Plutonic Rainbows

2nd album from Danish synth-improv duo Videodrones, dives deeper their brand of throbbing synth themes from the goriest movies that never were.

Boomkat:

"It’s easy to hear the starting point of Videodrones: From italian composers such as Fabio Frizzi, Marcello Giombini, Riz Ortolani - or even Morricone & Alessandroni at their most industrial. But Videodrones adds a touch of previously unheard madness to their Giallo-themed synth-gasms. Based largely on improvisation, Videodrones tosses and turns - it’s like the thing is ALIVE: leaving slimy trail of electronic musical styles in their wake: there’s toxic levels of italio disco, German kosmiche musik, new age, even some stabs at holy grails of 70’s and 80’s pop.

The record culminates in a Synth-proto-doom track - Nattens Hævn (Revenge of the Night): too weird to live, yet too rare to die. Videodrones improvisations are far from boring: chopped into smaller bits the album is of a suite-like nature - keeping the odd, jagged energy of improvisation, every part adds to a whole, larger narrative. The result is a suite-like walkthru, often changing pace, dropping notes or drifting in scale. The images Videodrones convey is collectedly strangely solemn - almost uplifting at times, in their maddening state of constant synth flux."

You can purchase the album here.

Happy Birthday, Trish. Gone but not forgotten.

This artist is fairly new to me. His work totally encapsulates the cold synths of early 1980s British electro-pop, made famous by bands such as Visage, The Human League, Soft Cell, OMD and countless others.

Dias Records.

Great tenth anniversary reissue of an earlier work by this artist. There are some real gems in here if you like his work - such as the strange yet uplifting 'Fat Hooks' and the haunting vocals on 'Up In Flames'. All manner of instruments are there buried down in the mix of strange, distorted loops of decay.

Christian Eede on The Quietus:

Delia Derbyshire was a prolific producer of music and sound, both within and outside her role in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and premiering is a never-heard-before piece of music created from elements of her lost tape archive.

'Future Guests' is being premiered as part of a new documentary charting 60 years of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, of which Derbyshire was a part. Derbyshire's lost tape archive consists of 300 or so reels of tape which were discovered in her attic when she died in 2001.

The dark, atmospheric piece has been composed from original elements of music by Derbyshire that the Radiophonic Workshop have worked together into a new piece. The elements are from tapes that Derbyshire made beyond the BBC on some of her later film and theatre projects - the exact details of which are lost to time.

As part of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's 60th anniversary, a compilation entitled Burials In Six Earths has been released via Room 13 Records, with contributions from Martyn Ware, while Ware will take part in events involving the Radiophonic Workshop at the British Library next month. On October 13, Late At The Library will see a celebration of the Radiophonic Workshop, who will perform live with guests. For tickets and more information, click here.

This is great news. You can listen to the piece on YouTube.

Mention of this additional material (I assume from the same sessions that were responsible for the album) has popped up on a Planet Mu newsletter. I spoke with the artist on Twitter and he claims there may be as many as fifteen new tracks.

No release date but I imagine it will be quite soon.

I finally managed to publish my first two books on iTunes. The sign-up process is a little laborious but doesn't take too long.

• Inexact Shadows
• The Wind Took Your Answer Away

The first is a technological thriller. The second is a collection of short stories.

This new release on the Quiet Tapes label is something quite special.

Quiet Time Bandcamp Page

Trawling through Boomkat's back catalogue, I came across this gem.

Digitalis activist Brad Rose maps out three passages to synthetic galaxies with Kevin Danchisko of Sovetskaya Gone. For the keenest of observers, they dropped two tapes last year, but 'I Will Be Missed' is their first vinyl release, containing three new tracks of vast and mysterious drones punctuated with starbursting synth patterns and a wide-eyed effect harking back to early 90s ambient qualities with a nod to narcotically laced Americana that fans of Oneohtrix will adore.

However, as it's a Digitalis release, there's something disturbed and just a little squinted lurking in the background, especially with the lengthy A-side composition 'Mirror Warmer'. The near psilocybic queerness of the melodies and spacious harmonics also recall Leyland Kirby's distorted memories but threaded with howling inhuman voices shrieking way back in the ether while the symphony continues to phosphoresce regardless, almost ignorant of the pain underneath.

On the other side the choral voices (or are they just synths?) of 'Go For Pinks' recaptures the spirit of a chill-out room for a midwest American rave, but with a more sinister, brown speckled twist. 'Moons' completes the album with stray arpeggiations, godly vocal harmonics and bloopy sequences masking an underlying tension, perhaps saying that this form of dosed-up, lethargic escapism has something intrinsically wrong and unusually disturbing. Fans of feeling strange should book themselves on this trip without delay...

I totally recommend this title. It only runs a little over 35 minutes but it is well worth listening to.

Boomkat Download