Showing posts with label AyGeeTee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AyGeeTee. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Friday, May 15, 2015
Throbbing Beautiful: AyGeeTee's Haunted Hits
AyGeeTee is that rare bird; an electronic musician who has an immediately recognizable sound. I know this because I'm one of those incorrigible people who "grab" MP3s from all over the web and frequently end up with numerous files having a name, but no artist listed. AyGeeTee is a prime offender, with a lot of one-word, hard-to-search titles, like "Famous" or "Insider", for example, from his current Soundcloud. But experience has taught me not to worry when grabbing AyGeeTee’s un-tagged files, because his music has an unmistakable sound all his own which I can instantly recognize. I honestly can't think of any higher compliment I could give an artist working in the faceless genre of instrumental electronic music.
AyGeeTee is reclusive Londoner Andrew G. Thomson. He is one of an elite group of outsiders who doggedly follow their different inner drummer, alongside other hard-to-classify artists like Jono Mi Lo and the artist-formerly-known-as TEAMS (now Shanti) who go back to the beginnings of the wave of 2010, and whose work drew on both chillwave and witch house, but transcends genre. Check out AyGeeTee’s extensive back catalog of releases on his Bandcamp.
Following up last year’s Fools, Haunted Hits accentuates AyGeeTee’s range. From neo-Detroit dirty techno on “No Scorn Ever”, to tribal trip-hop of “Blessed”, to bliss-gaze of “September in Summer”, it’s a richly varied album. Check out the ten-minute plus epic "Can't Keep My Eyes", with its’ sparkling bloom around the 3:30 mark; high audio magic.
His throbbing, beautiful mixture of noise and percussion is utterly distinct amid the sea of undifferentiated future funk, dubstep, trap and house flooding the internets. The combination of noise and beauty is a theme here at anothercountyheard; it ties so many of our perennial musical obsessions together, from Throbbing Gristle and My Bloody Valentine and Sweet Trip, to Fennesz and Animal Collective. The ever-present wash of rhythmic noise under the majestic melodies and pounding tribal beats place AyGeeTee's music firmly in the fine company of the aforementioned artists, and on the short list of anotherocuntyheard favorites. It’s music deserving of the appellation ‘art’.
Haunted Hits is not a best-of package at all, but a compilation of several new tracks and some loose ends. It’s available from AMDISCS, not free, but absolutely worth paying for. Jump to their page to purchase.
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Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Download: AyGeeTee's Actress Pets Side Project and Lightning Speed of the Past
And for fuck's sake - if you don't already know AyGeeTee, proceed at once to his Bandcamp page and avail yourself of all that is there, most importantly the pair of 2011 classic albums Soul and Is It Safe.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Single: "Everybody On Drugs (Once More With Feeling)" by MARIE DIOR + Remixes
Marie Dior's new one via Aural Sect is a glowing slab of dark-wave with remixes by anothercountyheard favorites AyGeeTee and Shisa. Click HERE for the free download.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Album Review: AyGeeTee's FOOLS - Transcending EDM
How to describe AyGeeTee? He is one of those artists whose work does not sit comfortably in any of the established subgenres of electronic music. Impervious to the flavor-of-the-month or meme-of-the-week, he eschews making concessions to the various trends and fads that dominate the internet-DIY music scene.
AyGeeTee is the recording project of a mysterious and private London-based artist. Combining aspects of house, dub, ambient, and even funk with the minimalist techniques of Steve Reich and Phillip Glass in a way that no one else is doing, AyGeeTee doggedly pursues his own unique vision. He is one of the few recording artists working in DIY today that can truly be said to have a sound of their own, and his recordings prove him eminently worthy of the appellation 'artist'.
He is a prolific uploader to his Soundcloud, which he uses to air experiments and unfinished or unmastered material. But it is his albums that contain his A-game material. Soul (April 2011) and Is It Safe (Dec 2011) were both knockouts; albums that grow and expand with repeated listening. Both sets have proven to be of enduring interest. Apparently, he's been (wisely) holding back sharing this new stuff; Fools is his first album of new music under the AyGeeTee imprint since Is It Safe, and it's comprised of almost all previously unheard material.
The typical AyGeeTee track begins with a simple rhythm or loop. Layers of percussion, noise, beats, vocal samples, and even stringed instruments are added, building multiple rhythms. Some of the loops are slightly out of sync, so variations are produced, and the beats are shuffled and worked, never taking the established paths, but rather combining in surprising and novel ways. Dense and spacious in alternating turns, the music transcends the narrow limits of EDM, building into thundering, crunching monuments of towering sonic sculpture, more akin to the 'sound art' of Fluxus than to the typical chillwave track.
I walked to a nearby waterfall to listen to the album. There is a rock perfectly situated for viewing the falls as the late morning sun shines down through the spray. The gushing water falls over the face of the rock, splashing into a million drops which recombine and dance in the light. Fools provided the perfect aural compliment to this scene. I delighted at the illusion of the movement of the water being in time with the music, lost in the abstracted spectacle. The music awakens the sense of wonder and beauty, extending the possibilities of what instrumental electronic music can do.
Below are key tracks from Fools, representing the spectrum of music in the set; "Famous Gum" which begins with a very familiar drum sample, which is quickly lost in a jungle of tribal pounding down-and-dirty phonk, "Unit 16 Again", which will forever evoke that morning watching the waterfall in an enchanted psychedelic trance, "Pet Vault", a witchy wonder, "Vagaries", exploring the possibilities of beauty in noise, and "MonoFire In HD", the coda of which demonstrates the full power of AyGeeTee's unique shuffling beats.
The album is available through AMDISCS for €8.00 (about $10 USD), an absolute bargain for what is surely one of the best albums of electronic music this year. And by all means, if you don't have his previous albums, get them here. They're free!
The lovely album artwork is by Organ Armani.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
AyGeeTee // Struggling Emoticon MP3
Thursday, June 28, 2012
VIDEO // (TIPS) by Daytime Actress
(TIPS) - Daytime Actress from Federico Cosci on Vimeo.
The music is by AyGeeTee and Daytime Television The video is by Federico Cosci AyGeeTee Bandcamp Soundcloud Daytime Television Tumblr Soundcloud
Federico Cosci
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
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