The Hour of the Wolf

While the rest of the TRP crew are getting their game on in the city that never sleeps, this blogger is spending his summer in a city that seems to be in a deep coma. But the mere fact that it's summer means that regular diurnal/nocturnal and sleep/wake dichotomies no longer apply. Since the 24-hour day has gone by the wayside, I find myself awake at 4:00 am pretty frequently, a time when the high-decibel assault of Justice et al loses some of its charm and minimal techno begins to make a lot more sense. Here are some jams for the decompression chamber, once the 133-bpm thump has stopped resonating in your eardrums and the lucid dreams have begun.

Alex Smoke dropped this track last year on his album Paradolia, and it seemed to go largely unnoticed. Not exactly club anthem material, "Prima Materia" is nevertheless an elegant composition. Evoking Arthur Russell, the actual strings on this track have a warmth that the synthesized "Strings of Life" just can't match. (But I'm still hitting up the free Derrick May show tonight in Columbus! Coming soon to NYC, along with yours truly.)

Alex Smoke - "Prima Materia" [alt link]

Just weeks after his pop opus Asa Breed dropped, Matthew Dear has released yet another LP, inoffensively titled 2007, under his False moniker. The album is an extended minimal excursion which is conducive to headphone listening and ketamine enhancement. The album and its single, "Fed On Youth," are out now on Richie Hawtin's M_nus label.

False - "Fed On Youth" [alt link]


Berlin trio My My released their debut LP Songs for the Gentle on Playhouse a few months ago. The album is enjoyable, if not stunning, and if nothing else it established that My My is a name worth watching. This saccharine track is the closer on the recent Playhouse compiltion, Famous When Dead, Vol. 5.

My My - "Southern Comfort" [alt link]

Years before Clicks & Cuts, Japanese sound artist Ryoji Ikeda was sculpting sine waves into ultra-minimal arrangements that blurred the boundaries between installation-based sound art and songs for home listening. Over ten years after his debut album +/-, Ikeda's output maintains a consistently high level of quality, and deserves the attention of adventurous listeners. These tracks are from his most recent album, Dataplex, one of my favorites from 2006.

Ryoji Ikeda - "data.reflex" [alt link]
Ryoji Ikeda - "data.matrix" [alt link]

In other news, The Simpsons Movie is a spectacle, but not spectacular. And now it's time for the Doctor to soak up some real cinema... nighty-night mothafuckaz.