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Misericordia make traditional/ authentic European medieval music that thankful for the most part side-steps being stuffy, dry or too academic. With the tracks here sew-sawing between joyful, foot-taping and buoyant to elegant, beautiful and almost spiritual quality about them.
George & Caplin are like a slightly stirred cocktail of ; Broads of Canada nostalgic electronica, 80’s shoe gazing guitar pop, hints of wonky Madchester like groove, folk & country flavours & off kilter slightly geeky pop matter- this is their 4th album.
Vapaa make rather gorgeous, dense and pleasantly smothering psychedelic/ drone/ improve rock slumbers peppered with all manner of other genre traits along each tracks slowly unfolding & dreamy path.
The Tomasz Stanko Quartet have been playing together for some time and have released several critically acclaimed albums, mostly on the ECM label. Their front man Tomasz Stanko possesses one of the darkest trumpet tones in modern jazz, a style starkly contrasted to players like Nils Petter Molvaer who seem to move forward from Miles Davis’ free flowing electric era style playing. Here on Lontano the Quartet showcase their minimal understated moody jazz to full effect.
Kode9 is the owner of Hyperdub records - the label responsible for releasing the music of Burial. Kode9 also releases his own material and here collaborates with Hyperdub regular the audio/visual artist Spaceape who’s distinctive psycho-reggae drawl can be found on many of the labels 12" releases.
Peter Szely is a composer who has done everything from sound installations to sound for public spaces, and, of course standard recordings, such as Processing Other Perspectives. As the title of this latest album indicates, it's a collection of sounds from Szely's friends, which he works into his unique electronica. His cohorts include Thilge's Nik Hummer, "music activist" Wolfgang Kopper,Bernhard Loibner,Martin Siewert, Ulrich Troyer and singer/performer Melita Jurisic.
Burial caused quite a stir in 2006 with their eponymous debut album It’s mix of distorted urban vocals, dubbed out beats and quasi-ambient textures loosely filed under Dubstep (London based urban electronic movement) left an impression of dank isolation in a never sleeping city of ghosts, and was rightly (although slightly surprisingly) awarded the title of album of the year in the Wire magazine.
Gamma Ray Burster finds KK Null blend of electronics, noise and sci-fi psychedelic soundscapes moving more towards rhythmic, less dense and song based work which makes this an easy and enjoyable entry point for the uninitiated.
Visitor Guide: your passport to the Qliphoth finds the mysterious English Heretic once more presenting a collection of mind altering & unnerving sound worlds that mix together uneasy ambience, electronica,field recordings, with slight rock,jazz touches too. Along with linked texts that are a mix of ocultic fact/fiction & UFOology.
Arc of passion is another long form ambient exploration from one of the most respected names in ambient circles Steve Roach. Split over 2 disks taking in over a 100 minutes of music dipping into all sides of Roach’s sound from;deep lush ambience, to electronica beat driven ambient, to didgeridooand tribal percussive laced elements all to make an enjoyable if a touched flawed sonic adventure.
Forestheart is an highly enjoyable, epic, memorable & atmospheric trip into mid-pace black metal craft weaved with elements of atmospheric rock, ambience & folk. This Original appeared in 2005 in cassette form here it is for all to hear in cd form and a rather nice clear vinyl pressing too.
Claws of Light is the second album for this Brooklyn based trio. The Dust Dive's music is minimal, and, well, dusty. The songs have an aged sound which evokes an atmosphere of nostalgia. The band consists chiefly of reverb (as in Fender reverb) soaked guitar, vocals, organ and, occassionally drums, provided by producer, Sebadoh and Fiery Furnaces guy Jason Loewenstein. Muti-instrumentalist Laura Ortman also adds some color to these tunes, mostly evidenced in the form of violin.
Shit & Shines new album is another fine & dandy slab of demented, heavy,noisy and puzzling/fun mayhem. Going from seemingly endless chugging / addictive riff craft, to noise boils, to dialogue and texts over looped rhythms, to all manner of quirky and inside humour driven tracks. Really the best way to try and describe S&S is a British Butthole Suffers, but really you have to hear and live Cherry to fully understand the wonder that is S&S.
Rv Paintings debut album Trinity Rivers is a side project of one half of the Staving weirdios core Brian Pyle with help from his brother Jon and fellow soundscape investigator Spence, they offer up a more conventional and going towards normal musical based set of guitar drone textures than the SW.
Put your Hands in Fire is a dense stew of lo-fi electronics that dabbles in electronica, old school industrial, Grey malevolent boiling drones- with traces of noise and 70’s horror film uneasy & fear.
The mystery surrounding the identity and background of Nebris is mirrored by the dark, mysterious sounds coming from Bleak Angels. The feeling emanating from the binary surface of this cd is pleasantly slow yet discomforably vague. The man behind Nebris is surprisingly unfindable by the modern machinations of Google and such, but it appears to be someone by the name of James Hamilton.
No Canal finds Mouthus once more painting a jagged, creative and in places surprising sad & beautiful album. Sadly it's only ltd to 250 so it’s an act quick or regret later scenario as this once again shows them performing at the height of their powers.
This is a fascinating, highly rewarding, often haunted & always inventive reissue of an small pressing album from 1987 by this (unknown to me) German sound/ambient artist that manages to keep you intrigued throughout its running time.
Amidst the noise and Twigs finds Uk’s crowned princes of Dada and (their own)World music returning with an album of more vocally and harmony based tracks that often come across as some of their sanest and more approachable work, though with still a fair share of demented and puzzling stuff too.
Fragments is an 11 track album by the mysteriously named Rougge, a French musician and composer. The instrumentation is made up of acoustic piano and vocals, which Rougge refers to as chants. The piano pieces sound as if they were composed, and the vocals were, at least partly, improvised over top. It would be difficult for any, but the most dynamic artists, to pull off an entire album of music with such a limited scope. And though Fragments is pleasant enough listening, it isn't transcendent, as it was most likely intended to be.
Spare Parts electronica surreal sound world mangers to sound both alien, atmospheric, memorable and bizarrely rhythmic. The whole album is tied nice and tight with the tracks getting their point and strange vibe across, but never out staying or stretching the point- giving the album the feeling of a trip through a strange shifting technology advance house of many weird rooms.
Halluciantion Gullotine // Final Worship see-saws between heady and deranged electro noise bombardments layered with uneasy vocals bellows and murderess grunts, to striped down cold steel cell mumbled confessional over eerier old school industrial elements and twisted music box unwind .
Centrozoon is a improvised collaborative project between guitarist Markus Reuter and keyboardist Bernhard Woestheinrich with Lovefield been their sixth album of soundscapes that hovers in-between electronica, ill at easy ambience and guitar scaping.
The homecountry of this quintet may be Poland, in their music they are true worldcitizens. Their fourth album is jazzrock/fusion spiced up with balkan, klezmer, African and middle-eastern influences.