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Dragnet

Dragnet #1: New Music From Atlas Sound, Marco Bernardi, Spider And The Flies
Kev Kharas , March 30th, 2009 12:15

Trawling the internet for crooked kicks

Welcome to the debut of a new Quietus feature. The internet can be an intolerably vast place to knock about in, so we will be hauling the Dragnet seaward on a semi-regular basis (probably bi- or tri-weekly) and looking to return with something to thrill your glad ears; whether it be a mix, the latest release from some remarkable tyro, an MP3 or an odd glimpse into Bradford Cox's childhood. In this first edition we profile the dream-eyed guitar loops of Bradford's Atlas Sound, Marco Bernardi's stunning, heat-hazed tech-house and two mixes compiled by Horrors/Spider And The Flies pair Rhys Webb and Tom Furse for the Viceland music blog. We hope you find it in some way illuminating.

Atlas Sound – ‘Dovers Jam’ (live at The Drunken Unicorn, Atlanta, Georgia, US; 31/12/08)
via No Pain In Pop

It was on an unusually drab and drizzled Catalunyan day that I first heard this song and ever since I’ve been hassling everyone at 4AD to get me it. This version was recorded live on New Year’s Eve so there's been some few months lag, but retrieving it from Southern Shelter last week as the sun was coming out felt like the happiest of coincidences; Bradford Cox sampling the best part of The Dovers’ lovelorn ‘What Am I Gonna Do?’ and stringing it out into a never-ending suburban afternoon of boiling stubby bottles and grass stains, trebly guitar leaping along on the breeze of Cox’s cooed vocal. ‘Dovers Jam’ was recorded with Panda Bear, the Atlas Sound man told the crowd at last year’s Primavera. This makes a lot of sense.

Marco Bernardi – 'Mystery of Nazerus'
Marco Bernardi – 'Mystery of Nazerus' (2562 Remixes)
via Boomkat

In which Glasgow’s Marco Bernardi temporarily puts away the skittering 808s of his recent electro past and turns his hand to light tech-house that seems to anticipate the fresh sweat of weeks to come and the happy, half-clad hordes that’ll be maddened by those pheromones. 2562 picks up the scent, Bernardi providing perfect source material for the Dutch producer’s gleaming post-dubstep clatter, his refits adding to two from Redshape and Mark August on the original. Both are out through Clone and both come highly recommended.

Spider And The Flies Viceland mix, pt. 1 – ‘Up’
Spider And The Flies Viceland mix, pt. 2 – ‘Down’
via Viceland

The virtues of the new Horrors album have been well documented on our inch of the internet. Much jabber has been had over the validity of the band’s diversion into sublime, noisy kosmische, but having been semi-regular attendees of Southend’s now defunct Junk Club The Horrors’ taste has, for us, never been in doubt; accusations of dilettantism collapsing in the face of Rhys ‘Spider’ Webb’s daunting DJ sets. Together with Tom Furse, Webb released the first full-length effort from Horrors sideline Spider And The Flies last month and, in keeping with that record's influences, the pair have compiled an hour-long din for Vice’s music blog in the form of 'Up' and 'Down' mixes. Both come without tracklistings, though we’re claiming contributions from Kraftwerk, Severed Heads, Grauzone and French coldwave duo The (Hypothetical) Prophets.