Abstract Index Playlist - October 10/07

Icarus is what I thought might happen to drum and bass at a certain point. The slicing and dicing of breakbeats gave way to 2 step, techstep and other more elemental styles at the end of the 90s, and many of the most polyrhythmic artists moved on to glitch, breakcore and other means of sample deconstruction.

Icarus have gone further down this rabbit hole into what the liner notes refer to as “concatenative synthesis”. They let loose a series of algorithms which rearrange sample shards into new forms. This is not a random process, but neither is it as comparatively linear as chopping up one breakbeat to modulate over the course of a song. The three dimensional possibilities of a method of synthesis affecting rhythm, texture and pitch in spontaneous ways are not at all academic here but continually exciting. But that may not be the whole story here. I've no idea what they're actually doing live - and I played one of the live tracks "First Inf(ae)rence" this week. It's likely that laptops are the main means of performance, but something tells me they're working up a greater sweat than their peers. The excellent communication between the duo makes Sylt is a fantastic record, better than the sum of its parts. At over 70 minutes, Icarus have their way with simple sounding notes which turn into mountains of sound.

Selfautoparent - Icarus

first inf(ae)rence - icarus (rump)
des prunes - michel f. cote (ambiances magnetiques)
nyamarupa - alejandro franov (staubgold)
you're the one - sandro perri (constellation)
swing ta vie - nawal (nawali.com)
abankwa - mr. something something feat. ikwunga (world)
la raiz - radio mundial (rough guides)
si me la pan la cojo - augusto santos (iaso)
lone ranger - orgone (ubiquity)
urban fable #1 - people (i & ear)
daily four - moha (rune gramofon)
crunchy hands - smash and teeny feat. john butcher (spool)
no-otropics - jesse zubot (drip audio)
kaziranga beat - ananda shankar (fallout)
na hine cocore - vieux farka toure rmx. by karsh kale (modiba)
truppa truppa - shukar collective (eastblok)
saranga - ifang bondi (syllart)
everywhere you go - bim sherman (pressure sounds)
hydroponic dub - subatomic sound system (nomadic wax)
perdido - noiseshaper (sounds from the roof)
soul piper/dub - improvisators dub (wagram)