Skyactivity: Blog

Tycho – Dive

Christian Nelson — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:17:18 +0000

Tycho is San Fransisco artist and producer Scott Hansen. As Tycho, Hansen blends swirling melodies and stuttering beats into hazy yet triumphant arcs. Known in the design world as ISO50, Hansen is famed for his bucolic, sun-drenched design style, which serves as both a backdrop and mirror for his musical output. Dive, his second LP, is the most diverse musical statement of Hansen’s multi-medium career; the point where his skills as a performer finally catch up with his vaporized vision of a world that doesn’t belong to any particular time or place… but a world with double-exposed sonic landscapes constatly rolling into the horizon.

Tracklisting:

01. A Walk
02. Hours
03. Daydream
04. Dive
05. Coastal Brake
06. Ascension
07. Melanine
08. Adrift
09. Epigram
10. Elegy

Red Snapper – Scale (EP)

Christian Nelson — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:57:46 +0000

Red Snapper – Scale (EP)

Tracklist:
1. Jack 03:20
2. Undertow 04:57
3. Vlieland 02:42
4. Plaided Chimee (Plaid remix) 05:43

Download from their site (free, but requires mailing list subscription): http://redsnapper.bandcamp.com/

In preparation for the release of their new album “Key”, Red Snapper are releasing this free 4 track EP “Scale”. Featuring a track from the forthcoming album, an exclusive remix from Plaid as well as two exclusive tracks not found on the album. The pioneering UK band continue to break boundaries and invent new sounds whilst staying true to the unique energy that fans have always loved.

Formed in 1993, the band’s debut 1996 album “Prince Blimey” combined a unique use of traditional jazz instrumentation with a contemporary approach. However, it was their live show that impresses many and has influenced other “dance” artists to fuse acoustic instruments with electronic sounds on successive releases on Warp Records, “Making Bones” and “Our Aim is To Satisfy”. By 2001 the band had played and worked with artists including The Prodigy, David Holmes, Björk and The Fugees. However, finding themselves ushered in a commercial direction, the fiercely independent trio split from Warp, subsequently concentrating on solo projects before deciding to come together again resulting in their exciting new album ‘Key’.

Minamo + Lawrence English – A Path Less Travelled

Christian Nelson — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:05:33 +0000

“As the title suggests, A Path Less Travelled is an auditory venture beyond the hinterland of the sound worlds inhabited by Minamo and Lawrence English. It’s a collection of rich texture, pulsing vibration and reflective melody. A compelling union of Minamo’s restrained instrumentalism and Lawrence English’s considered sense of space and harmony.

Recorded and produced in Tokyo and Brisbane, this edition is an exchange of mutual curiosity and open ended possibility. Rather than setting out with prescriptive or didactic ideals for their meeting, the musicians looked further afield for influences to shape their interactions. Field recordings, for example, played an important role in contouring the albums qualities and atmospheres. Locations removed and refocused, moments captured and redeployed.

Drawing on Minamo’s sense of pace and sonic spatiality, English devised a number of arrangement strategies to compress, accentuate and expand Minamo’s initial sketches. Carefully editing and adding to the refined and measured contributions, the record took shape over two years of gradual process led production.

A Path Less Travelled collects distant sonic smoke signals passed between one island and another. via Room40

The Orb Team Up With David Gilmour To Launch ‘Metallic Spheres’

Christian Nelson — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:41:58 +0000

England’s pioneering ambient house group the Orb has joined forces with David Gilmour, the legendary Pink Floyd member and solo artist, to release a new album, Metallic Spheres, on October 12 via Columbia. This fusion of minimal electronica and psychedelic rock was born when the Orb’s Alex Paterson and Gilmour came together to work on a version of the Graham Nash song “Chicago” for a charity project.

The pair found the work so invigorating that they continued to create music together, joining Gilmour’s electric guitar parts with the Orb’s spacey soundscapes to create a new, challenging work.

The upcoming album is split into two tracks—a “Metallic Side” and a “Spheres Side”—with each piece consisting of five distinct movements. The album will be available in three formats: standard and two-disc CD versions, digital download and 180-gram vinyl.

The two-CD version includes an extra disc, featuring the new 3D60 process, which gives a listener a 360-degree sound experience on stereo tracks when listened to on headphones. Apparently the 3D60 process allows for unlimited spatial audio with sounds coming from all around. It’s like Avatar for your ears!

www.myspace.com/orbisms
www.davidgilmour.com

Brian Eno to Release New Album on WARP

Christian Nelson — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 19:20:26 +0000

Legendary producer Brian Eno is set to release his new album through equally legendary record label Warp.

Brian Eno is one of the most acclaimed producers in the music industry. With an art school background, the engineer’s forward thinking ideas have helped push many bands to the paths of greatness.

Fresh from working with U2 and Coldplay, Brian Eno has signed a record deal with Warp. The Sheffield imprint have scooped to nab the producer, who has apparently been working on a new album for some time.

Earlier this year Brian Eno curated a festival in Brighton which he used to expound his ideas of a ‘scenius’ – that musical ideas are filtered through collectives rather than individuals.

Lining up a team of respected producers, fans were able to watch as the ideas shifted and developed. Amongst the engineers recruited for the project was Underworld’s Karl Hyde and Jon Hopkins.

It seems that Hopkins is set to work with Brian Eno on his new album, re-uniting a partnership which has produced some fantastic work recently – the pair joined forces to help Coldplay produce ‘Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends’.

Now Brian Eno has signed to Warp Records to release the album. The label has helped foster a near unparalleled roster including seminal material from Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher and Boards Of Canada.

One of the foremost label’s in electronic music Warp can now add Brian Eno to their stellar roster.

Brian Eno is set to release a new album in November.

High Frequency Bandwidth – Hell Fire and Brimstone

Christian Nelson — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:18:43 +0000

Electronic duo High Frequency Bandwidth are set to release their debut full-length, Hell Fire and Brimstone, on the British label Malicious Damage.

HFB is the most recent project of Dr Alex Paterson, the brain behind the The Orb and all around electronic music guru. The duo’s other half is Dom Beken, a jack of all trades whose credentials include studio work for David Bowie and music production for everything from TV commercials to Bollywood Films. HFB have so far released several tracks digitally, and produced the score for the Playstation 3 game PixelJunk Shooter, which recently earned them a BAFTA nomination. On Hell Fire and Brimstone, Beken and Paterson continue to blend electronic beats and elements of hip-hop, with guest appearances by Funky DL and Dynamax of Zulu Nation. In keeping with their weird titular motif, all tracks on the new record begin with the letters H, F and B, along with almost everything else in the duo’s catalog so far.

In addition to Hell Fire and Brimstone, Malicious Damage is also releasing HFB’s first three EPs, all of which are untitled. EP 1 hits stores today, and the other two are slated for release later this month and in May.

Tracklist
01. Hundred Forty Billion feat. Dynamax
02. HeptaFleuroButryl feat. Funky DL
03. How Far Back?
04. Harmless Feather Bed feat. Dynamax
05. Hallo From Berlin
06. Hot From Behind
07. Happiness Feels Brilliant
08. Hill Film Blues feat. Dynamax
09. Hey, Fizzy Bubbles!
10. Hell Fire and Brimstone
11. Hidden Foto Banks
12. Holes for Black
13. Harmonic Five (Beatless)
14. Hitchcock’s First Bugle
15. Hitchcock’s First Blunder
16. High Five Brother
17. Huge Fiery Ball

Malicious Damage will release High Frequency Bandwidth’s Hell Fire and Brimstone on July 12th, 2010.
Label: Malicious Damage

The Black Dog: Music for Real Airports

Christian Nelson — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 03:48:19 +0000

The Black Dog: Music for Real Airports

Soma Quality Recordings, 2010

Catalog#: somatbd003Music for Real Airports is out on limited edition 180 g vinyl, I bought a web version, hoping to get the vinyl soon.First off the Cover is beautiful work by Human, Mmm I love it. TBD’s Music For Adverts from 1996 flirted with Brian Eno’s Music for airports, the Dog’s new album is more of a tribute or celebration to Eno both in concept and sound, Dust brothers have reinvented themselves and i like it, beautiful warm drone ambient sounds from then first track to the last.

The band’s been busy recording sounds and voices. There are beautiful airport sounds and flight boarding announcements nicely weaved in to the tracks. I’ve been playing it on loop all day and it grow’s on me, listening to it is like a flight trip, everything is in place.

The opening track “M1″ opens up with traffic sounds and noises as if you were sitting in a cab or car to the airport terminal, the first dot on the map… the tracks slowly build up to descends in “Sleep Deprivation” Part 1 & 2… you are in the air, “Business Car Park 9” is the last track on the album and your last dot on the map you have reached your destination.

The Black Dog’s put heart and soul into making this Masterpiece, and it’s worthy a place on the ambient hall of fame, this is a modern ambient classic and it shows once again that the best music is grown, feed and delivered in Sheffield UK.

Buy it! Music for Real Airports is a five star album.

Tracklist:

A1 M1

A2 Terminal EMA

B3 DISinformation Desk

B4 Passport Control

B5 Wait Behind This Line

C6 Empty Seat Calculations

C7 Strip Light Hate

D8 Future Delay Thinking

D9 Lounge

D10 Delay 9

E11 Sleep Deprivation 1

E12 Sleep Deprivation 2

F13 He Knows

F14 Business Car Park 9

Jana Winderen – Energy Field

Christian Nelson — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 02:43:53 +0000

Jana Winderen – Energy Field

1. Aquaculture 18:00

2. Isolation/Measurement 12:11

3. Sense of Latent Power 20:04This outstanding new Touch release is an album comprised of documents made by sound recordist Jana Winderen over a number of field trips to the Barents Sea, Greenland, and Norway.

Winderen’s focus takes in above-ground sounds of extreme Northern weather systems and the wildlife that inhabits such surroundings, but perhaps more significantly and insightfully, the Oslo-based artist makes probing recordings of sub-aqua environments/habitats using hydrophones.Winderen delves deeply into glaciers, fjords, and the open ocean with her equipment, capturing incredible unseen worlds populated by baffling and wholly alien sounds. You’ll seldom have any idea as to what might be making some of these amazing noises, but among them are: “Sounds of crustaceans, fish such as cod, haddock, herring, and pollock recorded as they are hunting, calling for a mate or orientating themselves in their environment.”

The disc is divided into three lengthy pieces, each one assembled from a variety of different recordings, carefully layered and edited so as to give a flowing, seamless account of the various locales Winderen explored on her field trips. In terms of recording fidelity and all-round immersive brilliance, Energy Field is right up there alongside Chris Watson’s greatest works—it really is that good. Anyone with an affection for the art of sound recording will instantly adore this release; it’s an album that offers a consistently surprising and illuminating depiction of regions in our natural world that would otherwise be inaccessible to us.

Deliverace Coming Soon: Looks Incredible!

Christian Nelson — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:19:37 +0000

I have to say, if this teaser video does depict anywhere close to what we can expect from Deliverace’s actual gameplay quality, I’m pretty excited. I think this one could be a pretty big hit.

Sure .. we’ve seen rally-type games before, but what you probably haven’t seen is one that just looks this good. Below is the first teaser trailer from Pixelbite Games of their debut App Store application, Deliverace. Imagine a classic top-down racing game like Neo Drift Out .. and then times it by ten!
I have to say, if this teaser video does depict anywhere close to what we can expect from Deliverace’s actual gameplay quality, I’m pretty excited. I think this one could be a pretty big hit.

With no word on pricing yet, it’s hard to tell just how much of a hit this will be on its debut. But, with 3D graphics like the above .. I think we’re in for quite a visual treat. According to the studio Deliverace is set to hit our iPhone screens ‘Early 2010? – and considering its the start of March already, I can’t see the release being too far away, can you?

Autechre: New album ‘Oversteps’

Christian Nelson — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:07:37 +0000

Autechre – Oversteps
(WARP210)

22nd / 23rd March (2010)

- Deluxe Vinyl Edition
- Compact Disc
- High Quality Download

Made in The Designers Republic™ Deluxe Vinyl Edition

Double heavyweight 180gram vinyl, each disc packed in its own printed inner and outer card sleeves 900mm x 600mm double-sided poster printed on Offenbach ultra fine stock, folded within its own card sleeve Housed in printed and debossed rigid slipcase Included free with all Vinyl & CD orders on Bleep.com Your choice of 16bit / 44.1kHz or 24bit / 44.1kHz WAV version of the album Plus a 320kbps LAME encoded MP3 version of the album for your portable player These digital versions will be available to download direct from your Bleep account on day of release. Preorder ‘Oversteps’ now from Bleep

CD & VINYL TRACKLISTING

01. r ess
02. ilanders
03. known(1)
04. pt2ph8
05. qplay
06. see on see
07. Treale
08. os veix3
09. O=0
10. d-sho qub
11. st epreo
12. redfall
13. krYlon
14. Yuop