Titolo: Pitch Black - Ape To Angel [mp3 192k] + Frequencies Fall [mp3 VBR]
Anno: 2004 - 2006
Genere: electronic/ambient/dub
Covers: front/back
I "Pitch Black" sono un gruppo neozelandese ambient/dub che hanno iniziato la loro attività già dal 1997. Pubblicano il loro primo album "Futureproof" nel 1999 e da allora la loro fama si è via via rafforzata portandoli ad esibirsi in numerosi tour mondiali.
La caratteristica del loro suono è la continua alternanza fra dub ed ambient, così da creare uno stile e dei suoni estremamente particolare e mai stancante.
In questo torrent sono presenti 2 album: "Ape To Angel", il loro album forse più famoso, e "Frequencies Fall", album che raccoglie i remix di "Ape To Angel".
Anche se qui in Italia non sono famosissimi provate ad ascoltarli e non ve ne pentirete...Buon download.
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Ape to Angel (2004)
Track Listing:
1. Ape To Angel
2. Freefall
3. Lost In Translation
4. Big Trouble Upstairs
5. Flex
6. Elements Turn
7. The Random Smiler (Live)
8. Empty Spaces Missing Units
Overview
After 3 years of living on opposite sides of the planet, touring and developing new songs live. We holed up in a variety of studios in the Coromandel, Piha, Wellington and central Auckland finishing an album of deep luscious dub. It is based on material developed at shows around the world over the last 4 years and from sessions at a seaside bach on the beach at Whangapoa in the Coromandel. It weaves its way through a range of rhythmical styles and finds us working for the first time with a vocalist . Sandy Mill a veteran of the local scene moved to London 2 years ago where she has been guesting on many dance tracks by the likes of Gary Numan, Placebo and Bassment Jaxx. Whilst home for a flying visit they all got together and jammed some ideas onto the new tracks. Two of those developed into finished songs and feature on Ape to Angel.
Reviews
Mitsubishi Tim for Amplifier:
Lovers of deep luscious dub in NZ and around the world have been waiting a long time (maybe too long) for the next instalment from Pitch Black's Paddy Free and Michael Hodgson. And while 2000's offering, "Electronomicon", was certainly no ape, 2004's "Ape to Angel" is most definitely an angel. The trademark sounds are all there - sinuous bass lines weaving through an overlay of echoing keyboards and electronic beeps and blips - but there's a change of direction evident as well. The sound has become a little fuller, the bass slightly more driving, and the keyboards almost tending towards a deep house sound on some of the tracks. Add a female vocalist into the mix for the first time (on two of the tracks), and you get the picture. Not that the boys have forgotten their dub roots (this album is infused throughout with dirty, dark, dub rhythms), but its all wrapped up in a smooth, and even oily package. Dubilicious! If you were looking to compare "Ape to Angel" to any recent overseas offerings, Underworld's "A hundred days off" comes to mind, but in reality, this is music that in its own way is as quintessentially NZ as Dave Dobbyn. It evokes the NZ landscape, and the slightly dark and brooding (ok, contemplative) kiwi character. Listen to it on a South Island lake in the rain, listen to it in your car, listen to it on a smoky subterranean dance floor in K Road or Courtenay Place. Just listen to it!
Jacob Connor for New Zealand Musician:
Electronic duo Pitch Black have an impressive body of work behind them already and 'Ape to Angel' delves further into the subliminal dreamscapes and simmering rhythms they have tattooed on the DNA of dance party ravers. Some tracks are so comfortably dub it feels like floating peacefully in the womb. Others pulse along on the nod before turning themselves inside out with snaking shimmers and rhythmic twists. Paddy Free and Mike Hodgson have led the charge with live sound and vision mixing in this country - they're like our Coldcut or Future Sound of London. The manipulation of sound elements and stereo imaging is so deft you get a sense of your own emancipation from a ground-bound ape into a state of transcendence. Soul diva of choice for electrobeat producers Sandy Mill (who has worked with Subware, SJD and Basement Jaxx), offers a guide voice home in the twisted space-time continuum. This had me seeing stars and fire-pois - I hope it's an airborne virus that gets to infect all and sundry.
Andrew Drever for The Age:
Ape To Angel again takes twisted electronics, cinematic ambience and heavy-bottomed dub grooves, setting them to breakbeat, 4/4 and jungle rhythms and tempos. It also continues the duo's penchant for albums that are hulking "slabs of sound". No mere collection of tracks, this is a heaving, shifting body of electronic dub music with subtle dynamics, deep, throbbing bass and lumbering ebbs and flows.
Frequencies Fall
Track Listing:
1. Lost in Translation – International Observer meets Horace
2. Freefall – Friends Electric
3. Elements Turn – Switch & pZ
4. Freefall – Minuit
5. Flex – son.sine
6. Big Trouble Upstairs – Hummel
7. Freefall – Ithz
8. The Random Smiler – DJ Flix vs Red Star
9. Lost in Translation – Youth
10. Empty Spaces Missing Units – Module
11. Ape to Angel – Bluetech
12. Flex – Peak_Shift
13. Freefall – Alucidnation
Overview
Frequencies Fall is a collection of remixes of tracks from Pitch Black’s Ape To Angel album, which, reflecting the duo’s wide ranging tastes and styles, encompasses nearly every genre of electronica and dance music. Ape to Angel was released last summer to much critical acclaim, and many a rave review.
The collection opens with an Indo-lounge take on Lost in Translation by International Observer meets Horace (former Thompson Twin Tom Bailey and son), glides into Friends Electrics dubby breaks mix of Freefall, before going all old school DnB with Elements Turn, courtesy of Switch & pZ. Minuit ramp it up with their Plumps meets Daft Punk version of Freefall only for son.sine’s Flex to drop it right down Rhythm&Sound style!
Hummel then takes things off on a total tangent with his eclectic take on Big Trouble Upstairs, leaving it to Spektrum drummer Isaac Tucker to pick up the pieces with his side project’s Ithz’s tech house with a touch of acid remix of Freefall. Renegade Soundwave’s Danny Briottet engineered DJ Flix vs Red Star’s sparse breaks version of The Random Smiler, followed by uber producer Youth’s festival tinged mix of Lost in Translation.
Module adds bass and beats to the formerly ambient Empty Spaces Missing Units, then left coast psybient legend Bluetech slips and slides his way through Ape to Angel, followed by minimal techno producer Peak_Shift who glitches and glides into Flex, allowing The Big Chill’s Alucidnation to take things safely home with his Orb-esque version of Freefall (already a fave of Tom Middleton’s).
Carefully sequenced to flow freely from beginning to end, this collection is both a smoker’s delight and a serious dose of audiophilia.
Reviews
Rui for bigchill.net
Pitch Black's Ape to Angel album won the duo many fans, with its spaced-out dubness perfectly pitched at anyone who loves a bit of bass and echoey bleeps.
Frequencies Fall, builds on the success of Ape to Angel, by serving up a collection of remixes of tracks from the album. Remixers range from familiar names (Youth, and Big Chill Recordings' own Alucidnation), through to new (to me, anyway) Friends Electric, son.sine, peak_shift and Ithz.
While the remixers pull things in tangential directions, one minute D&B workouts, next minute techy midtempo, next minute deep watery dubs - the source material's insistence on heavy bass and dubbed out effects keeps this collection of remixes consistent - with thoughtful programming and sequencing ensuring a genuine flow.
None of the tracks on the album are showstoppers - but big, loud and in-your-face is not the Pitch Black way. The grooves get under your skin, the atmospherics float around your brain, and synth whoops, thips and whooshes push the compilation along.
Finally, when Alucidnation brings it home with his sublime mix of Freefall, you blink and wonder where the last hour went. Oh yeah, I was listening to some lovely music…
Alison Grinter for TNT Magazine
Premier Kiwi knob-twiddlers Michael Hodgson and Paddy Free are best known for their cutting-edge, sight'n'sound clubbing extravaganzas. But their records are pretty damn good too. The duo's latest, Frequencies Fall, features a clutch of remixed tracks from their critically acclaimed third LP Ape to Angel. As ever, Hodgson's dark industrial yin is the perfect complement to Free's uplifting yang. Genre defying as always, Pitch Black mash up the most diverse of sounds to create something fresh and even manages to make drum'n'bass sound as immediate as it did in 1995. Excellent. 8/10
Helene Stokes for DJ Magazine
How very nice of the New Zealand duo to share with us some of the fine remixes of tracks from their third album. Pitch Black have a gorgeously deep electronic sound striding from minimal to d&b to breaks and dub. Everyone should release a retouched version of their album. 4/5
EQ Magazine
New Zealand's tech experimentalists Pitch Black return on September 25 with remix album Frequencies Fall. Award winning multimedia artist Michael Hodgson and Salmonella Dub producer Paddy Free have been happily ignoring genre and drawing comparisons with Orbital since their debut Pitch Black album hit the shelves in 1999. Now they've taken last year's excellent Ape to Angel and given it to the likes of Friends Electric, Switch and pZ, Module and The Big Chill's Alucidnation to tweak and twist into nearly every genre of electronica you can think of.
Sarah Chapman for Sound Generator Magazine
Award winning multimedia artist Michael Hodgson and producer Paddy free present a blip and bleep heavy album of remixes of their acclaimed "Ape to Angel" album.
The fact alone that there is sufficient interest in Pitch Black for each of the 13 tracks that comprised the duo's "Ape to Angel" album to recieve a re-working by different producers suggests that kind of respect from their musical contemporaries that most artists could only dream of. And indeed, opening up their tracks to remixers is indicative of a confidence within Pitch Black that their production vales are strong enough to let others loose on their pride and joy, while all the whole in no doubt that the remixed tracks will retain their trademark sound.
Indeed the confidence has paid off, because "Frequencies Fall" is a collection of remixes that span a number of styles - from lounge to dub to breaks to techno and back again - but are still very obviously Pitch Black tracks at their innermost core. Each track, regardless of the genre its producer has imposed upon it, is large instrumental with a spattering of acidic squelches or space-age synths. Even when Switch and pZ up the ante and the pace with their drum and bass take on "Elements Turn" the Pitch Black vibe lurks in the background with echoey effects and a twisted, lingering vocal performance from a female voice.
A track-by-track analysis of this collection of remixes is reduntant here. They're all so different that to enjoy the album, you need to have an open mind to all of the sub genres of dance music as well as a taste for electronica in all it's obscure glory. That's not to say they don't work together on this album. On the contrary, the flow of tracks is startingly cohesive under the circumstances, and if mixed together would be an excellent club set. Oh, and not having heard the original "Ape to Angel" album doesn't necessarily present a problem. However, I dare say anyone that grows fond of "Frequencies Fall" will be compelled to track the original down. This isn't groundbreaking, but it's definitely a growe.
Unpeeled
Multi-media, music based art subvertion technicians and reggae-loving bleep-tape-stretchers extraordinaire. The cool possessed by Pitch Black is so immense that little is left for anything else. The way that "Frequencies Fall" engages is worrying, it drifts in, long-liner style with clouds full of hooks, "Lost in Translation isn't. "Flex-Peak-Shift" slips delicate speed-plinking between fat bass heart beats and smears all with electro burps, it is,like everything else on this album, stunningly effective, but organic, not clinical. If you need, and we hope that you don't, a tag it'd have to be disciplined modern jazz for the allotment in your spaceship. Black noise, bright people, stellar music.
Notion Magazine
Pitch Black are production duo Michael Hodgson and Paddy Free from New Zealand. Relatively unknown in the UK they have been a huge success back home, and judging by this album rightly deserve success in the UK too. Frequencies fall is an impressive collection of remixes and tracks taken from their recent ‘Ape To Angel’ album. Their sound is a distinctive blend of dub and electronica. According to the press release a journalist once referred to Pitch Black as “Orbital meets King Tubby” which is a pretty accurate description, if you like both of those artists you will undoubtedly love Pitch Black. Check it out! 4 out of 5
Gerry Hectic for fly.co.uk
Dubmission Records tend to be a little low key with there releases so it’s little wonder that their latest album from New Zealand’s Pitch Black has been hiding behind the bass bin.
Pitch Black are Michael Hodgson and Paddy Free, who gained critical acclaim for their album Ape To Angel in 2004. Frequencies Fall is like a fusion of Fat Freddy’s Drop, Rhombus and Recloose to recreate dubwise electronica; and then get a load of remixers in to warp it a bit. It could have ended up a little messy on the face of it, but thankfully its great.
The remixers are unknown to me, but ambient dub fans will love the lead-in track ‘Lost In Translation’. Much slower than the original version it has a BiggaBush In Dub feel at his chilled best; yep, that good!
BiggaBush/Rockers Hi Fi influences seem apparent on ‘The Random Smiler’, which is a blend of the Roots of son.sine’s ‘Flex’ and the cosmic ambient of ‘Big Trouble Upstairs’ by Hummel.
The other version of ‘Lost In Translation’ by Youth has a touch of Francophile accordion; and it is that Youth formerly of Killing Joke/ The Orb and many other projects.
The old ‘Ape To Angel’ title track gets some down tempo chill-out and the final mix of ‘Freefall’ has found support amongst The Big Chill goers and Tom Middleton.
A varied album but top quality thoroughout and very worthy of support, so check out the preview tracks loaded on their MySpace site. Also, Pitch Black made a rare appearance in London last week at Neighbourhood. They’ve already played in Japan this year and supported Coldcut on their tour of New Zealand. Having been described as the “Hexstatic of New Zealand” sounds like it could have been quite a show.
Hectic Mix Nominations: Lost In Translation (International Observer meets Horace & Youth), Flex (son.sine), The Random Smiler (DJ Flix vs. Red Star), Freefall (Alucidnation’s Lucid Dream Remix)
Laurent Diouf for Wreck This Mess
C'était annoncé, voici le reformatage du précédent album de Pitch Black, Ape To Angel, paru il y a un an et demi. Une formule que ce duo néo-zélandais, leader sur le marché "trance-ambient-dub", avait déjà expérimenté avec Electric Earth & Other Elements qui faisait magistralement suite à Electronomicon. Cette fois ci, c'est un peu moins flamboyant. On s'attendait à des relectures plus speed, plus déjantées ou plus biscornues, comme c'était le cas auparavant. Mais dans l'ensemble, hormis la version drum-n-bass de "Element's turn" connotée par Switch & PZ, ces remixes sont plus posés, mid-tempo et mélodieux. Une option agréable au demeurant, d'autant que l'on compte Youth, Bluetech et International Observerparmi les intervenants ! Si le premier track est fortement imprégné de sonorités acoustiques, la suite présente comme points communs une succession de breakbeats mesurés, un chapelet de basses rondes et des harmonies lumineuses. Deux exceptions, cependant, qui détonnent dans ce paysage : Hummel qui installe avec brio une ambiance sombre et caverneuse ("Big trouble upstairs"
et DJ Flix vs Red Star qui combinent une frappe sèche avec une ligne mélodique étincelante sans se départir d'un esprit "sound-system" sur "The random smiler"… Autant dire nos morceaux préférés de ce disque qui mérite néanmoins plusieurs écoutes attentives. LD
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