FFFoxy Podcast #13

Piper Spray “Blaster” Telegraph CS (Orange Milk) 

RM74 “Spineless” Two Angles of a Triangle 2CD (Utech) [7.46]

Motion Sickness of Time Travel “Something to Find” split w/ Imperial Topaz CS (Tranquility Tapes) [12.00]

Call Back the Giants “On the Forth Day” Incidents of Travel 12” (White Denim) [23.55]

Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier “The Names” Dark Morse CS* (Shelter Press) [29.03]

Messages “Smoke Photo” Message Bag 2LP (De Stijl) [34.02]

Razen + Andrew Liles “Rabies Gum” Rope House Temper CD* (Kraak) [40.25]

The Lay Llamas “Space Jungle Mantra” S/T CS* (Jozik) [44.55]

Creation VI “Well Spring” Pantheophania CS (Cae-sur-a) [52.35]

Lazy Magnet “Rabbit Magicians . . . / Brain O' Made . .” Revisionist Desperate 3xCDr (self-released) [52.52]

Alastair Galbraith “One Method” Cry LP* reissue (Mie Music) [1.02.25] 

Michael Pisaro, Oswald Egger, Julia Holter excerpt from The Middle of Life (Die ganze Zeit) CD (Gravity Wave) 

Robert Turman “Reflux” Beyond Painting 2LP (Fabrica) [1.08.52]

Gog “Tasks Which Destroy Body and Soul” Ironworks LP (Utech) [1.20.40]

Remnants “Two Track String Loop” Surface Tension CS (Mazurka Editions) [1.27.14]

FNL “01” FNL CDr (Nada) [1.32.27]

Henry Dawson “Elmira Love” Brain Love CS (Orange Milk) [1.35.25]

Reed Ghazala “Silence the Tongues of Prophecy” (excerpt) Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones CD (Ellipsis Arts) [1.38.00]

Mark Bradley “In” (Track #1) Temple Music CS (Golden Cloud Tapes) [1.42.42]

Chapels “It Was Snowing . . . " (excerpt) split w/ The Transplant Mountains CS (House of Alchemy) [1.45.36]

Sir Richard Bishop “Boxcar Serenade” The Unrock Tapes LP (Unrock) [1.55.18]

As mentioned at the start of this week’s podcast, with Foxy Digitalis shutting down its operations, we will, naturally and quite sadly, no longer be posting the FFFoxy Podcast on that site any more. As I’m guessing many of you that check out this blog already know, however, the Foxy Digitalis crew will be joining forces with Decoder to form a new website under the Decoder banner in the weeks ahead. While I’m not aware of all of the specifics at this point, I can tell you with 100% certainty that the FFFoxy Podcast will live on both here and over at the new Decoder site. There will be no significant changes to what we do: we are still going to do artist and label features; we are still going to have in-studio guests and performances; we are still going to “dig deeper into underground and experimental music from the past and present.” Secondly, while we considered changing up the name once again to signify a fresh start along with everyone else, we’ve decided instead to continue along as the “FFFoxy Podcast”. Sure, part of the decision was based on a desire to maintain consistency and to avoid any confusion for listeners, but, more importantly, we wanted to maintain that connection to Foxy Digitalis out of total respect and gratitude for what it has meant to us and to so many fans of weird and otherwise marginalized music. As I stated at the top of this week’s show, the FFF podcasts would have never become a reality were it not for Foxy Digitalis and the experience and exposure to new music that I gained both as a reader and as a contributing writer. It can be easy to buy into the cynicism surrounding music writing within the age of the internet, but Foxy Digitalis and its contributing staff of writers were a consistent source of inspiration, always seeking out, championing, and giving voice to artists and musicians working well off the beaten path of established “indie” publicity bullshit. So, it is in that spirit that we will continue on as the FFFoxy Podcast. We’ll keep you posted as details emerge regarding the new site.

For now, let’s talk about some of the music played on this week’s podcast that has really grabbed our ears and rearranged our headspace. For starters, we have to discuss the DOUBLE ALBUMS. Any small record label willing to throw down the coin to press up a double LP release in this day-and-age is taking a fair amount of risk, so you know that the label proprietors have either A) something they know is pretty damn special in their hands, B) recently inherited a sizeable sum of money, or C) their heads are so firmly placed up their ass that they are clueless of such concerns. Okay, okay, so it’s not as simplistic as that. But, I’d like to think that Fabrica and De Stijl Records, both run by folks of sound mind, modest pocketbook, and impeccable taste, had to know that they were sitting on something very special with their Robert Turman Beyond Painting and Messages Message Bag 2xLP releases that they recently put out on their respective labels. The music etched in the grooves of these records, as their titles imply, seems to carry a deeper, hidden meaning. Sure, you can attach such genre tags as drone, psych, loop-based, or even minimalism to them, but there is something at play with both of these albums that, well, goes beyond language. These albums offer a rewarding and transportive listening experience that unfolds gradually and with a decidedly mystical heft that is unlike most contemporary practitioners of said forms. As De Stijl notes, which we can quite comfortably apply here to Beyond Painting as well: “. . . Message Bag operates as a return to an unresolved system, as an alternative to the rest of yr choices, and bestows something that can’t be bought. We call it Wisdom.” Thus, both albums warrant the beautiful packaging and presentation that they were given and, more importantly, your immediate attention. I’m hoping that an album like Message Bag, given its December release date, doesn’t get lost in all of the end-of-the-year list mania and the ensuing quest for all that is “new”. This album is indeed special.

Another double album to mention, this one released on the CD format, though no less impressive or soul stirring as those cited above, is the latest from RM74 called Two Angles of a Triangle out on Utech Records. RM74 is the solo project of Reto Mäder, a sound artist based in Bern, Switzerland, who has released music under several other names such as Ural Umbo and Sum of R. On Two Angles of a Triangle, Mäder uses an incredibly broad sound palette, incorporating various acoustic and electronic sounds and textures, to weave complex, yet emotionally rich compositions that are, at turns, melancholic, exuberant, dream-like, and horrific. Despite this complexity, there is sort of an unspoken, unifying narrative feel that plays out over the course of these two discs. As Utech states in the liner notes, “Mäder is a singer/songwriter without words in the never-ending search for the third angle.”

Finally, let’s briefly talk tapes. We have received a wealth of top-notch cassette releases over the past few months. Sure, you can scoff at the overabundance of tape labels and tape releases all you want, but I’m still blown away on a consistent basis by a decent amount of the music that is coming out on this scrappy format. I’ve already discussed the small stash of goodness that Mazurka Editions has floated around the globe in a previous post. So, I’d like to tip the proverbial cap once again to Orange Milk, who we’ve previously featured on the podcast show, for releasing perhaps their most stunning batch of tapes to date, kicking off 2013 in fine form. While I’ve been enjoying trying to physically and mentally map out my own concept of what the hell “footwork” is while listening to the new releases from Foodman and Lafidki, I’ve been especially taken in by the blasted, lo-fi pop sounds from Russia’s Piper Spray and Orange Milk co-owner Seth Graham’s latest burst of sonic euphoria as Henry Dawson.