Dementio13 - VTOL

Yes, one of the most prolific and consistently excellent electronic artistes of our time is back again, and he's not alone.  VTOL, the latest masterpiece from Dementio13, aka Paul Foster, consists of a collection of collaborations with a bunch of other artists, many of whom he's worked with on and off before.  And the result?  Another triumph.

As I've said on more than one occasion, the most pleasing thing about Dementio13's work is its sumptuous variety: not for him an easily tagged album of trance or synth-pop or drum n bass; instead, you're likely to find all of these and much more thrown into a pot heaving with vitality and groaning with epicurean delight ('epicurean' in the original, philosophical, sense, that is) under a heady mix of disparate ingredients.

So, add into the mix a whole load of partners, all of whom make great music in their own right, and you get an even denser, even more desirable outcome.  Pixieguts, who usually works with Paul as Cwtch, brings her enigmatic vocal stylings to 'Rodeo Days', while that fine modern troubador Ian Thistlethwaite adds a delightfully laconic touch to 'Self-Doubting Thomas'.  

There are contributions also from Douglas Deep, Alone and Alun Vaughan, all of which add further delightful range to a collection that's as fun to listen to as it is absorbing; a reaction borne out even further by the galloping 'Alcohol', which brings Snippet to the party, a cheerfully rampant eulogy to booze that, placed between a couple of fine tunes featuring Dementio13 on his own, enforces the feeling still more than this is Paul Foster at his most playful: while a sense of enjoyment is hardly rare when listening to this remarkable artist, it's given a certain centrality when company join him at the production table.

Finally, it's only fair to give particular attention to the three collaborations here with Nita Disaster.  Her vocals always lend something gorgeous and almost transcendent to his work and here perhaps more than ever before.  'Pollution' is my personal favourite of the year so far, by anyone, and it features in my February show on Dandelion Radio; the three tracks, plus another, will all appear in an exclusive session mix they've done for my show in March.

But there's no need to wait for that.  Get VTOL as NYOP here and get yourself an invite to a great party where partners are optional, but inevitably bring something very important to the proceedings.

Top 40 Albums of 2013: 25-21

Concluding the bottom half of the countdown:

25. Images Du Futur - Suuns (Secretly Canadian)

Great live band and this album finally translates that into a truly memorable collection of studio recordings.  Excellent remixes EP recently released too.

24. The Ring of the Rise - Micah Blue Syndrome (Immune)

Its understated brilliance works on you until you submit and are forced to admit that barrages of noise, while they unquestionably have their place, are not something you should build your life around completely.

23. Last Test - Dementio13 (Self-Released) - Above

A man who releases so many albums I invariably lose track of where he is with them and sometimes find myself back-tracking. This is him at his eclectic electronic best: available as NYOP here.

22. Zabraneta Planeta - Bernays Propaganda (Self-Released) - Below

The live session from this Macedonian band broadcast on my show was one of the highlights of the year for me.  Many of the tracks feature in their studio versions on this fine collection, also available as NYOP.  Get it here.


21. Silence Yourself - Savages (Matador/Pop Noire)

Giving indie popularity a good name for the first time in years.

A reminder that you can let us know your favourites of the year by voting in Dandelion Radio's official Festive Fifty here.  Half of the voting period has now gone: get yours in by the end of November for it to count.

Introducing: The Music of Ian Thistlethwaite

As so often, it started with an e-mail from Paul Foster, aka Dementio13, urging me to check out some great music.  I find this a particularly engaging trait of some artists: they're imbued with such honesty and integrity (which invariably comes out in their work) that they happily help me to find other music they suspect I'll enjoy, despite knowing that my shows are always attempts to cram about eight hours of great music into three and therefore running the risk of squeezing themselves out of the playlist.

As it was, I happily found room for a track from Dementio13's new album and something from Ian Thistlethwaite too, whose work it was that I was recommended to seek out.  As usually, my source was trustworthy.  Ian plays a brand of bewitching indie folk that manages to sound both timeless and contemporary.

Around twenty or so years ago, I had a habit of spending part of my summer checking out England's various folk festivals.   On one of these sojourns a member of my cohort sagely opined that to be successful in this area of music you either had to be a startlingly expressive musician or a brilliantly imaginative songwriter: without either of these, folk sounded unremarkable and ordinary.  I felt this was a sound judgement, which is probably why I still remember it today.  It struck me, however, that the really great folk artists had to have both, and Ian Thistlethwaite makes it into this extremely rare category.

His album Mocking Tudors, Not Turtles came out in June and can be purchased as Name-Your-Price from his bandcamp site.  It was this album I was directed to by Paul and from which I play a track in my August Dandelion Radio show.  I've opted for the mesmerising '(Dance Me To) The Mezzanine', partly because it kind of conjurs up memories of watching Blowzabella on a Saturday afternoon in Towerzy, in a performance that was so good it even made me forget to check the footie results (very rare, believe me), but mainly because it has an utterly singular quality that makes you discard such comparisons as soon as you've made them and realise that what you have here is something so magical it rises well above its loose ancient form and stands out very much on its own.

Since then, Ian has put out A Brief Introduction to Ian Thistlethwaite on that same bandcamp site, a compilation that, as the title suggests, collects together various nuggets from his past.  The compilation includes 'Up In The Attic (Yeah, Yeah)', which features samples from Dementio13 and 'Hey! This is Wim Oudijk', which features samples from, guess who?  Yes, Wim Oudijk.  That Ian has teamed up with such wonderful people gives something away in itself, not merely that he keeps very fine musical company but also some indication of how much he's committed to stretching the limits of the form in which he works.

Get the album, listen to the show (which contains much amazing stuff besides the artists mentioned here) and keep up with what Ian's up to on Soundcloud.   Many future delights are anticipated.

Top Ten Albums of 2013 so far...

Sitting here on a chilly Good Friday morning sifting through the dozens of excellent releases that have assailed my lucky ears so far this year in any effort to come up with the top ten albums of the year up to the end of March.  I don't know why I give myself these tasks, which invariably end up in a bad headache, but I do.  

By the time I get round to my year-end list you'll probably find that the order of this has changed a lot because it always does.  Anyway, for now, I reckon these are the best ten albums of the year so far.  Some I've reviewed elsewhere on this blog, some I haven't.  Some you'll have heard on my Dandelion Radio show, and a few will be appearing for the first time in my April show which starts streaming on Monday.  This is limited to 2013 releases only, so I'm afraid an excellent album like The Peach Tree's The Taint of Saidin, which came out right at the end of December, isn't ineligible - if it were, it would certainly be in here.
 
Anyway, here we go, and I would strongly advise you click on the links to go to the releases and listen for yourself, especially as a fair few of these are available for free and those that aren't are offering a life-enhancing experience at a remarkably low price:

10. The Moths Are Real - Serafina Steer (Stolen)

9. Mystical Weapons - Mystical Weapons (Chimera)

8. Filthy Huns - Filthy Huns (Not Not Fun)

 

7. Why Can't You Write Something Nice For A Change? - Tingle In The Netherlands (Nerve Echo)

6. Last Test - Dementio13 (Self-Released)

5. The Diary of Me - Laurence Made Me Cry (Self-Released)

4. Mowgli - Mister Lies (Lefse)

3. Angel-Like Contraction Reverse - Nac/Hut Report (Double Hallucinative)

2. Less Talk, More Oi! - P.F.A. (Self-Released)

1. Surge of the Lucid - Dissolved (Daddy Tank)

Not fair on the others really to have to compete with the Dissolved album, a release which revealed that even the great Daddy Tank label were still able to set the bar a notch higher in terms of quality and potential to blow the mind.  I still listen to it at every available opportunity.  Thanks to all ten releases - and indeed the many hundreds outside this top ten - for providing a fantastic soundtrack to what, so far, has been a very strange and interesting year for me.  Long may it continue.