Tietchens, one of my favorite sound artists, approaches this new album from a different tact than his others. Rather than composing with new sounds, he instead chose to recycle existing material and recordings through various processing techniques, some receiving up to ten reinventions before completion, resulting in one of his most sparse, yet diverse works.
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What initially began as two 15 minute pieces on their first collaboration is now a sprawling four hour surround sound album. Sonically, the result is consistent with the first two installments, leaning more towards Andrew McKenzie's dark, impenetrable drone than the skittering, fragmented rhythms of Sean Booth and Rob Brown.
It is easy (and not unreasonable) to critique Mark McGuire's voluminous solo output as excessive and somewhat redundant–no one needs every single album he releases.  However, it is worth noting that he has maintained a remarkably high (and still seemingly increasing) level of quality for an artist with over three dozens releases to his name and his "major" releases (like this one) tend to be especially good.  Get Lost explores a lot of ground that McGuire has already covered many times before, but he is still covering it beautifully and even exhibits some welcome signs of evolution.
When Michael Gira closed the door on Swans over ten years ago, the title of this album spelled out clearly that he was done with the concept. Swans have always taken perversity in their stride and the perversity of a (then) final, live album being their masterpiece fits comfortably within my view of their work. It is easy to scoff now and talk about the financial benefits of reunions but it is obvious from every note on this double live album that the sheer energy required to fuel the fires of a group like this could not last forever. Changes of life pushed him away from Swans and now a similar situation has caused him to abandon The Angels of Light in order to pick up the flame that burned at its brightest here.
The Nitzer Ebb-inspired debut from this techno duo demonstrates once again that a collection of singles, actual and potential, does not an album make. Electronic musicians continue to fall into this predictable trap.
As labels large and small continue to mine the dormant backcatalogs of forgotten post punk artists, hoping to cash in on the continuing dance punk fad, it hardly fazes me that Ike Yard, a group name-checked in Simon Reynolds' latest book, would get this type of revisionist treatment.
Guru Guru were one of the finest groups of their era, the closest any of the krautrock groups to the progressive rock of Gong or The Soft Machine but still they stood apart. They contained enough rock and blues to make them accessible but pushed these forms into new shapes thanks to their impressive improvisations. Containing both Mani Neumeier and Ax Genrich, Gurumaniax are an almost complete reunification of the classic line-up of Guru Guru. The name change is in part due to the passing of bassist Uli Trepte whose large shoes are now filled by Guy Segers. This album is the result of one week’s work in the studio and sounds as vibrant and stunning as Guru Guru ever were.
Across the five pieces on this album, Ernst Karel and Annette Krebs explore an expansive but tiny sound world; the crackles and rough noises are akin to macro photos of the components of unknown objects. The whole item is out of frame but the viewer (or in this case, listener) is given a generous amount of detail of a small part. Here the sources of the sounds are deliberately kept obfuscated but it forces the listener to pay attention to the minutiae of these noises. The result is an engaging and exhausting album which challenges and drains in equal measure.
