Pixieguts – four albums
Pixieguts is a bizarre name for someone with such a pretty and sensuous voice. The Australian vocalist specializes in cyber-collaborations with electronic artists throughout the world. The results are collected on three albums under her own name and a team effort album with Wales’ electronic sound artist Dementio13. All these albums explore various territories of trip-hop, drum & bass, IDM, trance, and pretty much anything else lurking in the electronic music scene. Pixieguts brings a lot of talent to these tracks but how she interacts these studio producers and remixers is the real treat.
Her three online albums are titled Pixieguts!, Evolution, and Walking on Mercury. They all have interesting collaborations exhibiting a good amount of variety. The cast of collaborators is internationally diverse including Dementio13 (Wales), Crimson Death (Canada), Dj Sid-the Apocalypze (USA), Iannis Loumakis (Greece), Mario Dujic (Croatia), Metricks (Portugal), The Peach Tree (Australia), Phase Speed (New Zealand), DJ Brody (England), Baxandall IP (Poland) and others. Whether it is the techno rush of “Long River (Titee’s Remix)” of Pixieguts, the haunting “Lullaby (with Dj Sid-the Apocalypze)” from Evolution or the rave beats of “Determination (with Electromagnetic Impulses)” from Walking On Mercury, something always interesting is going on.
However my favorite tracks are the ones with Dementio13. Pixiegraf collects all the collaborations between Pixieguts and Dementio13. Most , if not all, of these can be found on the other three albums but it is nice to have them together in one place. Part trip-hop and part ambient with just the right amount of beats, Dementio13 delivers the perfect atmosphere to Pixieguts’ somewhat ethereal vocals as evidenced on such tracks as “Antartica”, “Currawong Rice”, and “Pacific Highway”. This is my favorite of the albums due to the strong interaction between the musicians and the unrelenting groove even on the quieter tracks. Start with this collection but if you like what you hear, check out the rest.
All four albums are available from Last.fm in 128kbps MP3 but you can also download Walking On Mercury from Jamendo in VBR MP3 around 192kbps. If you like the music, support the artists by buying the better sound quality CDs.
Update: The albums are no longer available on Last.fm. However you can still get Walking on Mercury and Pixieguts at Bandcamp on a pay-what-you-can basis (no minimum).
Download
Walking on Mercury
Pixieguts!
I love your blog, although I’ve not been around for a while. I plan to make better use of it in the year to come - having just deleted my music collection in order to rebuild. I am commenting here mostly to tell you this, though I would also like to offer you an informal invite to the Contrast Podcast, which will be accepting submissions as of Tuesday for an as-yet undisclosed theme. I usually submit esoteric oddities from netlabels and so on, and would enjoy any contributions you might have to make. You can find the podcast here, if you are interested. Or, indeed, if you are not. I look forward to reading your blog more in 2009. Keep up the excellent work.
Comment by Eiron Page — January 1, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
Thanks so much for reviewing these collaborative albums and for capturing the gist of this cyber music project so well. Happy new year to you and to all readers and listeners. Cheers!
Comment by Pixieguts — January 5, 2009 @ 7:41 am
An update. My music is no longer available for free download at Last.fm due to a growing number of scam websites sourcing/exploiting free download links from that site (and direct mp3 download links from many other sites too). Albums mentioned in the review above are instead available in higher quality formats on a pay as you wish basis (no minimum). Find them on the following links:
http://cwtch.bandcamp.com (duo with Dementio13)
http://pixieguts.bandcamp.com (vocals with various artists)
Cheers and happy listening!
Comment by Pixieguts — January 22, 2010 @ 5:05 pm
Thanks for letting us know. It is really discouraging to hear about people who would heartlessly exploit artists who are sincerely and generously distributing their music. I will update the post to show the new info.
Comment by Marvin — January 23, 2010 @ 7:12 pm