Jan 31, 2017

Most-read pieces on FatRoland.co.uk in January 2017

1 - Charts in crisis: here's why there are so few number one singles
"If they do another Top Of The Pops, it will simply be a video of antimatter."

2 - Best electronic albums of 2016: one
"I'm almost longing for World War III, dystopian governance and being ambushed by clowns."

3 - Keeping an eye on Roland-twiddler Lorenzo Senni
"It's full of melodramatic bombast filtered through the smallest Gameboy in the world."
Read more on:

Jan 30, 2017

A final tune for January: let Not Waving's dirty disco pickle your bones


Finish off your January with some electronic acid in the form of Not Waving's Too Many Freaks. Drink it all down. Let this dirty disco pickle your bones.

In my end-of-year list, I omitted this Italian producer's last album Animals, despite not forgetting to list his label boss Powell. I like Too Many Freaks: it's granular and grainy and gnarly in all the right places.

An admission. I noticed this track because of the artwork of its parent Populist EP (pictured above). The low-bitrate contrast must have done something good to my brain. I really am that easily pleased.

Want some more new electronic music? There's loads on this site - click here.


Read more on: , ,

Jan 28, 2017

Is Tales From Fat Tulip's Garden responsible for the rave boom?


No wonder rave happened when you had children's TV programmes like Tales From Fat Tulip's Garden.

I barely remember the programme, broadcast in the 1980s, but I was reminded of its existence in a Richard Herring interview with Sir Tony Robinson. Yeah, he's a Sir now.

Have a listen to the theme tune below, which bubbles up repeatedly throughout each episode as Robinson bounces around the garden. I'd listen to an album of this gloopy, acidic techno. It feels like sonic mulch, all squidgy and satisfying underfoot. The music's producer Kevin Stoney calls it "squelchy" and he's not wrong. I'd like this kind of squelchy life.

It makes me wonder: I'm pretty jealous of 1980s musicians who had all this new gear to play with. There must have been more that went in a techno direction like this. How many other children's programmes in the 80s were infesting the minds of future clubbers?

And if they had gone in a more traditional direction, would we all have been line-dancing in the Hacienda instead?



Read more on:

Jan 26, 2017

What IS the most important thing in Dr Who, Hey Fat Roland?


The latest edition of my podcast raises some important questions. What's the most important thing in Dr Who? What are actors made of? Is space just down the road? How would I cope being on Any Questions? What is Producer Lee's best costume?

If you're hear for electronic music, then you might be disappointed by the knockabout waffle of Hey Fat Roland. Then again, if you're sometimes a total idiot like me, then you'll enjoy it. You can subscribe to Hey Fat Roland on iTunes or get it on Podbean. You can listen to Hey Fat Roland on this site. Or search Hey Fat Roland on your podcast app and binge-listen the lot.

Also because we are living in the future and everyone drives UFOs on magic slides that get wi-fi from rainbows, you can now follow my podcast on social media. Here's the Twitter page, which I'll probably use most, and here's the Facebook page, which will update you with the most important hot pod news.
Read more on:

Jan 24, 2017

Pitchfork's 50 best IDM albums - the Fat Roland edit


Pitchfork's top 50 IDM albums of all time is not too bad a list. I know this because Warp Records said so.

Instead of picking apart the list, bemoaning the lack of Future Sound Of London or Orbital, I shall accept the list as fact. This is now the top 50 forever. Anything else is fake news.

Taking only the albums chosen in that top 50, here is my reordered top ten. I've tried to avoid duplicating artists, although I've given Aphex Twin (pictured) a free pass on Polygon Window.

Pitchfork's 50 best IDM albums boiled down into a Fat Roland top ten...

1 - Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92. Because this is the don. Because it crept into my speakers and never quite oozed clear again. Because of Willy Wonka.

2 - Jon Hopkins - Immunity. Because it's 'played with precision and paced to perfection'.

3 - The Black Dog - Spanners. Because its diagonal beats dislodged something in my brain and I liked it. Because without these guys, much of this list won't exist.

4 - Polygon Window - Surfing on Sine Waves. Because Aphex went organic and shimmery. And then super techno. Because of If It Really Is Me.

5 - Autechre - Amber. Because I didn't think they could better Incunabula and they did: what a pair of albums.

6 - Flying Lotus - Los Angeles. Because oh-my-crap-what-is-this-noise and oh-help-my-ears-are-robots-now.

7 - Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children. Because it's one of the greatest debut albums of all time. Because it changed music. And it sounded sad.

8 - Various Artists - Artificial Intelligence. Because there isn't enough Warp in this list already. Jeez, Warp, if I like you so much, why don't you marry me?!

9 - Plaid - Not for Threes. Because of Kortisin. Because of their rhythm section. Because Plaid have appeared in my best albums of the year lists three times.

10 - µ-Ziq - Lunatic Harness. Just because.

Further Fats: Chosen Words: W is for Warp (Obviously) (2010)

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

Read more on: , , , , , , , , ,

Jan 22, 2017

Herva's all bound by a somewhat startling space jazz universe


Herva's Solar Xub is a scuzzed-up bag of lovely noise. The strangled metallic bursts all seem to be bound in some gloopy space jazz universe. It's kind of startling, like how I felt when I heard Brian Eno's Nerve Net.

This is from his new album Hyper Flux on Planet Mu. Like everyone else, Herva's throwing field recordings into the mix, but he also went round to his dads to use his weirdo acoustic instruments. Not everyone is allowed round Herva's dad's place for album practice, so that makes this pretty unique.

Read more on: ,

Jan 20, 2017

Does Donald Trump listen to music?


Mentioning Donald Trump in my last post stuck in my throat. And my eyes. And my pants. At the time of writing, the only people performing at his inauguration was a boy scout on the spoons and a whistling dog called Rabies.

Trump and music should not go together. His idea of good music is mid-career Oasis, or musicians in dungarees, or everything released in 1951. He never talks about techno or jungle. The only time he puts a donk on it, it's without the donkee's consent.

Alright, Obama wasn't cutting edge. He was cool, but in a mainstream dad way. I reckon he had cassette tapes of Roxette and Lighthouse Family on Air Force One. I've heard he once bought DJ Tiesto's Adagio For Strings on 12-inch and never played it. Perhaps. That's okay: at least he tried.

I'm not sure Trump understands music. I'm not sure Trump understands anything. He's a withered flesh sack flopping from one room to another; a hollow semblence of a human; husk sapien.

I bet the only format Trump's ever owned is mini-disc. And the only thing he ever listens to is the sound of the entropic gas that wheezes out of him every time he sits down: a kind of muddy gasp of exhaled miasma, forever looping in rings around his ears.

Trump couldn't listen to music if he tried: he can only hear himself.

And now this:


Further Fats: The X-Factor and the end-times apocalypse (2004)

Further Fats: In the belly of the beast: a week in Tory politics (2009)

Further Fats: I have just burned down my local NHS hospital while listening to Phil Collins on my walkman (2010)
Read more on: , , ,

Jan 18, 2017

Lusine's Just A Cloud is the right level of mangled



I like a bit of vocal manipulation. I like it when someone traps someone’s words in a bucket and pours them into a grinder. I like it when someone shoves their hand down someone’s throat and fashions a wicker chair out of their vocal chords.

Lusine’s back and there’s plenty of voice mangling on new track Just A Cloud. And by mangled, I mean pleasantly chopped up. Not mangled like a sentence spoken by Donald Trump: that’s just someone trying to remember what a dictionary is.

Have an ear-waft. This is from Seattle producer Lusine’s new album Sensorimotor, out on Ghostly International in March.



Further Fats: Word cloud for Fat Roland On Electronica (2010)

Further Fats: I'd advise skipping to reason ten lest you fall asnooze from my word vomming (2012)
Read more on: ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)