for monthly emails, send request to:

Upcoming live shows

The VIllage Orchestra, Erstlaub, Mandelbrot Set, Fighting Kites
2008-08-31
Cafe Oto, Dalston, London, UK
click for more info

Production Unit
2008-09-05
w/ Various Production, Jackmaster
Sub Club, Glasgow, UK
click for more info

The Village Orchestra, Production Unit
2008-10-23
w/ A.R.E. Weapons, SJ Esau
Last.fm/Netaudio night at Shunt, London, UK
click for more info

the Highpoint Bloglife

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

pre-Singularity...

hey! dang, long weeekends are excellent! been catching up on loads of reading and listening over the past few days, very relaxin'!

Been working heftily on the gig for this coming sunday - it's always stressful putting on a show, trying to get everything arranged in time, and most importantly trying to get people to come out for it, but hopefully, fingers crossed, this seems to all be going well. Even Warren Ellis might be coming!
The main thing is that the music is going to fucking amazing tho, so should all be good! We have Chris Dooks doing Bovine Life Support System to provide background music at the start of the evening, and i believe he's also gonna be doing his compere between acts too, so should be quite an extravagant art night i think! To tie in with Ruaridh and Bryan's psychogeography theme, i've ordered Patrick Keiller's 'London' and 'Robinson In Space' to use as visuals during some of the other acts too. I haven't yet watched 'London' but if its half as good as Robinson In Space, it should be amazing too.

It's going to be tight for getting the new Erstlaub release done in time as we still haven't quite completed the artwork for it, however i have the mastered audio disc, all the materials and the stamp is ordered, so i'm sure we'll be able to get a couple of copies together in time for the show. I've been listening through it quite intently today and it's excellent - a well worthy successor to "Becoming An Island".

Also - i just updated the rss feeds on the site here, to use Feedburner, so i can try to get some stats back from the feeds. You can keep using the current links as they won't go away, but if you'd like to be counted, you can switch to the new feedburners ones simply by resubscribing on the site with the new links (they look the same as the old one, but point to feedburner rather than just the local atom.xml files). If that doesn't make any sense, just ignore it! :)

thanks!
thor

Labels: gigs, psychogeography, upcoming releases

Thursday, August 7, 2008

nasty as nosehair

yar, been kinda hectic with the Stray Ghost release and getting some promotion out for the upcoming Towards The Singularity gig - all good stuff!

Theres an excellent gig on tomorrow evening in london, Nitefreq with 808 State, I-f and Arthur Russel all playing in the main room. The small room is a party hosted by People's Music Store, where me and Mat/Fisk will be playing a 2 hour back to back DJ slot - it's gonna be a tough one to follow as we'll be on right after the amazing Ikonika (saw her DJing again on sunday at FWD - she's sooo good!!). I've been putting together a big set in Ableton for it. Heres a hip hop styled run-through i did last night and rendered as mp3:

Nasty As Nosehair Mix

tracklisting is:
1. Dev79 feat. Bezel - That Philly Shit
2. Flying Lotus - Robo Tussin feat Lil Wayne
3. J Live - The Upgrade (instrumental)
4. Ad Bourke - Flight Deck
5. Cappablack - Facades and Skeletons
6. Viktor Vaughn - Raedawn
7. Up Hygh - Acid
8. Busta Rhymes - How We Do
9. Bretzel Zoo - The Dunk
10. Frank N Dank - Spitkicker
11. Miles Benjiman - Chop That Wood (instrumental)
12. Kirby Ditko - Hulk Smash

(p.s the title "Nasty As Nosehair" comes from a line in the Viktor Vaughn track!)
(p.p.s theres one bit at the end of the mix where i seem to have forgot the delay is on!)

Labels: dj, downloads, gigs, mixtapes

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

da return

yar!
not too much to report at the moment, just a few bits and bobs..

Stray Ghost 'Losthilde' artwork is still being worked on, but should still be ready for sale by early next week. I'll get the mp3s up on the site for sale too and up on lastfm.

Got the flyers back for Towards The Singularity which look amazing! I haven't started promoting it properly yet, as i think i started too early on the Funckarma show - i think its best to wait till just a few weeks before hand. One of the bands who are playing, Fighting Kites, also have an upcoming show at Bardens on august 5th, supporting Nisennenmondai, a japanese noise band made up of three girls. Its an Upset The Rhythm show, so should definitely be a good one.

Got two tracks from Ruaridh/Village Orchestra for his upcoming split 12" with Konx-Om-Pax - they are truly fcking awesome! I need to mail Tom/Konx-Om and see what his timeline is for his own tracks and get a date together for that.

Been speaking with a couple of new artists about collaborating on projects - i'm *really* excited about them, but i shan't spoil the surprise until we have some more details worked out!

I haven't been buying any new music in the past week, so nothing much to report or review on. I should get some new stuff this week in preparation for me and Mat DJing at the 808State gig next week tho.

Ah, one musical thing to check out - my friend Lisa, from the Wire magazine, put together a mix in three parts for Steve Barker's 'On The Wire' show on BBC Radio Lancashire - check her blog post over at The Mire for full tracklisting and a link to listen/download..

Labels: downloads, gigs, stray ghost, upcoming releases

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

chocky

I've been throwing loads of design work at mat lately!
He's put together an amazingly nice flyer for our upcoming "Towards The Singularity" gig at the end of August, based up on a cover image for John Wyndham's Chocky. This crop on this post doesn't do the art justice (I use the Gimp at work for any image editing and it never seems to resize images without losing a lot of quality - prob due to my not knowing how best to use it). I'll post up a proper copy on the home page of the site next week.

He's almost done with the Stray Ghost artwork too, so we should be on track for a release date beginning of august.

Tomorrow night see's the start of a monthly Highpoint Lowlife DJ slot at the ICA bar in London. However - i'm not going to be there! Rather unfortunately, i need to head back to Glasgow for the weekend, but the ICA bar will be in the good hands of Mat/Fisk and Max. If you're in the area, drop in and say hello to them!

more from me next week..

Labels: artwork, dj, gigs, ICA, upcoming releases

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

more Oopdates

yar! i forgot loads of exciting things in my HPLL goings-on yesterday!

release-wise:

The Village Orchestra and friends - MPD Pyscho live soundtrack
Dunno if that will be the final title, but a live recording made at this year's Triptych festival in Glasgow - Ruaridh/TVO with Erstlaub, Production Unit, Bovine Life and Konx-Om-Pax provided a live improvised soundtrack to the first episdode of Takashi Miike's groundbreaking 6 part drama 'MPD Psycho'. limited run CDR edition of 100. With extensive liner notes written by Ruaridh too.

Erstlaub - untitled
Follow up to his excellent 'On Becoming An Island' album from last year. Possibly out late August for upcoming London gig - see below for more details. Also limited run CDR edition of 100.

Mandelbrot - untitled
We've mentioned this for a while, an album of solo material Keung recorded last year - lo-fi and nasty as hell! will get cracking on it soon! I think Keung is going to re-record one of the tracks before release. limited run CDR edition of 100.

Gigs:

ICA DJing 24th July and 14th Aug 2008
Me and Mat/Fisk Industries will be Djing in the bar at the ICA on the evenings of 24th July and 14th August. Our job is to play background music which may or may not get progressively louder and dancier!

"Towards the Singularity" - August 31st 2008.
We have an upcoming gig at the beautiful new Dalston venue, Cafe Oto, which will feature The Village Orchestra and Beaker - TVO using MaxMSP and Beaker doing live A/V on Jitter, Fighting Kites, and Erstlaub and Mandelbrot Set (possibly collaborating).

Netaudio festival, October 23rd 2008
Not fully confirmed yet, but looks like HPLL will be curating DJs for the bar at one night of the Netaudio festival. Whole lineup looks ace, and Last.fm are curating the evening of the 23rd (hence me being able to blag the bar area! :)

Labels: gigs, upcoming releases

Thursday, May 22, 2008

updates and links (boring stuff!)

loads to be working on at the moment - Funckarma are going along to the pressing plant next week to oversee the laquer cut at RecordIndustry in the Netherlands. That *might* even speed up the process as the plant won't need to send me a testpress if they can approve it on the day. rar!
Hopefully booking their flights today as well which will be one less thing i can stop stressing over!

Been sending out loads of Magnetism vinyl - dropped off a load at Phonica records last saturday and bundled up a batch for our distributor, Cargo, which went out this morning - you should hopefully see it turning up a few more local stores. If your local record store doesn't have it, ask them to pick it up from Cargo - the more orders Cargo get the better for us.

not found anything too amazing to listen to recently. Still digging through J Dilla's back catalog which i'm enjoying immensely, but its not satisfying my craving for new sounds.
Heres a few things i've come across on the interneds lately (Linked to the blog i came across it on):

Flying Lotus interview 1

Benga on how to make dubstep

How to setup your own pirate radio station

rar!

Labels: gigs, links, magnetism, new releases

Monday, May 19, 2008

stubdaned!

aiight, where to start?

The Funckarma 12" is now sent off for pressing - sent it off last week, so should hopefully, fingers crossed, be ready for the two upcoming shows in June! 5 tracks on 180g heavy weight vinyl, which are gonna blow up! Flyers are ordered for the show too, so should get them back this week and start getting the word out - i've posted on all the message boards i frequent, but if you know of any others that it should be on, leave a link in the comments.

I'll be out flyering every show i can find between now and then, so say hello if you see some lad giving out "Requirements of a Modern" flyers - just as well theres a shedload of excellent shows between now and then..

Theres an excellent looking Benbecula showcase coming up at 93 Feet East, and a sheer jaw-dropping lineup for the Flying Lotus album launch for his "Los Angeles", with Samiyam, Digital Mystikz, Kode9, Danny Breaks, Jose James, Hudson Mohawke, Rustie, and RasG. In the same venue (Hearn st car park) as the last Autechre show, and i'm pretty sure its the same sound system as well from D&B Audiotechnik. fucking rar!

Musicwise, been on a somewhat random tip this past week - digging through the back catalog of J Dilla and loving it. I've tried to dip in before and although i've liked what i heard, i just didn't seem to be getting it properly. With me listening to so much Daru and Rena lately, plus loads of Flying Lotus and Rustie, it's totally put me in the right headspace for J Dilla now.

Audiobulb have an excellent new free compilation out which features some stunning works by Calika, Build, He Can Jog and a load of other label regulars. Grab that here. I found that link via http://www.electronicmusicworld.com/ but if you just navigate the audiobulb website its not publicly linked - they say if you sign up for the mailing list you'll be sent a link to the album - so go sign up!

Used up my emusic subscription this month on quite a few nice dronier pieces -
Philip Jeck's 'Sand' which is very lush, Stephan Mathieu's 'Radioland' again very nice, and the latest Strategy LP 'Music For Lamping' which is quite different from Future Rock and Pacific Agenda - much more ambient and introspective.

I'm always writing lists of my current listens on here - I'd be very interested to hear some recommendations from you lot! drop a comment to let me know what other stuff i'm missing out on..

cheers,
thor

Labels: gigs, new releases, reviews, upcoming releases

Friday, May 2, 2008

On Air

we had a lot of fun doing the Wire show on Resonance last night! thanks loads to Susanna for having us along. We were on for about 40 minutes, talking shite and playing some music! I'll see if i can get a copy of the show from Susanna and post up an mp3 of it at some point.

Got another gig booked for Funckarma today - They're going to be playing in Bristol at the Cube Cinema on June 27th. I'll post more details as i have them..

I downloaded something from Boomkat the other day, which i've been playing obsessively - Daru & Renas' "Turn It On" - its totally R'n'B pop, but the production is awesome, its like Flying Lotus with En Vogue singing over it. Prob not everyones' cup of tea, but yeah, i been bumping it from first thing in the morning and all day at work! It reminds me of Lucy Pearl, an RnB supergroup from back in 2000 that i first heard on holiday in Hawaii and fell in love with. Hmm, need to dig that album back out..

mm, long weekend ahead and then the Magnetism vinyl is due to arrive tuesday! rar!

Labels: funckarma, gigs, radio, reviews

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

teh update

hey! nothing too much to post, just a few wee things:

speaking with SoundPerformance today, and looks like the Magnetism vinyl will arrive next tuesday on the 6th. I was hoping to get it before the weekend, but theres a french bank holiday on thursday (dunno what that has to do with anything, the actual pressing plant is in Holland, but thats what i was told), and with the UK bank holiday, looks like tuesday will be the earliest. I plan to get all the pre-orders mailed out to everyone the same day. rar! If all is good with the finished vinyl, i'll be sending off quite a few new pieces to them over the next few months. Current vinyl schedule is looking like: Funckarma, Tigrics, Fisk Industries. There are more planned but these ones are all pretty much ready to go.

The Wire radio show on Resonance FM will be happening this thursday, May 1st. Same details as before - me and mat should be in with a couple of records to play and speaking about the label - www.resonancefm.com - tooon in!

Been speaking with a new venue opening up here in London, and hopefully sounds like we might have a new monthly night doing a more ambient/drone/experimental evening. fingers crossed on that, as the venue is lovely.

I've been looking around and trying to arrange a few more UK shows for Funckarma in June while they are over for the record release party - if any of you can help or know of something suitable, drop me a mail via the contact address listed on our About page.

Labels: gigs, radio, upcoming releases, vinyl

Friday, February 29, 2008

upcomings and a month of gigs

First thing: "Magnetism, That Electricity.." is now well and truly under way!
I got all finished tracks, and they're all damn ace! They're now with Twerk being mastered for vinyl. Approx timeline is around 6 weeks - they'll take about a week to be mastered, then the redbook discs will be sent back to me, i send them on to the pressing plant, and if everything goes well, we get 300 copies of shiny double disc heavyweight audio goodness back!
I got some supernice flyers printed up for the release, which should be in the Hyponik flyer packs at the upcoming Bloc weekender - look out for them in your chalet if you're there.

And... super BIG news! I've been dying to announce this, but wanted to make sure we had it all in hand first - FUNCKARMA - yes, the genius Funcken brothers, Don and Roel, also known as Cane, Shadow Huntaz, and Quench - we have a 5 track 12" EP in the works by them named 'Stub Dane EP', which should be out very shortly after the "Magnetism.." release - all the tracks are finished, and are so fucking good its unbelievable - dark, off-kilter, heavy instrumental hip hop with a unhealthy overload of bass. Riffing on the idea of dubstep, basically these 5 tracks are Funckarma's take on dubstep.
If you head over to their site at http://www.funckarma.com/ you can hear one of the tracks in their flash player on the site. Again, its gonna be another heavyweight vinyl release!

aiight, well, almost time for the weekend! In fact, this is the start of a rather amazing month of music coming up - tomorrow sees Rustie here in London with Cylob, sunday Ikonica is playing; tuesday is Autechre; wednesday is the Magnetic Man gig, a collab between Skream and Benga which could be either amazing or total shit!; friday i'm off up to glasgow for Redshape at Numbers with Production Unit and Village Orchestra; and then the following weekend in Bloc! ouch!

[photo taken by Merlijn Hoek]

Labels: bloc, funckarma, gigs, glasgow, magnetism, production unit, twerk, upcoming releases, village orchestra, vinyl

Monday, January 28, 2008

woop!

oh man, thanks so much to everyone who came out on saturday night, i was over the moon at the turnout, and the performances were all simply incredible! I gotta admit to being super nervous about it, even though all signs were positive it would go well, but yeah, that was beyond what i was realistically hoping for! We should have recordings of all live sets, and after a bit of editing and letting everyone hear them first, we'll get them up here on the site for free download.
I'm going to blame it on the stress, but by the end of the evening, i was a lil' too drunk, and the details get a bit blurry towards the end, so apologies if i never said goodbye to anyone, or was just making a clown of myself!
We'll be cracking on with the release now, almost all tracks are finished, waiting on two more and then we'll be set - details as they come..
cheers!

Labels: gigs, live show, magnetism, ramblings

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

of excitement and downloads..

hey!
this is it! I been flyering, i been spamming forums and mailing lists, i been telling all my friends - now it's just wait and enjoy this coming saturday! "Magnetism, That Electricity.."!

I'm super excited about it! Theres been a lot of shows i have been at recently and have enjoyed, but they've either been dubstep/grime, minimal techno, bmore/breaks, or just weird acoustic. I've been itching for a good original electronic show, and well, i think this is the one! Its been a while since i've seen Village Orchestra or Marcia Blaine play live, and having them on the same bill with Fisk Industries and Mandelbrot, at such a lovely venue as the Luminaire - rar! Ticket sales have been going well, and reception on the lists and forums seems really good, plus my two good friends, gerry and pat, are driving down from Glasgow for it.

Aiight, well - rather than just me gush about saturday, heres some new music too:
On last night's Mary Anne Hobbs shows i heard a total stand out track - Alta Infidelidad's 'Hielo'. It comes from an album called 'cactus y volcanes' on the Thinner netlabel.
Minimal and lush 4x4, kinda dub-wonky and jackin' at the same time. If you like that sort of thing, you can download the whole album at: http://www.thinner.cc/pages/releases/releases_detail.php?id=thn083
It's well recommended, every track is a total standout.

Labels: downloads, gigs, netlabel

Friday, December 7, 2007

the upcoming shiz

hey! aiight, some updates on current projects -
The main thing we're working on at the moment is the upcoming "Magnetism, That Electricity.." compilation and label night. This project got started after being offered the night at the Luminaire this coming january. Rather than just having a gig night, i thought it would be kinda cool to turn it into something bigger, and at first thought i should do a DVD-R compilation along the lines of last years "Analog For Architecture", with some main content and a whole load of extras. The timeline is just a little tight for collecting so much material, so i figured it would be better to focus the time on just making it a three EP collection from the artists playing at the gig. It seems a more fitting release for the event, and should be easier to bring together in time for January. Mat is still working on the artwork, but we think it should be somewhere along the lines of the flyer image, with the red sorta superhero lightning bolt, and musically will have three EPs from Mandelbrot, Fisk Industries and a collection of Marcia related projects. I'm very excited about it!

Following shortly after that, we'll have a new three track EP from San Francisco based Nyles Lannon under his n.Ln guise - a welcome return for the lad, with three gorgeous new tracks. Nyles sent me the finished tracks a few days ago, and they're pretty stunning. Long sprawling ambient indie electronics which i'm sure you'll dig! Artwork/packaging, we're going to release on a 3" cdr in a small metal tin with clear glass window, with some kind of insert to show through the window. I'll post up some ideas when we've got some mockups of the art.

I was speaking on the phone with Chris Motion last night, the creator of our Recon 'White Label' release from a few years back. I haven't seen Chris in about a year, and he's coming up for our xmas party tomorrow, so I'm very excited to catch up with him! He's been crafting away on what sounds like a very interesting project, moving away from his broken dub techno creations, and working with strange loops of lounge and exotica, which in his capable hands I'm sure will produce some amazing results. We're looking into how cheaply we could produce a small run of 7" EPs.

well, theres loads more i could mention, but i'll save some surprises for future postings!

Labels: fisk industries, gigs, magnetism, mandelbrot, marcia, n.Ln, recon, upcoming releases