P032: Cabeza de Vaca – Sex special

“He comes. She comes. And its paradise. And then they’re back to the stupid story again.”

 

The story of our lives! Poignant words from an understated classic of modern electronica by Jörg Burg under his Bionaut alias. His track “Electric campfire (in a neo-Akkerman style)” opens this weeks Cabeza de Vaca show and Scanner FM.

 

The origins of this show go way back to 2011 and a post on this blog, when Cabeza de Vaca was just a twinkle in the eye. So not too much more to say in terms of context. All archival material sadly, but as I mention in the show, have been extraordinarily busy of late and very little time to keep up with things, and Sonar is still to come! Apologies. Back to normal next week.

 

Also, just published is a Spanish article translation of an interview I did about Lucrecia Dalt. Sincere apologies to Lucrecia for taking so long to write it up, but the excuse is the same as above: too much work, but I hope it was worth the wait. HEM Berlin have just released a remix album  of her recent “Commotus” album with remixes by Gudrun Gut, Ekkehard Ehlers, Woebot and more.

 

 

 

 

Number	Artist	Track	Label	Year
1	The Necks	Sex	Spiral Scratch	1989
2	The Bionaut	Electric Campfire (In a neo-Akkerman style)	Harvest	1995
3	Virgo	Sex	Rush Hour	2011
4	Jimmy Edgar	Sex drive	Hotflush Recordings	2012
5	Agoria	Speechless featuring Carl Craig	InFiné	2011
6	Omar S	Look, hear, watch	FXHE	2011
7	Newworldaquarium	Liberty hot	Rush Hour	2011
8	Lil' Louis	French Kiss (Innocent Until Proven Guilty Vocal Remix)	FFRR	1989
9	DJ Sprinkles	Midtown 120 Intro	Mule Musiq	2009
10	Terre Thaemlitz	Rosary Novena For Gender Transitioning (Homosexual Spirits)(Kami-Sakunobe House Explosion Remix)	Comatonse	2012

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P031: Cabeza de Vaca – Mark Fell

I start the show this week mentioning there are some song birds in the studio, but its only partially true. The sound proofing is not the best and there were many birds outside at dusk on a partially rainy and partially sunny day. I wonder though what birds would make of the sound of their own voices cut and pasted, fractured and turned kaleidoscopic? Almost all the tracks today feature some sort of vocal like this on Cabeza de Vaca show and Scanner FM this week.

 

The focus is on Mark Fell, but that is not to take anything away from his close colleague Mat Steel who contributes to the archival SND track and to the new "Sensate Focus 2" 12” which continues the rich run under this name. There is almost something Autechral or Boards of Canada-like in the way the numbers have steadily climbed down and I wonder where they will end?

 

The source material for at least the first Sensate Focus 12”s were from the collaboration that Fell did with Terre Thaemlitz, released on the “Complete Spiral” EP. Here we play one track from this which also includes a long vocal sample from Arthur Scargill, head of Britain's Socialist Labour Party and the president of the National Union of Mineworkers during their historic strike in 1984-85. Not your usual house vocal and a warm reminder that politics and electronic music can go together. Sadly, sales of this EP did not propel it into the top 10 after the recent death of Margaret Thatcher. The first Sensate Focus release, and perhaps more, used material from this recording that was then reused again to make the tracks on the “Sentielle objectif actualité” release which closes the show. Fell adds more details on the Editions Mego website.

 

 

“Two hi hats are used: the Yamaha RX11 Closed Hat 1, and a sample from Bassmental's ‘2 Daye Revisit (Kerri Chandler remix)’, released on Nite Grooves, 1994. Recommended contextual materials include: ‘Can You Feel It (Dubby Dub Marc Kinchen remix)’ by Chez Damier, released on KMS, 1992; ‘Hard To Get’ by Choo Ables, released on E-SA records, 1993.”

 

 

No video for ‘Can You Feel It…” unfortunately.

 

There is more detail about Fells methods at this extensive and very informative interview at the Red Bull Music Academy website.

 

Fell has also featured quite a few times in The Wire recently. There was his recent Collateral Damage piece and also an on-line interview as well as a print-only piece on Sensate Focus.
 

Collateral Damage


In An anechoic chamber

 

Finally, there is also Fell’s intriguing use of nanoparticles filmed in a microscope to make truly random music based on the laws of Brownian motion. Not an easy listen, but an important conceptual piece.
 

Scale-structure-synthesis on the BBC

 

Scale-Structure-Synthesis By Jonathan Howse and Mark Fell from Electronic Supper Club on Vimeo.

Number	Artist	Track	Label	Year
1	Sensate Focus	X	Sensate Focus	2013
2	Marquis Hawkes	I want you	Dixon Avenue Basement Jams	2013
3	Vualitron	Dancetsch	Deep Data	2013
4	Boddika	Soul What (Boddika RMX)	Swamp	2013
5	Madteo	Dead Drop (When I Saw You That Nite)	Sähkö Recordings	2012
6	SND	Systems Medley	City Cente Offices	2000
7	DJ Sprinkles & Mark Fell	Say It Slowly (N.U.M. Mix)	Comatonse Recordings	2012
8	SOA-4	Mark Fell	Editions Mego	2012

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P030: Cabeza de Vaca – Ambient

A beatless program this week as we play all ambient on Cabeza de Vaca show and Scanner FM. The show is split into two halves. The first half focused more on experimental and left-field music is also divided into two halves.

 

The first two tracks are from Spanish artists and labels. First up is Mikel Lauki from Pais Vasco (the Basque Country) who is apparently resident in Barcelona. This is his second release after “69º54´S​-​135º12´E” which came out on the Audio Gourmet netlabel in 2011 and available for free on Bandcamp.

 

 

 

His latest release comes on the prolific and highly interesting Audiotalaia label which is also based in Barcelona. All or most of their releases are also available for free by following links from the Audiotalaia website . There is plenty there if you have a look around, including some compilations.

 

Also for free is the recent release from Lovethechaos, another Barcelona-based label. This release, recently made available on cassette, has an interesting history and I quote from the label’s website

 

“Engendrons emerges as a result Of an experiment by Lovethechaos Records, in an attempt to bring together different artists under one same project.

 

In a secretive exercise, five artists were invited to create a 15min long sound piece.none of them knew who participated in this project nor the aim of it. The only premise was to create an unrhythmical piece to lay them over afterwards and create a unique composition unknown to the artists until it’s release.”

 

As for who the artists might be, one could be D.forma who we played on the recent Spanish music show, although there are plenty more there as well.

 

One artist and release that I did not play on the show this was by Alex Gámez aka Asférico and Störung organiser which you can also download for free:
 

 

 

The second quarter of the show features tracks from two albums recently released on Aguirre, the Belgian experimental and ambient label. We feature a segment of Quiet Evenings (Grant and Rachel Evans; Motion Sickness of Time Travel) and a whole track by JD Emmanuel who has been releasing music for over 30 years.
 

 

 

One of his most surprising releases is perhaps a track that came out on Innervisions a few years ago:

 

 

The second half of the show is taken up by some techno and house artists, mostly B sides, but the Anthony Child (Surgeon) release is obviously more stand-alone. In particular, the Udacha label track by Bipolardepth has some beautiful qualities and we will be focussing an entire show on them in the next few weeks. As for Anthony Child, I always wanted to start a set with “Not-two” the ambient sound design track from the end of “Breaking the Frame”

 

Number	Artist	Track	Label	Year
1	Lauki	Atlas	Audiotalaia	2013
2	Engendrons	Side-A	Lovethechaos	2013
3	JD Emmanuel	Illusions	Aguirre	2013
4	Quiet Evenings	Telepathic Heart	Aguirre	2013
5	Anthony Child (Surgeon)	The Space Between People and Things (Part 1)	NNA Tapes	2013
6	Len Faki	BTX3	Ostgut ton	2013
7	Planetary Assault Systems (Luke Slater)	Beauty In The Fear (The Black Dog's Destroyed On Purpose Mix Pt. 1)	Ostgut ton	2012
8	Bipolardepth	Posevy	Udacha	2012
9	Space Dimension Controller	Music For Spaceports	R & S Records	2013

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