NASA-bass p-funk synths bark like slow motion dogs: some recent(ish) 12"s and EPs

S>>D whiffs more than a little of Autechre, what with the ominous chords drizzling themselves over fuzzed-up snares, but I'm not complaining when the 33 EP cooks up delicacies like Protovision, a track which takes a vanilla breakbeat and drags its bleeding corpse across Satan's kitchen floor before funneling it into a pit of echoey, gooey melancholia. Lovely, even though it's left me with confused cookery metaphors.

Starkey's Space Traitor EP is the sound of this Philadelphia boy having an immmense amount of fun with the science fiction movie score that must be running through his brain all the time. NASA-bass p-funk synths bark like slow motion dogs. Ital Tek is among the numerous remixes, but best track is one of his originals - Holodeck - which also has a vocal sample that sums up this whole enterprise (yes, that was a sci fi pun): "the sounds of man in space." Roll on Captain Starkey's next mission.

Record of the week / day / hour / shake of a lamb's tail must go to the first in a series of collaborations from All City Records called, wait for it, Collabs #1. In this opening slab of electronic goodness, wafer-thin drum & bass exile Martyn (pictured above) gets his dubstep on with Lucky Me's son of a jazzman Mike Slott. It's housey but it's good house and is the sound of two brilliant producers dancing a dense fandango.


Photo adapted from one taken by The End.

Chosen Words: L is for LuckyMe

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

LuckyMe is a Scottish collective producing an increasingly popular style of hip hop / electronic beats.

It includes laser-rockers American Men, and Mike Slott and Rustie. Although Rustie looks 12, his musical brain is more ancient and advanced than sound itself.

Hudson Mohawke, a former champion DJ, is the most well-known artist in LuckyMe. He signed to Warp Records where he released his debut album Butter. If his next couple of albums are called Bread and Wafer Thin Ham, he could one day have a sandwich.

This is the first Glaswegian music scene since the heady days of the Del Amitri Collective, whereupon men with sideburns whined about nothing much happening whilst simultaneously bleeding the joy out of all known music.

The LuckyMe sound fills the gap left by a distinctly unprolific Aphex Twin, although when the 'phex does produce another album, there would be ructions. It'd be the Cornish rebellion of 1497 all over again.

If Aphex Twin and the whole LuckyMe collective had a fight, Aphex Twin would win because he'd do what that creature did to the old lady in the Come To Daddy video.

Top five dullest artists or bands from Glasgow:

- Travis
- Mark Knopfler
- Paolo Nutini
- Darius
- That woman from Fairground Attraction
- Gun
- Snow Patrol
- Wet Wet Wet
- Texas
- This was meant to be a top five, right...?

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Best electronica: some quick YouTube links

If you feel a bit out of the loop with all this electronic blip-blop, and if Chris Evans is simply refusing to play the latest Mike Slott, then you might appreciate this list.

Here are ten tracks that have turned my head in the past year or so. You should definitely listen to them all, then get digging on the internet for more of the same. Each artist is tagged at the bottom of this post, so click through to see what else I've written about them.

It won't surprise you to know that there are more than ten acts out there: these were just the first ten I thought of. I would love it if you suggested more in the comments section.

If you're wondering where to start with modern IDM / electronica, Fat Roland's essential yet insubstantial YouTube link guide has got it covered:

Play the whole frickin' lot as a YouTube playlist or click on the links below:

Hudson Mohawke - Fuse

The Tuss - Rushup I Bank 12

Mount Kimbie - Maybes

Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo

Rustie - Bad Science

Joker - Digidesign

Mike Slott - Gardening

Flying Lotus - 1983

Max Tundra - Will Get Fooled Again

Wisp - The Fire Above

N-n-n-n-n-n-brand new LPs from the Slott and the Lone

Edit: Lone's album is mentioned in my top ten electronica albums of 2009. 

N-n-n-n-n-n-finally, Mike Slott has coughed up a debut mini-album. It's called Lucky 9teen and if I was going to mark it out of ten, I'd give it n-n-n-n-n-n-twenty six.

Opening with hymnal chords and excitable cheering, the record spins us through broken hip hip that digresses through muddy puddles of jazz and beguiling troughs of 80s synthorama.

He's produced more than a handful of tracks with Hudson Mohawke in the past, although if Mohawke's music is patchwork slacks reeking of doobie smoke, Slott's sound is a bit more suited and booted and sporting a sparkly bow tie.

Listen to Mike Slott's Lucky 9teen at Boomkat. Keep an eye on the Slott: he's not just making new electronica: with the likes of Dabrye and Rustie, he's busy inventing it. N-n-n-n-n-n-good work.

While I'm musing about broken beats (do people still say that these days?), let me point you towards Lone's Ecstacy And Friends. Lone is Nottingham's Matt Cutler and a label-mate of Lukid. He has ripped a few pages from Bibio's sun-bleached book and produced an album of such melodic heat, it will leave your skin cripsy and sizzling like an inattentive beach bather.

I'll warn you now though: the kick drum hits so hard, your crap computer speakers will wither wretchedly. Catch snippets of Lone's Ecstacy And Friends here.