Best new music of 2012

I generally don’t write these kinds of lists because a) there’s bound to be a bazillion great releases from this year that I haven’t heard yet, and b) of all the stuff I have heard I’m sure I have yet to fully appreciate some of it and I’ll probably very soon grow tired of some of the ones that sounded excellent the two times I listened to them. So in reality it would be much better to let everything settle and make this a 2011 list, but I’m... Read More

This is my music, part 2: Hypnotic techno from Italy & beyond

Techno—the proper stuff and not the sugar-coated, insultingly tasteless drivel that every now and then seeps into the mainstream—is a rather faceless type of music, so this post will not have a single hero artist representing the genre. It is utilitarian music, primarily made for DJ’s and to be heard in the context of more techno, carefully selected and mixed to create a coherent aesthetic theme, since tracks seldom come to their full right on their own. It is music... Read More

This is my music, part 1: Cosmic synth trips by Lunar Miasma

I know update this blog with olympic frequency, but now I have this idea for a series of posts that might actually motivate me to generate some worthwhile content. The idea is I’ll pick a genre I listen to and an artist to represent it, and then present a few key recordings and tell you why you need to hear them. We’ll start this exercise with Greek synth shaman Panos Alexiadis, a.k.a. Lunar Miasma. The first thing you’ll notice if you trawl the Lunar Miasma... Read More

New music: Incoming records, fall 2011

Here’s some records that are on their way here. I’ve linked each cover image to a site where you can listen to some samples and/or buy them. Spanning from the grimmest of noise and metal to serene piano improvisations and soothing drones, it’s quite an eclectic blend yet with a distincty autumnal mood: imagegrid {padding-right:11px; padding-bottom:11px;} img {padding-right:11px; padding-bottom:11px;}    Read More

Lost Theory Festival: Ambient DJ set preview

I’m playing two sets at the Lost Theory Festival in Croatia August 17-22 (that’s soon!). My ambient set will be Sunday morning 6.30-11, so it’s a looong one. Before I knew I’d be playing in daylight I made a shorter promo mix – I might play slightly sunnier stuff at the festival, but this mix turned out pretty nice so here you go, enjoy! My goa trance DJ set is saturday morning 07-09, after Derango and before Dimension 5.  Read More

New music: Sitaar-Tah! — “Semimimimimin”

Aquarius Records of San Fransisco run a web shop that’s looking quite distinctly 1990′s, which is not a high mark in 2011. But what they lack in web savvy, they make up in spades when it comes to dedication. Their newsletters, which are now running double pace and are sent out weekly, have reviews written by the staff themselves, unlike pretty much every other record shop on the planet who just copy the distributor mumbo jumbo verbatim. This is practically a full... Read More

New music: Harsh acid techno

If you’re reading this blog thanks to my audiophile posts, you’re likely—although not entirely guaranteed—to find the following music overwhelmingly noisy. That warning aside, I do love brutally distorted Roland TB-303 mayhem. Two such records that have spent many, many years in my wantlist finally arrived in the mail today: DATacide – The Extasy Of Communication   Woody McBride – Rattlesnake It feels surreal that these are now 18 and 17 years old,... Read More

New music: Spectrum Spools

Seeing as this has turned into a hifi blog, I thought it’d be appropriate to remedy something I find missing in a lot of audio writing, namely new music. And not more Diana Krall albums or reissues of relics from 40 years ago; I mean truly new and adventurous music on the outer brinks of the artform. I might not manage to write about everything I buy, but by setting the bar reasonably low I should hopefully have enough writing stamina to give a bit of insight and inspiration... Read More

DJ report: Belgium round III

I played a DJ set in Belgium this weekend, where Psykovsky and Cosmosis played live. So it was kind of big, but my morning set (I got on at 8am) got a slightly smaller crowd than last year. Nevertheless, the Belgians know how to stir up a dancefloor riot, and here’s a short glimpse of when I played my favourite track off of Filteria‘s “Heliopolis” album: I arrived just 40 minutes before I started playing, since I had to get up at 6am on Saturday to catch... Read More

Hunt for hifi VIII: It’s over, yet only just begun

So, the time had come to decide. MBL? Focal? Neither? What impressed me the most with the MBL 121 speakers was their stunning ability to illustrate the space of a recording. This makes them nearly unbeatable for classical, jazz, singer-songwriter and live recordings. Since I don’t listen to those types of music much, instead often drawn to “produced” sounds, this argument loses some of its weight in my case. Instead, their ability to provide an accurate and deeply... Read More

Hunt for hifi VI: The final showdown – before the bell

Later today I will sit down and compare the Focal Diablo Utopia with the MBL 121 speakers side by side. I won’t purchase the winner today, and if I didn’t have such a rich history of financial recklessness I’d say I may never buy them. But having bought into my own justification pitch, I realize I might pull the trigger eventually. Age has at least taught me to take a few deep breaths before I take the plunge. This will probably be the final comparison between... Read More

Hunt for hifi V: Justification

I stole this image somewhere in an attempt to illustrate what is generally an accepted costly hobby. This really is over the top though. While it’s easy to point out when audiophile excess has entered the land of absurdity, it’s a bit more interesting to look at the conditions where purchasing high-end components makes sense. Since all of my recent hifi posts are basically just flow-of-consciousness ramblings, here’s a list off the top of my head: If you can... Read More

Hunt for hifi IV: Attack ov ze Germans

Having exhausted the options of speakers cheaper than Focal Diablo Utopia that has my preferred dry, tight and precise sound, I was beginning to think that I might have to either buy the damned things, buy something cheaper I wasn’t fully happy with, or just keep what I have and take up knitting instead. But in a last attempt to make sure there were no options, I asked what else there was in the same price class as the Diablo’s. After all, if I’m going to spend... Read More

Hunt for Hifi III: Trap doors and mirages

Audiophiles are often ridiculed for spending time and substantial amounts of money on snake-oil products. These can vary from little wooden blocks to place speaker cables on like a monorail so that it never touches the ground (presumably to prevent static electricity, or something) to all manners of vibration dampening hocus pocus. The criticism spans from entirely valid, as I would say is the case for the examples I just gave, to dubious, which is the case for things like analogue... Read More

Hunt for hifi II: What is good sound?

Some time back, before I bought my Logitech Squeezebox Duet, I was touring the hifi stores auditioning CD players. Not only is my CD player the oldest component in my system, but I had also heard some mantra about “source first” in composing a stereo system, not giving it any thought beyond the initial “sure, OK”. I ended up with the Squeezebox instead, and have since made a complete 180 in terms of system design philosophy. The speakers are affecting... Read More

Hunt for hifi I: High-end fever

As a music aficionado I am concerned about sound quality, in the sense that I want to experience the music at its fullest potential, be it ultra minimalist ambient, goa trance, black metal or wall noise. Spending a fortune on hi-fi equipment will leave nothing for records, and to me it’s clearly better to listen to a huge selection of great music on mediocre equipment than to listen to just a handful of records on great equipment. But there is a balance, of course – if... Read More

Schedule change

The new world order for this weekends party is that I play between Battle of the Future Buddhas and Filteria, instead of after them. This makes a whole lot more sense, seeing as I will now be taking over from howling psychosis while it’s pitch black, and leave to über-melodic power-trance in broad daylight. This lets me leave the “normal” goa trance to the other DJ’s while I can dig really deep in my record collection to pick out the sickest mindfuckery... Read More

The yearly Swedish forest gig

My first and possibly only outdoor gig for the year is going to be this upcoming weekend. The flyer: Pretty damn sweet lineup if you ask me! I’m playing 03:30 – 06:00, which means early dawn -> full sunlight. The music will go from dusk hypnoticism to orgasmic sun worship (as if Filteria doesn’t provide enough sun worship =). I will also play in the chillout, from 22:00-00:00 if all goes well. I will be playing Steve Roach music exclusively, hopefully getting... Read More

Intermission acid

Not much happening here lately (as usual, I suppose) so while waiting for my planned series of posts on ambient overlord Steve Roach I’ll post this short clip from a private party where I played with Kompressorkanonen: I don’t think I will ever get tired of that sound.  Read More

I’m a big boy now

So I finally have an artist entry on Discogs thanks to poking Jannis in the kidneys while he’s making music. Some short comments on the two tracks from his latest album that had me involved: Filtertraces – this was a complete track that was pretty nice, but we sat down one day and completely rearranged it, added layers and tweaked pretty much everything. It was me shouting commands and Jannis sweating over the mixing desk and synths. I’m not sure how it happened,... Read More