Archive
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani announce joint album
Sunergy brings together synthesists Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.’s intergenerational collaboration series. For this edition, a panorama of the Pacific Coast provides the place and head space for a musical appreciation and consideration of a life-giving form vast and volatile with change.
Fortuitously (as is the freaky way), Smith and Ciani were discovered to be neighbors in the small coastal community of Bolinas, California. The two had become close friends, bonding over their experience as woman musicians and, more unusually, their shared passion for the Buchla synthesizer. The music of Sunergy embraces this kinship, with Smith and Ciani respectively performing on the Buchla 200 E and the Buchla Music Easel, two modern configurations of the innovative instrument developed in the ‘60s by Don Buchla.
Sunergy was recorded in the Bolinas home where Ciani has lived for the last twenty-four years. Her living room overlooks the Pacific Ocean from a cliffside perch, creating an idyllic, inspired setting for music making. Setting up their synths side-by-side, Ciani and Smith took turns keeping time and freely improvising for the album sessions. As a complete piece, Sunergy is shaped by slow, pulsing forms and sinuous, melodic sequences that conjure both an oceanic world and the unlimited sound made possible by modular processing.
For her part, Ciani has long been a Buchla voyager. Suzanne proselytized the potential of Don’s synthesizer instruments in the ‘60s and ‘70s, performing her own compositions before introducing synthesized jingles and sound effects to household audiences. Ciani then achieved wide recognition for her debut album Seven Waves, a collection of colorful, classical song-like melodies fluidly working with harmonic textures and sounds of the ocean shore.
Since its 1982 release, Seven Waves has become an important chapter of the ambient canon within which contemporary artists like Smith have developed their own synth syntax. Smith was born just a few years after the appearance of Seven Waves, growing up in Orcas Island, Washington. A place of profound natural beauty, the islands would inform Tides, her first instrumental collection from 2014. Smith composed Tides as an accompaniment for Yoga classes, ultimately freeing her from conventional songwriting into the exploratory, synth-based compositions demonstrated in ecstatic variety on 2016’s Ears.
Despite the serene setting where Sunergy was realized, the album does not romanticize a complete oneness with nature. Smith and Ciani use their collaborative ground to reflect on the unstable forces at play across the Bolinas horizon. Sunergy takes stock of Bolinas in the 21st century, a once-thriving artist’s refuge now vulnerable to real estate pressure extending from affluent San Francisco, and more irreparably, the specter of climate change erasing its many waterfront habitats.
A diametric dynamic is present in Sunergy; a somber meditation amidst the intense cultural and solar forces transforming the landscape, and a hopeful assertion of the surviving creative culture of Bolinas. Far from rehashing the gentle grace of the artists’ seminal works, Sunergy instead seeks to awaken and bear witness, employing the Buchla waveforms to mirror the infinite rhythms of the ocean and our essential relationship to it.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani’s Sunergy will be released on September 16, 2016 on LP, CD, and digital formats. An accompanying documentary by Sean Hellfritsch will be offered in tandem.
65daysofstatic announce European tour + new track and album art
65daysofstatic will return to touring this autumn, marking the release of its August 2016 album release No Man’s Sky : Music For An Infinite Universe.
17/10/2016 Mon NETHERLANDS TILBURG O13
18/10/2016 Tue FRANCE DUNKERQUE Les 4 Ecluses
19/10/2016 Wed FRANCE PARIS Badaboum
20/10/2016 Thu FRANCE BESANCON La Rodia
21/10/2016 Fri SWITZERLAND GENEVA Usine (PTR)
22/10/2016 Sat SWITZERLAND ZURICH Bergmal Festival
24/10/2016 Mon SPAIN BARCELONA Razzmatazz 2
25/10/2016 Tue SPAIN MADRID But
26/10/2016 Wed PORTUGAL PORTO Hard Club
27/10/2016 Thu PORTUGAL LISBON Musicbox
28/10/2016Fri SPAIN VIGO MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporánea)
29/10/2016 Sat SPAIN ZARAGOZA Las Armas
01/11/2016 Tue FRANCE CANNES MJC Picaud
02/11/2016 Wed ITALY BOLOGNA Locomotiv
03/11/2016 Thu ITALY ROME Monk
04/11/2016 Fri ITALY MILAN Magnolia
05/11/2016 Sat ITALY VENICE Spazio Aereo
06/11/2016 Sun GERMANY MÜNCHEN Kranhalle
07/11/2016 Mon AUSTRIA VIENNA WUK
08/11/2016 Tue CZECH REPUBLIC PRAGUE MeetFactory
09/11/2016 Wed GERMANY BERLIN C-Theatre
10/11/2016 Thu GERMANY HAMBURG Uebel & Gefährlich
11/11/2016 Fri NETHERLANDS AMSTERDAM Q-Factory
12/11/2016 Sat NETHERLANDS MAASTRICHT Muziekgieterij
13/11/2016 Sun BELGIUM BRUSSELS Botanique
14/11/2016 Mon UK LONDON Islington Assembly Hall
15/11/2016 Tue UK BRISTOL Marble Factory
16/11/2016 Wed UK SHEFFIELD Plug
17/11/2016 Thu UK NEWCASTLE University
18/11/2016 Fri UK GLASGOW Art School
23/11/2016 Wed TAIWAN TAIPEI Legacy
26/11/2016 Sat HONG KONG HONG KONG Clockenflap Festival at Central Harbourfront
27/11/2016 Sun SINGAPORE SINGAPORE Neon Lights Festival at Fort Canning Park
29/11/2016 Tue JAPAN OSAKA Shangrila
30/11/2016 Wed JAPAN TOKYO DuoTickets and more information can be found here
Vessels release single : Are You Trending?
The new single from the Leeds 5-piece shows the band’s unique electronic sound developing yet further. Vessels deliver their most forceful track yet in the explosive electronic steamroller ‘Are You Trending?’, set for release via Different Recordings, the electronic imprint of [PIAS].
Following on from the No1 Hype Machine single ‘4AM’, this new offering acts as a bridge between ‘Dilate’ and their next full length which is currently in the works and penciled in for an early 2017 release.
The band recently released a deluxe edition of their 2015 album ‘Dilate’ (8/10 Mojo, DIY, TLoBF), a record which proved to be a tipping point in the band’s trajectory from their post-rock beginnings to heavyweight contenders in the electronic scene.
Vessels recently supported Battles at their Brixton show and this summer will feature Glastonbury, Green Man and Melt! with more dates to be announced soon.Upcoming Shows
23/06/2016
Vessels @ Boileroom – Guildford, UK
25/06/2016
Vessels @ The Glade at Glastonbury Festival – Pilton, UK
09/07/2016
Vessels @ Foreign Affairs Festival @ Haus der Berliner Festspiele – Berlin, DE
15/07/2016
Vessels @ Orangerie for Melt Festival – Ferropolis, DE
13/08/2016
Vessels @ Electronica Festival Istanbul – Istanbul, TR
19/08/2016
Vessels @ Green Man – Brecon Beacon, UK
23/09/2016
Vessels @ Bozar Electronic Arts Festival – Brussels, BEAutechre announce European tour + new music
elseq 1 – 5 was released May 2016, and is exclusively available here
Artwork by The Designers RepublicBraids release Joni music video
Released a video for our new track “Joni”!
The video started with the desire to film in Los Angeles. I was spending the winter there, and was drawn to the opposing feelings that the city gave off: cluttered though spacious, freeing yet difficult, palm trees in a desert. The song itself sounded like the push and pull of all these things.
My roommate at the time, Maria-Ines, is a director. She agreed to make a video with me over a weekend, on a shoe string budget. I assured the band, despite having never produced a video before, that it could be done. Maria-Ines hung out of a car window filming as her partner drove the freeway, our roommate spritzed my face for the wet-sheet-scenes, my talented actor-friend Bob agreed to make-out with me, the girl from the donut shop let us film in secret, and the editor, Mark – who had just recently become a best friend – did us a huge best friend favour…… “Joni” is the culmination of people being excited to make something together.
Symbolically, the song is about wanting to be fine with not knowing where you’re headed, not knowing how things are going to end up. It’s the desire to make a “home” within yourself when you’re say – living out of a suitcase in a van, your relationship is ending, or you’re dealing with whatever difficult scenario life is throwing at you. The ye olde question – Can we be ok even when everything outside of us is not?
More personally, the video explores a relationship ending: a couple strives to reclaim their individuality while trying to stay close together, the battle and beauty of what it’s like to be in a partnership. It’s to be bored sometimes though still in love, to sometimes want to run away, scared to actually part because your whole world feels so wrapped up in them. Making this video was a testament to the song’s lyrics – “We don’t know where we are going, I want to be fine with not knowing darling”… None of us knew if this would work but we all dove in, trusting our guts. “Joni” is the outcome for that kind of instinctual trust.
xo !
Now booking : Actress & the London Contemporary Orchestra
BTS – Actress & the London Contemporary Orchestra by brtvofficialA unique collaboration commissioned and curated by Boiler Room and the London Contemporary Orchestra pairs producer Darren Cunningham, aka Actress, with the LCO. Having sold out its world-premiere performance at London’s Barbican, this startling live show is now available for further touring.
Over a decade of releases Cunningham has built a reputation as a fine creator of cerebral abstract techno, or R&B concrète, crafting pulsing kickdrums, jittering percussion and chopped sample loops into churning, rumbling tracks soaked in static. But he has also been on record saying he wants to make‘classical stuff for a modern generation’, an ambition finally realised with this project.
Emphasising the rich textures of his music, the LCO bring a new dimension to Cunningham’s choice of sounds which celebrate the ambiguity of sound colour that sits between electronic and acoustic spaces. With the producer in effect using them as a new instrument, matching his electronic loops with precise manipulation of their acoustic instruments, together they form a heightened kind of chamber music.
This project has been curated by Boiler Room and the LCO with the support of Arts Council England and the backing of leading British independent record label Ninja Tune. The premiere performance of this collaboration was broadcast live from the Barbican Centre on February 10th 2016.
Joyce Wilson, London Area Director, Arts Council England, said: “This project combines two very different forms of practice and communities of music lovers… This live and experimental collaboration will help cement Boiler Room’s place as a leading forum for new music and enhance the range of content on offer to its online audience across England.”
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
Braids announce new EP, Glastonbury, UK tour + video
Delighted to announce a new release! It’s an EP, titled Companion – four songs that were started back when we were writing Deep In The Iris. For one reason or another, these songs were left unfinished. At the time they felt separate to the songs that made up DITI – strong in their own right, but left as unknowns to a larger compositional work.
In August of last year, we had a small window of time at home, in Montreal. Having been on the road for a few months, we were eager to write again, and excited about the material we had put aside. In a focused burst of energy, we dug into a few ideas, trying to construct a home in which they could all live together. These four are the result of that process – a “companion” to the train of thought we started with DITI.
As part of today’s announcement, we’re also sharing a music video we made with our dear friend and past collaborator, Kevan Funk. It’s for the EP’s title track, and was shot a few weeks ago in the stark and beautiful Palm Desert, CA.
Last but not least, we’re playing a few shows this summer! (see below). Thank you for all your continued support, we hope you enjoy this first look into the home of these four tracks.
xoxo,
Braids05/06 – Lawnya Vawnya Festival – St. John’s, NL
05/14 – FORM Arcosanti Festival – Arcosanti, AZ
05/25 – Swedish American Hall – San Francisco, CA
05/26 – Echo – Los Angeles, CA
05/27 – Valley Bar – Phoenix, AZ
05/31 – Great Scott – Boston, MA
06/01 – Johnny Brenda’s – Philadelphia, PA
06/02 – Comet Ping Pong – Washington, DC
06/03 – Rough Trade – Brooklyn, NY
06/04 – Ritual – Ottawa, ON
06/17 – The Hug & Pint – Glasgow, UK
06/18 – Soup Kitchen – Manchester, UK
06/19 – O2 Academy – Oxford, UK
06/21 – Patterns – Brighton, UK
06/22 – Start The Bus – Bristol, UK
06/23 – Pickle Factory – London, UK
06/26 – Glastonbury Festival – Pilton, UK
06/27 – Arts Centre – Norwich, UK
07/15 – Pemberton Festival – Pemberton, BC
07/22 – Wayhome Festival – Oro-Medonte, ON
07/23 – Calgary Folk Festival – Calgary, AB
07/27 – Casa Del Popolo – Montreal, QC
07/28 – Casa Del Popolo – Montreal, QCTickets available here – http://bit.ly/1jQAZVS
“Companion” CD / LP / Digital – http://hyperurl.co/zvpl10Reclamation Through a Microphone: Braids’ Raphaelle Standell-Preston on How Songwriting Helped Her Process Sexual Abuse
What follows is a brave and powerful essay from Braids frontperson and songwriter Raphaelle Standell-Preston.
I started crying the first time an interviewer asked me if “Miniskirt,” a song I wrote, was a personal account of sexual abuse. Trying to push back tears, I said it was inspired by events that have occurred around me, things I have witnessed in culture that I was commenting on. Then I froze. I could be honest. I could say, “Yes, ‘Miniskirt’ was inspired by events from my childhood. I was molested by my stepfather for years, my mom found out, our family exploded, and within a day I was moved out of the house, leaving behind my stepbrother of 12 years. I wasn’t dealt a good hand, but I’m healing.”
Instead I felt dirty, gross, and different—in a bad way—from everyone else in the room. A thought went through my head: “You’re gonna be labelled ‘the abused girl.’”
Austin, my bandmate and best friend, saw me internally freaking out. He jumped in to add that we had created a safe space while making the record, last year’s Deep in the Iris, eventually shifting the conversation towards our recording in Arizona, and how much we loved the desert.
I had prepared for this question for months—reading feminist manifestos, memorizing sentences so that I could quote something that I believed in but wasn’t my own story. I’m recalling this now because I’ve come to realize the reasons for my deflections weren’t exactly healthy ones. It was not for a hope of privacy, or for the belief that my business is my own. It was because I felt ashamed and embarrassed by the things that happened to me in my early childhood, and looking back at it now, that’s not OK.
If you’ve been abused in some way, whether you deem it a life-shattering event or a hiccup, you likely know what I mean. The feeling that you’d done something wrong: That if you hadn’t been there at that time or said that thing, if you hadn’t worn that outfit or slicked back your hair, if only you’d been more assertive or just hadn’t been so naive, things wouldn’t have happened this way. The blame game. Finding presumed faults within yourself to make sense of something that ultimately had nothing to do with you, that still makes no sense, and maybe never will.
The last few years I’ve found myself turning to my art to help regain a calmer and more understanding self amongst this mess. It’s been an attempt to regain control and agency over something that left me feeling powerless and confused for years. I found myself reaching to the microphone to scream, to bawl out those hidden moments in my life. In the midst of artistic exertion, I felt cleansed.
While writing songs like “Miniskirt” felt healing, dealing with it outside the studio was torturous. I expected these feelings to leave me once I said them out loud, once I put them on a record. But if anything, it only made the memories grow louder and louder. Interview after interview I kept thinking, “Why in the hell did I record this song in the first place? I feel terrible!”
It wasn’t until our final show in Berlin, after months of touring, that I no longer doubted or questioned the song. A man came up to me after we ended our set; he cried in my arms, “Thank you soooooooo much for writing this.” For once I wasn’t ashamed of my experience. I understood why it was important to be singing “Miniskirt,” night after night, to be putting out this emotion, these memories. He felt like no one could empathize with what he went through, that it made him too different. I felt that too, until we shared this moment.
I’m going to go out on a whim here and say one of those statements that is quite general, but that I truly believe in: There is not enough societal empathy or understanding for those who have experienced abuse. Our legal and judicial systems do not assist those who have been abused; in fact, they continually work against abuse victims—just look at the most recent ruling of the Jian Ghomeshi case. And despite the recent increased public attention surrounding sexual abuse, many survivors still experience a crippling fear of not only not being believed—but being belittled and forever victimized. (For a deeper understanding of this, read author Jessica Knoll’s piece on the real-life gang rape that inspired her novel—and the slut-shaming that occurred after the initial act; it’s unthinkably messed up.)
As I’m writing this, I have the feeling that some readers might be thinking, “Really, another article on this stuff?” If you’re tired of reading about people coming out about having experienced rape, or abuse, or violence—then good. It means you’re beginning to understand how many people have been affected by it. And if you’re tired of reading another article on female empowerment, then keep reading, because it should be normal, and it isn’t as accepted as it should be. This is a fight we need to keep fighting.
When that man in Berlin came up to me, he helped me to feel understood, and it reminded me that we need to share our experiences, not be afraid of them. The moments that make up our existence, we can never run from. We can only decide to see them differently. Through sharing and discussion, we have the power to help one another heal from the hurt we cannot control.
“Companion,” the song and video we released last week, is another part of my healing. It’s a song that deals with the aftermath of my family finding out about the sexual abuse. It’s about how everything can change in a moment, and suddenly you’ve lost it all. It’s telling my then-stepbrother that this had nothing to do with him—something I’ve always wanted to share with him. And it’s a song that deals with the battle one faces when they begin sifting through the hurt, the memories that were hard, or the moments that they miss. Within us, there’s a damaged person, and then there’s the person who survived. Both exist, and when our courageous half is patient with the weak and empathetic to the sore, we begin to heal.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith announces video for Arthropoda
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has shared the video for “Arthropoda” from her album EARS. It stars director Melanie Lane, who dances by herself at the cavernous Stapelbäddsparken skate park in Malmö, Sweden.
65daysofstatic announce No Man’s Sky : Music For An Infinite Universe
Greetings, Earthlings.
If somehow, between the glacial rush of yesterday’s news, the creeping decay of the built environment, the lone slog to work on crammed mass transit, the dilatory hit of tabloid filth that crept in past the defences you erected round your best self, the screen’s mad diet, cogent analysis of the crimes of the wealthy, the blood on the hands of the kings, the inhumanity of collective consciousness, the brinkmanship of capitalism and the brink of survival versus funny animal .gifs, you wondered where 65dos had got to, then wonder no more!
If, above the white noise rainfall of the weeping of our souls, you had time to feel the bittersweet ache of that little 65daysofstatic shaped hole in your life, then trouble not, for here we are to solve none of that, but nevertheless here with you in this, the shortest and newest of epochs, these low, dishonest few decades between peak everything and the new nothing.
Brothers and sisters, let’s hold hands.
Here’s what we’ve been up to:
A couple of years ago we were approached by video-game makers Hello Games to provide some original music for a new game they were developing, then known as ‘project skyscraper’, now known as ‘No Man’s Sky’, a sort of hyper-real, solitary waltz through a parallel universe in search of oblivion or whatever else feels appropriate in the face of the indifference of eternity.
The game, close to completion and due for release this summer, is also procedural, meaning, for those of you who don’t ‘do’ games, that it generates itself algorithmically rather than manually and therefore is, to all intents and purposes, evil. In other words, it means that the parts of the game one journeys through are theoretically unique, built by the game itself, and you are experiencing them for the first time. And the idea was to create an audio engine that also generated unique instances of music, albeit from a central library of sounds. 65daysofstatic sounds.
Our sort of gig, right?
Plus we got to go to Las Vegas and stay in a hotel room with a massive bath. But that’s another story.
65daysofstatic had been angling for a soundtrack project of some description for a while, but this seemed a little too perfect: classic sci-fi aesthetics married with a scope both cinematic and simultaneously HD but lo-fi, with a nice loose analogy for human loneliness or human agency or human desire in whichever unevenly distributed version of the future you happen to live in.
Right now, two years later, 65daysofstatic are working really hard with Hello Games’ best scientists and magicians to finish feeding enough raw music into the gaping mouth of the insane A.I. composer-in-the-machine to satisfy the tabula rasa that will conduct this vast symphony of noise, in time for the game’s release in June of this year.
And the fruits of this labour, we’ve made into an album.
And so:
‘No Man’s Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe’
The next 65daysofstatic record, and the official soundtrack to the game. Just short of two hours of new music.
Recorded at Chapel Studios, Lincolnshire by Dave Sanderson and Adam Sennitt, produced by 65daysofstatic and Dave Sanderson, and mixed at Castle of Doom, Glasgow by Tony Doogan in early 2015, with additional recording / red-light mixing by 65daysofstatic. Mastered at Abbey Road by Frank Arkwright. No Man’s Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe will be released on June 17th by Laced Records.
Available for pre-order now, HERE
© 65daysofstatic
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith releases album EARS
Composer, performer, and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s new album ‘EARS’ is an immersive listening experience in which dizzying swirls of organic and synthesized sounds work together to create a sense of three-dimensional space and propulsion. Dense and carefully crafted, each of the songs on ‘EARS’ unfolds with a fluid elegance, while maintaining a spontaneous energy, and a sprightly sense of discovery.
Much of the album’s warmth and energy stems from Smith’s use of the versatile analog synthesizer, the Buchla Music Easel. According to Smith “Nothing compares to the sound of a Buchla. In my mind a Buchla synthesizer has the most human sound in it. I wanted to show the Easel’s versatility and range of motion within a live set. I also wanted to spend as little time as possible in front of the computer during the creation”.
“Beguiling, kaleidoscopic, spiritual synth visions” 4/5 Mojo
“A special record” 8/10 Uncut
“EARS sees the human, the organic, and the cosmic cast aloft together, spinning and enveloping the world, illustrated as perfect and beautiful” 8/10 Crack Magazine
“A richly mastered convoy of drones of both acoustic and electronic provenance” The Wire
“I absolutely love her work…an incredible tune that runs in excess of 11 minutes, but if you can offer your patience, it’ll reward you handsomely, trust me” Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC 6 MusicKaitlyn Aurelia Smith ‘EARS’
Release Date: 1st April 2016
Label: Western Vinyl
Formats: LP // CD // Digital
Cat No: WV14501. First Flight
02. Wetlands
03. Envelop
04. When I try, I’m Full
05. Rare Things Grow
06. Arthropoda
07. Stratus
08. Existence in the UnfurlingLive:
01/04/2016 Fri NETHERLANDS THE HAGUE Rewire Festival
02/04/2016 Sat NETHERLANDS THE HAGUE Rewire Q&A
04/04/2016 Mon NETHERLANDS AMSTERDAM Muziekgebouw w/ Anna Meredith
05/04/2016 Tue SWITZERLAND LAUSANNE Les Docks w/ Battles
06/04/2016 Wed SWITZERLAND ZURICH Rote Fabrik w/ Battles
07/04/2016 Thu GERMANY BERLIN Kantine am Berghain
12/04/2016 Tue SERBIA BELGRADE Resonate Festival
13/04/2016 Wed GERMANY BERLIN Ableton User Group Meeting
14/04/2016 Thu CZECH REPUBLIC PRAGUE Meet Factory
15/04/2016 Fri AUSTRIA LINZ Stadtwerkstatt / Kirchengasse 7
03/07/2016 Sun UK LONDON LSO St Luke’s for Possibly CollidingKaitlyn Aurelia Smith premieres Existence In The Unfurling
Listeners familiar with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s previous album Euclid (an album that prompted Dazed to call her “…one of the most pioneering musicians in the world.”) will no doubt notice her heavier use of vocals on her new album EARS. On all but one song, her gently ecstatic swells of vocals emerge to soar over a dense jungle of synths and woodwinds.
After initially composing on a Buchla analog synth, she wrote arrangements for a woodwind quintet, added vocals, and further refined the pieces with granular synthesis techniques she developed in her sound design work (she contributed sound design to Panda Bear’s “Boys Latin” video, and handled sound design and original compositions for Brasilia co-written by and starring Reggie Watts).
Kinetic arpeggios of synths pulse, often buoying her graceful vocal mantras, while woodwinds breathe and flutter, emulating the wildlife Smith observed while growing up on the West Coast (she even studied recordings of slowed down bird calls prior to composing these pieces). Though some of her gestures echo the musical tropes used by early minimalist composers, the world she creates on EARS is uniquely hypnotic and full of life, not unlike Miyzaki’s film Nausicaä, which she cites as an inspiration.
Pre-Order EARS
iTunes: hyperurl.co/gz5pqt
WV: westernvinyl.com/shop/wv145
Bandcamp: kaitlynaureliasmith.bandcamp.com/album/earsArtist Page westernvinyl.com/artists/kaitlyn-aurelia-smith
Website kaitlynaureliasmith.com/
Facebook www.facebook.com/kaitlynaurelia/
Twitter twitter.com/kaitlynaurelia
Instagram www.instagram.com/kaitlynaurelia/TOUR DATES
March 18 – London – Convergence Festival
March 22 – Dublin – Button Factory w/ Battles
March 24 – London – Electric Brixton w/ Battles
March 25 – Paris – La Cigale w/ Battles
March 26 – Reims – La Cartonnerie w/ Battles
March 27 – Brussels – BRDCST Festival
March 29 – Milan – Magazzini Generali w/ Battles
March 30 – Rome – Quirinetta w/ Battles
March 31 – Roncade – New Age Roncade w/ Battles
April 01 – The Hague – Rewire Festival
April 05 – Lausanne – Les Docks w/ Battles
April 06 – Zurich – Rote Fabrik w/ Battles
April 07 – Berlin – Kantine am Berghain
April 12 – Belgrade – Resonate Festival
April 13 – Berlin – Ableton User Group Meeting
April 15 – Linz – Stadtwerkstatt / Kirchengasse 7
April 28 – Fayetteville, AR – George’s Majestic Lounge w/ Animal Collective
April 29 – Austin, TX – Levitation
May 01 – Tulsa, OK – Cains Ballroom w/ Animal Collective
May 03 – St. Louis, MO – Pageant – St Louis, MO w/ Animal Collective
May 04 – Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre w/ Animal Collective
May 06 – Nashville, TN – Marathon Music Works w/ Animal Collective
May 07 – Atlanta, GA – Buckhead Theatre w/ Animal Collective
May 08 – Asheville, NC – Orange Peel w/ Animal Collective
May 10 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club w/ Animal Collective
May 13 – Wilmington, DE – World Café Live at The Queen w/ Animal Collective
May 14 – Sayreville, NJ – Starland Ballroom – w/ Animal CollectiveKaitlyn Aurelia Smith announces European album tour
Marking the April 1 release of her album, EARS, on Western Vinyl, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith embarks on her first ever European tour. Kaitlyn will support the mighty Battles, on a number of European dates, and will also feature at festivals including Convergence, BRDCST, Rewire and Resonate.
Check out the single, Arthropoda, from the forthcoming album, EARS.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith releases album teaser + single
Ahead of her support set on Animal Collective’s upcoming tour, the Washington experimental electronic artist debuts her new single.
You might not be super familiar with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s name but you might’ve heard her sound design work in the outro of Panda Bear’s “Boys Latin” video. Over the past two years, the Washington native has released two albums of ambient electronic music on Western Vinyl and is now gearing up to put out her third, titled EARS. Standout single “Arthopoda” is like an enchanting maze: Smith uses a Buchla synthesizer to create an amazing array of electronic sounds that conjure up forest-like imagery for her voice to get lost in.
“In recording EARS, my intention was to take audiences on a sonic motion ride through a futuristic jungle,” Smith told The FADER over email. “I am inspired by the works of Moebius and Miyazaki—in particular the film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind—I wanted to play with visceral sounds that pull one between feelings of beauty and dissonance, chaos and order. My hope is that, on a straight-through listen, in a darkened room, on a loud stereo, EARS will inspire a rich visual narrative in listeners’ minds.”
Western Vinyl will release EARS on April 1, 2016.
Read the full The Fader article By SHAELYNE MOODIE here
Battles announces full European tour dates
Battles – Dot Net from RANDOM ACTS on Vimeo.
Battles’ European spring tour kicks off this March in Dublin; full run down of dates and venues right here :
22/03/2016 Tue Dublin Button Factory
23/03/2016 Wed Liverpool O2 Academy 1
24/03/2016 Thu London Electric Brixton
25/03/2016 Fri Paris La Cigale
26/03/2016 Sat Reims La Cartonnerie
27/03/2016 Sun Brussels Ancienne Belgique
29/03/2016 Tue Milan Magazzini Generali
30/03/2016 Wed Rome Piper
31/03/2016 Thu Roncade New Age-Roncade
01/04/2016 Fri Bourgoin-Jallieu Electrochoc Festival
02/04/2016 Sat Den Haag Paard van Troje (Rewire Festival)
05/04/2016 Tue Lausanne Les Docks
06/04/2016 Wed Zurich Rote Fabrik – Clubraum
07/04/2016 Thu Munich Kammerspiele (Kammer 2)
08/04/2016 Fri Berlin AstraHead here for tickets
Vessels sign to PIAS imprint Different
Having created arguably one the finest electronic albums of 2015, Leeds five-piece Vessels have signed a long-term record deal with Different Recordings. Dilate, the band’s third album, dispensed with the guitar driven post-rock foundations that defined their earlier work in exchange for a lean, techno-inflected pulse resulting in a stunning opus that had the critics lauding with hyperbole.
Check out this killer remix of their single ‘Elliptic’ done by Houndstooth’s amazing Throwing Snow :
Described as reminiscent of the gentle ebb and flow of Jon Hopkins, Dilate successfully encompasses the band’s love for electronic music and emotive soundscapes. As a live entity, Vessels have proven an unholy communion, maintaining the crystalline melodies and crushing dynamics of their post-rock past and translating their intricate and euphoric studio creations to the live arena.
Oneohtrix Point Never releases Garden of Delete
Oneohtrix Point Never’s new album Garden Of Delete is out now worldwide.
“One of our generation’s most creative and forward-thinking musicians”
THE 405
“absolutely gripping—strange, moving, hilarious, sometimes pushing the limits of good taste, but always in a way that makes you want to hear more.”
Pitchfork, 8.7/10 (Best New Music)
“A sound collage like no other, Garden of Delete finds Lopatin engaging listeners with an album that almost defies description.”
Exclaim, 9/10
“veers back and forth between sections of serene glitch-folk and overbearing, distorted riffage like a manic-depressive motherboard.”
The Verge
“a wholly singular and groundbreaking release that, while adhering to many past and present genre trends, seems prepared to go further in collating and collaging influences than most other electronic releases dare to go”
The 405, 9/10
“a beautifully arranged and slightly sickly morass of curdled pop tropes, out of which spurt a bodacious riff or glossy rave arpeggio. Oddly no-one does this better.”
Uncut
“[Garden Of Delete] isn’t about sensory pleasure. It’s about sensory gluttony, auditory overload, and revelling in the difficulty of its pacing.”
The Line Of Best Fit, 8.5/10
“Lopatin screenshots the landscape of desire, a sketch of philo-fiction found between self-erasure and self-aggrandizement, built as a theoretical installation of denial.”
Tiny Mix Tapes, 4.5/5Daniel Lopatin AKA Oneohtrix Point Never discusses the world of Garden Of Delete in a number of interviews,
The Fader • Vice • FACT Magazine • The Verge
Garden Of Delete is available to own on Double Gatefold Vinyl LP with printed inner sleeves and download card, CD with 24 page booklet in jewel case and Digital formats, as as well as to stream at:
Bleep • iTunes • Amazon • Google Play • Spotify • Apple Music • Deezer • Rdio
Blanck Mass announces The Great Confuso EP
The release of his latest album Dumb Flesh in May 2015, and an ongoing European tour have kept the electronic maverick Blanck Mass (aka Benjamin John Power of F*ck Buttons) very busy. The album was solely written, produced and recorded by Benjamin in a number of different locations over the space of a year. As a work of art, Dumb Flesh is a comment on the flaws of the human form in its current evolutionary state.
The follow up is the incredible 33 minute EP, The Great Confuso, recorded at the end of summer 2015. Consisting of the colossal new title track piece, which runs at over 18 minutes in three parts (featuring guest vocals from Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV legend Genesis P-Orridge), and three previously released Dumb Flesh remixes — “Dead Format”, “Detritus” & “No Lite” remixed by Dalhous, Konx-Om-Pax & Geneses P-Orridge respectively.
LISTEN TO “THE GREAT CONFUSO (PT. I)” HERE
The Great Confuso EP is out digitally today, and additionally several UK independent shops will be supplying limited edition CDEPs of The Great Confuso with purchase of Dumb Flesh from November 13 through the end of the year. Including; Resident, Normans, Bleep, Piccadilly, Rough Trade East / West, Recordstore, Boomkat, The Music Exchange, Hot Salvation + Drift
Following the cancellation of his previously scheduled 2015 United States tour dates, Blanck Mass is pleased to announce he will be returning to the United States with tour dates throughout March 2016. Itinerary below.
It was once suggested that everything we as human beings have ever achieved is merely the culmination of our refusal to acknowledge, or accept our own mortality: a vain, pathetic grasp at immortality via the fatuous notions of legacy, society, family, tradition, art. Whatever. In the greatest traditions of folklore, Blanck Mass summons forth the entity sardonically named The Great Confuso to embody the taunting cruelty of death, and the unknowable beyond. This is the ambitious and gloriously uncomfortable aural propagation of looming disaster.
Dark, glorious and by turn pulverizing industrial metal and hypnotic synth-wash soundscape, this is Power’s most thrilling work to date. The obsession with human frailty so central to his previous work is focused here on the themes of confusion, anger and surrender. If Dumb Flesh depicted the frailty of the human body, this EP illustrates the fragility of the human mind. Dispassionate and candid, stark and bold, ferocious and tender, The Great Confuso stands as a new electronic masterpiece.
Remaining 2015 UK/EU Tour Dates:
Nov 06 – Barcelona, Spain – MIRA Festival
Nov 07 – London, UK – Illuminations
Nov 10 – Poiters, France – Confort Moderne
Nov 12 – Lorient, France – Les Indisciplinées
Nov 14 – Lyon, France – Le Transbordeur
Nov 20 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Le Guess Who?
Nov 21 – Hebden Bridge, UK – Trades Club
Nov 22 – Norwich, UK – Arts Centre
Nov 25 – London, UK – Heaven
Nov 27-29 – Pontins, Wales – ATP 2.0 Nightmare Before Christmas 2015
Nov 29 – Brighton, UK – Mutations
Dec 09 – Aberdeen, Scotland – Lemontree
Dec 10 – Dundee, Scotland – Beat Generator Live
Dec 11 – Glasgow, Scotland – Stereo
BLANCK MASS 2016 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES:
Mar 04 – Toronto, ON – The Drake
Mar 05 – Montreal, QC – Bar Le Ritz
Mar 06 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
Mar 07 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right
Mar 08 – Washington, DC – DC9
Mar 10 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry
Mar 15 – Austin, TX – SXSW
Mar 16 – Austin, TX – SXSW
Mar 18 – San Francisco, CA – Richshaw Stop
Mar 19 – Los Angeles, CA – Residence
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith pays tribute to ’70s musician Bobby Brown
Adding on to their already-busy fall release schedule, the folks at RVNG Intl. have announced The Enlightening Beam of Bobby Brown. A one-man new age orchestra (and not an R&B singer…), Bobby Brown self-released the storied The Enlightening Beam of Axonda in 1972, briefly flirted with greater success, put out some more music, fell into obscurity, and—as the story goes these days—was rediscovered by skilled crate diggers. Not long ago, RVNG’s Matt Werth met with Brown at the Berkeley Art Museum, which coincided with Bay Area producers Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Austin Cesear crafting sonic interpretations of Brown’s deceptively complex work. Smith’s contribution starts droning and chiming, sifting through its own sonic surroundings, making subtle use of numerous textures as Brown often does. Halfway through she introduces brisk, gurgling arpeggios, like Riley underwater, that suggest she’d make a good double bill with Bitchin Bajas.
The Enlightening Beam of Bobby Brown is out now on RVNG Intl. as a cassette-and-zine collection.
Re-posted from : http://adhoc.fm/post/rvng-intl-kaitlyn-aurelia-smith-and-austin-cesear-/
Tirzah releases new single Make It Up
Though Tirzah’s “Make It Up” has been floating around the web for the past few months, Four Tet officially debuted the song while filling in for Benji B on BBC Radio 1 last month. The song is a signature Tirzah gem, combining her soulful yet fleeting vocals with Micachu’s production to ask a flaky partner, “How you gonna love me if you’re never here?” It’s simultaneously apologetic (“I’ll make it up to you”) and uncompromising (“I wanna hear you say you let me down”), continuing the melancholic yet thoughtful dance pop that Tirzah’s made her own with the acclaimed I’m Not Dancing and No Romance EPs.
“Make It Up” is officially out on Friday, August 14 via Greco-Roman (along with B-side “What’s the Use”).
Múm performs live score to silent film Menschen am Sonntag
Founding members of múm, Örvar Smárason and Gunnar Tynes will improvise electronic music to accompany the silent film Menschen am Sonntag from the year 1930.
Menschen am Sonntag is an often overlooked gem from 1930, a directorial debut for brothers Curt and Robert Siodmak and written by none other than Billy Wilder. Not only is the film one of the last of Germany’s silent era cinema, but it follows a weekend in the life of a group of Berliners and is a rare glimpse into the lives of young and carefree people in a city that would soon be submerged in a dark shadow.
Múm is known for its exploratory and exuberant approach to music which can yield eclectic results. Witness to this bear their contrasting projects which range from releasing a single with Kylie Minouge to being commissioned to write a piece for the MDR Sinfonieorchester in Leipzig. múm’s latest album Smilewound was nominated for the Nordic Music Prize.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge reimagines Blanck Mass’ “No Lite”
Fuck Buttons founder Benjamin Power’s solo efforts as Blanck Mass have provided us with some of the finest electronic music of recent times, and this year’s Dumb Flesh LP turned out to be another excellent release. Now one of the best album cuts “No Lite,” is reimagined by the legendary Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle) with Timothy Leary’s dreamachine laying down a helpful hand too.
This one-sided, white-label 12″ arrives in mid-October with just 500 copies on show. It goes without saying, but you need to act super fast. Pre-order it here.
Battles releases new album LA DI DA DI
BATTLES ‘The Yabba’ from CANADA Productora on Vimeo.
Released 17/09/2015 CD, 2 x LP, Download WARP263
DIGITAL TRACKLISTING
- The Yabba
- Dot Net
- FF Bada
- Summer Simmer
- Cacio e Pepe
- Non-Violence
- Dot Com
- Tyne Wear
- Tricentennial
- Megatouch
- Flora > Fauna
- Luu Le
Vessels announces autumn 2015 European tour
We’re pleased to announce Vessels’ return to European soil for a headline tour this autumn. They’ll be traversing the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, France and Spain. Support on the German leg will be from Sea Moya. They’ll also be returning to Simple Things in Bristol on Saturday 24th October.
Tickets are still available for their next London show on October 21st at XOYO.
The whole schedule looks like this:
Wed 21st Oct – London, XOYO TICKETS
Thu 22nd Oct – Brighton, Sticky Mike’s TICKETS
Sat 24th Oct – Bristol, Simple Things TICKETS
Sun 25th Oct – Brussels, Botanique TICKETS
Tue 27th Oct – Rotterdam, Rotown TICKETS
Wed 28th Oct – Hamburg, Hafenklang TICKETS
Thu 29th Oct – Leipzig, Clubstage TICKETS
Fri 30th Oct – Berlin, Urban Spree TICKETS
Sat 31st Oct – Köln, Club Genau (EVENT PAGE)
Sun 1st Nov – München, Strom TICKETS
Thu 5th Nov – Bordeaux, I.Boat TICKETS
Fri 6th Nov – Barcelona, MIRA Festival TICKETS
Sat 14th Nov – Lyon, Riddim Collision TICKETS
Micachu & The Shapes announce autumn tour dates
Following the recent announcement that Micachu & The Shapes will release their third studio album ‘Good Sad Happy Bad’ on 11th September, and the streaming of tracks “Oh Baby” and “Sad”, today the trio have shared a third album track “Sea Air” in the form of a video. The clip was made by James and Mark Hankins and features the band’s drummer Marc Pell playing in slow motion.
Three years after the release of their last record ‘Never’, the making of ‘Good Bad Happy Sad’ was almost an accident: the three friends decided to rehearse in an East London studio, and found themselves immersed into an hours-long jam. Drummer Marc Pell had an Edirol field recorder in hand, and unbeknownst to his bandmates, recorded the whole session; Pell, Mica Levi, and Raisa Khan were so enamored with those off-the-cuff studio experiments that they became the underpinnings of a new record. “For me it’s the most free we have been,” Levi explains. Rather than showing up to the studio with songs written out, the trio started with a collaborative improvisation, from which Levi chose sections to develop into songs, writing lyrics to the entire record “non-stop, in one avalanche.”
Micachu & The Shapes will embark on tours of Europe and America, this coming autumn :
September
12th – Le Poisson Rouge, New York – USA
13th – Boot & Saddle, Philadelphia – USA
16th – Bar Le Ritz, Montreal – CanadaOctober
3rd – Café De La Danse for Festival Agnés B, Paris – France
4th – Botanique/Rotonde, Brussel – Belgium
5th – Stadtgarten, Cologne – Germany
7th – Hafenklang Kultur e.v., Hamburg – Germany
8th – Badehaus, Berlin – Germany
20th – Arts Centre, Norwich – UK
21st – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff – UK
22nd – Headrow House for Beacons Metro, Leeds – UK
23rd – Liverpool Music Week – UKNovember
5th – Oval Space for Illuminations, London – UK
9th – The Echo, Los Angeles – USA
10th – Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco – USA
12th – Holocene, Portland – USA
13th – Barboza, Seattle – USA
17th – 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis – USA
18th – 1st Ward, Chicago – USA
19th – MOCAD, Detroit – USA
27th – Nightmare Before Christmas ATP, Prestatyn – UK