In his March 3rd interview with Ibiza Voice, Martin Müller proudly lists the synths, drum machines, and effects units he used to make Behind, his first album without youANDme partner Daniel Stroeter. Among others, he names: the Waldorf Microwave 1 and Roland Alpha Juno 2, the TR-808 and TR-909, the Jomox Xbase 888, a Verona DRM, a Moogerfooger, a Sherman Filterbank, and various other resonators, compressors, and equalizers. He loves his gear, and every song on Behind begins and ends with it. Whatever the results— jet black Detroit house, dub, ambient noise, or some other variety of electronic music— Martin’s machines matter most. Everything else comes second.

This new album continues the trend of Michael Page's 2012 album, There I Saw the Grey Wolf Gaping, balancing massive, epic length pieces with shorter ones and a slew of diverse collaborators (Nocturnal Emissions, Vomit Arsonist, Slogun, and others) to push his work even further into its own unique, esoteric sonic space.

Mixing old with new both in technology and imagery, Montreal's Aun (Martin Dumais and Julie Leblanc) capture the audio aesthetic of time worn 1970s low budget sci fi film soundtracks via a malfunctioning TV, sometimes erring into abrasive territories, and other times coming across like lost four track Tangerine Dream demos rotting in an attic. Modern MIDI equipment clashes with unreliable analog technologies to produce a sound that is as retro sounding as it is innovative.

Sachiko has been involved in the Japanese music scene since the late 1980s, but recent releases have shown a growing sense of experimentation that is as beautiful as it is dark, quite often within the same composition, such as on Loka in the Black Ship. Sometimes delicate, sometimes harsh, but never forgettable, it is a high point in a strong run of solo and collaborative records.

On the second solo release from Shane Broderick (of the delightfully juvenile and inappropriate Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck), there is a sense of developing composition and maturity to be had, mixing his harsh noise and power electronic tendencies with more of a dark ambient sensibility. Paired with the Dutch project on the other side of the 10" going for a death industrial/Cold Meat Industries throwback sound, there is a great old school noise sensibility to be had on here.

For the debut recording under the Innode moniker, Stefan Németh works closely with exceptional drummers Steven Hess and Bernhard Breuer on this conceptual album that intentionally juxtaposes human imposed rhythms (both programmed and played) with live and machine generated improvisations. The result is a compelling, synthetic heavy sound, that especially hits its stride on the B side that transitions from conceptual sound to engaging music.

Low's newest record represents, as many past releases do for the band, an intentional and successful return to past ideas. As a listener more entrenched in their early material, this record was a welcome and familiar return to a form I recognized. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker (along with Steve Garrington this time) have decided to craft The Invisible Way with a serious emphasis on empty space and atmosphere by way of Jeff Tweedy, handling production duties, and elevate the subtle country influences of much of their work to the foreground. This is a gorgeous, glacial record that tempts tearful choruses at each slow turn.

Kinski's first record in a few years sounds like a good band stuck between two polar opposite sides of their own creative influences. This time around, they lean heavy on grungy punk rock and fast tempos, leaving much of the slower bits to stagnate. The guitar work, whose slow burn melodies always seemed like a savvy subversion of their normally intended purpose, are played straight for most of the songs to compliment the lyrics. While this is definitely a new direction for the band, it is hard to say if it will be embraced by fans who preferred these elements more subtly.

Situated right in the middle of West Africa's musical hotbed (Ghana and Nigeria are close neighbors), the country of Burkina Faso has remained relatively unanthologized thus far, a situation that Analog Africa's Samy Ben Redjeb decided to remedy after hearing Amadou Ballaké's "Renouveau."  Unfortunately, Ballaké was not exactly the tip of a great iceberg of undiscovered brilliance–he was very nearly the entire damn iceberg.  That said, there are definitely a few other good songs by other artists on Bambara Mystic Soul, but almost half of the album is consumed by Ballaké and he is very much the star of the show (deservedly).

The 49 Americans were a collision of proficient, working musicians and enthusiastic amateurs, one of many projects in the often improvised history of the London Musicians Collective. The inspired, thoughtful, jaunty tunefulness of We Know Nonsense is partly inspired by Julie Andrews.

On this terse (ten minutes exactly) little 7" single, Canada's master of harsh noise walls indulges in his sonic obsessions once again. Sam McKinlay proves that for a style associated with monochromatic approaches, there is much more to be explored, even if edges just so slightly into uncomfortable.

As an artist, Kirkegaard has made it his focus to create art that is as disconnected from emotion or traditional musicality as possible. Which makes the premise for this album all the more compelling: two of his previous works are rearranged and presented using classical instrumentation by the Scenatet ensemble. The resulting work is much more akin to his initial compositions than a traditional classical recording.

Acting as its title would indicate as a bridge between their debut work, Shizuku, and an upcoming second effort, Interstices is a mix of improvisations, sketches, and experimentation that was all captured live. It does not come across as a taut, conceptual album focused on composition, nor is it consistently random or unfocused. Instead it is a slow drift through experimentation and improvisation that at times feels a bit random, but comes together quite well.

There are certainly a number of fine labels currently trawling record bins in Jamaica, Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia in search of great lost, unheard, or forgotten music, but Soundway compilations (particularly the African ones) are almost always my favorites.  The reason for that is quite simple: Miles Cleret and his collaborators are especially adept at 1.) knowing a great song when they hear it,  and 2.) making damn sure that there are a number of such songs on every single collection they release.  Unsurprisingly, Kenya Special continues that hot streak, being every bit as essential as their classic Ghana and Nigeria collections.

To the casual observer, it probably seems like either Edward Ka-Spel or The Legendary Pink Dots release (or re-release) an album just about every other week these days, but there has not actually been a major new LPD album since 2010's oft-brilliant Seconds Late for the Brighton Line.  While The Gethsemane Option does not quite measure up to that illustrious predecessor, it still boasts enough high points to make serious fans fairly happy.  Less serious fans probably only need to hear a few of the better pieces, but it is clear that Ka-Spel and company set out to deliver a coherent, deliberately sequenced album-sized dose of their signature skewed psychedelia and that its shortcomings are mostly the result of over-ambition.

No one could ever say that the short-lived late '70s/early '80s minimal wave scene had a shortage of weirdos or eccentrics, categories in which this Philadelphia trio were prize specimens.  Fortunately, they were also kind of brilliant and have been remarkably influential for a band that only managed to release seven songs before breaking up.  While their more unhinged debut 7"certainly had its moments, this 1981 EP contains their two most enduring classics.

As the solo guise of Eric Hardiman, Rambutan is a more distilled abstraction of the psych tendencies he demonstrates in the rock-oriented Century Plants and improvisational quartet Twilight of the Century. Here, on his first full-length foray into the world of vinyl, he delivers an extremely diverse and polished work, bringing in elements from his other projects while still retaining his own personal sound and approach to music.

Piotrowicz's previous works have been heavily focused on his use of analog modular synthesizers, vacillating between the realms of pure noise and serious, contemplative electro acoustic compositions. On this album, however, his output demonstrates a distinctly different direction. As a whole it is lighter and more spacious, but never does it lack in its dramatic, heavier moments.

Synthpop pioneer Thomas Leer may have flirted with mainstream success in the '80s as one-half of Act (with Propaganda's Claudia Brücken), but he definitely traveled in some weirder circles as a young man, resulting in some rather interesting early career decisions.  For example, he followed his poppy and ground-breaking 1978 debut single ("Private Plane") with this full-length 1979 collaboration with aberrant fellow Scottish émigré Robert Rental on Throbbing Gristle's decidedly non-hit-minded Industrial Records.  While The Bridge has since faded into relative obscurity, both Leer and Rental were very influential figures at the time and several of these songs still sound wonderful and unique today.

One of the great tragedies of being an experimental music fan is knowing that there was a mountain of great albums released during the cassette underground's '80s heyday that I will probably never hear.  Fortunately, this 1987 cassette (originally released on Germany's Cthulhu Records) has managed to escape obscurity through the efforts of a few great blogs and The Skaters' Spencer Clark, who has just reissued it on vinyl.  Vox Populi! are probably best known in the US for their 1989 split with HNAS, but their thoughtfully composed mixture of eerie ambient psychedelia and Persian folk could not be much further from Christoph Heemann's Dada-inspired lunacy.  I am utterly baffled as to how this band has managed to remain such a secret, as they were significantly more compelling and inventive than many of their better-known '80s contemporaries.