Formerly of Volcano the Bear, Nick Mott has been working on his own music for the last couple of years. This single is a mixed result, too short to give a good idea of where he is going yet it contains glimmers of potential. It looks fantastic with Mott’s distinctive collage-work on the cover but somewhat falls down on the actual music. Luckily the limited edition version succeeds where the regular version fails by adding a substantial amount of music to the work.
Hotter than July. This week's episode has plenty of fresh new music by Marie Davidson, Kim Gordon, Mabe Fratti, Guided By Voices, Holy Tongue meets Shackleton, Softcult, Terence Fixmer, Alan Licht, pigbaby, and Eiko Ishibashi, plus some vault goodies from Bombay S Jayashri and Pete Namlook & Richie Hawtin. Solstice moon in West Midlands, UK photo by James. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
|
Sidsel Endresen and Stian Westerhus recorded Didymoi Dreams back in 2011 live at the Nattjazz Festival in Norway, but have not had an opportunity to release it as a record until now. Endresen's characteristically enigmatic caterwauling hits new peaks of oddity while Westerhus provides her a scarred drone landscape, making for one of the more unique releases of 2013 so far.
After 12 years and two very small cassette editions on American Tapes and Hanson Records, Dilloway and Drumm's I Drink Your Skin is available on CD. Dressed up in cheesy horror movie duds and packed tight with overblown noise, Aaron and Kevin each dish out a 25 minute ribbon of goofy loops, obnoxious high-end squeals, and blathering garbage sounds. It is gruff, but invigorating stuff—and more carefully put together than it at first appears.
Germano walks a line between serene peace and dissonant chaos. She dips from one into the other on the piano while her voice remains unwavering; songs carry themselves with a cinematic air that feels compact, hanging on to every word and symbol with tenacity.
Aeronaut, who is Steve Fors (and half of the combo The Golden Sores) has been working at his sparse, complex approach to sound art for quite a few years now, but it all comes together beautifully on Coronal Mass, his first full physical release, presented beautifully in a hand-made box painted by the artist himself.
A wonderfully symbolic pairing of vinyl albums celebrating the timeless label's 30th anniversary last year. Islands In-Between reproduces the first non-compilation release, (a series of field recordings by label owner and curator Jon Wozencroft) and a double album celebration featuring contributions by much of the label's current roster. The pairing shows where the label has been and where it is going, and that consistency has not waned in these three decades.
This collaboration between veteran LAFMS tape loop wizard Joseph Hammer and harsh noise titan Jason Crumer is not something I ever expected to happen, so the appearance of this album was an incredibly pleasant surprise.  Even better, the album feels like a true collaboration: while some of Hammer's distinctiveness is necessarily eclipsed by Crumer's flame-throwing, the contrast between the two artists' styles ultimately heightens the impact of both the more musical passages and the searing noise eruptions.
This short communication from Sion Orgon consists of a pair of very sweet tracks. Both feature Peter Christopherson but those looking for something that sounds like one of Sleazy’s projects will be left wanting as Orgon has made two great little pieces in his own image. Straddling weird lunar soundscapes and the less jittery side of prog rock, this single is brief, beautiful, and hopefully a portent of more to come.
Al Cisneros, better known as the bassist and vocalist in Sleep and Om, has released a single reflecting his current obsession with dub. As it is self-released on his own new label, Sinai Records, this hopefully marks the beginning of another outlet for Cisneros on top of his already impressive CV. Even if it is only a one-off, “Dismas” is an unexpected and fascinating aside from Cisneros that complements his main work remarkably well.
The follow up to last year’s EP Infernal Memo, Mat Sweet’s is first full length away from Kranky melds John Milton’s Paradise Lost with further developments in his writing and performing style. Moving further into musically (almost) upbeat territory while keeping the lyrics suitably bleak, Burnt Up On Re-Entry is another terrific addition to Sweet’s repertoire.
