An electronic music legend is back with a 2 tracker for us, Casino Versus Japan has always been a favorite on here since the blog started. What to expect? well the signature dreaminess and the lull that soo many artists try to create but can’t ever do as well as Erik did it, i’ve always filed him under Hawaiian Post Rock by himself.
Artwork by Anthony Ciannamea
Tracklist:
1. Weight
2. The Cat’s Gone Nuts (feat. Seafloor)
3. Better Than Nothing (feat. Angelica Bess)
4. Insider Out
5. Ports (feat. Angelica Bess)
6. Ended Up In NY
7. It’s All Right (feat. Angelica Bess)
8. I Assume (feat. Jesse Boykins III & Throwing Snow)
9. Stop Drop & Roll
10. Everyone’s Crazy
11. Shhhh
12. An Oceanic Escape (feat. Olivia Sholler)
13. Gee Whiz
Name:
Braille
Current city:
Brooklyn
Pets:
Ro aka Chunkers the Cat
ISO50: Dream gear set up:
Braille: What I’ve got right now works pretty well. Highlights are my Prophet 12, Rhodes, Laptop and Apollo Sound Card. I guess if I dream of anything, its having a proper piano around again.
ISO50: Dream gig line up to play with:
Braille: A Piano, Guitar and Vocal Mic
Granular Sampler with a pedal system triggering recording of each of the instruments individually
Controller to control the sampler’s playhead on each individual track
I’m gonna make this happen some day…
ISO50: Share a childhood memory that might relate to your music?
Braille: Every nightmare I ever had as a child where I was frozen by an unseen evil and couldn’t scream
ISO50: If the world lost electricity tomorrow, would you continue to make music and how?
Braille: I’d break out the acoustic guitar, find a piano and go to town
ISO50: How do you and Seafloor know each other?
Braille: We’ve known each other since our first releases during the good old IDM days. Seafloor was in a group on Merck called Landau which progressed through Landau Orchestra and Murray Flexor to its current incarnation as Body Language. He lives a block away from me in Brooklyn and has become one of my closest friends over the past 10 years or so. We’ve been working together more often the past few years, you can check out our first collaborative EP as “Rights” on Infinite Machine.
ISO50: Tell us about the album art for the EP and LP?
Braille: Anthony Ciannamea did an amazing job tying the EP and LP art together while still staying true to the vibe of the individual releases. The cover and back of the LP ties together everything from subject matter (a girl, swan feather) to instruments used (texture from a cardboard box I used for some of the percussion) without feeling too busy. Its been a pleasure to work with him and I’m looking forward to the stuff he’s still cooking up for the album release.
ISO50: Can you list off a 4 song playlist of what you listen to while
you head out for errands?
Braille: It varies but recently these four tracks have been on repeat lately:
Tim Hecker – Virginal I
Kendrick Lamar – Institutionalized (feat. Bilal, Anna Wise & Snoop Dogg)
Sufjan Stevens – Fourth of July
Flying Lotus – Coronus, The Terminator
Photo by Sean Maung
ISO50: Something your fans might not know about you?
Braille: I’m Indorican?
ISO50: Do you collect anything?
Braille: Not really. Music and Instruments I suppose, though I know thats a very boring, expected answer.
ISO50: What is your favourite sound and why?
Braille: The sound of a minor 7th guitar chord run through a granular sampler at a very slow speed with the density and duration maxed out. There’s something so beautiful about both the concept and the resulting sound. On one hand, its a beautiful, epic textural sound and on the other its a statement about the temporal nature of sound since you are exploding a single instant of audio into an endless, living soundscape.
ISO50: Is there any sort of emotional subtext, or something that inspires you to write your solo music?
Braille: Melancholic optimism
ISO50: Any tour dates lining up?
Braille: Some upcoming dates with label mate Different Sleep as well as my release party next month in Brooklyn!
15-Apr – Los Angeles, CA – Low End Theory w Different Sleep
16-Apr – San Francisco, CA – California Academy of Sciences Night Life w Different Sleep
22-Apr – Austin, TX – Empire Control Room w Different Sleep
23-Apr – Chicago, IL – East Room w Different Sleep
8-May – NYC – Mute Swan Release Party at Cameo Gallery w Seafloor & L-Vis 1990
Just take it in, solid single & solid art, enough said.
The more crowded the indie rock screen gets the shorter the attention span gets for fans of new music in that huge field of neo flower children and post crustpunk grungy squatters. So a lot of bands pop up just based on trend, some are easier to knock off then others take for instance that Surf Rock scene that popped up for 3 summers, a lot of just-ok came out of it but many of those bands have ditched that group of guitar pedals for new ones. The refurbished style that stretches over many genres and crowds is slow psychedelic rock with a twist. The freaks and meditative characters flourish here, 10 minute track? no problem maybe even do 22 minutes, it still fits on a side of a vinyl. If you need a short catch up, here are 3 that I have enjoyed and keep enjoying.
Murky exploration that rolls through soundscapes of your lost Uncle’s VHS collection of softcore porn and B grade action films. Its like rolling credits of those films that you never want to end, Luke Wyatt holds that key that is the nostalgia of your best friends older brothers sweet room from 1988 that you weren’t allowed to go into. Enjoy the weekend.
I know …I know I just posted but look at that cover, I had to share plus here’s a link to the reissue that isn’t $200+. Buy here
Just saw this song drop today on Rush Hour, looked it up and it seems like this is the original release in 1991. If you want a copy from back then be ready to shell out over $200.00 on discogs.
Smooth with the delivery is all I can say across the board for Fort Romeau, whether its DJing or this album making every moody addition count. Give this album a spin, you won’t regret any moment.
Like many others, Ghostly became enamored with Fort Romeau’s idea of “slow listening,” the concept of enriching relationships with music through careful attention and focus. His understated take on deep, groove-friendly house started pushing this practice three years ago, when the producer’s debut LP, Kingdoms, appeared via 100% Silk. The native Londoner, born Mike Greene, has evolved considerably since then, finessing his sound over the course of three breezy 12″s, one EP, and lengthy DJ sets at some of the best clubs in Europe—not the least of which were Berlin’s famed Panorama Bar, London hotspot Plastic People, and Robert Johnson in Frankfurt. Those years Greene spent immersed in his craft and new inspirations have generously informed the eight stunning productions which comprise Insides, Fort Romeau’s long-awaited sophomore album.
“Playing in those clubs definitely had an affect on how I approach composition and pacing,” Greene shares. “I want to allow things to breathe and develop gradually over longer track lengths, rather than cram everything into four or five minutes.” His patient methods are a central component to the billowy house music on Insides, though this isn’t an indulgent album of gratuitous buildups and tiresome breakdowns. Each production is pointed and purposeful, as the artist crafts every second of analog electronics with rich detail, nuance, and refinement.
Throughout Insides, Fort Romeau guides us down misty corridors lined with supple synth pads, quietly thumping kicks, and elastic low-end sequences reinforced by an emotive confidence. Thick dancefloor cuts like “All I Want” and “Folle” are built on such satisfying elements—sounds so full-bodied, you’d swear they’re knocking against your bones. This, too, is by design. “I wanted to make sure all the songs have a tangible quality,” says Greene of his LP’s physicality, “to make texture and grain become as important a part of the vocabulary as timbre and pitch.” This was accomplished with an arsenal of machines, including his Moog Voyager, Yamaha DX7, Roland Juno-6, and Korg 770, a vintage synth he describes as having “so much presence and vitality, it almost feels like it’s alive.” Equally important to the weighty presence of his music is meticulous post-production. “The record was mixed on an analog desk and mastered to tape,” Fort Romeau elaborates. “These processes are as much a part of the sound as
the synths and sample sources themselves.”There is also a deep stylistic eclecticism to Insides, and coming from Greene, this was galvanized by deep cuts he discovered while digging to find music for his extensive DJ sets. Old kosmiche, disco, and early electronic records are among the strongest influencers, and Fort Romeau used them as an impetus for creation. “It’s those strange and wonderful tracks that you find on the b-side of an old record that sparked my desire to make something new,” he shares, “but it’s very important for me never to feel like I’m making a pastiche.” Indeed, the sleek expanse of “Lately” and the title track’s jacking grooves take cues from buoyantly cosmic dance music. And yet it’s the personality of a young artist coming into his own that makes Insides such a graceful collection of house music, one that only further enriches the soul over time.
Support here: Vinyl