The worlds of dance and experimental guitar music rarely intersect (for good reason, probably), but the artistic director of Australia's Chunky Move company had a wild enough imagination to bring Ambarchi and abstract electronics maniac Robin Fox together to compose this soundtrack.  In many ways, that gamble paid off handsomely, as Connected is surprisingly inventive, challenging, and divergent (and no doubt inspired some very unusual choreography).  As a purely audio experience, however, it is pretty tame and comparatively characterless by either artist's normal standards.
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Despite knowing Ulrich Krieger from a number of recordings, this is the first time I have heard one of his own compositions. Based on his work with Phill Niblock, Steve Reich and Zeitkratzer, I am not surprised by the form of Fathom (long tones, deliberate use of dynamics and a geological approach to timing) but I am surprised at how he has managed to take all his previous experience and influences and craft a truly original piece of music.
This is the first ever release for the new Editions Mego imprint curated by Emeralds' John Elliott and it is an extremely auspicious start.  Fabric is the guise of Chicago's Matthew Mullane and this is his first major release under that moniker, though he has previously surfaced on a number of limited releases as both Fabric and his own name. He describes himself primarily as a guitarist and "computerist," however A Form of Radiance is a wonderfully spacey, endlessly pulsing bedroom synth epic...that may or may not have been created using actual synthesizers.  Mullane's methods are inscrutable.
This extremely minimalist album of high-concept drone was composed as the soundtrack for a Michael Azar play about the life of one of the most iconic tortured artists in history: poet Arthur Rimbaud.  The actual music seems to have been secondary to the cleverness, veracity, and thematic consistency of the process, which I find both problematic and intriguing. That particular aesthetic often makes for an underwhelming and difficult listening experience, but Harar can sometimes be perversely mesmerizing in its simplicity too.
This Norwegian duo made a big splash in certain circles with their 2005 debut Pale Ravine, but their haunted, shadowy chamber drone held somewhat limited appeal for me.  While accomplished and unique, it was simply too cinematic and oppressively dark: whenever it was on, I felt like I was either trapped in a very slow-moving and somberly brooding art film or attending a witch-burning (both feelings that I generally do not actively seek out).  On this, their long-awaited follow-up, Deaf Center’s sound has become a bit more substantial musically and a bit less narrow mood-wise.  Also, they toned down the bombast and recorded in an actual studio.  All of that tweaking has cumulatively resulted in a significantly more gratifying album.
Since parting from Kranky after 2002's Trust, Low have been at a crossroads. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, the band's guiding lights, have experimented with Low's blueprint, slipping into costume as a proper rock band on The Great Destroyer, then deconstructing that sound on Drums and Guns. Both are littered with great songs, but sound restless and unfocused in contrast with Low's previous work—the distinctive, low-key beauty that had drawn me into their world was often missing, at odds with their forays into dissonance and distortion. For their third Sub Pop album, Low have discovered a wonderful middle ground, merging the simplicity of their early recordings with the scaled-up production of their last two albums.
Scott Ferguson has a unique voice. Of course, like fingerprints, every voice is unique to a degree. But Scott has found his voice, and conformed it to his introspectral lyrics. Whether it is hiding submerged beneath the shadows of etheric guitar work, or rising triumphant into the light above the steady tambourine pulse and murmur of electronics, the experience is haunting. Listening to this succinct EP is like brushing up with a ghost in the haunted Midwest landscape. While the machines of industry may be dead or dying, something invisible still moves among their rusted skeletons, in the empty homes. And now I can hear them.
In one way, this 7" is a departure from C Spencer Yeh’s lovely, wild, textured, drone experiments as Burning Star Core and from his work with everyone from Comets on Fire and Tony Conrad to John Sinclair. Yet, these two engaging songs, with their satisfyingly oblique lyrics, also confirm his interest in the human voice and in the studio as a compositional tool.
