I hope everyone enjoyed a nice short time off, I definitely did by digging thru some older songs and found a few favorites that we’re hiding. It’s a tiny bit crazy that this blog has pretty much a list of all my favorite songs and posting 4 a day sometimes will really make you dig deep thru old mp3s and burn old cds onto the computer that weren’t on before. Scott is definitely working on a player for the blog and pretty much that will make me close my iTunes and Pandora and i’ll just sit on iso50 all day.
These 4 tracks today are all on the gentle tip but all different styles. The first song I remember buying it at a record store in Royal Oak, MI called Neptune Records, the clerks would suggest some of the best music and i’d end up going broke a few times. I found a great description of the song below on Boomkat out of the UK – “‘A Spire’ hits a more gradually rhythmic pace, a hypnotic banjo strum loops into infinity over which a developing cresta of vibraphone notes, guitar stabs and tonewaves congregate. By the midpoint all that’s left is a lonesome acoustic guitar and piano replaying a sublime melody before slowly all the other instrumentation rejoins taking the track to a deep blue finish”.
This Studio song is a favorite, this record is never left out of anything I do, everything from loading my iPod, DJ sets, mixes for friends, whatever you name off this is on it. It’s like Surf music served up for an eager disco crowd, each part brought in gives you more of what you’d be asking for if they were right in front of you and making it for you.
If you follow any Detroit Techno scene then you know Maurizio, its like stripped down hypnotic techno from a distance, I always picture a thick python slowly wrapping around its prey and squeezing tighter with every lap up the body that it makes.
We’ve all seen Crocodile Dundee and if you make music I feel everyone once in their life has tried to fit in a digeridoo in a song they’re working on, don’t lie and say you haven’t because you have because you wanted to make this exact song but i’m going to share this with you that it can’t be done because Peter Best killed it and it can’t be topped.
Jeff Toll turned me on to a new group tonight: the Austin, TX based psych-rock outfit Experimental Aircraft. Loving the intensity of this particular track, “Upper East Side” from their “Third Transmission” album. On a side note, the album cover was auto-generated in MS Paint as part of a machine intelligence experiment. First a machine is fed basic parameters and then it generates various shapes, at each step randomly determining whether or not to anti-alias the shapes. It then adds a lens flare.
It’s been over 4 years since Khonnor has released a proper release and today we have an exclusive EP announced here first on the ISO50 blog. Khonnor has always had a strong imagination for genre hopping and quality noisy melodies and this EP has it all and leaves you wanting more but instead you just end up playing songs over and over and get hooked, thats what happened to me. Also, note that PhilistineDSGN made the cover above, if I know the designer i’ll do my best to link to their portfolio.
I first heard this Marz track on a accordion sampler cd that I found in the Ghostly office. Some of the best clapping you’ll ever hear sampled here. Reminds me of Efterklang or Mum but a lot more uplifting.
Animal Collective have a new album coming out in January and I guess Grizzly Bear leaked this song on a blog and its such a treat, they are back to the unique tribal indie sound which I adore, the last minute and a half might be the highlight of the month in what i’ve heard.
Onra is a pretty sample heavy electronic hip hop producer that my friend John turned me onto. I started to go thru the musicians whole catalog and there is gem after gem of interesting sounds.
Khonnor – Pea Mag Gourmet
[audio:peamag.mp3]
Marz – 1,2,3,4 bars
[audio:1234.mp3]
Blind Man’s Colour – Brother Sport (Animal Collective Cover)
Not to be bias but i’ve listened to plenty of Radiohead “Reckoner” remixes in the last few weeks and this Mux Mool one is the by far the best. You can put it up next to anyone’s even the Flying Lotus and Diplo ones, here it is for free, let me know what you think and if you’re a YTMND fan then you should listen to it this way.
The last few days i’ve had Label owner/musician Peter Kersten(aka Sten or Lawrence) stay at my place and we’ve shared a lot of videos and music back and forth until the early mornings. He has a couple of beautiful releases out this month on Dial and Spectral Sound, this Divided song is out tomorrow, it is by far one of my favorites, if you like any of the softer melodic 4/4 songs i’ve posted then this is a must have.
Kompakt’s Mikkel Metal has his own genre I believe, he puts out these dark shuffle songs that just keep me entranced until the last note and its accompanied by some really nice hints of vocals.
I don’t know much about this Paul Lansky track besides reading somewhere that Radiohead sampled him and this track isn’t for everyone but if you can get in the mindset and take on 9 mins of this then by all mean do it, I think its rewarding in a way and enjoyable.
Last but not least Peter showed me this Werner Herzog footage from “The Great Ecstasy Of The Sculptor Steiner” its the opening scene, I will be hunting this video down, the camera shots and color are breathtaking.
Radiohead – Reckoner (Mux Mool remix)
[audio:reckoner.mp3]
Lawrence – Divided
[audio:divided.mp3]
Mikkel Metal – Kaluga
[audio:kaluga.mp3]
Paul Lansky – Idle Chatter
[audio:idlechatter.mp3]
“The Great Ecstasy Of The Sculptor Steiner” – Werner Herzog
There’s a little something for everyone here today. Rough Trade Records picked up a lovely group from Los Angeles called Little Joy which I heard about from a girl that I met while selling merch at the M83/School Of Seven Bells show.
As for some deep house this Rene Breitbarth track is tip! let it simmer for a bit and golden up, by far my favorite track to play out right now.
If you have been diggin’ the latest Gas box set or The Sight Below then Yagya is a definite good addition to your collection, it keeps you on course and will take you into winter all warm and cozy.
I guess Thom Yorke remixed himself and it didn’t come out that bad, i’ve been playing on repeat while I work and it made me revisit The Eraser LP which was good because so many people trashed that LP and I thought if it was anyone but Thom Yorke making that LP it would put that person on top of the indie world.
There’s plenty of music that really hits that sweet spot when it comes to analog synthesizers playing melodies. I wonder why it gives so many people such nostalgia though? We all weren’t watching the same children’s show were we? When our parents showed us old photos there wasn’t a button that made the photo play Geogaddi like some musical greeting card. I think I have narrowed it down to the show Nova, TV commercials, and the speaker quality of shopping markets playing 80s muzak. You all know Christ (The 3rd member of Boards of Canada that left after the Twoism album) and of course Boards of Canada (the Fonec track posted is from the album Closes Vol.1 EP) but I have found 2 young musicians that really caught my ear Minnesota’s Boreal Network and UK’s JC Harnell both are notable talents and carry on the torch properly of that sound in my opinion.
After what was perhaps the most arduous musical experience of my life, I’ve finally wrapped the new Tycho single. It’s a rather dense arrangement so getting everything to work together ended up taking 3 mixing sessions in SF and LA. I definitely learned a lot though, first, SSL is the most useful, greatest sounding EQ and compression I’ve ever used. Second, my monitoring situation at home is garbage. Time for some more Auralex and Adam A7s. Anyways, it’s done, and I’m done…for about a week or so then it’s back to work on the album.
I spent the free time I had between mixing sessions last week creating the cover art for the single, luckily that process ended up being a bit less stressful (you can see a small snippet of the artwork above). All the details will be coming shortly, the estimated release date is looking like late January. As always, you can keep an eye out here or subscribe to be notified when more info is available.
I hope some of you are sketch comedy fans here, i’m sure if Scott and I could add one more element to the site we would post youtube videos of Tim and Eric or other Adult Swim shows. For me comedy started with the Canadian show Kids In The Hall that was produced by SNL’s Lorne Michaels. The theme song to this show was by a group called “Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet” I’m sure many of us here that grew up close to Canada can hum the bassline to this theme song flawlessly.
I usually check out every release on Plug Research since they put out quality artists like John Tejada, Dntel, etc. I found this classic jam really catchy, it would of probably been huge in the 70’s but it reminds me alil too much of the song “We Will Rock You” but if you can get over that then this track has some parts to offer.
I look back and I don’t think I posted one Animal Collective song here and that blows my mind alil. So without posting one of their hit singles here is “Visiting Friends” a 12 min entrancing psych-folk song.
Small Sins is a very easy listen, super simple for a indie rock song in my opinion and I can’t help myself comparing the songs to Yo La Tengo or even Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene.
Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet – Having an Average Weekend (Kids in the Hall)
Not to be bias but i’ve listened to plenty of Radiohead “Reckoner” remixes in the last few weeks and this Mux Mool one is the by far the best. You can put it up next to anyone’s even the Flying Lotus and Diplo ones, here it is for 
There’s plenty of music that really hits that sweet spot when it comes to analog synthesizers playing melodies. I wonder why it gives so many people such nostalgia though? We all weren’t watching the same children’s show were we? When our parents showed us old photos there wasn’t a button that made the photo play Geogaddi like some musical greeting card. I think I have narrowed it down to the show Nova, TV commercials, and the speaker quality of shopping markets playing 80s muzak. You all know Christ (The 3rd member of Boards of Canada that left after the Twoism album) and of course 
After what was perhaps the most arduous musical experience of my life, I’ve finally wrapped the new Tycho single. It’s a rather dense arrangement so getting everything to work together ended up taking 3 mixing sessions in SF and LA. I definitely learned a lot though, first, SSL is the most useful, greatest sounding EQ and compression I’ve ever used. Second, my monitoring situation at home is garbage. Time for some more Auralex and Adam A7s. Anyways, it’s done, and I’m done…for about a week or so then it’s back to work on the album. 