The first side of this cassette leads off in a realm closer to noise than anything of a more musical approach: thin, flaky distortion obscures deep, bellowing tones that are not necessarily dissonant, but not inviting either. Through this a churning, distorted rhythmic passage sneaks to the surface, bringing with it a bit of melody, albeit barely perceptible amidst the abstraction that surrounds it.
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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Rephlex is almost definitely behind EDM (Electric Dance Music) A2 and B2, but they’re not owning up to it. Neither disc sports a label, neither comes with liner notes, and except for a few 
This project takes a different approach to field recordings in that it does not strive to capture a phenomenon that most will never experience, nor does it rely on something overly conceptual. Instead, it essentially acts as an audio postcard of the Cape Cod region, both the natural surroundings as well as the people and places. These recordings then form the foundation for artists such as Loscil and FourColor, amongst others, to create their own compositions from, which makes for a very impressive compilation.
As half of avant metal duo Menace Ruine, S. (or whatever permutation of that initial he uses) does not like to be confined to that style, and his S/V\R side project does the same thing with harsh noise and industrial rhythms. At times grating and abrasive, and other times structured and pensive, this tape nicely covers those two extremes while still sounding like a unified whole.
Cortini is best known as a member of Nine Inch Nails and How to Destroy Angels, but his work with Trent Reznor is quite a bit different from this opening salvo of a planned trilogy of releases using a Buchla Music Easel as his sole instrument.  Given my justified weariness of the recent vintage synthesizer revival, it is hard to say whether I will stick with Alessandro for the entire project, yet I have to admit that his work in this field is much better than most.  In fact, the opening and closing pieces of this double album are great enough to transcend any of the limitations that I erroneously felt this genre had.
A distinctly different release than his last, El Tren Fantasma, this album not only acts as part of an overall larger project (a collaboration with faculty at Durham University), but also focuses on nature, rather than that disc’s use of man made transportation. Not just nature, but an attempt to capture the essence of of Lindisfarne Island as it would have sounded to St. Cuthbert in 700 AD. The result is an album that is a bit less compositionally oriented than El Tren Fantasma, but one that does an impeccable job at capturing a feel and an environment via audio.
Innocuous enough as a sampler of some deeper, more sprawling artistic discography, The Source Family OST serves a second function as the audio equivalent of an ad pamphlet for its titular utopian cult. Nothing about them needs embellishing; Father Yod's colorful DIY psych collective is as convinced of their own message as they hope you'll be. Every aspect of the Family seems to match the beautiful, spontaneous mythos they spread, even Yod's appropriately spectacular demise. Behind all the posturing and spiritual gravitas, though, laid real music, and a group who made some interesting ideas come to life.
A side band of Maurice De Jong (Gnaw Their Tongues) with Eric from Mowlawner, Aderlating embraces some of the same power electronics/harsh noise sensibilities, but casts them within a different sonic murk, alongside demonic black metal snarls and flailing free jazz drumming. Somehow, those disparate parts work together in ways that sometimes baffle in the best possible way.
Aquarelle's second album for Students of Decay caught me off-guard a bit, as Ryan Potts' aesthetic has evolved noticeably from 2011's Sung in Broken Symmetry, but not in the expected way at all.  Rather than playing up his talents for crackle, hiss, and artful obfuscation, August Undone mostly jettisons those elements in favor of a kind of a jacked-up, guitar-noise-heavy pastoralism.  While I was a little disappointed that none of the new pieces were immediately striking as Symmetry's "With Verticals," this more understated follow-up is a more complex, varied, and lushly absorbing whole.
