I think it is finally safe to say that I do not understand Dominick Fernow at all, as I am completely mystified as to: 1.) why this was released as a Prurient album, and 2.) how it somehow managed to avoid release for two long years (given Fernow's singularly relentless release schedule). Although it was recorded at the same time as 2011's  excellent (but polarizing) Bermuda Drain, Through the Window dispenses with noise almost entirely to indulge a somewhat misguided fascination with house techno.  The result is undeniably more accessible than everything else recorded under the Prurient banner, but accessibility is not what I am generally hoping for with Prurient and these songs are significantly less compelling than Fernow's other dance flirtations with Cold Cave and Vatican Shadow.
Benoit Pioulard's latest release makes a subdued, melancholy journey through watery pop. Peerless at his best moments, Hymnal is very nearly nothing but, showcasing a keenness for murky left-field songwriting that ought to go nowhere. Yet it all feels very direct and focused, very familial. Thomas Meluch probes discomfort, harmony, and unique production techniques to assemble music which flows naturally even if it takes no easy path to be heard.
On this dense little 7" from the Norwegian quintet of guitar, bass, drums, synth and tuba, one half of the improvisations make for a slow burning pandemonium, while the other removes all barriers and just freaks out, with both songs excelling in their attempts. It is sloppy, noisy, and insane, which is the best possible outcome for this sort of work.
Nostalgia, and catering to it, can be a dangerous thing. There are of course exceptions, such as the recent Swans tours and albums and Wire's own reappearance in the early part of the 2000s, but too often it is fraught with artists clinging shamefully to old glories with little artistic merit. Which is one of the things that makes this ostensibly new Wire album somewhat hard to peg down. Building upon material that was previously performed live, but overall unfinished from the post-154, pre-first breakup era, Change Becomes Us builds itself upon these and puts a Bruce Gilbert-less sheen to everything, with mixed results.
The material contained within this three disc compilation makes for a point of controversy in the noise and power electronics scene over 30 years since it first appeared. Some of Maurizio Bianchi's earliest material was sent to William Bennett's Come Organisation label for release. Before it finally appeared, the material was overlaid with Nazi propaganda speeches, and Bianchi was credited as Leibstandarte SS MB. Bianchi claimed it was done without his consent, while Bennett's contention was that it was how the albums were intended to be released and it was Bianchi's religious conversion soon after their release that triggered his dissatisfaction with the release. Regardless of the history, the resulting material is a mostly strong entry in Bianchi's early catalog.
For better or worse, this limited-edition vinyl release continues Important's tireless recent string of ultra-minimal drone albums.  Recorded over the course of several very late nights spent with his newborn daughter back in 2011, Lonely Women's Club is about minimal as it gets, essentially amounting to 40 minutes of one-chord organ drone with only the subtlest of variations.  While it is enjoyable for what it is, it definitely seems like the sort of album that several dozen other artists could have made, making it a somewhat exasperating effort for someone as talented as English.
Ba Da Bing are clearly not ones to shy away from massive undertakings, following last year's 4LP Night Coercion into the Company of Witches reissue with yet another quadruple LP.  2008's The Snowbringer Cult was a monumental album for Natural Snow Buildings at the time of its release, as it was their first effort that was not available only as a hyper-limited cassette or CDr.  As such, it was many people's first exposure to the duo and Mehdi and Solange definitely set out to make it count, packing it with just about every single possible facet of their sound.  That "kitchen sink" approach does not make for the most listenable whole, but Snowbringer is not lacking in sustained stretches of absolute, otherworldly brilliance.
Capping off Robert Hampson's impressive return to activity with three recent solo releases on the Editions Mego, he has now officially resurrected the Main moniker, here in partnership with Stephan Mathieu. Ablation is consistent with the recent Hampson solo albums, but feels like a natural extension to the more abstract previous Main material, making for an appropriate new phase in the project's trajectory.
Having been active for over a decade and a half, Stephen Petrus' Murderous Vision alter ego has been a pillar in the US death industrial scene, creating a body of work that captures the essence of the likes of Brighter Death Now or Anenzephalia, but sounding completely original. Perhaps it is the fact that the material is not coming from the central European region but home grown out of Ohio, which is in itself a distinct industrial wasteland.
These two compilations highlight some of the lesser-known composers who have worked at the Groupe de Recherches Musicale (GRM) in Paris. The first volume charts some of the obscurities of the 1960s while the second volume concentrates on works from the 1970s. Taken together, the Traces collections are a fascinating parallel to the reissues of major GRM albums that Recollection GRM have been doing, showing that equally maverick work was been done by names less familiar than Pierre Schaeffer or Luc Ferrari.
It may be that hearing metal means something different than hearing music. Like the Constantin Brâncuși sculpture to which its subtitle refers, Michael Pisaro's Hearing Metal 2 subsists more in the grain and shape of its materials and less in the will of its author. It is composed and performed, and has a beginning and an ending, but it doesn't move from left to right like a song. It feels and sounds more like a space that I can walk through, my position and my frame of mind determining how—and what—I hear.
It has been quite a while since Swanson's last major statement (2011's Man With Potential) and that situation that has not been changed by the release of this 4-song EP (which is only slightly longer than last year's excellent Pro Style 12" single).  Punk Authority shows some very promising evolution though, ingeniously tweaking Pete's love of thumping four-on-the-floor beats while significantly cranking up the punishing brutality.  In theory, that should make for yet another great Pete Swanson release (and it arguably does), but the content is not always on the same level as the leap forward in style, making this EP sometimes feel comparatively bloated and light on hooks.
Important Records keeps their recent string of excellent minimal drone albums intact with this long-neglected gem from the distant past.  Originally released back in 1970 as Was?? on a split with psych legend Bo Anders Persson (Pärson Sound), What?? has woefully only re-surfaced once in the ensuing four decades (in 1997 on Jim O'Rourke and David Grubbs' Dexter's Cigar imprint).  While it sounds quite contemporary today, I cannot begin to imagine how it was originally received, as it is essentially nothing less than an uncomfortably dissonant rejection of nearly every major aspect of Western music (composed at the height of rock's supremacy, no less).
Is there such a term for a Catch-22 with a Catch-22? One of the massive upsides to recording music in the current age is the ability to affordably multi-track in real-time. Studio time and money isn't burned in a studio recording demos and soon-to-be outtakes. Waste is decreased, or is it? Are those first versions unimportant artifacts? Is the final product any better because it was practiced less? As a fan of the Shadow Weaver albums these two collections are an exciting special treat, but I doubt any of these songs would have made a mix tape of mine for an LPD newbie 20 years ago.
The perfect blending of rhythms, effects, and an oddly bucolic ambiance characterize Scientist's 1980 debut, an effortless masterwork of dub which very nearly earns its self-aggrandizing title in addition to exemplifying why Hopeton Brown was bestowed such an accurate moniker. Nearly all bass and drums plus studio wizardry and scarce half-choruses of organ or guitar, Scientist intimates the future of electronic music to an unsuspecting public in two minute servings, with groundbreaking restraint.
For every stubborn fan who thinks their best period ended with LP5, there are plenty of others who have found something to love in Autechre's post-Confield run. Expectations and ideas about what Autechre should sound like aside, there's actually plenty there to love. But Exai is one of their best albums, period. Forget about their past work. Without the shadow of Tri Repetae hanging over them, these 17 songs prove to be among the most hypnotizing and dynamic the duo has ever made.
When Luc Ferrari first presented Presque Rien No. 1: Le Lever du Jour au Bord de la Mer (Almost Nothing No. 1: Daybreak at the Seashore) to his colleagues at the GRM, it caused quite a stir. Ironically for such adventurous experimenters in sound, Presque Rien was both too far away from music and too far away from the main principles of musique concrète. However, the four segments of Presque Rien represent some of the most exciting ideas and sounds in the history of electronic music. It goes far beyond an interesting experiment to being a landmark piece of composition whose effects are still reverberating today.
An improvisation for just electric guitar and drums, this album comes together as far more than the sum of its parts, due to Gregoretti's often unconventional, yet solid drumming and di Placido's liberal definition of guitar playing. It most certainly makes for an exhausting release as it rarely drops in intensity, resulting in a chaotic, yet fascinating album.
This unusual split is basically just an excuse to release a handful of lost songs from around the time of Dead C's Eusa Kills album (1989), but that is just fine by me (particularly since I like Rangda too).  It is an inspired pairing for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that the two bands could not possibly sound more wildly different: the Rangda half sounds like a trio of skilled musicians intuitively improvising together, while the Dead C half is an endearingly shambling mess.  Despite that yawning stylistic chasm (and a two decade span between the sessions), both bands offer at least one song that beautifully highlights what they do best.
This is the debut release by Disappears' Brian Case and White/Light's Jeremy Lemos and it is a hugely promising one, deftly mixing together propulsive post-punk, electronic noise, industrial rhythms, and Case's wonderfully deadpan drawl to create something thoroughly bad-ass and charismatic.  Unfortunately, the duo's initial creative flurry seems to have yielded very few real songs, making this "mini-album" feel an awful lot like an awesome single with a handful of less-inspired bonus tracks tacked on.
