what to do

do it to it:

LISTEN TO EARTHEN SEA this one, mirage, is such a nice record. i've listened to it plenty (and wrote this review about it) but just to be sure any ambient techno heads out there don't miss out on it, here's "velvet grey" which is probably my favorite track from the EP.

SIGN THIS PETITION it requests that panasonic restart production of the much-loved technics line of turntables. who knows what effect if any this would have, but we can dream, right? plus, it's nice to see more than 16,000 other signatories (at the time of this post) agree. sign it!

ANTICIPATE A NEW ALBUM FROM JOSH EUSTIS i'm a huge fan of telefon tel aviv, so when charlie cooper tragically died five years ago as the duo were releasing their latest (and for now, last) album, i was pretty emotional about it. now it's time for a solo album from the duo's other half, josh eustis, produced under the name sons of magdalene. it looks like it'll be heavy listening: eustis started the project in 2007 after learning that his father was diagnosed with cancer. check out this FACT news/interview for more details. release date: june 24.

TURN ON MAGIC MOUNTAIN HIGH'S "RIPTIDE"


PAY ATTENTION TO JOAN CORNELLÀ this (visual) artist has turned into one of my favorites, ever since i discovered his work at some point late last year. his comic strips play out, sans words, like some strange sort of cheerful and often violent game of chess... fascinating stuff. yes, all three images in this post come from him. go to his facebook page to find more.

DO VOODOO WITH A MIX FROM PATRICK WALKER now for something from a former anatomy mixer. originally posted back in november, this has been one of my go-to mixes. "one for fans of lost / bicknell / mills / oliver ho" says patrick. fast, dense, relentlessly percussive and oh yeah, it's a vinyl set. *dope* OG voodoo techno!


LET THIS NEW CASUAL VIOLENCE TRACK MELT YOUR SKULL and now a fresh jam from another friend of the blog: an unreleased track "recorded in one take, using one sound source (on one channel only)"... you might have an idea of what to expect, but either way, prepare your head.


ZOOM INTO SPACE WITH A REMIX FROM SKIRT (which i reviewed here)


BE ANGRY AT BUDGET CUTS AFFECTING NASA'S SPACE EXPLORATION PROGRAMS if you're from the US and/or you're a fan of space exploration, this new york times piece from a few weeks ago might grind your gears. in budgets of hundreds of billions of dollars, it's absurd that the government might not be able to allocate something like 22 million to keep these projects alive, but can find much more money than that to buy tanks the army does not want.

DIVE INTO AN EXCELLENT AMBIENT MIX FROM MULTICAST DYNAMICS aka VC-118A, aka mohlao, real name samuel van dijk. a very deep, layered journey, with abstract and ambient tracks from brian eno, mike parker, sleeparchive, robert henke/monolake, and so on... yeah, i *highly* recommend this one.


TUNE OUT WITH IMAGINARY SOFTWOODS this 2011 album the path of spectrolite, produced by john elliott (formerly of emeralds, currently of outer space) under the name imaginary softwoods, is a relatively recent discovery for me. so i'm a little late, but whatever, it is fantastic, and one of my most listened-to albums over the past few months.


and that's all folks. more stuff to come really, really soon....

(my) recent RA reviews

i've started writing some more RA reviews on a regular basis. here's a pile of recent ones; feel free to read, like, hate, comment, or whatever...

korova - horizontally three solid tracks from korova and NX1, but skirt's groovy, spacey remix is easily my favorite.

earthen sea - mirage a very nice record of what you might call ambient techno, released on ital's label lovers rock. warm, melancholy, introspective sounds, spread out across fifty total minutes. highly recommended.

valanx - ejecta remixes four strange, experimental techno tracks turned into... four strange experimental tracks, but the results are actually pretty interesting, and at least wide-ranging.

deepchord - luxury more smooth, warm, heady strands of techno from rod modell.

draag - occulted hard-hitting dj tools, enough said.

Ø - konstellaatio i was quite happy to get to review this album, which is already become a favorite for the year - it shows mika vainio diving further and further into darkly contemplative realms of experimental ambient music.

rick wade - sweet life decent stuff from a longtime purveyor of deep analog house. "the chateau" is the jam.

lakker - containing a thousand mostly more tricky, broken-beat techno from this duo, but i'll say "mausoleum"'s slow, druggy swagger makes that one my favorite.

... and you can find the whole archive of my editorial writing for RA here. look out for more soon!