Boards Of Canada - Hi Scores (1996, SKAM)

Boards Of Canada are a duo from Scotland who are among the most well-known IDM artists since the mid-'90s, with their releases on the influential Warp Records and super-limited SKAM label. Their style presented a new interpretation of trip-hop and downtempo atmospheres, with an experimental IDM influence, and a focus on vintage-sounding, slightly-detuned synthesizer tones and obscure film samples. Like Aphex Twin, many rumors regarding Boards Of Canada's production methods spread on forums during the late '90s, but as far as I can discern, much of BOC's instrumentation was produced on "a pair of Roland SH-101s" and all of their material was recorded on reel-to-reel tape for a more authentic analog sound (at least this applied to their earlier releases). While '98's "Music Has The Right To Children" is considered the break-through album that really got people paying attention, I first heard a big buzz online around the "Hi Scores" EP released on limited 12" in '96, but didn't get to hear the material until '99 when it was reissued on CD and distributed in the US. The EP has a more heavily IDM-influenced sound than subsequent albums, but also features the trademark BOC sounds and melancholy melodies. "Nlogax" and "June 9th" are the most unusual of the selection, the former with a sound that brings to mind a merging of Bochum Welt with Metro Area,and the latter bearing a strong resemblance to Autechre's rhythmic sensibility, with both still incorporating recognizably-BOC synth programming. The other four tracks clearly present the seeds of compositional and sonic styles that would become BOC's focus, leading up to the phenomenal "In A Beautiful Place In The Country" EP in '00 and subsequent albums. "Everything You Do Is A Balloon" is a particularly haunting and catchy piece, which inspired a very cool fan-made video. I only wish that vinyl editions of '90s-era BOC was more available in the US...

Harold Budd - Lovely Thunder (1986, Editions EG)

Harold Budd is one of my favorite ambient composers, most well known for his piano compositions and improvisations, such as on the classic collaborations with Brian Eno "Ambient II" and "The Pearl". He has also explored electronic ambient textures in his own melodic style on several recordings in the '80s and '90s, and "Lovely Thunder" is one that I've returned to many times. Budd recorded the pieces while working with gothic/dream-pop group Cocteau Twins, with whom he released an ethereal pop-tinged album "The Moon And The Melodies" in the same year on the influential 4AD label. The tracks are all familiar Budd territory, but unique in their instrumentation, as they were produced in the Cocteau Twin's studios and make bolder use of digital synthesizer sounds. The mid-'80s synth sound has a distinctly "dated" quality to it, but the production and tone of "Lovely Thunder" is such that the sounds have a warmth and haunting, ethereal texture that predates and assumably inspired a lot of '90s-era ambient music. While the vinyl edition featured six song-length sketches, the CD also adds an extended piece entitled "Gypsy Violin", nearly 21 minutes in length, which explores longer-form drone territory as well as orchestral textures and soloing with a very digital '80s feel. Each piece has a different emotional tone, generally exploring soft-spoken mystery, melancholy and drama. In his following album, "The White Arcades", Budd reintroduced his piano to the mix, and worked in more abstract, ambient directions along with slightly less synthetic-sounding instrumentation. Budd has released many high-quality albums over his nearly-40 year career, but I especially enjoy his work from the '80s.

King Midas Sound – Dub Heavy - Hearts & Ghosts + Cool Out 12”s (2009, Hyperdub)

After getting everyone's attention by introducing Burial to the world in '05-'06, Hyperdub has continued to release a steady stream of quality 12”s every few months, including debuts by many other promising artists on the experimental outskirts of the dubstep and hiphop scenes. I love the chiptune-inspired quirkiness and bass heaviness of the Quarta 330, Zomby and Samiyam releases, and the reggae dubstep stylings of both of LV's killer 12”s. More recently, a new duo called King Midas Sound has made an appearance, first with '08s “Cool Out,” which featured one original vocal track and two abstract remixes by cutting-edge, IDM-tinged hiphop heads Dabrye and Flying Lotus. King Midas Sound is a collaboration between Kevin Saunderson, best known for his many releases as The Bug, a punishing, distortion-heavy take on the dancehall and dub sound, and vocalist Roger Robinson, who has several releases of his own on the Altered Vibes label which I haven't heard. Their second 12”, “Dub Heavy – Hearts & Ghosts”, released earlier this month, totally blew me away with its deep, chilled out dub sound. The songs have a traditional dub reggae style to them, but with a futuristic, gritty sonic palette. My first impressions were that it reminded me of the mid-'90s Massive Attack sound, like something from “Protection”, but with a fantastic updated sound that I don't think I've heard anyone else do anything similar to recently, if ever. Both 12”s have elements of down-tempo, hiphop and dub techno, presenting a fascinating blend with a forward-thinking vision of what could be the next step for these genres. “Too Long Dub”, for example, has a pounding 4/4 throb and hissy textures that are reminiscent of Deepchord/Echospace, yet with a different rhythmic sensibility and composition style. According to the King Midas Sound myspace page, there is a full-length entitled “Super Heavy” forthcoming, of which four demo tracks can be heard in their audio player. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for the release date!

Tread – Tread 3 (2002, Norm)

Hiroshi Watanabe is best know for his series of releases on Kompakt as Kaito, which turned a lot of heads in '01-'02 with a fresh interpretation of trance techno that reviewers ended up calling “neo-trance”. Most people are not aware that Watanabe had been active in Japan since the mid-'90s producing 12”s and music for video games, including the Beat Mania series. At the same time as the Kaito material was being released worldwide, Watanabe was also collaborating with Takehiko Kitahara, a fashion designer and graphic artist with whom he runs the Norm label, and releasing albums under the name Tread only in Japan, and later, the UK via Third Ear. Whereas Kaito explored multi-layered, high-energy synthesizer riffs and pounding trance beats, Tread is more along the down-tempo, “chill out” side of house music. The tracks have a slow-burning groove, with gentle, undistorted instrumentation, and minimalist, unprocessed drum machine patterns that sound influenced by Theo Parrish, although simpler and less experimental/jumpy. Although centered around 4/4 house beats, most of the tracks are 100bpm and under, making them less appropriate for the dance floor and better suited for lounging and head-nodding. The tone alternates between chill, blissed out and a bit melancholy, with a funky edge throughout. Tread produced five albums between '01 and '05, each consisting of around 8 long tracks, with similar striped covers with a different color scheme for each release, each representing a season of the year (“Tread 3” being Summer). I guess the 5th album wasn't originally planned in the series, and does not appear to feature the same cover style. I personally found “Tread 3” to be my favorite and the most catchy, but all of the Tread material is worth hearing and explores similar territory, plus I have to admit I haven't heard the most recent “Tread 5”. I also have really enjoyed Kaito's 12”s and “Special Life” album on Kompakt, but when I am not feeling so high-energy, Tread makes excellent low-key house music.

Nobukazu Takemura – Kobito No Kuni (Unreleased Tracks ~1999) (2007, Moonlit)

“Kobito No Kuni” is the most recent solo-release by Nobukazu Takemura, and his first since '03, although it is actually a collection of out-takes from my personal favorite time period of his works. Following the ground-breaking “Child & Magic” album in '97, which merged futuristic IDM and drum'n'bass programming with minimalist, neo-classical instrumentation and singing children, Takemura went deeper into abstraction with a pair of CDs produced for fashion designer Issey Miyake's shows in Italy in '99 entitled “Milano” and “Finale”. Both albums were firmly in the experimental neo-classical mode, using synthesized and real classical instrument sounds to create abstract textures and patterns that bring to mind Philip Glass or Steve Reich, but with a glitchy computerized edge. Takemura also developed his innovative “skipping CD shuffle” sound production technique around this time, in which he created spontaneous, glitchy looping patterns from brief snippets of what sounds like distorted chamber music. This method was used to critical acclaim on '99s “Scope”, released domestically by Thrill Jockey, which introduced many Americans to Takemura's sound. Beginning with the “Sign” EP in '00, Takemura began experimenting with generative hyper-IDM beats and lo-fi computer voice singing, taking his music in another, even more futuristic direction, but leaving behind much of the simplicity of his earlier neo-classical work. I am glad to find that “Kobito No Kuni” collects over 70 minutes of such material, and while two of the tracks clock in at about 18 minutes apiece and could probably have been half that, for the most part the pieces keep constantly moving and shifting in unexpected ways. The textures are at times both warm and organic, mellow and playful, as well as cold and digital, without getting too far into noisy DSP freak-out territory. According to Takemura's website, which has been “under construction” since '06, he spoke in March this year at the Japan Society in NYC alongside Steve Reich, and has recently relocated from Kyoto, Japan to Germany. I have been a big fan of Takemura's Childisc/Moonlit labels for nearly a decade now, and hope that more material along the lines of “Kobito No Kuni” will get released soon.

Theo Parrish – Sound Signature Sounds (2000, Sound Signature)

Theo Parrish is a house artist and DJ from Detroit who has been putting out original, abstract, lo-fi dance records since the mid '90s, and now runs his own Sound Signature label, releasing a steady stream of his own and his friends' 12”s each year. I first heard a buzz about Theo on internet discussion forums around the release of his “Sound Signature Sounds” CD, which collects tracks from the label's first six 12”s. The aesthetic is minimalist and organic, with unprocessed drum machine beats, gritty low-bitrate samples and live-feeling synth chords and melodic improvisation. Hints of disco and funk rhythms enter the mix, and the mood is deep and soulful, yet largely instrumental save for some abstract looping vocal samples in the background. I love the jazzy feel to the chord progressions and the constant live change-ups in the drum patterns. All the elements of Theo Parrish's later musical composition styles make an experience here, from tribal African drumming, quirky synth programming to endlessly repeating hypnotic disco loops which he later explored on his fascinating Ugly Edits 12” white-label series. Along with fellow Detroit deep house master Kenny Dixon Jr. aka Moodymann, with whom Theo has collaborated on the KDJ label, Theo Parrish is outspoken on the roots of modern dance music as coming from African sources, and considers his DJ sets to be musical history lessons in motion. My personal favorite era of Theo Parrish 12"s is '96-'02, but to be honest I find something I enjoy on almost everything he releases, including his more recent full-length and EPs with organic live house band 3 Chairs, and his '08-'09 Sound Signature 12"s on an extended blunted space-jam tip are well worth hearing!

Gregg Kowalsky – Tape Chants (2009, Kranky)

"Tape Chants" is fellow-Mills-grad Gregg Kowalsky's second release for Kranky, a US label long-established as an innovator in ambient and post-rock experimentalism. The album is based on a series of live performances/installations, in which an array of cassette tape players were placed around a room, playing recordings of minimal sound sources such as sinewave oscillators, mixer feedback, and contact mic recordings. During the peformance, Gregg would walk around the space and adjust the volume of the tapes, allowing the acoustics of the room and the position of the listener to play a role in the reception of the sound. For the "Tape Chants" album, the surround-sound element has been lost, but many of the recordings used in the performances have been incorporated into the mix, along with some subdued percussive elements played on what sound like the inside strings of a piano, and according to the liner notes there is also gong, motors, water, glass, etc. The result is a very organic-sounding, slightly lo-fi ambience which brings to mind early electronics recordings of the '50s, and feels very far away from modern digital glitch-futurism. The sonic textures are mysterious, hazy, hissy, occasionally static-laden, with a meditative warmth combined with an experimental edge. There is a slow but constant sense of movement provided by the shifting fuzz of what sounds like short-wave radio static or ancient modular synthesizer grit on tape loops, as well as other-worldy sounds that I am guessing are field recordings or contact mic textures; organic yet alien. The drones are occasionally punctuated by distant percussive strikes and abrupt dynamic textural changes, with some soft bass thrumming on the fourth track "VI-VII" provided by Marielle Jakobsons. "Tape Chants" is a very deep, soft-spoken album with an original ambient sound, which I would love to hear/see recreated live!