This is a man, whose lyrics and journey will send you out to the streets to start your own revolution. And his music: dub and house crossbred in its most beautiful and upward chemistry. While humanity is racing towards a third world war, it is a lonely feeling to know that this is what they should be listening to instead. Powerful, addictive and educational; Brendon Moeller created a body of work that you should inherit to your children.

Booka Shade - Cinematic Shades (The Slow Songs) (Get Physical Music)

“The Slow Songs” is a bit of a pretentious title, I admit. Not being able to forget their majestic live turn @ Radar Live 2007, Booka Shade once again reminded me why their soundscapes are also important for the development of downtempo you can actually listen to. Light up the candles.

Mikkel Metal - Peaks And Troughs (Echocord)

Mikkel Metal have been a reliable travel agency. Their ambient and northern echoes have haunted us lonely souls for a while now. This album, their sophomore effort has definitive therapeutic effects on headaches and comedowns.

Quiet Village - Silent Movie (K7)

Matt Edwards, aka Radio Slave, who is the current techno don, the in demand producer/DJ of the roughest, sleaziest, deepest club beats and king of re-edits, the owner of the “Rekid” label and a fellow member of Sea Devils (whew!) has met a connaisseur mate namely Joel Martin with whom he has formed Quiet Village. Previous review on undomondo

Eddy Grant - Road To Reparation (Very Best Of) (Mercury)

Long due greatest hits compilation of a man who “has deserved his place in the sun“. “Electric Avenue”, “Till I Can’t Take No More”, “I Don’t Wanna Dance” sound still as refreshing as they did 27 years ago. The ambassador of Barbados was and always is welcomed in our neighborhood.

Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno - Death Of The Revolution (Tru Thoughts)

An unexpected orchestral turn to dub by Quantic proving there is no genre this man cannot touch and turn into gold.

Christian Prommer - Drum Lesson Vol. 1 (Sonar Kollektiv)

This may be 2007, but it was very 2008 for my purpose. I did not stop listening to it and I do not think I will be able to shelf it for a long time. Performing most of the underground club classics with a really crowded jazz band, Christian Prommer produced a rare and genius cover album.

In recent years it is getting more difficult than ever to follow new releases as countless laptop artists use the net as a way to blur listener’s heads with their bedroom productions. For some, this is good as it brings creativity but I think there is a lack of sincerity in most of the productions compared to the 90s. After many years into this genre already bringing a big tolerance, it is difficult to keep on giving a chance to every noise produced today as we are more busy in life with less time for this heap of efforts from all over the world coming out everyday. So in 2008, I get to pick only three good albums and I think is an OK number. Because I’m always keeping the pleasure of owning music that I am sure I will be back in future. Consuming the music for short term pleasures has never been my way of listening and buying music.

* Jacaszek - Treny

It’s been a while since most digital processing artists’ works become more and more atonal, which I found dull and with a lack of creativity. But Jacaszek came out with an album including eleven pieces which are a journey into musical richness. Plus a good use of vocal, which is spiritual enough to bring the ethereal feeling of his music in a higher state, is also another factor in this richness. I got the same pleasure few year ago from Scanner’s 2005 release “Messe, Macht Des Klangs / Klang Der Macht’, from beginning to the end. Lament and Taniec are the highlights of the album.

* The Caretaker - Persistent Repetition Of Phrases

Ever since I heard the track Flowerhead by a collaboration of Tetsu Inoue & Uwe Schmidt as DATacide, I’ve been more on more in the interest of blending ballroom music with ambient. After a decade I discovered The Caretaker’s music whose recipe is the same. Creepy yet elegant! His 2008 album starts with few looped pieces but than turns into loungy pieces, with a lot of depth and eerie atmosphere over that 1930’s ballroom samples. False Memory Syndrome is just what I am talking about in Flowerhead example. Those two pieces of music is something I wish I could have produced. Hope to hear and discover more artists into this idea.

* Jóhann Jóhannsson - Fordlandia

Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Fordlandia is not as good as those two release but I can say it’s his best work to my taste. “The Rocketbuilder” and “Melodia iii” really nice works with nice melodies. The rest is a bit loud for my taste as I tend to own calmer pieces of classical music.

Best tracks :

* Felicia Atkinson with Sylvain Chauveau - Aberdeen: Sad, etheral and sublime

* Namlook & Move D - In The Mirror: These two can do no wrong. The opening track from their “Sexoid” album is a long piece starting with a clever use of 303 and turns into Namlook’s moving layer in the last minutes. Pleasure!

* Kuniyuki Takahashi - Flying Music (Rhythm And Trumpet mix); Deep, dark and hot tunes. Quality sound is also a plus in Kuniyuki’s recordings.

* Bootleg Bitches - Dream Bitches; European sounding deep house. Positive vibes.

* Yuri Lewitt - Bombers Acid; Slow mo acid over a deep layer. Reminds me Luke Vibert’s beat programming.

* Delta 9 - Avi Satani; Good return from dave Rodgers. Includes everything for a fine gabber production. A little bit of imagination.Also as a fan of the movie Omen, loved his vocal parts as well. (Beware!)

* Eureka! Albums of 2008 on Tiny Mix Tapes. (Paavoharju, Christina Carter, Runhild Gammelsæter, Magic Lantern, Ursula Bogner, Per Nørgård, The Caretaker)

* Bubbachups Top 10 on Motel de Moka (Birchville Cat Motel, Sun Kil Moon,Scott Tuma), also Moka’s Top 10 (Paavoharju, Jacaszek, Tape).

* Raven sings the Blues Top Albums (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Sic Alps, Blank Dogs, Sun Araw, No Age) & Top Singles.

* Destination Out’s Favorites of 2008. (Spans more than music, check this out)

* Deerhoof’s own 2008 list on MOG. (Experimental Dental School, Mavis Staples, Alarm will Sound & Steve Reich, Mavis Staples)

* Mr. Thistle’s Top 50 on Forest Gospel. (Women, Amplifier Machine, Belong, The Tallest Man on Earth, Fennesz, Pumice)

* Boomkat’s Top 50 albums. (Stephan Mathieu, GAS, Machinefabriek, Bon Iver, Shed, Jasper TX, Tape)

* The Decibel Tolls Best of 2008. (Koushik, Indian Jewellery, Growing, Cloudland Canyon)

* Dusted’s Ben Donnelly (The Bug, Benga, Black Mountain), Brad LaBonte (Rustie, US Girls, The Ting Tings)

* Earfarm’s Best of 2008. (Torche, Lykke Li, The Dodos, Kelley Polar)

* Gorilla vs Bear’s Best of 2008. (Quiet Village, Vivian Girls, Q-Tip, White Denim, Air France)

* Headphone Commute’s (Peter Broderick, Kangding Ray, Jacaszek, Hammock, Balmorhea)

* It’s a Trap’s Best of 2008 if you wanna know about which Scandinavian bands to check out.

* Pampelmoose’s (Dave Allen of Gang of Four) Best of List (Susanna, Booka Shade, Dead Confederate)

* Piccadilly Records’ Top 100

* Rateyourmusic community’s own Thompenn, Mitza Matza, Korken (Jack Rose, Nadja, Burning Star Core, Marc Ribot), Rake (Fursaxa, Extra Life, Angel, Prurient), Les Nuits (Bohren, Woven Hand, Bar Kokhba, Colour Haze), Knome514 (Tecumseh, Boris, The North Sea) and the overall list.

* The Wire’s Best of 2008. (Kasai Allstars, Philip Jeck, The Advisory Circle, Toumani Diabate)

* Warped Reality’s Best of 2008.

* WFMU’s Brian Turner’s Best of (Ancestors, Mlodrs, Mayyors, Ryoji Ikeda, Harvey Milk)
* The Age of Consent’s Top 5 Overrated/Underrated List : Dunno about the underrated but agree that Spiritualized, El Guincho and Fucked Up are way overrated.

* 2008: The Year in Band Names on AV Club. Damn this is funny.

* The treasure trove that is The Wire on Air: a weekly show by Wire Magazine. Special guests every week incl. this by Philip Jeck, this by Stephan O’Malley and this by our favourite Ghost Box Records. Get them now and thank us later!

* Midnight Cowboy : Cenk Akyol sent this to us with the tag calm and mature, by Esteban Morientes, incl. diverse stuff like ZZ Top, Arvo Pärt, Otterman Empire, Nina Simone.. the way we like it! MP3

* Our friend from the MOG Community Dzendvokh tipped us to a mix of dubstep & beats with traditional middle east and asian ethnic music by DJ Zhao. Check if you’re into DJ/Rupture, and while you’re there check out some lovely Cumbia and also Filastine’s new single “Fitnah” FTW!.

While it’s always great to hear different ideas and musical backgrounds in hiphop, too much might end up cacophonous, like it does sometimes in CoD’s music. It’s not as refined as say the excellent Onra album of last year. On some songs there’s simply too much unrelated things going on yet they have shown constant improvement in three albums and the third Wooden Tongues has less flaws. Hopefully their new album in the works right now will be even better!.

The albums starts incredibly cool with 2 anthems, “Time to Blow” and “Little Acorns“, another top song with her sister Roya’s vocals follows yet after the 5th song the album gets stuck. Murky beats, pop music without good melodies, it’s hard to understand the high praise this gets on indie mags (8.5 on Prefix, 8 on Pitchfork, conversely got a pretty low average on RYM). I tried to like this album and although it surely has sparks of imagination and creativity here and there, it’s nowhere near being a top contender for electronic music this year.

The image is of Lehman Brothers CEO Fuld. One of the biggest losers this year!

Bar Kokhba Sextet - Lucifer
The Advisory Circle - Other Channels
John Zorn - Dreamers
Vivian Girls - Vivian Girls
No Age - Nouns
Dungen - 4
Larkin Grimm - Parplar
Black Mountain - In the Future
Bohren und der Club of Gore - Dolores
Colour Haze - All
Runner up: Nomo - Ghost Rock

* Hear a podcast of Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman’s new CD “Destination Space” and a nice skype conference of them talking about the album.

* WFMU presented Switched-on Basic Hip a 28 track compilation of retrofuturistic moog music, Gil Trythall, Mort Garson, Christopher Scott, Dick Hyman, Enoch Light and more.

Kevin Blechdom singing Alabama Jubilee

* Austria’s They Shoot Music Don’t They is a one of a kind videoblog, which takes indie artists around Vienna and shoots videos of their acoustic performances. Artists include our fave maniac Kevvy B, Xiu Xiu & Tortoise, Turner Cody, Bishop Allen and lots more. Great blog

* Retro disco goldies on Donnaslut. Don’t miss!!. Dom om Romao - Amor en Jacuma

* Last.fm’s crowdsourced best of 2008 list, the music sucks as expected from the masses but the presentation is pretty good.

* Gorilla vs Bear’s songs of 2008. ]]> http://www.undomondo.com/2008/12/around-the-net-1012/feed/ http://www.undomondo.com/2008/12/pierre-bastien-visions-of-doing/ http://www.undomondo.com/2008/12/pierre-bastien-visions-of-doing/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:48:15 +0000 mersenne http://www.undomondo.com/?p=1448 Karel Doing is released with the apt title "Visions of Doing" on Western Vinyl.]]> There’s an indestructable bond between music and cinema which we at undomondo constantly talk about, yet the excitement of a new Pierre Bastien is never ordinary. Bastien might well be the world’s quirkiest tinkerer with an army of mechanic robots whirring and whizzing to create his authentic sonic scent.

His newest work, a collection of pieces which he composed for filmmaker Karel Doing, is released with the apt title “Visions of Doing” on Western Vinyl also home to Balmorhea, Bexar Bexar and Slow Six. Once again his electrically driven robots create rhythms of dystopia while through his muted piccolo he blows the geist of the music. Lo-fi and jazzy but never falling into the “electronic elevator music” trap that so many fail to get out in the first place, “Visions of Doing” is another worthwhile addition to the Bastien collection.