Samuli Tanner has a suspicious and inscrutable way of doing things.  Most notably, the band name, album title, and cover art here are all suggestive of ugly, misanthropic scuzz rock (definitely not oddball hip-hop influenced experimentalism from Finland).  Then the album opens fairly straightforwardly (for about 30 seconds anyway), before quickly plunging down a rabbit hole of splintered surrealism.  Also, this album is only one very long track, unless you buy it from him on tour, in which case it is 27 extremely short ones.  Many of the tracks have police-themed titles, but I'll be damned if I can decipher any sort of thematic relation to the music.  I am decidedly flummoxed.

The collage of two headed cats, tigers and smiling trees on the cover of this album sums up the merriment contained in the music within. It is exciting from the opening seconds and engaging to the end, I have been getting more pleasure from this album than I had been expecting. Although song-orientated, the pieces meander and are allowed to expand without becoming self-indulgent or overbearing. The band is pared down to a trio here and as a result the music is full, strong and, in refute of the album's title, uncomplicated.

This live album was recorded at Faust’s own Avant Garde Festival at Schiphorst and is intended as a fundraiser for this year’s event. Although not the sharpest recording, the band is on form on this recording and give a powerful performance. A heavy mix of improvised jamming and fan favourites, this is an enjoyable and exciting live document. Also included is a live cut from Nurse With Wound at the same festival, icing on an already sweet cake.

Released way back in the earlier part of 2008, I stupidly skipped over this improved reissue of a scarce and rarely discussed entry in the ever-expanding Nadja discography. Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff rearranged and re-recorded each song for this release, which is easily one of their most listenable and memorable releases to date.

This dubwise sideproject from the established Ninja Tunesmith seditiously defects from the singer-songwriter's last album under his primary Fink moniker.  Yet unlike the icy-hot textures crafted by current kings of the sound Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell, Fin Greenall's approach curves away from deep space revisionism while skewing more towards Rhythm & Sound's rootsy reverence.

Austin, Texas's Balmorhea have garnered a quite a bit of well-deserved praise for their earlier work (Pitchfork managed to inexplicably compare their previous album to both Keith Jarrett and Arvo Part), but that did not deter them from making some very substantial changes to their sound.  All Is Wild, All Is Silent is the folky chamber music sextet's first recording with a drummer and stand-up bassist. Notably, it sounds absolutely nothing like Arvo Part.  I'm afraid something has gone dreadfully wrong somewhere.

On her fourth full-length album, Marissa Nadler takes a conscious step away from the folk purity of her earlier work, filling out her sound with full band arrangements featuring drums, bass guitar, and keyboards. The gamble pays off handsomely, and the indie-folk pinup girl and mistress of the murder ballad delivers one of her finest albums yet.

While most of the recent releases from Tietchens have been Die Stadt’s archival releases and a few collaborations, this is his first full vinyl album in quite some time.  As expected, it is a carefully nuanced series of pieces that fully reflects his clinical, yet inviting and engaging, take on abstract composition and sound art.

This is definitely an odd little release, because it manages to not only be heavily laced with the standard black metal clichés (beyond lo-fi production values, metronomic drum machine, and indecipherable Cookie Monster vocals), but creates something different in the sum of its parts:  the parts are all there, but the sound is just somewhere out in left field, in a good way.

While she has already built up an impressive discography in collaborations with other artists, this is her first solo CD.  This wouldn't be apparent from listening, because there is a great deal of maturity in the composition and structure of the two tracks that make up this album.  Alternatingly chaotic and rhythmic, there is a lot going on in this complex disc.

While the 2009 musical landscape is teeming with C86 and new wave revivalists, none do it quite as well as The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.  Although they have been compared to a staggering number of disparate hipster touchstones (I personally think they sound most like a ballsier Field Mice), their youthful exuberance and melodic sense gives them a freshness that often transcends and surpasses their influences.

Industrial-damaged dirge-metalers Gnaw promise to be "as ugly as sound can get" and they inarguably deliver on that.  This Face is a visceral, bilious, crawling, throat-shredding mangled nightmare of an album.  Their singular devotion to being unpleasant deserves respect and admiration.

If I didn't know better, I would swear that Mono hail from Viking territory. Their latest full length conjures up scenes of great Norse ships sailing through the fog past coastal villages that have been set ablaze.

This album combines two pieces from either end of Ferrari’s catalogue. A piece from his classic late 1960s period is paired with a more modern composition from 2000. Both pieces show how there is no distinct sound to be associated with the composer and how he did his best to innovate consistently during his career. The album has been lovingly put together and is one of the better posthumous releases that have seen the light of day.

After coming first coming together for one absolute monster of a collaboration, guitarist Michio Kurihara (best known for his exquisite playing in Ghost) again joins Boris for what is essentially a disappointing album. The two long pieces featured here form two ends of the same spectrum; one highlights how powerful a simple, noisy drone can be and the other shows just how bad self-indulgent guitar freakouts can be.

Calder refracts the Northern Lights of the Icelandic countryside—where Lower was recorded—into music as beautiful and arresting as the Aurora Borealis itself. Fusing acoustic instrumentation with electronic instruments is not a new concept. To say that it has been done well, in an era of ubiquitous self released CD-Rs and instant digital downloads, is not usually warranted. The music available far outweighs the music that is listenable. Larus Sigursson and Olafur Josephsson take the simple elements of guitar, piano, and glockenspiel, along with a handful of other instruments and transform them in a process that is best described as alchemical.

The already mysterious musical world of Loren Connors is made even more so by these recordings, finally unearthed after being lost for nearly 30 years. Of course the loss would not be nearly so poignant if it weren't for the fact that the recording shows Connors serenading the grave of Midnight Mary, the ghost of whom will apparently kill anyone who remains in the graveyard after midnight. While Connors clearly came out the other side alive, it does give these delta-drenched chants a certain weight as once more a bluesman—albeit a fairly loose interpretation of one—once more play games with the devil in search of musical ends. Keeping consistent with the folklore, it works yet again.

Few sounds are as exhausting and as exhilarating as the voice of Carey Mercer. Whether with Frog Eyes, with myriad other projects, or solo, he conveys joy and bitterness, anger and bliss, with an allure and conviction few can equal.

Splitting off briefly from usual drummer Chris Corsano, Burning Star Core's C. Spencer Yeh and experimental jazz elder statesman Paul Flaherty embarked on a brief Northeast jaunt in the closing months of summer, 2007. Taking full advantage of the abandoned rhythm section, the violin and saxophone duo lose none of their power or chaotic potential while skillfully wielding the precise interactions allowed for in such an intimate musical setting. A logical addition is found in trumpeter Greg Kelley's inclusion on two of the pieces, as his breathy playing fits neatly in with the obtuse sonics explored throughout.

Neil Campbell forms part of a trend of contemporary musicians who feel that they need to release every single thing they do. Acid Mothers Temple, Merzbow, Wolf Eyes and Nadja are other big names that come to mind and while these all release decidedly sub-par material, the good releases tend to make this practice forgivable. Unfortunately, Campbell has been more miss than hit for me and this has put me off his work as the risk of being burned is too great. Needless to say, I was surprised when I actually liked Plug Music Ramoon which, although patchy, is one of the more interesting items in his post-Vibracathedral Orchestra back catalogue.