Moderat + Blond:ish = 4 essential hours of electronic and weird music
May 11, 2016 8:57 PM   Subscribe

For your listening pleasure, double-dose of other/worldly Essential Mixes from the recent past: the German trio known as Moderat (Mixcloud/Soundcloud), and the globe-trotting psychedelic Canadian duo known as Blond:ish (YouTube/ Mixcloud/ Soundcloud). Blond:ish started releasing music together in 2010, while Moderat have a more than a decade of work together and more musical history as the separate parts of Modeselektor and Apparat. Which is to say, more music inside.

What is the connection between the jungle in India, Mayan ruins and a legendary German techno label Kompakt? The answer is a debut album of two hippie, free spirited girls from Canada, Anastascia and Vivie-Ann, recognised under the name Blond:ish.
Anstascia: "Back in 2008. We decided to throw a weekly party together at a club called Cherry in Montreal. We both deejayed in separate rooms, but one night we decided to go back-to-back. It worked out really well musically and someone suggested we become a duo; I guess we've been on pretty much the same vibe ever since."
Their debut album, Welcome to the Present, came out last year. Here's an almost-complete official playlist from Blond:ish on YouTube, plus the missing track in a complete playlist in an auto-generated YT content playlist. They also released a follow-up remixe album/EP, also from the auto-generated YT content account. You can dig around in both accounts for more official music, in addition to their Soundcloud account.


Bore Modeselektor toured with Radiohead on the heels of their Happy Birthday! (YT album) and Apparat found acclaim for his stargazing electro dream-pop, there existed an early incarnation of Moderat. Back in 2002, Modeselektor's Sebastian Szary and Gernot Bronsert linked up with Sascha Ring (Apparat) [after the trio bonded over "technical, nerdy stuff" at a small festival for emerging artists] to lay down a collaborative full-length and, gently put, it didn't work out. The trio found the recording process so personally damaging they named the resulting material (which, tellingly, became an EP) Auf Kosten der Gesundheit ("At the Cost of Health") (YT playlist). Naturally it didn't seem like they'd be getting back together anytime soon.

But they did, and they've now completed three albums together: They each still have their own duo/solo careers, but I'll let you dig around for those.
posted by filthy light thief (4 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
If this is all too much to take in, may I suggest going directly to Laberinto featuring Bahramji by Blond:ish? They play it as the final track in their Essential Mix, and as soon as I heard it, I had to find out what it was, and listen to it again (and again and again). Looping Eastern European "electronic" music, featuring some instrument that sounds like a hammered dulcimer.

And Moderat's Essential Mix is not an example of the sounds of their albums, but something far more eclectic and better paired with Blond:ish's aesthetic than I would have expected.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:13 PM on May 11, 2016 [4 favorites]


Thank you for this post!
I probably listened to Moderats A New Error more often than any other song ever, very interested to hear their playlist.
posted by ts;dr at 1:51 AM on May 12, 2016


I've always liked Modeselektor and their Monkeytown label for their ability to successfully merge pop sensibilities with really far out experimental electronica. Not a combination you hear every day. Also their 50 Weapons sublabel for more straight ahead techno was top notch, but sadly recently stopped after 50 releases.

And thanks for the mixes! Blond:ish is new to me, so will add to the work playlist.
posted by p3t3 at 5:26 AM on May 12, 2016


(but god, their german accent at the beginning of the show. I hope I don't sound like that :/)
posted by ts;dr at 5:28 AM on May 12, 2016


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