Couple more electronic records...Shigeto and Ensemble Economique

That's right, it's time for me to struggle against the use of the word "blippy" and fret pointlessly about which instruments are "real" and which ones come out of computers. I've been listening to a couple of electronic albums with the raw enthusiasm of an Iron Age warrior contemplating his first iPod. I love the way that both of them sound, which I will try to describe to you in a naive and non-genre specific way that real electronics writers will find amusing or offensive, depending on how much they hate women. (And yes, actually, most of them do.)

First up Shigeto, who pulls heavily from jazz as he creates slinky, syncopated meshes of percussion. Elements of the sound suggest glockenspiel, marimba, xylophone and Fender Rhodes, all cool, serene and tonal, slightly idealized versions of the sounds they evoke. I like the way the beats drag behind, then step up sharp to the twos and fours, a succession of hesitations and slaps that feels unhurried, laid-back yet structured. It's quite sensual, but you'd have trouble dancing to it, sexual without heat, sweat or bother. The record is called No Better Time Than Now and it's out on Ghostly on August 19.

Disturbingly, given recent events, it includes a "Detroit Part 1," but no "Part 2" or subsequent.


With the second, Fever Logic from Ensemble Economique, I feel myself on somewhat firmer ground, since it is exactly the kind of landscape-y, outrageously gorgeous drone meditation that I tend to like on guitar, transposed to booming synths. Really, it could be Jesu in parts. There are even vocals. Lots of kissing on the video, lots of long hair flying around...enjoy.

ENSEMBLE ECONOMIQUE - We Come Spinning Out Of Control from PɨK on Vimeo.

The record has been out on the Not Not Fun label since July, but nowhere near enough people have heard it.

Back to guitars and banjos and such tomorrow.

Mux Mool

Not really in sync with last night's festivities at Hampshire College, went to see Shigeto whose album Lineage I am liking a lot, but a bit flummoxed by the youth and informality of the gathering. (I'm used to being the oldest one in the room, no so much being the only one over 20, and I do mean way, way over 20.)

I believe Shigeto was playing when we got there (it looked like him from the photo), though with some other guys who might have been in Mux Mool and it didn't sound anything like the record (or, indeed, very focused or good). Second act(no one announcing anything, BTW, so they might have been Mux Mool, see if you can tell from the photo) included 2-3 guys from the first set, and was much better sounding...big booming beats that shiver through your clothing and altered soul-type vocals, a bizarre mix of viscerality and technology, but good. Also all hail the paper glasses, which looked like 3D specs, but shattered all the lights into rainbow shards and made things look pretty cool.

We left early, no idea which of the three (Shigeto, Mux Mool or Expensive Looks) we missed. Wow, college was a really long time ago.

Shigeto

Lineage is another really beautiful bit of melodic electronica from the Chicago label, Ghostly. Shigeto is Zach Saginaw, a drummer, jazz student and self-taught electronic composer, originally from Michigan. Before Lineage, he had two EPs, a full-length (Full Circle) and an album of remixes under his belt (Full Circle Remixes). He has also remixed tracks for other artists including Tycho, Mux Mool and Shlomo.

Shigeto's new mini LP offers eight tracks of luminous, subtly beat-driven atmospherics...a cerebral, introspective meander through imagined landscapes that somehow feel like home. I'd say it's a bit drier and more intellectual than last year's Dive from Tycho, and certainly more prone to experiments with altered vocal tones, but it's not a bad comparison point. It reminds me also, especially on "Huron River Drive" (streamable below), of the percussive cross-currents and complexities of Dosh.