Lykke Li & Bon Iver – ‘Dance Dance Dance’

Lykke Li & Bon Iver doing ‘Dance Dance Dance’ in L.A from Lykke Li on Vimeo.

Those crazy kids.

Patrick Kelleher

I interviewed Patrick Kelleher before Christmas for a pilot of the Analogue Hour. I ended up going back to a party in his house on Saturday night after the Skinny Wolves brilliant dj set in Anseo. At the party, I realised I should probably post up the interview for more people to hear. Patrick will be releasing an album later this year on Irish label Osaka Recordings.

[audio:Patrick_Kelleher_interview.mp3]

Leftfield – Swords

Yep I’m on a bit of an electronica buzz this week. This track is from Leftfield’s second and final album ‘Rhythm and Stealth’.

Boy 8-Bit – The Suspense is Killing Me

Boy 8-Bit plays Mud at the Twisted Pepper on the 13th of February. Be there.

Jimmy The Hideous Penguin

Jimmy The Hideous Penguin is one of Ireland’s hidden electronic diamonds. Hailing from Galway in the blustery west of Ireland, Jimmy makes music that varies between sultry bass heavy electronica, progressive scratch and slow burning ambient tracks richly orchestrated with organic instrumentation. Yep this guy is a jack of all trades.

My name is Jimmy,
But my friends just call me
‘The hideous penguin boy.’

- Tim Burton

—

How long have you been making music as Jimmy the Hideous Penguin?

I started dj’ing around 2000/2001 although not as jimmy penguin, then in my first dj competition (DMC Dublin 05 I think) I needed a name that would stand out, Jimmy The Hideous Penguin is what I settled on. When I started producing soon after, I decided to release my music as Jimmy Penguin and do dj sets as Hideous Penguin.

—

I didn’t realise that it was actually the title of a Tim Burton poem, can you empathise with Jimmy from the poem at all?

My mate had some of the poems from the book on his wall, and I happened to be looking around saying to myself ‘what am I going to use as a name’ when the poem caught my eye. His name was Jimmy, my name was Jimmy, it was just meant to be.

—

Was there a particular artist or album that inspired you to start making your own music?

Dave Clarke live at Fuse is the reason I started dj’ing. D-styles Phantazmagorea was the album that gave me a serious push, it made me want to go get a 4 track straight away. I got a computer instead, my original idea was to get all the musicians I knew and combine our efforts to make some music. It never happened. After that I had to start making beats for Sebi C and Mupeid, so I suppose that’s what got me properly motivated.

—

What’s your recording process like? What equipment do you use?

I tend to make quite a bit of sample-based stuff but I write most of the music myself. My live setup and my studio setup is usually pretty similar, I use a turntable, a Rane mixer and a Jamman loop pedal. I run that into my computer for basic effects e.g. reverb. I also use Serato, guitar rig and a Microkorg synthesiser.

—

On your Myspace page, you state that you believe in the free distribution of digital media. Why is this so important to you?

Most of the music that I’ve been inspired by I heard when I was younger, I didn’t pay for it. The music I’m talking about is what made me who I am, the stuff that I really love, I now own on vinyl, but I never would have heard it in the first place had I been brought up in a situation where top 30 hits was my only musical influence.

You downloading my six albums that are available on the internet costs me nothing, and the usual argument is that musicians need to make a living, a good friend of mine made the very valid point that methods of recording have only been around for the last hundred or so years, every musician before that didn’t starve. Harden the fuck up and go do some bloody gigs!

—

Would you ever consider a cd or vinyl release?

I give out free cd’s at gigs as often as I can. Our vinyl will be out on ‘Nause Corps‘ in April and will be available at the Community Skratch Games in Galway and in various independent record stores around the country too. It’s our debut album, titled ‘Vince Mack Mahon‘ and is a collection of our music both solo tracks and group efforts, the most exciting thing about the album is we’re releasing it alongside the new ‘Grandeurs of Delusion’ album ‘Night of the Flavigator’.

‘Night of the Flavigator’ is a follow up album to ‘A Stale Breath of Fresh Ahhh’ which came out last year and is available at nausecorps.com. The Galway label Cobwebs & Gossamer Records are due a Penguin release at some stage too. I also hope to release a series of records myself this year but I won’t give too much away just yet.

—

Previously you’ve released music through the Jamendo webspace but recently you joined the Open Music Net Label, do you hope to gain a little more exposure from working with them?

Net-labels are good for hearing great music you never would have heard before, for free. If you listen to the open music compilation ‘Primer Vol.1’, you will hear a wide variety of quality music by people who probably would have never appeared on a compilation together otherwise. Discovering new people who are on a similar wavelength, that’s the idea I like most about being involved with Open Music I suppose.

—

You’ve had a lot or releases over the last year and a bit, the earlier tracks are based completely around scratching whereas on your later releases not so much so, are your albums ‘Spilt Decision’ and ‘Electro’ more indicative of the direction you want to take your music in? Or are they a separate projects?

I lost my mixer plug at a gig in the Village with Mupeid and soon after I got a set of monitors, I wanted to test them out so I started bangin’ out the aul electro ya know! Expect a mix of the two styles for my open music release.

—

You’ve got a pretty interesting side project with MC Muipeid,who raps in Irish. The Na Bac song is excellent. I never considered that Hip Hop and the Irish Language would sit well and any time I’ve heard anything of the sort, it’s been taking the piss. From how well crafted and produced the songs are, it’s clear that this is something that you take seriously. Is the primary aim of this collaboration to promote Irish or does it go beyond that?

Myself and Mupeid’s main goals are to have fun, make good music and to give the young people in the Irish speaking community something to relate to other than what they’re used to hearing in the more mainstream scenes. We’ve known each other most of our lives which makes the music we make together a very personal experience for me.

—

You’re involved in the Community Skratch Games in Galway, how did that start up and what’s it all about?

‘D’ya know what we should do?’ ‘Wha?’ ‘We should get everyone round and have a laugh with a load of turntables’.

So we realised we needed a venue, and that’s where it all started. We are lucky to have support from the guys at the Bierhaus (where the main event takes place), they let us do fundraisers for the festival and various gigs and events. After the last two scratch bonanza’s its hard for us to believe they’re having us back for more of the same, thanks lads!

Huge respect to Deviant who took it upon himself to make the festival run as smoothly as possible the previous two years. The whole point is to promote scratching, scratch music and the people involved, other than that its about getting together to do what we do best, under the same roof in a friendly environment. Co-operation not competition…

This year I’m gathering scratch music from all over the world and releasing a free compilation ‘Community Skratch Music’. I hope that this compilation will make more people aware of the festival and modern turntable culture.

—

Finally, you’ve had a pretty prolific output between your own music and collaborations thus far, what are your plans for 2009?

*Vince Mack debut album, *my own series of 12′inches (various artists), Community Skratch games 09,*Community Skratch BBQ in London, *Community Skratch @ Glastonbury, *Commuinty Skratch music.

If I get all that done I’ll be doing well and if I plan anything more I think I’ll probably collapse from the thought of it! Thanks very much for listening to my music, that’s what its there for, Jimmy Penguin, wooooord!!!

—

You can download six albums by Jimmy on Jamendo, ‘Split Decision‘, ‘Electro‘ and ‘Scratchin chi’ chin’ chi‘ are the best places to start. He’ll be supporting Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip in the Roisin Dubh in Galway on the 7th of Feb and in Cyprus Avenue, Cork on the 8th. Both gigs are put on by one of Galway’s finest independent promoters Stress.

Jimmy Penguin & MC Muipeid are playing at Deviant & Naive Ted’s EP Launch at the Bierhaus on Feb 12th.(Check out a previous album by Naive Ted here) The Community Skratch Games kick off on April 8th in the Bierhaus too.

Modeselektor audio interview

Modeselektor played a stomping set to a packed out Twisted Pepper just before Christmas. I had hoped to get an interview for Analogue but it wasn’t possible because of time constraints. Luckily I share an office with Jules, the presenter of Mixtape on Dublin City FM and he was kind enough to allow me post this interview that he did. They give some pretty interesting insights into making their first album back in 2005, the club scene in Berlin, collaborations with Thom Yorke and how the remixes for Bjork came about. There’s also some info on a new album with Apparat that they’re currently working on.

[audio:Modeselektor_interview.mp3]

Mixtape is a brand new series, which goes out every Tuesday night from 12-2am on 103.2 Dublin City FM. Playing everything from French Electro to Finish Indie & everything in-between. Expect fresh, original and sometimes scary sounds – perfect for falling asleep to, or not.

Deerhunter – White Ink

Deerhunter – White Ink from justin gaar on Vimeo.

We Have Band- Live Review 15th January

We Have Band- Live at Crawdaddy.

We Have Band romped through their half-hour set at a breakneck speed on Thursday night. Dede WP plays tambourine like an Egyptian and looks like Margot Tennenbaum, crossed with Edie Sedgwick. Husband Thomas WP sings not unlike Jemaine Clement. Percussionist Darren Bancroft brings 80’s buzz cuts and spot-on offbeats. Current single, ‘Oh’ is a frenetic Korg-fuelled battle call to the dancefloor, while ‘Hear it in the Cans’ is Human League crossed with a bored Neanderthal beat. The group form a triangle around a drum machine, exhorting a half-empty room to dance. The unexpected whistling in ‘You Came Out’ breaks through the hipster cool, exposing the pop song roots. The room dances. This is what Hot Chip wished they sounded like live. A cover of the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ closes the show. It was a fitting note to end on- a clever, hooky, synthy pop song, both knowing and insouciant at the same time. We Have Band are, as yet, unsigned. If they keep up at this rate, I can’t see that lasting long, at all.

Support on the night came in the form of Dublin Duck Dispensary – Bobby Aherne’s homage to Phil Spektor and mic hiss. Like the kid at school who pulls your hair then kisses you and runs away, D.D.D’s songs are short noisy bursts of pop distortion, each no longer than 3 minutes long, each 3 minutes too short.

the Holy Roman Army – Dublin in the deadlight

The Holy Roman Army TV on MUZU.

The Holy Roman Army myspace.

New album ‘How the Light Gets In’ due out in March.

I Feel A Fever Ray Coming On…

Karen Dreijer, a.k.a Fever Ray

It’s been almost three years since The Knife graced us with their most recent album Silent Shout, and dedicated fans have been growing impatient as the band continues their hiatus. An upcoming opera will no doubt appease the more obsessive fans (of which, when it comes to The Knife, there are many), but while Olof Dreijer is busy recording in the Amazon, big sis Karen has taken it upon herself to unleash some solo material on the world.

Thus, I present to you – Fever Ray! Some of you will already be familiar with the first single, If I Had A Heart, produced by Karen with Christoffer Berg and released digitally just over a month ago. The Andreas Nillson-directed video floated onto the interwebs earlier this month, and is a suitably spooky accompaniment to the song’s relentless bassy synth loop and sombre vintage organ.

The self-titled debut album was released on Klicktrack on January 12th, in delicious, high-quality 320kbps mp3 format. The website gives you the extremely thoughtful ability to preview every track on the album; not just 30 seconds, mind, but the entire length. The physical LP is released across Europe and the U.S. at the end of March.

It doesn’t take a musicological expert to work out that this is one-half of The Knife. Their typical synth techniques crop up time and time again; putting the same synth instrument in fifths, for example, as heard on the bell sounds near the beginning of Triangle Walks and in countless other places on the album. There is also a liberal use of vocoders on Karen’s voice, another textbook The Knife sound.

At the same time, this definitely isn’t another Olof-and-Karen affair. Tracks like Now’s The Only Time I Know and I’m Not Done contain a sound that would have been out of place on Silent Shout. Fresher drums, more energy and – dare I say it? – happier chords. The Knife fans will still love this, but. much like Thom Yorke and The Eraser, Karen’s choice to (for now) branch out on her own has clearly granted her the freedom to explore a new, more versatile sound.

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