Sarah Hennies, "Everything Else"

cover imageFollowing up her excellent album Gather & Release from earlier this year on Category of Manifestation, percussionist Sarah Hennies showcases her continually developing skills as both a composer and performer. Intentionally stretching the definition of what truly constitutes percussion at times, Everything Else is another distinctly different, yet no less amazing entry in her discography.

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Mantra Percussion, "Michael Gordon Timber Remixed"

cover imageAs an ostensibly cultured person, I pay embarrassingly little attention to current activity in the modern classical and jazz scenes, which is likely a lingering remnant of my uncompromisingly punk/DIY-centric formative years.  For the most part, this has not backfired on me, but occasionally something absolutely amazing manages to pass by me totally unnoticed, such as Michael Gordon's staggering minimalist epic Timber (2011).  Thankfully, fate has conveniently intervened to give me a second chance to celebrate the joys of this singular percussive masterwork, as it has now surfaced yet again as a live album with a companion disc of remixes from a murderers' row of experimental luminaries like Fennesz, Tim Hecker, Oneohtrix Point Never, Squarepusher, and Ikue Mori.  For the most part, the original piece proves extremely difficult to improve upon, but several of the remixers certainly make a compellingly valiant effort.

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Reinier van Houdt, "Paths of the Errant Gaze"

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This Dutch pianist first crossed my path as part of the murderers' row of unusual contributors to Current 93's I Am The Last of All The Field That Fell, an event that would easily be the high point of most musicians' careers.  In Van Houdt's case, however, it was merely the most recent of a long string of interesting and provocative ventures, as his prominent role in the avant-garde community has led to participation in all kinds of important premiers and work with titans such as Luc Ferrari and John Cage.  As such, it is a bit surprising that his first solo album would surface on the rather post-industrial-centric Hallow Ground imprint.  That was quite a bit less surprising when I actually heard it though, as Van Houdt largely casts aside his background as a classical pianist to explore the darker electronic fringes as well as tortured theatricality a la Scott Walker.  Naturally, some veins are more compelling than others, but Paths of the Errant Gaze is certainly a strange and fascinating journey.

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Ian William Craig, "Centres"

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It has taken me an embarrassingly long time to finally acknowledge the sublime brilliance of Vancouver-based polymath Ian William Craig, but he certainly has not made it easy, as every album that I have heard from him seems to showcase a new facet of his elusive aesthetic (classical pianist, distressed tape experimenter, instrument builder, the next Tim Hecker, hallucinatory hymnal composer, etc.).  Also, much of his best work was quietly released in limited vinyl editions on Sean McCann’s Recital Program imprint (and the stellar Heretic Surface does not even appear in Discogs), so it was easy to miss.  With his latest release, however, Craig seems poised to breakthrough to a larger audience.  At the very least, Centres is certainly a creative breakthrough, expertly weaving together several different experimental and esoteric threads into an excellent batch of actual songs with hooks.  If it is possible to make a largely guitar-free classic shoegaze album, Craig has done it with Centres.

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Sarah Davachi, "Vergers"

cover imageSarah Davachi’s impressively prolific 2016 finally winds to a close with this release, which is arguably the finest of her three albums this year.  Following the uncharacteristically acoustic/organic All My Circles Run, Vergers again returns to the synthesizer (in this case, a rare, vintage, and analog EMS Synthi 100), but the two albums are actually not all that different: a completed Sarah Davachi album always sounds languorous, gently hallucinatory, and elegantly minimal regardless of how it originally started.  In any case, the big draw here is the opening 20-minute epic "Gentle So Gentle," as it is easily one of Davachi's strongest and most beautifully sustained compositions to date.

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Jemh Circs

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This cryptically titled release is a new side project from Black to Comm’s Marc Richter, inaugurating his equally new Cellule 75 imprint.  In some ways, Jemh Circs is quite a radical departure for Richter, following the zeitgeist-grabbing footsteps of The Range by diving into the limitless pleasure garden of chopped-up and recontextualized YouTube samples.  Vintage Oval is yet another clear touchstone, as Richter aggressive obliterates his raw material into an obsessively skipping and looping fantasia.  Happily, however, the specter of Richter's own Black to Comm aesthetic drifts throughout all of these disorientingly kaleidoscopic experiments as well, intermittently resulting in passages of lush beauty and eerie disquietude.

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Radian, "On Dark Silent Off"

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It has been seven years since these Viennese avant-rock deconstructionists last surfaced with a proper full-length release, so I was not quite sure what to expect with this album, particularly since my interest in the "post-rock" milieu has since dwindled to almost zero.  Also, aside from a one-off collaboration with Giant Sand's Howe Gelb, On Dark Silent Off is the band's first album without founding member Stefan Németh.  As it turns out, any misgivings that I may have had about Radian's place in the current musical landscape were instantly erased, as the trio is every bit as unconventional, imaginative, quietly heavy, relevant, and singular as ever.

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Steve Hauschildt, "Strands"

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For some reason, I never fully appreciated Emeralds when they were around, but I think I am belatedly redressing that wrong with my interest in Steve Hauschildt’s quietly impressive and steadily evolving solo career.  Prior to Strands, I was most taken with his more "Kraftwerk' moments on 2012's Sequitur, but this latest release often feels like a gorgeous culmination of Hauschildt's artistry, eschewing almost all traces of Vangelis-inspired retro-futurist pastiche to weave a lush and languorous reverie inspired by both creation/destruction myths and the famously burning river of his own hometown of Cleveland.

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JG Thirlwell, "Imponderable OST"

cover imageI had absolutely no idea what to expect from Jim Thirlwell’s latest opus, as I am still a bit shell-shocked from the overwhelming maximalism of 2013’s Soak and all bets are off with soundtrack work.  Also, Tony Oursler's Imponderable is quite a bizarre film by any standards.  Appropriately, the soundtrack is quite bizarre as well, though it is considerably more understated, melodic, and tender than I had anticipated: Thirlwell's eerie, dark, and eclectic vision beautifully mirrors the film’s own noirish pulp-meets-hallucinatory experimentation aesthetic.  Both Oursler and Thirlwell definitely share a puckish appreciation for the nexus where garish "low" art collides with higher, more cerebral fare.  That said, Imponderable is still a soundtrack rather than an original new stand-alone Thirlwell album, so its appeal is very "niche."  Devout Thirlwell fans will definitely not want to miss it though, as it is quite a unique release that takes his aesthetic in some unusual and surprising directions.

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Benoît Pioulard, "The Benoit Pioulard Listening Matter"

cover imageUnlike most Benoît Pioulard enthusiasts, I connect most strongly with Thomas Meluch’s recent instrumental side, so I was a little bit heartbroken when he decided to end his recent hot streak in that regard with a return to more song-based work.  Personal preferences aside, however, Meluch's latest release is an intriguing and unusual one, as he seems to be simultaneously growing more ambitious with his arrangements and more abstract with his structures.  He also seems to be making a conscious effort to be a bit more upbeat and effervescent, albeit in his own muted way.  The overall result admittedly has a "transitional album" feel at times, but The Benoît Pioulard Listening Matter definitely takes Meluch's "ambient pop" in a subtly more sun-dappled, blearily vaporous, and fragmented direction.

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Lustmord, "Dark Matter"

cover imageBrian Lustmord's latest opus, allegedly first begun 15 years ago, attempts to evoke the immense void and mystery of space using a host of cosmological recordings from NASA and others as his source material.  There are a number of serious hurdles standing in the way of that ambitious and quixotic objective, sadly, but Dark Matter boasts enough flashes of inspiration to make it an interesting and valiant struggle.  Though serious Lustmord fans will probably be delighted to hear Brian revisiting similar territory to his classic The Place Where the Black Stars Hang album, his epic vision is hobbled a bit by the limitations of the format.

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Lucifer, "Black Mass"

cover imageFirst issued in 1971 and out of print for over three and a half decades, Black Mass is the sole release from Canadian synth innovator Mort Garson under the Lucifer name. A fully electronic-based record, much of the album has a distinctly vintage sound to it, largely due to the electronic instrumentation that was still in its infancy. However, some moments shine through as truly innovative for the time, and with the resurgence of interest in modular synthesizers, it is the perfect time for it to be resurrected.

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Controlled Bleeding, "Larva Lumps and Baby Bumps"

cover imageIn the over three decades since he first began the project, Paul Lemos has guided Controlled Bleeding all over the sonic map, from the early power electronics days into 1980s industrial, and eventually jazz and prog tinged rock improvisations. It makes sense then that, for the first full length release of mostly new work since 2002 (releases since then have been either reissues or contained earlier work), he and his assembled crew of Chvad SB, Mike Bazini, and Anthony Meola have put together two albums of work that draws from all of these eras, and effortlessly manages to shift between periods of the band’s lengthy history at every turn.

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Will Long, "Long Trax"

cover imageAfter a number of years listening to Celer's slow, expansive take on ambient and drone sounds, I would have never expected Will Long to suddenly start making house music. But he has, in a series of three double 12" singles (and compiled into a double CD compilation), and it only takes a few minutes to realize that it is actually a very good combination. Even with the addition of drum machines, Long’s knack for creating warm, inviting spaces of electronic music is still vividly on display, and with some assistance from ambient legend Terre Thaemlitz (under the DJ Sprinkle guise), it may be heralding an entirely new direction in his work.

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Dead Can Dance

album coverIn 1984, long before anyone's grandparents were only a few keystrokes away from obtaining every morsel of information, this non-descript album cover appeared in the shops. Nowhere on the record were there band member photos or names and roles, producer credits, or lyrics. It was a gamble to purchase a costly import record if you were located here in North America, especially without hearing it first, but most of those in-the-know would gladly take that risk. In this case, it certainly paid off.

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Public Speaking, "Caress, Redact"

cover imageSome of Jason Anthony Harris' previous recordings as Public Speaking have flirted with more traditional song-like material, but would just as often end up being more in line abstract and chaotic world of noise. For this newest album, however, it seems as if he has settled more comfortably into the role of songwriter, and here, across these seven pieces, he creates a dark, at times very disturbing world presented as off-kilter, bizarre electronic pop.

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The Dead C, "Trouble"

cover imageThis latest opus captures The Dead C at their most endearingly perverse, brilliant, and anti-virtuosic, as they have somehow managed to craft a double album without actually having any conventional content at all: no real riffs, no hooks, no grooves, and no songs (unless some mumbling in a sea of feedback counts).  That approach seems to tailor-made to alienate most potential new listeners, but the towering monolith of guitar squall that is Trouble is an absolute delight for the faithful like myself.  These five sprawling and amorphous pieces sound like someone dropped napalm on rock music, leaving nothing but a smoldering, heaving, and howling wreckage.  Occasionally something resembling a melody will emerge from the blown-out entropy, but the album’s real appeal is its visceral chaos.  In some ways, this may very well be The Dead C's finest album yet.

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Hypnopazüzu, "Create Christ, Sailor Boy"

cover imageThis collaboration between David Tibet and early Current 93 alum and erstwhile Killing Joke bassist Youth is quite a fascinating, bizarre, improbable, and intermittently perplexing release.  Given how little attention I pay to mainstream music, I had completely forgotten that Youth also has an ongoing project with Paul McCartney (The Fireman) and a long history of production and remix credits involving artists like U2, Depeche Mode, Erasure, and almost Duran Duran.  In short, he is primarily an ingenious chameleon whose greatest gift lies in adapting to new situations, figuring out how to make the most of them, and egolessly fading into the background.  That is exactly what he has (mostly) done with Create Christ, Sailor Boy: consciously opting to be as invisible as possible.  As such, this album is primarily a showcase for David Tibet's snarling and singular poetic rantings presented on an epic scale, some of which rank among his best.

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Insect Factory, "Work"

cover imageUnsurprisingly, this newest work from Maryland’s Jeff Barsky is cut from a similar cloth as his recent works, such as his split record with Earthen Sea from 2014. To be clear, this is a very good thing, as it is clear that Work again emphasizes his judicious use of effects and processing on understated guitar work. Because of this, he is able to hit that difficult sweet spot between novel sound treatments while still retaining the instrument’s natural sound. As a result of that careful production and performance, Work is a beautiful, complex record that demonstrates his skill both as a performer and as a sound artist.

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Ekin Fil, "Being Near"

cover imageThe influences that helped shape Turkish artist Ekin Üzeltüzenci’s latest work, and her work under the name Ekin Fil overall are not hard to place. For the most part, Being Near is an album of pop songs, yet enshrouded in gauzy reverb and blurry production that gives them a somewhat alien, but simultaneously melancholic edge. Sounds of guitar, voice, and electronics all define these eight songs, but the whole is greater than the sum of those familiar parts, culminating in an achingly beautiful excursion of music.

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