When Jim Haynes, head of the always fascinating Helen Scarsdale Agency, told me he would be releasing an almost pop record on the label, I was a bit surprised. Here is a label that, over the past 15 years, has perfected the sound of rusting, rotting audio. But with recent Ekin Fil releases hinting at a growing interest in musicality, the idea began to seem less bizarre. The first proper vinyl album from Nicole Carr (also known as Bloom Offering) fits perfectly in this niche. More conventional sounding than usual, but still experimental and challenging in its own way, it is a brilliant record that stands out among the best albums this year.
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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The latest work from New England's legendary tape manipulator (presented on CD, in a bit of irony) is another work in a series of releases that reflects his more meditative, contemplative side. Like the somewhat recent Dawn Songs tape, Across the Blazer features Stelzer using his array of tape machines to construct vast expanses of sound, less about bent motors or mangled tape, but more the enveloping warmth of analog imperfection. The end product is surprisingly inviting and relaxing, words that are rarely apt descriptors of something generally labeled as "noise".
Newly reissued, this 1982 debut from Adrian Sherwood’s eclectic dub project is an ambitious and occasionally perplexing affair. The album’s subtitle, "Ambiance in Dub," goes a long way towards explaining the unusual and embryonic aesthetic, as does the fact that it was recorded by a revolving cast of guest musicians during a fortuitous window at a well-equipped studio: these are very simple and stripped-down bass-driven songs that leave plenty of room for each individual element to breathe. That is ideal for Sherwood’s experiments with reverb and mic placement, which seem to be The Pounding System's raison d’être: this is very much a playground for Sherwood’s production and recording wizardry. I suppose that could be said of all dub, but it feels like Sherwood is animating skeletons rather than deconstructing complete, fully formed songs. To my ears, Dub Syndicate's later, more layered work holds up much better than the semi-traditional dub reggae found here, but The Pounding System is a pleasant (if uneven) teaser for the more substantial work on the horizon.
Hampson released the exceptional Répercussions earlier this year, his first full length since 2008's Vectors. Now he has followed that up with two more albums, released simultaneously but presented separately. Even though he has become suddenly prolific, both albums are of the utmost quality, and have a distinctly different approach to sound between them.  And yes, fans of Loop and Main, there are guitars.
As the ambitious (and essential) reissue program by Die Stadt approaches conclusion, Tietchens' final release for Esplendor Geometrico's label, and last release of the 1980s, gets the expanded treatment. Heavily steeped in rhythmic loops and metallic reverb, it clearly shows the mark of his industrial period, but also of the abstract direction to come.
This EP is a taste of what to expect on their new album devoted to the theme of telepathy and psychic phenomena. I do not know whether Matmos actually buys the parapsychological theories that inspire the music but, like any of their conceptual experiments, they use the source material to think about their music in new ways. Some of it sounds undeniably like Matmos, but, as usual, they push themselves into novel situations with a long, complex vocal work which lines up with the peculiar subject matter perfectly.
As far as Natural Snow Buildings-related albums go, this sprawling reissue ranks as a pretty monumental and eagerly anticipated event.  Originally released in a crazily limited edition of only 22, this 2008 triple-album is one of the band's most ambitious, yet rarely heard, statements.  Given Mehdi and Solange's tireless evolution over the years, Night Coercion understandably lacks the sophistication and song-craft of their current work, but mostly compensates for those shortcomings with a potent mixture of primal power and sheer massiveness.
Keith Rowe and Christian Wolff have been playing together since 1968, when Wolff first performed with AMM in the UK. Their history together goes back further, a part of the turbulent musical and political eddies set in motion by the New York School and Cornelius Cardew in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. But this performance, recorded live at NYC’s The Stone as part of Jon Abbey’s AMPLIFY 2011 festival, marks their first recorded appearance as a duo. It’s an inspired pairing. Together they produce quiet, sharp, and surprisingly gorgeous music that exemplifies the still radical ideas they started exploring over 40 years ago.
Ged Gengras has been a somewhat ubiquitous and integral figure in the LA music scene for the last several years, contributing his varied talents to artists as disparate as LA Vampires, Pocahaunted, and Sun Araw.  However, I did not know that he had a solo "modular techno" project and had I known, I probably would not have been terribly inclined to seek it out.  Consequently, I was completely blindsided by the massive and wonderful 20-minute opening song on this, his debut full-length.  The other two songs do not quite reach the same heights, but it does not matter much, as "Spontaneous Generation" is almost enough of a must-hear instant classic to carry the whole album.
P16.D4 might not be an overly obscure name for those knowledgeable of the nascent industrial/experimental/noise scene of the early 1980s, but P16.D4 has not been as venerated as many contemporaries either. Monotype has jumped upon the opportunity to give this project the lavish retrospective release it deserves, and Passagen is just that: a deluxe six disc compilation of the band's output, with bonus tracks, and an additional DVD of mostly unseen videos and performance recordings.
