There is no denying that Kawabata Makoto is an uncompromising and unique artist, but the sheer volume and unbridled excess of his work as Acid Mothers Temple has been yielding diminishing returns for me for quite some time.  Consequently, I always look forward to his more experimental and intimate diversions, such as this uneasy, drone-heavy collaboration with enigmatic Japanese accordionist à qui avec Gabriel. The two musicians make an inspired and complementary pairing, but Golden Tree does not entirely avoid some of Makoto's more irksome tendencies.
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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Fabrika is a new label based out of Athens, Greece, for exclusively vinyl-only limited editions focusing on obscure and up-and-coming minimal synth groups. Their first release, limited to 500 copies, is a sampler of analog synth acts, primarily from Europe, a few of who have since released full-length LPs through Fabrika Records as well. This collection ranges from the complex, pulsating cold wave ambience of NY-based Led Er Est to the bopping "electrobilly" of Berlin-based Jemek Jemowit. Over half of the tracks are from Germany and the general feel of the record is bleak, robotic and danceable with serrated edges.  It is essentially a dance compilation for the disaffected contemporary nihilist.  I envision futuristic sci-fi dancefloor party scenes with a looming, omnipresent antagonist while some of the characters might be overdosing yet no one seems to care.
A collaboration between G. Stuart Dahlquist (formally of Burning Witch) and prolific French composer Philippe Petit is sure to elicit some dark, disturbing imagery, and on that front, Empires Should Burn definitely does not disappoint. With guest vocals from Edward Ka-Spel, Jarboe, and Bryan Lewis Saunders, the resulting album is a dark, though not impenetrable slab of metal hued experimental sound collage.
While he has been an extremely active artist in the past 20 years as the leader of Circle, as well as a member of Split Cranium, Pharaoh Overlord, and a multitude of other projects, Interlude for Prepared Beast is only his second solo work. Both of the chaotic, hyperactive sides of this tape are unquestionably unique and fit into no existing category.
Having been around since the early part of the 1990s, this duo of Lino Monaco and Nicola Buono seem as if they took their cue from that periods isolationist movement, that darker, bleak spin-off of ambient that had a short, but brilliant life. Heavily effected loops, guitars, and synths float together in an inviting dissonance throughout this album's six tracks.
I don't know if there is much surfing in their Massachusetts location but Zebu!'s eighth record is mainly powered by waves of surf-instrumental tunes. Chill Wave twists a retro beach party vibe into something more bracing, brooding, and raw: as suggested by the LP cover with overcast sky and big lump of rock sticking up out a cold, dark stretch of ocean.
Æthenor’s En Form for Blå was one of my favorite albums of 2011, and it was the first time Stephen O’Malley and Steve Noble collaborated on record. St. Francis Duo documents their second meeting, a pair of live performances at London’s Cafe OTO recorded over two nights in August, 2010. With only guitar, percussion, and some distortion, O’Malley and Noble punch out over an hour of very raw and dynamic improvised music. Like their work together in Æthenor, it hews closer to the rock spectrum than to jazz or other kinds of improvised music, but it is their quieter interactions that make this album so satisfying.
Once again a remaster job with meticulous attention to detail along with a set of bonus material and copious first-hand accounts have allowed me to appreciate a release much more than I originally had. Sugar's last album can still be a difficult listen but I think I'm ready to love it.
