The ridiculously prolific singjay's fourth (by my count) full-length CD in the last twelve months doesn't match his higher profile releases for VP and Tads nor does it contain any of his charting singles.
Give us an hour, we'll give you music to remember. This week we bring you an episode with brand new music from Softcult, Jim Rafferty, karen vogt, Ex-Easter Island Head, Jon Collin, James Devane, Garth Erasmus, Gary Wilson, and K. Freund, plus some music from the archives from Goldblum, Rachel Goswell, Roy Montgomery. Rubber ducks and a live duck photo from Matthew in the UK. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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With yet another Satie collection, LTM is doing great justice to the composer who is oft overlooked but is as important to modern music as any of the trendy experimental composers that get all the limelight. By today's standards much of Satie's work is far from revolutionary, in fact, much of it has fallen into the realm of cheesy but like any art, the original still packs a punch. This collection is the first to cover his Dada-related works.
There's no denying that Ghost was the highlight of 2006's Terrastock festival. While the Japanese ensemble might never make a dent in the minds of the young and hip, amongst the most trustworthy music crowds, they are living legends. This is a group who wants it all—to make fantastic psychedelic pop songs, powerful cinematic anthems, and patient yet intoxicating jazz-rock masterpieces—and there's no reason to deny them.
Despite my love for demented junglist Panacea, I didn't start out as a Squaremeter fan. In fact, I downright detested Mathis Mootz's first album with that moniker. Perhaps the worst release in Ant-Zen's peerless catalog, 14id1610s was inexcusably self-indulgent: a poorly executed collection of irreverent accidents reeking of puerile amateurism. 
Another Stephen O'Malley musical project is released on yet another limited edition: this time a one-sided and etched LP. Although Crashed Like Wretched Moth does not grab me like the previous Ginnungagap releases, it does not have the same immediate power. It seems to be slowly growing on me but I doubt I will be able to embrace it as heartily as his other side project releases.
Three-piece bands like this aren't supposed to exist anymore. Typically a keyboardist, an extra guitar player, and someone able to manipulate a laptop or some drum machines would be necessary to do what this band does with one guitar, one bass, and one drum set. Their intensity is propelled in equal portions by brutally distorted guitar work, driving bass lines, pounding drums, and simple, effective song writing. 
This meeting between New York's Phantom Limb and Tokyo's Tetuzi Akiyama is electric. At just over half an hour it is all too short but the music on this disc is impeccable. The playing is inventive, abstract and full of energy. While far from perfect, I enjoyed it immensely. Phantom Limb and Akiyama do not employ flashy, over-the-top techniques but build on solid grooves and noise to make compelling music.
Unlike most composers working with electronics, Teague does not use them as his primary instruments or as part of difficult, academic studies. Instead he composes straightforward scores for ordinary orchestras and includes electronics like any regular composer would include other traditional instruments. For most of the pieces, the electronics take the back seat and are used only to embellish the piece like any other instrument. The end result is a nice but fairly uneventful album.
For all their brooding, muffled fatalism and urgent, agile glamour, Josef K's smartest feature may have been their gleeful determination to shun cliché. They always sounded less destined for hit than myth, and despite not being an unqualified success, this compilation reveals that -at best- their juxtaposition of joy and grimness remains cathartic.
