On her fourth full-length album, Marissa Nadler takes a conscious step away from the folk purity of her earlier work, filling out her sound with full band arrangements featuring drums, bass guitar, and keyboards. The gamble pays off handsomely, and the indie-folk pinup girl and mistress of the murder ballad delivers one of her finest albums yet.
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Released way back in the earlier part of 2008, I stupidly skipped over this improved reissue of a scarce and rarely discussed entry in the ever-expanding Nadja discography. Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff rearranged and re-recorded each song for this release, which is easily one of their most listenable and memorable releases to date.
This dubwise sideproject from the established Ninja Tunesmith seditiously defects from the singer-songwriter's last album under his primary Fink moniker. Yet unlike the icy-hot textures crafted by current kings of the sound Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell, Fin Greenall's approach curves away from deep space revisionism while skewing more towards Rhythm & Sound's rootsy reverence. 
Austin, Texas's Balmorhea have garnered a quite a bit of well-deserved praise for their earlier work (Pitchfork managed to inexplicably compare their previous album to both Keith Jarrett and Arvo Part), but that did not deter them from making some very substantial changes to their sound. All Is Wild, All Is Silent is the folky chamber music sextet's first recording with a drummer and stand-up bassist. Notably, it sounds absolutely nothing like Arvo Part. I'm afraid something has gone dreadfully wrong somewhere.
While most of the recent releases from Tietchens have been Die Stadt’s archival releases and a few collaborations, this is his first full vinyl album in quite some time. As expected, it is a carefully nuanced series of pieces that fully reflects his clinical, yet inviting and engaging, take on abstract composition and sound art.
While she has already built up an impressive discography in collaborations with other artists, this is her first solo CD. This wouldn't be apparent from listening, because there is a great deal of maturity in the composition and structure of the two tracks that make up this album. Alternatingly chaotic and rhythmic, there is a lot going on in this complex disc.
While the 2009 musical landscape is teeming with C86 and new wave revivalists, none do it quite as well as The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Although they have been compared to a staggering number of disparate hipster touchstones (I personally think they sound most like a ballsier Field Mice), their youthful exuberance and melodic sense gives them a freshness that often transcends and surpasses their influences.
Industrial-damaged dirge-metalers Gnaw promise to be "as ugly as sound can get" and they inarguably deliver on that. This Face is a visceral, bilious, crawling, throat-shredding mangled nightmare of an album. Their singular devotion to being unpleasant deserves respect and admiration.
Splitting off briefly from usual drummer Chris Corsano, Burning Star Core's C. Spencer Yeh and experimental jazz elder statesman Paul Flaherty embarked on a brief Northeast jaunt in the closing months of summer, 2007. Taking full advantage of the abandoned rhythm section, the violin and saxophone duo lose none of their power or chaotic potential while skillfully wielding the precise interactions allowed for in such an intimate musical setting. A logical addition is found in trumpeter Greg Kelley's inclusion on two of the pieces, as his breathy playing fits neatly in with the obtuse sonics explored throughout.
