Machinefabriek and 9 other artists

[davy]

"Sunspots" is a pretty weird song, though.

[Nick Ink]

1 Pantha du Prince  33
After 7 or 8 plays this week, I've been really engrossed in Black Noise and I think it might be my favourite album of 2010 so far. The beats are brilliantly programmed, diving all over the place while still maintaining a wormhole propulsion. Meanwhile trademark bendy basslines warp and distort the songs like dodgy mirrors and at intervals those beautiful bells and chimes snow down in flurries. It feels a lot more cohesive, flowing, thematic and whole than its excellent predecessor, This Bliss, and is riddled with mini-hooks and tracks-within-tracks. Definitely worth hearing for anyone interested in 4/4  headphone candy, and I'm keen to hear what Black Amnesia in particular has to say about it.

2 Machinefabriek 30
Our titular hero (or something like that) in full flow on a variety of releases, especially the newish Nerf.
I recently transferred my music to an external hard drive and found that I apparently have a round 50 solo releases by the great one now, as well as a dozen or so collaborations.

3 Andrew Pekler 23
3 L/M/R/W 23
Another Machinefabriek-related release - he's the R, together with Leo Fabriek, Mariska Baars (soccer Committee) and Wouter Van Veldhoven. 3 drones - essential istening if your specific area of interest is contemporary Dutch school of drone, but possibly not of that much interest in a wider scheme of things.

5 Tim Catlin & Machinefabriek 17
5 Yellow Swans 17
This is another extremely exciting 2010 release - the final Yellow Swans studio album, Going Places[/i - 5 tracks, 45 minutes, and it's really great. A muffled pulse under the surface helps define the mass of tape loops, feedback, field recordings and guitar squall that piles up on the denser tracks and compared to earlier, more out and out 'noise' releases, there's a softer velvet punch to these that reminds me of Tim Hecker around Harmony In Ultraviolet or Mirages.

7 Akira Kosemura 15
8 Kontinnent 12
9 Chihei Hatakeyama 9
10 Can 6

[edison]

1 Pantha du Prince  33
After 7 or 8 plays this week, I've been really engrossed in Black Noise and I think it might be my favourite album of 2010 so far. The beats are brilliantly programmed, diving all over the place while still maintaining a wormhole propulsion. Meanwhile trademark bendy basslines warp and distort the songs like dodgy mirrors and at intervals those beautiful bells and chimes snow down in flurries. It feels a lot more cohesive, flowing, thematic and whole than its excellent predecessor, This Bliss, and is riddled with mini-hooks and tracks-within-tracks. Definitely worth hearing for anyone interested in 4/4  headphone candy, and I'm keen to hear what Black Amnesia in particular has to say about it.

I haven't listened to this on headphones yet, or given it the requisite undivided attention at all for that matter, but I was a little bit underwhelmed during my first few listens to this. You're encouraging me to give it more chances though, so we'll see what comes out of that.

[edison]

1 railcars 28
Meh. I was going to see this band tonight, but I'll end up staying home under the covers because of a pretty bad cold. Shame - this is really good; he's a guy from San Francisco who recorded a couple of excellent EPs of noisy pop songs with catchy keyboard riffs recalling early Grandaddy, manic yelping reminiscent of Carey Mercer and hip-hop/techno beats. He's got a pretty cool project that involves covering the entirety of Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love, too. I wish I wasn't sick. http://www.myspace.com/railcarsmusic

2 Richard Skelton 24
More delving into Landings, which I am really liking quite a lot.

3 Machinefabriek 23

4 BJ Nilsen 17
The Invisible City - not familiar enough with this yet, but enough to be pretty sure that this warrants many further listenings.

5 Marcos Valle 14

6 Gultskra Artikler 11

7 Beach House 5

8 Joanna Newsom 3
8 A Weather 3
8 Omar Souleyman 3

[davy]

Oh snap!

I synced my iPod the other day after a few days of intensive Danzig listening, and I opened last.fm today to see that he had taken the all time lead in my Top Artists list, ahead of Mason Jennings, among others! Wow.

[Trousers and Pat]

I always liked the format for this thread so I finally signed up for a thing and here is what it said

1 The Fall 25
I think listened to Extricate, then kept listening after it roused me from my procrastination. Work music.

2 Lil Wayne 22
Get used to this guy being on my list.

3 Gucci Mane 14
A couple listens to the "free gucci" mixtape I talked about in the rap thread. Kind of dumb stuff but sneaky somehow.

4 Bleaks 12
4 Killer Mike 12
6 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 11
6 Joanna Newsom 11
I haven't made it past the first disc yet. It's a lot.

6 Broadcast & the Focus Group 11
9 Durlin Lurt 10
The "him jenson" album. A song for every letter of the alphabet. Would have been Number One if I listened all the way through, I guess! It's a spotty album, weird instrumental hip hop (with some feature vocalist, like on the superb "Llamas")

9 Giuseppe Ielasi 10
Concentration music. Aix has the pops and bops that I like.

(ps I'm user choicehotels on there. Are people friends on this site? do they do that?)

[davy]

1) Julian Cope ... 71 -- It's actually a lot more than this, I just haven't synched my iPod in a few days. I just can't get enough. I am gobbling up Julian Cope albums left and right. Favorite is still Peggy Suicide, I think, but Jehovahkill has passed up Fried and 20 Mothers for the #2 slot.

2) Bettie Serveert ... 54 -- Had a reunion of sorts with The Betties this week. They have matured gracefully.

3) Camper Van Beethoven ... 52 -- Another enjoyable reunion. I've unfairly neglected their 2nd half of their career in recent years, but I've come to realize it is indeed the stronger half.

4) Blitzen Trapper ... 33 -- Getting back in the swing of things, pumping myself up for the new album.

5) Fountains of Wayne ... 31 -- Listened to the self-titled and Welcome Interstate Managers. Had fun, rocked out.

6) Sportsguitar ... 27 -- Had fun again, rocked out again, was reminded of the charmingly awkward lyrics again.

7) Macha ... 25 -- Listened to the first couple albums. As much as I love them, I still think the third one is bunk.

8) Pavement ... 24 -- Gave one listen to Quarantine the Past. It's got a good flow to it, even if several of the choices rub me the wrong way. Still don't understand how you pick "Date with IKEA" over "Kennel District." I used to think the latter song was the one Kannberg tune Malkmus probably wishes he had written.

9) Gorillaz ... 22 -- The new album Plastic Beach is surprisingly nuanced/unsurprisingly groovy. I might even throw some money at it.

10) Jonathan Fire*Eater ... 19 -- Used nefarious means to turn up their first major release (the Tremble Under Boomlights EP), which I used to have and still like quite a bit, and the unreleased self-titled LP which preceded it, and which I found surprisingly unlistenable. They came a long way in a short time.

[Nick Ink]

No internet until April 6th - sooooo much to catch up on. 

[Trousers and Pat]

From a week ago or so, I managed to listen to a decent amount of music

1 Pocahaunted 17 I really like their new album Make It Real. I was never too into the other couple songs I had heard by them, but this mixes the old sound with something that's almost funk. It has a lot of drums in any case.

2 Darkthrone 15 You guys were right about this one. This album, along with the next couple here pretty much saved me while adjusting to my life with a shitty new job

3 Pissed Jeans 14 It's springtime and pissed jeans just feel right. There was some mix of this and ALL THE WAY TURNT UP that played in my head for a couple days straight.

4 The Fall 13 Hex

4 Pavement 13 Nostalgia trip. I nerded out for a minute there because I'm excited that I might actually get tickets.

6 Beastie Boys 10

7 Kazuki Tomokawa 8

7 King Midas Sound 8

9 Birchville Cat Motel 4 It always feels good when something with 20-minute tracks can make the list

9 Keiji Haino 4 Digging the soft version of black blues

[davy]

I look forward to Julian Cope being #1 on next week's list.

[Trousers and Pat]

Ha, all signs point to yes

[DanielBurns11]

1. Counting Crows 53
August and Everything After is still my go to record when I'm feeling depressed and don't want to get out of bed and just need to put some music on. A lot of these plays were actually 'Anna Begins'.

1. Fiona Apple 53
I can't believe it took me this long to realize how freaking great When the Pawn... is! Just one of those records where, when it hits you, you have no idea why you couldn't see its greatness all along.

3. Sarah McLachlan 48
Part of my recent obsession with female singer/songwriter stuff from the 90's as of late. This was mostly Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, but I've also been loving Surfacing lately

4. Dance Gavin Dance 42
Have to get my weekly embarrassing modern Emo/Post-Hardcore listening quota in, don't you know.

5. The Racontuers 38
So 'Blue Veins' started playing on my mp3 player one day, and I fucking lost it, had to listen to it on repeat for a while. Decided to give the rest of the album another shot after being luke warm on it upon first listen, and guess what, there is some great stuff on here.

6. Hot Cross 34
OK, so Risk Revival is one of my favorite albums ever, and these listens were an attempt to get into their first LP Cryonics. While some of the songs are clicking, it still just doesn't seem to have that magic that it's follow up did.

7. The National 27
Don't even know where these listens came from really. They're my top band for the last 3, 6 and 12 months by far and they seem to crack my top 10 every week one way or another. Can't wait for High Violet!

8. Off With Their Heads 25
Revisiting their debut album from 2008, which was easily the best punk record released that year, and since, and probably a few years before.

9. Past Lives 18
The rest of their new album other than the closing track is starting to click. It's just so weird to hear Jordan Blilie without Johnny Whitney screaming along with him. Still not over the Blood Brothers break up I guess, but this is helping.

9. The Constantines 18
After hearing and loving Tournament of Hearts I figured I should go back and check out their debut Self-Titled that everyone loves. Don't remember much from it, but it seemed solid.

Look for Songs: Ohia to dominate next week's charts.

[Benmont Tench]

My iPod used to scrobble, but no longer does. Any thoughts on why this may be?

[edison]

In my experience, Ipod scrobbling is very erratic and works about half of the time. No idea why.

[davy]

I've been having trouble, too. I've got it down to a vague science that gets me a scrobble pretty much everytime, but it takes preparation.

I used this to get me started, then had to add some custom variations: http://www.last.fm/forum/34905/_/430299

[edison]

Looks complicated! Pretty sure I won't bother, since my scrobbles are not that representative of my overall listening to start with, since I listen to CDs and LPs quite a bit both at home and in the car. Thanks for the link, though!

[Trousers and Pat]

Good list this week.

1 EDH 12
Her new album prédature. I won a copy! I keep winning things from when I was unemployed and entered every contest I could find. 

1 Abscess 12
This album is a monster.

1 Twinsistermoon 12

4 The Hit Crew 11
I got really drunk on tuesday night, and when I woke up the next day for work the only thing that could prepare me for the world was midi steel drum christmas carols. It's weird but this is honestly one of my favorite albums.

4 Broadcast and the Focus Group 11
6 Caribou 10

7 Unknown Artist 8
All the same one though! Grumbly anonymous mystery techno on the Pom Pom label.

8 Darkthrone 6
I listen to most things lptj tells me to and they are usually totally sweet.

9 Broadcast 5
9 Ikonika 5
9 Grinderman 5

[Trousers and Pat]

The Hit Crew Drop

[ellaguru]

The Hit Crew Drop

Because it's ... April?

[Trousers and Pat]

Yeah, I don't understand it either. Really, it was the only thing that would do

[Nick Ink]

Good list this week.

1 EDH 12
Her new album prédature. I won a copy! I keep winning things from when I was unemployed and entered every contest I could find. 

What's this like? I quite liked Hypo & EDH's The Correct Use Of Pets a few years back, and especially their weird version of The Cure's Lament.

After a little break, here's my week, with a reassuringly familiar, not to see boring first name on the list:

1   Machinefabriek   38

So, well, there are a whole host of new Machinefabriek releases out and if you want an objective view about them, you'll have to ask someone else as I obviously think they're all awesome. Daas contains the new title track alongside some old favourites (the brilliant Onkruid and Koploop, the collaboration with Greg Haines are two highlights), and is a long, patient, quiet record, while Music For Studies is another new one, and again it's a calm, introspective release which reminds me a bit of Oren Ambarchi.

2   offthesky     28
The Hiding Nature album on Hibernate, this is all glitchy, cold, delicate electronica

2      Pjusk          28
An album called Sval. drowsy mix of Gas-type muffled beats and sedate electronics. A bit samey, but with some good moments.

4   Emeralds      26
The newest Emeralds, Does It Look Like I'm Here? mostly abandons the huge, head-shrinking drones of Solar Bridge and What Happened in favour of a much cleaner-sounding, intricate album of shiny synthesizer notes and noodly guitar lines. It's mostly very enjoyable, but I think I preferred the older material.

5     Broadcast      24
This is a cool little tour album called Mother Is Teh Milky Way, which is a halfway point between the miniature sound-pictures that they explored on the recent album with The Focus Group, and more lo-fi songs reminiscent of Future Crayon material. All very good indeed.

6    Relmic Statute    23
Morning Tapes, another great little album out on Hibernate. Languid loops, field recordings and fuzzy drones add up to a rich headphones album.

6    Scott Tuma     23
Been listening to last year's Taradiddle with Mike Weiss and this year's excellent Dandelion. I really like the way his acoustic guitar kind of unravels all over the place and there's a great signature sound with all manner of clattering and scraping going on at various intervals.

8    Gareth Davis & Steven R. Smith      19
This year's two-track The Line Across and 2009's album of shorter pieces, Westering. Smith's guitar crumbles and jangles roughly against Davis's remarkable clarinet work. The newer, long track, Other Forms Of Consecrated Life is majestic.

9    Clem Leek     18
A couple of short EPs full of static and vinyl crackle alongside piano and little spots of electronics. Really cool, like a Lilliputian Basinski.

9   Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek     18
Mellow, kosmische vibraphone drones. Who doesn't want to hear that!?!

11   Scuba    17
Triangulation - a very, very hot-sounding new dubstep release. I heard it around my brother's house while playing cards the other day and again earlier in the week while noodling on the computer - quite excited to hear this again on headphones.

[edison]

1   Machinefabriek   38

So, well, there are a whole host of new Machinefabriek releases out and if you want an objective view about them, you'll have to ask someone else as I obviously think they're all awesome. Daas contains the new title track alongside some old favourites (the brilliant Onkruid and Koploop, the collaboration with Greg Haines are two highlights), and is a long, patient, quiet record, while Music For Studies is another new one, and again it's a calm, introspective release which reminds me a bit of Oren Ambarchi.

Very nice to see you posting again. I haven't devoted enough time to either yet, but I was quite taken by Daas on early listens - I know it's a compilation of mostly older stuff, but it felt like the closest thing to an actual follow-up to the "classic" Machinefabriek albums. Liking Music for Studies as well - your Oren Ambarchi comparison is a very apt one, I think. Speaking of Greg Haines, he has a new very nice album out, if you haven't checked that out yet.

I listened to too little music on the computer last week to mention here, sadly!

[Nick Ink]

1 Christopher Hipgrave  67
Slow With Pages Of Fluttering Interference - a very nice album of warm, mellow drones.

2 Autechre  55
The Mighty Ae - this year's Oversteps is their best album for a decade, and its companion piece which has just come out, Move Of Ten isn't far behind it.

3 Forest Swords 41

Dagger Paths. Crashing drums and Morricone-esque guitar lines set to Burial-ish ghostly two-step. I think I saw this described as 'Tropical Stoner Doom' somewhere.

4 Stars of the Lid  37
I think I fell asleep to Tired Sounds Of... and ...And Their Refinement Of The Decline on successive nights. I still marvel at how perfect and groundbreaking those albums are.

5 Demdike Stare  30
Spooky 2step side-project from the bloke in Pendle Coven.

6 Greg Haines 23
Until The Point Of Hushed Support. A quietly dramatic orchestral album and a much more ambitious effort than his Miasmah debut. I like it.

6 Alva Noto  23
For 2 - some real highs on this, though overall the tribute theme means it doesn't feel quite as consistent or weighty as some of his other recent stuff.

8 Leyland Kirby  21

This is from last year's 4-hour, 20-track set of crumbling, crackly piano loops, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was. I do enjoy this sort of thing, but sometimes feel as though I shouldn't really be listening to it too much, at least until medical science extends the human life expectancy to well over 200 years, as there just isn't time.

9 Relmic Statute 19

10 Emeralds 14

[Trousers and Pat]

Good list this week.

1 EDH 12
Her new album prédature. I won a copy! I keep winning things from when I was unemployed and entered every contest I could find. 

What's this like? I quite liked Hypo & EDH's The Correct Use Of Pets a few years back, and especially their weird version of The Cure's Lament.

Well, I think hypos was the one who contributed a lot of the funny sounds and playful beats, so without him you're left more of the gloomy/cute bedroom electro pop song side of things. Kind of the side I prefer if I had to choose between the two actually. Anyway, you can listen to a couple tracks here if you're curious.

[Trousers and Pat]

Here's my week while I'm at it. I don't think my ipod scrobbling really works though, because a couple of these should have a lot more plays... No Lil B last week? I personally don't believe it.

1 Otis Redding 23
there were a couple days of Otis Blue in there. mostly "a change is gonna come" over and over

2 Destroyer 16
I think I was listening to Your Blues and a got heavy into the midi orchestra there for a bit. Thanks to slowwestvultures for introducing me to this album, incidentally.

3 The Pogues 13
3 Harvey Milk 13
I love it. This is my go-to morning commute music. The new album as a whole has all these epically slow melodies and it lulls me into a peculiar harvey milk worldview. Ready for another productive day! good subway music too.

5 Mayo Thompson 10
I finally got Corky's Debt to His Father and I don't understand why I didn't sooner. I think I was worried it would be more "out there" in a silly way but it's really solid actually

5 Old Sea People 10
7 Emeralds 9
I discounted their earlier stuff as noodley hippie flute music but I can get down with this new one.

8 Iggy Pop 7
I was listening to The Idiot for some reason.

8 Reiko and Tori Kudo 7
8 David Bowie 7
I can only imagine that this is related to when I was listening to The Idiot for some reason

8 Pissed Jeans 7
This band is like eating chips