New Zealand has long been home to a remarkably diverse population of experimental musicians, and this excellent compilation collects tracks from some notable examples. While many of these names are doubtlessly familiar, this recording represents a significant break with New Zealand's past musical giants and instead looks boldly to the future.
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Laurent Baudoux of Belgium's Scratch Pet Land goes solo with this boisterous new project. Taking the kitchen sink approach to cheap electronics, Baudoux throws gameboys and primitive keyboards alongside guitars to create songs that are frequently catchy and fun.
Norwegian noisehead Lasse Marhaug clearly has an affinity for the cassette tape and the underground culture that went with it. So I have no doubt he compiled Tapes 1990-1999 with some sense of trepidation, going from that lo-fi handmade scene to the world of professionally manufactured digital recordings. At the same time, however, it is a testament to his art and talent that those hand dubbed tapes are now being presented as a beautifully packaged four disc boxed set, complete with a 24 page booklet of essays and reproductions of tape artwork.
Steven Stapleton hates this record and for the greater part of the last quarter century has wanted to forget it existed. Thanks in part to Matt Waldron, Kevin Spencer, and the folks at Raash, his diabolical plot to condemn this album to the waste pits of history has failed. Insect and Individual Silenced has been given a spectacular re-issue complete with new artwork, a new mastering job, and some very limited, very peculiar extras.
The 21st century has been quite good to the dark prince of reggae, with labels such Basic Replay, Blood And Fire, Pressure Sounds, and Trojan all jostling with one another to bring his visionary work back into print. Based on the vital Rasta Communication album, this reissued dub set shows precisely why the late artist's catalog undeniably warrants such attention.
The result of a collaboration between two of the UK's finest collage composers is at turns kitschy and whimsical, disorienting and satirical: a suite of kitchen-sink plunderphonic pop tunes that recall the best moments of classic collagists such as Orchid Spangiafora, John Oswald and Die Trip Computer Die.
"Krautrock" would be the most appropriate description for the sound TWoHD make, though their Germanic descent is unlikely, and Wisconsin is pretty far from Europe. But they do take the approach that Can did with regards to recording to the next logical step. Instead of just taking sessions of improvisation and melding them into "tracks," they composed the album in different locations, and then pieced it together into coherent works. The result is very different experience than these ears are used to 
Bearing a sound ideal for the next sentimental Michel Gondry or Zach Braff film, this proficient artist's second album suckles at the fleshy yet noticeably sagging teat of '90s shoegaze while concurrently seeking a way out of the trappings of that tempting template.
