I basically enjoyed Williams' acclaimed 2009 dark ambient opus Perdition Hill Radio, but did not find it especially revelatory or unique.  This follow-up is an entirely different story though: The Resurrections Unseen marks a huge compositional leap forward.  As expected, the mood is similarly blackened and ominous, but this effort is significantly more focused, artfully structured, visceral, and slow-burning than its predecessor: this is a rumbling, album-length plunge into the void rather than a mere series of crackling and brooding soundscapes. Fowler Collins has delivered an instant genre classic.
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No one will ever accuse the Opalio brothers of lacking ambition.  Their previous release, 2013's Psycho-System, was a hallucinatory drone epic that spanned six discs and clocked in at over three hours.  Now they are back with a triple-album in a very different vein.  Though similar in its staggering scope, Abstract Expressionism for the Ears is often considerably more accessible and organic-sounding than its more insular and deeply warped predecessor.  Part of that credit certainly goes to Stevens, who proves himself to be a very sympathetic collaborator, but the primary difference is the focus on unconventionally employed (and melodic) piano strings, which often makes Abstract Expressionism resemble classic Laraaji plunged into an otherworldly rabbit hole.  Most other times, of course, there is no earthbound point of reference to be found at all.
While Richard Skelton has long been one of my favorite artists, he has not released anything new in a while that has captivated me quite like he did the first time that I heard him.  That is not to say that he has experienced any sort of creative decline or anything, but he is definitely an artist who tends do one specific thing brilliantly, which regrettably tends to yield diminishing returns with increased familiarity.  With this follow-up to their Wolf Notes collaboration, however, Skelton and Autumn Richardson alchemically transform some of their previous recordings into something quite new and unexpected.
While I have admittedly become a fairly serious Legendary Pink Dots fan again over the last few years, I am still far from obsessive and their voluminous 2013 output was just way too much for me to keep up with.  Consequently, I thought it was probably safe to let this limited, tour-only "sister album" to The Gethsemane Option slip by me.  I was wrong, of course (and I should know better by now).  While Code Noir is not nearly as ambitious or epic as Gethsemane, it happily avoids almost all of the indulgences and excesses that plagued its sister and is much better (and more listenable) for it.
While Mars were never the most out there of the No Wave movement (they always had a strong rock’n’roll vibe on the studio recordings) but they certainly weren't the most vital to these ears. Their studio recordings, long available at this stage, offered a window into what the group were doing but the collected works were far too brief, too tame. This LP is the first of two new live recordings of the band and shows them in ferocious form. The idea of them being a weirdo rock band is exploded and forgotten; this is phenomenal music that defies categorization or comprehension.
When the studio is used as an instrument, that magic cannot always be reproduced in a live setting, on the fly, with variable acoustics and limited equipment. That's the downside of reissues like 20 Jazz Funk Greats: the album is faithfully presented, gloriously remastered, and has never sounded better, but it has also been watered down with bonus material that, in this particular case, is inessential.
As the least prolific member of Cleveland kosmische collective Emeralds, Steve Hauschildt's first widely available (and officially pressed) solo release is long overdue. Recorded over three years, and released on Kranky in late 2011, the album is a twinkling gem—an hour's worth of vintage, Berlin-style electronics and ambience.
Chicago’s Number None end up reworking two tracks from their own2004 3" CDR release Nervous Climates into two newpieces via the devolutions of Iowa’s Medroxy Progesterone Acetate’sside long remixes. The similarities to the original tracks are fleetingand buried as the barren landscapes of the originals are abused andbruised into extended storms on this cassette release.
Always the serrated disco ball in the Digital Hardcore scene, Cobra Killer return with a bonkers album that walks the line between inspiration and the ridiculous. Gone are all the vocal effects and samplers and replacing them is Kapajkos, a mandolin orchestra.
