Toshoklabs: The electronic site/label produced an hour-long set (89 MB) at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s opening reception for its electronic-art exhibition, titled Bitstream. (Speaking of which, here‘s a good story about the overall exhibit.)
Category: the crate
Pop After Portishead
The single “Paths” off the recent Robert Miles CD, Organik (Shakti), features Nina Miranda (of the British trio Smoke City) contributing a sinewy, Portishead-style riff of a vocal against Miles’ blend of urban and Middle Eastern sounds. He combined electronics with a mid-size orchestra on the album, and the effect is moving and sensual. The single’s B-side provides an answer for those who’ve been wondering what Future Sound of London have been up to lately. By redeploying “Paths” (dubbing their effort the “Cosmic Juke Box Remix”) to add a bit of groovy electric guitar, hand claps and thick backing vocals, FSOL (purposefully or not) bring to mind early Jesus Jones and Big Audio Dynamite singles, which set multi-culti joy against a looping backbeat. A good introduction to a worthy CD.
Atomspheric Remixes
Shinju Gumi is the name adopted by Frederic Paul, a Paris-based composer who is more than comfortable repeating a bar for the Nth time, to Zen effect, before moving forward. Mixing a Ghost (Shadow) isn’t quite a snail’s-pace affair, but this collection (largely of remixes) achieves a lovely, atmospheric effect. The remixers include Tarwater (aka Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok), 7-Hurtz, Solex and others. The influence of soundtrack-style drama and proto-minimalist classical music (especially Satie — there’s a substantial amount of rudimentary acoustic piano) is highly evident, but never unenjoyable or overstated.
Minneapolis’ Finest
On February 1, the estimable Minneapolis-based abstract electronic musician Jake Mandell posted four web-exclusive MP3 files on his site: three originals and one remix of the band Triangle.
Plastikman, Outta Afrika
M-Nus (m-nus.com), the record label of Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman). Highly recommended is “Afrika,” tribal techno at its best.