The Orb's Gorgeous, Godless America

The Orb is legendary. They have been around for at least 20 years, and have had releases on a wide variety of labels. To name a few, there's Island, Polygram, Deviant, Ultra, V2 (Japan), Cooking Vinyl. My personal favorite hails from the Kompakt Extra series, which is better known as the Speicher series. Their 1991 release of The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld is as classic to electronic music as we can get without reanimating Beethoven and having him edit their music. Not that it's laden with strings, but it's as essential to own as it was to get your hands on the GAS box set when it came out last year.

Lately, I've been in a "Speicher mood," and while all of the music is dark and expansive, it's still a very positive experience. It's just a mental state where almost anything else is unlistenable. Before it passes, I find myself going back and back again to Speicher 33 (we're up to 63, for what it's worth), which features The Orb with "Godless America / Gorgeous" - enjoy.

Audible: The Orb - "Godless America / Gorgeous"
MySpace: The Orb

Tonight: Hostage in NYC & Make It New in Boston

The name Hostage started buzzing around when Volvox and Die Young spun "Blockhead" during a Basstown residency in the spring of last year. Since then, we've been waiting for him to come out to America, and finally that wait is over. While he isn't hitting the Boston circuit, he has visited a handful of spots around the country, landing him squarely in New York City tonight! With the latest release of Shake It - an EP that features remixes by AC Slater and Acid Jacks, along with three other originals - his name has become more widespread, and he is destined for bigger things in 2009. Somewhere between Drop The Lime and Berlin techno in style, "Shake It" is pretty anthemic all across the board despite its title making h8rs predict 5+ minutes of pure electro. "Leathered" is also one of the better tracks, and reminiscent of Proxy at certain points. Overall, it's obvious his taste is vast, and we can only expect more from him.

Audible: Hostage - "Shake It"
MySpace: Hostage

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Much like every Thursday in Boston, the Middlesex Lounge is going to feature some of the best techno in the world. Our own little version of Berghain, tonight's edition is a farewell to Doria Grace, who is leaving our transient city of Boston after being a hardcore attendee of all things Basstown and beyond. Come for hugs and drink. Joee Irwin recently called us "Boston's premiere techno party" - excellence. You can read about it here (as well as download some sets) at Palms Out Sounds, who are putting on the Hostage show in NYC tonight (small world, yo).

New Calvin Harris Single On Radio 1

Last Friday, Pete Tong gave the new Calvin Harris single, "I'm Not Alone," a proper spin. Apparently the track has been appearing and disappearing faster than you can shout "I CREATED DISCO, YO!" really, really fast. Here we have a radio rip of the track, so expect to hear some Pete Tong commentary.

All in all, the track is short and sweet and like any good ear candy has an explosive center. The climax is similar to some of the finer moments on Deadmau5's Random Album Title from last year, but the vocals are rich and the dance floor accessibility is at a maximum. Plus, this makes for some really sweet remixes to come.

Have we also mentioned how much we love Coralcola? We do <3

Audible: Calvin Harris - "I'm Not Alone (Radio Rip)"
MySpace: Calvin Harris

Stimming To Release Full-Length Album In March

Stimming - one of our favorite producers - will be releasing his first LP this year on Diynamic records. We'd recently posted about the Obama victory (Tuesday!) and included a great Stimming track (here), but an 11-track powerhouse from one of the most diverse producers to come out of Germany (Hamburg, actually) is a very very very early '09 Christmas. March 16th, to be exact.

Here is the update from Resident Advisor:
The Hamburg producer had a big 2008 with tracks on Buzzin' Fly, liebe*detail and Freerange, but he's set to return to his original home of Diynamic for the album, entitled Reflections. All of the eleven tracks featured are unreleased, so long-time fans will be able to enjoy the album as a discrete object without any prior connection to the tunes.

Like much of his previous work, the album is full of field recordings that complement the colourful boompty grooves, but there are still quite a few shocks in store: On "The Loneliness" for example, Stimming indulges his passion for live instrumentation yet again as a harmonica makes an appearance to accompany a Tom Waits-esque vocal. Each and every track has a respective story behind it, which Stimming used to inspire the final music. With titles like "The Kiss" and "Song for Isabelle," you can guess that there's going to be a fair amount of techno-emoting on Reflections.

Tracklist
01. Sunday Morning
02. After Eight
03. Song for Isabelle
04. Fruits of Life
05. Silver Surfer
06. One Weekend
07. The Loneliness
08. Tel Aviv Calling
09. The Beauty
10. Sleep On
11. The Kiss

So...Tom Waits meets techno, hmm? I'm interested...

MySpace: Stimming

Fever Ray's Just Begun

It's no surprise that Fever Ray is an incredible album. The new solo project from Karin Dreijer Andersson, better known as one half of The Knife, is coming out in mid-March on Rabid Records, where The Knife was putting out their material before being signed to Mute. There will most likely be a unanimous affinity towards this record for all Knife fans, but it has a slant all its own that makes it stand apart from previous works.

The album is closest to 2006's Silent Shout in terms of imagery. The pop-heavy sounds that saturated their The Knife's first two records were mostly put to rest with the masterpiece that put Karin and her brother at the tip of everyone's tongue over two years ago. Here we see what Karin has been up to since, and her siren vocals and haunting synths are in full effect.


If I Had A Heart from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

The video for "If I Had A Heart" - the first single from the album - needs several viewings, and only the bold will dare to interpret. In addition to that, there's a pretty good remix of the track by Fuck Buttons streaming on Stereogum, which you can find here

To give you a wider sampling, here is a track called "I'm Not Done," which is another stand-out from the forthcoming debut.

Audible: Fever Ray - "I'm Not Done"
MySpace: Fever Ray

Sonolmoss Makes Really Good Hip Hop

Sonolmoss makes pretty wintery music. Although, since it is actually winter and its doing that rain/snow combo that always soaks your feet through by the time you get home, I am associating this music with the the feeling of finally getting back to your (hopefully) warm and toasty room, and basking by the light of your desktop PC of choice. However, if it was spring out, maybe I'd call this 'Spring-ish' music. Either way, this is touching stuff. The music is halting, stutter stepping hip hop with great texture and no bombast to be found. Plus it's better than Flying Lotus. You heard me.

Tracks:
Sonolmoss - Dream Bear (zsharesux)
Sonolmoss - Sit Still Assile (zsharesux)



You can get all sorts more here: Download
Myspace: Sonolmoss
He's got a blog too: Sonolmoss at Blogspot

NOW BOARDING: Air France

words by David Day

We first heard about Air France from the crazy folks at Revival Boston, the every-so-often Tuesday/Monday night party at the Middlesex Lounge. They founded a Facebook group called, funny enough, Bring Air France to Cambridge. Naturally, a parade to the blogs followed. We thought we'd join the cacophony inside the Hype Machine chamber and post a link to Collapsing at Your Doorstep, the insanely pretty song from this Swedish duo.



It's equal parts Boards of Canada, the Avalanches and dreamstuff harvested from the mind. Like The Field or Lykke Li or, shit, every other thing that has ever come from Gothenburg, expect Air France to win a sweeping amount of critical acclaim in 2009. (We're not sure how Guardian music maven Alan McGee missed them, but at least he picked up on Pantha du Prince)

Audbile: Air France - "Collapsing at your Doorstep"
MySpace: Air France