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Its one of the perils of doing these review type things that there are always releases out there that you mean to track down and savour as your own though for reasons to long to list here you seemingly forget and so ultimately miss out on. Case in point is the bip_hop imprint. Sitting somewhere between the early catalogue work of Fat Cat and Morr with a dash of Staubgold for good measure, bip_hop have proven to be a keynote and influential voice in the ever evolving environ of the generic species known as electronica. Favourable mutterings and words of recommendation have occasionally drifted by our ear of the wares of Marseille’s finest and many is the time we’ve scribbled down potential (release) targets with which to serenade our turntable. Alas to date none have graced our listening space until that is now.
‘Bip_Hop Generation - Volume 9’ continues the fine tradition of this imprints ongoing exploration into - in their words - ’contemporary sound design’. This series of carefully considered and meticulously compiled collections initiated in 2001 has already played host to appearances by the likes of Pimmon, Janek Schaeffer, Schneider TM, Novel 23, Scanner, Vs.Price and Fonica.
As with previous instalments Volume 9 features contributions drawn from a rich and varied multi national spectrum that includes some of the finest creative mindsets to be found plundering the out skirts of pops cosmos, all bar Hauschka - embarrassing to say - previously unknown to us.
‘Volume 9’ is ripe for kicking back, reclining and losing yourself to. The moods and textures within are chilled to lulling, the promise of ’electronica’ and all that such a description entails (ie beats etc…) is a misnomer. Instead this collection explores the subtleties and nuances of electro - acoustics and their ability to apply, cross pollinate and exchange currencies with other generic states. Eleven cuts feature within with seven artists (Antenna Farm go head to head with Hauschka) combining to decorate the grooves with a mellowing and deeply engaging 11 suite set.
First up a brace of cuts by the German collective Kammerflimmer Kollektief who to date appear to have been causing something of a swoon among the more in-tuned record buying populace having to date delivered six well received full lengths the latest being last years ‘Jinx’ regarded by many as their best yet. ‘a dark grey moonlight in the lowlands’ here remixed by Strings of Consciousness’ is a wonderfully worked slice of freeform mood mellowing beauty, a soft and silken mesmerising tapestry of sumptuously glassy riff opines casting caressing lovelorn shapes into the glacial voids. That said we are much admiring of ’kassiber’ with its curious fusion of squirreling jazz codas, far flung sultrily exotic dialects, exquisitely detailed alluring atmospheric mirages and lush lysergic glazes that on more than one occasion had us reaching for our copy of Tank’s ‘bedtime for Rio’ full length. Somehow we suspect this won’t be the last time that KK feature in these pages.
One of the mainstays of the Bip_Hop imprint, Spaceheads are a UK based duo who combine the talents of Andy Diagram and Richard Harrison, together since the early 90’s they’ve to date released nine full lengths again all annoyingly (for reasons which believe you me we will be asking questions about) have all passed by below our normally attentive radar. Opening their account on this occasion with improvisational ‘deep blue deep’ - a smoking cutie that aside passing along the way nods to Bablicon is sublimely drenched with an attractive rain swept noire-esque sheen, amid the shadowed shadings Budd-esque tonalities seep through metered with a wintry jazz inclined hue more readily identifiable with the likes of L’Augmentation and Pram that ignite on occasion into momentary flashes of at the edge of the sofa tension. In sharp contrast ‘urban bull’ perhaps provides the set with its sore thumb, a more cosmically heeled outing this time of asking, replete with snaking hip shimmying uber funk struts, out there wasted grooves, bracing trumpet fanfares, mind warping fried atmospheric collages and psychedelic treatments - try imagining a cosmic fringe parting odyssey by the pairing Bill Laswell and Medicine and Duty.
An utterly beguiling brace from Ukrainian Andrey Kiritchenko next who in between issuing a considerable body of work for esteemed imprints such as Staalplaat, Ad Noiseam and SPEKK also heads up the Nexsound label. Both ‘a walking distance to my happiness’ and ‘liberation’ offer a sense of something deliciously disturbing and just out of focus, the former especially tendered by a cortege of dream like sequences ushered in by the arrival of dapples of what sound like field recordings of said artist walking through a woodland of brambles, haunting as well as resonant and capped with a measured artistry the applied atmospheres are more to do with the spaces between the sounds rather than the sounds themselves though they themselves appear cast as fog bound floral slices of hypnosis - reference wise imagine a super chilled and mellow Charlambides. Similarly frail is ’liberation’ which by our reckoning had us imagining a collaboration between Cul de Sac and Codeine remixed by Movietone though that in itself tells only half the story. A bit of a twinkle some frosted cutie.
Again another ensemble who’ve previously remained out of sight from our view finder are Italian based Illachime Quartet here seen stumping up a trio of cuts. The quartet built around the core talents of Fabrizio Elvetico and Gianluca Paladino it seem have a fondness for classicism, ’cluster pt.1’ in particular is acutely clever for the way it morphs side by side its flair for electro-abstractia with the elegantly conceived chamber arrangement persona of their nature, it makes for a strangely alluring proposition as the hasty clatter of the shifting untimely and untsamed beats rub at odds to the smooth refinement of the haunting key braids as though two musical worlds are clashing. ’cluster pt.2’ is over before its barely begun - a brief slice of distressed ambience metered with Stockhausen-ian dialects while ’high noon electronic’ provides for a slice of mournfully solemn string bathed beauty that you could easily imagine being carved from the hand of Sakamoto albeit that’ll be Sakamoto with Goblin in attendance applying their own mercurial brush strokes to the canvas.
We must admit to have been much smitten by Hauschka’s recent and much recommended we should add ‘musical photo album’ (for want of a better brief description) ’ferndorf’ full length for Fat Cat. Known for his delightfully fragile treated piano arrangements ‘Piano Glasses Laptop’ truly is deserving of the description experimental. Recorded live during a performance as part of Fat Cat‘s ‘open circuit’ festival last year, a performance that saw Bertelmann nee Hauschka share the stage with British duo Antenna Farm; Messrs Leslie and Howell (Antenna Farm and one third of the creative conscious behind Fat Cat) rewired in real time a live feed of Hauschka’s performance to relay it through all manner of technical wizardry to hand. The result being this amazing avant organic / processed / electronic 17 minute suite wherein Hauschka finds himself rendered at times almost unrecognisable, the base sound and source stripped, processed, manipulated, cut up, shredded and bent out of shape, refitted with found sounds and computer processed notations, loops, drones, clicks and speed variations - the end result falls between the ominous, chirpy and plaintively odd with the landscapes forever evolving and shifting with the textures dissipating from moments of refined clarity to echoes of oblique deconstruction, particularly of relevance to fans of Hauschka given that Antenna Farm endow a kind of playful expanse that you perhaps have always suspected he‘s been striving for.
Last and by no means least Adrian Klumpes, here found opting for a spot of extra curricula work away from his normal musical duties as part of the avant jazz combo Triosk. Clocking in at 10 minutes in length ’together under the clouds rolling in’ is a measured and elegant moment of demurring minimalism. Sparsely drawn, fragile and frail, Klumpes shifts away from his usual jazz calling and applies some wonderfully liberating classical touches to this piano suite, replete with bounteous braids of pulse quickening canters and scored with a melody that ebbs and flows with an enchanting eeriness, he dapples the mix with a haunting aura of monochrome shadings and a casting of icy glares that ultimately have the effect of having you pausing to consider the safety afforded from behind the sofa as an ideal vantage point from which to enjoy - lights on being a recommended option.
www.bip-hop.com
Key tracks -
Spaceheads ’urban bull’
Hauschka / Antenna Farm ’piano glasses laptop’
Kammerflimmer kollektief ’kassiber’
MARK BARTON
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