This is Cobb's first full-length under his own name, but he has long been an active and influential figure in the American drone scene as both Taiga Remains and the man behind the Students of Decay label.  Appropriately, the shedding of his artistic alias coincides with a more human, warm, and intimate direction that is not wildly dissimilar to early Taiga recordings like 2006's Ribbons of Dust.  That (somewhat circular) change seems to have suited him quite well, as he and his guitar have delivered a wonderfully languorous suite of gently swaying dronescapes.
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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In the past, I have definitely preferred Sublime Frequencies' musical releases to their cinematic ones, but Olivia Wyatt's follow-up to Staring into the Sun is quite a beguiling exception to that trend. Naturally, one major reason that this film is so great is the exotic and fascinating subject matter (Vodou pilgrimages in Haiti). However, Wyatt's skillful execution elevates her footage into something truly wonderful, lushly and kinetically capturing the unique and occasionally disturbing sights and sounds of a world that very few non-Haitians will ever to experience first-hand.
From its sound to its presentation, this is as much scientific experimentation as it is something to vaguely consider music. The track titles and stark, back cover–that looks more like a lab report than an album cover–are indicative of a work that is heavily focused on conceptualism. For the most part, the experiments work taken out of context as compositions, with a few hang-ups along the way.
I'm always impressed by groups that can make a collection of distinct songs without changing much in the formula that composes each one. By sparing themselves a lot of the melancholy and slowed choruses inherent to dreamy guitar pop, Beach Fossils has made a sophomore record that feels emotionally charged without ever having to resort to gimmicks or overcompensation on mood or texture. At the core of each song is genuine pop, driven by a real desire to communicate ideas clearly.
Drawing on parapsychology, pseudoscience and good old fashioned dance music, the latest album from Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt is almost unimaginably good. Based around the Ganzfeld experiments in telepathy, in the spirit of The Marriage of True Minds, this review will consist of two parts. One, the regular review by me and the other an experiment by my wife who has not heard the album but has attempted to experience it by concentrating on my thoughts as I listened to the album on headphones.
While singing has frequently been part of Yoshi Wada’s other compositions, this is the first work of his to be released that dispenses with all other forms of instrumentation. Three male voices are all that is needed to create this intense and beautiful work captured during two performances in 1978. Combining the ultra modernism of the minimalist movement and ancient vocal traditions, Singing in Unison rivals any other modern vocal work I have heard thanks to its powerful mix of simple structures, complex harmonies and, above all, its emotional warmth.
Edward Ka-Spel's recent hot streak arguably takes a bit of a break with this release, but that is at least partially by design, given the Chemical Playschool series' role as a repository for indulgence, improvisation, experimentation, orphaned songs, and general weirdness.  The bulk of these lengthy pieces center around Ka-Spel's surreal, paranoid monologues and throbbing, synth-based space rock vamps, which can be quite compelling (and also disturbed-sounding).  The catch is that these lengthy not-quite-songs are not particularly well distilled, leaving the album's many high points embedded in quite a bit of meandering psychedelia.
Daniel Padden has always been a prickly, inscrutable, and unpredictable artist, equally capable of visionary brilliance and perplexing, inaccessible indulgence.  This latest effort is an especially perverse and puzzling one, as Padden takes his long-standing fascination with English and Eastern European folk music into more accessible, song-like, and vocal-centric territory.  It is an intermittently successful experiment, but The One Ensemble's greatest talents definitely lie elsewhere.
Compiling their vinyl debut and follow-up EP, this compilation captures the Chicago rock supergroup (made up of some of the city’s best known noise artists) honing and perfecting their surprisingly restrained and tuneful, but appropriately grandiose work.
For their second collaborative release (following Untitled 1-3), these two composers who work in very different, but musically complementary realms have created a single, 45 minute work that makes for the perfect blend of light and shadow, clear and haze, with the album artwork making for a perfect metaphor for the sound within.
