Since parting from Kranky after 2002's Trust, Low have been at a crossroads. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, the band's guiding lights, have experimented with Low's blueprint, slipping into costume as a proper rock band on The Great Destroyer, then deconstructing that sound on Drums and Guns. Both are littered with great songs, but sound restless and unfocused in contrast with Low's previous work—the distinctive, low-key beauty that had drawn me into their world was often missing, at odds with their forays into dissonance and distortion. For their third Sub Pop album, Low have discovered a wonderful middle ground, merging the simplicity of their early recordings with the scaled-up production of their last two albums.

In one way, this 7" is a departure from C Spencer Yeh’s lovely, wild, textured, drone experiments as Burning Star Core and from his work with everyone from Comets on Fire and Tony Conrad to John Sinclair. Yet, these two engaging songs, with their satisfyingly oblique lyrics, also confirm his interest in the human voice and in the studio as a compositional tool.

Cobbled to together from out-takes off of the album There Is No Home, this EP splits between fully realized songs and acoustic demos.

 

Gnomonsong

The mysterious Burial had the jump on everyone in dubstep this year, delivering the burgeoning underground scene's most anticipated artist album months in advance of anyone else.  However, based on the virulent virility of Skream's unpretentious, nearly eponymous debut, I suspect I, and many others, will be more inclined to listen to this album far more regularly.

The primitive sounding blues being played on White Man at the Door is similar to Tom Waits or Nick Cave’s early excursions with The Bad Seeds. The Lost Domain never match those artists for power and originality but like those artists they do give modern blues playing a swift kick. It is the dark mythological blues that only came into existence when white people came onto the scene (something that is alluded to in the title of the album), something that has been done to death but can still provide the odd surprise. By no means is this a masterpiece but this album at least had some life as the band puts their own spin on the blues.

With the name Hulk and a sleeve color of an angry Bruce Banner I was expecting this album to be muscular and dominating but instead it is subdued and peaceful. The title of the album is apt, as there is a serene, supernatural feeling permeating the recordings. It is sad yet deeply comforting music.

Like all great seven inch releases, this Volcano the Bear disc crams a few of this band’s multiple facets into one value for money package. These three utterly independent cuts highlight a band that never seems to settle into a style, even within the constraints of a single piece of music.

Gregory Isaacs is most known for his vocal works as a reggae singer, with recordings stretching back to the 1960s and worldwide acclaim through releases on Trojan, RAS, Front Line, and other noteworthy labels. However, back in 1978, with a little assistance from reggae royalty King Tubby and Prince Jammy, Isaacs produced this masterpiece, perhaps my own personal Holy Grail of classic dub.

Given that each of the 51 pieces on this compilation are all roughly a minute in duration, there is a lot of hopping around here, with disparate pieces put aside one another to create some varying transitions, sometimes brilliant, sometimes confusing. Unsurprisingly, the individual contributions follow a similar pattern, with some moments that I wish were longer, and others I could do without.

Celebrating the LINE label's status as a separate entity and Chartier's 2010 Smithsonian fellowship (as well as his 40th birthday), Transparency is the document of an hour long performance using the historic Grand Tonometer as it’s primary source. The result is a subtle piece that is captivating, but also demanding

This is the first in an irregular overview of cassette releases from a variety of labels. This edition features releases from The Tapeworm, Cassauna, Peasant Magik, Goat Eater Arts and Witch Sermon, including works by Pauline Oliveros, Deceh, Francisco López, Moss and Hoor-paar-Kraat amongst many, many others.

Floating silently through space approximately 1.4 billion km from Earth are the rings of Saturn. Composed primarily of ice particles, they appear as simple concentric circles similar to the grooves in a record. Thanks to the intricate play of moons, magnetic fields, and gravity, their structure is actually far more complex, fraught with braids and knots and unexpected waves of debris. Christoph Heemann's Rings also glide and ripple through the ether, but the space in which they float is both inner and outer, and closer to home than Saturn.

I discovered Rachel Evan's music in a somewhat roundabout way, as I stumbled into some music videos that she directed while I was searching for something else on Vimeo.  As luck would have it, the first one that I watched happened to be one for her own project and I was intrigued enough by her blurred, melancholy multimedia vision to immediately track down this vinyl reissue of a long-unavailable 2010 cassette.  Notably, Brad Rose has described that cassette as one of the best demos that Digitalis has ever received.  It seems like a lot of people agree with him, as the first printing of this record sold-out before most of us were even aware that it existed (it has since been reprinted though).

This husband-and-wife duo has been lurking around the cassette underground and amassing an enthusiastic following for several years, but their work has always been a bit too abstract and lo-fi to make a big impression on me.  That has now changed, as 936 is a massive leap forward, artfully shaping the band's noisy, experimental impulses and long-standing love of dub into a batch of killer, bass-heavy, hook-filled songs.  I am absolutely obsessed with this album.

The cover art of Craft Spells' debut resembles a blurred close-up of one of the flowers adorning the sleeve of Power, Corruption and Lies. While this album is distinctly less stadium-sized than New Order's first of many masterpieces, it is no less riddled with reverb, nostalgia and vibrant hooks.

The last year has seen many of hip hop's current biggest stars—Kanye West, Rick Ross, Drake—releasing lavish, star-studded, overcooked albums. In a perfect world, perhaps somebody like J Rocc could reverse this trend. His first collection of original music on Stones Throw is an effective antidote to the opulence and ego trips that too often infect mainstream hip hop.

Low fans beware, the full-length release of Alan Sparhawk (asChicken-Bone George) in his psychobilly outfit is now available. It'sgot a thumpin rockabilly beat, distorted voice, squealing guitars andharmonica. Of the ten tracks here, two are new takes on older things."Lordy" was first recorded with the Dirty Three for the 'Fishtank' EPand performed frequently by Low alone on the most recent tour and"Honey" was made popular by Moby only a couple years back. Here, bothget a deep south blues overhaul, a'la New Orleans-stylie, matching thestyle of the rest of the disc. Although it sounds like many of thesesongs were spontaneously tossed together, they're executed with anamazingly authentic sounding precision, subject matter aside. "8 InchKnife" is from the perspecive of a wandering man coming face-to-facewith his wife's kitchen knife, "Mannish Boy" needs no explaination and"Cheerios on the Floor" is dedicated to Hollerin' Hollis Mae (a.k.a.Alan and Mimi's young daughter). The Black Eyed Snakes is nothing shortof fun, and sounds like it was as much making it as it is listening in.The debut is ideal for playing while barbecuing ribs and fixin' somecollard greens along with hush puppies. You can catch the group on theroad with Man or Astro-Man across the USA right now.

 

samples:

• Chicken-Bone George
• Honey
• My New House

Lars Pedersen is the main man behind When and this is his 8th fulllength album since 1983, 2nd for Jester Records (not counting the 2disc retrospective "WriterCakebox"). 1999's "Psychedelic Wunderbaum"greatly impressed me with it's curiously fun collection of eccentricavante pop and just plain avante. "The Lobster Boys" has done the same.The back cover wallpaper of oldies children's, educational, jazz andclassical records presumably gives a good clue to the source of some ofthe sampled passages and sounds that Pedersen grafts to his own vocals,organ, guitar, bass, xylophone and drum playing. And many other soundsfind their way into the cut and paste mix, some thanks to a few otherplayers: piano, sitar, guitar, flamenco guitar, viola, melodica andindustrial rhythms. There is an indelible happy-go-lucky spirit andlate '60s pop vibe throughout When's songs. "Flower Jam", "SunshineSuperhead" and "Instant Flute" have an uncanny similarity to recentWeen while "The Greatest Sorrow on Earth" and "Puff Pipe" make the bestuse of mellow jazz loops. It's all fun and games up until "RuinYourself" takes a decidedly darker turn, repeating the increasinglycreepy mantra "all together now / all together now / all together nowmy friends / together we ruin ourself". There really should be a singlefor this one. I can't get it out of my head and I don't want to. Anunlisted 16+ minute track is the finale, eventually settling into ahypnotic distorted mass that cleverly concludes with a woman's voicesoftly approving "what a pretty tune, please play it again soon". "TheLobster Boys" is one of those albums you can play anytime, anywhere foranyone. It refuses to be pigeonholed and refuses to be boring. Justlike everything else from When and Jester.

 

samples:

• Flower Jam
• Ruin Yourself
• The Greatest Sorrow on Earth

New levels of ironica are reached on this extended play single when retrofitted 1980s heavy metal and analogue techno rock collide. Thinking back a couple decades, I recall that fans of both camps would despise each other. Take a look at Heavy Metal Parking Lot for clues. Today, however, the music is being warmly embraced by indie rock hipsters. Two groups of three members: the Fucking Champs (who I swear are the pawns in a diabolacal plot from Yngwie Malmsteen to stage a crossover attack into the sweater-clad Buddy Holly glasses-wearing indie crowd) versus Trans Am (who confuse me to this day whether they're paying tribute to or parodizing ZZ Top and Kraftwerk).

The release of 'Wrong' not only marks the first release from Locust infive years, but also a rare foray into the realm of pop music for itsrecord label, Touch. Mark Van Hoen, the driving force behind Locust,has remained prolific despite the lengthy gap between this and theband's previous album, the critically acclaimed 'Morning Light'. VanHoen released numerous side projects (including Scala, Aurobindo andAutocreation), solo albums and has done production work for artistssuch as Mojave 3 and Sing Sing. 'Wrong' is a twin disc set, but "not adouble CD," as the notation printed on the second disc explains. Thetwo are intended to be experienced synchroniously: the first disccontains the songs proper, while the second is comprised of tones anddrones. Van Hoen has stated that his motivation in creating the albumwas to recapture the essence of the 70s British electronic pop music ofhis youth. He succeeds in his effort, especially in terms of theaccessibility of the songwriting, but adds an entirely new dimension tothe unadulterated pop melodies through his typical lush production and,on 'Wrong', through the use of analogue synthesizers as the albums onlysource of instrumentation. The electronics on the record are superblycrafted and meticulous in their detail. Beautiful beats and swirlscarefully folded around one another and densely layered on each of thenine tracks. Played along with the background drones on the seconddisc, Van Hoen creates a profound sonic depth. Accompanying theelectronics are the vocal stylings of of Holli Ashton, who appeared onLocust's previous release. Her voice is pleasant and and versatile,infusing the mostly uninspiring lyrics with a nevertheless subtlegrace. Other artists making guest apperances on background vocals areSarah Peacock, Tara Patterson, Lisa Millet and Vinny Miller. The songson 'Wrong' run the gamut from warm ballads like "Heal" and "Separate"to the hook-laiden centerpieces of "Sweet Sky" (a slightly differentversion of which appeared as a b-side on the "All Your Own Way" single)and the album's most stand-out track, the phenomenal "Make aDifference." The broader array of instrumentation found on 'MorningLight' such as guitar, trumpet and violin may be lacking on 'Wrong',but yet it manages to combine the best elements of all Van Hoen's pastworks: smartly-constructed pop songs and highly sophisticatedelectronic instrumentation. This well-rounded and thoughtfulassemblange of songs may have been a long time coming, but in the endhas been well worth the wait.

 

samples: (for these samples we have strategically assigned the song on the left channel and the background on the right channel)

• Make a Difference
• Sweet Sky
• Impossible Adventure