Underdog

Released last October on Not Not Fun Records on split 7” with Psychic Reality, who coincidentally do a cover of “Foxy Lady” by Hendrix on the flip.

Got a chance to hear the Ford & Lopatin “Emergency Room” 12” single from the forthcoming album, Channel Pressure, due to be released on June 7th. Previously these guys were known as Games but they have changed their game as well as their name. “Emergency Room” sounds like a funked out Scritti Politti on hallucinogens, the result is something both more poppy and more experimental than anything Games have done (if that makes any sense). The Bug remix is a dark cavernous, downtempo dub rework and the Gavin Russom remix is a perfect fit for the small room jam (in a good way) with its psych-house out rendition. A great twelve, looking forward to the full length.

Look Mom, no laptops!

Toronto producer (and former upstairs neighbour) XI is playing his first MUTEK festival this year and he recorded a podcast (yes, the one I’m currently blogging about) to get you warmed up.

Got a heads up about “CBC E” the other day, looks like “a small cell of CBC-based electronic music insurgents” has some worthwhile plans to keep our national public radio relevant.

Here’s a quote from the Facebook group:

First, let’s just say that nothing is written in stone, so at this point we’re just blue skying what CBC E can become. The project was conceived and created by a small team of CBC producers who’s primary duties lay elsewhere within the corporation. A few of us work at CBC Radio 3 in Vancouver, and some others are scattered throughout the CBC across the country. Resources at this time are scant, so for the next little while we’ll be baby-stepping towards our goals.

For the time being, the CBC E community will mostly live on Facebook, Twitter (https://twitter.com/cbcelectronic), and possibly other social media sites such as YouTube, Soundcloud, and Flickr.

The immediate plan is:
:: Post at least one track per day, (the “Nocturnal Transmission”).
:: Post links as we find them to tracks, videos, news festivals and other bits of content we like.
:: Work to improve the quality, breadth and rotation on the Electronic radio stream. (http://radiostreams.cbc.ca/cbc-w7vcr-128.m3u)
:: Encourage artists to sign up as members to the CBC Radio 3 website and upload their tracks and mixes. This serves a number of purposes, namely to allow us to program their music on the CBC Electronic radio stream and feature it in podcasts and whatnot.

The dream:
:: To build a passionate national community around Canadian and select international electronic music.
:: To offer a series of regular electronic podcasts, both track samplings as well as mixes.
:: To create an independent editorial strategy that allows us to post interviews and features on artists, scenes, festivals and anything pertaining to this culture.
:: To build an sizable audience around the radio stream that will justify investment of more time and resources.

This is a step in the right direction, hopefully by spreading awareness and just making generally awesome electronic music, this idea can come to fruition.