ARTICLES
Ten Questions: Fat Jon
MUTEK 2006

ALBUMS
65daysofstatic
A Cloud Mireya
Ambarchi and Ng
Another Elec. Musician
Derek Bailey
Band Ane
Barzin
Black Gold 360
The Blow
Boduf Songs
Childs
Darc Mind
Dosh
Duopandamix
Fat Jon & Styrofoam
Liam Gillick
Shuta Hasunuma
Tim Hecker
Ilkae
Jack's Son
Richard Jäverling
Jazzkammer
Junior Boys
Last Days
Hanno Leichtmann
Luomo
Mandelbrot Set
Mountaineer
N.Phect & Dizplay
Part Timer
Karsten Pflum
Benoît Pioulard
Plus Device
+/- {Plus/Minus}
Relay
Saroos
Seht
Shedding
So Percussion
Sybarite
Trio Vopá
Marshall Watson
Weather Report
Donato Wharton
Christopher Willits
Xela

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
ESL Remixed
Four Tet
Garnier & Craig
Ginglik Saturdays
Michael Mayer
Henrik Schwarz

3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
Colleen
Delano and Xpansul
Detritus
Ed Devane
Eskimo
Feathers
Goldmund
Ezekiel Honig/Graphic
Ezekiel Honig
Eliot Lipp
Robert Lippok
Alejandro Lopez
Evan Marc
Porter & Carr
Sebastian Russell
Somone Else
Spaceships & Pings
SplitEP3
Simon Whetham

Alexi Delano and Xpansul: Intelligence Reframed
Plus 8

VA: Spaceships & Pings
Items & Things

Two superb slabs from the Windsor bunker, the first a Plus 8 debut from Alexi Delano & Santi ‘Xpansul' Ferrer and the second a strong premiere outing on Items & Things, a Minus label offshoot founded by Run Stop Restorers Magda, Marc Houle, and Troy Pierce.

Judging from the four precision-tooled cuts on the Intelligence Reframed EP, Delano and Ferrer astutely recognized a sonic kinship when they met in Madrid in 2004. Programmed to perfection and with nary a hair out of place, their material is almost impossibly tight. The storming “Echolocation” kicks off the A side with an acidic orgy of machine noise and a driving throb, before all manner of surging electro intricacy and bubbly percussive funk inflames the locomotive squelch of “Cosmic Antipathy.” “Vegetotherapy” keeps things moving on the flips side with a deeply swinging electro-shuffle until “Meta-Intellectual” takes over with a royal strut, seemingly indifferent to the panoply of wiry melodies sputtering and uncoiling overhead. ‘Intelligence Reframed' indeed.

Spaceships & Pings presents individual cuts by Magda, Houle, Pierce, and pal Konrad Black whose “Coma Couch Surfing” opens the match with a disco-driven plod given a body search by stabbing synth melodies, after which Magda's funky “Black Leather Wonder” drips spooky squelch and splashes over a hammering electro pulse. Smothering his pulse with owly chatter and other creature babble, Houle opts for rubbery, Minus-styled propulsion in the woozy “Kicker,” setting the stage for the tripped-out house broiler “The Day After Yesterday” from Pierce and help-mate Gibby Miller and given a disturbing twist with the inclusion of a stalker voiceover (“I'm always watching you / I'm gonna get you…”). Items & Things may be different from Minus in name but there's no discernible lapse in quality.

November 2006

This review also appears in Grooves.