Another release amongst a pile of recent discoveries that I’m finally finding time to write about…

I Am Robot And Proud is the name of Shaw Han-Liem’s solo electronic project that has apparently been releasing music since 2001. I haven’t heard anything from his past material, but I recently obtained a copy of his new album Uphill City which is an uptempo set of jubilant, poppy electronic nuggets – bright, colourful, slightly-cartoonish but flowing with real human sentiments and emotions throughout – the cover above represents it well, actually.

The more I listen to this album the more I enjoy it – each listen reveals plenty of detail lurking beneath its primary-colour laden glossy surface. Han-Liem’s material is excellently crafted, the arrangements are intricate while instantly accessible. Even though you’ll find IDM-esque stutters and glitches reminiscent of Dntel’s past work and mixes that sometimes swarm like plankton, it’s always grounded by well-defined song structures and deft control of dynamics.

Throughout the entire album there are pockets of acoustic elements: fragments of (what appear to be) found sounds appear scattered liberally across the mix, strummed guitars pick up the chord progressions, or some melodic percussion will lead the way with a riff. The acoustic component comes to the forefront on the surprise track “Island Life” – a short waltz featuring gorgeously arranged wind instruments and a rolling guitar part, almost entirely made up of live instrumentation. A highlight for sure.

If anything, Uphill City wins by way of the ease with which it carries its wide-eyed and exuberant musical personality. The arrangements and writing are always intelligent, as mentioned above, but more than anything its success lies in making a connection with the listener where it counts.

Uphill City is out now through Darla and is available on eMusic.

Listen

• Uphill City (mp3)

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