The new album from Norway's Kaada is the perfect soundtrack for break-ups, homesickness, or rainy day navel-gazing. Since there isn't that much going on that commands attention, it's an album that's not distracting during moments of introspection.
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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I would be telling a big fat lie if I said that I predicted this would be Mouse On Mars' next move, despite the live show they put on during their most recent, but extremely brief North American tour giving every indication.
There are only so many manipulated found sound albums that I can give my time to in life. Many artists in this realm are poor at best and their music isn’t worth the discs that it’s pressed on. This album from Chris Herbert stands head and shoulders over all these pretenders. Landscapes more than soundscapes, the music on Mezzotint is dreamy and rolls around the room like a ghost.
Intended for release on a tour that was ultimately cancelled, this unique collaboration between the Hafler Trio, Colin Potter, and Andrew Liles is a strange expedition into frost-bitten realms. Siren-like, the intoxicating lure of unraveling mysteries impels further descent into its cavernous depths, with little hope of return.
Recorded at four separate studios, mastered by two different individuals, and performed by nine musicians, Fading Trails is looser, perhaps a little grittier, and heavily stripped down compared to What Comes After the Blues. Where that album sometimes seemed a bit too full, packed to the brim with sound, this is the Company's return to a looser, more open sound.
While I never feverishly anticipate everything this Hoboken trio releases I do enjoy their music for the most part. When Matador gave the opening track away, the killer 10+ minute "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind," I was excited for an album that could live up such a promising track. Unfortunately, what follows is a deluge of mediocrity.
"Dogwood Rust" activates the fuzzed-out, manipulated, rock-crushing side of this five piece from the get-go and lambasts the speakers with the same kind of punishment they've made a name for themselves on. Comet on Fire have undoubtedly changed, though, adding a melodic, tuneful side to their chaotic free-form rock. 
The second album from Brooklyn’s instrumental electrodisco darlings Ratatat is a remarkably flat-footed affair. Operating under the guise of familiarity, the group manages to leave almost no distinctive imprint on this somewhat boring album.
Recently I was lying on a very comfortable couch in a quiet house. For a couple of hours I was mostly asleep or in a semi-conscious dreamstate. Later I discovered that in a room nearby was a cat who had infrequently remembered that it wanted to get out and engaged in brief episodes of door-rattling. Listening to this record is very like that experience: peaceful, hypnotic, slightly disturbing, repetitive, flawed, transporting. 
