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CA045: Gear Shift: The Best of Clan Analogue’s 2014 Jam Sessions | Various Artists

June 1, 2015 Leave a comment

Clan Analogue have released their first-ever live album – Gear Shift: The Best of Clan Analogue’s 2014 Jam Sessions, recorded at the monthly Gear Shift jam sessions held last year at Loop, Melbourne. Recordings made throughout the year have now been edited down into a selection of stellar improvisatory electronic music performances, available now from Clan Analogue’s Bandcamp page.

Download album from Bandcamp

<a href="//clananalogue.bandcamp.com/album/gear-shift-best-of-clan-analogues-2014-jam-sessions">Gear Shift: Best of Clan Analogue’s 2014 Jam Sessions by Various Artists</a>

Each month at Gear Shift a random assortment of jammers turned up, bringing classic and new hardware items such as the TB303 Devil Fish, Elektron Monomaschine, Arturia Monobrute, Roland MC505, SH101, MC202 and the stylophone. Homemade synths, theremins, Atari consoles and Mattel syntronic drums made appearances. iPhones and iPads were plugged in, running apps such as SoundPrism, Gyromin, Vogel CMI, TonePad and Samplr. Multiple laptops were synchronised in a LAN for an Ableton Live orchestra. Heard on Gear Shift: The Best of Clan Analogue’s 2014 Jam Sessions are seasoned electronica performers such as Jeremy Dower (Tetrphnm), Martin K (KOshowKO), Nick Wilson (Tiatto) and Michael Mildren (Ectoplasm) playing alongside musicians who had never taken their sounds out of the bedroom prior to venturing forth to one of the jam sessions.

Gear Shift: The Best of Clan Analogue’s 2014 Jam Sessions was compiled by Melbourne composer and producer Kim Lajoie, who went through the hours of audio recordings from the jam sessions to find the best selections for this release. Enjoy the sonic mayhem of Gear Shift, available now from https://clananalogue.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:

1. Michael Mildren and Nick Wilson l Jam 1, April 30th, 2014
2. Michael Mildren and Damian Murphy l Jam 1, part 1, August 27th, 2014
3. Michael Mildren and Grant Overend l Jam 1, October 29th, 2014
4. Baz Bardoe, Martin Koszolko and Nick Wilson l Theme From Tiatto (live dub mix)
5. Jeremy Elliott, Damian Murphy and Nick Wilson l Jam 1, September 24th, 2014
6. AC, Syx Ekoh and Chris Lynch l Jam 2, September 24th, 2014
7. Jennifer Lea, Alessio Pittau and Nick Wilson l Jam 1, October 29th, 2014
8. Jeremy Dower, Gareth Parton and Richard Pilkington l Jam 3, September 24th, 2014
9. Kim Lajoie, Chris Lynch and David Prescott-Steed l Jam 2, October 29th, 2014
10. Michael Mildren and Damian Murphy l Jam 1, part 2, August 27th, 2014
11. Tim Moore, Damian Murphy, Alessio Pittau and Andy Maggio l Jam 4, October 29th, 2014

CA043: Aeriae | Victris

August 20, 2014 1 Comment

Clan Analogue presents Victris, the majestic second album from Sydney producer Aeriae (Wade Clarke). With its expansive sound palette and baroque compositional approach, Victris encompasses precision-engineered sound design, emotional resonance and disparate genre influences filtered through classic IDM abstraction. The hypersequenced excitation of opener ‘Revered Daughter’ is a gateway to ten tracks exploring musical possibilities from dancefloor volition (Nurse 2 Alyssa Type) to sub bass scale (Sword of State), classic counterpoint (The Book of Peace) to sculpted beats (Heiress).

Buy CD direct from Clan Analogue:

<a href="//clananalogue.bandcamp.com/album/victris">Victris by Aeriae</a>

Download from Bandcamp

Buy from iTunes

Ambitious in texture, programming and melodic design, Victris explores the modern sonic parameters of electronica through the prism of deep historical insight into music, production and technology. With Bach-influenced melodic counterpoint, Spector-inspired mono mixes for discipline and impact, and the use of sonic detritus from the world of obsolete technology, colliding concepts of sound have been reconfigured for new expression in the modern digital age.

A taster from Victris was heard in 2013 with Aeriae’s Nurse 2 Alyssa Type EP. Victris expands on those possibilities with further cascading modulations of systematised intensity.

A thirteen-page booklet by Wade with notes on each of Victris’s tracks can be downloaded at aeriae.com/victris.pdf

Aeriae is Sydney-based electronic composer and producer Wade Clarke. His grandfather was an engineer and almost-concert pianist, and Wade grew up playing the piano by ear. Aeriae’s novel aesthetic is informed as much by Warp figureheads like Autechre as by classical music and 80s electronic film scores like Tron and Escape From New York. Wade’s other involvements include writing, reviewing, Interactive Fiction, illustration and the Apple II.

Victris is available on CD and in digital formats from usual sources. Witness Aeriae’s controllerism in action at the Aeriae Youtube channel.

“the predominant influences here are chiptunes and the sorts of cold electronic scores favoured by the likes of John Carpenter and Wendy Carlos, filtered through the complex time signatures and glacial melodic arrangements of post-IDM electronics” Cyclic Defrost

“Compositionally rich and complex, Aeriae has taken IDM to a new place, and maybe even another level” Chain D.L.K.

Tracklisting:

1. Revered Daughter
2. Ai No Kuni
3. Heiress
4. Sword of State
5. The Book of Peace (mono)
6. Kathle’en
7. Movement for the Brides
8. Nurse 2 Alyssa Type
9. Angel Team (mono)
10. Regina Doesn’t Have the Technical Knowledge for That

Clan Analogue release three new EPs

June 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Clan Analogue release three new EPs of electronic agitation….

In 2012 Australian electronic music collective Clan Analogue celebrated its 20th birthday with the Headspace Severed Heads tribute compilation. Now a new selection of Clan Analogue artists have emerged from their underground bedroom studios to release three new EPs of electronic agitation vibrating into the sonic void.

From noir electro-cabaret to abstract post-IDM synthesis to psychedelic two-step space funk, this selection of releases continues Clan Analogue’s quest to expose new tones to the harsh environment of the modern audio landscape.

Aeriae: Nurse 2 Alyssa Type
Aeriae is a Sydney-based practitioner of abstract angular electronics, here paving the way for his forthcoming album Victris with ‘Nurse 2 Alyssa Type’, a dark techno cut of cascading textures, intersecting synth lines and precisely calibrated sonics. The EP includes a genre-tripping set of remixes, distilling elements of the original into its primordial essences, from pure ambience to syncopated chaos. Look out for Victris later this year on Clan Analogue.

Actual Russian Brides: Wife Beats
Actual Russian Brides have a diverse and quixotic creative output, layering dense lyrical excursions onto electronica extracted from old and new synthesizers and drum machines. Having relocated their studio recently from Berlin to Sydney, the new EP Wife Beats is the duo at their most ironic and darkly witty: highly danceable tracks expertly fused with seductive storytelling.

Tiatto: Full Moon
Tiatto formed in a chance encounter between Melbournite Ben Wah and Mancunian Max Devere in a Brixton garrett opposite a crackhouse. Relocating to Melbourne they enlisted master synthesist Nick Fakeman and Canadian conceptual svengali Ganz Enfarben for extra musical credibility and will to power. So what is Full Moon? Miles Davis jamming with Squarepusher or The KLF meets Hawkwind might get you half way there. Perhaps its an elegy for UK breaks before dubstep or a journey through the night from insanity to redemption. Hear the Winduptoys remix for extra abstraction.

CA042A: Aeriae | Nurse 2 Alyssa Type

June 13, 2013 Leave a comment

Sydney producer Aeriae, aka Wade Clarke, paves the way for his second album, Victris, with ‘Nurse 2 Alyssa Type’, a dark techno cut of cascading textures taken from the album and backed up on this seven-track EP by a genre-tripping set of remixes and retakes from Clan Analogue associates. Lightwell distils the melody into a Brian Eno-like chill. CMI‘s massive sludgification of the material is chased by the hurtling beats of Che. Kate Carr delivers a vinyl-pricked mass of ambience before Thallium & Milo close the playlist with a mixture of four-on-the-floor and syncopated chaos. Before the remixes comes Aeriae’s ‘Nurse 1 Cindy Type’; the A-side’s slower-paced cousin, building drama through layers of carefully intersecting synth lines.

Download from Bandcamp

Buy EP from iTunes

Buy EP from Beatport

Buy EP from Juno Records

Buy CD direct from Clan Analogue:

Aeriae is Wade Clarke, techno and baroque experimentalist and controllerist, ready to launch new electronic tones into the void in the great tradition of Clan Analogue.
Lightwellis the current incarnation of long time music producer Edward Kelly, formerly known as Fluffy T Bunny. Edward Kelly has previously remixed artists such as Koshowko, Victor X-Ray, Null Object and Acid Warriorz.
CMI has been locked in a storage room for the last decade with a $30,000 synthesizer that is now worth $700. He claims to have invented several genres of popular dance music before they became huge in the world market and big in Japan.
Che is an electro-acoustic sound alchemist for all generations.
Kate Carr makes experimental ambient music and is the founder of the Flaming Pines label.
In Thallium & Milo, Che is the poison and Wade is the chocolate drink.

“stripped-back yet metallic-edged techno… as eerie noodling synths dart against dark bursts of noise and robotic bass murmurs”  Cyclic Defrost

Tracklisting:

1. Nurse 2 Alyssa Type
2. Nurse 1 Cindy Type
3. Nurse 2 Summer Midnight Mix (Lightwell)
4. Nurse Betty (CMI)
5. Nursed to Death (Che)
6. Nurse 2 Codeine Cough Syrup Remix (Kate Carr)
7. NSDRSB (Thallium & Milo)

CA042R: Actual Russian Brides | Wife Beats

June 12, 2013 Leave a comment

Wife Beats is Actual Russian Brides’ second solo release.

If 2010 album Miss Sled on Berlin’s Brigade was the the only thing you’d want playing in your opium den, Wife Beats ups the tempo.

Actual Russian Brides have a diverse and quixotic creative output, layering dense lyrical excursions onto electronica extracted from old and new synthesizers and drum machines that keep their Sydney studio warm at night. Wife Beats is the duo at their most ironic and darkly witty: highly danceable tracks expertly fused with seductive storytelling.

Colonel Panic, an homage to the cold-war Connery/Bond era, heads up the 6 track EP with its deeply felt groove. Exxxy has become something of an anthem for fans of the band; from its recognisable opener, it is rousing electronic quirk-pop. Nu-rave Balloons sees vocalist Aitelya Bebietsova (aka Elle Knox) experiment with helium and producer Baby Swindle (aka Lindsay Webb) grind that crank on the street organ. Hot Yoga is the perfect workout track, if working out means wiggling your arse. [Actual Russian Brides have never been to a gym and aren’t sure what that entails.] Gathering Dust dusts off the MPC with a downtempo piano loop. Anywhere pairs a late summer hick beatdown with hip-poetry from some future-nostalgic road movie.

Download from Bandcamp

Buy album from iTunes

Buy EP from Beatport

Buy EP from Juno Records

Buy CD direct from Clan Analogue:

With the recent Australian premiere of their live electro-cabraret Bild-Lilli (nominated for a Victorian Green Room Award) and tracks on compilations by New Weird Australia and Clan Analogue, Actual Russian Brides are as excited as actual Russian brides tend to get. You can hear more of Actual Russian Brides at actualrussianbrides.com. As Actual Russian Brides like to say: “Get us while we are still cheap!”

Wife Beats is one of three new EPs released by Clan Analogue. Also check out the new releases from Aeriae and Tiatto.

“curiously exotic melodic touches that play against the harsh, almost industrial-sounding snares, the entire fusion coming across like Laibach’s take on space lounge music.” Cyclic Defrost

Tracklisting:

1. Colonel Panic
2. Exxxy
3. Balloons
4. Hot Yoga
5. Gathering Dust
6. Anywhere

CA042T: Tiatto | Full Moon

June 11, 2013 Leave a comment

Tiatto join jazz funk greats with Full Moon

Tiatto formed in a chance encounter between Melbournite Ben Wah and Mancunian Max Devere in a Brixton garret opposite a crackhouse. This led to an intensive 6 months of all-night UK garage parties, trips to mental health wards and work experience sessions at the top recording studios in Brixton. Proudly emerging from the chaos with a bunch of demos, they were shortly afterwards thrown out of the office of Radio One’s head of programming for “wasting his time with some fusion shit”.

Ben Wah had his work visa revoked and Max Devere fled the country with him. Relocating to Melbourne they realised they needed to establish some musical credibility and the will to power. They enlisted classical pianist and master synthesist Nick Fakeman along with Canadian conceptual svengali Ganz Enfarben and re-entered the studio with some real musicians. Minimalist composer Rae Howell, of Sunwrae Ensemble fame, poked her head around the studio door and was soon channelling the spirit of Bitches Brew on her platinum trumpet. Having been evicted from the Gentlemen of Fortune, Graeme Cameron decided to turn his back on the rock’n’roll lifestyle forever, expressing his inner turmoil through a melancholic haunting melody which should see him inducted into the pedal steel guitar hall-of-fame.

So what is ‘Full Moon’? Miles Davis jamming with Squarepusher or The KLF meets Hawkwind might get you part way there. Perhaps its an elegy for UK breaks before dubstep or a journey through the night from insanity to redemption. Hear the Winduptoys remix for extra abstraction.

Download from Bandcamp

Buy album from iTunes

Buy EP from Beatport

Buy EP from Juno Records

Buy CD direct from Clan Analogue:

Full Moon by Tiatto is one of three new EPs from Clan Analogue. Also check out Wife Beats by Actual Russian Brides and Nurse 2 Alyssa Type by Aeriae.

“a langorous wander out into deep digi-dub coloured with delicate xylophone tones and mournful, e-bowed guitar howls, before sinister robotic synth arpeggios and horns rise up out of the woodwork and the rhythms suddenly accelerate up into nu skool breaks territory, the darting synths adding a touch of electro-funk”  Cyclic Defrost

Tracklisting:

1. Full Moon (Radio Mix)
2. Full Moon (Winduptoys Underwater Mix)
3. Full Moon (Album Mix)
4. Soul Kitchen Sink
5. Ruben’s Dodecahedron

CA041: Headspace: A Tribute to Severed Heads | Various Artists

May 21, 2012 2 Comments

To mark its twentieth anniversary, Clan Analogue are proud to release the new compilation album Headspace uniquely celebrating the heritage of this Australian electronic music and arts collective. Headspace is a tribute album to the legendary Severed Heads, with Clan Analogue’s artists reinterpreting their favourite tracks from this seminal Australian electronic music act.

Buy CD direct from Clan Analogue:

Download from Bandcamp

Severed Heads are one of the pioneers of electronic music in Australia. With their infectious dark robotic rhythms and quirky lyrics, they broke electronic music firstly in the Australian underground during the post-punk era then the mainstream during the 1980s. Having produced work spanning experimental and industrial sound art through to techno, electro and synth-pop, Severed Heads provided unique inspiration to a generation of Australian electronic artists and made a huge impact overseas. In 2011 they impressed a new generation of fans when they reformed to tour supporting Gary Numan.

Clan Analogue members acknowledge the influence Severed Heads has had on them and their music. The collective formed in 1992 drawing inspiration from the example of Severed Heads, pushing boundaries in the use of new and obsolete technology in music, sound and visuals and to explore avenues for multimedia distribution outside of the mainstream. Once word spread that Clan Analogue were compiling Headspace, artists from as far away as London and Tokyo put their hands up to contribute. The album includes tracks from long-running Clan Analogue acts such as Telemetry Orchestra and Kazumichi Grime, current stalwarts such as Lunar Module, Telafonica and Winduptoys, along with new emerging artists like Aeriae, Actual Russian Brides and Philosophy of Sound. International guests Scanner and Little Nobody also demanded to be included once they heard the news.

As befitting a collective of technologically-inspired, forward-looking sound artists, the traditional notion of a cover version for Headspace was deconstructed and reinvented. Rehashing chord progressions and vocal melodies was not often the best method to rework abstract sound pieces and industrial electro masterpieces. Artists needed to distil the essence of their chosen track and rebuild with a new sonic palette for the decade. Approaches included cut-up collages using the original recordings as source material or using the original tracks as inspiration for further explorations into sound.

Headspace is available in classic CD jewel-case format, as well as in non-physical formats.

“Who better than Australian collective Clan Analogue to pay tribute to Severed Heads? The Sydney pioneers blended synth-pop and industrial with dark techno over three decades, and here they get reinterpreted by their diverse acolytes.” Stack

Track Listing

1. Telafonica l Twister
2. Philosophy of Sound l Ugliest Twenties
3. Scanner l Adolf a Karrot? [on CD version only]
4. Lux Voltaire l Pilot in Hell
5. Telemetry Orchestra l Propeller
6. Valley Forge l Twenty Deadly Diseases
7. Lunar Module l Hot With Fleas
8. Aeriae l Snuck
9. Kazumichi Grime & Andrew Jones l Petrol [on CD version only]
10. Data Transmit & Nick West l Dead Eyes Opened
11. Inflatable Voodoo Dolls l Big Car
12. Stewart Lawler l Now, An Explosive New Movie [on CD version only]
13. Clone l All Saints Disco
14. 15-11 Enterprises l We Choose Moon
15. Actual Russian Brides l Kittenette
16. Winduptoys l Ottoman
17. Little Nobody l A Million Angels [on CD version only]
18. The Process Void l Godsong [on CD version only]

CA040: Valley Forge | Artificial Heart

August 18, 2011 Leave a comment

Valley Forge’s Artificial Heart – Implant yours today

Following on from the recently-released Wayfaring Stranger EP Artificial Heart is one of the most impeccably-crafted albums to be released in the modern Australian electronic music ecosystem. The debut album from Valley Forge is a true synthesis of the organic and synthetic, a new form of transhumanist electronica.

Download album from Bandcamp

<a href="http://clananalogue.bandcamp.com/album/artificial-heart">Artificial Heart by Valley Forge</a>

Buy CD direct from Clan Analogue:

Buy from iTunes

Spanning rich, cinematic synthscapes to intimate and melancholic techno-pop, Artificial Heart is a modified microarray of electro, dub, ambient and world music elements. With influences such as Tangerine Dream, Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, Boards of Canada, Wendy Carlos, BT and Air gene-spliced with sounds from gamelan to gospel, Artificial Heart transforms these nanosonics into a new organism of sound.

Valley Forge was formed by biosonic engineer Freeman Lowell, joining with a selection of notable collaborators on Artificial Heart, including Australian music legend Kamahl, Sydney indie band So I’m Jo’s Glen Cassidy and Japanese experimental music artist Amos Wong. Tracks such as ‘Wayfaring Stranger’, ‘Follow Suit’ and ‘Machine-Built Rhythm’ have preceded the album, with contributions to Clan Analogue compilations Doppler Shift, In Version and Re Cognition anticipating Valley Forge’s first full-length work.

Now Artificial Heart has arrived at its destination – a singularity of pure emotive machinery. Embrace the transformation – implant yours today.

“A trip-hop sci-fi soundtrack, merging sinister technology with spiritual soundscapes… Artificial Heart is an excursion into our own warped, inconsistent world.”
Rave Magazine

Tracklisting:

1. Power-Up
2. Machine-Built Rhythm
3. Ne10
4. Muscle and Grit
5. Follow Suit
6. Unfurl
7. I Want Us to Merge
8. Stonerich
9. Sea of Simulation
10. Payload
11. Wayfaring Stranger (featuring Kamahl)
12. Flatline

CA040W: Valley Forge featuring Kamahl | Wayfaring Stranger

August 12, 2011 Leave a comment

The legendary Kamahl teams up with Sydney producer of cinematic electronica Valley Forge for a haunting down-tempo updating of the 18th century spiritual ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ on the newest release from Clan Analogue. In perhaps his most personal musical statement yet, Kamahl is the ‘Wayfaring Stranger’, journeying through cyberspace on an endless search for refuge from existential isolation. Valley Forge and Kamahl channel Tron and Scot Walker in equal measure, exploring the quest for human connection within our modern technological dystopia.

<a href="https://clananalogue.bandcamp.com/album/wayfaring-stranger">Wayfaring Stranger by Valley Forge featuring Kamahl</a>

‘Wayfaring Stranger’ is the second single from Valley Forge’s debut album Artificial Heart. The Wayfaring Stranger EP includes a remix by Itch-E & Scratch-E’s Andy Rantzen and follows the release of Follow Suit which featured remixes by iconic dance acts Boxcar and Single Gun Theory.

“An eerie downbeat crawl of vocoders, gliding hiphop-inflected rhythms and shimmering electronics, dark pop hooks lurking just beneath the surface”
Cyclic Defrost

Tracklisting:

1. Wayfaring Stranger [Radio Edit]
2. Wayfaring Stranger [Andy Rantzen Remix]
3. Pain Threshold
4. Sea of Simulation [Dubliminal Mix]
5. I Want Us to Merge [Recombinant Mix]

Clan Analogue meet with Bob Moog Foundation

December 11, 2010 1 Comment

A representative of Australian electronic music collective Clan Analogue met recently with Michelle Moog-Koussa, daughter of Bob Moog and Executive Director of the Bob Moog Foundation, in Asheville, North Carolina, at Moogfest.

Nicole Skeltys, musician and sound artist, known for her work with B(if)tek, Artificial, Dust, Jilted Brides and more, has been traveling and working on music projects in the US. She met with Michelle Moog-Koussa to discuss the legacy of Bob Moog, his influence on Clan Analogue and to officially hand over a copy of Clan Analogue’s retrospective compilation Re Cognition: The Clan Analogue Legacy Collection for the Bob Moog Foundation’s collection.

The two had much to discuss regarding Clan Analogue and the Bob Moog Foundation’s shared passion for sound synthesis and technological development in electronic music. Clan Analogue are now investigating ways of sending a delegation of its artists to perform in the US for the next Moogfest.

To see this historic meeting and handover ceremony, watch here:

Re Cognition: The Clan Analogue Legacy Collection is out now from Clan Analogue, along with new EPs by Valley Forge, Koshowko, Lunar Module and Tiatto.