Conceptually being the audio equivalent of a cross-country drive through North America, this Danish artist combines the somewhat contradictory sonic elements of guitar amplifier hum and feedback with purely digital synthesized tones and rhythms to unique effect, creating a contrast that is not as stark as one would expect.
Two new shows just for you. We have squeezed out two extended release episodes for this weekend to get you through this week. They contain mostly new songs but there's also new issues from the vaults. The first show features music from Rider/Horse, Mint Field, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Anastasia Coope, ISAN, Stone Music, La Securite, Bark Psychosis, Jon Rose, Master Wilburn Burchette, Umberto, Wand, Tim Koh, Sun An, and Memory Drawings. The second episode has music by Laibach, Melt-Banana, Chuck Johnson, X, K. Yoshimatsu, Dorothy Carter, Pavel Milyakov, Violence Gratuite, Mark Templeton, Dummy, Endon, body / negative, Midwife, Alberto Boccardi, Divine. Cow in Maui from Veronika in Vienna. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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Despite having been recorded more than a decade ago with somewhat fledgling technology, Jim's 2001 laptop masterpiece still sounds fresh and vibrant today. That is no small accomplishment, given the avalanche of laptop-based improv works that followed in its wake. 
For many writers (myself included), describing a band as being like "early Swans" is a very easy crutch to use. For those who have at least the most passing familiarity with this era, it calls to mind slow, dissonant guitar riffs, a rhythm section that, at loud enough volumes, feels like getting kicked in the groin repeatedly. And above all, Michael Gira’s growed, hate filled vocals that have been attempted, but never surpassed, by other bands. Quite simply, without this material, it is doubtful that "sludge" or "drone" as we know it would exist. Justin Broadrick may have stuck around in Napalm Death to continue grindcore into stagnancy, Sunn O)))’s members would be in faceless black metal bands, and so forth. Unlike some other works with this sort of legendary status, the LPs and EPs that make up this collection sound just as vital and genre defining as they did some 25 years ago. With word that Gira may be reviving the project, and the consistent influence shown in modern bands, it is a perfect time to revisit this unabashed classic.
Wolves' third album is a solid monolith of blistering brutality that will likely make black metal fans very happy. Unfortunately, the more melodically adventurous Malevolent Grain EP hinted they were capable of being much more than merely brutal. Black Cascade is not the album that I was eagerly hoping for at all, but I suppose Nathan Weaver must follow his dark muse to whatever sinister place it takes him. Maybe next time.
Alex Neilson's name shouldn't be unfamiliar around here (drummer for Baby Dee, Current 93, The One Ensemble, and Jandek). The debut of Trembling Bells brilliantly blends ancient themes with individual concerns and traditional song structures with more modern twists. It has as a euphoric balance of dissonance and melody, fine musicianship, emotional conviction, and a sense of humor.
A new approach (or at least moniker) for orchestramaxfieldparrish's Mike Fazio, this album presents two separate discs, each individually named, for a double dose of dark and moody ambience as rendered by Fazio's nearly neo-classical approach. Long though it may be, there is enough depth to the material here that suggests numerous listens, yet it is also bare enough that it is just as suitable as background accompaniment, albeit to a consistently grim undertaking.
Christofer Lambgren's premire full length release under the guise of the Nana April Jun persona "researches the dark associations of post-black metal," and references the Burzum album Filosofem, which revolutionized the genre by including an extended inwardly reflective keyboard piece. Using purely digital means Nana April Jun has created a sound world that gives a sense of having succumb to the numb isolation of a person who has long been institutionalized, not unlike the patron saint of black metal himself, Varg Vikernes.
Sometimes one disc isn't enough. Following up his stunning cassette debut last year, Russian cosmo-wizard Sergey Kozlov returns with a double disc's worth of rock demolition. Whereas the cassette fidelity of the first kept things murky and mysterious though, the two CDs here find Kozlov presenting a far clearer and more expansive concoction that unfurls the vision of a new and potent psychedelic voice.
Pekka Airaksinen has never been particularly well known outside of his native Finland, but he has the unique distinction of appearing not once, but twice on the legendary list that accompanied Nurse With Wound's debut album (once as himself, once as The Sperm). In the ensuing four decades since his heyday as an underground rock luminary, he has quietly released an avalanche of material on his own label (not mere hyperbole: he is attempting to release an album dedicated to each of the one thousand Buddhas), while toiling in relative obscurity. While I have no intention of plunging into the time- (and finance-) engulfing black hole of his back catalog just yet, I can happily report that Mahagood shows that the old fellow is still as vital and playfully skewed as ever.
This is the fourth beguiling release culled from Honest Jon's plunge deep into the EMI Hayes archive of forgotten 78s. Like Sprigs of Time, Living Is Hard, and Give Me Love before it, this is a singular and expertly curated exploration of some seriously obscure music. Unlike those albums, however, Open Strings also features the curious (and possibly misguided) addition of a companion album of modern artists that mine similar territory.
