RFI: Border Community - Nathan Fake, James Holden, The MFA, Petter etc.

Jesse Somfay-We Breathe The Stars Through Each Other is an amazing track in this style...

My favourite Somfay track is "Lying in a Bed of Mist", and though it's a little bit different to this sound I reckon Kate would love it.

More specific to this style:

Andre Kraml - Safari (James Holden Mix)
M83 - Run Through Flowers (Jackson Remix)
The MFA - The Difference It Makes (Superpitcher Mix)
- in fact it's a fair bet that Kate would adore all of Superpitcher's dronier moments e.g. "Heroin", "More Heroin", the remix of Hell's "Je Regrette Everything", the remixes of M83 and "See What I've Become'...

...and esp. the last three tracks on Fleucht disc of Dominink Eulberg's Kreuct & Fleucht mix, being:

Holden & Thompson - Come To Me
Chaton & Hopen - An Area (Hrdvision Remix)
System 7 - Planet 7 (Holden Remix)

nobody really reps for the 'icelandic' take on 'the sky was pink'. that was my intro to border community stuff, i probably prefer it to the holden mix (which i liked a lot).

'lump' off holden's album is, as firstworldman said a few times upthread, amazing (and a bit mental).

I really really didn't like the Nathan Fake album!

I mean, it was repped to me as minimal techno meets nu-gaze and it just didn't do much for me because it was too, well... TWEE. The sounds were very rinky dinky.

As to the "you mean dance music?" - no, not all dance music has that quality. Just because something is repetitive doesn't mean that it achieves that transcendent quality. It's something in the texture shifting. For instance, Orbital's Brown Album has it. Tiga's Mind Dimension doesn't. (Though supposedly the Erol Alkan mix of that is far more psychedelic - I'm looking for that to see if it meets my criteria for transcendence.)

I will try and search out this stuff - YouTube links would really help if you know of any, but I'll go and search myself when my connection gets a bit better.

THANKS FOR ALL THIS! This is really brilliant and v. helpful.

Yeah okay fair point but a lot of minimal house has this quality (or at least did until a year or so ago), especially at this end of the spectrum.

I think what all of this stuff has in common is a sort of florid girly trancey shoegazey feel and a commitment to melody and prettiness that seems to fit the vibe you're looking for.

I haven't heard either Jesse Somfay tracks listed here but he's got another track called Small Pebbled Forest which is all kinds of lovely, albeit a bit more mournful. It kind of sounds exactly like how you expect a track called Small Pebbled Forest to sound.

Actually forests are pretty urgent and key - Dominik Eulberg's Flora & Fauna is another good starting point in that he is an actual park ranger. Although this is his finest moment and isn't on it.

I'm not sure 'florid girly' is entirely right, I dunno about kate but the appeal for me in this stuff is the harshness, the electronic buzzes and crackles, the way the drone splinters and breaks. Trancey though, yes, that exquisitely unbearable ratcheting up of the tension and the inevitable joyous release.

No, I often don't like florid and girly - I think that's specifically what I don't like about Nathan Fake. The tweeness. It's a sort of textural... slippiness. That ever so slight phase-shifting that produces a sense of tension and release, that I'm after. The aural equivalent of yes, a small forest pebble in a very shallow stream - that you can see the texture of the rock quite clearly, but you're also aware that there's a very thin sheet of water covering it and making it... slippy and shimmery. (I could just be saying that coz I'm listening to Hidden Cat remixes right now and that totally has that shimmery quality.)

I'm really liking that Dominik Eulberg track - yes, that's the sort of thing. (How can I get a job being a park ranger by day and making electronic music by night? That sounds ideal, really.)

(Also, can't remember if it was you or Ronan that posted that Psychotic Photosynthesis (?) track a while ago - that's the sort of thing I'm after.)

It's the stutters, the not-quite-perfection that really gets me. Not quite as harsh as glitch, but still... the sense of two very simple textures sliding over one another like an audio moire pattern.

You know, those lights that they always use at dronerock gigs (and I'm discovering, at certain dance clubs. I need to go to more dance clubs where they have the dronerock lights not those stupid fucking lasers.)

some of these have dated a bit worse than others. still. had forgotten how good "shinjuku" was/is. in posting all these I'm also reminded of why this stuff was so short lived, cos they all sound practically the exact same. still...good times!

It is florid and girly compared to a lot of other dance music of that particular time, but maybe not so much on its own merits. The Nathan Fake album is considerably more twee than most of the stuff mentioned in the last few posts.

I suppose "florid and girly" is only half way there really, what makes a lot of this stuff great is the tension between girly melody and more crackly clicky abraisive noises and it's similar to shoegazing in that regard.

But yeah Tim is OTM upthread about Superpitcher's two Heroin tracks, which are about as close as this strain of house music gets to dronerock in almost every aspect. Slightly different to everything else here as well in it's more, erm, smacky.

(bear in mind that dance music sounds like ass on youtube)

^ definitely, was just gonna mention that.

Dextro, Do You Need Help (Holden Noise Tool) is an excellent, 3 minute, beatless example of the fractured, filtered, howling drone.

Really you should just get any James Holden remix you can, but my fave, aside from the obvious Nathan Fake, is the Britney Spears Breathe on Me (James Holden Dub) - what he does with her voice is delicously creepy, it's almost like stalking with a sampler.

ha i was JUST GONNA post that

Wow, so much... this is KILLING my bandwidth, but I'm glad to have these all bookmarked in one place to come back and listen to.

That Shinjuku track is REALLY DOING IT FOR ME.

So that's where that rubbish Simian Mobile Disco track recently ripped its drums off from. That GUNG GUNG GOOP GOOP GOOP noise in the bass range, mirrored by the squelchy noise. Oh yes.

I've had Steve Reich records out this weekend (I swear to god, Linstrom samples Music For 18 Musicians on Where You Go) but this is even more... lushly relentless.

Speaking of Steve Reich:

henrik schwarz, ame, dixon - the grandfather paradox

TOOO MUUCCCH AAAMAAZING MUSIC...

::EXPLODES::

Why did I blow all my bandwidth d/l-ing Beyond The Wizards Sleeve mixes this month?

Oh yeah, coz they're GRATE. But still. I gotta save something for checking work-related email.

(can't see youtubes at work so sorry if this is all redundant)

mnml/drone(rock) crossover: beatless, I think, but how IMMENSE is the whooshiness of Motiivi: Tuntematon's "Mankind Failed", b-side of Speicher 46? (One third of MT used to be in some 90s organ-based garage rockers, which is... maybe a link of some kind)

Can't work out if the Pop Ambient series are a good next step, or exactly the wrong direction. Probably the latter if we're avoiding "florid".

Yr actual James Holden catalogue likely to be a little disappointing on this front, I reckon; the album is patchy, and before '05ish he's not really going for this sound at all. "At the Controls" is a fun enough mix though - and has a short burst of "Watusi" by Harmonia on - and Holden's remix of Nathan Fake's "Sky Was Pink" is pretty essential but I imagine there are already several youtube embeds of it here.

For bonus Kate points, James Holden is also a former mathematician - well, he studied it at uni, which seems to be the same thing to the music press at least - with quite a distinctive nose. (For bonus me points, dude also used to use the slightly obscure music software I used, and even wrote a little tempo-to-LFO-freq gadget for it)

For bonus Kate points, James Holden is also a former mathematician - well, he studied it at uni, which seems to be the same thing to the music press at least - with quite a distinctive nose.

HEY, I SAID NOTHING!!!!

This is the kind of shit that gets me in trouble and gets me hated on ILM.

I didn't actually notice what he looked like - apart from the fact that he looked so much like my mate I that I couldn't actually tell them apart when they went off to have a smoke. And I is totally a DDB, so, erm, yeah. Never mind.

::back to YouTube listening::

You can totally tell that he's a mathematician, from the way that he approaches music. I don't know how, but, erm, I think you can.

i've never heard that britney remix - wow.

i think kate might like The Field.

Can't talk. On Turkish Psych binge now!

Hrmm. That only goes to show the dangers of YouTube. I watched the video with the song the first time, and wasn't that impressed. Mainly because I didn't like the video. But now I'm listening to the song without the visuals and liking it a lot more.

"At the Controls" is a fun enough mix though - and has a short burst of "Watusi" by Harmonia on

^ this is missing in some versions, unfortunately. it's like the high point of the mix.

his earlier "balance" mix is the only trance i listened to.

I bought the mix and liked it, but never really gave it too many listens,

Then a couple of years ago, I got turned on to Harmonia and was lucky enough to see them live.

last week I pulled out the at the controls mix to listen to when going for an early morning run and almost freaked when the Watussi part kicked in whilst the sun suddenly came out.

I had to go back and check it was actually there, really into this mix again, but can take or leave the other less pastoral stuff.

Is there ILM love for this??

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Jesse Somfay is what you need, such as his new album, very good, as in not shitty (like James Holden, for instance).

some shitty holden tracks i really like:

"i have put out the light"
"nothing"

and his rmxs of:
new order - someone like you
depeche mode - the darkest star

You can totally tell that he's a mathematician, from the way that he approaches music. I don't know how, but, erm, I think you can.
he said in an interview that his early stuff was made exclusively using trackers; a sure sign of some math/cs mentality

one thing that was refreshing about holden's mediocre album was its length, under 50 minutes. i do want to check out the somfay album but just thinking about the length of it (2 discs) exhausts me. one disc is "ambient" or whatever though, right? i still haven't gotten around to that 2cd minilogue album but maybe it's not worth it?

also, kinda bummed that it seems BC abandoned the "coloring contest" thing for their sleeve art

Ignore anything you read about disc one being ambient and disc two being techno, it's flat out untrue. There isn't really any straight up techno on it, the whole album is an exploration of sonic textures and soundscapes, some have repetitive 4/4 percussion, others don't (and no dancefloor material proper, really).

Anyone else listening to the new James Holden DJ Kicks release? Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

And my favorite bit from the DJ Kicks thing, I just found out, turns out to be a version of a new Holden release out on !K7 - Triangle Folds

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

Spotify keeps on pausing for about 3 seconds between every track, which is not ideal for a DJ mix. And I can't read who the storming Mogwai remix is by (oh it's himself). But aside from that, yeah, this is pretty dope, but some more bangers would have been nice.

Anyone heard Holkham Drones by Luke Abbott? Think Kate for one would love it.

Its on spotify so I'm just putting it on now

OK, I like the name and Spotify can tempt me to listen to anything once, so I'll bite.

(Or at least until I dispell the illustion that Luke Vibert and a beloved ILX mod had a musical babby which would be awesome)

My biggest problem with this so far is the cover, really...

http://static.boomkat.com/images/356655/333.jpg

Does this dude *want* me to get an ophthalmic migraine looking at that?

Aye, the cover is a little... obnoxious. Well, the typeface is. Same on the rear tracklisting too.

Just about to go out for a bikeride with this in my ears. Anyone else listened yet? I fell in love with the opening track straight away, the rest is growing on me.

It was good, but I just really wanted to go back to listening to Diskjokke. Which is gonna be my problem with everything for the next few weeks, I suspect.

loved a remix of his that I heard last year (Mit - "Rauch"), I should check out the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Ya3g_TiPk

It was very Border Community, but a bit generic on first listen. I'll give it another go, but it didn't grab me like Nathan Fake does.

I never got on with Nathan Fake. Maybe I should try again.

i like the cover, but I like blurry text so I' a suckah

I'm a suckah

i can be a suckah for border community but this was pretty dull tbh. not bangin' or grindin' or squawkin' enough.

Anyone else listening to the new James Holden DJ Kicks release? Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

So, I still agree with this...for the CD VERSION. DO NOT EVER BUY THE VINYL VERSION. It just came in the mail, and I am so, so SO disappointed. I knew it only had some of the tracks (it's a 2XLP, but even then it's length doesn't approach the CD version), but what I didn't realize is that most of the vinyl tracks are different mixes, and for some reason he decided to use mixes that are way worse and totally ruin everything. I'm just flabbergasted.