on march 16th the man in the ski mask otherwise known as makeup and vanity set (MAVS) will be releasing his new, self-titled album. a few months back he allowed us the great honour of designing the sleeve for the record, and you can see the fruit of our labours above. MAVS is often more widely known as the touring DJ for the protomen and was responsible for their uncanny 8bit remix album, makeup and vanity set presents… the protomen.

the new album will be available on CD and mp3 at the time of release along with a supporting range of awesome t-shirts. in the meantime you can listen to some of the music from the new LP here:

myspace.com/matthewpustimakesmusic

if you’re getting really impatient, you can also download a copy of MAVS’s excellent experimental music side-project DAAS, here:

daas.bandcamp.com

our hi-octane teaser site for NX energy drink just went live. alongside it we were asked to design the above poster for promotional purposes. needless to say, but this is a new aesthetic for us and one we’re having a great time experimenting with. expect more from this fiery little inferno of a project in the near future.

director paul biedrzycki’s powerful new political documentary the ballot or the bullet just made the cut for this year’s CMJ music festival. it’s a film detailing the political climate surrounding the creation of the new album by long-standing brooklyn rappers, a-alikes and explains the band’s radical stance on america’s recent government overhaul. the film stars such hip-hop luminaries as chuck d of public enemy and dead prez. included in the film are a series of music videos, one of which we were asked to ‘destroy’ both video + audio for. the end result is what it would be like if you were trying to watch the video using a broken tv and rabbit ear antennae in some forgotten about part of brooklyn.

you can watch the video in quicktime here -

kill a revolutionary

overall it’s extremely satisfying working with a band like the protomen. particularly when after years of collaboration they still manage to enlighten and inspire with the consistent quality of their musical output.

here, complete with flash design by us, is the first fully mixed and mastered track from the protomen’s forthcoming new album, act II -

light up the night

if you like what you hear, pass it around. music like this needs to be heard.

as promised i have the first of a number of free, extra special eps that contain some of my older work from my personal archives. i’ve put together the first ep which consists of six tracks, which i think work nicely with each other. these tracks are mostly from 2005 but one or two are from 2004 & 2006. i plan on making a couple more 4-6 track eps available over the next few months, so you’ll be able to build up a large collection of some of my older work almost like those week-by-week ‘build a dinosaur’ style rip off magazines that we british, are so fond of!

i hope you dig the ep. please feel free to leave some comments if you feel adventurous!

alongside the free ep release, i’ve also listed a few of my favourite tracks from this month to check out.

so far this month:

accelra – 2004-2006 archive 1 e.p
version industries

here is the first free accelra ep to download. it features six tracks & it’s about 21mins long. the third track on the ep is a remix of a classical excerpt from an organ concerto composed by our collective friend here at version industries, tom wiggal. tom recently composed an opera about the christian saint, alban which was performed at st. alban’s cathedral in the uk, earlier this year. the remix name itself comes from a piss-take of the tesco beer, ‘biere speciale’ which is a cheapo beer that tom seems to have a soft spot for.

richard skelton – grange
richard skelton – marking time – type records

richard skelton’s seminal ‘marking time’ finally gets a re-release on type records. this is an album of great, haunting beauty & has been a really effecting listen over the last year or so. richard’s music mainly consists of the interplay between bowed piano, strings, piano & location recording ambiance. richard runs his own label, sustain release, that put’s out bespoke cd packages to order for all his personal & side project releases. it’s worth checking out the packaging at his website, here. the thought that goes into the design is so spot on with the music he creates.

clint mansell – welcome to lunar industries (three year stretch….)
clint mansell – moon sountrack – black records

clint mansell’s soundtrack to film, moon has just come out here in the uk. the film however has not. bloody typical. same thing happened with darren aronofsky’s, the fountain. the only upshot of this was that i could fully immerse myself in the music before seeing the film & i felt this really helped with the emotional impact that the fountain managed to deliver. it’s also good that the others at the new york arm of version industries that have seen moon, are good at keeping spoilers to themselves!

floating points – j&w beat
floating points – j&w beat e.p – planet-mu

brand new signing to planet-mu, floating points has already been tearing things up with his ‘love me like this’ e.p from earlier in the year. this is an awesome two track e.p that weaves heavy melodic synth work into the already label established dubstep sound. tight drum work & a wicked hook on the first track made me pick this one as my last track of the month.

so that’s it for this month! next month they’ll be another ep of older material from myself & a bunch of other tracks that i think deserve some respect (i’m looking at you already, falty dl!)

i’ve been very busy recently at version, as you can see from the beyond apollo website that we just launched. many hours of hard work has gone into the sound design and multi-tracking of the atmosphere & environmental soundscapes you will hear if you pop over to the teaser experience site. i also had the pleasure of working with original dialogue recordings of the script that our new york studio recorded. i really wanted to nail the feel of some of my favourite sci-fi films that deal with the loneliness of space, such as enemy mine, solaris, silent running & the incidental sound design of films such as alien & outland. i hope that everyone has a chance to play around with the teaser website to uncover all that it has to offer.

on a personal note, i’ve also been trying to write a new album over the past four months and i feel for once, that i’m near the home stretch. i’m at present trying to stop myself from writing any new material so i can stop playing catch-up with the mastering side of things! good news is that i have another track for people to check out whilst i finish everything off.

there are some nice new tracks from wisp, gravious and hannu that are really worth checking out as well.

so far this month:

accelra – red wings held skywards
unreleased

here is another of my recent unreleased tracks for you to listen to. i hope you all like it.

wisp – picatrix
wisp – the shimmering hour – rephlex records

the second track from wisp’s third official album, this time on rephlex records. for me this is my standout track from the album, it perfectly encapsulates his melodic µ-ziq stlye melodies with the awesome production of aphex. wisp has made the quintessential braindance record for rephlex (until more aphex comes out…)

gravious – world of tomorrow
gravious – futurist ep – highpoint lowlife records

after two awesome 12″ eps on hotflush recordings, gravious comes back with some brilliant sci-fi inspired dubstep on his new ep. i loved his wormsign track on his first 12″ for it’s sly nod to dune & the pressure of the bassline that reminded me of the awesome thumper that the freman use to call the worms of arrakis. it’s nice to see him come full circle with the sci-fi influences (this time it’s the william gibson short story, “the gernsback continumm” that inspired him to create his new ep). i fully respect the sci-fi leanings, as science fiction novels & films influence a lot of my own works.

hannu – valtameri
hannu -hintergarten – kesh

brilliant new album of modern classical infused, minimal ambient electronica from hannu. this is my favourite track on the album as it brilliantly mixes various moods whilst utilising a strong palate of electronic, classical & home tape recordings style sounds.

more stuff next month, maybe even a small ep of some of my older tracks from 2007/8 for you!

another month, another load of great tracks that hit all the right spots. what makes this post a little bit different to my last is that i will be sharing a piece of my current personal musical output with you.

for those that don’t know, i mainly make electronic based music under the moniker, accelra. i’ve been making music for as long as i remember but really started getting in the production side of things around ’97. since then i’ve shared bills with artists such as venetian snares, ital tek, datach’i, doormouse, global goon & many others. i thought it would be nice to share one of my recent unreleased tracks as a special treat.

also i have collected a few choice cuts from this month & beyond that i think kick-start the summer sound for this year.

so far this month:

accelra – dhole sunburst
unreleased

here is one of my recent tracks that i thought readers might enjoy. this is a mainly laid back affair for piano & harp. enjoy!

boxcutter – sidetrak
boxcutter – acrecibo message – planet-mu

the first track from boxcutter’s brand new album on planet-mu. this for me sums everything boxcutter does sonically within one track. i also recommend checking out his last two releases, glyphic & oneiric for more passionate, melody driven dubstep.

georgia’s horse – as it stops raining (various production mix)
various production/georgia’s horse – as it stops raining ep – fire records

blinding new collaboration between the ever resourceful various production and their fellow label mates on fire records. this track harkens back to the cross genre clash of various’ debut album ‘the world is gone’. great stuff. strong sleeve design from artist david bray, a long time collaborater with various production.

mark pritchard – ?
mark pritchard – ? ep – ho hum

after delivering an excellent full length under his other pseudonym, harmonic 313 on warp records recently, mark pritchard is back again with a more ambient focused release. stunning use of space in the opening track ‘?’.

i hope you enjoy my new accelra track and i look forward to sharing a few more things down the line!

my name is gavin & i create all the audio & music (original & remix) work here at version. i’ve decided to come out of the woodwork and share a few things about my music (personal & work related) and highlight a few of my favourite tracks right now. i’m going to make this a regular thing so you’ll get a chance to listen to a lot of my unreleased personal music alongside my odd tangential music production thoughts (ie. general moaning).

here we go…

i’ve just got up and running on logic pro 8 from my halcyon days on modplug tracker. I’ve always found it difficult to pull myself away from the comforting vertical step editing and move into the more daw related environments of logic, pro tools, cubase & sonar. after a brief stint with nuendo in which I managed to loose half a years worth of personal work to a glitch, i felt I had been burned enough. luckily logic is great! (touch wood)

i had one friend recently describe the programming pattern editor in modplug as that of entering mindless data into an excel spreadsheet. no amount of explanation of step gate sequencing of individual samples helped move his opinion. i see no problem entering hex values to make music, i mean we do it to control colours on a website!

anyway. i hope to be able to share a few personal music projects over some of my updates, that aren’t the client ones you might have heard if you’ve visited some of our recent websites (such as house of jackie brown).

so far this month:

toasty – the knowledge (untold remix)
hfrmx001ii – hotflush recordings

untold’s awesome remix of the already wicked original, released back in 2004. it’s also worth checking out the other remix of ‘the knowledge’ by vex’d on the previous remix ep.

faunts – feel.love.thinking.of
faunts – feel.love.thinking.of – friendly fire recordings

the opening title track to their second album. i really got into these guys after hearing their epic 80′s synth workout “m4” on the end credits of the mass effect game.

jamie vex’d – radiant industry
jamie vex’d – in system travel ep – planet-mu

the first official release from one half of vex’d on planet-mu. this for me is the standout track from his ep.

la roux – in for the kll (skream’s “let’s get ravey” mix)
la roux – in for the kill – polydor

it’s not often that a remix outdoes the original but I think skream has managed it.

next time I’ll post one of my new tracks once my new reference headphones have broken in!