Ankersmit's first solo foray, last year's Live in Utrecht was praised by many, including myself, as a powerful and unique piece of abstraction mixing inorganic processed sounds with saxophone in an impressively diverse live setting. Here, with fellow composer Valerio Tricoli (3/4HadBeen Eliminated), the work is in a more traditional context, composed between 2008 and 2010, with the results being no less impressive than his solo live endeavor.
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J. G. Thirlwell's Manorexia project is perhaps the most idiosyncratic in a career of idiosyncrasies. As both a specifically solo project and one in which traditional structures are an afterthought, it excels in both the realms of modern composition and pure chaos. Those strengths are magnified on this album, specifically with the inclusion of a 5.1 surround sound mix on DVD, which one of the most creative and effective uses of the format I have yet heard.
Collecting ideas from fiction and philosophy, this release clarifies Florian Hecker’s reputation for playfulness and investigation. Like a rogue mathematician who is considering questions which most people will never consider, Hecker attempts to turn metaphysical query into sound. His response to the (strange and hilarious) notion of hyperchaos will be unpalatable for some; but others of us wouldn’t have it any other way.
In 2009, filmmaker Olivia Wyatt flew to Ethiopia to document an indigenous music festival (the Festival of a Thousand Stars), only to learn upon her arrival that the government had canceled it.  Rather than admitting defeat, Wyatt opted instead to embark upon an epic road trip, visiting more than a dozen of the tribes associated with the festival on their own (very remote) home turf.  The mesmerizing footage of amphetamine-fueled spirit possession ceremonies, unsettling wedding rituals, and bizarre music videos that resulted boasts some of the strangest things that I have ever seen or heard.
These two very different releases are the first formal full-length albums from Michael Jantz's solo guitar project, but he already has a lengthy discography behind him that spans many of cassette culture's most revered labels (Stunned, Housecraft, Digitalis, etc.).  While he covers a wide stylistic range, Jantz never seems like a tourist: he brings an assurance and a laconic charm to everything from banjo playing to neo-krautock.  In fact, he might be one of the only artists that I can think of that can seamlessly bridge the gulf between the rootsy steel string folks and the newer wave of loop-y, laptop-enhanced experimentalists.  He is not infallible though.
Stunning and devasting from beginning to end, this Triosk member's solo debut emotes relentlessly, unrestrained by any prescribed genre boundaries. To futilely classify this pensive meisterstück, as some critics are wont to do, defies sense, as the piano-driven music in effect speaks for itself, in despondent whispers and virtual screams.
