cfcf - liquid colours

one of my fav albums of the year and by far my favourite thing mike has released

perfect mix of new wave, minimalism and breakbeats. granted that might be something a lot of people are/have been doing, but this really nails it in a way few others have. the dj sports album from a couple years ago maybe the closest to hit that perfect vibe (though without the minimalism which is really key here imo). i love reading or coding to this album

it's sequenced liked a 'mix' (each song blends seamlessly into the next) but in a way that is much closer in spirit to how the different section of 'music in 12 parts' are fused together than in a trad dance mix, with themes continuing throughout adjacent tracks

opener re-utopia is very representative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9hFyMDQoIg

check out how insanely catchy the samba-ish melody on this one is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1ULo0eeLt4

I liked Continent and The Colours of Life a lot.
Re-utopia sounds great; gonna give this a spin.

very soothing ear candy is this

two thumbs up

My streaming service kept suggesting tracks from this to me the past few weeks and I kept ignoring them cos I guess I wasnt ready for coffee table drum n bass revival but I went back to it last night based on this thread and was really feeling it, so thanks flopson

this is really lovely

omg can a mod change new wave to new age in the op? so embarrassing

Lol so this explains the big roni size revival on ilx

xp yeah i was wondering about that :D :D

righteous new wage

sounds like mario kart 64, dope

xp deej- actually unrelated

I'm only just starting this but wanted to mention that Silver's write-up about the album on bandcamp is pretty amazing: https://cfcf.bandcamp.com/album/liquid-colours

i really like this album a lot despite the lack of joe jackson/devo qualities therein:p

It’s terrific. Colours of Life is also great. I listen to it regularly.

def going on heavy rotation, also always nice to have an album i can share w people whose tastes don't usually overlap w mine. the samba track is a cute touch

yeah its all very 90s video game soundtrack which rules of course

played the shit out of it and now moving about 2/3 of it to a running playlist

This reminds me a lot of Dave Wallace’s ez listening drum and bass circa ‘96 e.g. “Expressions” - I love that sound so the association is highly pleasing

I love this album. Also lol'd at this:

damn this guy gets it! 🌺🍣🌃💿 https://t.co/iUBSS0z2ts

— CFCF (@CFCFmusic) July 12, 2019

I think I ultimately prefer Colours of Life, but both of them hit a total sweet spot for me.

saw him say the ape escape soundtrack was a key influence which checks out

Love this record. And speaking of Dave Wallace, he actually released a couple of new tracks last week very much in his 1996 vein

cfcf plays guitar on one of my fav tracks of the year (not on this album)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1FycWEYV2w

didn't know unknown mobile has an album out, have enjoyed his stuff in the past

https://soundcloud.com/cfcf/night-bus-4-memory-of-night-bus

Ed Tomney - Safe
Goldie - Letter of Fate
Susumu Yokota - Sea Blue
PNL - Sur Paname
Moby - Feeling So Real
Lorenzo Senni - Angel
Chemical Vacation - Real Style
Yves Tumor - Role In Creation
Babyfather ft. Arca - Meditation
Carla dal Forno - Fast Moving Cars
Marie Davidson - La chambre intérieure
Sky H1 - Air
exael - flowered knife shadows
Oval - Do While (Command+X)
ANOHNI - Marrow
Bjork - Hyperballad
The Blue Nile - Stay Close
Portishead - It Could Be Sweet
Kuedo - Slow Knife
Massive Attack - Man Next Door
Andrea Parker - Ballbreaker
Basement Jaxx - Just 1 Kiss (nb fix)
Oblivion - Last Dance
Terre Thaemlitz - Love Theme From Ai No Bakudan
Jon Hassell - Slipstream
Intense - The Genesis Project
Tim Hecker - Up Red Bull Creek
Mobb Deep - Quiet Storm
Actress - Ascending
Sonic Youth - Dirty Boots
Underworld - King of Snake
The Future Sound of London - Spineless Jelly
Young Thug - Safe (nb remix)
Aphex Twin - Rhubarb
Rihanna - Sex With Me (nb remix)
Jennifer Lopez - Waiting for Tonight (nb remix)
Faye Wong - 童 (Child)
Alexander O’Neal - If You Were Here Tonight
EMBACI - Walk on May 5th
Pentagon - Heal
Talk Talk - Wealth
Graham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet - Loss
Yves Tumor - Limerence
Julia Holter - Hello Stranger

^fucking fabulous mix. Jennifer Lopez remix is a triumph. Nice find

really love that mix

https://soundcloud.com/cfcf/liquid-colours-nts-special-081219

there's also this one from a few months ago which is very much in line with the album's style

all the Night Bus mixes are essential

https://soundcloud.com/pormerod/cfcf-do-u-like-night-bus
https://soundcloud.com/fadermedia/cfcf-night-bus-ii-mix-mp3
https://soundcloud.com/cfcf/night-bus-3

Portishead - It Could Be Sweet
Kuedo - Slow Knife

not heard this yet but as a segue that could be sweeeet

At the bottom of the soundcloud description of that new night bus mix:

conceived & arranged by cfcf, November 2016 - November 2018

apparently he worked on this for 2 years, and it shows. i love how he reharmonizes the vocals for so many familiar songs against new chords.

night bus 4 so good

the jlo is awesome. young thug safe might be my fav tho

The Night Bus 4 mix is glorious. Thanks for the heads up.

absolutely incredible this is the greatest thing i've heard in a long time

May I also add that the Unknown Mobile album referenced up thread is fab too, as are CFCF’s other albums

I think that Unknown Mobile album is wayyyyyy better than this CFCF album

will have to check that one out.

so many great moments on the cfcf though, and that tropicalia number just sends it over the top imo

Immense.

Greatest call-back to them days of atmospheric, sooth-y drum 'n bass/jungle since forever. Warm oxygen blown into cold lungs. Up there with the very best of this year.

Proud to lend my music to this film in support of Labour ahead of Thursday’s UK election ❤️🌹 https://t.co/Ja5HJo0Pu3

— CFCF (@CFCFmusic) December 10, 2019

That warms the heart <3

“CFCF” actually stands for doing “ctrl+f: cf” on all year/decade end lists and then closing the tab with a sigh

— CFCF (@CFCFmusic) January 24, 2020

maybe there are more obvious examples of things that sound the cfcf album, but i bumped into this album a few weeks back and it makes a really nice job of cocteau twins guitar meets light-as-air d&b:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TZYa8TrqMY

that whole love spirals downwards album is on spotify btw, it's called 'flux' and it's from 1998

That tweet is amazing

perhaps we'll be able to help next week

now I feel bad not putting him on either of my ballots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diASi-ctBk0

new album memoryland out april 9, this single has me very excited

https://cfcf.bandcamp.com/album/memoryland

the press release sounds very promising - he's going for a y2k electronica/alt-rock kitchen-sink thing this time

excited, liquid colors prob my most listened to record of the past several years

Inspired as much by Sonic Youth and Smashing Pumpkins as the Chemical Brothers and Basement Jaxx; as much by films like Millennium Mambo, Demonlover, Morvern Callar, Safe and Perfect Blue as late 90’s Prada

f*ck ya

this single takes a little bit of patience but once it starts to get going it's wonderful, very excited

I like the single a lot. Not sure I hear the 90s alt influence, maybe that's on other tracks.

i hear it in the guitars in the second half, but the press release gives the impression it'll be stronger elsewhere

description kinda terrifying but hek yes I'm into this

ooh, and I finally bought Liquid Colours a few weeks ago. so great, though I can't seem to get it to play without gaps between tracks.

might be worth raising in one of the many donkin around threads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCwGMjJ9X0o

here's the song with sarah from kkb, lovely stuff

album rules but also i'm quite surprised by how much of it has his own vocals on it

Beauty. Wonder what's with having a bit of the last album sampled here as "i regret the jet-set" lol

well the concept of liquid colours was 90s jungle-as-muzak and here it's being used with added ambience as a muzak interlude in the way real 90s muzak stuff would be, it's a funny little touch

i don't think this is quite as great as liquid colours was overall because that was really something special as a whole, but i'm still really enjoying this. "self service 1999" is a great french house pastiche

I loved Self Service 1999. The rest of it didn't immediately grab me but maybe on repeated listens.

The Colours of Life is, no joke, easily a top ten record of the last decade for me. Liquid Colours is also fantastic. I had a feeling I was missing something when I saw CFCF rolling out the promo art and cover artwork for this thing, and after listening to the album (once to be fair), I still feel like I’m missing something. Feels like a big step back.

I am enjoying it, but yeah, it hasn't immediately grabbed as much as The Colours of Life and Liquid Colours. It's a little shapeless. Some parts also remind me of Oneohtrix Point Never, who I've always found a bit unapproachable.

So what's the deal with this one? I loved Liquid Colours cos it summarised everything I don't like about that kind of drum n bass while making it incredibly rich and palatable

Seems a bit more like a James Ferraro or OPN album (as mentioned above), but time will tell. I’m not enjoying the stuff that sounds like Kero Kero Bonito’s last album; there are some noise rock tracks (?) that don’t seem like they’ll ecru grow on me.

a lot of it is way more straightforward than anything ferraro or opn have done overall though. i understand the comparison though

sad there's no CD release, esp. given the list of inspirations

loving this

wish i liked the vocals on the last song but they're such a stumble at the finish line. good fun record otherwise

i'm fine with the kero kero bonito singer just not the execution here

hey there's a new CFCF record out? if it has a James Ferraro/0PN feel then i'm probably gonna dig it!

good record. splits the difference between wipeout and gran turismo

Still playing this regularly. The vinyl is back in stock at https://cfcf.bandcamp.com/album/memoryland and wherever else. I just got it, it's quality, and going through it in four parts (labelled Dreams/Angst/Diversion/Reality) might help me digest it better. I can't remember the last 70 minute album I've enjoyed so much the whole way through. Will be high on my 2021 list.

sad there's no CD release, esp. given the list of inspirations

https://www.artuniongroup.co.jp/plancha/top/releases/artpl-150/ !

this is the only CFCF thread, and I CFed to look for a mention of his collaborations w/dip in the pool but didn't see anything. a couple of tracks from The Colours of Life originally featured them more prominently (via vocals) but DITP released the tracks on their own later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi7jKfGCHXE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VigAyZB1DA

plus he remixed a solo track by DITP singer Miyako Koda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7PeJ1YLOU

this dude is playing Kilowatt (!!) in San Francisco tonight for Noise Pop ... what a weird place for this dude to be playing - has he gone garage rock?

Kinda wanted to go but had other plans

Based on the single that came out a few weeks ago, it looks like he's gone Electroclash:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75I_TS7Rvis

still my favorite record of the past 10 years

Which one?

lol this is such a disappointing direction to go in

xp liquid colours

very confused by the new single..

i dig it

at one time I remember thinking that each successive Bruno Mars single was proceeding through another past era of r&b, from '70s funk to '80s boogie to '90s new jack swing.

anyway, I feel like CFCF is doing somethint similar, with a different set of retro styles ('80s new age -> '90s drum n bass / electronica -> now '00s electroclash)

It’s the second best track titled “ultra obscene” that I’ve heard

A big part of CFCF's schtick is about revisiting unloved eras of music history. Liquid Colours was an homage to that period when drum n bass breached the mainstream and started appearing on TV adverts and B*Witched albums.

New track sounds like it's doing the same thing except this time it's that very specific era of c2006 electrohouse, or "hairdresser house" as I think it was known on ILM. Tracks like "Put Your Hands Up 4 Detroit", "Yeah Yeah", "Satisfaction", "Walking Away" etc.

Like late-90s mersh DnB, this sound was popular to the point of being massively played-out. It hasn't lasted the test of time - not because people didn't like these specific tracks, but because it became such an overwhelmingly saturated style.

While this type of music played on TV and at the town centre clubs, hipper ravers were either digging burgeoning underground styles like dubstep or minimal house - and those are the styles that get lionised today. Electrohouse was nevertheless much more dominant and ubiquitous than those other two genres in 2006.

And yeah there's definitely a pinch of Miss Kittin / Peaches-style electroclash in there. Especially in the video and the risqué-but-okay lyrics, which are both spot-on parody.

it makes more sense as a new direction seeing it as another of kitsch, but there isn't the same sort of continuity as before, and it's not a sort of kitsch i have any real love for unfortunately (unlike all his previous stuff)

*another sort of kitsch

Yeah, I think I like the concepts of these things more than I do the results as music. I've tried listening to Memoryland more than once but all it does is make me want to go back to Adore or Fat Of The Land. Likewise, Liquid Colours is a fine listen but it leaves me wondering WHY it exists when I could just bung on 'LK' by DJ Marky, or just any compilation of liquid drum'n'bass from c2002. 'ultra-obscene' is also fine and the line about Dostoyevsky is funny - I get what he's doing. But is it better than 'Emerge' by Fischerspooner? Unreservedly no.

All that said, it is interesting to hear someone say "Do you remember not that long ago when it felt like ALLLLL music sounded like this, but no one had a name for it and no one remembers it particularly fondly? I'm going to condense the essence of that vibe into an album". The result is a bit like happening upon a page on https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Aesthetics_Wiki and thinking "Oh... there's a name for that"

idk i think liquid colours is relatively unique in just how dialled in it is to the new age-y muzak end of dnb. like that's obviously a sound that has been around since the 90s and is sort of cliche, but it doesn't really exist out there much as an album like this

Yeah, kind of (although there are dozens and dozens of liquid d'n'b mixes out there good-and-bad, old-and-new ofc).
My guess is his music needs context in order to work properly. And when it's presented in an album format like that you get to hear the full flex of what he's doing.

yeah there's definitely a pinch of Miss Kittin / Peaches-style electroclash in there

more than a pinch

i still think colours of life is his best release. but i like everything he does

New single and some details on the album here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKu7KH83PuQ

not really feeling this stuff but i wish him well. good luck and godspeed, my guy!

I get what he's going for here but also what's the point when Confidence Man is right there and doing it better?

did confidence man start doing this sort of electroclash pastiche too? i thought their shtick was more 90s

I dunno. This song sounds really similar to songs like C.O.O.L. Party and Repeat

ok yeah i hear that, it's not the exact same thing (cfcf is deliberately leaning into the crasser end of the early 00s) but i get it

i think it's well-executed but this particular vibe is too exhausting for me to want any more of it

cool song