded his Morr Music label in 1999, which quickly became a home to a similar clade of indie/IDM, shoegaze-tronic bands – many of which involved members of The Notwist, particularly brothers Micha and Markus Acher. It wasn’t actually until 2020 that The Notwist themselves signed to Morr Music, but it’s always seemed their spiritual home. The band’s new album News from Planet Zombie is perhaps their most “rock” album for some time, intentionally splitting from their studio-mediated workflows by bringing the whole band together to write & perform these songs in person. 10 years ago Superheroes, Ghostvillains + Stuff documented The Notwist’s live setup at the time, with modular synths & other electronics prominent alongside the (kraut)rock instruments; here the electronics are less prominent but clearly an integral part of whatever The Notwist does; but it’s the undeniable, distinctive songwriting that can’t help but shine through. Daniel Jumpertz – I Would Never Do That To You [Feral Media/Bandcamp] In the early days of Utility Fog/FBi, Danny Jumpertz was a strong supporter of Utility Fog, and the indietronica, folktronica and postrock sides of the playlists were reflected in the sorts of music he released on his Feral Media label. For a while now the in-the-family indie rock band Clairaudience has been his main musical outlet, but he’s now begun releasing a cache of solo songs, I believe once a month, starting with the stirring “Everything Is Lost” and now followed by the pretty krautrocky “I Would Never Do That To You“. From Jumpertz’ time in NYC, producer Abe Seiferth contributes “wig-out Moog mayhem”, which you’ll recognize as soon as you listen to the song! Looking forward to more in coming months. Praed – Assarab السراب [Ruptured Records/Bandcamp/Annihaya Records/Bandcamp] Now 20 years old, Praed is the combination of two Lebanese musicians, clarinettist/composer/more Paed Conca (part-Switzerland-based) and bassist/sound-artist/more Raed Yassin (part Berlin-based). The music – sometimes billed as “PRAED Orchestra” with friends from the MENA/SWANA region and Europe – draws from Egyptian street music (Shaabi, now mutating into Mahraganat) and the traditional Sufi spiritual/trance music Mulid, both in their ways based around hypnotic, repetitive beats. It’s always psychedelic, swirling, extremely rhythmic, a free jazz of Lebanese & Egyptian music. While new album Al Wahem الوهم is back in duo formation, they are still joined by many talented Beirut musicians (the album was recorded at Tunefork Studios in Beirut). As always this music is full of joy and yearning, and neverending forward motion. Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy – Living Emojis [Dekmantel/Bandcamp] Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy – Easing The Hearts [Dekmantel/Bandcamp] In 2020, French beatmaker Simo Cell and Egyptian singer, poet, trumpeter, composer & more Abdullah Miniawy teamed up for a frankly game-changing mini-album, Kill Me Or Negotiate. Simo’s music is equal parts UK bass, US bass and French club, transforming the Arabic vocals and jazz-trained trumpet of Miniawy, who had collaborated extensively with the post-dubstep kraut-tronic band Carl Gari (not to mention his own laptop experiments, no longer available online). The pair are not afraid to abstract Miniawy’s lyrics into cut-up samples, nor are they afraid to let him fly with gorgeous melodicism. Their second outing together is the brilliant album Dying Is The Internet, whose title couldn’t be more apposite really – it feels like it’s bringing the world down with it, and while you probably couldn’t blame Netanyahu on the internet, surely Trumpianism is as much a product of what the internet’s become as, well, all the other shit. There’s real humanity in these tracks, as well as futuristic technology; high drama and low grooves. If the internet’s dying, let this be the future. Damos Room – Molars [Limbo Tapes/Bandcamp] I’m not sure who Damos is or what’s in their Room, but signs point to it being three guys: Luke Miles, Nicholas Elson & Huw Oleskar. I’ve just found out (because they told me, nothing underhand) that Huw Oleskar is also known as Elijah Minnelli, responsible for some of the most interesting and lovely dub-folk hybrids in recent times, ostensibly under the auspices of Breadminster County Council. As for Damos Room, you can find a series of fantastic, weirdly-shaped releases on their Bandcamp, including a mixtape of two bizarre 40-minute radio pieces, some quasi-singles of abstracted dub/spoken-word/electronics, and the experimental electronics of their collaboration with rapper LYAM, which I played on this show a few years back. The band finally have an album coming, and Walk With The Militia… is not that album. It’s a mixtape, entirely in keeping with the mystery what all this is about. It collects a whole lot of weird shit, but it’s all dub-based experimental electronics, with Minnelli’s distinctive spoken word & low-key singing, odd radio interludes and noise bits and so on. It’s really fantastic. No doubt All Shall Go, the real album, will be well worth bending your ear to when it comes out in only a few weeks! New Age Doom featuring H.R. – We’re All the Same [We Are Busy Bodies/Bandcamp] Having previously collaborated with Lee “Scratch” Perry, Canadian collective New Age Doom know a thing or two about combining freeform psychdedelic noise with dub. Their latest collaborator H.R. co-founded Bad Brains, some of the earliest hardcore punks who combined rasta philosophy and reggae with their punk music. It appears that for all the peace-and-love preaching, H.R.’s fundamentalist religious outlook inherits the homophobia rampant in Rastafarianism, but that’s not apparent in these songs, thankfully. This is swirling dub with some excellent electric violin from Alina Petrova. DJ Sprinter – Floaterr [unreleased] Oslo’s DJ Sprinter has popped up in the last year and a bit as an absolutey top-tier producer of bass-heavy breakbeat. You can find a whole lot on his Bandcamp, but the other day he invited followers to message him on Instagram for some unreleased cuts, so I did, and I’ve brought you one tonight. Just as great as the plethora of stuff he’s already put out there, irresistible grooves. Rotate – Hot Glue [YUKU/Bandcamp] UK producer Rotate is also known as RWB, making dubsteppy, garagey cuts galore. Not sure what warrants being a Rotate track rather than RWB, but the more serious, full releases, especially for other labels, seem to be under Rotate. This is still absolutely bass music, wobbly and spacey, with just enough of that experimental edge to be very comfortable in the YUKU yuniverse. Teerath Majumder – Dust [Infrequent Seams/Bandcamp] Bangladeshi artist Teerath Majumder, based in Chicago, creates interdisciplinary art & music that explores the interaction between audience and artist/composer through technology, as well as producing music & sound-design in collaboration with other artists, directors & musicians. His new album Dust To Dust, however, is an entirely solo work, from the music & production to mastering & artwork. Here there are flittery synths, Bangladeshi samples at times, and when there are beats they skitter and thump. This album may have come from Majumder’s contemplation of death, but it’s teeming with life. MATA – Adolf Hippy [CÆR (Chiærichetti Æditori Recordings)/Bandcamp] MATA – Compro Oro Et Laboro [CÆR (Chiærichetti Æditori Recordings)/Bandcamp] Where did this even come from? Well… Italy. Italy is where the trio named MATA come from, making industrial/noise/glitch which could almost look like a typical rock band – guitar/vocals, bass, drums – if you ignore the electronics through everything. This is the kind of music where anything can happen, often grating, often strangely catchy? The label CÆR is the musical arm of Chiærichetti Æditori Recordings who also publish an underground comix anthology called LEGIONE, and I look forward to reading some when the package finally reaches Australia. Noémi Büchi – dislocated bodies (feat. Anushka Chkheidze) [-OUS/Bandcamp] With last year’s excellent Liquid Bones EP, Swiss/French composer Noémi Büchi shifted from dense electronic orchestrations to a somewhat lighter touch, with rhythm more to the forefront. Her new album Exuvie is body music made of deceptively simple parts that are bent and shuffled into unexpected shapes. It’s great, not least on this track, a collaboration with Georgian composer & producer Anushka Chkheidze. Roman Rofalski – Monday [Oscillations/Bandcamp] German musician Roman Rofalski is a classically-trained pianist and a jazz musician, releasing recordings of contemporary composers as well as jazz piano trios. He’s also interested in extending these forms into electronic realms, and we’ve heard him on this show as one half of electro-acoustic duo Saving Kaiser. In 2024, we heard him deconstructing his piano on the album Fractal, released by London-based Oscillations Music. He’s now followed that up with Awaiting PM, combining the inside & out of a new grand piano with distorted Akai MPC 2000 beats. There’s a sense of tension and expectation to these tracks, which were recorded while awaiting the birth of his son. It’s excellent stuff, and I’m glad to note that he’s got another release coming hot on its heels, which you’ll hear here in a couple of weeks. Autistici & datewithdeath – Grusch’s Biologics [Audiobulb/Bandcamp] Sheffield-based sound-artist David Newman has run the Audiobulb label since the netlabel days of the early 2000s, and for a similar length of time he’s made exploratory sounds as Autistici of a similar aesthetic to the label – post-IDM beats, glitchy sound processing, an electro-acoustic approach to found sounds, field recordings and instrumentation. Artistic collaboration has been a big part of what Newman’s done as Autistici and Volume Objects – the 2010 remix album Resonating Wires was a favourite release back then, but even his “solo” releases have often featured guests. Last year, two of three “familiarity” EPs came out from Autistici on Audiobulb – Familiarity Folded and Familiarity Enfolded, both of which featured simpatico either artists remixing Autistici or working with him, creating meticulous sound-art, sometimes with beats, usually mixing acoustic sounds with electronic approaches. Those two releases have limited CD editions; the third, out now, is Familiarity Unfolded, which can be found on vinyl as well. One of the best collaborations is with St. Augustine, Florida musician & writer Travis Johnson, who worked for many years under the alias datewithdeath, as well as running the Poverty Electronics label. Following an illness, datewithdeath has been retired – although not without clearing the cupboards with some stunning collections, including the collaboration/remix album Culotte Sine and the posthumous (so to speak) album Apple Tree Brightness. Johnson can now be found prioritising writing with Frolic Press, but there’s still a musical arm – Frolic Press Recordings that will feature his & others’ work – forthcoming is a novella from Aidan Baker of Nadja, with an accompanying solo album out for pre-order now. In any case, the glitchy & detailed “Grusch’s Biologics” is one of my favourite tracks from Autistici’s trio of releases. Bruce Russell – The Letter [Marhaug Forlag/Bandcamp] Lasse Marhaug – Turntable Oil Blues [Marhaug Forlag/Bandcamp] This one’s a huuuge deal in the noise world, or at least to me it is. Bruce Russell is a member of New Zealand’s iconic experimental rock trio The Dead C, a highly influential band across indie, shoegaze and noise. Lasse Marhaug is a giant of the noise scene, and also a producer of many surprising Norwegian & other artists including Korean jazz/experimental cellist Okkyung Lee, Jenny Hval and Kelly Lee Owens. As befits the noise scene, both are very intuitive workers with sound, and that’s where part of the joy of this release comes from. It’s actually their second collaboration, but Re-Make Re-Model came out of the idea of remixing each other, and thus is released as a 2CD set, each credited to the artist who completed the work (the remixer). It also comes in a beautiful open-spine hardcover book published by Marhaug (whose Marhaug Forlag also publishes the Personal Best magazine of noise music – the 2011 first issue of which included a feature on Bruce Russell), with photos & essays by both musicians about their relationship and their musical practice, and fascinating, detailed descriptions of how each track was made. Thus: Bruce Russell’s “The Letter” is based on Marhaug’s 2005 work Carnival of Souls, which is a soundtrack to a short film called The Letter. Russell chopped out tasty bits of the original, which he re-pitched, pushed the right & left channels out of sync & further tampered with. The results are deeply sinister. On Marhaug’s “Turntable Oil Blues”, he’s messing with Russell’s “Nigerian Delta Oil Well Blues”, a short track from his 21st Century Field Hollers And Prison Songs LP. The funny thing is, the ascending & descending slides aren’t a turntable slowing down & speeding up – they’re in Russell’s track. This is as directly a remix as it is a destruction of the original work, progressively distorting the original (played at the wrong speed) over a number of run-throughs. Ultimately noise is doing whatever the fuck you want with sound, and finding some artistry in it, and these two are past masters of the art of noise. Nabelóse – Niriides [Trost/Bandcamp] Pianist Ingrid Schmoliner and French horn player Elena Kakaliagou have played together for about a decade, making music that sits somewhere between contemporary composition and free jazz. Both also contribute voice to their Nabelóse project, including layers of spoken work, and – with prepared piano and horn that produces breathy wind as often as warm, slow melodies – their third album HAAR is a thing of mysterious beauty. Their previous albums – 2017’s Nabelóse and 2022’s OMOKENTRO – feature more singing that draws from their respective folk musics (Schmoliner is also a yodeler), but share this album’s patience and sonic exploration. Rosenau & Sanborn – Harm [Psychic Hotline/Bandcamp] Chris Rosenau of Collections of Colonies of Bees and Volcano Choir, and Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso have been friends for a long time, and made their first EP under their surnames back in 2019. The sequel (what Americans would call a “sophomore” effort) shares with the first a love of folky guitar, studio electronics and incidental found-sound. To me this is bliss, as it recalls the laptop folk of The Books and other airy, homespun folktronica of the early ’00s. Absolutely a little gem, do not miss. Booker Stardrum – Inside Sounds [WeJazz/Bandcamp] New York percussionist & composer Booker Stardrum is a member of Los Angeles (post-)jazz supergroup SML, and music runs in his family – his surname is adopted from the names of his parents, both avant-garde musicians themselves: flautist Stefani Starin and microtonal composer & instrument maker Dean Drummond. So Close-up On The Outside might be expected to be an avant-garde release, and in some ways it is, but in a very friendly, warm manner. Many friends from SML and the broader scene appear as guests on these compositions, but they flit in & out around careful edits; the main focus is on pitched and un-pitched wooden percussion, and glinting loops. There’s a low-key, positive outlook to the album which is uncommon and welcome. Richard Pike – I. “What Happened” [Salmon Universe/Bandcamp] Sydney’s Richard Pike, alum of PVT, is now based in London. He can be found in various ensembles, including with Joe Quirke, with whom he co-runs the Salmon Universe label, and under his own name has been making ambient-techno-hybrid-orchestral soundtracks for TV. Outside of that, he’s released solo music under the alias DEEP LEARNING on Oxtail Recordings, based around subtly rhythmic glitchy loops, but now returns to his own name for album that mixes late-night piano and glitchy dub-techno. It’s not surprising to discover that the creation of this music was directly triggered by the death of Ryuichi Sakamoto, but the music takes darker paths than the Japanese master. The full album’s out later in May, but the singles so far are rich & murky. Listen again — ~224MB

Experimental songs, experimental strings in almost-psych rock, acoustic & electronic settings, contemporary composition, avant-jazz, experimental electronics heading into footwork and jungle hybrids, weird bass music, experimental techno and noise… and hey, probably more! LISTEN AGAIN & fuck war. Stream on demand @ fbi.radio, podcast here. Tanya Tagaq – Razorblades Tanya Tagaq – Ikualajut Fabels – Akron TOUT BLEU – Technosapiens tangent mek – immutable traveler Bushra El-Turk, Dudok Quartet – Three Tributes: Portrait II Nima Aghiani – Live excerpt from eavesdrop festival, 2024 Taupe – Interlude (Stride) Taupe – allcapsallbold tigran hamasyan – Prelude for all seekers Flying Lotus – Brobobasher Flying Lotus – Big Mama Annebel – Yavegard Rivs & Matt Scratch feat. Mandidextrous – Friday Night Jensen Interceptor – Four4 Diva Loop Duffy x Tecta – False Teachings Rainforest – Boycott Only Now x Jaijiu – Rebel Cry OD Bongo – monsieur fils Nats – BLKDRM Yellow Swans – The Lab Simiskina (Adrian Myhr & Jonas Cambien) – Pitfall Oker – Equinoctial Tide (Radio Edit) Asteroid Ekosystem – Open To Claire Edwardes & Gemma Peacocke – I Promise Not to Poison You xoxo II. Hemlock Jasmine Guffond – Approaching Chaos Listen again — ~220MB

An experimental focus tonight, with a lot of contemporary jazz that slides into electronic experimentalism, contemporary classical and almost-pop songwriting. There are a few beats of the very leftfield sort, and some abstractly beautiful sound-art. I’m premiering two tracks from saxophonist & sound-artist Caroline Davis from her incredible album Fallows, which is out on Ropeadope on March 27th. LISTEN AGAIN & you might blow your mind. Stream on demand @ fbi.radio, podcast here. Kee Avil – un Marianna Sangita Angeletaki Røe & Trondheim Jazz Orchestra – Trouble Karoline Wallace – Klokkestein David/David – sedem Taroug – Najet Azimuth Compass – Anti-social Climbers vic bang – Curva POD & Edward Richards – Temporal Loop Transcendance GLOK/Timothy Clerkin – Nothing Ever Reprise (Xylitol Remix) Nondi_ – Rejection Lily Nondi_ – Leaded Pipe Nondi_ – Leather Guitar Ben Vince – Sentient Kinetics Caroline Davis – Flower Sway Caroline Davis – Mars Loom & Thread – Spheres Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske – Intuition, Nimbus Machinefabriek – Stemcassette Machinefabriek – Cirkel 2 Amuleto – Fumo Ogni Cosa, Vento Che Ha Fame Toninato & Thiessen – Hot blood flow Helena – Hera Elisabeth Klinck & Nils Vermeulen – Cocoon Listen again — ~204MB

Tension between live performance and studio editing, acoustic music & electronic, folk styles and modern tonight – all very Utility Fog, just how we love it. LISTEN AGAIN to soak in the vibes. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast right here. Momoko Gill – When Palestine Is Free Momoko Gill – Test A Small Area Tanya Tagaq – Fuck War Simo Cell & Abdullah Miniawy – Pixelated Dro Carey – Tawny Track Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – prjct16 [140.61 D#m] FUCK!LACRÈME – Welcome To My Crib Pugilist – waveform 19 Red Sky – Today’s Lament Geode – Heron yunis – Kutla Fox & Chimpo – Mash Work Gooooose – Relay Placid Angles – We Cry With You Arthur Clees – IDA_23 Arthur Clees – Oh, What a Mess We've Done Puscha – (In)a(de)quatic Puscha – Sycophantasm Charles Amirkhanian – II – In Praise Of The Venerable Piano Roll Charles Amirkhanian – V – Hopper Popper Rosenau & Sanborn – Walrus Bushranger – Under a Blue Moon Runa Cara – Little Girl Runa Cara – Freja Gudine Claire Edwardes & Missy Mazzoli – Orizzonte Passepartout Duo – From Trondheim Listen again — ~225MB

How’s it garn? Here’s some music for yas. elsas – FINALISE U elsas – NIÑO Noni-Mouse ft. Hemanti Devi – Aa Bhave Nikolaus Graf × Laiz × Krantinaari ft. Taiji – Huduka Ho James Massiah & DJ GAWAD – All Out Buttress O’Kneel – Fascists Whisker Floater – Undercoat4 Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Frédéric D. Oberland – Squeal Of Swine – خنخنة خنازير Praed – Al Hathayan الهذيان Arketek – Rotten Soldier Allis – 無 – 〇 Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – prjct14 [87.50 Am] flywheel – Troppo enduser – Waiting (Decay Mix) enduser – Where I Found You (Album Mix) Morwell – Into Pieces (Jan 2026, unreleased) Morwell – Willie Williams – Come Make We Rally (Morwell remix) Ambu Bambu – Laugh It Off J.Sparrow – Lust Parajekt – Parajekt Parajekt – Mani e Pane Elizabeth Davis – Wo Sind Sie Geblieben Elizabeth Davis – Long Time Passes Joachim Nordwall + Aaron Turner – The Bath Vox Errata – Between Worlds Listen again — ~223MB

I’ve been away for two weeks in Japan (it was amazing, needless to say). Huge thanks to Holly Conner (ilex) and Lachlan Stevens (Heyes) for brilliant shows on those two Sundays. Tonight I’m excited about the selections available – intense experimental electronic rock, protest rap, free jazz-tronic poetry, glitch-folk, sound-art, jungle & idm, post-techno post-bass(?), and acoustic instruments distorted, processed, and played live. Mandy, Indiana – Sevastopol Mandy, Indiana – I’ll Ask Her B Dolan – How I(CE) Could Just Kill A Man The Odes – You Owned It Bara & Isa – 2×2 (Verschrin Tulip Mix) Concrete Husband – As the Sun Falls Concrete Husband – Procession of the New Sun Toni Geitani – Ruwaydan Ruwaydan Toni Geitani – Wasla Glasser and Melati ESP – Vine (Melati ESP Remix) Xylitol – Falling Suburban Architecture – Rising (Kloke Remix) dgoHn – 4.37445 Yards Bruce – It Ain’t Over Till… Shackleton – Contagious Illusion Pharoah Chromium – IA JEBEL SARFIT 2 Nicolas Van Belle – Veel en alleen Nicolas Van Belle – Allenig waren we Taroug – 1995 Fabels – luister Lueenas – Diana Emily Wittbrodt – Lied Emily Wittbrodt – Coda Kourosh Kanani and Matt Davies – Lay Laye – feat. Amena Max Ridley, Eleanor Elektra and Nat Mugavero – How Can I Explain?

Mid-January, we’re very much on the way with 2026’s new music, but I’ve got a few 2025 catch-ups in here too. I’ll be away in Japan the next two weeks, and Holly Conner on the 25th and Lachlan Stevens on the 1st of Feb will be your excellent hosts. Puma Blue – Hush Pebble Seven – Strangers Alev Lenz – Domestisizer (on F) Alev Lenz – Mother Tongue (on B) Kee Avil – itch Mi3raj معراج – Medley ميدلى Dééfait – Molokh ∞ Zu – Pleroma Zone Null – There will be poems (condensed) Richard Francis – Phase effect on wet road Damian Valles – Pt.4 Pita – 4 Luís Fernandes + Pierce Warnecke – Culatra II (excerpt) Travis Cook – 9am Atte Elias Kantonen – EEEE Atte Elias Kantonen – Aluhart Leif – Yes No Joanna – Gardeners World – ddwy Remix DJ Punx – Gas ugne&maria – a tidal pull ugne&maria – slip False Aralia – Borgesian Term 04 Erdfisch – Honig Listen again — ~232MB

Welcome to the first new music show of 2026 – and thanks to Giulio aka Parcae for his great selections last week! We have a certain amount of catchup from last year, but we also have a surprisingly large amount of new music already, either released this week or last, or forthcoming. LISTEN AGAIN in a new year. Stream on demand from fbi.radio or podcast here. hidden_attachment – sorry this was just something i had to do [ky/hidden_attachment Bandcamp] hidden_attachment – in moncton i spent all my money on pinball and beer [ky/hidden_attachment Bandcamp] In November I played a track from Ky Brooks, the Montreal artist who recorded an album in 2023 called Power Is The Pharmacy for Constellation under the name Ky. They appear under various aliases, the most current of which is hidden_attachment, and they were previously known for making noise-punk with Lungbutter and freeform experimental stuff with Nag, among many others. The new hidden_attachment release is an EP described as “a tiny horrible opera”, which seems misleading – horrible is a matter of opinion, “opera” perhaps less so, but this is a small epic of practically ever genre other than opera. Jangling indie rock, electro-pop, bedroom drum’n’bass, bedroom punk, experimental ambient pop… ish. It’s weird & fun! Silvia Tarozzi – Lucciole [Unseen Worlds/Bandcamp] Silvia Tarozzi – Le ossessioni [Unseen Worlds/Bandcamp] When US label Unseen Worlds introduced us to Italian violinist/singer/composer and more Silvia Tarozzi, it was her first album Mi specchio e rifletto, an album that reflects her broad musical experience, from working with groundbreaking minimalist electronic composer Eliane Radigue to contemporary music with Ensemble Dedalus, to the folk music of her local region, improvisation, and playful studio experimentation. There was more than a hint of Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Then in 2022, Tarozzi released another extraordinary work, Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d’amore (“Songs of war, work and love”), with the cellist Deborah Walker, presenting a collection of music inspired by folk songs from rural Emilia which came from working class women involved with the partisan resistance in World War II, including songs sung by choirs of female rice field workers – music that the pair had grown up with. In April 2025, some of us were incredibly lucky, in Sydney and I think Melbourne, to witness Tarozzi & Walker performing these songs together, with just their instruments and voices – one of those occasions when musicianship seems like magic. So there’s a lot of anticipation with this new solo album from Tarozzi – or there would be, except that Lucciole appeared seemingly out of nowhere, available digitally on Bandcamp on December 12th. We’ll have to wait for April this year for the LP and CD, but the whole album’s there if you’re willing to stump up $10USD. Once again this is a wonderful tapestry of an album, with brass ensemble arrangements that set it somewhere between classical & folk music, along with synths, field recordings and turntables bringing modern twists. Her voice is lovely and some of the songwriting evokes the baroque pop of Sufjan Stevens in the best way. Winged Wheel – I See Poseurs Every Day [12XU/Bandcamp] Winged Wheel – Speed Table [12XU/Bandcamp] A US experimental rock supergroup, Winged Wheel began as a filesharing process between various musicians including violist Whitney Johnson aka Matchess, resulting in the 2022 debut album No Island. But for their new album Desert So Green, the band (expanded further to include, among others, Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley) had toured extensively, and headed into the studio together. The result is an album with psych-kraut-rock intensity and rhythmic drive, blurts of postpunk harshness, shards of viola, and vocals at times. It’s a real surprise, and really worth digging into. Èlg & la Chimie – La ville cachée [Murailles Music/Bandcamp] I don’t speak much French, not well anyway, but there’s just scads of great music from France – and francophone artists from Belgium, Switzerland and Canada, not to mention other former colonies – and you know I’m happy to play music in any languages as much as instrumental music. But understanding the pure breadth of francophone music is still challenging, so I’m happy when French artists fall into my lap. The entity known as Èlg is Laurent Gérard, and he’s been involved in experimental rock, sound-stuff, weird electronic etc for a good couple of decades. La chimie (chemistry) was a project of his in 2013, made up of weird electronics and loops – but now it’s also his band, in which he plays amplified guitalele (ukulele/guitar hybrid) and keyboards, with Marie Nachury on bass, electroncis and percussion, and Johann Mazé on drums and drum triggers. All three also sing, and they make a righteous noise, sometimes starting off as normal-sounding songs until something super-weird happens; in particular, often magnificent grooves on booming, clattering drum kit, and thumping bass. No two tracks are anything like each other, but there’s a through-line of unchained inspiration. Truly something else. JJJJJerome Ellis – Evensong, part 3 (for and after Jessica Valoris) [Shelter Press/Bandcamp] This wonderful album came out in November, but I didn’t properly get to it until too late to include it last year. JJJJJerome Ellis is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, academic, cross-media artist and more; they are of Grenadian-Jamaican-American heritage, and they’re a disabled person with a stutter – something that they’ve ingrained in their practice, including in the spelling of their first name. This album, Vesper Sparrow, draws from Black American and Caribbean culture as well as pop and experimental music, while being placed primarily in a composed jazz context. Most of the tracks are written for, and sometimes feature, fellow artists, poets and theorists. Alongside granular processing and sampling, Ellis’s stutter features and becomes a structural part of the music – but whatever the theoretical basis, this is beautiful and incredibly creative music. Toni Geitani – Ya Sah [Toni Geitani Bandcamp] Toni Geitani – Wasla [Toni Geitani Bandcamp] Originally trained in filmmaking, Lebanese musician Toni Geitani has since gained a Masters in live electronics in Amsterdam, where he is based now. His Masters thesis is titled “Sampling as a Political Medium”, which sounds fascinating. In his music, he melds Arabic vocals with classical instrumentation and experimental electronic production – the three preview tracks from his forthcoming album Wahj are stunning. “Wahj” (وهج) means “radiance”, and Geitani invites us to look through the collapse we see around, and seek that light. Obelisk – Salty Lemon Air [Geometric Corruption/Bandcamp] FBi’s own Ryan O’Rourke, presenter of Mithril for all things heavy & experimental, also makes music as Obelisk. It’s heavy and experimental for sure, but very electronic, very deconstructed club with aspects of breakcore, groaning distorted bass, trance keyboards and glitch. Obviously it’s awesome. Kloke – Silk [Subtle Audio/Bandcamp] Huuuuge jungle/drumfunk/drum’n’bass compilation incoming! Limerick, Ireland label Subtle Audio put out a series of great 2 or 3CD compilations in the mid-’00s with early drumfunk and jungle-inclined drum’n’bass – at the time it felt like the best source of really great beat production around. Many years later, here’s another 3CD set: Our Atmosphere has 2CDs of original tracks and tracks taken from label releases in a broadly “atmospheric” jungle, drumfunk and drum’n’bass, with a huge list of great producers, plus a DJ mix from label head Code on the 3rd disc. Oh – and the CDs arrived in the mail just as we hit the new year, but the digital version (without the 3rd disc) won’t be available until Feb 6th, so this is a sorta-kinda exclusive of Naarm’s own Kloke, one of many highlights here. Aftawerks & Earl Grey – Swingfunc Jungle [Earl Grey Bandcamp] Nathan Firman aka Aftawerks has been plying his trade in funky acid, IDM & jungle for over a decade, and Jim Earl Grey released an EP of his on his Hyperchamber Music label way back in 2013. I’m a pretty big fan of Earl Grey (in fact I first heard his stuff on those Subtle Audio comps back in the day!) and this collaboration between the two is just mad shit in the best way. Homemade Weapons – Leviathan (HW Remix) [Weaponist/Bandcamp] Seattle’s Homemade Weapons has his own particular take on the minimal/tribal drum’n’bass championed by Samurai Records, and as well as releasing on that label (and others) he runs his own label, Weaponist. The latest label release is the Bumura EP from the artist himself, with two new tracks and two remixes he’s made of tracks that were originally collabs – tonight’s cut was originally made with Sacramento’s Red Army. I do appreciate the way that elements of jungle are dropped into the very minimal d’n’b feel. BMA – Middle Age REFLEKT [Industrial Coast/Bandcamp] Moa Pillar – Fight Them Back [Industrial Coast/Bandcamp] The Industrial Coast label is based in Middlesborough, about an hour’s drive south of Newcastle, so fairly grim-up-north territory (I actually lovely Newcastle when I played there last year). The label is pretty dedicated to the cassette as a format, and generally most of the music on Bandcamp is unavailable digitally without the physical objects (set at £999) – but they do do retrospective compilations, and open up other releases briefly at times. So Deconstructed Reconstructed Retrospective is a double-compilation, in that it collects tracks from the labels Deconstructed/Reconstructed series of compilations in which industrial & experimental artists cover or remix artists such as Crass or music related to movements like anarcho-punk or Rock Against Racism. With 50 tracks, it covers plenty of ground. Sometimes you can immediately tell who the subject is, sometimes you have to try and look it up, and artists appear under various guises too – such as Iceman Junglist Kru (lo-fi industrial junglism), half of whom is also Stonecirclesampler (arcane ambient weirdness) aka Liquid DnB-like Ambient Grime 2… Unfortunately it’s long enough after it went up that it’s now priced at £999, but you can still stream the tracks. Tonight, US drum’n’bass producer BMA takes on hardcore punk originals Minor Threat, while London-based Russian deconstructed trance guy Moa Pillar does a tribute to Linton Kwesi Johnson. Travis Cook – fight_clown [Travis Cook Bandcamp] Adelaide’s Travis Cook, ex-Collarbones, continues releasing a track a week on his Bandcamp. This one’s all stuttery vocal samples and a smattering of beats. John Wall – Iconvt [John Wall Bandcamp] The ineffable John Wall stands somewhere between glitch & computer music, musique concrète, plunderphonics, and free jazz. Astonishingly, he didn’t start making music until he was 40 (in 1990). He’s worked with the cream of UK free jazz, and I’ve also featured a fair bit of his work with spoken word poet Alex Rodgers – here’s an example. He recently revisited his 1999 Constructions I-IV, which combined samples from live improvisers with samples of modern classical compositions, in order to remove the deliberate glitch-sound, which he now finds ugly (although I’m not the only one who likes that sound!) But now he’s put a single new track called “Iconvt“, which sounds like a command-line tool (iconv in Linux is a command that converts a string to a different character encoding). The source sounds here are not obviously revealed – it sounds mostly electronic; there are some fairly inscrutable quotes in the description, plus a reference to fellow avant-gardist Sunik Kim. But the music is some of the least-inscrutable stuff Wall has done, with rumbling bass, quite a bit of melody, and a fair bit of glitch, all things considered! Low Flung – Niksen [Low Flung Bandcamp] Eora/Sydney musician Danny Wild has been Low Flung for a long while now, and tends to lean more ambient than beat-driven. On his last release from 2025, Type-D we find him in a contemplative mood, but also in a dub techno mode – the first track has a super slow tempo with percussive chatter around the edges, but the other two tracks are faster but no less dubby. SAWT – Phase Collapse [Beacon Sound/Bandcamp] T. Gowdy – 00L00 [Beacon Sound/Bandcamp] Excellent Portland, Oregon label Beacon Sound enlists many brilliant friends to contribute to their important new compilation Gaza is the Moral Compass, benefiting on-the-ground mutual aid groups in Gaza. The organisers point out that Israel has violated the so-called ceasefire hundreds of times; Israel’s fascist government is joined by Donald Trumps’ fascist governmnent in trying to remake the Middle East while Australia’s Labor governments are falling over themselves to protect the interests of a foreign state, at least partially in the name of “Jewish safety” which as a Jew I categorically reject. Cultural practice is not neutral, the organisers remind us, and that includes what art/music/culture you consume and how you do so. So here we have many artists associated with the Constellation label, artists originally from Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, and indeed Japan – the quality is incredibly high throughout, and all the music is exclusive to the comp (for now). SAWT is Kamel Badarneh, based in Brussels, whose contribution is a nice piece of throbbing techno, while Constellation’s T. Gowdy does his shimmering sample-shifting thing but with an Arabic-sounding sound source. Filippo Ansaldi & Simone Sims Longo – +1 [Umor Rex/Bandcamp] Filippo Ansaldi & Simone Sims Longo – Illusione [Umor Rex/Bandcamp] A few years ago, Italian musician Simone Sims Longo released a brilliant electro-acoustic album called Paesaggi integrati (integrated landscapes) on the great Dutch label Esc.rec – still one of my favourites on the label. There, he processed the sounds of various acoustic instruments; on Solo Suono, Sims Longo is working with saxophonist Filippo Ansaldi, and it’s his instrument that he’s processing. At times we’re hearing the saxophone solo, or multi-tracking into beautiful chordal movement; elsewhere the instrument is splintered and looped. The saxophone is an instrument uniquely suited to experimental approaches, and Ansaldi and Sims Longo here go deep into some of its sonic possibilities. Dual Dialect – Conglomerate III – Meme-leak Mosaic [4000 Records/Bandcamp] Speaking of sax, Meanjin/Brisbane’s Dual Dialect feature Andrew Garton of Ghostwoods on “mutant saxophone” alongside Andrew Foley of Grids/Units/Planes, YEARNS etc, creating disintegrated beats and abstract pads according to their very accurate Instagram bio. But there’s some surprisingly blissful stuff here too – a kind of jazz fusion that hints at downtempo stuff from the ’90s, Jon Hassell’s fourth world work in the ’80s, and post-’00s glitchy electronics. Recommended. Aroma – After The Rain [Urban Trout Records/Bandcamp] And we finish tonight with a collaboration by an artist whose debut album with Eora/Sydney jazz piano quartet Aronas was a defining work for the early days of Utility Fog (you can stream Culture Tunnels on SoundCloud and elsewhere). Pianist & composer Aron Ottignon had moved to Sydney from New Zealand (his brother Matt still plays around this city in many ensembles), and the group embodied the post-jazz feel, at least on record, that sat perfectly with the UFog sound. Aron soon decamped to the UK & Europe, embedding traditional musics from around the world into his art (Aronas’ album Culture Tunnels was influenced by South Pacific rhythms). Now the Aroma project sees Aron playing the Osmose “expressive synth” alongside singer, sound-artist, label head & Afro-futurist Nina Kahle. This song, recorded in Senegal, is their take on the beautiful John Coltrane tune “After The Rain”, using the multiple gestures the Osmose adds to each individual key of the piano keyboard, with Kahle’s vocals and field recordings ebbing and flowing. Listen again — ~234MB

Heya, so here we are, the end of 2025. Good riddance I say. As is traditional, this is a DJ mix – almost 2 hrs, with a bit of speaking at the front. It’s pretty strange, this one, although there’s a lot of dance music. There’s also a lot of detours and oddities, but that’s what UFog is about, so I hope you enjoy! Perera Elsewhere – Fuck Le System (feat. Andy S) Harry The Nightgown – Bell Boy N-Type & Kromestar – Don’t Be Afraid ft. Sgt Pokes & Breezy Lee Modeselektor featuring Paul St. Hilaire – Movement Kvedarkvintetten – Brest Simon Henocq – CONCOURSE A Paul St. Hilaire & Gavsborg – Confidential gyrofield – Vegetation Grows Thick Sebaas – No Plastic Mac Seldom – ILUVU Kalabash – Major ft. Jelani Blackman (Radio Edit) Muskila – JAH NAM (INTRO) Vier – VAI PULANDO Pushlock – Scarecrow Sacred Lodge – Wa Wa Ke Wa Wa Yi (Feat. Sara Persico) Shugorei – Water Music Matmos – Changing States Sicaria – Rhassoul The Bug – Bury Dem (ft Logan) The Bug – Buried Dub clipping. – Change the Channel A.Fruit – What Is This ltfll – Nested Skins Lila Tirando a Violeta, Sideproject – Ostrich/Ñandú Mantra – Ruffhouse Ancestral Voices – Annwn Pol100 – Pastel Clouds Kendu Bari – Main Igorrr – ADHD Overcast – Wolfe Sun People – Herbie’s Delay Will Glaser – Bees Carrier – The Fan Dance (feat Gavsborg) Mark Van Hoen – I’ve Got To See The Light (Featuring George ‘Tony’ Subratie) Julien Mier – Ciel Joaquín Cornejo – Garúa Earl Grey – Doss House bonnie cooth – out of my mind Max Cooper – My Choices Are Not My Own feat. Tawiah EYDN – Gold (feat. Rainy Miller) Chewlie – Wallflower enduser – Movement Abstract Drumz – Alone (2025 Remaster) Wrecked Lightship – Delinquent Spirits Sheba Q – Asterix (Dub-One Remix) Hello Psychaleppo – Al Wa6an | الوطن Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – ap0calypse 42 Bleakcore / Ester – Sermon The Young Gods – Tu en ami de temps Hence Therefore – Elite Panic Tutu Ta – Papillon Riddim (Ft. Feral Is Kinky) Giulio Aldinucci & Matteo Uggeri – I Felt I Deserved More than That Stefan Schultze, boxn – CV RMX Ship Sket – Vendetta’s Theme (ft. Charlie Osborne) Hyperfocus – Sentinel Chris Inperspective feat. Charlotte Koolhaas – Pictures (OK Well) Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals – A City Drowning. God’s Black Tears. ft. The Lil Black Oxen Émile Joseph Weeks, Nicolas Ratany Insignio – Everytime (A.Fruit remix) Ruby My Dear – Grosse Hyène Kuntari – Kerak Terusi Rutger Zuydervelt – House of Strength Los Pulpitos – Cubozoa Pod & Tamen – Dolphin Noneless – Apocalypse Djrum – Three Foxes Chasing Each Other r hunter – Intra Blawan – Creature Brigade Eli Keszler – Speak For Me (Eli Keszler Version) Phillip Golub – Loop 7 T3AL – Weightless (Om Unit’s Sunrise Dub)

Tonight it’s Part 2 of Utility Fog’s best of 2025, which encompasses all the music that’s not vocal-driven or beats-driven. So there’s contemporary jazz, abstract sound-art, glitch electronics, glitchy postrock, field recording, tape manipulation and more. There’s even voice at times. Laura Jurd – Praying Mantis Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, Andreas Werliin – Panj TL;DR – Cumulus (edit) Alister Spence Trio – The Gathering Alister Spence – Interior Signal Alexandra Spence – The Spring Kate Carr – spring back and creak Ipek Gorgun – Edgelord dogs versus shadows – Ghost Artery Part 1 (radio edit) António Feiteira – Ghost Hiss, Resonant Hip She’s Analog – danse macabre BirdWorld – Opposite Hinges (feat. Sara Övinge) Dorothy Carlos – My Buddy (Miss You In Ear World) Erik Friedlander – The Tree of Knowledge The Cloud Maker – Selkie Shimmer Lia Kohl – Train, Antwerp to Amsterdam Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart – Stone Piece I Saba Alizadeh – Women of fire (feat. Sanam Maroufkhani) Feronia Wennborg & Lucy Duncombe – Assembling Air Bernard Parmegiani – La Ville en Haut de la Colline II Machinefabriek – Verpulver Lea Bertucci – In This Time Giuseppe Ielasi – 11 Demdike Stare and Kristen Pilon – A Grave Fall (January) Cherrystones x Demdike Stare – Where Evil Grows General Magic – Elfer Nate Scheible – 02 NEUE DEUTSCHE KUNST – Keine Nichtmusik Drei Géraldine Eguiluz & Michel F Côté – Territoires perdus #2 Christophe Bailleau – Reaagall vst VIP hall owl Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, Hahn Rowe – Rhythmic Rhodes Lawrence English + Stephen Vitiello – With Chris (Edit) Hand To Earth – Ŋurru Wäŋa Part II Pierre Bastien & Michel Banabila – Closing Time: The Party Is Over Rian Treanor & Cara Tolmie – Endless Not

It’s December, with 3 Sundays left of the year, so that’s Best of 2025 Parts 1, 2, and 3! Tonight it’s “songs” – well, that includes raps. I’ve had to leave SO much out, y’all! As usual, the amount of music being released only goes up, and it’s not like the years are getting longer… clipping. – Night of Heaven (feat. Counterfeit Madison & Kid Koala) Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Dogeared (feat. Kapwani) billy woods – Waterproof Mascara Sumac & Moor Mother – Scene 1 doseone & Steel Tipped Dove – Restaurant Not Haykal, Julmud, Acamol | هيكل، جلمود، أكامول – A‘saab Nadah El Shazly = ندى الشاذلي – Dafaa Robaai SANAM – Sayl Damei – سيل دمعي Yasmine Hamdan – Vows سبع صنايع Aesop Rock – The Red Phone Gabe ‘Nandez & Preservation – Nom De Guerre (feat. Ze Nkoma Mpaga Ni Ngoko) aya – the names of Faggot Chav boys Rainy Miller – Chrome, Hallowed be. California Girls – Sorrowful Meat Teether & Kuya Neil – SCRATCH THE FLEA POINT (FT NERDIE) BAYANG (tha Bushranger) & Nerdie – Bankistan Ho99o9 – Godflesh Agriculture – Bodhidharma Postcards – Dust Bunnies Snakeskin – Ready Laurén Maria – Filled Up Smile anrimeal – 11. Chapter III – Source and time Herbert & Momoko – More And More georg-i & Older Brother – To Be A Man Crimewave – 155/160BPM Crimewave – Haemoglobin gushes – CUT Editrix – Another World Lucrecia Dalt – cosa rara (ft. david sylvian) Titanic – La dueña Mikoo – Ties soccer Committee – Little Sorrow

So this Friday was the last Bandcamp Friday of the year, and even with that aside, it was a big release day for new music. It’s insane, but because of this I’m not doing best-of-2025 till next week. Here’s a whole slew of excellent new music across every genre imaginable. Water From Your Eyes – Born 4 Alev Lenz – Ivory Tower (on D) HAYWARDxDÄLEK – Antiphony HAYWARDxDÄLEK – Breathe Slow Bomb A Lil Joy – Everything U R Doing Bomb A Lil Joy – Saigon Too Blarke Bayer – The Prophet’s Paradise SUMAC and Moor Mother – SCENE 1 (Shapednoise Remix) Obelisk – Sanctuary Hitori Tori – Eurofling Indicator – Malopropist Heavyweight – Straight Outta London VIP Ruffkutt – Your Time Abstract Drumz – Alone (2025 Remaster) Noémi Büchi – I was almost there Luz González – Drawing Dinosaurs (Where can I hide my anger?) Jad Atoui & Jawad Nawfal – The Celesta Incident NEUE DEUTSCHE KUNST – Der Sputz der Tagropronisten NEUE DEUTSCHE KUNST – Keine Nichtmusik Drei Géraldine Eguiluz & Michel F Côté – Territoires perdus #2 Géraldine Eguiluz & Michel F Côté – Territoires perdus #3 hidden_attachment (ky) – Cartoon Land (Memory/161 to Wilderton remix) Freda D’Souza – I’ve missed the rain Emily Wittbrodt – Lied Otto Lindholm – Lessizty Connor D’Netto – interlude/nails Laura Altman – A Call to Water

As we swiftly approach December, tonight is the second-last “new music” show of the year. There’s a lot of music coming out on December 5th! But then that’s it, the next 3 will be Best of 2025. Keen listeners will be surprised that I’m mixing up the structure tonight. Really, it usually goes the way it goes due to thematic and tonal segues, and this time round the jazz & ambient(ish) stuff just fitted best after our early songs, and the beats are the bulk of the second half. The Notwist – X-Ray The Notwist – Magnificent Fall Muyassar Kurdi – Child of the Sun (feat. Chris Williams) Peter Knight – The Coiling of the Tide Laura Jurd – Praying Mantis Má Estrela – Top Suki Girl BLACK HAUGE – Papiret (Radio Edit) Dina Maccabee – Outbreak Joni Void – Walker Joni Void – Lighters Samuele Strufaldi – Musica Invisibile Mac Seldom – ILUVU Om Unit – Lost Stories (Bok Bok Remix) Om Unit – The Chase (Alter Echo & E3 Remix) Ghost Dubs – Hope Fatwires x Atsushi Izumi – Ga UNTECHCIRCLE – Dying Light UNTECHCIRCLE – not just chaos Mattr – Tayl CHEAHDX – Earthbound dreadmaul – No Shade Low End Activist – Hope III (Demdike Stare Stressed Version)

HI PODCAST LISTENER! (I’m putting this note on the “missing” podcasts that I’m catching up – from Nov 30th onwards it won’t be included) You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. Tonight, one of the underground hip-hop albums of the year, some very unusual collaborations, two releases in the Frisian language of north Holland, solo drum kit, post-jazz, bass & breaks, human/AI collaboration and electro-acoustic sound-art verging into folktronica. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Dogeared (feat. Kapwani) Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Crisis Phone (feat. Pink Siifu) Armand Hammer & The Alchemist – Longjohns (feat. Quelle Chris & Cleo Reed) HAYWARDxDÄLEK – Asymmetric YHWH Nailgun – Weaving (original by LEYA) Zea & Drumband Hallelujah Makkum – in lichem fol beloften Zea & Drumband Hallelujah Makkum – de Dea Joana Guerra, Maria Do Mar, Romke Kleefstra, Jan Kleefstra – Al Dy Kleuren Joana Guerra, Maria Do Mar, Romke Kleefstra, Jan Kleefstra – Kâlde Mage Chloe Kim – Ratsnake SML – Old Mytth Snorkel – Flash Flood Snorkel – Sirene Endless Mow – wattle and daub An Avrin – 4LYFE noRecall – The Machine and its Master Lakker – Hood Kassian – Ghost Dub Bad Ambulance – Zero Olivier Alary – Imagined Presence (preview clip 4) Rutger Zuydervelt – House of Strength Rutger Zuydervelt and Lucija Gregov – (Not) Not Three High Rutger Zuydervelt and Lucija Gregov – Euphoria (outtake)

HI PODCAST LISTENER! (I’m putting this note on the “missing” podcasts that I’m catching up – from Nov 30th onwards it won’t be included) You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. What a relentless year of new music… It’s getting that way every year mind you. The releases will run right through December and into January, mark my words… Anyway, tonight we have the surprisingest song of the week (year?) from two very different pop icons, plus experimental song and electronics of all sorts, blending with classical, jazz, field recordings and more. Charli XCX – House (feat John Cale) California Girls – Sorrowful Meat Alto Aria – Porous Heart Alto Aria – Fall Blossom anrimeal – 11. Chapter III – Source and time anrimeal – 5. Chapter I – SOFAR channel Meredith Monk – Lullaby for Lise (performed by Katie Geissinger, Allison Sniffin) Joachim Badenhorst – How To Hold Maarja Nuut & Ruum – Kiik Tahab Kindaid Romain Azzaro – Always Late Mauri – Aquest Any Si F¥eld Effct – Tst_009 Nadrisk – Cadere Data General – End with Rests Fracture & Neptune – Good Stuff Los Pulpitos – Cubozoa r hunter – Intra r hunter – Perfect Mirror Galina Juritz – Axolotl STREIKTHROUGH – Bleed Tight Earl Grey – Doss House Jack Prest – Dawn Jack Prest – Movement III Stefan Schultze – Judson Techno Stefan Schultze, boxn – CV RMX Perila – Apocalypta’s Dream upsammy – Ripple Bernard Parmegiani – Sadiquement Votre II Bernard Parmegiani – La Ville en Haut de la Colline II Lia Kohl – Walking Home, Chicago Lia Kohl – My Kitchen, Chicago Lia Kohl – Train, Antwerp to Amsterdam Lia Kohl – Basketball Court, feat. Macie Stewart

Huge thanks to Holly Conner for her great curation last week while I was playing at Essence Festival in Canberra. Tonight we've got mutant pop and folk, mutant bass, mutant classical and ambient… and beautiful slippages between genres. LISTEN AGAIN …Read more »

HI PODCAST LISTENER! (I’m putting this note on the “missing” podcasts that I’m catching up – from Nov 30th onwards it won’t be included) You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. Music from North Africa, West Africa, South Asia, East Asia, South America, North America, Europe and Oceania tonight… which covers most continents. Antarctica needs to pick up their game. Noura Mint Seymali – Bidayett Lehjibb Noura Mint Seymali – Lehjibb Noura Mint Seymali – Moughadim Karr Perera Elsewhere – Time Will Tell (feat. Andy S) Perera Elsewhere – Just Wanna Live Some Low End Activist x Tia Talks – Fake Idols Mala x Magugu – MILITANT DON AICHER – Constriction (andereBaustelle Version) AICHER – Possessions Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das – FACADE06032020 Low End Activist – U Kno Low End Activist – Colin’s Golf Clark – 18EDO Bailiff Clark – Globecore Flats ZOiD – Day Eight (μ-Ziq Remix) ZOiD – Day Eight Nikki Nair, Foodman – Sorry I Lost My Glasses In The Public Bathhouse 銭湯でメガネを無くしてごめん Tawdry Otter – Alma, The River Flows Crimewave – 145/155BPM Crimewave – Misdemeanour Crimewave – 155/160BPM Crimewave – Haemoglobin toso toso – cLAcLAcLA Juana Molina – la paradoja CxBxT – Hoshi o Atsumete Starlight Assembly – Friction Starlight Assembly – Wait for the Word The Church – Sacred Echoes (Part Two) recur – hieroglyph Mark Harwood – Ein Gehirn Musik Mark Harwood – Welt Ov Pain – Kikorangi

HI PODCAST LISTENER! You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. Somehow it’s the second-last month of the year? And yet, this year has lasted about 3 years so far, so it’s not too surprising? We do have a surprise new album from Aesop Rock, new weirdpop of various sorts, trip-hop vibes, Halloween spookiness, sadcore/hardcore crossover, industrial sad-hop, experimental electronics both beat-wise and not, some jungle and some blissful ambient pop to take us out. It’s Sunday. Aesop Rock – Sherbert Aesop Rock – Crystals and Herbs Yunzero – B1 ŽIVA – Unrest celosiafields – Newletter ft. Raj Mahal Jerome Blazé – You Can Find Us Out Your Way Penelope Trappes – Bleed Bird Battles – Overgrown Hilary Woods – Taper Laura Moody – The Witch Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – The Magic of the World Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – Fission/Fusion Richie Culver – Curse Richie Culver – I Loved You Ship Sket – Casting Call (ft. S280F) Ship Sket – Mimikyu December – Stonemilker Synkro – Excursion San – Core of the Earth Dak – Triagen Julien Mier & thedieyoungs – Dolphin Tears Mattr – Fade xin – opening xin – trash dub Ipek Gorgun – Edgelord Ipek Gorgun – Exocannibalism Bridget Ferrill – What was the World to me IKSRE – karijini (iron. spinifex)

HI PODCAST LISTENER! You may have noticed how late I’ve been getting with these posts. It takes ages to write everything up, but I think it’s valuable. However, it’s been pointed out to me that people might want the podcast itself to be regular! So I’m now going to separate out the posts for the podcast feed from the main posts. You won’t get all the detailed review text, but you’ll get to listen sooner, and you’ll get the tracklisting itself still! Please let me know if this is good/bad/average. You can find a hint for my email on the website‘s sidebar. All over the place tonight, whether folktronica, percussive experimentalism, minimal dub techno, various drum’n’bass & jungle mutations, proto-postrock, or eerie sound-art… tunng – Anoraks Majken – Re-entering Lawrence English + Stephen Vitiello – with Brendan (Single Edit) Will Glaser – Theft JQ & Richard Pike – Free Paul St. Hilaire & Gavsborg – Confidential Paul St. Hilaire & Cousin – Back Inna Business Carrier – Carbon Works ealing – Down the Rabbithole Pushlock – Oblique Strategy The Untouchables – Rude Enforcer Disiniblud – Blue Rags, Raging Wind (Kerry McCoy Remix) PVAS – Terminal Igorrr – ADHD Obeka – A World No More Temp-Illusion – Hoax Haven Impérieux – Trampa seefeel – moodswing (demo) Nate Scheible – 02 John Wall – Construction I “Stat:Unt:Dist” Razen – hi-mawari Yara Asmar – to die on any hill (if it’s easy enough to climb) Nesa Azadikhah – The Wound Where The Light Enters

Experimental songforms, percussion, breakbeats, prepared piano, sound-art… LISTEN AGAIN to the art of sound… stream on demand at fbi.radio or podcast here. Not Drowning, Waving – Amaravot [Not Drowning, Waving Bandcamp] We’re starting with an Australian band who were really decades ahead of the ball with ambient pop, melding field recordings and live tapes with creative studio techniques, acoustic instrumentation, effects and electronics. Because of David Bridie‘s soft voice and slice-of-life lyrics, I feel Not Drowning, Waving were seen as less revolutionary than they really were – and yet when David released solo albums that emphasised songwriting over sonic creativity, the music media predictably celebrated his “maturity” and suchlike nonsense. I love David’s solo work, and the often-twee but always lovely work of the post-NDW acoustic ensemble My Friend The Chocolate Cake, but Not Drowning, Waving nevertheless hold a special significance. For many, their career higlight was the groundbreaking album Tabaran, much of which was recorded with musicians in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea including the remarkable vocalist Telek (now Sir George Telek MBE!). Their travels to PNG triggered the band’s strong sense of social justice, and they became tireless promoters of West Papuan independence. The song “Blackwater“, about the brutal suppression of independence for West Papua, is haunting and still as relevant today. Fast forward to now, and David Bridie & George Telek have been friends for more than half their lives. A concert performing Tabaran was put together early last year, celebrating 50 years of Papua New Guinean independence, and the band (including Telek) enjoyed being together so much that they created a whole album’s worth of new material. My dirty secret is that, despite the stunning highlights like “Blackwater”, I always preferred the albums before (Cold and the Crackle and Claim) and after it (Circus) in their catalogue because I wasn’t so into the Papuan stringband music. However, whether I’ve mellowed over the years (lol, lmao) or whatever it is, this new album feels wonderful from start to finish, and Telek is an integral member. What an achivement! I have no idea how it sounds to those who didn’t, to some extent, experience the band while they previously existed, but I hope they have an enduring legacy. On Diamond – It’s Me Calling [Eastmint Records/Bandcamp] Naarm/Melbourne’s On Diamond are the perfect example of indie pop done experimental. Frontwoman Lisa Salvo writes beautiful, touching songs that have slippery chord changes and deeply unusual arrangements created together by the band. Previous members, often involved in the more experimental end of Naarm’s music scene include the brilliant drummer/composer Maria Moles, drummer Joe Talia (who recorded & mixed the album), and guitarist/vocalist Hannah Cameron (who contributes backing vocals along with Aarti Jadu and others). Along with Salvo’s vocals, Jules Pascoe on bass, Myka Wallace on drums and Scott McConnachie on synths and those frequently demented guitar solos, the band itself now features the glittering harp of Genevieve Fry and the percussion of Australian legend Duré Dara, born in Malaysia to an Indian background, a celebrated restaurateur with Order of Austrlaia Medal as well as jazz musician and improvisor. That’s a loaded band, put in service of Salvo’s aforementioned songs, which take strange, sidelong looks at matters of grief, longing and the passing of time. In a better world we’d be hearing these songs on rotation all day, but you – yes you – have the power to fix that, in the palm of your hand. gushes – Game One [PTP/Switch Hit Records/Bandcamp] gushes – CUT [PTP/Switch Hit Records/Bandcamp] Trust PTP (aka Protect The Peace, fka Purple Tape Pedigree) to release one of the most bizarre & brilliant albums of the year (in conjunction with artist collective Switch Hit Records). Jennae Santos’ gushes presents an unrestrained amalgam of prog metal, psych rock, jazz & classical and electronic experimentation. But there’s more than just this: the album begins with voices talking in Tagalog, and influences from Indigenous Filipinx psychology and combat swirl around with land-sea ecologies, plant medicine and queer politics of decolonization… Delicious Collision is a fully-through-composed experimental rock opera, appropriately given Santos’ background (on top of everything else) in theatre, site-specific performance & dance. Agriculture – The Reply [The Flenser/Bandcamp] With The Flenser you know you’re going to expect dark, probably metal-adjacent music, and you know it’ll probably diverge from typical genre norms. Ecstatic black metal band Agriculture do indeed employ black metal’s tremolo guitars and blast beats to reach for altered states, but then the thunder gives way to a different kind of ecstasy at times – gorgeous harmonies and clean guitar? The last track on the album somehow combines it all together – blissful chugging blackgaze, and a fragile interlude of just voice and guitar. Channeling Zen Buddhism and social collapse alongside queer history & survival, The Spiritual Sound is easily among the albums of the year. sunn O))) – Raise the Chalice [Sub Pop/Bandcamp] So yeah, the southern lords of drone metal, sunn O))), have signed to Sub Pop, the little label that could. That’s the Sub Pop that was the centre of the Seattle sound, from Mudhoney & early Soundgarden to Nirvana – in fact Nevermind‘s profits, after their contract was bought out by Geffen, were what brought them back from early ’90s financial difficulties, and their (excellent) debut Bleach, which remained a Sub Pop release, was enough to keep the label chugging along for ages. The label pretty quickly expanded out of Seattle/grunge into all sorts of other areas, as diverse as Fleet Foxes, The Postal Service, and the greatest, Clipping. Still, the stentorian, rumbling noise of sunn O))) is an interesting step sideways, hopefully a great move for both parties. Their first EP for Sub Pop follows a 7″ (yes, two tracks under 6 minutes each!) back in 2023 for the Sub Pop Singles Club, but one side of this 12″ is the 14-minute “Eternity’s Pillars”, while the flip has 2 tracks each around 8 minutes – still pretty contained. The band for these tracks is the back-to-basics core duo of Greg “The Lord” Anderson and Stephen O’Malley, and the crushingly slow unison guitar/bass is by and large the totality of the sound, but I do love the disconcerting high-pitched flicker that rises through the last part of “Raise the Chalice”. Susannah Stark – Minor Gestures [Night School Records/Bandcamp/STROOM.tv/Bandcamp] When Utility Fog started back in 2003, folktronica was a genre of which I was very fond – but it was already pretty hazy as to what it was. Slightly glitchy hip-hop sampling acoustic instruments like Four Tet was what I thought, I guess, although when Tunng came on the scene literally later that year, it held a lot of similarity without quite being the same. And meanwhile The Books were doing studio-mediated music with acoustic instruments that somehow was something else entirely, despite arguably fitting the mould. So I love that in the years since, there have been untold different approaches to “folk” + “electronics”. On her new album Minor Gestures, Scottish musician Susannah Stark takes her Gaelic (Gàidhlig) folk music in experimental directions, which might involve drone passages on harmonium or modular synth, interpolated field recordings, or sample-based programming. The production touches only serve to heighten the sense of an arcane, otherworldly setting, as if being performed just out of sight or transmitted from a past-future. It’s quite a remarkable album. Haykal, Julmud, Acamol | هيكل، جلمود، أكامول – A'saab أعصاب [Bilna’es/Bandcamp] Cross-media artistic duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Ramme formed the record label & publishing platform Bilna’es along with producer Muqata’a as a space for artistic expression & criticism in Palestine & beyond. Along with the amazing productions of Muqata’a, a highlight was the 2022 solo album from Julmud, Tuqoos | طُقُوس. Now Julmud teams up with label founder Abbas, the latter under the name Acamol (Arabic for Panadol/paracetamol), along with Palestinian rapper Haykal on a new album Kam Min Janneh | كم من جنّة (How Many Heavens). The beats, produced by Julmud & Acamol separately & together, present a glitched version hip-hop drawn from the music & percussion of the MENA region, while Julmud & Haykal swap verses evoking the life of dispossession under occupation, colonization & genocide. It bears mentioning that while the killing continues in Gaza despite the so-called ceasefire, settlers continue to violently disrupt the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank with impunity – destroying property, beating and killing people and blocking access to their own land. In that context, this is a powerful work of resistance and solidarity (and some injections of humour). As I’m writing this late, you can read Emad Al Hatu’s excellent article on fbi.radio, as this was made album of the week at the beginning of November. Mohammad Reza Mortazavi – Zendegi [Latency/Bandcamp] Mohammad Reza Mortazavi – Silent [Latency/Bandcamp] French label Latency have no interest in following any kind of expectations – they’ll flip from chamber jazz to minimal techno to post-classical to percussive bass. In 2019 they released the album Ritme Jaavdanegi by Berlin-based, Iran-born percussionist Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, and now Mortazavi is back on Latency with his new album Nexus. The previous album showcased Mortazavi’s incredibly detailed and complex rhythms on traditional Persian instruments – the tombak and daf. On Nexus, Mortazavi’s playing is just as accomplished, but he extends the percussion with electronic effects and his own voice. The music is full of an otherworldly sensation, of suspension in time and place. There’s an incredible 25-minute remix by Ricardo Villalobos of the track “Swamp” from this album, coming out on December 5th – don’t miss it! IKI – Regenerate [IKI Bandcamp] IKI – Dance [IKI Bandcamp] It’s a sure bet that anything involving Danish singer Randi Pontoppidan is going to be something unique, challenging and beautiful. While she hasn’t been a member of Scandinavian vocal ensemble IKI since the beginning, she’s a perfect fit for IKI’s improvisational, electronically-mediated style. Pontoppidan joined Danish, Norwegian & Finnish singers Anna Mose, Guro Tveitnes, Johanna Sulkunen and Kamilla Kovacs four or five years ago, and BODY is their most intimate album. It can sound extremely electronic at times, but even at their most sharply edited & granulated, every sound comes from the voices of the five women. The recorded works reflect the group’s interest in how life extends past the body, and explores how the women become one organism when performing together. george-i & Older Brother – To Be A Man [GRACE/Bandcamp] Portugal-based MC Darius Rodrigues aka Older Brother has been working with London producer George Harris aka george-i for ages. Now the duo have finally come out with the Warm Skin EP on Berlin-based DJ Katiusha‘s label GRACE. And these four tracks of trip-hop-inflected bass music do walk with grace, holding Older Brother’s lyrics about the state of the world, and – on this closing track – seeking a new, post-patriarchy definition of maleness. Sun People – Herbie’s Delay [All Things Records] Austrian producer Sun People has released some creative and hard-hitting jungle & drum’n’bass that hybridizes with footwork and techno. His All Things Records provides an avenue for music of all kinds, so his new LP Look Within isn’t tied to any tempo – faster or slower than 160bpm, with a few beautifully-produced beatless tracks too. But as with “Herbie’s Delay”, there’s still some creative, syncopated jungle/d’n’b to be found too. Hyperfocus – Sentinel [Machinist Music/Bandcamp] For his fifth release (in two years!) on Canadian drum’n’bass master John Rolodex‘s Machinist Music label, Hyperfocus brings beats precision-tooled in the Machinist Music labs with evocative atmospheres and restless basslines. This is where the jungle revival bleeds back into the d’n’b mainstream, and I’m here for it. San – In Plain Sight [Rua Sound/Bandcamp] Appearing for a third time on Dublin jungle/bass label Rua Sound is Bristol’s San, a slightly mysterious individual who is apparently a techno producer working under a separate alias. This is dark stuff for haunting rave dancefloors and lying on your back with headphones on. Constantly changing cut-up breakbeats, deadly deep subs and spooky atmos, taking the cyberpunk ethos of mid-’90s drum’n’bass and applying it to contemporary jungle. POL100 – TRIBE [early reflex/Bandcamp] Turin’s early reflex label brings as usual cutting-edge experimental bass & club music as part of their Eyes series of two-track EPs. Here’s Italian producer POL100 mutating jungle and techno into strange new shapes – it’s half drumfunk and half electro maybe? Well worth your time. Hello Psychaleppo – Al Wa6an | الوطن [Fake Lines/Bandcamp] Joy Moughanni – I Can’t Seem to Find it At Home | مش عم لاقيه بالبيت [Fake Lines/Bandcamp] The first release from non-profit label Fake Lines has launched itself with a mega compilation – 36 tracks over 3 vinyl LPs – called Fake Lines: Sono Levant. It’s packed to the brim with excellent music, gregarious with genre – it may lean towards electronic music but there’s folk, hip-hop and rock of a sort. There’s an emphasis on Levant artists, but the tracklist also reaches further afield to other MENA countries and more. Montreal-based Syrian DJ Hello Psychaleppo contributes some stuttering samples and bass heft, while Lebanese producer Joy Moughanni combines jagged almost-rhythms and sound design to impressive effect. Lone – Ascension.png [Greco-Roman/Bandcamp] I’ve had an on-and-off relationship with Lone‘s music, but new single “Ascension.png” combines chromed cyberpunk and fuzzy vaporwave with jungle and rave bliss, and that makes a winner. Kelly Moran – Chrysalis [Warp/Bandcamp] A year and a half after releasing her last album, Moves in the Field, Kelly Moran returns to her more familiar territory of chiming prepared piano and electronics, with an album that’s complementary to last year’s. For Moves in the Field, Moran took her piano compositions and programmed them into a Disklavier, a physical piano that can be played via digital programming. So Moran was able to perform alongside her digital copy, with dazzling patterns climbing up and down the keyboard. On Don’t Trust Mirrors, the sound is more uncanny – synths and prepared piano melting into each other – but the performances are more clearly human. And those familiar with the previous album will hear echoes of those pieces throughout. Quartz Sand – Chemical Sedimentary (excerpt 2) [Flaming Pines/Bandcamp] I was lucky to get to see Kate Carr & Cath Roberts playing together at a gallery in Hoxton, London back in May. Carr is an Australian sound-artist who runs the impeccable Flaming Pines label and is one of our finest proponents of field recording, as well as music made from non-musical objects; Roberts is an improviser and composer who has been working with the Lyra-8 synthesizer, an “organismic” synthesizer, whose 8 voices interact in non-linear ways along with some effects. The duo’s name, “Quartz Sand”, suggests minerals and inorganic matter (quartz is silicon dioxide, perhaps the most basic inorganic molecule), and the idea of the album’s title, Stratigraphy, is to imply a vertical structure – rather than a typical horizontal time-based structure – as primary. But don’t be fooled: these two near-half-hour pieces aren’t static at all. It’s just that the action happens often between the crinkly, whistly high frequencies and the gurgling, grinding bottom end. It’s like listening to a cross-section of the earth’s crust – in a good way. Lea Bertucci – Two Way Mirror [Cibachrome Editions] It should be well-known and universally acknowledged now that Lea Bertucci is one of the best sound-artist/composers of the last decade and a half. Whether site-specific works exploring & exploiting – for instance – the resonance of a hollow bridge in Köln (2020’s Acoustic Shadows), myriad works live-processing her own saxophone and other instruments, or her work with reel-to-reel tape machines, she’s a master of her craft. Recent times have seen a number of incredible collaborations from Bertucci: in 2022, she operated tapes & electronics around Robbie Lee‘s baroque & medieval instruments on Winds Bells Falls, while on Murmurations, her tapes were as prominent, but she also brought various wind instruments and her voice to the table, next to Ben Vida‘s synths & voice; and on her tectonic collaboration in 2023 with Brisbane’s own Lawrence English, cello, viola and lap steel guitar emerge as well. Earlier this year Lawrence’s ROOM40 released an astounding work of Bertucci together with another masterful sound-artist, Olivia Block. So needless to say her new album The Oracle is a tour de force, engaging her many instruments, field recordings and, importantly, her own voice, all filtered through tape manipulation and digital processing. Only on the last track are percussionists from the Wesleyan University Taiko Ensemble enlisted for a booming – yet obscured – finale. Of course, it’s not just technially interesting or impressive (although it is those things) – it’s also music that will draw you in and move you, despite the vocals being twisted into non-textual shapes. It’ll easily be high on my albums of the year list for 2025. Alexandra Spence – Magenta (with Delphine Dora) [Students of Decay/Bandcamp] Back to Sydney to finish, Alexandra Spence is another brilliant sound-artist who works with field recordings and found objects to tell a story about place and memory. Her last two albums (from 2022) arose from a fascination with oceans and waterways; the scope is wider here, from mountains to backyards, but the ecological and geological also interact here with the personal. As well as recordings of places and non-musical objects, Spence (a clarinettist) here uses sounds from Serge Modular synths and a custom-built lyre, and on tonight’s track, Spence also brings in the voice and instrumentation of French composer & musician Delphine Dora. Listen again — ~222MB

Arabic trip-hop? Nordic jazz-inflected indie pop? Minimal drum'n'bass? Bees? Whatever you're looking for, we've got it. LISTEN AGAIN, with a vengeance! Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here! Yasmine Hamdan – Vows سبع صنايع [Crammed Discs/Bandcamp] Yasmine Hamdan – Daya3 …Read more »

Like what you hear me play every week? Support fbi.radio, without which not just you & I but Sydney's music as a whole would be incalculably poorer. LISTEN AGAIN and feel the warm thrill of love… Stream on demand on …Read more »

It's the time of experimental pop at the moment – for very stretched interpretations of pop, perhaps. So we have many weird-ass songs tonight. Also some storming beats and some messed-up beats, some gorgeous acoustic sounds and some pretty messed-up …Read more »

Experimental song reaching out from all quarters tonight, in extremely different ways. A surprising South & Central American focus. We also have some experimental beats, some classical and jazz hybrids, and some sound-art. LISTEN AGAIN and sing yourself awake… Stream …Read more »

Tonight we're showcasing quite a lot of genre-bending songcraft, with metal, hardcore punk, electro-pop, hyperpop, Afro-Caribbean, post-folk and other tendencies melting together. We've also got percussive workouts, minimal techno, maximal jungle, unclassifiable rhythmic noise and glitched ambient piano in there …Read more »

Experimental pop hybrids, underground hip-hop, hip-hop-jazz hybrids, free jazz, free rock, dub, dub techno and industrial techno, experimental electronics of all sorts, North African electronic mutations, grinding drone, ambient-jazz Yolŋu, Norwegian folk-jazz… LISTEN AGAIN to some really good shit. Stream …Read more »

There's a lot of really interesting & strange pop, r'n'b, grime or even folk music tonight, proving perhaps that this is an era where flouting norms is the standard, and the paradox within that is celebrated. LISTEN AGAIN and flout …Read more »

Neo-classical electronic pop, contemporary jazz both electronic and acoustic, experimental metal, experimental beats. LISTEN AGAIN, experimentally. Stream on demand vai fbi.radio, podcast here. Darian Donovan Thomas – Microcosm Friend [New Amsterdam Records/Bandcamp] Last year, American violinist, composer and multimedia artist …Read more »

Another wet day in Sydney, a day on which an estimated 100,000+ of us walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest Israel's starvation and genocide of Gaza, the occupation, the killing of children, and Australia's complicity. It was clearly more …Read more »

Uncanny simulacra abound through the music tonight. What is real? LISTEN AGAIN and just add to the confusion. Stream on demand via fbi.radio, podcast here. Mal Devisa – Next stop [Top Shelf Records/Bandcamp] Show Me The Body – Halogen (feat. …Read more »

As I was putting this show together, it felt like it was leaning heavily into bass & beats – and it is, to an extent, but it also has highly ethereal sounds, acoustic doom and acoustic prettiness, post-jazz forms and …Read more »

We have lots of miscellaneous experimental beats tonight, and different experimental versions of song, plus sound-art and noise, and kinds of ambient. I'm catching up on some stuff from when I was overseas, but also looking ahead to things not …Read more »

Experimental maneuvres in pop, hip-hop, jazz, rock and electronics, percussive approaches to musique concrète as well as jazz-rock-tronica, vinyl manipulations with dark electronics, spoken word, field recordings, ambient installation work and post-classical piano. LISTEN AGAIN to the percussion, the glitches, …Read more »

Beautiful songs and churning glitchscapes, accelerated hyperpercussion and sparse bass drops… A night of contrasts. LISTEN AGAIN to the song of life. Stream on demand from fbi.radio, podcast here. Herbert & Momoko – Calm Water [Strut/Herbert Bandcamp/Momoko Gill Bandcamp] Herbert …Read more »

Following Israel's unprovoked (according to all trustworthy intelligence) attack on Iran mostly as a distraction from the genocide they're still undertaking, Donald Trump unilaterally decided to bomb Iran today, bringing the world to the brink of… something, nothing good. Nobody …Read more »

He's baaaack! OMG. That was 6 weeks. A very full 6 weeks. So much to play you, so much to talk about. But I wanna extend HUUUUGE thanks to the seven beautiful people who filled in while I was away, …Read more »

Well! Tonight is my last show for 6 weeks. I'll be travelling in the UK & Europe, mostly touring with Black Aleph but with a bit of holiday time too. While I'm away, each Sunday will be covered by excellent …Read more »

Singles & tracks from forthcoming albums and new releases from hip-hop to doom, postrock to experimental electronic, breakbeat to techno, post-classical to post-jazz. LISTEN AGAIN, stick it in your pipe and smoke it. You can stream it on demand on …Read more »

Strange conglomerations of fluttery acoustic sounds, skittery electronic beats, seemingly-clashing cultural milieus… LISTEN AGAIN if you dare! Stream on demand from FBi, podcast here. Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals – A City Drowning. God's Black Tears. ft. The Lil Black …Read more »