Xingu Hill is the solo project of John Sellekaers, who has released records over a 10 year span for labels such as Nova Zembla, Ant-Zen, Hymen, and Hush Hush. He also has a number of active projects and collaborations with other artists (including the excellent Black Lung collaboration, The Andronechron Incident) and, since 1998, has run the Metarc mastering studio, based in Montreal. Metarc has been responsible for the mastering of a good deal of releases by groups such as Prometheus Burning, Antigen Shift, Somatic Responses, Imminent, and many others. As the title implies, this album is a compilation of unreleased material from 1995 – 1997, including an untitled ambient suite composed in 1996. He states that these are archive recordings that were not originally meant to be made available, but have now been made available through a Creative Commons license on archive.org.

Tracklisting:
1 Fake Life
2 Automatic Citizens
3 The Dark Architects
4 Ice
5 Untitled Ambient Suite – Part 1
6 Untitled Ambient Suite – Part 2
7 Untitled Ambient Suite – Part 3
8 Untitled Ambient Suite – Part 4
9 Angel Catcher
10 Return To Babylon

This is a new mix I recorded this week, which won’t be on SoundCloud, since I only have a free account. While some of the nice features of SoundCloud will be missed, I would still be able to host it here for streaming and download. This one is longer and a little bit rougher than the first one that I made (link). It includes a selection of old and new materials from a variety of commercially-released albums, as well as a few recent netlabel releases. This set turned out a lot darker than I was originally going to intend for it to be. This is due to the addition of several experimental artists like Controlled Bleeding, CTI, Psychophysicist, and Elph (Coil), as well as a few groups that are more associated with the industrial crowd, like Kibuka, Visions of Excess, and Portion Control. There could have been a lot more tracks I would have liked to include, but the mix did not need to be 5 hours long. Once again, this was recorded in one take and I cleaned a few things up in Audacity, however, most of the mistakes are still intact.

8/25/10 – Links temporarily offline

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Download flac – 450.6 MB

Tracklisting:

1. Ian Boddy – Gravity Well (Aurora, 2002)

2. Otraslab – Dark Country (Otraslab, 1997)

3. Carl Sagan’s Ghost – Increasing Pressure (At The End Of It All, 2009)

4. Psychophysicist – Cymantic Wave Therapy (Deepnet, 1996)

5. Biosphere – Sphere Of No-Form (Substrata², 2001)

6. Grains Of Sound - Low Earth Orbit (Sine Language: Under, 2010)

7. Floatpoint – Beam Error (Beam Error, 1995)

8. Hybrid Leisureland – Space Light (Chillbasics Vol. 1 Carving Mirages, 2010)

9. Dilate – Terrace Serpent (Octagon, 1997)

10. Elph – We Have Always Been Here (Worship The Glitch, 1995)

11. Controlled Bleeding – Scourge (Remix) (Inanition, 1996)

12. Order Of Melchizedek – Spiritual Euphoria (…As Death Gives Way To Victory…, 2005)

13. Interior Disposition – Akai / Midori (The Colour Out Of Space, 2010)

14. Numina – Dronecoil (Symbiotic Spaces, 2007)

15. Oddi – Rebirth (Chillbasics Vol. 1 Carving Mirages, 2010)

16. Robert Rich & Steve Roach – Ceremony Of Shadows (Strata, 1990)

17. Portion Control – Fidelity (Wellcome, 2003)

18. Kibuka – Chimera (Spiralized & Paul A. Browse Remix) (Dystopia, 2009)

19. Hemisphere – Carbon Theory (Hemisphere, 2001)

20. Liquid Z – Aquatic And Still (Apnoea / Amphibia, 1997)

21. The Future Sound Of London – Journey To The Center (Environments II, 2008)

22. Ian Boddy & Chris Carter – Slab (Caged, 2001))

23. Mick Chillage – Gateway Station (Tales From The Igloo, 2009)

24. Zen Paradox – Subterranean Rise / Subterranean Fall (From The Shore Of A Distant Land, 1994)

25. Robert Leiner – Northern Dark (Visions Of The Past, 1994)

26. Visions Of Excess – The Hibernating Man (Sensitive Disruption, 2002)

27. CTI – La Genou (Aux Goûts Spéciaux) (Deepnet, 1996)

28. Psychophysicist – Psience (Deepnet, 1996)

29. Paranormal Activity – Fern Glas (Supersonic Architect, 2010)

Space, as it is simply called, is a 38 minute piece released independently on KLF Communications by Jimmy Cauty. The piece is split up into 8 parts named after the planets of the solar system, minus the Earth. Approximate track timings are listed on Wikipedia, but the sleeve does not specify these. Also, according to Wikipedia, this was actually intended to be the debut Orb album, but Cauty removed Alex Paterson’s contributions and re-worked the material. Official copies of this album tend to fetch higher prices on Discogs and such, but if one does not mind the somewhat-illegality of acquiring an obscure 20 year old bootleg, it can be found starting much cheaper. Musicially, the album is not particularly ground-breaking, but nevertheless an excellent companion piece to the far more successful album Chill Out, which was also released the same year.

Tracklisting:

01 Space

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This is a screen-grab from the 4/13/2010 episode of The Colbert Report.

Implant Code was a group from Croatia that released this 4 track maxi-single for the Minus Habens label in 1993. The first track, “Hyperspace Enter” was featured on the first volume of the classic compilation series Dream Injection. It is mostly instrumental, except for a vocal sample from an unidentified reading of two lines from William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer: “Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind” and the phrase, “unthinkable complexity”. While this is the only release for the duo (it is credited to a third individual also, Vlado Knežević), a remix of “Pulse 01″ appeared on the compilations Body Frequencies and Outer Space Communications V. 2.01-T1. Both artists are hard trance / tech-house DJs and producers, with numerous releases throughout the 90s on various labels. DJ Mary is the more prolific of the two, with 5 12″ releases since 2004, and most recently two remixes for his new label, Audiometric Records. Mario K/K has a few releases in the mid-90s after this came out under a couple different aliases such as Syntax Morph and Future Shock Team.

Tracklisting:

1 Hyperspace Enter (5:28)

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2 Cerebroscope (4:47)

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3 Cybernauts (4:43)

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4 Pulse01 (6:08)

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On January 17th 2009 Andrew Lagowski performed as ‘S.E.T.I.’ after an invitation from the Loki Foundation label. Sound sources were ipod Touch running Orthovox, Bebot, synthPond, TTW and Noise.io Pro, a Korg DS10 synthesizer and Ableton Live-prepared granular/ambient space sounds.

Electronic pioneers Portion Control return in 2010 with a new album entitled Violently Alive, the second one for Sigsaly Transmissions. It seems like each new release, every year, by Portion Control gets better and this is no exception to the tradition. All the songs are tighter and more focused, highlighted by clear production. In addition to the full-length album, the digipak will contain a link for a bonus 2-track download on their website presented in wave format. All the albums are available directly from the band on the website, which you can mix and match different albums for a decent price at good savings. It doesn’t seem like they are selling copies of their first album of new output, Wellcome from 2004. Portion Control is also preparing a digital download of samples and loops, dubbed “Operator”. “un-easy stressed material from the PC machines”. The samples of the songs I heard from the album on the site are all excellent and I foresee this album getting a lot of air time on my headphones in the coming months.

Tracklisting
1. Icon
2. Relapse
3. Skull Kid
4. Amnesia
5. Blood Loss
6. Addiction Rising
7. Rise
8. Waste
9. Guided By Fear
10. Extraction
11. Stealth
12. Swollen
13. You Hold Me Down

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This is a mix I made, my first one actually, in late February, using some new software I purchased called Torq Mixlab, made by M-Audio. It’s an excellent and inexpensive setup to learn to use and have fun.

I compiled the tracklist at random in about 20 minutes. I was getting ready for a root canal and wanted to listen to some ambient music to sooth myself. I picked a handful of tracks that I wanted to listen to and hit record. There’s a few glitches, such as hitting the pause button on the wrong deck, and picking a song that was too short which ran out and left a several second gap of silence until the next track. Overall, I enjoyed it.

I’m pretty unimaginative when it comes to picking titles and so forth, so since this was my first test on the Mixlab, I called it Ambient_Test1. A free account for SoundCloud allows for 2 hours of uploaded material, so I made this one an hour even. Eventually, I’d like to take some ideas I had from this and expand it into a full, proper mix. Maybe I’ll think of a cool title by then.

The tracklisting for this can be found on the Soudcloud page.

Ambient Test 1 by iceolate

Things have been quiet since the last album that Front Line Assembly has released, 2006′s Artificial Soldier. Rumors have come out about the forthcoming FLA album, tentatively set for a spring 2010 release date on Metropolis. Improvised Electronic Device will feature a collaborative track entitled “Stupidity” with Al Jourgensen of Ministry. Jourgensen will contribute vocals and lyrics to the track, dedicated to the memory of Wax Trax! Records founders Jim Nash and Dannie Flescher. Artist Dave McKean, who did past artwork for Front Line Assembly and Fear Factory, will provide the artwork for the album and its first single, “Shifting Through the Lens”. I’m not entirely certain if Rhys Fulber will be involved with the record, perhaps as a producer, but I’m sure more details will become available soon. I haven’t kept up too much on Front Line Assembly’s recent material so much and personally, I look forward to a return of the era of the 90s, from Caustic Grip to Hard Wired, (we’ll largely forget about Millennium, alright?). Overall, I’m interested in seeing how it turns out.

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New stuff from the Principles of Flight camp. The end of February saw the download for their set at Australia’s Rainbow Serpent Festival on Jan 23, 2010. It clocks in at about 91 minutes and is available for streaming or free-download from soundcloud.com. Dark, pounding psytech.

Also announced, on April 9th, a two-track digital download EP will be made available. Five minute samples are available to hear on Myspace and soundcloud.com.

Principles of Flight most recent album, Chaos Opera, is still available at many online retailers.

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I figured I would come out of my self-imposed blog exile with the sad news that Dannie Flescher, one of the co-founders of the influential Wax Trax! Records has recently passed away from complications and illness related to AIDS. Concidentally, or perhaps not, Jim Nash also passed away in 1995, sometime after Wax Trax! filed for bankruptcy and was bought out by TVT. I discovered Wax Trax! myself sometime before that, I believe, after the release of the boxed set in 1994. Prior to that, I only knew of Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, but it was also a high school friend who turned me on to KMFDM and Front 242. After this, I found the boxed set in a local record store and my life was pretty much changed from then on. I tried to buy everything I could get my hands on, minus the vinyl, of course, since I never owned a record player. The Wax Trax! Black Box was also instrumental in introducing me to more experimental music beyond electronic dance to bands like COIL and Controlled Bleeding. It would be quite simple to say that, for me, without Wax Trax!, this blog would have never existed in the first place. Though the label has been long gone, still 20 years past its heyday, the music that was released then still stands up as some of the finest electronic dance / industrial ever, and will never be forgotten. So many classic acts had their record sleeves graced by the iconic power-lines logo. RIP Dannie and Jim.