Brian Eno's garter, a lack of gurning mentalism, and Kraftwerk transvestites

A decade of pushing buttons for Bjork, including shaping sound on the stunning Dancer In The Dark, has not done Valgeir Sigurdsson (pictured) any harm.

Quite the opposite. He has stepped from behind the knobs to produce Ekvílibríum, his debut album on his own Bedroom Community label.

His LP starts with feet on safe glitchy chill-out land, but he eventually hoists himself up onto Brian Eno's garter and catapults high into heavenly string-laden non-anthems, especially on the spacious Equilibrium Is Restored.

Sigurdsson can't tell eerie from airy, so some of this album lacks the intended atmosphere, but it works if you like Bjork and Sigur Ros' more ethereal moods.

And while we're on an Icelandic tip, I'll get round to reviewing múm's Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy when I can be bothered to get out of my curry-stained threadbare armchair. I bet they can't beat Finally We Are No-One.

High on a cloud somewhere, just above Eno's flying garter, is a surprisingly chilled out Mu-Ziq and his new record Duntisbourne Abbots Soulmate Devastation Technique.

He has locked away his gabba-gabba-hardcore-wherez-me-light-stick breakcore of previous offerings in favour of a sound that made me as sick as my cat (see past post) within three tracks.

The album's suffocated in detuned Boards-style melodies, which creates a see-saw effect right where your dinner's settling. Each track induces a sense of nostalgia, but only it sounded just like the last one.

Bring back the gurning mentalism, please Mr Ziq, because you're making us, er, siq.

It seems a little late to be reviewing Simian Mobile Disco's Attack Decay Sustain Release, but I need to up the tempo somehow. And it damn well should get the blood pumping thanks to more than a slight nod towards the jacking acid of Daft Punk and the energetic nerdiness of !!!.

I shudder at the thought of being A. N. Anonymous 4-pill clubber sweating over Mixmag on the bus going to my office job in the morning, so I avoid this kind of obvious house music party fodder.

However, it is simply addictive.

Plugged into the mains and with more quirky savvy than Kraftwerk transvestites, Simian's album of hurricane-force dance funkers deserves to have sex with every festive celebration's mp3 player this Christmas.

Berlin's Vector Lovers are marching like an army with pinheads for shoes

Vector Lovers' (pictured) spanking new album Afterglow is just a little too pristine, like Future Sound Of London's rambling era without the ever-present peril of descent into hell.

At first listen, it seems to live closer to the surface than the usual subterranean Soma techno, but the shallow end is deeper than you think.

Half-Life is all breathless synths and sinister crackles, while Last Day Of Winter is watery and hesitant.

A Field marches like an army with pinheads for shoes. The delicate Piano Dust is heart-breaking and intimate, and that's the key; the album is so well produced, every padding bassdrum and swooshing chord pours straight into your eardrums.

Afterglow will reward you with what it says on the tin. Go buy.

At the other end of the spectrum, maybe on a secondary spectrum complete with its own biohazard label, is the tumultuous mayhem of Shitmat's new offering Grooverider.

Don't be hoodwinked by the reference to the drum and bass legend; this is old skool Britney-sampling jungle cut and pasted into fresh genres that didn't even exist five minutes ago.

It's inevitably formulaic: cranked-up breaks stabbed with broken vocals and sporadically laid to waste by doom-mongering sirens or pant-wobbling sub-bass.

But it's fun tee-hee, just like his earlier track Agricultural Ardcore, which was the god-awful Archer's theme tune hacked to a stump.

If Shitmat is Red Bull laced with amphetamines, Bola's latest album Kroungrine is peppermint tea laced with nothing. Not so much a downer as, well, a bit boring.

It lies somewhere between DJ Shadow and lounge jazz, but it is certainly neither. They should nick a trick or two from the Vector Lovers.

It was written by Pal Waaktaar you know, and not the good looking one

One of July's most significant electronic releases was Chromeo's Fancy Footwork, their follow-up to 2004's She's In Control.

She's In Control passed me by, like a fart in a strong breeze, but this new album hit me square in the face like a juggernaut full of crap, and the juggernaught itself is made of crap too, just like the whole metaphorical street scene which is made entirely of crap.

If I wanted uber-cool 80s electro funkdaddy disco, I would screw my eyes up like that Japanese guy in Heroes and transport myself to a multi-coloured disco floor full of bad mofos robodancing to the break-down bit of A-Ha's The Sun Always Shines On TV.

Please forget that last paragraph; I never said it.

If faux-retro Prince-wannabe lifeless post-Mika pap is not your bag, then let's move on to look at Night Of The Brain's debut album Wear This World Out.

This leftfield rock album earns its place on an electronica blog because it's the brainchild (geddit?!?!) of Cristian Vogel from Super_Collider (Messagesacomin artwork pictured).

The Theme, puked out as an EP a few months ago, owes a debt to tight post-rock, but much of the rest of Wear This World Out is Pixies-style noisiness with brave side-steps into odd neighbourhoods, such as the disco guitar in Dark Lady.

Vogel's weedy vocals, in strength and drug effect, make this record all-the-more likable.

While I'm doing a bit of catch up, it's worth a skip and a hop back to May's releases and my mobile phone alarm, which is Apparat's Not A Number.

Every morning the drip-drop insistence of that track shoe-horns me into the real world. It's a shame then that Walls, the album it's from, is liable to send you back to the Land Of Nod faster than you can say "quick let's fill this blog with antiquated literature references".

Walls is a hugely listenable album. My ears have even sent me a thank-you card. But it works as backing music for movies, not as a huge artistic statement.

TV and radio producers take note; you need Apparat in your collection. And if you use it in a programme as a result of reading this, make me look really smug and leave a comment.

Reqing out* to retina.IT gets the headnod over stalking Sven Väth and Andrew Weatherall in The Orbit

So what musics have been troubling me ears?

Let's begin with Cylob (pictured), who made his name in the 90s remixing the likes of Aphex Twin and Mike Flowers Pops, both of whom sport more hair than they deserve to. The 'lob span his first reel-to-reels in The Orbit club, Leeds, a venue which arguably spawned my Fat Roland career. I remember watching DJs Andrew Weatherall and Sven Väth with intense interest, hovering behind them like a stalker. As I left the club, I had a lucid moment when I decided, with a theatrical flourish, that yes the world needed my DJing skills. (It didn't, but I went into DJing anyway.)

Cylob's new track Rock The Trojan Fader isn't as immediate as his lovable classic Cut The Midrange Drop The Bass, but it has the same playfulness and eccentricity. Vocoded voices dance up and down analogue keyboards while everything else collapses into a heap of flurried beats.

It bodes well for new album Trojan Fader Style, which I haven't bothered to listen to yet because it's all one long track.

On to everyone's favourite aging relative, Unkle.

The moment Unkle persuaded arch-miserablist Thom Yorke to wail about rabbits and headlights, I was transfixed like a rabbit in some headlights. Yeah, neat simile, I know. Since that high point last decade, we haven't had much output from the band founded by James Lavelle and David Holmes-collaborator Tim Goldsworthy. So the new Unkle album War Stories should be a rare elixir.

It isn't. It is a decent rock album, and comparisons to Kasabian and Stone Roses are fair. The opening tune Chemistry reminds me of Puff Diddly's ridiculously entertaining Come With Me: that's not necessarily a good thing.

But the Fat Roland blog is about electronica, and when Unkle are collaborating with the likes of Josh Homme and The Cult's Ian Astbury, it just ain't gonna ring my bell.

Like former member DJ Shadow, they seem to have found a formula that works. Generally. Most of the time. Kind of. They just need to move on from trip-hop rock crossovers, which were vogue about 52 years ago.

Back to the good music. When I played retina.IT's infectious Tetsub at Manchester's TV21 bar recentlly, I was overwhelmed with a head-noddy Req moment. Anyone who's got into Req will understand me.

retina.IT have now released Semeion, a greatest hits of sorts, full of mid-tempo glitchy bleeps and distorted yet distant funk.

Their studio lies within erupting distance of Mount Vesuvius, and I wonder if they haven't got a satellite or two picking up the sinister clicks and scrapes sprinkled across this sparse, lunar album.

It's such a pleasing effort, lying somewhere between the coldness of Robin Rimbaud and the chunkiness of Clark, that I'm going to give this the head nod over Cylob and Unkle.

I'm careful about who I hyperlink to on this site. Thankfully, I got through this post without mentioning that Unkle used to record in Meatloaf's recording studio. Ah dammit, there's a link to Meatloaf. Oy, stop linking to Meatloaf. Aaw look, Blogger's gone and put a label down there too...

*yes, Reqing out. I just invented it.

White GLOVE, white GLOVE, white GLOVE, hello? hello? is that ITV?

Like a one-legged marathon runner, I've got a lot of catching up to do. Refresh yourself with a lightning review of some recent releases; your ears will thank you for it.

I gushed about Last Step a few weeks ago, and the album is worth more than a sly glance.

Fizzing with analogue goodness (think 303s and 808s for those with a passing knowledge of music technology), this is a conflagration of Giorgio Moroder-inspired dance burners. It shines when he's not trying to sound like his Venetian Snares alter ego, but Ceephax does this better. And faster.

I keep forgetting to tell you about Puzzleweasel.

The techno police call his Exo-Grid LP breakcore, but for those not acquainted with Saddo's Dictionary Of Obscure Musical Genres, it sounds like the following in turns: (a) battling typewriters; (b) electricity on metal; (c) a drum machine being fed through a shredder; (d) a collapsing house and (e) the sound of this blog being eaten by flatulent zombies. In other words, thoroughly engaging.

Speaking of Ceephax (pictured), which I did a few paragraphs above this one, so this isn't one of those comedy non-sequitur moments, I really was speaking about Ceephax, anyway, speaking of Ceephax, there's a new Ceephax release you should listen to.

Ceephax's Megalift EP is a pert four-part package of hurtling jungle, Tellytubby acid and hypercoloured rave.

It's like living in a video game, only there are no winners or losers, just gurning freaks who stay up all night munching washing powder tablets and phoning night-time quiz shows saying "white GLOVE, white GLOVE" over and over again until the presenter ends up crying.

That's my night sorted, then.

Mark E gets it on with Mouse On Mars while Amon Tobin gets it on with a spoon and pans of varying sizes

If you slashed me in half, maybe with a machete or a surprisingly sharp no-entry sign, you would realise the word MANCHESTER is written through me like BLACKPOOL through rock.

So when guitar electronistas Mouse On Mars (pictured) teamed up with the legendary Manc combo The Fall to form a whole new group called Von Sudenfed, I was bound to froth at the mouth whether or not it was any good.

Thankfully, it is any good.

Their debut album Tromatic Reflexxions is a clattering, shattering mess of bleeps and beats and Mark E Smith yelps. The LCD Soundsystem-style bedding is not as experimental as other Mars material; it is immediate and urgent and fits so well with Smith's distorted ramblings.

All counted, The Fall have released over 90 albums. Von Sudenfed's album stands as a highlight in that swaggering legacy. If you like The Fall, buy it.

Less successful is Telefon Tel Aviv's Remixes Compiled.

This is a tottering pile of production work stretching back to the days when they were in short underpants. It includes a Nine Inch Nails remix, but only because Aviv were bumming studio space from Trent Reznor. It's an adequate compilation, but it won't last more than a handful of plays on your bright green Tomy CD player. (What do you mean you haven't got one?)

Thirdly, Foley Room is Amon Tobin experimenting with 'found sound'. In other words, he has been capturing noises with the magic of microphones rather than ripping from other records.

The result is a collection of sporadic sheep bleats and cutlery clinks that goes on for two hours.

I am, of course, lying. It's the usual blunted cinematic denseness from Tobin, keeping your head in the reefer clouds and your feet in rock and roll hell. Bar a few extra oddities (lions!), there's nothing new here, But that's the point; he's not allowed to change because he's good.

'Though it does include kitchen utensils, so I was almost right.

In Southport and not quivering under the duvet hiding from Franco frolickers

Luke Williams usually quivers under the duvet pretending he's Quinoline Yellow, a melodic electronic artist attached to the seminal Skam label and now to his own Uchelfa. (Dol-Goy Assist album pictured.)

But now he's under the bed with the bogeyman pretending he is someone else. Now, he answers to Tatamax, and he's just blurted out a superb album of cut-up sounds and dream noises.

It's called Wells Sentry and it's his debut album as Tatamax. Some will label it 'musique concrete'. This is where lost souls frolick through the long grass with a mini-disc recorder, a microphone and several large Francophile pretenses.

It is indeed a disc full of detailed found-sounds; there's a great snooker ball clack which bounces around the inexplicably-christened 54434D iadem.

But with the exception of the Venetian Snares-lite Kill Switches Demo, this is a haunted house of wafting dynamics and cheap plastic sonics that will keep you entertained long after the ambience has tip-toed back to spook your nightmares.

While you're in HMV confusing them with your request for this particular piece of digital tomfoolery, why not ask for Emissions: From The Archive?

This is a compilation of early Two Lone Swordsmen tracks. When I say early, I mean it's way before they started sounding like PiL. The 'Emissions' bit refers to the label they ran before they were scooped up by Warp Records.

It could be very standard upbeat mid-90s lounge dance, if it wasn't infused with late-night-smoky-clubness. Expect your clothes to smell in the morning.

And remember - this is from the same production brain that brought you Sabres Of Paradise extra-orgasmically-gorgeous Smokebelch.

Finally, I would type about Matthew Herbert's new offering Score, which is a big pile of music he's written for films, musicals, ballets, jazz clubs and scouting jamborees. I lied about the last two.

But I don't like it much. Instead let me spend the last few lines of this internetular missive telling you I am writing this from an internet cafe in Southport (time used 46min, balance £2) inbetwixt running a bookshop for a chorus of Salvation Army people.

I bet Aphex Twin's never done such a thing. Run a bookshop for the Salvation Army, that is. I'm sure he's been in an internet cafe. I don't know. You'd better ask him. Don't ask me--

--damn, that's £2.50.

I'd rather have graah than um although I'm also partial to a hizzle phizzle lizzle

After years of fiddling with the minutae of voice manipulation and techno doo-dah-dery, Bjork (pictured) is back with what could only be described as a "choon".

That's the kind of "choon" that must, by law, be accompanied by a gurning grin and random air chops, possibly even throwing a T shape across the room to a confused but amiable grandmother.

With Timbaland on production, Bjork's Earth Intruders is the Icelandic chantause in tribal animal skin ripping apart the bones of Gary Numan's cars and spitting them out at anyone who dares come near. It's a progressive, aggressive pop song with sharp, nasty, bitey teeth, graar graar.

So Bjork is back - and how. Expect new album Volta to go stratospheric from next week and look our for her first tour since the prehistoric ages.

Also worth a lizzle through your hizzle phizzle (listen, head, phones) is the perverted Bee Gee squeal of Battles' latest single Atlas. I imagine this is the sound a startled alien would make when suddenly confronted by Stephen Hawking doing wheelies on the moon. A work of astonishing originality and definitely a Marmite moment if message boards are anything to go by.

If you fancy your electronica a bit more, um, commercial, try Boom Bip's Sacchrilege EP.

Less blippy and more electro than previous Boom Bip, this is gorgeous intensity with a classic techno vein running through its, um, commercial heart.

The only thing, it's just a little, um, commercial.

Um...

Temple Of Transparent Balls and the black, brooding Book Of Dogma

I cut my techno teeth on The Black Dog (artwork for an interview pictured).

Although I was transfixed by Orbital's repetitive repetitivity, there was something irresistable about The Black Dog's Temple Of Transparent Balls. Maybe it was because it was less obvious; its awkward habit of breaking away from a 4:4 structure made it as dancefloor friendly as a rabid bouncer. I liked that.

So it is with frothing delight that I hear their Parallel album, released two years after 'Balls, is being unleashed today in the black, brooding shape of the Book Of Dogma. Along with the classic Parallel, the new release also includes old EPs Virtual, Age of Slack and Techno Playtime.

Some of The Black Dog went on to gain fame as Plaid, and for that reason alone, this is an important release. The fact that they practically invented IDM / techno in the first place makes it more than important. It's essential. It's electrifying. It's greased lightning. You'd better shape up because I need a man. What? Um...

...I was lost in a haze of hair gel and leather for a second there. Anyhoo, The Book Of Dogma is old fashioned techno at its dull, dour best. As funky as a poodle doing jazz-hands.

Reviews: Gruff Rhys, TTC & Mira Calix

Artist: Gruff Rhys
Title: Candylion (album)
Label: Rough Trade
[site] [listen]
Despite them losing their rocky edge as they aged, I always thought Super Furry Animals were the dragon's balls. Here's yon lead singer waxing lyrical about, well, anything that spools from his astonishing imagination - everything from Smokey Robinson to celtic laments. I'll buy this, but I'll pine for them old Fuzzy Logic days.


Artist: TTC
Title: 3615 (album)
Label: Big Dada
[site][listen]
Disco and euro pop aren't the first words in the dictionary of French hip hop, but maybe TTC are out to re-write the rule book with this crazy, strange, deeply interesting album. MC Solaar it is not. More probably, they have taken a page from the bible of Warp acts like Beans and Antipop Consortium, with some nostalgic electro pop woven down the spine. (Yes, Fat Roland's been reading books and that.)


Artist: Mira Calix
Title: Eyes Set Against The Sun (album)
Label: Warp
[site][listen]
If you touch a butterfly, it turns to stone. Mira Calix's third long player flutters with your feelings; it tiptoes a meandering path leaving its listeners mesmerised and giddy with its beauty. It's also damn strange, but field recordings and fuzzy beats only add to the charm. This is too delicate for some: handle with care. I lied about the butterfly, by the way.

Reviews: Massonix, Paul Hartnoll & Reload

Artist: Massonix
Title: Subtracks (album)
Label: Skam
[site] [listen]
Suitably for a new year post, have a fattening dollop of nostalgia. 808 State's Graham Massey has splurged out a full album of his aquatic-themed side project and it sounds like, um, 808 State. It boasts the same analogue complexity and rolling, melodic scrumptiousness - not a million miles from Two Lone Swordsmen. It's like being back in the 1990s except without James Bond films and Teletubbies.


Artist: Paul Hartnoll
Title: Patchwork Guilt (single)
Label: Kids
[site] [listen]
This may be on a minor label, but this is one half of collosal uber techno monster Orbital taking his baby solo steps. Minimal and slightly absurd, this is confident melodic electro that sounds like, um, Orbital. It's reminiscent of In Sides, but not as smashing. Maybe we need a full album before Hartnoll can un-doff his Orbital hat. This is like being back in the 1990s, but without Friends and dial-up internets.

Artist: Reload
Title: Various titles (EPs)
Label: Evolution
[site]
Before music was invented, Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard helped birth modern electronica with their Evolution label. These re-releases remind us how radical, raw and revolutionary the Middleton / Pritchard partnership was. This is simple, unpretentious old-fashioned techno. It's just like living back in the 1990s, except without the corporate takeover of raves and the bloody Star Wars revival.

Six

Oh go on then, have a musical review of the year. Rather than drown you with a flood of recommendations from 2006, here is a simple six-fold selection to ensure salivation through sonic satisfaction.

For the first time, I have included 30-second sample mp3s for you to listen to. Just click on the link and your Quicktime player will summon up the fairies that make music happen on your screen. The mp3s will only be up for two weeks, mind.

(Artists that I considered but didn't include in my top six: Isan, Battles, Dabrye, Susumu Yokota, Monolake, Hot Chip, 000, Boxcutter, Wagon Christ, Biosphere and Quinoline Yellow.)

Artist: Squarepusher
Title: Hello Everything (album)
Label: Warp
[site] [mp3 no longer available]
Those who prefer Squarepusher's harder drill 'n' bass fare should stay away. Otherwise, this is a playful pot pourri of some of 'Pusher's biggest weapons: junglism, ambience, jazz, stupid synths and frenetic bass guitar mayhem. And it's ever so melodic, which means this is a good album for those tentative souls yet to foray into the strange world of Tom Jenkinson.


Artist: Luke Abbott
Title: b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b (track)
Label: Output
[site] [mp3 no longer available]
Now come on, this is just silly. The reviews call this an "8bit adventure", which basically means there is zip all quality to this repetitive bit of nonsense. This was also one of the few moments of absolute genius in 2006. Luke manipulates the circuits of electronic toys and produces the kind of results only found between the matrix and the real world. B,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,brilliant.


Artist: Nathan Fake
Title:Drowning In A Sea Of Love (album)
Label: Border Community
[site] [mp3 no longer available]
As you would expect with a "sea of love", listening to this album is like being hugged by a hundred marshmallows while having your feet massaged by clouds. Electronica / IDM has not been this warm and inviting since The Orb's last party in hell. Jump in, take your socks off, and absorb yourself in what I hope will be considered an masterpiece by the time I'm selling drugs to my grandchildren.


Artist: FM3
Title: Buddha Machine (album?)
Label: FM3
[site]
FM3 are a Chinese experimental music duo who decided to spurn the usual format of CD or mp3 or whatever, and instead released their new album in its own dedicated piece of hardware. The Buddha Machine is a small plastic box with a speaker that emits nine short drones that you toggle between using a switch on the side. And that's it. And it's one of the best things I have ever bought.


Artist: Clark
Title: Boddy Riddle (album)
Label: Warp
[site] [mp3 no longer available]
Clark, who used to be known as Chris Clark but had his Chris stolen by hoodies, is an electronic artist, but his music encompasses post-rock, musique concrete and the dishwasher to boot. I don't know whether to file this under disco, ambient, krautrock or space music. Alls I do knows is this is Clark's most complete album to date and it will happily stick out of your CD racks like a native American on a psychiatric ward.


Artist: Boards Of Canada
Title: Dayvan Cowboy (track)
Label: Warp
[site]
Forgive me for including a third Warp artist in my top six, but I can't ignore the monster that is BoC. Dayvan Cowboy spilled forth from their Trans Canada Highway EP and, well, see it for yourself... with THE MAGIC OF VIDEO. With this ends my blogging year. See you on the odd side.

Reviews: Rollercoaster Project, Squarepusher & Plan B

Artist: The Rollercoaster Project
Title: Drone 1 (single)
Label: Dreamboat
[site] [listen]
If I wanted to hear screaming men and wailing guitars, I would set a tiger loose in Dawson's music shop. Or I could listen to the Rollercoaster Project, which is a strange little single by a strange little Yorkshireman with angry synths on one side and furious axe-weilding on the other. It's oddities like this that keep me interested in music - a small pleasure, like sex on the top of bus shelters.


Artist: Squarepusher
Title: Venus no 17 (single)
Label: Warp
[site] [listen]
My mouth has oft raved about Squarepusher's Welcome To Europe album, with its willy nilly bass spanking mayhem. Yet, spin the globe back Superman-stylee to the ancient year of 2004, and here is the 'pusherman at his more straightforward, ADHD best. This re-release includes a car-crash of an acid mix (that's a good thing, by the way) and an epic called Tundra 4 which sweeps as it beats as it squeals.


Artist: Plan B
Title: No More Eatin (single)
Label: 679 Recordings
[site]
I get easily annoyed at hip hop, and because of this I tend to ignore most of the genre. Bitches and guns and cars don't really shwing my bling - Plan B is no better. Not only does he look as though most of his life experience has consisted of hanging out at Stockport bus station, he also got the seal of disapproval when my rap fiend mate Stefan saw him live and wasn't too impressed. And what Stefan says goes.

Reviews: Repeat Repeat, Soma Compilation & Gescom

Woo, I'm still buzzing from seeing Autechre, LFO and Graham Massey on Friday. But more about that later. Have some reviews to keep you going.

>Filter this
Artist: Repeat Repeat
Title: Squints (LP)
Label: Soma
Listen like a mother here

I don't waffle much about 4/4 house music on the Fat Roland blog, but I'm willing to make an exception for Repeat Repeat. Here we have a debut album of hypnotic grooves, with beats that snap and click rather than stamp and punch. It's mesmerising and ever so slightly different from anything you have heard before. As subtle as the film Fargo and as off-kilter too.

>Filter this
Artist: Various
Title: Soma Compilation 2006 (LP)
Label: Soma
Listen like a sister here

And while we're on a Soma tip, this compilation album is the cream of their smooth techno releases from 2006 and therefore is as essential as a badger handbags (which are very essential indeed, especially if you're a badger). Featuring among others Alex Smoke and The (legendary) Black Dog, it's made even better by top techno-nobs Slam and Modeselektor on remix duty. It's a little housey for me, but its quality cannot be underpanted... er, I mean, underestimated.

>Cut off this
Artist: Gescom (a.k.a. Autechre)
Title: Mini Disc (LP)
Label: Touch
Listen like a mad uncle here

I have absolute respect for Autechre, and the fact they released this, the first ever minidisc-only release. In fact, I really like this album because it's the only record I know designed to be played on a 'random' setting, but I absolutely can't recommend it because the Fatblog is all about getting people to salivate over electronic music, and this sequence of 88 short noises just ain't going to get the juices flowing. Having said that, I can't resist giving you the entire track listing here. Deep breath: 1 Cut Begin 2 Cut Begin (Continued) 3 Cut Begin (Continued) 4 Cut Begin (Continued) 5 Cut Begin (Continued) 6 Cut Begin (Continued) 7 Cut Begin (Continued) 8 Amendment 84 9 Helix Shatterproof 10 Newer Beginning 11 Newer Beginning (Continued) 12 Polarized Beam Splitter 13 Polarized Beam Splitter (Continued) 14 Polarized Beam Splitter (Continued) 15 Polarized Beam Splitter (Continued) 16 Polarized Beam Splitter (Continued) 17 Inter 18 R M I Corporate Id 1 19 Pricks 20 Pricks (Continued) 21 Pricks (Continued) 22 Pricks (Continued) 23 Devil 24 Is We 25 Is We (Continued) 26 Dan Dan Dan 27 Dan Dan Dan (Continued) 28 Dan Dan Dan (Continued) 29 Dan Dan Dan (Continued) 30 Shark 31 Shark (Continued) 32 Shark (Continued) 33 Shark (Continued) 34 Shark (Continued) 35 Shark (Continued) 36 Shark (Continued) 37 1D Shapethrower 38 Shoegazer 39 Vermin 40 Vermin (Continued) 41 Vermin (Continued) 42 Hemiplegia 1 43 MCDCC 44 Gortex 45 Alf Sprey 46 Interchangeable World 47 Interchangeable World (Continued) 48 Interchangeable World (Continued) 49 Cranusberg 50 Cranusberg (Continued) 51 Cranusberg (Continued) 52 Raindance 53 Horse 54 New Contact Lense 55 Of Our Time 56 Crepe 57 Crepe (Continued) 58 Crepe (Continued) 59 Crepe (Continued) 60 Wab Wat 61 'MC 62 Peel 63 I G E 64 Knutsford Services 65 Fully 66 Fully (Continued) 67 Squashed to Pureness 68 Squashed to Pureness (Continued) 69 Squashed to Pureness (Continued) 70 Squashed to Pureness (Continued) 71 Yo! DMX Crew 72 Go On 73 Stroyer 2 74 - 75 (Continued) 76 Shep 77 Langue 78 Poke 79 Poke (Continued) 80 Poke (Continued) 81 Poke (Continued) 82 Hemiplegia 2 83 Territory of Usage 84 Territory of Usage (Continued) 85 Tomo 86 Tomo (Continued) 87 R M I Corporate Id 2 88 Pt/Ae. Did you get all that?

Fat Roland recommends Boomkat for your music purchases.

Reviews: The Flashbulb & Hecker/Voafose

>Filter this
Artist: The Flashbulb
Title: Flexing Habitual (LP)
Label: Sublight
Listen with your ears here
Boots the chemist saw fit to use The Flashbulb's drugged-out sonick magick in their Campaign For Real Beauty advertising campaign (see the video here). There is something truly beautiful in Flexing Habitual, an offence of maimed breakcore in the best Squarepusher tradition; it's as digital as war. There is melodic songwriting here too, but the velvet glove isn't big enough to hold this grenade. Go buy.

>Filter this
Artist: Hecker / Voafose
Title: Kit001 (10")
Label: Rephlex
Listen with your ears here

Like someone whispering your name from the other side of a football match, these tracks from two upcoming albums on Rephlex are hardly going to trouble the airwaves. However, this sort of minimal frappery and subtle sonic distortion makes me more excited than a clown car hooter. It's Salvador Dali's Persistance Of Memory in sound. Distorted bells, flappy clicks and echoing drips. You can't go wrong.

Reviews: Squarepusher, Mary Ann Hobbs & Badly Drawn Boy

Filter this
Artist: Squarepusher
Title: Hello Everything
Label: Warp

Light sticks and jazz hands ahoy, it's Squarepusher's most enjoyable album to date. Still sounding like a tin of angry spanners attacking a robot giving birth, the Pusherman hasn't strayed into any new territory. Yet this new album seems rooted in more joyous melody and frenetic bass guitar performance than ever before. I haven't had this much fun since I shot JFK. Highly recommended. Listen here.

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Artist: Mary Anne Hobbs
Title: Warrior Dubz
Label: Planet Mu
Mary Anne Hobbs isn't John Peel (apparently), but she does stick up for some good music. Warrior Dubz is a Laahndan thing. It's dark, grimy, wallowing in filthy beats, and makes you want to stride across the dancefloor as though you have super-elastic underwear. The intensity of this compilation matches its diversity, and if you want your beats a little, well, lowdown and dirty, this is definitely worth a shot. Listen here.

Cut off this
Artist: Badly Drawn Boy
Title: Born In The UK
Label: EMI

I respect Damon Gough because he's from Manchester and he wears a hat, and he has produced his new record with Nick Franglen from the lovely Lemon Jelly. But really! U2 lost all cred when they made an album consisting almost entirely of advert backing music, and now Badly Drawn Boy has done the same. He's gone too safe. All he needs do now is write a song in tribute to some dead tart and he is officially the new Elton John. Listen here.

Filter: Beckett & Taylor, Luke Abbott & 000

Filter the good stuff, cut off the rest...

>Filter: Beckett & Taylor - Hired New Hands (single)

I interviewed Mr C of Shaman fame once, and he vibed in my face like no other man could. He was pimping his London club The End to the press. I kind of shared his taste for The End's smooth tech Layo & Buskwacka! electro, but wished the shiny production was a little more, er, dented. Thanks to Beckett & Taylor, I finally have what I want. Some of this is like Prince in rehab, but it's mostly Very Interesting Techno (TM).

>Filter: Luke Abbott - B,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b,b (single)

Stick a bunch of synths into your washing machine and press record. The result is manic atonal silliness from a man who probably has square wheels on his car. Luke Abbott is a circuit bender of some distinction, extracting from his machines the kind of sounds that only happen When Something Is Going Seriously Wrong. This is a great 1980s Spectrum work-out and is enough to raise the terror alert to r,r,r,r,red.

>Filter: 000 - Aether Dynamic (album)

O, Triple O, shall I compare thee to Future Sound Of London's Lifeforms? Yes I shall, for two reasons. Reason alpha: a beautiful sonic explosion leaps from the cover, prompting us to buy the vinyl because the design is a thing of outstanding scrumptiousness. Reason mu: this album's sonic strata is a rich and complex update on Lifeforms; play it from start to finish and you'll have the best coma you've ever had.

>Cut off: Keane - We Might As Well Be Strangers DJ Shadow Remix (single)

Let's be clear about this. We are fighting a force of evil and his name is J*mes Bl*nt. But his messenger is Keane, and we should be no less wary. We must unite against this new terror. I stand on the battlefield, flanked by Autechre and LFO - but what's this? One of ours has defected to the other side. DJ Shadow, what are you doing? Please tell me it was just for 30 pieces of silver, and not for any artistic reason. Come back, Shadders, rejoin the winning side.

Filter: Wisp, Luke Vibert & Jackson AHCB

Filter the good stuff, cut off the rest...

>Filter: Wisp - Honor Beats (album)

Beadumaegen, the opening assault on Wisp's album, is an insistent bagpipe riff bedded against a booming alpine horn and catapulted into space by souped-up rave breaks and a monstrous techno bass beat. You'd think this album could break your head in half - and you'd be wrong, because it's infused with gorgeous melody and huggable arrangements. This is breakcore with mittens, not a classic album, but very likeable.

>Filter: Jean Jacques Perry & Luke Vibert - Moog Acid (single)

I won't linger on this release because (a) it smells of custard and (b) if you like Luke Vibert, you'd buy this anyhoo. Moog Acid is a playful track brought to you by the master of the Moog (Perry) and acid's greatest squelcher (Vibert). It's as fun as it sounds. You already know Jean Jacques Perry because a Fatboy Slim remix of his classic E.V.A. track was used to advertise (I think) a fizzy drink.

>Filter: Jackson & His Computer Band - Smash Up Megamix (single, kind of)

Where do you go next after your music has become famous all over Europe for advertising phones (see previous post here) and all the signposts point to chart success and kid's TV appearances? You feed your successful album through a shredder, that's what. This is a megamix nip and tuck of JAHCB's Smash album with extra fluff thrown in too. It's a clever idea and you can only get it from Bleep.

>Cut off: Plaid & Bob Jaroc - Greedy Baby (album)

Well poke my eyes out with a slightly irritated badger, I'd never thought I'd criticise Plaid who, in my humble pie, are the successor's to Orbital and their ear-stroking techno layerings. But this is a DVD project with visual arteeeest Jaroc which worked perfectly well on DVD but has now been transfered to normal CD. And it doesn't work for me. Without the viddy stuff, it borders on the dull. There, I've said it. You can get the badger now.

Filter: Mr 76ix, Syntaks & Shitkatapult

Filter the good stuff, cut off the rest...

>Filter: Mr. 76ix - Hits Of 76ix Part 2 (album)

Okay, I'm tardy reviewing this as it hit the shops in 1826, but this has a place here because Mr 76ix is someone who likes twiddling knobs. Here we have mad Aphex-style monster mashes, acid breaks, old skool beatbox kidnapped by robots, TV interference made good, and LFO-style atmospherics, all in all a wonderfully varied album made even better by track names such as Like Crack Whores Lapping Up Jizz. Hardcore with a heart.

>Filter: Syntaks - Awakes (album)

I don't know if Brian Eno and Boards Of Canada ever had sex, but I'd want to see the paternity test for Syntaks. This is the kind of intimate electronica you can take a microscope to, with clicks, clanks and echoes adding detail to a warm, smothering collection of sparkling ambience. This is both human and mechanical, like Cher.

>Filter: Various artists - Shitkatapult Empfiehlt (album)

A short compilation. Apparat's I Lost My Shit In Tel Aviv, despite its downbeat lilt, is progressive and addictive enough to deserve mention in the same sentence as Mmm Skyscraper I Love You. Fraction is Prefuse 73 pushed through Squarepusher's mincer, while T. Raumschmiere is way lowdown, perhaps a bit too lowdown for the Fat Roland radar. Fenin & Meteo mix thinly sliced synths with a deeply dubby beat, Magnum 38 sounds like pop music inside a car crash and Soap & Skin plays the piano, and is very, er, pianoey.

>Cut off: Klaus Badelt - He's A Pirate (single)

Don't blame Klaus, he just makes music for films. But a collection of trance remixes of the Pirates Of The Carribean theme tune? Did we learn nothing from the Grease Megamix? And all these clones have been shoe-horned into one single, which is a disturbing tumble back to the bad old days when you would get 22 versions of the same tune on a CD. "Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat." I thought we'd grown out of that in the 80s.

Filter Isan & Dabrye, cut off Gnarls Barkley

DJs have a responsibility to make the world a more musical place. This week, I have sung on buses, hidden Buddha Machines inside hollowed-out library books, and inserted rain sticks underneath the cassocks of rollercoasting vicars.

But it's not enough. This blog should be about music, allegedly, so Filter / Cut-Off is me waffling about tunes I've heard whilst pretending I am doing serious music reviews. It will be a rollercoaster ride of cultural revelation, and no, rain sticks sound nothing like rain.

>Filter this: Isan

If you've become a little "board" of Boards Of Canada (geddit?!?!), and you still want some good melody for your money, then cast your ears over a two-piece called Isan. Their new release Plans Drawn In Pencil ranges from bubbly softness to glitchy experimentalism, and it would make great pop music if it weren't so minimal and vocal-less. Listen on MySpace here. Buy it here.

>Filter this: Dabrye

From the cut-up hiptronics of Prefuse 73 comes Dabrye. The second of his /Three album trilogy, logically called Two/Three, he provides hip hop instrumentation in the true tradition of the Herbalizer behind some excellent MCs - MF Doom, Warp Records' Beans and Wildchild among others. This is electronica hip hop and the beats can almost become lost in their own pomp, but it's not 50 Cent and for that we are all thankful. Listen on MySpace here. Buy Two/Three here.

>Time to cut-off: Gnarls Barkley

Gnarls Barkley's Crazy was a great song. Three months ago. But now this is July and GB are, like, so over. Their second Top Of The Pops performance was unimpressive and they have been covered by N*lly F*rt*do. And you have to understand, Crazy got to number one on sentimental credentials; its sound made old people (25+) reminisce about their long-forgotten youth. Which seems like a good thing, until you realise Meck hit the top spot for the same reason.