This is the debut album from the restlessly evolving Mark Van Hoen’s latest project, a duo with the Touch label's Mike Harding.  Recorded in LA during a particularly sweltering day, this single longform piece is quite divergent from any of Van Hoen’s previous work that I have heard, beautifully blending organ-like synthesizers with menacing throbs, crackling shortwave radio ambience, and mysterious field recordings.  Drøne are definitely onto something wonderful here, finding a niche that is simultaneously sublimely melodic, gently hallucinatory, and ominously unsettling.

There is a distinct sense of nostalgia running through this newest Luciernaga release. Fitting, since the entire work was inspired by Joao Da Silva's hometown of Santiago, Chile, and is even released by a hometown as a limited edition cassette. His work has always had a sense of personal intimacy amidst the sonic abstraction, and this is no different. Sic Transit Gloria is an emotionally rich, and extremely diverse piece of complex ambient music.

Following their 2012 self-titled debut release, this Austin trio largely return to the sound that made that album so strong: namely dissonant synthesizer work, slow and stiff drum programming, and unsettling, yet gripping vocal work. That is not to say that Graphic is more of the same, but rather a development and refinement of the sound they did so well previously, culminating in an infectious, yet dour and dark piece of music.

This latest release from Aranos is an especially unusual one (even within the context of his already singular discography), as it is a varied suite of songs exploring the twin themes of mortality and joie de vivre.  It has always been clear that Aranos knows a thing or two about living an interesting and vibrant life, but it is worth noting that he has also technically died once (and been resuscitated) as well, so he has some perspective on that side to offer as well.  While it is the subject matter than ostensibly brings all of these songs together, the most immediate and striking feature of Omen of Good Times is its prevailing mood of eccentric, cockeyed fun: there are few shades at all of Aranos's more experimental leanings here, just a one-of-a-kind raconteur/performer channeling everything from Eastern European folk music to religious spirituals to swinging Django Reinhardt/Stephane Grappelli-style string jazz.

As much as I love Swans, one of 2015's great mysteries for me was trying to figure out why some people liked Norman Westberg’s solo 13 album so much, as it just seemed like a very straightforward ambient-drone album in every way.  Consequently, I did not have especially high expectations for Room40’s second Westberg reissue, which compiles three even earlier pieces from his homemade, self-released CDrs.  As it turns out, however, MRI is a hell of a lot more compelling than its predecessor.  While the general aesthetic is basically the same (hazy processed-guitar soundscapes), MRI features considerably more in the way of subtle dynamic shifts and disquieting dissonances.  Aside from just being deeper, more complex, and more nuanced than what I had previously heard, this album is actually quite distinctive and unique as well.  I now completely understand why Lawrence English was so keen to unearth Westberg's largely unheard solo oeuvre.

In recent years, Shelter Press has carved out an unusual niche for itself through a series of highly conceptual and ambitiously esoteric releases that blur the boundaries between various forms of art.  One of their more intriguing projects as of late is this one, in which a trio of composers attempts to recreate the aura of Thomas Mann's 1924 masterwork The Magic Mountain (even going so far as to do some field recording in Swiss Alps where the novel was set).  The end result is quite a pleasant and subtly phantasmagoric reverie, as the composers' individual voices are subsumed by a beguiling series of crackling classical music snippets, ominous drones, and ambient outdoor sounds.

Himukalt seems to be more than a bit of an enigma. Other than being the solo project of Ester Kärkkäinen from Nevada, there is very little to be found online about her work. That ambiguity suits Conditions of Acrimony (her first release, at least in a public capacity) rather well though. Drawing from a diverse array of abrasive, challenging styles of music, she expertly blends order and chaos, as well as rhythm and dissonance throughout these six pieces.

Harpist Mary Lattimore’s excellent second solo album is the fruit of a grant-financed road trip across the US, inspired by various natural wonders along the way and recorded at several friends' houses.  While traveling around with a harp does not sound particularly convenient to me, it certainly seems like Lattimore knows how to put grant money to good use.  She also knows the fastest way to my heart, which happens to be naming an album after a Joan Didion essay.  Naturally, At The Dam is a beautiful album, as the harp is always an inherently pleasant instrument when in competent hands.  Lattimore goes much deeper than the expected lovely, rippling arpeggios though, crafting five pleasantly relaxed and languorous pieces enhanced with a healthy amount of experimentation and sublime laptop-tweakery.

I suspect someone could probably spend years compiling a thesis that contextualizes and explains the ideas, techniques, and inspirations behind Jan St. Werner's bizarre Fiepblatter series, but its overarching concept is apparently a simple desire to "dismantle genres." Last year’s completely bonkers and uncategorizable Miscontinuum took care of that objective quite conclusively though, so there was not much left to prove with this follow-up.  I am not sure if St. Werner would necessarily agree with me or not, but Felder is certainly a hell of a lot more listenable than its prickly, disorienting predecessor.  That said, it is still quite an unapologetically alien and uncompromising release, gleefully taking organic, orchestral elements and mangling them into a stuttering, splintered, and kaleidoscopic mindfuck.

Tim Hecker’s first album for 4AD is already a major event, unexpectedly garnering praise from sources as mainstream as The New York Times and Rolling Stone.  We live in strange times indeed.  Naturally, it deserves all the accolades it gets, as Tim Hecker seems physically unable to make a disappointing album at this point in his career, but far more interesting than the quality is how Love Streams is such a conspicuous departure from many of Hecker’s usual tropes.  Also, despite its atypically high profile and widespread coverage, it may actually be the most perversely bizarre and experimental album that Hecker has yet released (My Love is Rotten to the Core excluded, of course).

Wyrding may be a relatively new project, this being their debut album other than a single that was previously a limited hand-made object, now reissued as a cassette and bonus tracks on the digital version oft his album. The band, however, is led by Troy Schafer (also a member of Kinit Her and Wreaths, amongst many others) and they have deep roots throughout the Wisconsin underground scene. The resulting album is an idiosyncratic blending of black metal and neofolk minimalism that also draws from religious music and other fields, but comes together in a way that somehow manages to make perfect sense.

Spectre, aka Skiz Fernando, was at the forefront of the sadly short-lived ambient dub/illbient/whatever genre hybrid that popped up in the middle to late part of the 20th century. While many have come and gone that were associated with the loosely defined style, Fernando and his seminal Wordsound label have endured, continually releasing music that may not have been commercially viable, but always retained artistic integrity and conceptual complexity. On his tenth solo record, his trademark sinister moods with infectious beats continues. But best of all, it sounds just as fresh as his debut The Illness did some 21 years ago.

This seventh album under the Surgeon moniker from UK techno iconoclast Anthony Child is a bit of an unexpected divergence from his previous work. Naturally, the pummeling repetition and industrial textures remain delightfully intact, but From Farthest Known Objects is considerably weirder and messier than I would have expected (in a good way).  There is a fairly straightforward explanation for that transformation, as Child discovered that a particular hardware set-up yielded sounds so bizarre that he found himself wondering if he had inadvertently created a receiver for distant intergalactic transmissions.  That is only half the story though, as From Farthest Known Objects works so beautifully only because Child had both the ability and vision to harness those sounds in a compelling way.  I do not know if this is necessarily the best Surgeon album ever, as Force + Form is widely considered to be canonical, but it sure feels that way to me.  If it is not, it is at the very least quite an impressive late-career evolution.

I have a curious relationship with Axel Willner’s music, as I have always thought that he is kind of brilliant, but generally too perfect, poppy and dancefloor-focused to appeal to my personal sensibilities.  Also, I keep forgetting that he even exists for some reason, so I am continually surprised every time that he releases a new album and I discover that I like it.  Predictably, I am most drawn to his darker, weirder side, which previously peaked with Cupid’s Head’s stellar "No.  No…"  Every album by The Field has a couple of great songs though and The Follower is no exception to that trend.  In fact, it is probably my favorite of Willner's albums to date, as it is as flawlessly crafted as ever, but considerably more shot through with ghostly textures and undercurrents of melancholy than I ever would have expected.

On his last couple of albums, Glenn Jones has let the world into his music. Back in 2011, the rattle of Commonwealth Avenue’s B-line train snuck into The Wanting. More or less an invisible addition, it was the consequence of recording in an apartment that sits on one of Boston’s busier thoroughfares. My Garden State opened the doors and windows and walked out into the New Jersey neighborhood of Glenn’s youth. It has a thunderstorm and chimes and an annotation about frogs, and they are more than just filigree on the proverbial fretboard. "Alcouer Gardens" would be a different song without the rain and thunder, and the non-stringed sounds add details to the loose narrative announced in the titles. Now comes Fleeting, Jones’s sixth solo album, recorded in Mount Holly, New Jersey with Laura Baird. The studio windows are open again and there are birds in the trees, but the emphasis placed on the influence of people and places cuts at the idea that there is an inside and an outside to begin with. It argues that music, often tucked away inside headphones or living rooms or performance spaces, is more than a confined curiosity of the wider human world.

In a continuation of an amusing trend begun with 2014’s stellar Feeling Tropical Feeling Romantic Feeling Ill mixtape, Demdike Stare have yet again coaxed another odd non-Shapes release out of the singular Mica Levi.  This one is perhaps even stranger than its predecessor, as it is centered around an infectiously skittering and warbling 2-step "single" that Levi and frequent collaborator Tirzah released to YouTube all the way back in 2011.  The rest of Taz and May Vids is filled out with a few other excellent Tirzah collaborations, a Demdike Stare remix of a Tirzah collaboration, and a couple of very different outliers.  While the Brother May-assisted "More Red" is admirably bonkers, the primary appeal of this EP is definitely the murky, poppy, and beautifully warped Tirzah pieces.  Admittedly, it seems like Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker had quite a struggle in collecting even a mere EP's worth of material (the three Tirzah songs add up to barely 8 minutes), but these scraps from the vault offer some dazzling (if fleeting) glimpses of Levi's skewed and inscrutable pop genius.

Cloudland Canyon is a band that has seemingly been around forever, remaining constantly in the periphery, yet never quite making much of an impression on me with their reverb-drenched, chameleonic psych/krautrock revivalism.  I always saw them as an almost-good band of people with great record collections who were a bit too self-conscious, over-meticulous, and reverent to fully realize their potential.  On this, improbably only their third album since forming in 2002, they have cleverly punched-up their sound with a lot of fun ‘80s-style electronic grooves, resulting in something unexpectedly resembling a Chris & Cosey/Panda Bear mash-up at times.  That admittedly innovative aesthetic still does not click entirely for me, but the handful of songs that lean heaviest on hooks and retro-dance grooves are quite good.  And some of the other ones are even better.

On their second album as a duo, Marco Marzuoli and Alessandro Sergente lay out a reticulated blanket of pulsing guitar tones and modulated electronic pitches dedicated to the moon. Luna’s three programmatic tracks do a remarkably good job evoking their subject. Each one sounds like it has been washed in silver light and painted onto a blue-black canvas. Their shapes are uncertain, as much shadow as form, and they radiate with uneasy energy like they know they hide more than they reveal. Appropriately, the album's every sound hovers uneasily in place, shifting the air and color around it in long undulating waves both oceanic and astronomical.

Matt Elliott’s first release under the Third Eye Foundation moniker now sits at a full two decades ago. What is most striking is the fact that, considering how deeply rooted in the era drum 'n' bass/jungle music sounds now, Semtex is largely still as fresh sounding today as it was then. Because of less reliance on the overused "Amen" and "Funky Drummer" loops (though they appear), Elliott produced a work with significantly more depth and nuance, which is why it seems much more timeless than its contemporaries. Reissued here with a bonus disc of demos from the same era, and a lengthy selection of downloadable extra material, it is a nearly four and a half hour revisiting of one of the seminal albums of the mid 1990s.

My first experience with Svendsen's work was his W/M debut split release with guitarist Christian Winther. Even though it was their first official release, both were well-established Norwegian artists who approached their respective instruments in ways that generated strange and unexpected sounds from them. Svendsen's newest work expands upon that, with four performances using only double bass, but played with a physicality and performance that blurs the lines between Svendsen himself and the instrument he plays.