And then there was Tussle, the latest in a succession of bands honingin on the resurgence of interest in bands like Liquid Liquid, Pigbagand 23 Skidoo.

The Master Musicians of Bukkake take their name from the famous2,000-plus-year-old Moroccan band, replacing the traditional "Joujouka"with "Bukkake," a Japanese term for a particularly vile form ofpornography, which I won't describe here, except to say that ininvolves a large group of men doing something rather humiliating to onewoman.

Released in 1972, Judee Sill's second album is very much in the same mold as her debut. However, for this, Sill took greater control over the production and orchestral arrangements as David Geffen granting her complete artistic control. The result is an album full of arrangements that are a closer match with her cosmic lyrics—celestial vocal harmonies, baroque horns and church organ, shades of gospel music and the ever-present vocal multitracking that is Judee's trademark.

The 1970s was the decade of the singer-songwriter: a golden age in which anyone with passable guitar skills, decent vocal ability and a handful of good songs could land a recording contract. But just as in every other era in popular music, the most original artists tended to be largely ignored in favor of easily digestible, crowd-pleasing pap. In a decade in which Joni Mitchell and James Taylor were selling out football stadiums, an artist like Judee Sill had no chance.

Tigersushi is obviously trying to exceed the benchmark they set for themselves with last year's Miyage mix orchestrated by vegan DJ collective K.I.M. This double-disc mix is billed as the second volume in the How To Kill The DJ series, and is by far the most schizophrenic, eclectic and downright random collection of tunes ever presented under the pretext of a continuous DJ mix. The first volume was a relatively tame affair mixed by Ivan Smagghe, containing a standard cross-section of danceable material drawn from vintage 80s sides, with a full complement of newer electroclash and dancepunk material.

Breathless

A warm, honest record from the deep south.

Hope for Agoldensummer

Piehead
Standing as a fill-in for the unfortunately absent Edward Ka-Spel asPiehead's 11th release this year, Qwerty more than manages to keep theseries interesting as it draws to a close. Qwerty is a solo Croatianelectronic artist who is working in the well-traveled but stillenjoyable paths cut by Warp Records trailblazers and theircontemporaries nearly a decade ago.

Piehead
With Piehead's 10th installment this year, the label offers up apleasant slice of lo-fi electro in the form of the Nippon-o-centricalbum from Robokoneko (or Robot Cat for the gaijin.) The record beginswith a sample from 2010wherein the professor and the machine are wondering if computers dream.From that simple sample, the rest of the agenda for Robokoneko is laidout.

ICR
I have to wonder what the trio of Darren Tate, Colin Potter, and PaulBradley has in mind when they record a set such as this one. Perhapsthey have in mind the construction of psychic hammer dedicated to theeradication of the sensual world or perhaps they simply mean to open upa space where it seems that no such space could possibly fit or exist. Landscapes has the strange quality of being both musical and completely self-indulgent.

Mute
Suicide changed my life. This summer, New York City was treated to anexclusive one-off concert of the legendary duo of instrumentalistMartin Rev and vocalist Alan Vega at the Knitting Factory. Drenchedfrom the downpour outside, I shivered with my beer until they arrivedon stage and proceeded to show this jaded critic just how powerful aseemingly simple two man performance can be. Ripping through a set ofclassics ("Ghost Rider," "Cheree") and more recent material ("DeathMachine," "Misery Train," the unreleased "Friday Night Fever"), Suicideenergized the entire audience again and again, ultimately leaving touproarious hollers and applause. Immediately afterwards and still, Iconsidered this night to be one of the greatest musical experiences inrecent years, rivalling several notable shows including the return ofPsychic TV.

Mute/Spoon
In many ways, Can was (and is) the ultimate rock band. Accordingly,volumes have been written about Can by writers far more eloquent,knowledgeable and pretentious than me, so I will forgo any in-depthexplication of the band's considerable importance and influence.Suffice to say that Can virtually invented a new paradigm for rockmusic, pioneering a marriage of avant-garde techniques andimprovisational rock. They combined classically trained instrumentalvirtuosity with unhinged psychedelic meltdown, and recorded epicrecords filled with massive, funky grooves that were simultaneouslytrance-inducing and booty-shaking.

Kranky
Greg Davis has illuminated the link between sound and light. Perhaps,when the universe was first unfolding, the explosions sounded like buzzsaws or pure white noise, but when the heavens came to be and from itsconvulsions the universe produced stars and angels, the sound generatedmust've been close to the music on Somnia.

Beta-lactam Ring
It is unfortunate for Matt Waldron (Irr.App.[Ext.]) that his reworking of the Angry Eelectric Finger raw material was alotted Volume Three status, as he has used many of the same sounds as Jim O'Rourke used in his Volume One. Although both albums are excellent listens, perhaps owing to the strength of the source material, both artists have done little alteration and their volumes sound a bit too similar at times.

Beta-lactam Ring
While O'Rourke presented an LP very much in a Nurse With Wound style,Cyclobe have obliterated most traces of Stapleton and Potter's rawmaterial and instead produced a freak out of frayed electronics thatsounds much closer to the work of their former colleagues in Coil.Although their "Part One" begins with sparse drones and eerie ambience,the stereo field soon becomes a battleground on which sharp bursts fromanalog synths whirr back and forth.

Beta-lactam Ring
O'Rourke's version of Nurse With Wound's source material keeps veryclose to the spirit of a Nurse With Wound album. This is partly due tothe common reference points both artists share, but partly because itseems that he has used much of the raw material provided by Stapletonand Potter without changing it at all. Nurse With Wound and O'Rourkeare two of the few artists who can sustain interest while essentiallypresenting an entire LP side of creaking sounds set against doom ladenambient soundscapes.

Beta-lactam Ring
It's frustrating that one of the best Nurse With Wound albums in recentyears will probably slip through the cracks of formatting politics.Available to purchase only as a bonus vinyl LP with a pre-order of allthree collaborative albums, Raw Material-Zero Mixmay not be heard by many people. Although it was merely meant toprovide source material to be reworked by Jim O'Rourke, Cyclobe andIrr.App.(Ext.), this album should have been released on its own.

Temporary Residence
Though Ned Oldham has never needed to live under the shadow of hisfamily name — like it would be a bad thing if he did — he has recordedmusic with his brothers in a number of projects over the years,including his own The Anomoanon. This has helped shape the style of hismusic, but on Jojihe steps out large in his own direction, creating one of those recordsthat many will point to for years to come as the sound that defined theband and others in the genre.

In July of 1983 the emaciated corpse of Cole Berlin, a world-weary lounge singer and occasional prostitute was discovered in his Chelsea Hotel apartment, an early victim of AIDS-related illness. He was 37 years old, and his passing from this world went largely unwept and unsung. None of his neighbors could have guessed that a decade earlier, Cole Berlin had been Jobriath, an internationally hyped glam diva and the world's first openly gay rock star.

Attack

Jobriath Salisbury was born Bruce Wayne Campbell, a classically trained piano prodigy from an early age, who joined a hippie rock ensemble called Pidgeon. There he was discovered by Jerry Brandt, who had previously signed such talented luminaries as Patti Smith, and, er, Barry Manilow. Brandt saw in Jobriath the opportunity to create a stateside equivalent of David Bowie, and wasted no time signing the youth to Elektra and recording a pair of albums that showcased Jobriath's songwriting skills and piano virtuosity, as well as his Broadway-style vocal flamboyance, complete with thinly veiled lyrical references to homosexual love, male prostitution and sadomasochism. Jobriath's songs were wrapped in cataclysmically huge arrangements including overwrought orchestral interludes and a bevy of female backup singers. Monumental space oddities like "Morning Star Ship" rubbed shoulders with emotive piano ballads like "Inside" and utterly bizarre, campy Jack Smith nightmares like "What A Pretty."