Just came home and not in the mood to write a lot, so enjoy th’s cute little nugget from Japenese singer/songwriter Shugo Tokumaru. Off 2007’s Exit, folktronica?

Perhaps the “new sound of suburbia” is a bit far fetched, but Colin Kavanagh’s one man show The Council Flats of Kingsbury has managed to adapt bossanova to the electronic age, with hints of 50s suburbia innocence and 60s psychedelic pop brightness. Bright colors, chirping birds, swirling synths, acoustic guitar and an ear for sweet exotic melodies, this 35 minute journey is surprisingly compact and captivating. Don’t miss this out if you’re into folktronica, hauntology, Ghost Box, Moon Wiring Club etc. 3.5/5

“Influenced by the golden age of bossa nova, sophisticated soundtracks, classic psychological thrillers, and the subtle horrors of suburban life, the once enlightened Council Flats of Kingsbury make extreme efforts to hold it together for circa 35 minutes on this delicate home production.”

A personal remark for Origamibiro, by Can Ayverdi.

There are some moods that really excite, some moods that are hard to describe. Makes you want to write and all. I think I love music because of the excitement. An album that you skipped or a sound that you didn’t bother to check, can come up one day and make you feel… empty yet full of joy.

Origambiro, an artist whom I never heard before, has mostly accomplished this. I thank Tom Hill for giving such wonderful music to this world. A must grab album : Cracked Mirrors And Stopped Clocks, out since 2007. Only one song will tell..

Zymogen netlabel is back with a new release from Swedish musician Oskar Hallbert. For his second album 1123581321345589 Hallbert takes inspiration from Fibonacci numbers. I don’t know if the material has any other relevance to Fibonacci, but the release is composed of 89 pieces with only the fibonacci numbers being complete songs and the rest 4 second sound snippets. A beautiful melancholic folktronica / ambient album with lots of hiss and piano.

“Turns out that the Fibonacci numbers appear everywhere in nature, in the proportion of our bodies, in the way that sunflowers organize there seeds, in the way branches grow on a tree and the way leafs grow on the branches, in the way eagles fly towards their preys – everywhere. The Fibonacci numbers are the closest we’ve got to mathematicly understand the laws by wich our world is created.”

Cologne based electronic music producer Napoli Is Not Nepal is one of the most underrated artists coming from Germany. Debuting on Shitkatapult in 2002 with Revolv_er with an idiosyncratic mix of pop and IDM I would have expected him to be better known, yet he never made big like T. Raumschmiere, Apparat or Telefon Tel-Aviv despite making multi layered and easier accessed music. It took him 7 long years to come with his sophomore on Onitor, called Boredom is always counterrevolutionary. This is basically in the same vein as his debut with less jazz and more glitchy electronic beats with moody melodies, reminiscent of John Tejada’s I’m not a gun, Prefuse 73 et al.

Well not really, but if you look ‘ard enough you can find some solid things for free:

+ Le Housetear’s Course de Danse album on Auflegware netlabel.

+ Second long play of the mexican multi instrumentist Ray Garrido on Breathe compilations.

+ D’n'b version of the Because best things are free Compilation on Id.eology.

+ Strange ethno-folk electronica album on the Pulsations for You Netlabel by Russian (?) XYDZO.

After all these years, I know that the blogosphere doesn’t have an attention span of more than a few days so whatever you present should either be shit hot or totally vintage, effectively rendering albums from say, 2006 out of sight. Today we make an exception for Eglantine Gouzy a lesser known bedroom pop artist from Paris.

Although she released two full lengths (debut on Gudrun Gut’s Monika Enterprises label) I first heard her music with a remix on Hauschka’s ‘Versions of the Prepared Piano’. Her 2006 release Boamaster on Ireland’s Osaka Records is full of short humorous electropop/folktronica songs that might draw comparisons to Lina Nyberg, Anna Laplantine, Kama Aina, Hanne Hukkelberg and Leila among others. Cheerful and creative pop tunes for short attention spans!

PS: Osaka’s latest release from Ribbons sounds interesting.

A selection of tracks & mixes, including folktronica by Kettel courtesy of kracfive, electrodub from Sardinia Bass Legalize, free download on A Quiet Bump netlabel, electro acoustic guitar processing from Mark Templeton, soundscapes from Tauchsieder (free download album from their own website), a space electronica mix from The Deuce Project, done after Mort Garson passed away. Finally collage/plunderphonics/mashup from Frenchman Chenard Walker. Here’s his back catalogue of over 50 free download albums on Free sample zone, very impressive!

MIXES:
Uwe Schmidt (Atom Tm, Senor Coconut, Flanger, Erik Satin, Lisa Carbon and more) tribute by our friend Cenk Akyol. Divshare
The Deuce Project – Space Walking with Mort.
Flying Lotus on BBC Radio 1
Terminal Epsilonia mix on the Terminal Beach show, a healthy dose of noise, drone and ambient feat. William Basinski, Charalambides, Holger Czukay, Death Ambient.
No. 13 on the Ghostly International Podcast is Eric Cloutier, mixing quality deep minimal house.

We’re being bombarded with a slew of newschool hiphop/neo-soul – primarily from the UK – these days and I was thinking of making a coverage of that now that the summer’s here and summers basically need deep and mellow music, but it’s better left for Monday and we’ll start fresh the new week. I’ll be playing a lot of them tomorrow on the radioshow so if artists like Eric Lau, Muhsinah, Kissey Asplund, Plantlife and James Pants ring a bell for you, you should tune in at 10AM CET.

Ok so we’ll close this week with “One Hundred Fifty-Five” from Malmö’s Ljudbilden & Piloten. Released in February 2008, this is something I had to mention before delving into summermusic. Behind L&P is the talented Kristofer Ström whom we know before from his work with Kama Aina and Gregg Kowalsky. He’s taken home a bunch of awards with his animations as well as his music this year. “155″ his debut on Nosordo is a intricately woven tapestry of acoustic folk guitar with musique concrete and subtle electronic touches.

Best enjoyed with a pair of headphones, it brings past family field trips and polaroid pictures of green pastures in mind. It really does. There are bright drony songs like “Pianosong Two” taking this 15 track album out of the acoustic guitar territory into the seas of folktronica and soundscapes. Third track was found on Nosordo Downloads and then I lost myself.

Ljudbilden & Piloten – Flock
Ljudbilden & Piloten – Arms and Legs Together
Ljudbilden & Piloten – Wedding
Tsukimono – Small is Beautiful
Osso Bucco – Inertia under done