we love you

image: elise castrodale
the very best - birthday

that was just a dream.

it's not really a coincidence that the logo of Service happens
to be a diamond. it's entire output glitters with prismatic
perfection. the label has developed into the leading designer
behind swedish pop music in the early 21st century. from the
poplab comes lake heartbeat, and it's just what we need right
now. take some time off, slink into the sunshine, forget about
all the conditions, occasions, facts. time is just going by way
too fast and this year will be over all too quickly. so wouldn't
it be all that better if you could remember how you made it
slow down just a little bit by listening to this? maybe you can
never go back, but hey, going forward ain't so bad.

lake heartbeat - between dreams

since i left you

it's been just a little bit of history repeating.

metric - help i'm alive (the twelves remix)

can't quite say

image: elise castrodale
david bowie - time

now we speak rememberese.

is it still yesterday? is there somewhere else we should be? no,
no i don't think so. but after all the things we've been through,
it's the end of april, and isn't scary that after all this we might
just be forgotten? so while we can, let's take the day off, we'll
forget what the future holds. maybe this is what it will sound
like.

memory cassette - rewind while sleepy ep

font love

house industries, foundry extraordinare out of delaware,
continues to produce typefaces and fonts to dream about.
chalet is so simple and subtle, equal parts modern and
nostalgic, it's like a pin up girl for typographers.












not only is the font gorgeous it comes with a set of 100
clever and wide-ranging silhouette shapes — from the
taj mahal to milk jugs — that are versatile even on their
own.



house industries
kap bambino - chalet

one day, baby.

outta respect for johnny walker, paul oakenfold, nicky holloway
and danny rampling, and of course, the packed dancefloors of
the hacienda, here comes the new single from DFA's the juan
mclean, like it's 1989 all over again. 20 years after madchester
ended, the party lives on through the rampling-style chunky
synthetic house beats that backdrop this year's minimalist
version of the human league's don't you want me. two decades
of the intersection of human and machine have created a sparkly,
timeless future where any era can be recreated with precision
and with enough love to fill your empty heart. so it's 2009, and
if you weren't there in 82, or 92, or even 02 (hey this owes as
much to electroclash as disco) come soak in the future of the
juan mclean, whose new album is titled, aptly, The Future Will
Come.

the juan mclean - one day

ether09: noise of art

the noise of art collective celebrates the convergence of music and art brought about by the digital age. its latest project Deep Space Disco involves visual artists manipulating soviet-era space films from the 1960s, while fantastically costumed performers roam the floor, all set to space disco grooves by a live stellar international lineup:

the juan mclean (DFA, new york city)
dj t vs. thomas schumacher (get physical, berlin)
chateau flight (innervisions, paris)
ben osborne (noise of art, london)

dj gilb'r will also be playing a live score to the 1911 film les vampires, and orca and budam bring a taste of the new musical revolution coming out of the faroe islands. bizarre, and awesome at the same time, so what more could you really want:

NOISE OF ART presents DEEP SPACE DISCO
sunday, 19 april 2009
6.30pm
queen elizabeth hall
£16

ether 09: noise of art

ether09: spaceshipp

ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space. 12 years on from that masterpiece of 90s psychedelia, j spaceman returns in a collaboration with producer mathew shipp. the result is an extended noise piece, sculpted from feedback, abstract guitar shapes, celeste and harmonium. not too far from the orchestral drone of spiritualized, and with the same quality of celestial ecstacy, so ladies and gentlemen, we are still floating in space. also at ether 09:

SPACESHIPP (j spaceman + matthew shipp)
monday, 20 april 2009
8pm
queen elizabeth hall
£17.50

ether 09: spaceshipp

ether09: fennesz

do you ever get the feeling that fennesz has been forever defined by Endless Summer? it seemed to be as close to a guitar pop record that experimental electronica could ever get — despite the thickly veiled, scrambled processing and song structures sliced up and diced out, its title, cover art, sun-kissed aura, and surprising dreaminess nodded to a tradition of amiable pop music that started with brian wilson and those original boys of summer. maybe though, it is just that some of us have inflated Endless Summer‘s popness, forming it into the record we wished it to be, instead of letting it exist as it was. the “best” records challenge us while satisfying our need for simplicity and order, in a way that feels balanced and unforced. between what fennesz gave us and what we wanted from him, we ended up with a pop album by meeting him halfway.

so it's no surprise that everything he's made after Endless Summer feels like it carries a slight air of diminishing returns, like coming off a high resonating with endless-ism. still, it would be a mistake to dismiss his latest, Black Sea. instead of a blizzard of pixilated electronic fuzz, there are stately and slowly- evolving melodies. the puffs of static, feedback swoops, and digitally distressed acoustic guitars are still there of course, but in a welcome inverse: spaciousness over density. the record’s best moment is 'glide', a live duet with new zealander rosy parlane. wrapping what seems like orchestral samples in barbed wreaths of guitar noise, they build to a crescendo that rolls over the listener like a sonic wave, then dissolves, but this time to near silence.it makes what's come before it on the record seem even more momentous.

maybe the idea is that Black Sea, unlike Endless Summer, calls for an external imagery, rather than evoking its own - unlike the heady rush of Endless Summer, the theme that runs through Black Sea is actually static. you could say that it's an Endless Summer for the winter; spend some time with it, and it delivers on the satisfaction of blossoming into something beautiful and three-dimensional, something that asks little, but hands out a lot.

if you're lucky enough to be in london, you get to experience it all in full colour as part of Ether 09 at southbank centre. the influential Touch Records presents fennesz showcasing Black Sea, along with rosy parlane, and swedish artist christian von hausswolff, whose new double album Perhaps I Arrive - Music for Ataturk Airport, Istanbul contains four tracks that were playing in the transit hall during the Istanbul Biennial in 1997.

TOUCH presents FENNESZ, ROSY PARLANE, CM VON HAUSSWOLFF
tuesday, 21 april 2009
7:30pm
queen elizabeth hall
£17.50

a day before, at 6.30pm on monday 20th April in the purcell room at the QEH, Touch's jon wozencroft and mike harding will also be hosting a q&a session with fennesz, rosy parlane and cm von hausswolff.

ether 09: fennesz