This is certainly an early candidate for the most unexpected release of the year, as few people presumably anticipated that James Blackshaw would suddenly start singing ten albums deep into his career.  As it turns out, he handles the transition from guitar virtuoso to singer/songwriter quite well.  The nearest reference point is unavoidably something like Jim O’Rourke’s jaunty Eureka, as Blackshaw at his best displays a similarly eccentric sensibility and appreciation for kitsch mingled with impeccable musicianship and colorful arrangements.   Although Suns admittedly suffers as a complete statement due to a few lulls, missteps, and a wandering stylistic focus, it mostly makes up for it with the strength of its breezy, charming "singles" and a handful of great instrumental passages.
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This 1989 album is most notable for being generally regarded as The Dead C’s "pop" album.  Also, a lot of people seem to rank it quite highly within the band’s discography.  I find both of those designations somewhat puzzling, however, as the only real concessions to conventional rock music are the stellar opener and a cacophonous, shambolic T. Rex cover.  Other than that, Eusa Kills is just a lot of messy, half-baked, and contrarian business-as-usual for The Dead C.  The band admittedly keeps most of the songs to pop song durations, but that is less of a structural and songcraft achievement than a decision to just fade out earlier than usual.  While Eusa Kills has its moments, it is far from The Dead C’s prime.
Prekop’s first modular synthesizer solo album (2010's Old Punch Card) came as quite a surprise, but he adapted to the instrument extremely well and later used it to excellent effect on The Sea and Cake's Runner. He returns with another solo synth opus and the only real surprise this time is how great it is: Prekop seems intent on making an unexpected run to the head of the synth revival pack.  While I do not think Alessandro Cortini needs to start panicking that he will stop getting calls for gigs anytime soon, the nine pieces that comprise the "Republic" half of The Republic are as masterfully composed, assured, beautiful, and effortlessly contemporary as anything by any of the genre's other luminaries.
Steve Flato's inaugural cassette release from Lengua de Lava bears two illuminating dedications: one to Richard Maxfield, the innovative American composer, Fluxus member, and electronic music pioneer, and one to Eliane Radigue, the French-born Buddhist convert, equally innovative, whose experiments with feedback, tape loops, and synthesizers gave birth to some of the subtlest and most hypnotic music of the 20th century. The influence of both can be heard on Mara's Daughters, but for the first 41 minutes—the entirety of side A—Radigue's ultra-precise, slowly-unfolding sound is upended. Flato plots his course over harsher terrain. His sound is confrontational and messy, a constantly churning chaos of grinding noise and digital squeals rendered with impressive clarity. It is the kind of bedlam that would ordinarily repel meditation or introspection, but Flato's stratified attack is so massive it implodes and, by unexpected means, pulls the listener into the reflective stillness at its center.
Reel to Real collects Liquid Liquid percussionist Dennis Young's early home recordings while a member of the pioneering New York dance band. Captured on reel-to-reel recordings, hence its (somewhat painfully cliché) title, these pieces range from random experiments to near songs that still have an endearing demo quality to them.
Sigmarsson's work with the Icelandic group Stilluppsteypa frequently showcases both absurdity and dissonance heavily, and while his own work bears traces of that, divorced from any imagery, has more of a dark quality to it. At times austere, but not at all devoid of humor, it is three long pieces that never become stagnant resulting in a gripping collection of tones and textures.
This 1995 release is generally regarded to be one of the dirt-encrusted jewels of The Dead C's frequently perplexing discography.  For the most part, however, that place of honor is almost entirely due to just one song: the lumbering and smoldering epic "Outside."  A fairly strong case can also be made for one or two other pieces, but the remainder celebrates the trio at their messy, contrarian, hookless, and indulgent height.  Some listeners will likely find those pieces brilliantly annoying, but most (like me) will probably find them exasperatingly pointless and half-assed.  On the bright side, "Outside" is almost longer than all of the weaker pieces combined and it is about as good as noisy guitar music gets.
Back in 2010, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma released what is arguably his masterpiece to date, an improbably successful celebration of love entitled Love Is A Stream.  Several years later, its melancholy follow-up captures Jefre in a rather different personal and creative place, albeit one in which his talent for woozy shoegaze guitars remains wonderfully intact.  Within those confines, however, there has been a dramatic change: Stream's lush, dreamy torrent of shimmering guitar noise has been replaced with a much more fragile, fragmented, and submerged-sounding aesthetic. The overall effect is not dissimilar to a playing a sun-warped Cocteau Twins cassette on a malfunctioning tape machine, but in a good way, as Moons evokes a unique mood of bleary, flickering, and half-lit remembrances.
Lee Bartow, the de facto head of Theologian (and previously Navicon Torture Technologies) has never shied away from creating intense music. The newest release, the two disc, two and a half hour plus Pain of the Saints is daunting in both its sound and its epic length. With regular members Matt Slagel and Fade Kainer, Theologian includes a variety of collaborators on this set, resulting in a complex, sprawling bit of sinister noise.
