The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music (I’ll also take field recordings, noise and spoken-word) to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. Include your website address, please. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am doesn’t survive without new music. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

(web archive) (iTunes)

22: Crawling Inside Your Body

It’s another quiet, darkened, meditative one.

 

 The 4am: 22 - Crawling Inside Your Body [24:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8958)

(Mysterious technical problems continue to plague the 4am. Have tried a few tweaks. Any problems, please use the comments thread. Ta.)

Jimmy and the Binliners – Walk It Out (0:31)

Scratch River Telegraph Company – “The Crawling House” (3:49)

Robboland – “threefiveoh” (3:24)

clearsignals – “vv cephei a” (6:12)

I†† – “?¬¬†” (5:03)

Sugar Sphinx – “Someone Has Done This” (5:55)

Hello. Brief liner notes follow.

Hey, if you want a different piece of intro music, you’re going to have to make it and send it to me. I like this one.

(Also, I seriously would make an entire 4am out of pieces that were 31 seconds or less in length. Seriously.)

Scratch River Telegraph Company are very new, I’m told, and can be found at this link here. Very lovely low-key strange blues.

Robboland says: “I’m sending you a tune which seems strangely relevant, being that it’s called three five oh, due to it being recorded at 3:50am one dark and twisty night, somewhere near the edge of the UK. It’s all done on a couple of classical guitars and a bass, with my own fair hands, and probably a bottle of red wine somewhere along the way for that extra ‘I don’t know what’ (sorry, don’t speak French).” Please help him to either drink more or learn French.

Clearsignals describes his work as “Electronic soundtracks for stars comprised of skittish beats, nonlinear melodic patterns, and bass duets between the synthetic and actual.” His piece comes from the album “stars lost your name.”

I†† bear one of those witch house style names that make them impossible to search. Thankfully, SoundCloud doesn’t truck with such youthful shenanigans, and so you can find them there as http://soundcloud.com/itt.

Sugar Sphinx doesn’t have a website, but its alter ego Paul Kopal has a site for his art.

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music (I’ll also take field recordings, noise and spoken-word) to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. Include your website address, please. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am doesn’t survive without new music. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

(web archive) (iTunes)

21: Sleep Department

 

 The 4am: 21 - Sleep Department [30:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (7124)

(The download link above should work. If you’re in Chrome, I’ve found that you need to just click it, not right-click and try “save link as”. In other browsers, “save to target” might also give you a bit of gyp. Any problems, please use the comments thread. Ta.)

Jimmy and the Binliners – “Walk It Out” (0:31)

Mysterians – “Shivering Sands” (3:10)

Taphead – “Bells of the Chapel” (5:37)

Dav Yuk Bon – “Ennui” (7:40)

MILD MAYNYRD – “Nordic” (2:10)

AM – “Colors” (3:23)

Hello. Brief liner notes follow.

Yes, I’m opening with “Walk It Out” again. I don’t care what you think of me. I would make podcasts out of nothing but 31-second pieces if they all made me smile like that one.

From here: it’s all sleepy and swoony stuff. I like to use a bunch of the ambient/microtonal/shoegazey stuff in one go. Just don’t loop it, or after thirty minutes Jimmy And The Binliners will blast you awake.

I dunno if the Mysterians named their piece after my book SHIVERING SANDS or the seafort of the same name. It didn’t bias me. Really. It is old-style ooeeeoooo spookylicious.

Taphead, like Mysterians’ “Nigredo,” is a regular on my message board, I believe. This also did not bias me. A fair number of musical types hang out there. Taphead says of this, “It’s got bells and whistles, neither of which are what they sound like.”

Dav Yuk Bon‘s “Ennui,” also entitled “that i would find you,” is by his description “ambient aggro, somewhere between paranoia and ambient.”

MILD MAYNYRD offers no link, and says only “I make Hip-Hop for friends who rap, but I also make Electronica/Industrial stuff. I’ve finished one EP and am working on another. A small taste is enclosed.” Again, I think you can find him on Whitechapel, and google gave me this.

AM sound a bit confused: their covering note reads in its entirety “an email was forwarded to me about sending music here.” I wonder if they were threatened, or commanded by some shadowy unknown force.

Thanks for reading this far, and thanks for listening. If you liked it, please tell people, so these musicians can grow their audiences and eventually buy food with money.

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music (I’ll also take field recordings, noise and spoken-word) to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. Include your website address, please. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

(web archive) (iTunes)

20: Making Bells Out Of Bones

 

 The 4am: 20 -Making Bells Out Of Bones [19:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2279)

(direct download link in case the one above fails again)

Lester and the Hoax – “Jellybeanz” (2:27)

Margaras – “Noisegrind” (2:52)

Brent Wilcox – “Gametime” (1:18)

Horrorfall – “Necroplasm Fix” (3:45)

Steve Long – “Uneasy” (1:57)

Max Xiantu – “Forget The Future” (5:00)

Jimmy and the Binliners – “Walk It Out” (0:31)

Hello. Brief liner notes follow.

Lester and the Hoax gift me with the first song off their new EP, which I imagine you can find out more about here.

Margaras, also known as Ryan Abbott, puts most of his stuff up on archive.org for free, and can also be found on myspace.

Old friend of The 4am Brent Wilcox says of “Gametime”:

“This sound sculpture may or may not be finished. Been trying to decide that for a couple months now. But its current state amuses me. I can say that most of the sounds came originally from the same source, but none of them resemble that source now.”

Horrorfall say of “Necroplasm Fix’:

“…it’s our first single, and will be featured on the season premiere of TRUE BLOOD on June 13th. Taken from the forthcoming EP, BLOODWORK.”

http://horrorfall.com and http://horrorfall.bandcamp.com are where you find more from them.

Steve Long has no website and has nothing to say, but we’re going to thank him for his lovely bit anyway. It’s how music boxes should sound.

“here’s one i made with glasses and locks. an old synthesizer and a guitar amp” says Max Xiantu. It’s long and peaceful, like a factory having a pleasant dream.

And Jimmy and the Binliners walk it out, as my little 4am signature for the moment, because it’s my podcast and I can do what I like. Also, they told me I could.

If you liked it, tell your friends.

(And, if you missed it, here’s #19.)

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music (I’ll also take field recordings, noise and spoken-word) to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. Include your website address, please. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

(web archive) (iTunes)

19: Kick Off The Dirt

 

 The 4am: 19 - Kick Off The Dirt [21:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (27762)

Jimmy and the Binliners – “Walk It Out” (0:31)

Akira The Don – “Be Brave” (4:28)

Space Heroes Of The People – “Skylon” (3:53)

Kemper Norton – “Helston Music Fayre 1994″ (6:37)

Vomitus Skink – “Dirty Parks” (0:39)

(EDIT: new direct download link if the one above fails)

And The 4am is back for another round.

I’m not mixing the file down to 128k this time, so it’s going to be a bigger file size. We’ll see how that works out. This is a short, simple one, mostly about finding out if I’ve remembered how to do this. So here’s what I’ve got:

Jimmy And The Binliners’ “Walk It Out” is such a thing of riotous and triumphant drunken joy that it should probably be the 4am ident music for this entire run. Yoav Segal of the band tells me there’s no website set up yet, but:

As a Whitechapel lover you may enjoy some films I’ve made about the history of the area. My grandfather, a great man, helped orchestrate the Battle of Cable Street against Mosley and I’ve made a doc and animated short inspired by his memories.

Akira The Don. AKIRA THE FUCKING DON. Was kind of amazed when this turned up, and I’m privileged to have this for the podcast. Attached note read in part:

Big fan! Since I was a tiny boychild, nicking comics in Liverpool. True stories. Now I am all grown, and I make pop music with rapping in it. I just dropped a mixtape comprised entirely of Street Fighter samples. It’s called The Street Fighter Mixtape. It’s been amazingly popular for some reason. It’s here.

Space Heroes Of The People have long specialised in eccentric electropop. In “Skylon” they bolt a time machine on to a synth for retroelectro fun. You can find them at http://spaceheroes.net, where you can download all their older stuff for free.

Of course, it’s never a new season of The 4am without a bit of Kemper Norton, slurtronic shaman of the Cornish moors. He says of “Helston Music Fayre 1994″:

Overdosing on ultrapotent local brew Spingo and cut-price hallucinogens, ignoring the tie-dye special offers, stumbling into town in blazing heat for pasties and cigarette papers, whiting out at the duckpond, and occasionally dancing. The memories come dripping back.
From the upcoming Lowender e.p. by Kemper Norton, an overstimulated and unstable celebration of Cornish festivals. Lowender means “happiness” in Cornish.

And a lovely coda from Vomitus Skink, who further inform:

Vomitus Skink is currently putting together a collective of like minded individuals and will be performing live before the end of the year. Both releases from Vomitus Skink are still available for free download. There are still a few copies of the first collection, in mude, on CD available, but the second release Coitus Sonitus is sold out. Information on everything Vomitus Skink can be found here: (myspace) (soundcloud)

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music (and, hell, I’ll even take field recordings and spoken-word) to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. Include your website address, please. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps, is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people. The 4am shits fireworks and baby heads.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

18: Machinespeaks

 

 The 4am: 18 - Machinespeaks [22:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (10246)

Maddest Kings Alive – “Measles” (4:02)

Clique Talk – “Sputter” (6:29)

Xykogen – “My Unquiet Mind” (4:04)

Bokeh – “In October We Will” (7:28)

Electronic noises, this week. Just brief notes again, sorry:

Maddest Kings Alive get as close to 8bit postrock as I’ve ever heard. Or will probably ever hear. Clique Talk are from Chicago and I know nothing else about them save that they claim to be fanboys. Xykogen have a new, free album out this month, at this link. Bokeh is Mandy Matz, known to longtime readers & listeners as Theory Anesthetic, working with Mykel Boyd, multitalented founder of the Somnimage label.

I hope you like what you find. Next week will probably be all guitars.

EDIT: apparently the mp3 Xykogen sent me was fucked up somehow, and they desire that you go here to listen to “My Unquiet Mind” in the form they intended (and also you can download it and the rest of the album it’s on for free!).

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music (and, hell, I’ll even take field recordings and spoken-word) to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. Include your website address, please. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps, is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people. The 4am shits fireworks and baby heads.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

17: Fireworks And Baby Heads

 

 The 4am: 17 - Fireworks And Baby Heads [23:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (11635)

Starhead – “Iconoclasm” (3:03)

Marazene – “AnTiThesis” (4:50)

The Thing with the Stuff – “Being Alive” (3:15)

Red Light District – “Right Behind You” (3:26)

Kemper Norton – “Son of Winterval” (6:39)

The Face of Human Error> – “The Interregnum” (2:16)

No time for extensive notes this time. Starhead are from Denton, TX. I didn’t even know they had people there. Marazene are from Chicago, and bring the epic sweep at the end of “AnTiThesis.” The Thing With The Stuff is from Mars. The Red Light District are from LA and look like they put on a hell of a show. It’s never a new round of 4am without Kemper Norton. And The Face Of Human Error is an experimental musician from Dublin.

Discover them now. I hope you like what you find.

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music (and, hell, I’ll even take field recordings and spoken-word) to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps, is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people. The 4am would like to lay down in a darkened room with some whisky now please.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

16: The Outhouse Of Love

 

 The 4am: 16 - The Outhouse Of Love [20:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8105)

Restavrant – “Step Down” (3:41)

Brine & Bastards – “The Leaving Of Liverpool” (3:14)

Wingzar! – “Robot Army” (2:53)

lichtzwang – “the noise” (4:37)

Lanterns On The Lake – “My Shield” (4:33)

Ten Tigers – Superlucky (1:49)

RESTAVRANT, fine purveyors of electrocountrypunk, have an album out at the end of the month on Narnack Records, and apparently have a video available here.

Brine And Bastards are, I swear it says so right here, “a pirate themed punk rock band from New Jersey.” This song is off their album SET SAIL FOR SODOMY. Yes.

The strangeass Balearic Electroclash of Wingzar! was sent via its human representative Margaret Killjoy, who says: “Wingzar, who sings with the help of voice-synthesis, is on a crusade to eradicate humanity for the sake of robots and nature. The attached song is titled “Robot Army” and is the lead track of its CC-licensed EP “What We Lack In Subtlety We Compensate For In Number Crunching”.”

The wonderful lichtzwang bless me with their own favourite of their most recent recordings. I’ve been an admirer of Kaye and David for a year or so, so getting a piece from them is a particular pleasure for me.

As is getting something new from Lanterns On The Lake, who were on the very first 4am broadcast (as well as the fifth, I think).

Ten Tigers’ “Superlucky” came with this note: “My band recorded 3 songs and everyone loves the wrong one. I’ve sent you the one the band likes best. I hope you enjoy it also.”

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps, is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

15: Janglenauts

 

 The 4am: 15 - Janglenauts [17:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3094)

Parlovr – “Pen To The Paper” (4:38)

Hot Pink Zer0 – “Edie Edie Edie” (3:33)

BlackMath – “Reading Mysteries” (1:39)

Ancient Pistol – “Massive” (3:26)

Shiverdrain & The You And What Army Faction – “Quarantine” (3:54)

Not much in the way of notes this time, as I’m pretty exhausted from a week’s holiday (funny how it always works like that).

Parlovr live in Mile End in the middle of Montreal, and have an album forthcoming this October. And they make that chiming sound I love so much. Just like the way Hot Pink Zer0 invoke Edie, thereby evoking that Sixties/Factory-obsessed period of my youth. “Reading Mysteries” is, I think, the shortest track from the demo they sent me, which I mention because they have a huge amount of stuff for you to seek out.

Ancient Pistol’s Mike Feeney notes ” Also am the principle of Questionable Priorities Records, a label for AP releases and under construction. I figured truth-in-advertising was the best path and frankly defense.” Shiverdrain & The You And What Army Faction plainly have the best band name since Lothar & The Hand People — I was actually surprised to find their piece to be an evening tide of minimal electroacoustics, and a fine way to play out the programme.

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps, is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

14: Cemetery Windchimes

 

 The 4am: 14 - Cemetery Windchimes [14:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3254)

Cheerful Nutjob – “Left To Blame” (3.10)

Kemper Norton – “5 Black Yachts For Jean” (5.39)

Dorian Wood – “The Mutual” (5.13)

Brent Wilcox – “Dream After Anime” (0.59)

“Left To Blame” abstractly reminds me of Galaxie 500 for some reason. And that, frankly, is a good enough reason to play it.

It’s not a 4am without Kemper Norton spilling beer somewhere in the background, and here we have “5 White Yachts For Jean,” his remix of Ice Bird Spiral’s ” Five Black Yachts For Jean”

More old friends: Dorian Wood sent me a live version of his song “The Mutual”, with this note: “Bless your heart for posting my song “Kletka ot Sniag” last time. Thanks to you broadcasting it for thousands, I am performing in Stratford-upon-Avon in September. HUZZAH!”

And a bit of fun at the end from yet another, Brent Wilcox, just to let you know we’re all back. If you’re in Alaska, or otherwise capable of receiving KEUL (88.9 Girdwood AK) or KABN-FM (89.7 Kasilof AK), Brent broadcasts SMOKE AND MIRRORS on Sundays, 7-10pm. He posts the playlists at the link above, and they actually make me want to spend time in Alaska.

Next time: stuff by people you haven’t heard before.

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps, is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

13: The Beards Of Navarone

 

 The 4am: 13 - The Beards Of Navarone [14:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (7629)

The Hobo Gobbelins – “Phantasmagoric Cabaret” (5:51)

The Irregulars – “Stars” (5:31)

Tungsten Tommy – “Noisy Ghosts” (3:12)

The Hobo Gobbelins and I have a mutual acquaintance in Lana Guerra, whom he recognised in CROOKED LITTLE VEIN as the girl with the eyepatch tattoo. So here’s to friends we’ve never met yet. The Irregulars are another of the mildly disturbing manifestations of Lauren Heckman, The Thing With The Stuff. We love Lauren because she made her mother read CROOKED LITTLE VEIN.

The covering letter for “Noisy Ghosts” read as follows: “Tungsten Tommy got it ALL figured out. Tungsten Tommy got the moves AND the shapes. Tungsten Tommy don’t care if you don’t care cause he AIN’T leavin’ you behind this time. Tungsten Tommy’s breakin’ LOOSE.” I decided to run the piece despite the lack of any mention of CROOKED LITTLE VEIN whatsoever. Tungsten Tommy would appear to be one of the voices in Tom Wilby‘s pants.

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by artists. If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps, is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

12: Opium Dens On Mars

Told you this’d happen more often.

 

 The 4am: 12 - Opium Dens On Mars [11:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (11046)

Monsters Build Mean Robots – “The Freedom To Fire These Freedom Rockets” (6:45)

palliDust – “Temptation” (4:48)

Andy from Monster Build Mean Robots says, “Apparently, our sound is ‘supporting the body of the machine as it clicks, whirrs and rumbles inexorably onwards.’ Or so one reviewer from Brighton Source says…” This is Godspeed! style vicodin-Wagnerian postrock at its most crazed and majestic. Their new CD is out now — check Amazon UK. palliDust’s woozily beautiful electronica is the sound of that strange girl playing with your mind after putting something in your drink at the bar.

The 4am is a selection composed entirely of music sent to me by the artists. If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps, is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. If you like the 4am, please tell people.

11: Too Long Til Morning

 

 The 4am - 11: Too Long Til Morning [13:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (5824)

I’m back, on an ultralight laptop, listening to everything on a good pair of noise-cancelling earbuds. So if anything sounds a bit weird, blame the earbuds. Since I don’t have my PC, I don’t have the 1GB+ pool of music sitting on my desktop to choose from, so I’m slowly reclaiming stuff out of Gmail. The 4am will now, fingers crossed, happen a lot more often, with smaller programmes (and probably fewer notes — this one’s run longer than I intended already, damnit). Track listing:

Badman – “Modern Species” (4:19)

Kemper Norton – “The Unhappitants” (4:23)

Levi Weaver – “Of Bridges Burned” (3:32)

Satan’s Monk – Pro-Life (Demo – Alt) (1:22)

It’s Sunday night, black and stormy, so if this one’s a little bit low-key and doomed-sounding… you understand, right? Course you do. I mean, there’s a lot of it around. The haunted Americana and bone-clatter drums of “Modern Species,” the exhausted doomed-romantic rasp of Levi Weaver (from his new album “You Are Never Close To Home, You Are Never Far From Home”), the baby-eating underground choir recorded by Satan’s Monk… it’s one of those nights.

Here’s what Kemper says about his piece: “”The Unhappitants” is a track about the present bleak economic situation, with all of us (well, some of us) facing creditsqueeze, gas bill rise, bankbust and shopping ennui. It’s supposed to console us at this time, hence the harps. Its title comes from Joyce’s word for humanity in Finnegan’s Wake, in a desperate attempt to give the piece some intellectual gravitas.”

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128 of the kbps. If you enjoyed The 4am, please spread the word, linking back to this post.

10: Peace And Soil

Yeah, I know, it’s been a month since the last one. A combination of work pressure and really not finding much music that seems to suggest a progression or sequence for a podcast. So have a short 4am that reeks of misery, loneliness, injury, abandonment and death.

It’s about time I used something from Aaron McMullan: wonderful voice, and a real writer. Burnt Earth’s other work has a strong early Human League/Depeche Mode influence, but “Locked Inside” is, to me, the one where they reach escape velocity; it’s bigger, more muscular, stomping and grinding sparks.

“Fierce The Fallow Foe” is just beautiful, a funereal garden.

Hope you find something here to enjoy.

 

 The 4am: 10 - Peace And Soil [14:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9207)

Aaron McMullan – “Ode To Innocence” (5:09)

Burnt Earth – “Locked Inside” (5:14)

Poles Apart – Fierce The Fallow Foe (4:25)

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

The 4am has been played more than 45000 times.

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128 of the kbps. The 4am is inside your house. The 4am is touching all your stuff.

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com, including your website address.

The 4am 8 has been listened to by 4428 people as I write this.

9: Poptometry

Opening with BLAMMOS’ recent single “How Do You Know?” We’re doing pop music this week, sort of, and BLAMMOS are definitely a pop band. Click through to their main website from the MySpace link below and you’ll find more free music, videos and other stuff.

“Between Sky And Sea” is from Dive Index’s current album, which in addition to this song features collaborations with the likes of Ian Masters (from Pale Saints). When, on “Between Sky And Sea,” vocalist Natalie Walker reaches the chorus, it’s like warm honey.

Onlooker’s “Cavalier” is the first track off their self-published collection, “Today I’m a Gunmaker,” which is due to hit the online record stores sometime this month. Brandon Whitesell of Onlooker says: “I imagine that this song is about chemical dependence, destroyed eco-systems and biological chaos… and an army of stuffed bears wearing gas-masks and marching through the rainy streets of downtown…” And he’s not wrong. If possibly a bit mad.

“Song In D” has one of those guitar sounds I just love, and Mock Orange are clearly moving towards reaching some Epic Pop Moment one day. Revel in hearing them a couple of years before their inexorable descent towards their Champagne Cheeseburger Cocaine Moment.

I am closing with a Cornish drunk’s idea of pop: Kemper Norton’s back. A statement on “Winterval”: “a slightly-too-late seasonal track about a moment of desperate realisation that those around you are having too much fun and that you will die alone one day.” Which, miserable as it is, is entirely more useful a description than my own “fucking brilliant, mate.”

See you next week, where I shall attempt to return to the disorienting noises and distant clanking sounds you’ve come to expect from The 4am.

 

 The 4am: 9 - Poptometry [22:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3933)

BLAMMOS – “How Do You Know?” (3:49)

Dive Index – “Between Sky And Sea” (4:31)

Onlooker – “Cavalier” (5:12)

Mock Orange – “Song In D” (3:44)

Kemper Norton – “Winterval” (5:34)

If you enjoyed The 4am, please spread the word, linking back to this post.

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps. The 4am will live forever. But The 4am is so cold and it does not know why.

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

8: Staging For Tomorrow

Be warned, there’s some long ones in here again.

Hate In The Box stick a used needle in that metallic vein of electro/goth/industrial/IDM that I think Deathboy once tagged as “futurepunk.” I like sawing guitars, hails of tinny breaks and girls singing about bad things. And I like opening up with something with a bit of pace.

Otto DeFaye’s “Murder One” has been hypnotising me for days. The bass thumps and the fog of guitars interact in bizarre ways, and do strange things to my chest. It fascinates me, and I find myself kind of wandering around inside of it. A great squalling beauty.

“Death Machine” is in demo state — thanks, Holoscene, because I love it. I’ve liked stuff by Holoscene before, but I find the raw condition of this distant, melancholy postrock study gives it a vital human skin and pulse. Holoscene say: “If you can think of a genre for it we would be most grateful. Using the term ‘chamber music for the end of civilisation’ is both a mouthful and pretty crap!”

I always liked the term “Transcendental Etudes” — an etude, or study, being a piece of music designed to hone and express virtuosity, and the Transcendental Etudes being twelve compositions by Liszt so ferociously, brain-incineratingly difficult to perform that, it was once said, probably only a dozen people alive on the planet at any one time are qualified to even attempt to play them. Which does Holoscene no good at all, but the datum amuses me, and we’re full-service entertainment here at warrenellis.com. Where was I?

NAVEL4EVE provides “The End Of A Planet” from her last EP, a collection of crookedly pretty, sinister and timecrossed antipop songs. The strange girl in the back of the club whom you know you really shouldn’t talk to, but that voice…

Got an email from Cory Brown from Absolutely Kosher Records, saying: “We just released the debut record by a trio from San Francisco called 60 Watt Kid (the record is self-titled). I attached an MP3 of “Ocsicnarf Nas” off the record because I thought you might like it. There’s also a video here.” And then he went on to discuss the peculiarities of his balls, concluding with: “When I started writing this, I never intended to discuss my balls. Sigh. It always comes back to my balls.” Therefore I had to play this rather wonderful piece of ten-dimensional rock-n’-roll broadcast from the same kind of ether inhabited by (for example) latterday Animal Collective. I mean, I would have played it anyway. But I’m worried that if I didn’t, I’d get treated to another treatise on the supernatural aspects of Cory’s scrote.

It’s New Year in a couple of days (as I write this), so ending with a drinking song fits. I have a terrible weakness for The Poxy Boggards. I know it’s wrong, I know I shouldn’t, but… I have to. I also put this at the end because some of you may listen to this at work, or at home with aged and infirm relatives in earshot, and not everyone will be enthralled by the choral bridge. But fuck it, make them listen anyway, because, in its wrong, awful and deeply uncool way, it is absolutely fucking glorious. Happy New Year.

– W

 

 The 4am: 8 - Staging For Tomorrow [29:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (7662)

Hate in the Box – “eLECTRIC dOLLS” (3:05)

Otto DeFaye – “Murder One” (5:53)

Holoscene – “Death Machine” (4:04)

NAVEL4EVE – “The End Of A Planet” (3:45)

60 Watt Kid – “Ocsicnarf Nas” (8:25)

The Poxy Boggards – “Drink Til I Die” (3:40)

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The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128 of the kbps. The 4am has never been kissed. The 4am does not care any more.

7: Meditation In Ruined Temples

It’s 3am, not 4am, as I write this. But that’s close enough. It’s meditational noise tonight, with slight hints of whisky and cigarette smoke.

“Vilnius Colony” is a term found in my graphic novel TRANSMETROPOLITAN, but that’s not why I’m playing it. Texture says: “I’m heavily influenced by dubstep (Burial, Kode 9, Skream) and lo-fi guitar bands (Sebadoh, Pavement, Silver Jews), and am trying to find a way to fuse the two.”

“Helston Music Fair 1992″ is a new one from 4am regulars Kemper Norton, who have kindly offered me a CD but said “Don’t expect the luxurious packaging and gifts that those Ice Bird tarts have given you though… I happen to know that they keep a dosed and washed graphic designer chained in their bathroom.”

The Intelligence Community is but one of the outlets for the fevered brain of Thor Johnson, whom you can find doing lots of things, some legal, at http://www.thorrific.com. I appear to have lost the email from The Thing With The Stuff, whom I’m fairly sure is one of the aspects of Lauren Heckman.

And finally, Yoda’s House return with “Piamono,” which is, basically, the soundtrack for the end of the world.

I know this one’s another quiet one. I tend to go with the flow of the first track in the submissions pile that really gets to me. Next week I’ll make you listen to The Poxy Boggards instead. I hope you enjoy this. Good night.

(edit – the inline player might be freaking out a bit again. If it stalls out, best to just download it.)

 

 The 4am: 7 - Meditation In Ruined Temples [29:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8391)

Texture – “Vilnius Colony” (6:34)

Kemper Norton – Helston Music Fair 1992 (5:28)

The Intelligence Community – “Neutron Island BBQ” (4:06)

The Thing with the Stuff – Exhibition 24 (5:41)

Yoda’s House – Piamono (7:11)

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

4am broadcasts have been listened to 34261 times.

If you enjoyed The 4am, please spread the word, linking back to this post.

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128 of the kbps. The 4am is offended by the concept of sleep. The 4am is time’s combine harvester.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

6: Nothing Was Ever Solved By Not Hitting Things Hard Enough

Opening with “My Crooked Toe” by Regular John, because, as Lou Reed once said, sometimes nothing beats two guitars, bass and drums. Plain old dirty guitar-pop, complete with Pixies-ish string torture and a false ending. Palate-cleansing, you know. This is off their new EP, which is called I HATE IT HERE, funnily enough. (If you never read my TRANSMETROPOLITAN, you won’t get it. Move along.)

New one by The Hungry Ghost. Features the sound of piano strings being struck by the legbone of your dead girlfriend in Hell. (Okay, it doesn’t. But that should be the explanation.)

I can offer no explanation for why I’m playing a track by The Urinal Mints. Obviously I should be stopped before they send me any more. But this, as clearly retarded as it is, is also glorious. My god, they even go acoustic around the 1.30 mark and turn it into a mass singalong. Brings tears to your eyes, it does.

I’m still kind of digesting “Shadow Codex.” It’s one of those musics that suggests an entire space and environment to me. There’s a few moments in there that seem to answer the age-old question, “what if Michael Nyman was forced to make a glitch album?” Okay, it might have only been me asking that. It’s from an upcoming compilation entitled EMERGING ORGANISMS on Tympanik Audio.

I swear, at the top of the second minute of “Cities Of The Red Night,” I can hear Show No Mercy actually travelling back in time. Seriously, by the end of it, Jimmy Page is crushing chords with a bit of mammoth tusk while a monkey waves his bits at a huge black monolith. This is from their new album DEATH IS MY RELIGION. It is, of course, a collection of chirpy pop ballads.

 

 The 4am: 6 - Nothing Was Ever Solved By Not Hitting Things Hard Enough [15:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8370)

Regular John – “My Crooked Toe” (2:49)

The Hungry Ghost – “This Cold Abyss” (4:38)

The Urinal Mints – “I Wanna Smoke Crack With You” (2:05)

Phylum Sinter – “Shadow Codex” (4:10)

Show No Mercy – “Cities Of The Red Night” (2:01)

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

If you enjoyed The 4am, please spread the word, linking back to this post.

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128 of the kbps. The 4am will operate heavy machinery if it feels like it. The 4am is on Zulu Time.

The podcast feed for The 4am is: http://warrenellis.com/?feed=podcast

5: There Aren’t Any Stars Out

It’s late-Sunday-night music, and be-gentle-it’s-Monday music. “Open Your Arms” is a comforting blanket of noise. “I’m Sorry, But This Is Goodbye” is chiming and evocative, to me at least, of a certain kind of reverie. “I Will Lay You Down” is the new one by Lanterns On The Lake, a tender autumnal thing. “Mississippi Nights” is a beautifully recorded piece of Americana, with all the space of the night in it.

“Song For Vara,” the longest song on the ‘cast, reminds me of many things. For me, it’s an alchemy of autumn nights spent by the radio in the 80s, poured out as postrock. If you’re nice and calm after that? “Delerium Tremont” is staggering drunk, all over the place and loving every minute. Go forth and be the same.

 

 The 4am: 5 - There Aren't Any Stars Out [25:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9145)

off’tan’discord – “Open Your Arms” (3:21)

Better Living Through Science – “I’m Sorry, But This Is Goodbye” (2:10)

Lanterns on the Lake – “I Will Lay You Down” (4:20)

Previously Missing – “Mississippi Nights” (4:18)

Shortwave Dahlia – “Song For Vara” (6:47)

The Perennials – “Delerium Tremont” (4:29)

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

If you enjoyed The 4am, please spread the word, linking back to this post.

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128kbps. The 4am is soluble in water. The 4am does not contain nut products.

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com. The last episode has been played 13000 times.

4: Nights Draw In

Apparently the clocks go back at the weekend. Or is it forward? I forget. I barely get to see more than three hours’ daylight as it is. “Heaven Is A Dark Place” reeks of the night, of urban nights, loping and shadowed. I’m in that kind of mood, where the knifefight-guitars of “Milk Road” fit right in.

Harlot insist that “Harlot” is pronounced “har-low.” Harlot are miserable gits. They only sound happy because they’re thinking about horrible things happening to other people. AWAKE are, if you like, evil shoegaze. They’re the people who fucked shoegaze in the night, puked blood in shoegaze’s toilet, made a shank in shoegaze’s bathroom and cut shoegaze’s boyfriend, and then left before dawn with all shoegaze’s money. There’s just something sleazy about the sound of “Whattanight” that you rarely hear in the field.

“The Bitter Dark” is the second and last piece that Cornish rural-drunktronic magician Kemper Norton gave me to play. Play late at night, with the lights out.

 

 The 4am: 4 - Nights Draw In [17:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (11001)

The Hungry Ghost – “Heaven Is A Dark Place” (3:51)

Poetry In A Machine Age – “Milk Road” (1:39)

Harlot – “Drown Me” (2:46)

AWAKE – “Whattanight” (5:56)

Kemper Norton – “The Bitter Dark” (2:56)

If you enjoyed The 4am, please spread the word, linking back to this post.

The 4am is a mixtape file containing nothing but music donated directly by new and/or unsigned acts. The 4am is of no set length and is released on no set schedule. The 4am is mixed down to 128 of the kbps. The 4am is not afraid of your nipples. The 4am is imflammable.

3: That Man Has A Peculiar Walk

“Black Fly” fascinates me because it’s hard to pin down what it is from moment to moment — a sort of Industrial Prog Worldpop. “Pray For Me My Prey” is just fucking peculiar, as I’ve come to expect from anything involving JahFurry, New York City’s favourite freakscene facilitator. “Kletka ot Sniag” is all in Bulgarian, for reasons unknown to me, and is provided to me by Dorian from his current album BOLKA. It has a sort of epic bleakness to it.

“Hayride To Hell”… yeah. It’s a perfectly structured little pop song, but it’s also… Wrong. The Miracles Of God’s various claims to fame include having been run over by a drunk driver while on tour and playing the site of the world’s biggest urinal.

I’ve mentioned Kemper Norton on the site before, and I’m honoured to have been given “Denaissance” to play on the 4am. “Slurtronic folk collective” is how the sound’s been described, and, while I don’t get the folk element so much, you’ve got to love the word “slurtronic,” right? I know nothing about Jethro Furvert beyond the fact that his name is apparently Jethro Furvert. Which may well be enough.

 

 The 4am: 3 - That Man Has A Peculiar Walk [25:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (24100)

Tribal Machine – “Black Fly” (4:09)
JahFurry and Josh Sampson – “Pray For Me My Prey” (3:32)
Dorian Wood – “Kletka ot Sniag” (5:47)
The Miracles Of God – “Hayride To Hell” (2:36)
Kemper Norton – “Denaissance” (4:58)
Jethro Furvert – Comfortably Glum (4:18)

The 4am needs music: If you want your music to be played on The 4am, email your 128kbps-plus mp3 files directly to warrenellis@gmail.com.

As of 1.20am today, The 4am 2 had been listened to 5,584 times.

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