Catching The Waves

Scientific Progress Goes Boink...and Beep...and Twang

(The unpredictable sizes of these album covers are all part of CTW's charm, he said weakly.)

Rock/pop has always had trouble mixing new sounds with old. When Dylan went electric, when synths usurped guitars, and dance usurped melody ;-) it was an either/or situation for quite a while. These things take time to bed in. The combination of acoustic and electronica might be the latest of these combinations. Bear with me. I'm new to all this. :-) Anyway, Rob Hunter, from Bristol in England, has taken sub-Mario Bros sounds and spliced them with sampled acoustic guitars and pianos on his eponymous EP from 12rec.net, and I'm glad he did so.

Here are sounds that are crude but endearing, used in snatches of pop that verge into "chiptune" territory. Add acoustic instruments and a lo-fi approach and you're on to a winner.

The first track, Spectrum, starts with bursts of static and develops into something that might have been produced by, well, a ZX Spectrum. This is as lo-fi as computer music gets - cheesy synths and cardboardy percussion. It's excellent. Just when you've had enough of lo-fi, along comes Waiting, which sounds like a folk song that's been chopped up by someone who wanted to dance. First Day Back starts off with a somnolent, almost shambolic piano introduction before the squeak of fingers on guitar frets announce a spliced guitar hook accompanied by distorted crunchy drums. The rather delicate vocals in Spill become another instrument alongside the stuttering guitar.

There's a lot to relish: the contrast of classic computer sounds with acoustic guitar and piano; subtle sampling and chopping of the "real" instruments; and an ear for the melodic. Best of all, the EP isn't an assembly of loops (a fault of much electronica) but a collection of songs and compositions. Each track is whistleable; this, surely, is scientific progress.

Rob Hunter's EP showcases another approach to music: it doesn't have to be either/or. If you like folk, electronica, lo-fi, or just plain music, have a listen.

Complete Album: Rob Hunter EP (zipped) 47MB

Individual mp3s available from here at archive.org.

Album website: Rob Hunter EP on 12rec.net

Here Be Whales

Dub Jay's four-track EP, Perfectly Ordinary Recorded Noise, sounds as though it was recorded underwater - a cardinal sin for music buffs - except in this case the sound is as clear as a bell. It's just that it could have been made by a school of whale and dolphin dub enthusiasts let loose in an Atlantis recording studio. Dub Jay is from Ohio, if you must know. No seas there. Anyway, his EP is closer to perfect than it is to ordinary.

Ideal listening conditions: soaking in the bath or during a late-night drinking session when you're feeling tired and start to wonder about the meaning of life and why socks go missing. Or you may play it on your iPod while machine-gunning the neighbour's dog. I'm not the boss of you.

The first track, Our Zero, is an ambient wash of moans, bells, shakers, with a mermaid on vocals. The sound is intimate and gentle yet immense, a sort of Soft Dub that echoes and reverberates as Dub Jay pans his carefully manipulated sounds from side to side. It's really slow, as is the whole album. At first you may yawn a little (as I did), say "very nice" (as I did), and reach for the off button before realising just in time that the sound floating from your speakers is achingly beautiful. Everything combines to form a melody that lilts and floats.

Must Show is glacially slow. A deep, deep bass note echoes every now and then in the background as a collage of sighs, hisses, clicks and tones tickle your ears. It's another track that treads the line between boredom and rapture before plumping for the latter.

Sixty Red features what sounds like a mermaid's siren song. Dub Jay backs it with ethereal pads and subtle IDM-ish beats. Bliss. But I think the snare that enters halfway is a little intrusive. Indoor Setup provides a feel-good ending to the EP, with synths and percussion burbling happily away. By this time, you will be burbling happily too - especially if you're enjoying one of those late night drinking sessions.

Recommended track: Dub Jay - Our Zero

Album: Dub Jay - Perfectly Ordinary Recorded Noise

Netlabel: Kikapu

What's this called again?

If you're a long-term free music enthusiast then you may yawn and move on; you'll already have this latest Catching the Waves recommendation. Otherwise...*dons top hat, grabs cane*...have I got something for you.

Comfort Fit is, I think, German so I'm going to call him a beatmeister. Boris Mezga = Beatmeister. His album, Forget and Remember, released by Tokyo Dawn in 2005, is so cool it's frigid. Track after track of superb instrumental hip hop (or I-hop if you prefer) just funks its way out of your speakers. This stuff is so good that big, nasty, planet-guzzling motor companies are already using his music to flog their wares. At least the road to Armageddon will be funky.

The album's mostly I-hop but there are some vocal tracks. Something to Do and Freeze the Cut both feature Blaktroniks on vocal duties, the first plunging you straight into a beautifully deep groove, the latter stapling you to an irresistible kick-snare rhythm. Planetary Picknick and The Hunt are like John Barry out-takes before he decided to take out the head-nodding beat. Planetary Picknick is also a good example of what makes Forget and Remember so much fun to listen to: the grooves are loose. Dance/electronica/hip-hop often sticks rigidly to a 4/4 beat so as to keep things solid; Comfort Fit skilfully drops beats that are slightly early or late and it makes all the difference. There are lots of little background noises and drifting pads filling out and drawing attention to different parts of the music. It feels jazzy.

There's humour too. Kurz Vor Danach 'Ganz 05 retells one of those horrible end-of-relationship arguments and manages to make me wince, smile and groove at the same time.

You can listen to Sorry and Planetary Picknick at the album's release page. I wager that after ten seconds of Sorry you won't be sorry at all.

You're losing patience, aren't you? Ok, in summary, there are 20(!) tracks. You need to hear them. Thank me later. But thank Comfort Fit first.

The whole album is available from Comfort Fit's own website but only in one big zip file:

Comfort Fit - Forget and Remember (whole album) mp3 format 110MB

Comfort Fit - Forget and Remember (whole album) OGG format 100MB

...which is not so good for the great unwashed = non-broadband people. Fear not...

Comfort Fit - Forget and Remember (link to individual mp3s and artwork)

Enjoy. God, I'm good. But Comfort Fit is better. ;)