Top 20 electronic music albums of 2022: Luke Vibert – GRIT.

The live blogging continues, and this time I feature an artist I first mentioned on this blog in May 2007.

See the full countdown here.

Luke Vibert: GRIT. (Hypercolour)

Electronic Sound: “Well-oiled electro, slippery acid, the rasping hi-hats of his ever-present TR-909, bits that sound like ghosts. What more could you want? Screwfix Typeface is a subdued funk stormer, its strangulated acid sounding like Josh Wink having a coughing fit.” 

You know what you’re getting with Luke Vibert, in the same way you know what you’re getting with a washing machine or a 5,000 piece jigsaw of my left nipple. Thankfully, Vibert’s 18th album is more rewarding than both of those things. He lets the acid take centre stage, yet isn’t afraid for a bit of melancholy and minor-key mystery in his sassy electro. Hence the bits that sound like ghosts. I get paid to write this stuff, you know. Outrageous.

From another website: Twelve pieces of precise and expert acid dance that really highlights just how low-key something can be and still have a magnificent impact. (Igloo Magazine)

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2022. Read it all here.

Best electronic albums of 2020: thirteen

13 – Luke Vibert – Luke Vibert Presents Amen Andrews / Luke Vibert Presents Modern Rave / Luke Vibert Presents Rave Hop (Hypercolour)

When I pop to the shops to get my daily Sara Lee double-chocolate gateau, I like to buy three. That's in case I drop one on the way home, and another accidentally gets stolen by a wolf. Logical, when you think about it.

I can only assume that was Luke Vibert's logic when he released three albums, called Luke Vibert Presents Amen Andrews, Luke Vibert Presents Modern Rave and Luke Vibert Presents Rave Hop. This trio of treats were dedicated to, respectively, old school jungle, early rave, and hip hop / breakbeat. For the purposes of this albums countdown, I've mushed them into one.

Although Vibert goes for a particular palate in his music (day-glo rave cut and pasted for your dancefloor pleasure), this trilogy gave us three distinct flavours. Amen Andrews, heavily based on the famous drum sample, had a full-on hardcore edge. Modern Rave felt like Altern-8 having a stroke, in a good way.

It's perhaps the strollin' vibes of the more relaxed Rave Hop that wins the day: it's mangling of hip hop and r'n'b is a pleasure to behold, and there are techno tunes galore. But to be honest, if a wolf came for any of these, or indeed the Vibert album I featured at number eighteen, I would punch it on the nose. I WOULD PUNCH IT ON THE NOSE.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

Best electronic albums of 2020: eighteen

18 – Wagon Christ – Recepticon (People of Rhythm Records)

Wagon Christ used to be everywhere. He'd spout his daft block-rockin' beats, and us disciples would follow in his sandals, witnessing his miracles, lapping up his communion wafers, er, nuzzling his Jesus beard, um, I think I've lost control of this metaphor.

Recepticon is the long-awaited return of Luke Vibert's experimental moniker, which was originally a Rising High ambient project but quickly became the go-to name for accessible experimental dance music. It gave me instant flashbacks to my DJing days in the 1990s: the speed breaks of 1998's Lovely were a delight to mix.

So we have wonky downbeat, loping grooves, fat acid, party samples ("Hello, everybody!") and self-referential track titles like Boogie Serious and Special Designer Song. He throws it all into the bag then empties out a rag-tag jumble of retro fun. It's Wagon Christ at his best.

Come O Wagon Christ. Fill us with your loaves and fish. Let us exalt you by, erm, signing up to the church newsletter. Let us do something with a hassock even though we're not quite sure what it is. Crikes, these Jesus metaphors really are adding nothing.

 

Browse the rest of the Best Electronic Albums of 2020

A Full On Guide to Full On: Orson Karte's Tonight

My deconstruction of the Deconstruction album Full On: Edition One continues. I realise this is niche, but it was a great compilation that deserves more attention. See all my Full On posts here.

The next track is Orson Karte's Tonight (Original Mix), a smooth-as-a-sausage progressive house track with sampled voices drifting loosely above warm ambient chords. It doesn't stay in the same place either, as it gets its head down for some skippy breakbeat action later in the track.

Have an ear-check here:

Let's have a bit of context. I'm about to throw a lot of information at you. If this following paragraph had a montage sequence, it would freeze at each person's face like a Guy Ritchie film to give you time to absorb all the names. 

Orson Karte was not a well-known act in itself, but its members Julian Dembinski and Lex Blackmore also recorded as Positive Science for Ascension Records, an offshoot of the legendary ambient label Rising High Records probably best known for releasing music by The Irresistible Force, A Homeboy, A Hippie & A Funki Dredd and Luke Vibert. In short: no-one's really heard of Orson Karte (terrible name) but they come with some considerable pedigree.

More interestingly, Alexis Blackmore – Lex to his nearest and dearest – is responsible for one of the most memorable top ten hits of all time.

"Which memorable top ten hit?" I hear you ask, as you gasp in awe at your computer screen. "Is it Vienna by Ultravox? Blue Monday by New Order? Lovin' Is Easy by Hear'Say?" If you can just shut up asking questions, I'll tell you.

Lex ploughed a furrow on the dance music scene touring with The Shamen, apparently contributing to the rap on the Mysterons-sampling Make It Mine. Following the untimely death of The Shamen's Will Sin, he moved to Glasgow and became... drum roll... Blue Boy.

"Who?" 

Who?! What do you MEAN "who"? You definitely know Blue Boy. They had one of the most memorable top ten hits of all time. Positively iconic. Here are the lyrics, which you definitely recognise:

Remember me?
I'm the one who had your babies
Remember me?
I'm the one who had your babies
Ging-giggaging giggigiggiging etc etc etc

Yeah, you know it. Incidentally, Remember Me sampled Marlena Shaw's 1973 live version of Woman Of The Ghetto, which is definitely worth a listen right here. The "babies" line later on in the song contains so much sorrow.

So here we have another insight into Full On. A relatively anonymous act called Orson Karte can be tracked to, five years later, a big stonking top ten single which went some way to defining a '90s 'sound'.

There is plenty more Full On analysis to come (see the track listing here), but it will all be a bit less interesting than this one.

"WHY won't it be interesting? I want everything to be interestiiiiing! Waaaaah!"

You're really starting to get on my nerves, imaginary reader's voice.

Read the Full On series in, er full.

Read the Full On introduction explaining what the heck this is all about.

A peaky Brainwaltzera blinder from Luke Vibert

Original Hate Brother and jolly acid plugger Luke Vibert did something quite impressive with a track called Muddy Puddle Trot by Brainwaltzera.

You might remember Brainwaltzera for their starring role on this blog a week ago in my run-down of the best electronic music of 2017.

Vibert turns the original's trippy breaks into a peaky blinder of punchy electronics. Listen here.



Further Fats: Audio lampposts: Luke Vibert straightens up his Rhythm (2009)

Further Fats: Best electronic albums of 2017: Brainwaltzera (2017)

A very Roland-y night out

I invented some new dance moves last night. This is a list of those dance moves.

The Hip Destroyer
Surprise Jerk
The Mancunian Twitch
Polygon Windowing
The Tragic Octopus
Jackhammer Backflop
The Seven-Fingered Fly Swat
Reverse Moonwalk
The Slow Bez

Why the dancing? I went to the tenth anniversary of the I Love Acid club night. The venue was Hidden, a no-frills warehouse tucked along the banks of the River Irwell. It was a great space with a nicely uncommercial feel. They had triangular speakers (pictured). Star of the night for me was joyful acid-twiddler Ceephax, But Luke Vibert was pretty flipping acid-tastic too.

Luke Vibert being delightfully awkward at @HiddenClubMCR. Loops tripping over themselves, breakbeats scattering across the dancefloor. #acid

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) April 2, 2017

The strangest moment of the night came when I read about the death of Ikutaro Kakehashi. He's the chap who founded the synthesiser company Roland, whose TB-303 unit makes the acid sound techno-heads like me adore. As I read the news on my phone, 303 squelches burst from the speakers and there was a guy next to me wearing a Roland TB-303 brand t-shirt. RIP Ikutaro Kakehashi - without you, I'd just be Fat.

All this came after a trip to the brilliant ARC in Stockton-on-Tees at which I performed a set of cartoon idiocy. Some people on the line-up did proper dancing. There were a load of theatre and venue professionals in the audience - they even gave feedback, which is a pretty flipping rare thing to receive. Thanks to Arcade Platform for letting me be part of that.

So exciting to see new work in progress by the extraordinary @LucaRutherford & hilariously surreal @FatRoland at @arcstockton what a day! X

— paula varjack (@paulavarjack) April 1, 2017

What a day. I'm off to perfect my Mancunian Twitch. Hopefully this time I won't have someone's eye out.

Further Fats: Manchester International Festival: hot, sweaty, dramatic fun (2013)

Further Fats: Fats goes to Herbal Tea Party - a Storify slideshow (2016)

Luke Vibert just made me do a poetry

Acid house legend Luke Vibert has revealed plans for a new album called Luke Vibert Presents UK Garave Vol 1. Yep. Rave and garage. Garave.  You can listen to a bit of it below.

He calls the album, out in May on London's Hypercolour Records, an "ode to the era of M25 convoys, mobile phone hotlines and raving amongst dogs on strings in British aerodrome fields.”

That, my disco-brained friend, sounds like a challenge.

ODE TO AN ERA

The flyer
The tobacco-burned flyer
Says this way to the rave
So you can dance and
Dance and
Dance and
Look at dogs and
Go for a fly if you have the appropriate licence
The flyer
Has a number written on it
It gives directions to the rave
So you get a van and
Drive and
Drive and
Look at the rain as
You sit in a traffic jam for the rest of your life
The flyer
Says this way to the rave

And yes

We should have flown

Fat Roland



Further Fats: Chosen Words: E is for Ecstacy (2010)

Further Fats: Electronic Sound magazine: the future is buttocks (2013)

Best electronica albums of 2012: number one

What was the best electronica album of 2012? Stephen Hawking's Olympics follow-up where he sang the War of the Worlds soundtrack with Swedish House Mafia? Something the Mayans cooked up with a tub of LSD and a rack of 303s? Or is it something I'm about to spew out of my blog gob? I think you know the answer.

Firstly, let's get stuck into a final selection of also-rans.

[Read other parts of the top ten here: numbers 10-8; numbers 7-5; numbers 4-2. Click here for the whole lot.]

Also-rans

Some of this year's best electronic moments weren't in album form. Burial and Four Tet's haunting reunion for example. The Underworld and Orbital moments at the aforementioned Olympics. Anything Chvrches did.

Back to the albums. I excluded Plug's Back On Time (Ninja Tune) from the running because it's an archive collection. Still love him though. Very much in the running was Gonjasufi's MU.ZZ.LE (Warp), which spent a lot of its time firmly lodged in my brainworm's little ears and would have been in the top ten if there hadn't been so much competition.

Albums that didn't grab me so much but are still worth your time are Shed's powerful The Killer (50 Weapons), the sprightly disco of Lindstrøm's Smalhans (Feedelity) and the beautifully organic Voices From The Lake (Prologue) from Voices From The Lake.

The lie

Time for the number one album of 2012. Except it's not a number one. It's a joint number one. Two halves, if you will. This renders this entire top ten numerically nonsensical, but I tore my wig out with this year's choices and there isn't a single one of these 11 albums I can omit from this listing. Ten? Pah. Everything is a lie. This is the whole Bobby Ewing in the shower thing again. Stop reading, switch off your computer and get some fresh air.

Still here? Okay then. Here are the number one albums of 2012. They're both Manchester artists. I assure you, this is a co-incidence...

 1a - Andy Stott - Luxury Problems (Modern Love)

If Andy Stott had a more interesting name, he’d be Thrumming Basslord Of The Universal Spheres or Mr Monged Out In The Corner Of Sankeys Soap Chewing Himself A New Ulcer. But no, he’s called Andy and he’s operated well under this reviewer’s radar with two albums on Modern Love and a couple of deep-as-hell dub techno EPs in 2011.

It seems for this third album Luxury Problems (Modern Love), he stuck a microphone under the nose of his piano teacher – or possibly nicked her singing-into-hairbrushes tapes - and littered his record with sampled loops. Snippets of phrases are ever-present: always catchy, always heavenly, often rotating in mad gibberish.

But then there's all the stuff lower down. Opening track Numb starts off all very nicely with her layered vocals, but when the track breaks down at the two minute mark into sinister voice cymbals followed by a bass drum with such gravity it would rip the sun from the clouds, this becomes something quite astonishing. Mid-tempo snares and industrial scrapes punch through much of the haze, but this is never far from a terrifying underground thunder (listen to the rising terror of Expecting). The power. The sheer power.

It's a dub techno album that's more versatile than you think, from Lost and Found's angry rumbles and the pure sub bass of Hatch The Plan, to the comparatively brisk house of title track Luxury Problems and the junglism of Up The Box. Stott is in no rush and has the confidence to keep his ideas in check, only opening them up to the listener at exactly the right time. Luxury Problems is measured, like a movie with perfect pacing. The result is addictive.

Like many of the best albums this year, it's not just techno. It's ambient, it's industrial, it's somehow reaching beyond the chalk lines that demarcate EDM/IDM sub-cultures. It's an immersing soundtrack that speaks of the stark Manchester mills and alleys in which this album was no-doubt made. Buy it. Stream it. Be awed and afraid. If you've got Luxury Problems, I feel good for you, son.

1b - Lone - Galaxy Garden (R&S)

Can I review Lone's Galaxy Garden (R&S) without using the much-trodden metaphors in other reviews of strange underwater worlds and video games, each one suggested by the music's contrasts of rich fluidity and punchy simplicity? The day-glo album cover itself suggests a hyper Mario submarine adventure full of bubbles, bleeps and electric octopuses.

Lone is no stranger to this here blog. In 2009, I included Ecstacy and Friends in my albums of the year, rather bluntly calling it Goldie's Timeless without the d'n'b. In 2010, he missed out but still lured me with his lusciousness. And now, here he is at number one. Galaxy Garden is his first album for R&S, a classic Belgian techno label that has more recently become home to James Blake, Juan Atkins and Delphic, and it deserves to be listened to as a classic.

Layers and layers of super magic sparkle dust are sprinkled across the silky smooth instrumentation on this album. Elastic rave chords and acid muzak are washed in filtered chords on The Animal Pattern, while the sweet and delicate Raindance delivers choppy techno and soaking wet snares. There are waterfalls, steel drums and tabla. It couldn't be more lush if you lay naked in the dew grass in a shower of bubbles. Wait. That sounds weird. Let's move on.

Beyond the futuristic fat pads and multi-coloured vibrancy of Galaxy Garden, we also have an album of old influences. Lone has mainlined not only into the glassy hyper-charged world of Rustie, perhaps its most immediate modern comparison, but in places there is Underworld, Kevin Saunderson, early Warp and Tresor. Most notably, the gorgeous glow of tracks New Colour and Dream Girl/Sky Surfer stands as a tribute to the kings of smooth, 808 State. In-your-face gorgeous.

I had this album on 'random' recently. There was a moment as Cthulhu faded away - the fifth track on the album but late on in my listening - where I took off my headphones, pulled out a chair from the corner of the room and let the memory of the tracks echo around my head. It sounded like I was listening to my own past. All the techno I had ever loved was here. That, my friends, is some endorsement.

[Read other parts of the top ten here: numbers 10-8; numbers 7-5; numbers 4-2. Click here for the whole lot.]

Further Fats: other amazing lists on Fat Roland On Electronica.

Bleep Years day eight: Luke Vibert's remix of Jamie Lidell's A Little Bit More (2006)

Bleep Years is a random hop around 20 years of musical history to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this website. Those figures don't quite make sense. Then again, I don't give 37 flying frogs so let's get on with it, shall we?

2006: Jamie Lidell's A Little Bit More (Luke Vibert remix)

After making his name as Wagon Christ in the 1990s, Luke Vibert became a kind of brother-in-acid with the more famous Aphex Twin. His best tracks included the seriously crunchy anthem I Love Acid, from the YosepH album, and the big beat goofiness of Lovely, from the Tally Ho! album.

Meanwhile, singer Jamie Lidell was furrowing his own strange path, veering off from the predictable career path of soul singers and setting his musical satnav for the likes of Warp Records and Simian Mobile Disco. He added energetic layers of beatbox and loops in compelling live solo performances. And his voice was dead sexy.

Vibert's remix of A Little Bit More mixed the techno mania with Lidell's soaring vocals, and it's impossible to see how that collaboration could have been achieved by any other pairing. It also best represented Warp Records move from purist electronica into other styles of music (hence releases from Battles and Grizzly Bear).

I've chosen this track because it is such a massive tune, with an electronic backing that is as distinctive and as memorable as the vocal melody. No big emotional pull. No X Factor-style back story. Just, y'know, CHOONiness. Have an ear-peek...

The big beaters are back: new Wagon Christ and Prefuse 73 albums ahoy

Wagon Christ is to wheel out new material in the autumn.

Ninja Tune are planning a 20th anniversary compilation called XX, and have been giving away free music on this site as a free bone for all the barking music bloggers.

When they gave away an old Wagon Christ mix (the label never released it because of uncleared samples), Ninja Tune revealed September's anniversary compilation will contain a new Wagon Christ track - and they promised a new long-player too.

Wagon Christ is the 17-year-old alter-ego for acid artist Luke Vibert. Christ helped define electronic music in the 1990s before getting caught up, to some extent, in the big beat revival and the cut-and-paste chic of Ninja Tune.

As far as I can remember, the Christ the wheeled wonder hasn't released a jot since his Sorry I Make You Lush LP in 2004.

Meanwhile, beat-splicer Prefuse 73 is working on a female-voiced album and has given a shout-out to TyBo on this blog post about the new project. His collaborators will include experimental rocker Zola Jesus, Angel from the Bjork-collaborating Dirty Projectors and Trish from Warp Record's dreamy Brummie band Broadcast.

The sharper-goggled readers among you will note none of this is terribly new news, but I have an awful lot of catching up to do - and anyway, I haven't finished drinking the bromide from my Manchester blogmeet write-up the other day.

Original photo: Stuart Holt

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.

Ten absolutely fascinating facts about Rephlex Records

- Rephlex Records began in the same year Chesney Hawkes, Hale And Pace and The Simpsons scored their first and only UK number one hit singles.

- The middle name of Richard D James, co-founder of the label, isn't Delia Derbyshire, although it would be nice if it was.

- Drill 'n' bass mentalists Squarepusher and Mu-Ziq released some early stuff on Rephlex. Junglist cohort Luke Vibert, who invent drill 'n' bass, once exclaimed, "what the fudge is drill 'n' bass". Or words to that effect.

- No-one can spell Rephlex signing Bogdan Raczynski's name from memory (pictured).

- The music newspaper NME called Rephlex "the coolest record label in the world." They also called U2 the greatest rock band in the world, so shove that in your pipe and call it Alfred.

- Rephlex started out as, basically, a vanity project for Aphex Twin. A bit harsh, but essentially true. Edit: This bit is absolute crap. "Not true at all," say Rephlex, and, actually, they're right.

- Label co-founder Grant Wilson-Claridge found his feet in a club called the Bowgie, which is Cornish for 'cattle shed'. Mr Scruff later made a poster with DJ tips for chickens, dinosaurs, snakes and elephants, but not for cattle.

- There are 13 people on Facebook called Richard D James. There is only one Grant Wilson-Claridge.

- Rephlex calls IDM music 'braindance'. 'Rephlex' can be rearranged into 'help Rex'. 'Braindance' is an anagram of 'a nice brand'. 'IDM' is an anagram of 'mid'. Make of that what you will..

- There are only nine facts..

Everything She Touched Tur-- oh she's gone already

Beats overlord Guillermo Scott Herren is back with a fifth album under his Prefuse 73 moniker.

Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian is the sound of a man dipping his toes into various colourful pools of smokin' beats without ever getting totally immersed.

The hip hop sensibility that underpinned his debut Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives has been spat into the wind here. Instead, we have crunchy, Clark or Vibert-style electronica, sprinkled with shiny aaahs and swooshes to give it a rather false-sounding heart.

My beef is that there are about a hundred million billion trillion tracks on here, and most of them last barely more than two nano-seconds. As soon as your head is nodding to one particular diversion, the CD starts shouting "next track! next track!" at you.

That's not to say the majority of the beats aren't oodles and oodles better than stacks of other junk out there. He recorded this to analogue Ampex tape, hence the album's title, and you can feel the warmth if you stand close enough.

So Herren remains the Mega King Of All The Beats. It's just a shame he won't hang up his coat and stick around for more than one quick cuppa.

Audio lampposts: Luke Vibert straightens up his Rhythm

A four-day break in blogging? Pah. I may as well throw my computer into the sea.

I've been rather busy, though, with an unusual project for an electronic music writer. For the past 48 hours, I have been dipping a tentative toe into the whale-infested waters of Christian radio.

We play some cool (and some not-so-cool) music by Christians, from the likes of Sufjan Stevens, Demon Hunter and Richard Swift, and sometimes we smash things up with a hammer in the name of God. You can follow my exploits on the Theatre Of Noise website, where you will also find a link to the programme's Twitter page.

While you wait for normal service to resume, why not amuse yourself with an old favourite of mine. As I said in this post last week, acid funboy Luke Vibert (pictured with Jean Jacques Perry and a Moog) has tidied up his beats somewhat for the hip hop sounds of Rhythm.

Rhythm brings together a handful of EPs released on Japanese label Sound Of Speed. It's the sight of an electronic genuis very much not throwing the rattle out of his pram. The beats are straight and orderly. Like rhythmic lampposts.

"Is this important?" declares a very serious sounding robot on Sparky Is A Retard. No, not really. It won't go down as Vibert's best album: file this album next to those MoWax-type breaks compilations you used to collect when you were learning to scratch.

Or indeed, file it next to your favourite Wagon Christ discs... which might well go down on Christian radio, now I come to think of it.

Monthly mop-up: simmering Super Furries, dribbling confusion and net-loafing twazmuppets

Play with this cute flash synthesiser. Go on, have a play. Finished? Right then, stop faffing about and read my monthly mop-up for March.

What did I miss in March?

Probably quite a lot.  I should have mentioned Seeland, who are the blessed offspring of Broadcast (website graphic pictured) and Plone, and were tipped for great things in the second part of my 2009 preview back in January. Their music is bright, simple and gently experimental, like a simmering Super Furry Animals. Their debut album Tomorrow Today sounds like the 60s, the 70s and the 80s all at once.

I also ignored the Mark Pritchard single ? / The Hologram. It's his first release on brand spanking fresh Ho Hum label, and it's had some backing from Mary Ann Hobbs. ? is a dark drone that seems to momentarily peer at you from around the corner. The Hologram is a stolid slice of trip-hop that doesn't quite catch the spirituality of ?.

I also need to give you the latest goss on Luke Vibert.  The playground rave mentalist has stopped bathing in acid, and instead has lit up a massive doobie with some hip-hop inspired tracks - but that's for another post.

Can you recommend me some video action?

Yes. The massive, garguantuan, behemoth video superstar of March 2009 lived up to the hype. We've had mash-up vids before, but none has been as nose-breakingly effective as a collection of songs called Thru-You

Jerusalem-born Kutiman grabbed entirely unrelated snatches of other people's YouTube videos, cut them up, stretched them, sliced them, diced them and made love to them. The result is a collection of brilliant tracks that are so unlike their original source material, it renders all copyright arguments into a dribbling confusion. Watch the videos here.

And there was me thinking Radiohead on Mario Paint Composer would be the bestest video I saw this month.

Can I have an animal-themed link, please Mr Roland?

Grizzly Bear's impassioned plea, mentioned in my blog piece from a couple of weeks ago, reminded me of an interview the band did with Pitchfork last month in which Ed explained a shock Animal Collective leak and offered his thoughts on the death of the record buyer.  Read the short interview here. Album Veckatimest is out in two months.

What is a twazmuppet?

Tim Footman is a twazmuppet. Comment Is Free writer and Radiohead biographer Mr Footman had asked his Twitter friends to remind him to get on with some work and stop dabbling with social networking. It seemed like a sensible thing to do. So a few hours later, I messaged him:

"Get some shitting work done, you net-loafing twazmuppet."

'Twazmuppet' was a word I invented in my head months ago, but never had chance to use. So I yelled it at a poor defenceless author. Read Tim's reaction on his excellent blog here.

Tim Footman is anything but a twazmuppet. At least, I think he isn't. Can someone ring the OED to see if they've decided on a definition yet?

What's your favourite Warp track?

This is a question Warp Records are asking you, the general public. Go to their Warp 20 voting site and help celebrate the 20th birthday of the best record label of all time.

Brass band players, coming over here, taking over our dancefloors

The Daily Mail is an august institution that, in 2008, has had an important and positive effect on modern culture.

I'm not talking about its constant chiding of anyone it considers as non-British, or indeed its fawning over old fashioned values where we could hang misfits and still leave the door open.

No, I'm talking about one of my favourite gigs of the year where the Matthew Herbert Big Band (Matthew pictured) sampled themselves tearing the Daily Mail into strips, before bursting the racist rags into the air in a delightful, synchronised confetti show.

Their album There's Me And There's You is a political mix of brassish oomp-ery and jittery sampling, although Eska's sassy jazz vocals are worth hearing live than through your headphones.

Also out recently was Last Step's 1961, the second album under this signature for Venetian Snares' Aaron Funk. It's a massive, brightly coloured bag of broken Roland 303s, 606s, 808s and any other shiny palindromic music box you care to mention.

If you rate Luke Vibert and Squarepusher (who dazzled at last week's Warehouse Project, but that's for another post), or if you pine for old Aphex Twin, you should have this album in your collection. Just be prepared for sporadic ruptions of cheesy pop and TV adverts.

More straight down the line is Harmonic 313's Dirtbox single, which is a darker bad-boy slice of his usual gasping slow-motion Detroit techno

When his album hits in a couple of months, it will sit proudly alongside his classic album of nearly 15 years ago, the ambient beast that is 76:14.

Ah, yes, 15 years ago. When you could leave your door open, shoot whomever walked onto your property, and Princess Diana wouldn't get suicide-bombed by social workers. Those were the days.

Seams burns tunes and Blood Looms and Blooms looms in June

Leila is working on her third studio album, Blood, Looms and Blooms, and like Portishead her last album was released before Rice Krispies were invented* (last album cover is pictured, with the words edited out in a pathetic nod to minimalism).

Taster single Mettle is a dense, trippy paean to the likes of My Bloody Valentine, so I'm expecting a full-lipped snog of post-trip hop, post-post-rock, and post-post-post-everything from her new long player. Expect it in June.

Incidentally, I only stumbled across Leila by accident.

In these new-fangled days of "burning" and "ripping" and other overly dramatic words for data transfer, it's easy to top and tail a copied album with some of your old faves. When my chum Seams gave me some of her tunes on a compact diskette, she sneaked in some late-90s Leila goodness and I was a convert.

While we're talking about sticking tracks onto the end of albums, you'll discover a treat if you rifle through my CD collection. On the end of my copy of Radiohead's In Rainbows (paid £0.00 and now I feel guilty) , you will find the Rainbow theme tune, Rainbow's classic 70s hit Since You've Been Gone, and two tracks from Mariah Carey's platinum-selling LP Rainbow.**

Back to the recommendations. Also look out for Boredom's Super Roots 9 on Thrill Jockey Records. The disc consists of one track, LIVWE, which is a grand symphony of rolling drums, stormy harmonies and wailing choirs. It doesn't change much over its 40 minute duration, but it's worth it for the opening jingle bells. I think it's Japanese but I may be wrong.***

And finally, a gripe. There is no excuse for Jamiroquai: he makes me want to smash in my eyeballs with guns. So there is definitely no excuse for Jamie Lidell's new offering Jim. Luke Vibert's remix of A Little Bit More rocked my world, but this Michael Buble toss rocks me to sleep.

*not true, but it's been a while.

**quite obviously a lie

***not a lie. I'm quite right. *puffs chest*

DEEPER FRIED FAT: TORN UP, JAMIE LIDELL

Reviving my shrivelling grandma and getting out of my depth with Mahler

Just because I've been adjusting to a new job for the first time in nine years, that's no excuse to leave my blog shrivelled on the edge of the pavement like an old forgotten grandma.

Still, there's nothing better to distract you from your blogless disappointment than some nice charts. Above is a bar chart interpretation of Jay Z's 99 Problems, and you can see plenty more here. If anyone can tell me the collective noun for charts, tell me using a graph.

Because blogging is the way I speak, I've kept silent about lots of music. Not least Sun Electric's Lost & Found (1998 - 2000). The tracks were rediscovered on an old CD-R, as the title suggests, and it's a welcome reminder of a band that have been dormant for donkey's.

Sun Electric always lacked the crunch of their techno peers Orbital, and perhaps the production talent of some-time Orb dabbler Thomas Fehlmann lent their music too much whimsy.

When it's not trying to be Brian Eno's Nerve Net on a little too much horse tranquilizer, Lost & Found works wonderfully, not least in the flapping rhythm of Echelon which sounds as though the whole thing was recorded inside a pipe.

A hop over to the Leaf Label now, and Murcof have thrown a curve-ball with their new album Cosmos.

Their glitchy precision has been buried in favour of ambience sweeping from Mahler-inspired moodiness to Wagner-inspired pomposity. (All the other reviews have mentioned György Ligeti, but I don't know who he is and I'm bloody useless at classical comparisons).

It's either quiet, or it's the ambient equivalent of a guitar solo. It's certainly not worth buying it on its own, which is good because apparently it'll be fully realised as an audio-visual project.

In fact, stuff all this lot. Screw it. If you're looking for something on which to spend your hardcore pimp wage, plump for Luke Vibert's Chicago, Detroit, Redruth. Playful acid rave has never been so listenable, and it's the first album I've owned dedicated to a Cornish town.

mpSunday: Pole's Stefan Betke remastered the newly found gems on Sun Electric's Lost & Found. Pole are seriously underrated, so here's a free track. Grab it while you can, because as soon as I post another mpSunday, this mp3 will be kicked to the kerb like gran. POW! This mpSunday is no longer available - click here for the latest mpSunday

mpSunday: Luke Vibert's remix of A Little Bit More

It's been like a ghost town round these parts recently, so let me warm your chilled heart by swaddling you in free music.

In the second installment of my occasional series of free mp3s, here's a singer who has one finger on the pulse of electronica and another on the pulse of classic soul. Probably with separate hands.

Jamie Lidell (pictured) is 36 days younger than me and sounds 62 times better than he normally does thanks to this stupendous Luke Vibert acid remix of his A Little Bit More track.

The jabby, almost ADHD synths match Lidell's frenetic performance style. Consider yourself swaddled:

ZOIK! This mp3 is no longer available. Go to the latest mpSunday here.