While they differ quite a bit in scope, concept, and volume, Carsten Nicolai's Xerrox series is a long-running and intriguing digital parallel to William Basinski's analog experiments in tape decay, taking samples and using custom software to make copy upon copy until the original sounds are deteriorated into unrecognizability.  The theme for this particular volume is "towards space," which leaves the earthbound inspirations of the first two volumes far behind for a nostalgia-soaked fantasia on the science-fiction films and shows that Carsten fondly remembers from his childhood.  Unsurprisingly, that results in an album that sounds an awful lot like a soundtrack, but it is an unexpectedly poignant and curiously neo-classical one.

It is increasingly difficult to discuss Alex Cobb's career without invoking the name "Andrew Chalk," as the similarities between the two artists are impossible to miss.  For one, they both run fine record labels and they both make elegant, understated, and quiet albums.  More importantly, they both seem to share a curious drive to endlessly revisit the same stylistic thread in hopes of someday distilling it to absolute perfection.  That being the case, Chantepleure will absolutely not surprise anyone who has picked up any of Cobb's previous albums: it offers more of the same (which is quite good), but it is now a bit more sophisticated and nuanced than it was last time around.

Two of the three songs that comprise Fraufraulein's Extinguishment start with a single foundational sound. On "Whalebone in a Treeless Landscape," it is Anne Guthrie’s French horn that initiates the performance. Dripping water and the ring of a large, resonant metallophone follow immediately after. "My Left Hand, Your Right Hand" commences with a solitary, almost piercing electronic pitch, like an emergency broadcast signal stuck on a single wavering tone. After a few seconds, it is joined by an echoey snap, a distant singing voice, and the booming of a bass drum or a floor tom. They are both deceptively simple beginnings, richer in content and potential than their starkness implies. Billy Gomberg and Anne Guthrie treat them like seeds from which to grow and prune their compositions. They blend field recordings, of rain and a patriotic Norwegian parade for example, with scrapyard detritus, pair foghorn drones with the bristly friction of surface noise, and balance the eerie ambience of humming wires against a distorted monastic chant, all while maintaining a delicate connection with those first embryonic moments. The way they achieve that consonance and balance—between the acoustic and electronic instruments and in the structures of the songs themselves—defines the album.

I had never heard Retribution Body before this album (which is a shame), but Aokigahara immediately got my attention for: 1.) being inspired by Japan's legendarily demon-haunted "suicide forest," and 2.) being released on the hyper-discriminating and oft-dormant Type label.  Also, it is a unique and near-great album.  Matthew Azevedo's singular drone performance/bass tone study has already drawn favorable comparisons to artists like Sunn O))) and Earth, but I actually see it much more in line with more formal electronic composers like Eliane Radigue, as it has a chiseled purity to it that feels very different than amplifier-worship (at times, anyway).  That said, Aokigahara is still quite heavy.

Eric Quach has been producing works of experimental guitar and electronic drone for about a decade as thisquietarmy. His first full length album since last year's Rebirths, Anthems for Catharsis has as much weight and heaviness as its dramatic title would imply. A perfect balance of dissonance and beauty, the six songs elegantly drift from darkness to lightness, often within the confines of a single piece.

For years, Netherworld's Alessandro Tedeschi has been curating a label that has embraced the cold, frigid minimalism of electronic music. Now via a new sub-label imprint, Iceberg, he has changed the template a bit. While Glacial Movements was a fitting name for the slow drifts of expansive sound, Iceberg fits this debut as a more kinetic, aggressive, and in this case, beat oriented sound.

For the inaugural release in their new Folio sub-imprint, Touch has paired Mika Vainio with photographer Joséphine Michel for a joint photography and music project heavily focused on the abstract nature sound and its impact on the other senses and mediums. With heavy use of white exposure on the photographs, and the heavily treated use of white noise on the CD, it culminates in a very strong synthesis of audio and visual.

Since returning to the world of music, ACL's Elden M. has been quite prolific, releasing a batch of new cassettes under his previous noise-associated moniker, while also taking on the world of rhythm-based electronic music as Avellan Cross. Although issued as Allegory Chapel Ltd., GNOSIS: Themes for Rituals Sacred & Profane draws from both of his major projects. Dissonance appears more in a compositional sense, but his use of undistorted synths is largely not something that can be danced to.

A reissue of a previously limited self-released cassette, the newest release from Christian Dubé is as uplifting as its title. While it might be (extremely) dark, it is also an exceptionally well done melding of clattering rhythms and harsh electronics dissonance that clearly pays homage to the two genres’ innovators, but the sound is anything but a direct copy.

This very odd session was recorded live at Café Oto back in June 2013, pairing Palestine with Grumbling Fur's improv/drone guise for a night of truly bizarre and uncharacteristic fare.  Aside from some occasional vocals, much of the throbbing rustic psychedelia of the excellent first half sounds almost nothing like Charlemagne’s previous work (parts of it even resemble an Acid Mothers Temple-style freak-out).  Then, of course, there is the second half, which sometimes sounds like Steve Reich out of his mind on amphetamines, bashing away at a piano in the middle of a Japanese orgy that disturbingly also includes several sheep and some singing toys.

I can always count on Richard Skelton to find the strangest and most unexpected inspirations for his albums and he does not disappoint me with his latest: Belated Movements is largely based upon the "Lindow Man," a well-preserved body found in a peat bog in the ‘80s.  As far as ancient bog bodies go, Lindow Man surely ranks among the most hapless, having met a violent (possibly ritualistic) death by being strangled AND having his throat cut, then getting freeze-died and displayed in a museum two thousand years later.  Given that base material, it is hardly surprising that Movements is a much more sadness-steeped affair than any of Skelton’s other recent work, resembling nothing less than an atypically industrial-damaged and time-stretched requiem.

Since beginning her solo career in 2012, Un Autre Voyage (Another Journey) is Marie Davidson's third album, and even at this relatively young stage in her career shows marked development. Presented as a largely spoken word work (in French) of her personal experiences, there is a greater variety of emotions than the more depressive sounds of her earlier works, which comes through even absent the lyrics.

Down to the final three releases in Die Stadt and Auf Abwegen’s expansive reissue program, E is a collaborative album originally issued on the Dom label in 1988. Having moved past his synth heavy industrial din but before fully embracing avant garde experimental sounds, it is a transitional record that hints at late 1980s digital synth pop, as well as pure dissonance. At times it may seem a bit too dated by the technology used, but as a whole the album is another strong entry in Tietchens' catalog.

If this album was a true collaboration and had come out a decade ago, I probably would have pre-ordered it months in advance and excitedly camped out in front of my mailbox waiting for it to arrive.  Sadly, it is not (it is a split) and it did not, though Stator is still an admirably solid album.  Also, any fresh dispatch from Helge Sten's Deathprod project is always welcome.  That said, Geir Jenssen is the one who unexpectedly steals the show on this album, offering up some atypically dark and heavy fare to meet Sten's bleakness halfway.  Deathprod, of course, remains as characteristically blackened as ever.

This is simultaneously a highly unusual and an extremely representative addition to William Basinski’s impressive discography: on one hand, it is yet another composition characteristically built upon a single brief and decaying tape loop, but it is also a comparatively unadulterated and "raw" prelude to the forthcoming Deluge album.  Both albums are built from the same tape snippet, but Deluge feeds its simple piano motif through a series of varying feedback loops.  On Cascade, that motif is simply allowed to endlessly repeat into rippling, hypnotic perfection without intervention.

I am a fairly passionate Charlemagne Palestine fan, but it must be noted that my love is a very complicated and highly conditional one. I tend to enjoy his music in spite of his eccentricities rather than because of them (they can be quite grating at times).  Consequently, I went into this album with no small amount of trepidation, as there were three red flags right off the bat: 1.) a ridiculous title, 2.) something resembling the word "sing," and 3.) a record label that I was completely unfamiliar with in Idiosyncratics.  Also, the nasal a cappella opening seemed to instantly confirm those misgivings.  Consequently, I was absolutely knocked sideways when Ssingggg then unexpectedly blossomed into an apocalyptic monster of a crescendo.  At the risk of sounding crazy, I believe this easily rivals all of Palestine's previous career highlights.  Also, as far as I am concerned, this is a strong (albeit dangerously early) Album of the Year contender.  I am confident that history will vindicate me.

The three Norwegian (and one French) artists who make up Platform may play mostly jazz-oriented instruments but the sounds they create are anything but. Clarinet, cello, piano and drums meld together into a wonderfully jerky, unpredictable free improvised noise. As mostly a live act, this album may not fully do the sound of them collaborating justice, but it makes for an exceptionally good attempt.

Triac formed in 2011 although did not release their first recorded material, In a Room until just last year. The Italian trio featuring former Tu M' member Rossano Polidoro (laptop) Marco Seracini (piano and synthesizers) and Augusto Tatone (bass) create glacial, yet gripping minimalist music in the spirit of Polidoro’s previous project. Both that and their follow-up record Days have a similar, consistent sound, although growth and development can already be heard from one album into the next.

No one could have predicted another Valet record, not even Honey Owens. A rash of techno EPs with The Miracles Club over the last couple of years and a long silence on the hallucinatory front seemed to signal that she was finished with her freaked-out days as a guitar wrangler and soundscape shaper. Drum machines and synth pianos were her new instruments and the dancefloor was her new home, the most natural venue for her conversion to four-on-the-floor rhythms and house melodies. Then, with almost an electric shock, news of a new Valet album on Kranky. Not all is as it was before, however. After seven years and the birth of a child a lot has changed in Valet’s world, and the music has changed with it in a way that is almost as surprising as the album happening at all.

Digitally generated sound has been a staple of Scott Morgan's career as Loscil since his first release. With the project named for one of the basic operators in the popular Max/MSP software package, it is unsurprising that much of Sea Island is the result of DSP programming. However, the sound Morgan creates has a far richer, more organic quality than many who work with similar strategies and methods, and this album is one that is gripping in its natural sounding warmth.