Most of the Time by Bob Dylan (Oh Mercy, 1989) is a little underrated in the man’s canon, but is one of those songs that definitely had a huge influence on my headspace on music while growing up. Not because of the song itself (great as it is) so much as the production: gorgeous walls of atmospheric guitars and feedback offset against resonators that thread their way through the mix, underscored by an economical bass line and a subtle drum track.

This song taught me a lot when I was a kid that was still working my way through my Dad’s favourite albums – I think it was possibly the first song that made me realise just how much good production can complete a song.

The producer in this case is none other than the master himself, Daniel Lanois – and he’s written a nice story on how the song and its sound came about in a recent feature on producers that appeared in Word Magazine. It’s a good read.

Oh, and that Godrich guy talks about Nude in the article too.

So, there’s been an awful lot of chatter about Sigur Rós and their decidedly bright and shiny new single entitled Gobbledigook – some are aghast, some are in favour. Me? I’m sitting on the fence for the moment – I’m pretty sure I don’t mind it, but then again I’m pretty sure they could have done better too.

Much attention has also been given to the fact that the album also features the four typically shy and retiring Icelanders in the buff, enjoying nature like the hippies do. Well, good on them I guess. And there was me thinking it didn’t get warm enough in Iceland to do that kind of thing.

Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaustis (for, behold, that is the new album’s name) is coming out on the 23rd of June. If you order it from the band’s website then you get the full album as a download on the 16th.

Here’s the thing though: the band have recognized the changing shape of the music biz and are offering the album to stream in full in the lead-up to the release. That’s a Good Thing in my books.

The more-official-than-most-unofficial-sites 18 Seconds Before Sunrise have a page dedicated to the stream offered by the band’s record company. They also offer full liner notes and credits, and various other interesting tidbits of information, so it’s worth keeping open as you listen to the album. Just make sure you open the links in a new window or your aural pleasures will be frequently interrupted.

For the scrobbleholics, the album is also available as a stream on Last.FM which is a pleasant nod to the site’s growing influence. Update: turns out this stream is substantially higher quality than the one on the official site, so use this if you can.

So, the album? Well, it certainly seems to continue the band’s trend started on Takk… towards making music that appeals to a wider audience. Thus far, however, it doesn’t seem to tread much new ground – certainly not in the way Gobbledigook seemed to. Generally speaking a lot of the songs sound more like songs than ever before, but the many of the tracks are still centred around ambient explorations overlaid with Jonsi’s crooning. The sounds are still pristine, and the band are still capable of everything they’ve always been able to do, but on first listens I wonder if this is enough of a move onwards to retain our interest. That’s not my final opinion, and only time will tell…

After my insane non-stop listening spree of early Krautrock (I still hate that term) that began a couple of months back, I guess it was to be expected that I’d eventually end up getting amongst the current German electronica scene. Currently I’m working my way through a few of the artists on the BPitch Control record label, which has some great talent including the label’s founder and owner Ellen Allien, whose latest record I wanted to cover here.

However, as I began to write this it began to be apparent that it would be remiss for me to not talk about the albums that got me into discovering Allien’s latest, so I’m going to give a quick run-down of how I got into her stuff, starting with Apparat:

(so you’re too lazy to actually read the whole thing? here’s the summary: I love the following three albums. you might not have heard them. you should hear them. you’ll probably love them too, but maybe you’ll find the last one a bit hard to get into at first. go buy them)

Apparat – Walls (2007)

I discovered Walls randomly via a mention from a friend after he saw it on a year-end list (“this sounds interesting, might be good”). It’s basically an (excellent) electronically constructed pop record largely based around laptronica with some nuances of live instrumentation, the odd vocal-led song and some really, really great sounds. Despite the fact that Apparat is relatively obscure at this point (in Australia anyway), the tunes are well developed and I’m pretty sure this album will continue growing an audience for some time to come.

Chances are you’ll enjoy this album if you’re reading this, and you’ll probably find it the easiest of the three to get amongst.

All of the remixes I’ve heard from this album are also impeccable – if you happen to see any of the 12 inches around, pick them up. Many of them can also be found on Apparat’s Things To Be Frickled remix compilation released just recently.

• Stream the whole album on Apparat’s website

Apparat & Ellen Allien – Orchestra of Bubble (2006)

After playing Walls a lot out I began to notice mention of collaboration Apparat did with Ellen Allien, which I decided to give a try. If Walls was an immediately enjoyable listen, this record really pulled me in.

This album certainly has much stronger ties to dancefloor culture, but it does a wonderful job of exploring all manner of sonics and ambience while laying down some absolutely infectious grooves. Vocals are limited to a couple of tracks, but all the same it’s got a strikingly accessible aesthetic while still being a very technically accomplished work. The album sticks to concise track lengths for the most part, but despite this a few of the album’s cuts strike me as being strong contenders for consideration in a DJ set.

Speaking of DJ sets, the 2xLP package has different edits of some of the tunes which I’m assuming were provided to make the album more friendly for DJing. It’s a different perspective on the album, and worth getting, despite omitting a couple of tunes heard on the CD/download version.

• Stream samples on the official album website

Ellen Allien – SooL (2008)

After digesting and thoroughly enjoying these two albums, I was pretty keen when Ellen Allien announced her new album Sool.

Talk about totally turning my expectations on their head: here I was pumping myself up for a grandiose record full of textures and melodies coupled with sublime beats, and I’m greeted by a hushed introduction of muted synth bleeps and what sounds like an ambient noise in an airport terminal for robots. The next track continued to confuse me with slowly evolving, sparse rhythms and a distant synth ambience, with Allien’s single-word vocal whispered over the top.

So, “minimal” music eh? It seems to be getting a lot of action lately and it seems that Allien has jumped in headfirst. I’ve enjoyed a lot of music of this variety… but Allien certainly takes the genre to sparser, more difficult worlds than I’ve experienced before.

Not exactly grabbed by the sounds I heard, I initially wrote this album off as a demonstration in minimal at its most self-indulgent, but persisted all the same (for some reason)

Well, it turns out this record isn’t just self-indulgent beats and noodlings: it has a soul and after many further listens I’m beginning to realise I like it very much, thankyou. Beneath its seemingly cold and detached exterior is a quietly restrained, beautiful and very engrossing record. Frequently you can hear the silence between Allien’s microscopic beats, with the web-like arrangements building and shifting throughout the duration of a track. Allien’s snippeted vocals give it a unique character and a bit of human-ness (despite how robotic they’ve been mutated to sound). Each sound is meticulously crafted and I can imagine the degree to which all of the details are exposed would have made the album all the more nerve-wracking to put together.

It’s not an easy first ride, but keep trying with this one: it ends up being a great journey.

• Stream the album on the BPitch site

Snowman’s new semi-confusingly titled (as in: took me a couple of days to remember it properly) album The Horse, The Rat and The Swan came out last week. Even though I’ve been listening to it pretty much non-stop since it got released, I’ve been avoiding posting about it because I’ve been sure that my initial (very excited) impressions can’t possibly be going to be held up after a lot of listens.

Fortunately, after a week and a half of multiple playbacks per day, the album still resonates as being what will probably end up being one of the best (if not the best) Australian releases this year. Unfortunately, it’s also not likely to see the kind of success or recognition it deserves because the record is going to alienate a significant slice of Australia’s music-buying public. It’s a 38 minute masterpiece consisting largely of moody textures painted with broad brush-strokes interspersed by explosions of frenetic noise rock: terrifying and exhilarating, incredibly cohesive and above all brilliantly executed. I love it.

You will be sure to hear about this album, that’s guaranteed. It’s already got a lot of people talking, and I’m sure it will continue to do so for some time to come yet. However, you are less likely to actually hear the album unless you seek it out, given I don’t imagine it’s going to have much success on the radio. I encourage you to track down some tunes and have a good listen – you may find it challenging initially, but give it some time. It’s definitely worth it.

Need some starting points? The whole album is spectacular, but We Are The Plague is the most obviously catchy song, The Blood of the Swan is a gorgeous slow-burning tune and Diamond Wounds is an absolutely stunning album closer.

Snowman also are doing a national tour in July, with two dates in Sydney at the Annandale on the 17th & 18th.

Listen

• Stream the whole record on Snowman’s MySpace