Anyone else excited about this? I think The Idiots Are Winning is excellent, as have been his recent(ish) remixes - thinking especially of his Mogwai remix on his own DJ Kicks mix.
From Resident Advisor:
James Holden will release his second album, The Inheritors, through Border Community in June.
Named after a William Golding book, the album was crafted using Holden's analogue modular system and hand-coded computer programs, which he used to build a series of unique analogue-digital machines. The producer describes these machines as "complex, unpredictable beasts whose sole purpose was to be an expressive instrument for me to play a single song." He added: "There is something very Heath Robinson about the machines I build. Chaos systems with stable states and unstable states, modulating themselves as I fight to steer them. Everything is first takes. It was all a moment. It's recorded like folk music—no overdubs, no virtuosity. A man learnt some instruments to a basic standard and played them. Where needed, he sang."
In a press release, Holden cites the music of Elgar and the KLF's Chill Out as reference points for the LP, as well as "ceilidh music, pentatonic folk scales, and ancient pagan rituals." The Border Community boss also said: "In dance music you're face to face with redundant, pointless music the whole time—records that don't need to exist because every part of them already exists elsewhere. Maybe the same everywhere. I wanted to make the opposite and try to find my own successful combinations and strategies. That part-explains the long gestation I guess. But what would be the point of doing anything else? The album is not meant to sound like now, but it's not meant to sound like the past either."
Holden plays all instruments and provides the vocals on The Inheritors, with two exceptions: a saxophone cameo from Zombie Zombie's Etienne Jaumet on "The Caterpillar’s Intervention" and a vocal turn by Shimble on "Circle of Fifths." The album will be preceded by a 12-inch single version of "Gone Feral" on April 8th. You can download the track for free over on the Border Community SoundCloud page.
Border Community will release The Inheritors by James Holden on June 17th, 2013
Gone Feral sounds class, so signs are good for the album.
Apparently, James Holden has become obsessed with analog modular synths in the years since he made 'The Idiots Are Winning' (he mainly used software and various circuit-bent shit before). It should be interesting to hear what kind of madness he can coax from his collection of magical sound machines...
Speaking of Holden, did you guys enjoy Nathan Fake's 2012 album, 'Steam Days?' I thought it was amazing. You can definitely hear the Boards of Canada vibes.
I'm glad here is a topic for new Holden. It's album I've been waiting for a long time. Would recommend everyone here to check this out (will be in kind of same mood that Geogaddi is). Actually I heard the clips already on Bleep but they got removed shortly after. According to what i heard it will be definitely the best album in a long time with new BOC and MBV (quite a year!).
Heard it yesterday (it was on Glorybeats since last week). "Renata" is a wonderful track, almost all other tracks are halfway between genius and randomness, I'm afraid more towards the latter. I think he has listened to a lot of free jazz and prog stuff and just wanted to throw all this inspiration in his music, mixing it with his own style (which you can still hear, however). There's also some really weird arcane tribal/folk inspiration from times to times. Can't really decide if I like this or not, honestly it sounds a bit too much obscure and avantgarde-ish to me (which is something I can not stand honestly).
So I've heard this twice now and I really like it. I guess it could be seen as a little 'out there' and audacious if you were familiar with James Holden of yore (think prog house/ epic house), but he has been schooling people in this free-form electronica in his DJ sets for a good few years now; he's a big fan of Suicide, Harmonia, etc. Those influences certainly come through. Biggest influence I can hear is Lucky Dragons (he's also a fan), there's a definite folly tribal trance like quality - by trance I mean shamanic repetition, not Paul Van Dyk territory.
If there was one quibble it's that there isn't enough melodic progression for my liking. It's not that the album lacks variation, it's just melodically there's not enough movement ie the melodies don't deviate from beginning to end, however allsorts of sonic bedlam is applied.
In short: brave album and a rich and rewarding one.
New album is sublime, tons to explore...very deep. The last two tracks are particularly great, Self-Playing Schmaltz is one of the best closing tracks I've heard in ages.
He recently done a BBC 6 Music mix which consists of 2 hours (4x30min mixes) of glorious of kilter electronica/alternative past and present - highly recommended
