Ah, attention spans. We’re losing them apparently. We’re supposedly a generation away from being brain-dead technophiles who can’t concentrate for more than a nano-second without our eyes being seduced by a shinier interface. As someone who contributes to this cerebral myopia by running a blog that actively encourages you to flit between artists without having to invest more than a few minutes of your attention at a time, I can’t help but agree. So thank goodness for EPs like Time Wharp’s GRN then; a snapshot of four sub-2 minute cuts, melding stuttering beats and languid melodies into a buttery mixture that will captivate Ritalin dependants and ADD sufferers alike. Listen below. Or do something else.
Ah, AyGeeTee and Time Wharp. Consistently two of our favourite producers working today, these two have got together and created a blistering, stuttering, getting-mown-down-by-a-machine-gun track with a kaleidoscopic dream-mare of a video by the pretty incredible Astro Nautico/Paolo Xz. It’s pretty nauseating stuff, but shit me is it good. And there’s a dog wearing sunglasses in the video too. Boom.
Oh, and here’s another of AyGeeTee’s remixes, by Motion Sickness of Time Travel. Who’s also done the video for it. You know, casual like. Sure.
There’s what looks like a really great little festival going on this weekend. We got all excited by the line-up and were rubbing our grubby little paws together in eager anticipation when we happened to read the small (ok, fair enough, the totally normal-sized, if not actually quite prominent) print and discovered the bastard thing’s in sodding Chicago. Damn Yanks get all the fun.
Anyway, if you’re in the Illinois area this weekend (well, you might be), you should probably check it out. There’ll be sets from a lot of acts we’ve recently featured like Oneohtrix Point Never, Rene Hell, Mountains and the awesome White Rainbow, as well as plenty of other daringly original, genre-defying and thought-provoking artists. Here’s a quick round-up of what we would be looking forward to if we were actually going:
First off is the new solo side-project from interstellar voyager John Elliott. Not entirely sure how he manages to pump out so much stuff – whether it’s with Emeralds, solo or for his various label imprints – or how he manages to make it all so good. But it doesn’t matter. He does. And that’s all that counts.
Staying in similarly cosmic territory, Portland’s Pulse Emitter weaves glacial, dream-like synth sequences that stretch endlessly into the distance. Definitely one to bury your head and get lost to…
Veering towards more terrestrial tones, we come to the excellent C V L T S, who first came to our attention a few months back thanks to AV favourite Time Wharp and his remix of their track Angel Chromosome. Check that, as well as a cut released especially to coincide with the festival, here:
Angel Chromosome (Time Wharp Remix)
White Cluster
Slightly out of place, but no less worthy of a slot at the festival, is warped blues guitar wizard, Bill Orcutt, whose spell-bindingly frenetic youtube videos have been favourites of ours for some time.
Filling the yawning chasm between Grouper and Fuck Buttons is the mercurially-styled Leslie Keffer, whose past work has veered from punk rock, to extreme noise and now into electronic improv. Should be a really great set if this teaser of a track is anything to go by.
Back onto the intergalactic megabus now for Dylan Ettinger. Check out his awesomely heavy, uber-slow synth-dub odyssey, Lion of Judah. Nizzze.
Last, but absolutely, positively and resolutely not least, is Lucky Dragons. A group that seem to change their entire direction every time they release a new album or play a gig, they’re always an absolute treat to see live. Here’s a quick round up of what to possibly expect, or to make you surprised when they play something totally different.
Time Wharp’s been close to our hearts here at Add Void ever since last year’s fantastically imaginative Helvetica EP. The appreciation was further compounded earlier this year thanks to an exclusive mix with which he graced our humble pages. So of course it’s no surprise that we’re excited about his newest offering and first LP, later.
But forget our biassed ramblings. Listen to it for yourselves. Here. In its entirety.
So this is what we listened to in January. In a month where a post-new year fug seemed to hang for a bit longer than ususal, it was a relief to find such an array of tracks to capture our attention.
It was a pretty solid month in all; Tim Hecker, Time Wharp and Parts and Labor gave us teasers of albums still to come, we marvelled at new full releases from Deerhoof, Richard Skelton’s side project AR and Shigeto, while Women may be on permanent hiatus, but their track on the split 7″ with Cold Pumas et al gave us a timely reminder of just why they’ll be missed if they do decide to call it a day.
Meanwhile, going forward we’ve got releases to look forward to from James Blake, Föllakzoid, Julianna Barwick and, with any luck, some new material from Tune Yards. Happy February y’all.
Those of you who have followed us for any amount of time will know that we’re pretty big fans of Time Wharp’s Helvetica EP. If we had an office stereo, or an office for that matter, it would have been played more than reasonably necessary.
We recently heard the Atlanta based producer was readying his full length debut on Wonderbeard tapes so we thought we’d ask him to put together a mix for us. Thankfully he duly obliged and, unsurprisingly, it’s pretty great. Listen out for his latest single, Mandelbrotset, which is also featured below. And look out for the LP, too, which should see daylight in the next month or so…
Click here to visit our Soundcloud page and download the mix for FREE.
Keeping up with the down-tempo side of things, mix number 4 is a little sortie into the world of slow and syncopated beats. That’s about as close you’re going to get to defining a genre with thousands of sub-categories to choose from – some favourite classifications I’ve found include fun-dip, soul-electronica and the curiously apt, drown-step – but however you want to label or pigeon-hole them, these tracks have gone towards making the year in ‘beats’ a pretty amazing one…
Go here to download the mix, get the tracklist and feed yourself on our other end of year offerings.
I’ve been looking for a peg to hang this piece on for a while. Thank heavens for Rochester’s post and his abject veneration of Flying Lotus’ latest slab of 8-bit retro-futurism (see below). Sure the video’s great, but not all producers out there can be John Coltrane’s great nephew and have two massively popular and ground-breaking albums behind them. Much less can they afford expensive animation with throwaway LOLs and dream-like aesthetics for seedy music reviewers to pleasure themselves to.
What I’m trying to say is that some people don’t get the recognition they deserve, and while I’m not doubting Pattern + Grid World’s excellence , I would like to offer up an E.P. which I believe to be fresher, darker, more inventive, and above all, superior to its competitor.
Time Wharp are from Atlanta and that’s about all I know. They’ve only released these five songs and, as far as I can tell, aren’t touring, have few followers and have had barely any write-ups. For all this, they’ve made a nuanced, genre-oscillating record that generously rewards repeat listens and certainly deserves to be uttered in the same sycophantic breath as Mr. Lotus’. The first video’s not bad either.
You can download the E.P., Helvetica, for free, and legally, here:
