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Last year, Kammerflimmer Kollektief released Cicadae, a superb electrojazz album although it sounded a little too cold (in a clinical way) to my ears. This summer, Quecksilber re-release their long deleted Hysteria ep with 17 minutes of new music added.
All members of cult leader of the underground hip-hop, Non Phixion, will release a solo-album this year. The most famous, Ill Bill is the first, followed by Sabac and Goretex. After a thoroughly listening session of all three albums I reached the conclusion that What’s Wrong With Bill? is far the best!
After touring and recording for a few years with in his own words “the baddest rock-n-roll band on the planet" Mark Lanegan decided it was time to get back to doing what he does best. Somber heartfelt acoustic ballads? Gritty blues numbers about relationships gone bad? Or maybe songs about the perils of drug and alcohol abuse? Hmm......Yes and no I suppose.
Now be honest: can you imagine Dave Mustaine ever doing anything without comparing or connecting it to Megadeth? I suspect not, especially when he wants to make metal the cloud of his former band would always hover above it to rain its relentless criticism from 'fans' and press over it. So when Dave decided to return to the game it might as well be under the name Megadeth.
When it's summer, one always needs summer music. Pretty obvious I guess. More accurately: if you live in a temperate area of the world, you'll need summer music that is at the same time sunny and melancholic (in case it starts raining). Let me introduce you to Raymondo...
Even in rainy Holland it's summer and one of the better soundtracks to that occasion is of course some (dub) reggae. The timing of this reissue of 3 historical dub highlights is impeccable. On top of that these recordings amazingly enough are finally (and properly) released on CD for the first time!
Pseudosix caught my eye when I saw that one of the members was Emil Snizek from Grails, the Portland band that revivified my interest in Post-rock (although it would be unfair to corner them into the genre). Pseudosix does not sound much like Grails, but they are almost as interesting.
The entire '3 part meta-album' Book Of Truth, according to initial announcements, should actually be finished by now but after some delays finally the first part is here! Book Of Horizons shows a new approach for Secret Chiefs 3 that's never been a 'band' in the traditional sense but now mastermind Trey took it to a new level: the Chiefs are a '7 part meta-band' now.
5 years after their debut full-length Calculating Infinity, The Dillinger Escape Plan are back with a new album, Miss Machine. Be warned: things have changed. And how could they have not changed?
After two full-lengths, 27 are back with an ep, Let the light in. The Boston 4-piece is now signed to HydraHead, which might surprise many since they don’t play heavy and slow music, but their own take on dark-pop.
Another band playing experimental guitar music coming from Austin, Texas: Fires were shot. However, they do not sound like their neighbours Stars of the Lid: they play their own game, with their own set of rules, and we like it.
Every action is the third full-length by Chris Coode’s Motion. It’s also the second for 12k, the American label of minimal electronic music. Motion’s spiritual home…
When they released their debut full-length two years ago, Black Dice emerged as one of the most talented bands around. Their subsequent tours made for mesmerizing performances, and they somehow found the time to record a few ep’s or 12”. Now, they are back with a new album, Creature Comforts.
One year after the first volume in the White serie, Sunn are back with episode 2. Building from where they left off, this is probably their most accomplished work so far.
The second album by Meridiem, led by singer/composer Percy Howard, sees a different approach than its predecessor which had a 'fixed' line-up of Bill Laswell, Fred Frith and Charles Hayward. I haven't heard that but since that is basically the free improv outfit Massacre I can imagine that sounded a bit different from this current release.
One of the best bands in heavy music is back six months after having stunned fans and critics alike with their collaboration with Jarboe. Although it always seems that it will prove impossible to top the previous album, once again they managed to do it.
Lullatone'sLittle songs about raindrops is Shawn James Seymour’s third album as Lullatone. A finely crafted work, full of enthusing melodies. To be heard…
Anticon and the 80's have always been connected. Odd Nosdam (cLOUDDEAD producer/other projects) uses numerous 80's sounding synths and feel which is present on many Anticon releases.
Third album for the Japanese quartet, Walking Cloud and deep red sky, flag fulttered and the sun shined comes a mere year after the European release of the stunning One step more and you die although they haven’t stopped touring since then.
How endless exactly is Christian Fennesz’s summer? On Venice it is in its last stage; the days are hot and humid, but the leaves are already assuming a golden tinge. This is a music for an Italian palazzo or a shadowy church in September, a bottle of red wine in hand, and the far-off bustle of city life outside. There is a heaviness in the air that was absent on Endless summer... I wonder what Fennesz’s winter will sound like?
The band WatchTower has a longrunning reputation of being one of the most technical metalbands around from way before the whole math-grind/metal/core came into existence. Their second and last CD Control And Resistance from 1989 introduced guitarist Ron Jarzombek who, in the prolonged 'downtime' of that band worked with Sean Malone's Gordian Knot and his own projects like Spastic Ink with his brother Bobby Jarzombek.
Haunted Weather is a double CD compiled by David Toop. It is meant to be a sort of panorama on “the way people work with and experience sound in the 21st century”. Featuring such fine artists as Fennesz, Autechre, Oval, Derek Bailey, Pan Sonic or Evan Parker.
A couple of months after Joshua Treble’s Five points Fincastle, here comes another cool album on Intr_version, Mitchell Akiyama’s label. A hundred dry trees is a fine work mixing guitar and electronics.
The debut album of the American band Burnt By the Sun, tentatively called Soundtrack to the Personal Revolution, was a typical example of an album that could not bear the weight of it's own inherent mass of disjoined impulses and ideas. From a purely technical perspective the music was sound (pun intended), yet the band had not succeeded at adding continuity and genuine emotion to the musical cacophony.