Flatland Frequencies
In art and everyday life are we dominated by an endless quest for the new? Composer Claire van Kampen, film director Sophie Fiennes, music journalist Ammar Kalia and musician Brian Eno discuss and explain their ideas in this 40 minute debate.
Perhaps Kate Bush and Lady Gaga cover versions may be unexpected on the pages of Flatland Frequencies but our long time favourite Antenna has done an excellent job with these reimaginings. Trademark crunchy lo-fi 909 beats fuse with crystal cold digital chords making an irresistible package that sits somewhere on the intersection of coldwave, techno and house music. This self-released EP is available through Bandcamp as a pay what you feel download.
Amidst the bleak lockdowns, the echoing mantras of “stay indoors” and other rituals that present themselves in our newly enforced climate, art and creativity take on new meaning and importance.
Cookie-cutter dance music and bandwagon-hopping DJs have been ruthlessly sucked out the airlock, floating in limbo and directionless. Luckily for us, it appears the realness is surviving, like mutated roots waiting to bust through the veneer and grow back harder and more twisted than before.
Utopian future or dystopian state. Whatever happens post-virus, you can be sure Ben Pest will be providing the gritty, fucked-up soundtrack.
Pre-order here
Jeran Portis presents a selection of the finest forthcoming and recent electro, techno and acid tracks to find their way to us through the Flatland Frequencies inbox. Expect experimental but floor-friendly electro from Second Storey, deep and driving techno from the Anti Patriot and an amazingly epic builder of a track by Architectural.
Tracklist:
Four tracks of thoughtful, hard and overdriven techno grooves in that distinctive Kalamazoo style.
From the press release: “The artist, known only as Anti Patriot lives everywhere and nowhere in particular. In fact no one knows where he/she is from. What we do know is they don’t agree with a lot of things their country does, from its leaders to the mass media and even some citizens, especially in these modern times”
Audio clips below:
We can now reveal the two mystery tracks in our Electro Essentials – February 2020 mix. Both were from this now released EP from Assembler Code. Track titles are Monochrome and Generator.
In these strange times of covid19 pandemic-related isolation and measures of enforced lockdown, we need sounds to keep us sane and self-motivated. Here is a Spotify playlist to help you get through a day working at home.
Eerie electronica, characterised by distant synthetic messages and spindly environmental noise. The latest offering from A Year In The Country, continues with earthy drones and odd folklore in both it’s sound design and accompanying Novella.
Can popular music be subversive? According to the critical theorist Theodore Adorno the answer is firmly, ‘no’. The reasons for this are related to the structure of contemporary society itself; “We live in a society of commodities—that is, a society in which production of goods is taking place, not primarily to satisfy human wants and needs, but for profit. Human needs are satisfied only incidentally, as it were. This basic condition of production affects the form of the product as well as the human interrelationships.” – A Social Critique of Radio Music – Adorno
Polypores gives us an exclusive full track premiere from their upcoming ‘Piano Dismantled’ album.