Blood sugar synths felines: some almost-recent tracks worth your attention

The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Didn't expect that, did you? Red Hot Chili Peppers. There, I said it again.

No, I'm not talking about the tongue-busting offspring of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanasomething-or-other. I'm talking about the wiley shirtless guitar plodders who appear to have gone afro pop.

Actually, I'm taking about John Frusciante, who dumped the Chilis in 2007 but has now turned up as one part of Speed Dealer Moms with legendary bass-driller Venetian Snares. This is a live experimental project consisting of those boys, Chris McDonald, a bunch of drum machines (gear, pictured) and, in the band's words, "many cats".

Their first release is the Speed Dealer Moms EP, a short and bitter chunk of tapping distracto-grooves recorded as-live in 2010 that will frighten Chili poppers but may sound somewhat familiar to Snares followers.

While I'm perusing recent tracks (mainly from the end of last year), I've been addicted to Rafferties's Rank Functions EP. The title track is a 2step tech stormer on his own Super label that turned my pants brown, but check those warm chords in His Counting House or the out-and-out house snap of Horse Flesh. Suddenly, I feel Raffertie has "arrived" in that really pretentious way some people say "arrived".

Meanwhile, The Black Dog's latest offering is Subject To Delays. That's not an announcement for tardiness, but rather the name of their latest EP in their Music For Real Airports project which features rolling house and drifting ambience in equal measure.

Picture: modified from a Universo Frusciante snap.

Flying Lotus: seventh EP synth action

Flying Lotus has been good to us in 2010. A difficult third album that moved his sound into a far frontier of experimentation, plus a collaboration with droop-eyed Radioheader Thom Yorke.

Ticking like a clockmaker's shop floating on Saturn's rings, his last track MmmHmm was a dreamy haze of spaced-out vocals, mechanical swoops and skewed time signatures. Try watching the remarkable video on mute with the Benny Hill theme tune on your stereo. Does it work? Nah, didn't think so.

And now FlyLo's winding in the craziness for a new EP, his seventh since he first started releasing on Warp Records in 2007.

Pattern+Grid World will be out in September and will be, suggests the label, a little less high concept and a little more synth action.

Plug your ears into one of the tracks here:

Flying Lotus - Camera Day (taken from Pattern+Grid World) by Warp Records

More pow than Batman: some singles from Ikonika, Falty DL and James Blake

Because I went a bit flappy on maintaining this blog for a while, I'm a bit behind on my single reviews. Here are three quick ones to keep you going while I sort out the other 3,927 I have in my to-do pile.

On an unrelated note, while the MPs aren't looking, can someone install Aaron Funk of Venetian Snares as prime minister, please?

Ikonika

I'm not sure if I've waffled about Ikonika's new album yet. I will do, but in the meantime, Idiot is worth grabbing. Its punchy Nintendo lead is rooted in a rolling bass, a contrast that is amplified by the Altered Natives remix - a track with more pow than Batman thanks to a repeating descending fill that sounds like someone's spilling LFOs.

Falty DL

Falty DL's All In The Place is not dubstep. Repeat. Falty DL's All In The Place is not dubstep. Let's stop calling everything dubstep, shall we? It is probably acid techno and it's all a bit ho hum - choppy synths, bouncy bassline, loadsa reverb - until he allows a muggy rave line pull the tune into fantastic, foggy Aphex territory.

James Blake 

James Blake, who has made his name touring with Mount Kimbie, sounds like he was in 1995 listening to an ethereal moment on Goldie's Timeless before jumping through a time tunnel to provide us with his sad, liquid r'n'b-tinged grime-tech. See if you can spot the Aaliyah and Kelis samples on his essential Cmyk EP.

No Burial was harmed in the making of this blog post: new tracks from LV, Actress, Pantha Du Prince

Time to find out what noises people have been making and say to them OI YOU LOOK AT YOUR NOISE.

LV and Untold

LV and Untold's track Beacon is so minimal, I'm not sure it exists. It's a terrifying slab of stretched-out, bass-whomping clicks and pokes, but it seems to nestle in a cold ether that exists neither here nor there. It's reality drawn out: the sound of loose cartilage if Burial's bones were all broken.

I like this for the Mount Kimbie remix because it achieves a staggering feat. It smears a load of choppy rave chords over the dubbiness of the original track and manages to make it sound more desolate, more textured, and more like Burial not only with broken bones but with his mealeable body stretched out like uncooked dough.

Actress

If running Werk Discs (Lone, Lukid, Zomby) gave his twiddly-knob hands enough to do, it's not showing because futuristic funkster Actress is busy churning out some massive music on Nonplus Records.

Machine And Voice is his latest, all broken funk and manufractured(TM) staccato bleeps, and not for the first time on this blog, I've found the real gem by flipping over to the b-side. Loomin' does what it says on the tin
(Nonplus Records) and is the highlight here because of the ferocity of the whirring robotics.

Pantha Du Prince

I'm delighted Pantha Du Prince's stand-out track Stick To My Side has not only got a single release, it has also got its own video that seems to mix two filmic moments from last year: the enthusiastic nightime dancing in Where The Wild Things Are and the eerie visit of the dybbuk in A Serious Man.

It's a smashing track that mixes clubbiness with curious off-tunes and it comes on this single with a thumping remix from Efdemi, an all-too-busy workout from Four Tet, and, on the digital version, a heavenly choirs and bells retake from Walls. As I've said before on this blog, I'm discovering house music again.

House music and really big eskimo hoods: some recent singles

Pantha Du Prince's dreamlike house haze on his spanking new album Black Noise has got me in the mood for some four-to-the-floor action. Never mind all that cut-and-paste broken beat crap. This week, I want my beats fixed up and looking sharp. Here are some recent house singles.

Raffertie

Raffertie (pictured) is Planet Mu's top drawer dance guru, beloved of grungy club types as well as the glossy hacks of Mixmag magazine. Recently, he's been getting some big-time snogs from Huw Stephens, Rob Da Bank and Dame Mary Anne Hobbs. Which is nice.

7th Dimension is Raffertie's newest single, and while the title is not as classic as last year's Wobble Horror!, there is ample to restrain your thumbs from twiddling. It's a whooping high-energy flare of rave house, convulsing from snare stab attacks and swirling, persistent vocals.

The b-side, String Theory, sounds like a melancholic Way Out West experimenting with a wobble-board for a bassline. 7th Dimension is the better cut, and reminds me a little of Hospital Records' more zealous moments - without the junglism.

Floating Points

His bubbly 2-stepper J+W Beat enjoyed more than a play or three on my phone last year, so unfurl the bunting because electronic polymath* Floating Points has dropped a brand new track called People's Potential.

He's not just torn a leaf from Luke Vibert's book: he's photocopied way beyond the legal limit to produce a thumping, nagging acid work-out with wailing synths and both hush puppies planted solidly on the dance floor.

Track it down if you can, but I warn you, it's a limited edition one-sided white label. And they're harder to find than Lil Wayne's self-respect.

The XX

I've saved the best for last: a superb cacophony of remixes of one of the best indie bands of the past 12 months. There are several remixes of The XX track, Islands. And they're all fab.

Untold culled the coldness of The XX, secreted it in an igloo somewhere north of Alaska, hurled it into Heston Blumenthal's deep freezer, and fashioned a dubstep remix so startlingly chilly, your ears will ice over at the mere notion of listening to it. Pardon? Exactly. It's tribal, like Zulu, but in eskimo hoods, really big eskimo hoods.

The Blue Nile's version of Islands shimmers and ripples, simple piano and electric guitar adding a nagging theme to the sparse vocals, while Nosaj Thing interprets the track as astral ambience. Delorean flings us back to the warm world of 90s intelligent techno, and, finally, Falty DL makes it sound like Tricky's record player's broken.

Okay, I veered away from house music at the end, there, but I don't like my beats too neat: if it ain't unfixed, I'm gonna broke it. You can quote me on that. (Please don't.)

* I only call him this because he can play the piano too.

Jóhann Jóhannsson, Simian Mobile Disco and a pants-dropping Skream: new and recent releases reviewed

Before I get stuck into February proper, please allow me to catch up with a few musical missives that I intended to waffle about last month but didn't get round to because I was too busy sniffing baby wipes.

Jóhann Jóhannsson

This is from a while ago, but I wanted to mention it because I saw him live last year. Swathes of swooshing strings is the order of the day for Jóhann Jóhannsson's album And In The Endless Pause There Came The Sound Of Bees.

Jóhann, who has a name that never seems to finish like Banarama, produces classical music with shavings of electronica and can often be seen playing to bleep-heads. His ostentatiously titled album is in turns delicate and flamboyant, but I can't be doing with the morning-has-broken cheery stuff and would much rather he stick to the murky ambience or the eerie foreboding of his most filmic tracks.

Skream (pictured)

A couple of tracks now. The cold refrain on Skream's remix of Instra:mental's No Future ("lies confusion government control") is nothing short of pants-droppingly brilliant. It's a lolloping half-stepper that stomps its metal legs until you're marching to the same, automatic beat. It threatens to fall into the wobble bass cliche so beloved of dubstep, but it remains purely minimalist.

Speaking of minimalism, Minimalistix is the name of the track on the b-side of the Skream remix. The paddy drums (as in drums that sound like soft pads: it's not me being racist) fight against airy soundclaps as the cut builds and builds and builds.

It reminds me a little of the strange alien isolation of Higher Intelligence Agency and despite its stubborn simplicity, I could play it repeatedly and not get bored: Skream's remix is definitely something to Munch on. (See what I did there?)

Simian Mobile Disco

Beth Ditto, her with the big gob, struck gold when she recorded Good Intentions with Simian Mobile Disco last year. You may want to know there are a couple of remixes doing the rounds, but to be honest former Hacienda resident Greg Wilson's retro stylings have far too much bongo (yes, you can have too much bongo), while Maurice Fulton's disco-tastic take on the track is the kind of generic funk groove that has me sulking in the corner of the club waiting for the good tunes to come on.

Picture from Nailler 9.

Here's the skinny (dip) on Warp's Babe Rainbow and Flying Lotus

And now, some news from the Warp label.

Two of these facts are absolute hogwash and were written whilst I was high on methane. Three of these facts are 100% genuine leather newsbites about Warp Records and their artists.

Babe Rainbow

Babe Rainbow (pictured) is the newest act to sign to the label. He is a Canadian experimentalist sitting somewhere amid Req, Burial and anything ending in 'step'. This has been covered a-plenty by other websites, so I'll post more when his debut Shaved EP hits in February. Listen to loads of Babe stuff on Tumblr.

Achy breaky heart

Last week, Warp Records founder Steve Beckett announced to an astonished media that he was, in fact, Miley Cyrus. Tongues began wagging on the set of the 3D kid's film Bolt, where "Miley" would spend hours listening to mp3 demos from wannabe Squarepushers. Billy Ray Cyrus' first dubstep EP will be out on Warp in the spring.

Flying Lotus

I mentioned the release of Flying Lotus' DJ kicks CD in my 2010 preview, but I can add to that the release of a fully-formed FlyLo studio album too. Cosmogramma will be out on April 20th on Warp. He is quickly becoming the godfather of modern beat production, and all ears will be tuned in. There's even a Massive Attack remix on the way, according to this interview in Pitchfork. I know this is exciting, because on my notes for this blog post, I have scrawled "OH YEAH".

Warp Records for Dummies

This Dummy Guide to Warp Records is wonderful, and a definite must-read for Warp noobs and vets alike. I wish I had written it: Rob Gordon throwing the phone is classic rock 'n' roll angst. It finishes with a list of essential Warp albums, so if you're looking to fill up your virtual music shelves, here's where to start.

Skinny dipping

Warp Records is relocating to the house next door to me. They've decided London didn't really work out, so they've bought a modern semi-detached bungalow complete with swimming pool. I am allowed to skinny dip any time I want, and they have promised to furnish my villa with all-new furniture made with off-cuts from vinyl records. I hope the grooves don't chafe.

Chick lit rules! New singles from Joy Orbison, Flying Lotus, House Shoes, Pantha Du Prince and (phew!) Martin Kemp

Joy Orbison

Joy Orbison has announced a new EP, The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow, to be released on February 22nd.

The Croydon mailroom worker, who started DJing at the pimply age of 13, provided one of 2009's highlights with Hyph Mngo. In Shrew, he gives us more of the usual Joy: swelling dubstep set to grime up the dancefloor with washes of insistent synths.

The EP features a remix by Actress and is probably the best mouse-like electronica since Mouse On Mars and, um, Vole-netian Snares.

Flying Lotus / House Shoes

Flying Lotus, that hunk of manly beat production, appears this month on a cute-looking 10" courtesy of the Do-Over crew. On The Do-Over Volume 1, there's FlyLo's Sangria Spin Cycles and, on the flip side of the disc, you'll find Motownie beatster House Shoes with his crunchy soul stormer The Makings.

Both tracks are crisper than a starched collar fresh out of the drier, but the best thing is the artwork (pictured), which feels all rather Northern Quartery, cheerful and, well, a bit chick-lit. And yes, it now means I can call Flying Lotus a big flowery girl and not feel bad about it.

Keep an eye on the Do-Over for more, um, doings in the future.

Pantha Du Prince

Pantha Du Prince is ready to pounce with his new album and Rough Trade debut Black Noise (as promised in my 2010 electronica preview).

But first, a single. The shoegaze influence that once dripped through the sound of Pantha Du Prince has well and truly dried up for his recent 12" The Splendour.

Now, we have pin-sharp four-four minimal techno with a kitchen full of clanks and micro-samples. It is pristine: you can see your face in it. I prefer the dirtiness of his 2004 album Diamond Daze, and The Splendour is unlikely to stick in your head for too long, but it's no less beautiful for that.

Martin Kemp

Martin Kemp has taken time out from touring Sign O' The Times with Kajagoogoo (I get my 80s music mixed up sometimes) to bring us a snappy, dark slice of twenty-tens dubstep.

Okay, it's a different Martin Kemp and it's a crap joke. This one is brother of Brackles and his recent single After The Night is an uneasy, primative slab of multi-rhythmic 2-step and should ensure new imprint Blunted Robot's place on this year's calendar.

Listen to The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow here. Cast your ears on Sangria Spin Cycles and The Makings on the Do-Over blog. Hark ye The Splendour on the Rough Trade website. And listen to After The Night at Boomkat.

A digger full of puppies makes the Miike Snow go down: new singles from Bullion, Miike Snow and Joker / Om Unit

Bullion

I swear the Coen Brothers would approve of Bullion's new single: it has more than a hint of Jefferson Airplane circling around the edges.

Say Goodbye To What is a californicating slice of pop psychedelia and it will be released on One-Handed Music on January 25th. Imagine a Led Zeppelin filled with laughing gas - it floats nicely alongside Bullion's Young Heartache EP from last year. Worth checking out too is the b-side Crazy Over You, but it's the a-side that had my spine tingling like a dead-leg.

Pop to Bullion's Bandcamp page, or click play here:



There are a couple of other tracks you need to know about...

Miike Snow

I may be going soft in the head, but I'm rather fond of Sweden's Miike Snow at the moment (pictured). Silvia is weaker than his usual fayre, although the six minute version is more lovely than a digger full of puppies once it gets into its meandering, kooky stride.

Miike Snow appear to be the pop band it's okay for electronica nuts to be into. You can watch the new video of Sylvia on Youtube: no, that isn't Viggo Mortensen.

Joker

Finally, the mauve boy wonder Joker is producing some seriously good stuff at the moment (see what I did there? Joker? Serious? Oh never mind.). His 2009 track Digidesign has got itself an electro-tastic Om Unit remix, and it has more kick than a donkey can-can. Meanwhile, Joker's recent single City Hopper, on the Tectonic label, is worth it for the slow fat fuzz basslines of the b-side Output 1-2.