Jul 17, 2009

Top of the bleeps: what's hot and banging bad-style right now

Topping the downloads list on electronic music's answer to the Arndale Centre, Bleep dot com, is Clark's Totems Flare album. I've got it cranked to the gills as I type; it's a brilliant analogue wig out designed as much for the tootsies as for the cranial glue.

The second most downloaded album is a debut LP from Bibio. Ambivalence Avenue has been covered here before: click the Bibio link at the bottom of this article. Bleep says it's like a lost 70s folk record.

Here is the rest of the top ten on Bleep:

3. Clark - Growls Garden (track). Marvin The Paranoid Android malfunctions at an 80's disco.

4. Tim Exile - Listening Tree. Another debut album and probably Warp Records' only gabba opus.

5. The Black Dog - Further Vexation. I'm pimping their previous album Radio Scarecrow a lot right now, but this record is darker, frownier and more techno.

6. Battles - Mirrored. An old one but a classic, described by Pitchfork with this trio of scintillating sentences: "Marc Bolan is dead. But Battles can rebuild him. They have the technology."

7. Diamond Watch Wrists - Ice Capped At Both Ends. This is Prefuse 73 stretching out his legs and playing footsie with a percussionist. 

8. Floating Points - J & W Beat. Best described as bubbly 2-step. Yes. Bubbly.

9. Bizzy B - Retrospective. A look back at the best of the master of the Amen break. No Bizzy B, no Venetian Snares.

10. Moritz Von Oswald Trio (pictured, photo from Stink Finger) - Vertical Ascent. I don't know too much about this, although I think it's got something to do with AGF.

Damn, this Clark album I'm listening to is good. It's like old Aphex Twin a million years into the future. Meanwhile, the top ten on Bleep has already changed while I've been typing this. Please scrub out this post. You'll find a permanent marker pen under your chair.

4 comments:

steve said...

Yeah, I'm loving the Tim Exile cd, and it's safe to say, hardly a gabba track in sight.

Anonymous said...

Bizzy B is the bizzy bestest and you'd better bizzy believe me. Or something.

dmargster said...

Salut, M. Roland! I stumbled across your blog after enlisting Google's help to assist in my decision to buy or not buy Clark's Totems Flare (I think you made your opinion pretty clear on that subject). Anyhow, your taste in electronic music is excellent, which is to say it aligns well with my own: Clark, Bibio, Battles, Tim Exile, Venetian Snares, Autechre, Susume Yokota, Moderat...yes to all of them! I must admit that it is thanks to an Australian radio program called the Soundlab (also streamed on the web) that I discovered these diverse artists. On the website now (triplej.net.au/soundlab) there is a recent interview that the presenter did with Bibio, and in the near future you'll find a Clark interview that was broadcast August 9.

The Soundlab also exposed me to the dubstep virus that has now invaded my body and taken over me. September 20 should be big here in Montreal - Benga and Skream will be playing at an outdoor performance. I noticed that you barely write about dubstep in your blog. What's up with that? Most of the killer dubstep artists live and play regularly in your country, you lucky devil! Talk about spoilt.

That's enough blabbering from me. I've got your feed on my Firefox RSS toolbar so I look forward to reading your opinionated, informative and entertaining posts!

Fat Roland said...

You're too kind. And yes, I've bumped into Soundlab before now.

I do neglect dubstep. I'm a bad man. I did tip Burial for last year's Mercury Music Prize, though (see posts passim). I was depressingly wrong.