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5:4
Tag:

electronica

  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Sole Massif – Encircle

    by 5:4 January 30, 2023 • 09:00
    January 30, 2023 • 09:00

    i’m bringing my annual January exploration of free music to a close with an album that, as happens every year, should have appeared in my Best Albums of 2022 but i ended up listening to it just too late. That being said, when i first spent time with Encircle, by…

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  • Anniversaries

    20 years on: Autechre – Gantz Graf

    by 5:4 August 5, 2022 • 05:00
    August 5, 2022 • 05:00

    Though i find it a bit hard to believe, today marks the 20th anniversary of one of Autechre‘s most dazzling creations, Gantz Graf. It was the opener on a 3-track EP, but the other two tracks, Dial and Cap.IV, though significantly longer than Gantz Graf‘s mere 4-minute duration, were utterly…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Joanne Pollock – Optimist

    by 5:4 January 28, 2022 • 12:01
    January 28, 2022 • 12:01

    It was in 2014 that i first discovered Canadian musician Joanne Pollock, thanks to her superb collaboration with Aaron Funk (Venetian Snares), Poemss. It’s an album i still return to regularly, due to its unique blend of disarmingly naturalistic vocals and sleek but distinctly bedroom pop-type electronica. It’s not a…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree music

    Access to Arasaka update

    by 5:4 June 22, 2021 • 16:17
    June 22, 2021 • 16:17

    A couple of years ago, in my annual ‘Free music’ series i explored the work of US electronica artist Rob Lioy, better known as Access to Arasaka. At the time, one of the drawbacks to accessing his work was that it was mostly only available in low resolution lossy files…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Brothomstates – ReKobn-Tich-Ey

    by 5:4 January 13, 2021 • 10:06
    January 13, 2021 • 10:06

    Three years ago, i featured in my ‘Free internet music’ series a new release from Finnish musician Lassi Nikko, aka Brothomstates, who had surprised everyone at the end of 2017 by suddenly putting out a new 13-minute track after over a decade and a half of silence. In the final…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    The Bug ft. Dis Fig – In Blue

    by 5:4 December 2, 2020 • 12:52
    December 2, 2020 • 12:52

    In order to write about In Blue, the new collaborative album from The Bug and Dis Fig, i need to break a couple of personal ground rules. #1: Don’t do nostalgia. #2: Don’t write about yourself. The reason i need to break those rules is because of the way In…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Autechre – SIGN

    by 5:4 October 16, 2020 • 15:57
    October 16, 2020 • 15:57

    In recent years i’ve realised that, more than with most artists, i tend to listen to each new Autechre release in the context of what came before. i know it’s hardly a mistake to listen like that – and it obviously makes sense for anyone wanting to appreciate it on…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Access to Arasaka

    by 5:4 January 17, 2019 • 14:44
    January 17, 2019 • 14:44

    NB. At the time when this article was published the Access to Arasaka back catalogue was only available in low-resolution lossy files; this situation has now changed – click here for an update. [June 2021] Apologies for the silence on 5:4 for the last couple of weeks, but i’ve been…

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  • Retrospectives

    Björk – Crave (Odd Duck Mix); Hearts & Bones; Undone

    by 5:4 October 11, 2018 • 12:41
    October 11, 2018 • 12:41

    In my most recent mixtape, exploring the noble art of the remix, i included a track by Björk – ‘Crave (Odd Duck Mix)’ – that i mentioned had been made available as a download back in 2001, but which was no longer available. There were in fact four tracks that Björk…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    ionnalee – Everyone Afraid To Be Forgotten

    by 5:4 February 16, 2018 • 15:26
    February 16, 2018 • 15:26

    The fact that i’ve only written about Swedish musician Jonna Lee‘s music very occasionally belies the fact that i feel she’s one of the most inventive singer-songwriters at work today. This has been the case from the outset of her revamped career in late 2009, when she was posting anonymous…

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  • CD/Digital releasesFree musicThematic series

    Press Charges

    by 5:4 January 31, 2018 • 14:41
    January 31, 2018 • 14:41

    There’s so much i could write about in this series looking at free internet music, that i think it’ll be something i’ll have to return to regularly from now on. For the time being, though, i’m ending this series with an album that’s one of the most imaginative and effective…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    A spine-tingling fusion: Alone Architect

    by 5:4 November 8, 2012 • 20:00
    November 8, 2012 • 20:00

    A release i’ve been anticipating for a while came out recently: the self-titled debut EP from Alone Architect. Much of the best electronica-fuelled songwriting in recent times has emanated from Canada, and Alone Architect is no exception, being the project of Montreal musician Jeff Feldman. Feldman posted a couple of…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Emancipated beats: voidesque – as if it never existed

    by 5:4 April 25, 2012 • 20:52
    April 25, 2012 • 20:52

    Despite my fondness for more avant-garde beat-oriented music, for a long time it’s been disappointing to see the current state of such idioms overshadowed by its champions. The likes of Aphex Twin, Autechre and Aaron Funk have, on the one hand, deeply moved and inspired composers and musicians to seek…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Joyous and infectiously playful: Lindstrøm – Six Cups of Rebel

    by 5:4 April 17, 2012 • 12:10
    April 17, 2012 • 12:10

    Having spent several weeks focusing on music of an introspective and ascetic nature, it’s time to let off some steam, and to that end let me flag up the latest release from Lindstrøm, titled Six Cups of Rebel. In nearly 10 years of music-making, this is only Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s third…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    A ferocious take on dubstep: Hecq – Sura

    by 5:4 June 22, 2010 • 15:42
    June 22, 2010 • 15:42

    Despite claiming, a little over a year ago, that “the whole beat-science cant go any further for me”, Hecq has unleashed a new EP, Sura, that is a ferocious take on dubstep. Far from turning his back on beats after Steeltongued, Hecq positively bombards the ears with them, barely held…

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  • CD/Digital releasesRetrospectives

    Kraftwerk: a remastered retrospective

    by 5:4 November 8, 2009 • 01:40
    November 8, 2009 • 01:40

    Of all words associated with the digital era, there’s one that is ubiquitous like no other: ‘remastered’. It has become tantamount to a religious dogma, that the works we have known and loved from our analogue heritage are holy treasures, deserving nothing less than to be preserved in æternum, and…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    When worlds collide: the dazzling, bi-polar explorations of Hecq’s Steeltongued

    by 5:4 May 19, 2009 • 22:29
    May 19, 2009 • 22:29

    It’s perhaps not too fanciful to say that music today has two ‘poles’: one characterised by the presence of beats (in whatever form), the other by their absence. Occupying each end of an impossibly wide continuum, these poles have both had their creative bars set extremely high, from the intricate,…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Playing around in digital detritus: Venetian Snares – Filth

    by 5:4 March 24, 2009 • 11:23
    March 24, 2009 • 11:23

    Is it me or is Aaron Funk’s output beginning to slow? Nine months on from last year’s Detrimentalist, Funk is back with a new Venetian Snares album, Filth, released in late April. Opening track “Deep Dicking” is a paradigm for the whole album, hyperactively squelching around in digital detritus; sounds,…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Conflicted and inconsistent: the mentality and detriment of Venetian Snares

    by 5:4 June 12, 2008 • 12:01
    June 12, 2008 • 12:01

    Through the last few years, my opinion of Venetian Snares has been in the descendant. But from the outset, let’s be fair; while Aaron Funk has, on occasion, produced music that rarely rises beyond mere drivel – Songs About My Cats, Chocolate Wheelchair Album – he has also achieved some…

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Versions, versions everywhere (plus a red herring): Autechre – Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae

    by 5:4 June 3, 2008 • 17:01
    June 3, 2008 • 17:01

    Early yesterday morning, after a number of the wrong kind of glitches at Bleep.com, the final tracks of Autechre‘s Quaristice.Quadrange.ep.ae became available. Versions, versions everywhere: and with this – after 44 tracks, totalling almost 5 hours – i think one can assume that the Quaristice project is at an end.…

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5:4
  • About
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  • The Lists
    • Listening History
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    • Composer Map
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
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    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
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