March Mixes

March is here and as spring is nearing, we've got two sweet mixes to keep your ears and mind occupied.

First up this coming Monday (the 7th) is our March podcast from H.ICH aka Sunn Boo. We've been after a podcast from the French music maestro for quite some time now and it promises to be a full on hour from a man known for his eclectic taste. We might get techno, we might get shoegaze, we might get some abstract chaos....we'll keep it a secret until Monday but we can assure you it's going to be special.

Have a listen to some of his previous mixes below.





Be sure to follow him over on mixcloud and check out the channel of Collectif Sympa, a Toulouse based hub of musicians and artists that he's also involved with.
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Our second mix of March will come to you on the 21st and is the third installment of our "Headroom" mix series. Your pilot for the latest two hour journey is Slow Deep Breath, who is, without a doubt, one of the most unique artists on our roster. He's carved out a blissful and mellow soundscape that is a piece of real essential listening. We're looking forward to sharing it with you in just over a fortnights time. Good things come to those who wait.

To get you in the mood have a listen below to a full seamless mix of his album "Rest (Sacred Space)"

'Sounds crafted only from singing bowls and temple bells, longform, with minimal melody or rhythm with which to engage the brain.'



Head on over to his mixcloud page to get lost in some of his short meditation based mixes.

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Remember two weeks after each of our mixes are released on Mixcloud we then upload them to our HearThis account where you can download them for free and take them with you on your phone or music player. All our previous podcasts and Headroom mixes are waiting there for you in chronological order :)

Bricolage Showcase

Last week we posted about our friend and label supporter Mark Shields reaching 100 episodes of his Monday Graveyard radio show/podcast. A real milestone and a gem of a show to go with it. Episode 101 of the Monday Graveyard is also a very special episode as far as Bricolage is concerned. Mark very kindly gave us the opportunity to have a full hour to ourselves....

We're proud to be able to present a mix made up exclusively of music from our members. It's an hour that consists of just some of the unique music that we've released in our first 6 months. It manages to encapsulate what the label and collective is all about. A diverse selection spanning the electronic genres. The hour long show was curated and mixed by, label head, Fragile X and features some of his own music alongside Subsequent, Kure, Intl. Debris, Hiramatsu Toshiyuki, Slow Deep Breath, get-effect, The Next Commuter, Roy Or Bison?, Oscurito and H.ICH. There's ambient, vaporwave, some dub, shoegazed tinged electronics, glitch, drones, darkness, guitars and, of course, what better way to round it off then some techno. 

Thanks go to Mark for allowing us the chance to showcase some of our sounds on his show. Be sure to check out his blog and the shows Twitter account for more info on future shows and his general online escapades. Stream the mix in full below or at The Monday Graveyard mixcloud.



Tracklisting in full is as follows:

1. Subsequent - Smallbatch 
2. Kure - Moon Acid 
3. Intl. Debris - Thursday Morning, Taylor Swift Part 1 
4. Hiramatsu Toshiyuki - Mountain Call 
5. Slow Deep Breath - The Crow Pheasant 
6. get-effect - No One Leaves Here Empty Handed 
7. Fragile X - Amygdala (Lo-Jacker remix) 
8. The Next Commuter - A Dozen Paces 
9. Roy Or Bison? - Night Vision 
10. Oscurito - Octopus 
11. H.ICH - Ladyland Part II (Mental Mix) 
12. Alan Watts
13. Fragile X - Theory Of Colour
    
    And don't forget, you can download the majority of the music featured in this mix from the Bricolage bandcamp site free of charge.
    
    Stay tuned next weekend for a special blog post that details the beginnings of Bricolage.

In The Loop : Episode 7 (Advent Calendar Part 2)

 The second part of our virtual advent calendar that's currently running on a daily basis at 10am over on our Facebook page.

December 6th

Maurielle - Vostok (H.ICH remix)

Kolkoz Records is a new techno and acid net label from France. Here, Bricolage member H.ICH, takes label founder Maurielle's track "Vostok" and gives it the remix treatment.



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December 7th

Teslacoil321 - Taking Tiger Mountain

A glorious cover of the title track from the classic Brian Eno album "Taking Tiger Mountain" courtesy of one of the many pseudonyms of Microvolt, Teslacoil321.



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December 8th

Kure - Nature On Acid

A new upload from Kure in the form of "Nature On Acid". Spacey textures and trippy sounds in a musical tribute to natures famous psilocybe semilanceata....



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December 9th

Gewatte - 0111 0000 0111 0010 0110 0101

A mysterious code and a slew of snippets of what can only be described as 8 raw acid techno sounds from Gewatte. Not for the faint hearted.



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December 10th

Glass Mammoth - Serenity Creek

"Serenity Creek" is a new chirpy, upbeat number from Glass Mammoth. His own take on making a computer game soundtrack type track. Wonderfully melodic wee number.



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Be sure to check our facebook at 10am up until Christmas Eve for the remaining 14 digital treats.

In The Loop: Episode 4

In the 4th episode of In The Loop we catch up on what Lo-Jacker, H.ICH, Jazz Defector and Chairman Cow have been doing recently.



Lo-Jacker is currently working hard on a plethora of new material and 3 weeks ago he shared a new track of his that's currently in the works. "Lemon Cake" has that trademark Lo-Jacker feel. The chiming bells, the glitchy beats, quietly pulsing bass and mellow synth work. Time after time he comes up with crisp production, catchy melodies and hooks that I'll never tire of and "Lemon Cake" is another one to add to my list of LJ favourites. *insert pun about icing on the cake here*


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Yesterday, H.ICH uploaded a clip from a forthcoming track of his titled "Xel. Us". Sometimes it can be hard to tell whether or not you're going to like a song from listening to a 2 minute long clip but not in this case. I was hooked after the first kick. It follows on from where "Holy Tresor" left off. Steady, metallic rhythms and no nonsense bass. A kinda eerie bleep that acts almost like a warning signal soon makes an appearance to add to the tension before the clip comes to an end. I, for one, am looking forward to hearing it in it's entirety.



Hugo (H.ICH) is also a member of the trio "Nord Church" who have a habit of blending electronica, elements of rock and trip hop into one big melting pot of sounds.

Have a listen below to their debut self titled EP and if you like it then head over to the Nord Church bandcamp where you can grab a download at a "pay what you want" rate.



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Jazz Defector has just shared two very short but poignant guitar soundscapes. A live feel coupled with his incomparable sense of melancholy result in "Sketches In Blue 1" and "Theme For An Imaginary Detective Romance Film". Two tracks that are the perfect way to showcase his talent on 6 strings.





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Last month, Chairman Cow shared a long lost track that had been hibernating and trapped in the "untitled" territory for just under 3 years. The track in question was a collaboration recorded by Mr Cow and Fragile X in the winter of 2012. The quiet, delay soaked, guitars at the beginning and placed intermittently throughout were provided by Fragile X and the spoken word whispery samples, heavier tones and drums by Chairman Cow himself. By the time the conclusion of the track comes around both men have traded chunky guitar lines over a riotous wall of sound. This quiet/loud combination created a monster of a post-rock track which has now been christened " Living Beyond His Dreams". After many futile attempts at shortening the track it was decided that it was best left as a 10 minute opus.



Any long time Fragile X fans may recognise one of the guitar lines in the midst of the track. It was subsequently use as the intro to the track "We Stared At The Clouds Until They Burst" from his November 2013 EP "...And When I Opened My Eyes There Was A Thousand Lights".

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In The Loop : Episode 1

"In The Loop" is a new section that we're starting up that will keep you up to date with what our members are up to inside and outside of the collective.

First things first, our debut podcast, that came courtesy of Lo-Jacker at the start of the month, is now available for a free download. It was previously only available for streaming at our mixcloud account. But as of today you can stream AND download it over at our new podomatic account. The same process will be in place for our future podcasts. They'll spend a week or two being exclusive to mixcloud and will then become available for DL at podomatic.





So tuck in and grab your download of Lo-Jackers melody laden mix and take it with you on your phone or mp3 player.
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Our resident French techno wizard H.ICH has been busy creating more beats recently. A few weeks ago he dropped a new track of his "Holy Tresor" over on his soundcloud page. Anybody that knows of or has been to Tresor nightclub in Berlin will know what to expect from the title alone......ferocious, dark, relentless techno.



There's also a neat remix cut from A6DE that's been doing the rounds over the last few days.



Both tracks are more than worth a listen.

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get-effect has also been quite busy recently. He's just released a new EP called "Trick Ladders" on Vanguardista Records. It's a journey into his take on the krautrock side of things. Think precision timing riffs and beats bathed in ambient synths. You can get a copy of the 5 track EP here.



Have a listen below to "Ya Pari" from the new EP to get a feel for the sounds he's masterfully created.



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Jazz Defector has always had a very prolific output and recent times have been no different than his usual standards. His soundcloud page is choc-a-bloc with some new ambient gems. The last 3 weeks has saw him release chapters 4, 5 and 6 of his "Lost In Silence" experiments among a few other newbies.

Here's a couple of my favourites.





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There'll be another "In The Loop" episode early next week that will shed some light on other artists and what they've been upto. There's also some news coming soon with regards to some future Bricolage releases and some potential new members.

Stay posted.

Volume 1 VA: A Colourful Storm (Part 1)

 So, as mentioned in the previous post, my friend Emma came up with the idea of drawing her own visual interpretations of all the tracks that made up our first release.

Armed with a notepad and pastels her task was to quickly sketch down the vibe she got from each track in the allocated time slot, which was each individual track length, sometimes played twice in the case of the shorter tracks. It's worth noting that Emma knew absolutely nothing about any of the tracks or artists, had never heard even one second of any given track and just subsequently went with the flow. The results vary from colourfully abstract to sometimes almost childlike efforts to near blank pages with splashes of colours sporadically placed. Below I'll post the first 8 songs along with their corresponding drawings. Click the images for a bigger viewing.

1. KURE - MOON ACID




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2. SLOWDEEPBREATH - THE CROW PHEASANT




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3. GET-EFFECT - NO ONE LEAVES HERE EMPTY HANDED




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4. FRAGILE X - AMYGDALA




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5. KOREAN WEST HILL - DESPERATE BRIDE RIGHT BEFORE MIDNIGHT




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6. SUBSEQUENT - SMALLBATCH


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7. Ħ ICĦ - LADYLAND PART II (MENTAL MIX)


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8. GEWATTE - X 08


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The second lot of 8 will go online over the weekend!

BRICOLAGE: VA: Volume 1 (bc001)

Yesterday saw the release of our first compilation. Various Artists Volume 1. Major thanks go out to all the artists who contributed for making this release happen so quickly.

Volume 1 more than represents what the collective is all about. It's full to the brim with a wealth of music from the world over. Sounds from Japan, Denmark, Scotland, England, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Holland, France and Sweden are all on show here. There's no bias against genre. Just a collection of quality and eclectic music for your listening pleasure.

The compilation covers a diverse range of ambient, glitch, techno, house, drone and experimental sounds. Hopefully there's something for everybody among the 16 tracks. As will always be the case, the compilation is a free to stream and download from the Bricolage bandcamp page.

Introducing The Collective: 1- 3

With the first compilation all set for release a week today, on the 31st of August, it's now time to start telling you a little bit about our artists. We'll introduce them in no particular order.....


1. MUTE BRANCHES



Mute Branches is the work of Lichfield based James Cresswell. Channeling vibes of vintage BoC and adding his own unique twist to make music that brims with nostalgic feeling.

In his own words..."West-Midlands, UK-based lo-fi / experimental project, established at some point in the '00s when a bored teenager discovered the wonders of messing about with sounds on a computer and basically kept messing about with sounds into his twenties, getting gradually better at it.

Imagine some sort of audio-based sound and you've got the basic idea."
https://soundcloud.com/mutebranches

https://mutebranches.bandcamp.com/

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2. SUNN BOO

Sunn Boo is a young, and hugely promising, producer from Toulouse in the south of France. With a keen ear and ability for rhythm and melody and the beats to back it up. He produces house and techno and describes his techno side as "mental" and his house side as melancholy :) He also plays in a band called Nord Church that make experimental blues and ambient music. "Bricolage" isn't the only collective he's a part of either. He's also a member of the France based Collectif Sympa.
https://soundcloud.com/sunnboo

https://www.facebook.com/collectifsympa

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3. KURE

Kure is a Danish electronic musician with a notion for making short abstract and psychedelic ambient gems that fit perfectly with what Bricolage is all about.

In his own words...."Kure is a newly hatched experiment. Kure is a parallel universe where nothing and everything exists and is without objective purpose. The endeavour and purpose with Kure is to open up and adapt a whole new dimension of the human mind using warm, experimental and nostalgic synth tunes and visiting themes like space exploration towards the unknown, psychedelia and the golden age of the 60's - 80's. All these things combined and mixed with Nordic flavour will, through a new world, uncover the unknown of our existence and its meaning - all in good time."
https://soundcloud.com/hexagonkure

https://instagram.com/hexagonkure

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And that sums up our first introductory post. Check back on the blog tomorrow for another 3 :)