radiokoala – ‘Analog Explorations’ Digi-LP [http://radiokoala.bandcamp.com/]

Very cool discovery here, arriving to my ears via Paul Ackroyd aka Kamikaze last week. radiokoala, as it turns out, is one of the many unsung analogue masters of the current time, contemporary of Ekoplekz, Keith Fullerton Whitman and dyLab but with no label release to date. Operating out of a Belaruse, in addition to his Soundcloud page you can find regular updates on his youtube channel, demoing new machines as they come in to his personal collection as well as Frankenstein mash-ups of equipment chains to see what new sounds can be got.

Lots of bleeps and bloops no doubt, which may not be for everyone, but we dig it. For further reading on his works, or for the gear heads amongst us, radiokoala also frequents the forums at the great Muff Wiggler online space.

We’ll always look for release on any physical format first, but there’s been too much quality coming through the web lately to ignore, and Analog Explorations is one of the best that’s reached our ears. Ten tracks that find rhythm through bizarre squelch basslines and throbbing electronic signals as opposed to conventional synths, it’s an all analogue affair that barely finds groove but works amazingly well.

Unlike some others in this vein, there’s a lack of self-indulgent in radiokoala’s offerings. Instead his tracks seem alive and with the ability to interact with the world around them, as opposed to being the culmination of a hermitted studio addict. This music is never going to be for everyone, but for analogue fiends looking for new directions and those after some experimental movements we really recommend checking this out.

You can stream the whole album below, embedded just underneath the release info, which is worth taking a second to read. Head over to the bandcamp soon after, get some cash to the producer for a brilliant album.

via http://radiokoala.bandcamp.com/
An architect of memorizable soundscapes, radiokoala makes soulful and inventive electronica unrestrained by genre crutches. His is music more intricate than what could be transcribed with notes; it’s a whole sonic world, where one can only experience what they hear – at the very moment of listening. Trying to describe it thereafter could be tricky: bringing ethereal emotions and taking listener back to the episodes bygone, its textural ambience is too fragile to reproduce with words. Though, it depends. While there could be found examples of exquisite subtlety, like selected works #9 on a self-titled album (for where fragility is the most appropriate word), radiokoala doesn’t restrain himself necessarily to solely meditative pieces of audio work. Sometimes he can go crushing with pondering analog kicks & low-frequency drones joined together for pulse-frequenting assault at the one’s ears. This is what he does at Analog Explorations – an album intended to showcase raw and fortright character that is so characteristic for analogue and modular synthesizers. Finding himself in a position of an artist too flexile to hold on to any kind of formulaic composition, radiokoala would go anywhere far to not repeat himself even once. Analog Explorations is a record that has very distinct sonic signature, but it’s not what is most important about it: rather the main idea was to showcase the extremes of sonic self-expression made possible by working with a carefully chosen set of various analogue devices.