The internet hadn’t really got up to speed on recording and archiving radio shows, tools for cutting slices out of a recording weren’t exactly commonplace. But tape trading was big. Eventually this arrived:

This tape introduced me to the amazing music that MAH was uncovering and pushing on to the airwaves in the UK. A disciple of her oft-cited mentor, John Peel, she has been a tireless fan and promoter of emerging music for the past 14 years. A seminal moment for her and for music was the 2006 showcase “Dubstep Warz,” which laid her love of dubstep bare and exposed this exciting new evolution in dance music to the public. If you read Dubstepforum, you’ll see that many longtime posters cite this show as a life-changing moment for them. Aside from releasing three amazing compilations for Planet Mu (Warrior Dubz, Evangeline, and Wild Angels), she is a constant presence all over the world as a DJ, including her annual curated stage at Sonar, all the while giving airtime to ground-breaking music each week.

However, late last week, she let everyone know that she had chosen to resign from BBC and pursue mentoring and teaching radio students at the University of Sheffield’s Union of Students. While I wish her all the luck and best wishes in her new endeavour, it’s a sad day for radio. Wednesday nights will never be the same, and staying on top of what’s happening in this wide world of music just became slightly harder without her show opening the doors.

Here’s some links to just a few great moments in Mary Anne Hobbs BBC 1 Breezeblock/Experimental (you may want to hunt around for higher quality versions of some shows if you like):

Dubstep Warz — January 9th, 2006

Generation Bass — August 20, 2008

West Coast Rocks — February 11, 2009

Building The Beat — January 14, 2010

This spring, stranded in LA during the Icelandic volcano crisis, she made the most of it, and put together two fantastic shows showcasing the music scene of the city:

Volcano Refugee Party — April 28, 2010

City of Angels Special May 5, 2010

Mary Anne Hobbs TV — Videos from LA, Sonar, Building The Beat, and her amazing tour travels.

Mary Anne Hobbs: New York Natural — URB produced this video shortly before her announcement, a tour of NYC, with many discussions of the current state of music.

Definitive, exhausting, and inspirational interview with MAH from Joe Muggs: Part One | Part Two

In closing, make sure to tune in for the final month of shows at BBC 1 Experimental. Her last show, which I hope will be an intense and emotional extravaganza airs Wednesday night, September 8th, 2010, 9:00–11:00pm EST (2:00–4:00am GMT, Thursday morning).

#SaluteMaryAnneHobbs

Drink The Sea is a fully-fledged band album, something you can appreciate for it’s impeccable production, it’s emotional tugging, and for a bombastic arena-sized scope. It’s one of the best albums in recent years to bridge the gap between rock and hip-hop influences and electronic production and performance. Seeing their live show in support of the album recently, one of my thoughts was “these guys should be playing stadiums.” The music is that big and approachable with plenty of flourish and tricks. The film-opening pace of “Animus Vox” arrives in atmospheric haze, slow bass plucks, and distant drums before revving up the beats and synths to present a burly fanfare that speakers can barely contain. It’s a triumphant opening that unfurls with power and grace. “How To Be Eaten By A Woman” sounds scary enough and the music does have some tense moments, especially when it shifts gears from a loud and punchy low-end assault into a light and subtle synth meditation. One of the most impressive songs is “Fistful of Silence.” The familiar buzzing of bass stabs drives the relatively simple beat, but then comes the catchy chainsaw breakdown that leads to some of the most soaring harmonics on the album. Gigantic cymbals crash and a synth struggles to sing through the chaos. The rolling and clapping drums “Dream Within A Dream” fly by in gallop, while the sharp-edged wave of bass hovers and washes in at peak moments. The only guest musician on the album is singer-songwriter Swan who turns in a tweaked and abstract vocal on “Between Two Points” over a lava flow of synth, while beats thump majestically in the background. Closer “Starve The Ego, Feed The Soul” reminds of those psychedelic epics that The Chemical Brothers are so fond of closing their albums with. Heavily effected looping guitars and synths swirl around an ever-evolving drum pattern, reaching for a height it never quite overcomes, hovering just at the edge of complete collapse.

Check out their website to stream the entire album and pick up some goodies.

Download DUNIAN — Free EP (ZIP)

PS. Shlohmo’s Camping EP is insanely good. If you like the above download, you should really buy Camping.

Baths — Cerulean (Anticon)

Digital Mystikz — Return II Space (DMZ)

Autechre — Oversteps (Warp)

Flying Lotus — Cosmogramma (Warp)

Clock Opera — A Piece of String (Maman)

The festivities start up with “Manuscripts Don’t Burn,” a slinky number that introduces many of the Zygadlo hallmarks: a sing-song, self-harmonized vocal, dirty bouncing bass, complex synth flourishes and intricate drum programming. It’s a short track that serves to present an immediate introduction to the mayhem that follows. The low-key vocal on “Something About Faith” layers in a darker element but the twists and bursts of high-pitched synths are more playful, setting up a fundamental aesthetic of Great Western Laymen. Zygadlo certainly likes to play with contradictions and expectations. Using many of the telltale sounds of dubstep, the album has a hard time actually sounding like what one would think of as dubstep. For one, the Grizzly Bear-ish harmonizing throughout is not something you encounter in most dubstep, even the vocal-led variety.

One of the names that springs to me when hearing tracks like “Laymen’s Requiem” is Frank Zappa. The instrumentation is different, the sounds are different, but the methodology and experimental glee inherent is unmistakable. Zygadlo is an artist pushing electronic music to it’s weirdest fringes. “Perfect Lust” is a robotic little lounge sound, full of electric crooning and bubbling blips careening through the smooth low-end and sparse drums. Likewise, “Filthy Logic” and “Stop/Reject” play with this lighter side, the latter featuring elaborate keyboard melodies and bluesy guitar. “Magic Afternoon” features cascading piano playing not unlike Craig Armstrong’s classic collaborations with Massive Attack.

The darker side has it’s day, too, with “Song of Praise,” a wildly dramatic gothic hip-hop number. Huge Slugabed-ish bass and lumbering percussion pervade, while Zygadlo puts on his best Freddie Mercury persona to harmonize along with the filthy stew. It’s an astounding dark and humorous track, meant to simultaneously shock and amuse. Lead single “Resealable Friendship” still sounds as catchy as ever in this latter half of the album, full of overblown guitar and that huge vocal. The sense of urgency in the song is poignant at the same time as it devastates. Taking the cake for most insane of the album’s tracks is “Missa Per Brevis.” An intense saxophone solo takes center stage, while the bass synth pumps in and out of the foreground, creating a rocky space for the syncopated guitar and vocal elements to weave themselves a safe path. In the midst of this, the distinct sound of scratching finds it’s way in, laying Zygadlo’s hip-hop love bare.

Following up “Missa Per Brevis” is the penultimate number “The Man in the Duck,” a slow and sad ballad. A vocoded Zygadlo laments a story throughout, with only minimal instrumentation. At times, you almost think you know where’s it’s going, when the heavy fuzz of a wobble bass coming in, but immediately the tracks settles down again, never quite lifting off. We end Great Western Laymen with a sliding heap of free jazz entitled “Opiate of the Masses,” where elements of all Zygadlo’s varied loves converge into a single, intentionally messy endtitle. I’m personally excited to track this artist through the years to come. The creativity and innovation on this debut album is the signal of great things to come.

Infrequently, Dosh slows it down and presents listeners with a simple song like “Number 41,” featuring the guitar and vocals of Andrew Bird. It’s a vibrant melding of hip-hop and folk with crunchy drums and waves of distortion backing piano cascades and sharp strumming.

Also included is “Call The Kettle,” a live staple of Dosh shows that has been reinvented for Tommy with dense instrumentation, a blaring saxophone giving way to thick drums and bright keys. Similar to “Number 41,” the pop of “Nevermet” combines a loping beat with folk stylings as Bird returns to the mix. This time the pace is lazier and more ephemeral, almost as if the music is heard through a loosely boarded window fighting against distant thunder. “OK, here we go” is the matter-of-fact kickoff to the final song on Tommy, called “Gare de Lyon,” which clocks in at about eight minutes. Starting in near-silence with whispering guitars and Rhodes organ, the percussion aligns itself with the proceedings, slowly winding around the song’s melody. All the while, the figure continues to escalate, providing a continual impression of forward motion. A brief interlude of spoken word soon heralds the explosive denouement of heavy guitar riffs and violent drum stabs. It’s a shocking and fantastic end to this dynamic album. 

Lotus’ new musical language has its foundation in dense drums that relentlessly travel through the landscape like a rattling train. Ellison’s percussion has become more focused on this magnum opus when compared to earlier works like 1983 (Plug Research, 2006) and Los Angeles (Warp Records, 2008), where the drums were sometimes too abstract to provide a strong basis for his sample heavy songs. On Cosmogramma, the producer uses drums in the way that the late J-Dilla used them. They are intricately interwoven with the bass and melodic elements. Primarily using samples and synthesizers, Flying Lotus distinguishes himself from some of his imitators with a strong musical background through his great-aunt Alice Coltrane. Amidst the chaos of sound, his free jazz inclinations keep the loose-sounding structures cohesive. 

In the music of 2010, Cosmogramma arrives as a heady amalgamation of different music that lives up to it’s futuristic sounding release year, folding in hip-hop, jazz, dubstep, electronic, rock, and a number of other micro-genres. At the same time, it is strongly connected to the histories of these different types of music. Perhaps it is this musical time-travelling that helps Ellison unravel the mysteries of the universe.

Right off the top I find myself not missing Badness on “Ok Luv” and thoroughly enjoying the new vocals on “Murderous Words” by Cerebral Vortex, two songs that originally appeared as vocalized and instrumental, respectively. This is a testament to the compositional skills of Starkey. Both of these songs work as pure instrumental music and as “pop” songs with vocals. The weaving and melodic synths of “Ok Luv” were somewhat submerged by Badness’ vocals but here they pop out brightly, giving the album a hopeful start. Cerebral Vortex and Starkey go together so well, they need to make an album. On “Murderous Words” and “Club Games,” the MC knows just where to stick his emphasis and where to let the music shine. The stop-start cadence to his verses perfectly replicate Starkey’s big beats and escalating synths.

Throughout Ear Drums and Black Holes, there is a clear science fiction epic being told. It’s mostly clearly told through the epic “11th Hour” and the four-part middle section of the album: The big buzzing bass of “Multidial,” the vocoder turn of “Spacecraft,” and the tour de force of “Neck Snap” and brutal “Fourth Dimension.” A journey through the sonic fabric of the universe is being replicated here. It’s the most bumping of spacecraft, though. After a stop at the local spot (“Club Games”), it’s back to space with another vocoder lament “Alienstyles” and perhaps the most breathtaking track on the album, “Capsule.” This nugget is tucked away near the end but is a subtle and textured behemoth. The opening bleeps give way to a thick forest of ringing and alive creatures before the bass kicks in, pushing up against this organic mixture.

Starkey ends the way he opens many live sets, with the gigantic “Fidelio,” the swaggering bass synth coming in big and then fading away before the drums and leads drop in. It’s easy to see this as the big song that plays over the end credits. Like the rest of the album, it’s a bold statement and tells you to watch out, Starkey will be back.

After a thorough regimen of Moog acrobatics, and battle-drum patterns, I’m launched into the conceptual simulator “They Are All Losing The War,” a devious test concocted by the commander to judge recruits potential. The bass-synth melody belies the complexity of this battleground, though. Employing advanced mind techniques, I eventually realize the trick to this seemingly unbeatable level, lay down your weapons and let the music consume you. The knowledge gleaned from this experience is the true objective! Ikonika congratulates me and sends me on to do sonic warfare with the first boss level enemy I will encounter on my journey to the end: “Millie,” a huge rolling speaker-monster. Against this bass-heavy foe, I’m not sure even my new training will be enough. A relentless night and day of slow drums and looping synths finally gives way to a victorious dawn. As a reward for my victory, I’m allowed leave to visit my companion “Sahara Michael,” and enjoy a short furlough sand-surfing and scuba-sailing the ionosphere, high-pitched and thick gales of synth weaving around us. I receive the coded drum-skitter message “Continue?” soon enough and I’m off for another level.

“Heston” proves to be the name of a forest planet under thrall. Pushing through the dense 808 foliage of this swampy jungle, I’m confronted by dive-bombing Moog flyers, blasting me with delay and reverb weapons. For my next mission, a miniature clone of myself is sent to defeat “Psoriasis.” The battleground.…my own body! As I swim through my own pulsing blood veins, the sub-decimal sounds of my own heart pound with abandon and my laser scalpel cuts away the disease from the inside. This is a fight I must win! I’m almost at the end of this game, and “Video Delays” is a pensive level, full of low harmonic intrigue and syncopated bells that herald the arrival of my final challenge. The otherworldly percussion-boss “Look” has arrived! With a stuttering stomp he lands and proceeds to send jets of high frequency stabs in every direction while I dodge and deflect the attacks with my synthetic orchestra’s keys and enveloping washes. Soon enough, “Look” is over and I’m allowed to enter my name in “Red Marker Pens” with the other high scores that Contact, Love, Want, Have has accumulated. The contemplative bass hum and playful melody is the perfect end to this journey. It’s safe to say that <a href=“Hyperdub has produced another challenging experience.

Album preview mix for Mary Anne Hobbs