KING MIDAS SOUND / FENNESZ - EDITION LP1

King Midas Sound began coalescing when Kevin Martin (industrial dance veteran, of The Bug), was finding vocalists for London Zoo (2008). Trinidad-born poet / author Roger Robinson who had first worked with Kevin on the title track for Techno Animal's Dead Man's Curse in 2001, was a generation older than most of the MCs on "London Zoo", and brought a troubled soul to You and Me. His partnership with Martin mutated & matured to form KMS, later to ultimately be joined by Kiki Hitomi of Dokkebi Q (who has also worked with Martin in both The Bug and their new 2011 project Black Chow). The duo’s debut album for Steve ‘Kode9’ Goodman’s Hyperdub imprint, Waiting For You, shares some of the hallmarks of The Bug; a musical grounding in dub and dancehall, with lyrics steeped in the grit and danger of city living and often shaded with religious notions of sin and salvation. But where The Bug had a hard carapace, firmed up with industrial beats and dubstep bass, King Midas Sound more resembles a phantom presence: a ghostly fog of sound that seeps through air vents and creeps through cracks in window panes. Think Massive Attack at their most sinister, their most fluid – the heavy ganja vibes of Inertia Creeps mixed with the ethereal drift of 100th Window, perhaps – and you’re halfway there. Robinson is a commanding presence throughout. Cool Out commences with a soft-sung war chant, whispering “We kill soundboys with our Shaolin styles / Run them out the dancefloor wiping tears from their eyes” as the bass bins commence their slow rumble. Earth a Kill Ya’, meanwhile, mixes dusty organ wheezes with hard philosophy: “The earth will kill you if you try to kill it / Your body heals you if you discipline it,” declares Robinson, before summing up his values with a brusque “Live simply!” This spirit, of course, is also classic Kevin Martin, and it’s testament to his holistic production vision that King Midas Sound works so neatly. Heavy with urban dread but awake to the promise of a better life, Waiting for You feels like a hard-won victory – the kind that tastes all the sweeter. In 2011 the group released the rework album Without You featuring an array of both new vocal interpretations and remixes of tracks from the debut album from the likes of Cooly G, Kuedo, Mala, Kode9 & the Spaceape, Flying Lotus and Green Gartside (Scritti Politti). Sites: Discogs. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

Christian Fennesz (born 25 December 1962) is an Austrian guitarist and electronic music producer based in Vienna, Austria, often credited on albums simply as Fennesz. Christian Fennesz's trademark sound combines guitar playing with digital techniques like granular synthesis to make multilayered compositions that blend melody and conventional musical instruments with harsh, irregular glitch-influenced sounds and washes of white noise.. This style has been described as "Rock meets PowerBook". Rolling Stone described him as "the most pictorial composer-programmer in laptop electronica". His oeuvre is far broader though - Hotel Paral.lel won the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction for Digital Musics in 1999 along with Pita's Seven Tons For Free. Fennesz has been recording with Ryuichi Sakamoto, with whom he also plays live, with Keith Rowe, Sparklehorse, Mike Patton, etc... He has also worked alongside Peter Rehberg and Jim O'Rourke in the improvisional trio Fenn O'Berg, and with David Sylvian who sang on his album Venice and for whom Fennesz composed the music for the song "A Fire in the Forest" for his album Blemish. In November 2008, Christian Fennesz released a new album: Black Sea on the Touch Label. In 2009 Fennesz teamed up with Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) to create In The Fishtank 15. The following year Fennesz released Szampler, a cassette containing his sample collection on the Tapeworm label. This release was later remixed by Stefan Goldmann and released as Goldmann vs. Fennesz: Remiksz. In November 2013, Fennesz played the final holiday camp edition of the world famous All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Camber Sands, England. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.