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From its opening gated reverb drums and spacious guitars, it's clear that this Ohio band’s debut is wearing its early '80s post-punk roots on its sleeve. While it's hard to totally gauge the band on this short record, anyone who likes the era would probably welcome giving this a spin.
Acid Mothers Temple have had their spot on Hawkwind's vacant space-rock throne pretty much locked down for years, but it increasingly looks like they are going to have to share it with White Hills.  This double album is an explosive and oft-angry monolith of hard rockin', in-the-red psych rock excess that is alternately exhausting and exhilarating.
Barn Owl has always been very open-minded in assimilating new influences and this latest EP finds them looking to Alice Coltrane and the more meditative side of the Krautrock canon for inspiration.  While there are some subtle resemblances to Popul Vuh at times, Shadowland still sounds very much like Barn Owl, seamlessly weaving these new threads into a very majestic, haunting, and coherent work.
The title of the third full-length album for this Swiss duo is an abbreviation for either organic or organism, and both are fitting descriptors for the music contained within. Across 11 pieces, Reto Mäder (guitars and electronics) and Fabio Costa (drums and electronics) and a few friends construct a sinister creature, living and breathing, but not of this world. With a strong pairing of chaotic experimentation with some more conventionally structured song-like works, it is a captivating and diverse record from beginning to end.
It is difficult to fathom that Robin Rimbaud’s Scanner project is nearing its 25th year, given the self-titled debut appeared in 1993. In that span of time he has become involved in a diverse array of artistic endeavors, from soundtracks to performance art, even to oblique pop music as a member of Githead, all of which stray far from his initial digital snooping and nod to the surveillance culture, which has only grown since. Conceptually, The Great Crater is a different beast entirely: a sonic examination of an odd phenomena occurring in Antarctica, and perfectly captures the wonder and potential dread of the event.
Seven years and three albums into the project, Gnawed’s Grant Richardson continues to release bleak, dissonant electronic music that is exceptionally nuanced and demonstrates not only his knack for antagonistic harshness, but also a penchant for expert sound design. Pestilence Beholden may not reinvent the wheel, but it does deliver nine pieces of moody, at times oppressive industrial noise that stays dynamic and ever changing throughout, and is an expert example of the style.
The three artists that make up this trio: electronics expert Alberto Boccardi, drummer/percussionist Paolo Mongardi, and double bass player Antonio Bertoni have performed alongside renowned artists such as Bill Laswell, Eraldo Bernocchi, Mika Vaino, and many others, but Litio is the first release that brings them together. That is not at all apparent, since the band’s work on this record is that of a well oiled machine, drawing from industrial, krautrock, and the avant garde, among other elements, resulting in a gripping, dark piece of taut rhythmic music.
The "subscription series" concept of releasing music always reminds me of the Vinyl on Demand label, which has been following this model for a while now, with apparently great success. Szczepanik's series of 3" discs, however, is a very different approach. Here it’s a series of handmade relics that further add to his intimate works that feel far more personal than other "series" releases.
As a member of Minamo, Keiichi Sugimoto is no stranger to weaving tapestries of hushed sounds that are as familiar as they are alien. On this album he expands his approach to include more use of accidental rhythms and erratic jittering sounds, focusing not just on tones, but rhythms and textures as well.
With an instrument lineup that includes Courtis on pizza tins and Menche on rocks and snow, I was expecting an odd album, and that’s exactly what I got. Odd, but under the careful processing and direction of Menche, a strong album that sounds a bit different than either of the artists’ usual works, in a good way.
