This Week's Free Lab Radio - BambooMan vs Iraq

So as we can on Free Lab Radio, this week we're shifting format to curate a listening experience between you, us and them. How often today do we sit down and listen to an entire album? In fact with the exponential rise of the .mp3 over other formats, despite the last chugs of cassette and a niche resurgence of vinyl, the track download has been killing of the album listening experience.

Urged on by an interview with did this week with u:ber musician David Harrington of Kronos Quartet (airing this Thursday on our sister show Six Pillars on ResonanceFM) we're Bambooman (Booman).

We're looking at the art work, the composite album in order and the physicality of the final object of a new release on Sonic Router by young Bambooman.

The Yorkshire kids said of this new album “I definitely spent a lot of time sculpting the overall sound that I've been developing over the last few years. There’s a nice balance of musical feelings from the more dark minimal sound design evident in ‘Birth’ and ‘Cast‘, to the classic kick/snare hip hop flex of ‘Knox’, through to the more up-tempo garage-esque feel of tracks like ‘Dulcet’ and ‘Clasp’.”

“Similarly to Hollowed, this EP is made almost entirely out of found sounds and field recordings that I’ve made and processed; sounds I’ve synthesized myself or recordings that were made and donated by friends. There’s certainly more development and progression within the individual tracks and I feel like that’s also reflected in the EP’s sequencing.”

Also to mark the Welcome to Iraq show this week at South London Gallery, we're going out with an Iraqi folk song, full of the richness of the classical and folk traditions of the region and the elements of hauntology that comes with early recordings.

11-midnight tonight on Resonance104.4FM repeats 2am Wednesday. Listen on your transistor radio on 104.4FM if in London or use the radio player on phones and laptops:
http://radioplayer.resonancefm.com/console/

Here's the promo link to check out Booman's style

The Best Things in Life Aren't Things

One half of Hull-based duo 'The Cutler' (Steve Cobby) converses as a disembodied computer-generated voice with us about their latest brilliantly titled album 'The Best Things in Life Aren't Things'. We break into the chat with tracks from the new album and even throw in a track from their first (and only other) album. We loved them at first for their variety and quality of music, but now we love them for their philosophy and humour to boot.

The Best Things in Life Aren't Things - The Cutler by Fari on Mixcloud

Where Have all the 00s Giants Gone?

The bands that made musical history either side of the turn of the century have seemingly receded behind the clamouring mass of home-based music production since the computer became a household object in around 2005.
So where have they been, those bands that you once loved and more importantly what have they been making? Telegraph published the top 100 songs that define the noughties, just at the end of the decade while NME decided to look at the best 100 albums for that period even as listening to entire album became less an dless the norm .
 

Many have developed a doleful, more minimal sound, perhaps as a backlash against the aforementioned clamour. None more so than Massive Attack who's 5th album Heligoland of 2010 certified Gold in the UK, which retains their original sound, with less flourish and freer form. This track, Girl I Love You, is my favourite. It features some kooky cymbal action almost in the foreground which later descends into an almost avant garde dissonant wind section towards the end. Lovely.