Hampson released the exceptional Répercussions earlier this year, his first full length since 2008's Vectors. Now he has followed that up with two more albums, released simultaneously but presented separately. Even though he has become suddenly prolific, both albums are of the utmost quality, and have a distinctly different approach to sound between them.  And yes, fans of Loop and Main, there are guitars.

As the ambitious (and essential) reissue program by Die Stadt approaches conclusion, Tietchens' final release for Esplendor Geometrico's label, and last release of the 1980s, gets the expanded treatment. Heavily steeped in rhythmic loops and metallic reverb, it clearly shows the mark of his industrial period, but also of the abstract direction to come.

This EP is a taste of what to expect on their new album devoted to the theme of telepathy and psychic phenomena. I do not know whether Matmos actually buys the parapsychological theories that inspire the music but, like any of their conceptual experiments, they use the source material to think about their music in new ways. Some of it sounds undeniably like Matmos, but, as usual, they push themselves into novel situations with a long, complex vocal work which lines up with the peculiar subject matter perfectly.

As far as Natural Snow Buildings-related albums go, this sprawling reissue ranks as a pretty monumental and eagerly anticipated event.  Originally released in a crazily limited edition of only 22, this 2008 triple-album is one of the band's most ambitious, yet rarely heard, statements.  Given Mehdi and Solange's tireless evolution over the years, Night Coercion understandably lacks the sophistication and song-craft of their current work, but mostly compensates for those shortcomings with a potent mixture of primal power and sheer massiveness.

Ged Gengras has been a somewhat ubiquitous and integral figure in the LA music scene for the last several years, contributing his varied talents to artists as disparate as LA Vampires, Pocahaunted, and Sun Araw.  However, I did not know that he had a solo "modular techno" project and had I known, I probably would not have been terribly inclined to seek it out.  Consequently, I was completely blindsided by the massive and wonderful 20-minute opening song on this, his debut full-length.  The other two songs do not quite reach the same heights, but it does not matter much, as "Spontaneous Generation" is almost enough of a must-hear instant classic to carry the whole album.

Keith Rowe and Christian Wolff have been playing together since 1968, when Wolff first performed with AMM in the UK. Their history together goes back further, a part of the turbulent musical and political eddies set in motion by the New York School and Cornelius Cardew in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. But this performance, recorded live at NYC’s The Stone as part of Jon Abbey’s AMPLIFY 2011 festival, marks their first recorded appearance as a duo. It’s an inspired pairing. Together they produce quiet, sharp, and surprisingly gorgeous music that exemplifies the still radical ideas they started exploring over 40 years ago.

P16.D4 might not be an overly obscure name for those knowledgeable of the nascent industrial/experimental/noise scene of the early 1980s, but P16.D4 has not been as venerated as many contemporaries either. Monotype has jumped upon the opportunity to give this project the lavish retrospective release it deserves, and Passagen is just that: a deluxe six disc compilation of the band's output, with bonus tracks, and an additional DVD of mostly unseen videos and performance recordings.

With this split vinyl EP marking the final release of the late Hydra Head label, it almost seems fitting that it is the work of two artists who have embraced their own independence throughout their prolific careers. It also stands as a monument to change and evolution, with Justin Broadrick's re-embracing of his harsher past put alongside Dominick Fernow's recent surprising turn towards melody and ambience.

This CD consists of 16 HipHop tracks made by 5-10 year old children from Amber Charter Grade School in East Harlem, New York City.  The children write and improvise their own raps, play their own instruments, and program their own drum machine beats.  They named their own groups and created the cover art for the CD.  So why is this album credited to a middle-aged white guy named Dave Soldier?

After a night of hard drinking, I discovered by chance that Leaving Songs represents the mid-life hangover, figuratively as well as literally.  As my thinning hair turns noticeably greyer, the frank subject matter the Tindersticks frontman presents here hits home like a brick hurled through the window.

Uwe Schmidt's SenorCoconut project is probably his most popular incarnation. This 12" has3 versions of the Kraftwerk song 'Tour De France' and 2 versions of'Expo 2000'. All but one of the songs are unique to this 12". There isthe 'Merigue album version' of "Tour De France" taken from the 'ElBaile Aleman' CD. You get 2 more verions of the song here as well: the'Good groove's 501 Vocal mix' and the 'Good groove's 501 Instrumentalmix'. All three versions break out of the tight confines of the pretend'neo-Latin' music that the Kraftwerk cover record sticks to. This 12"is the only place you'll find his version of the recent Kraftwerk'comeback' song "Expo 2000". there are 2 versions here: the 'MamboOriginal' and the 'Mambo Instrumental'. Uwe Schmidt seems to excel atwhatever he does. A few weeks ago I heard the second Flanger CD he didalong with Burnt Friedman. Although I am not usually one for straightup jazz, that CD sounded crystal clean and somewhat unique in it'scombination of traditional jazz and modern electronics. I can't wait tohear his Erik Satin project, which I've heard is his EasyMusicdeconstruction act - kind of similiar to what Tipsy is doing.

Though the bright, streamlined bounce of first-track "Container of Drudgery(Never Had a Name)" seems to be crafted with almost excruciating precisionnext to last year's noise-saturated Fingerpainting, don't let the openingstrains fool ya. The Red Krayola's new six song EP eventually flexes andfractures into the same smattering of electronic chirps and indifferentlycolliding rhythms and melodies that characterizes their other recent DragCity releases. Midway through the album, the spastic rhythms and synthesizedsquawking and burping commence. These moments are capable of producing thefear and agony of one confined to a room filled with two-year-olds andFischer Price instruments. On "Is There," vocals, guitar, synthesizer, anddrums all seem to improvise playfully with only the occasional nod tosolidarity and structure. This isn't a problem in itself, but the samecryptic sing-song lyrics and compulsively spastic tapping that carry throughmost of The Red Krayola's albums now seem uninspired and more likely toinduce nervous twitching than appreciation. Yet when the fun and bluesyinstrumental "6-5-3 Blues" eventually breaks into chewy electronic twists,you can't help but feel the scattered moments of cohesion are worth (mostof) the disarray. The last two tracks maintain this balance with flair.While 'Blues, Hollers and Hellos' may not be The Red Krayola's best, the morevaried use of electronics makes up for some the inconsistency and you can'thelp but be grabbed when it's disparate elements come together just right.The slow "Magnificence as Such" rolls with cymbals and fuzzy, meanderingguitars while Mayo Thompson's wobbly croon, "Still it slays me when I touchmagnificence as such," may even produce pangs of tragedy and beauty in thosewho typically cringe. Yum.

samples:

• 
  
• 
  
• 6-5-3 Blues

Ulan Bator is a French avante art rock trio who apparently take theirname from the capitol of Mongolia. "Ego : Echo" is their third albumand it was for the most part spontaneously created during 3 weeks ofsessions last summer in Florence, Italy with producer and Young GodRecords head Michael Gira (SWANS, The Angels of Light). Ulan are allabout tight and minimal, tense and repetitive guitar/bass/drum rockgrooves - both noisy and subdued - as musical and (French) vocalpassages become hypnotic head noddin' mantras. Add organ, piano, bow,keys, horn, tape loops, electronic drone, 'la la la' styled backingvocals and Gira's dry, crisp, clean and full production. Comparisonsto Can, Faust (Jean Herve Peron contributes horns to 1 song), the BadSeeds and Gira's own projects is inevitable as everything is sparseyet beautifully melodic and the sound and feel is similar, at the veryleast, in spirit. The 16 minute centerpiece "Let Go Ego" in particularprovides the variety of most everything Ulan Bator do in one song withextensive stretches of drone, somnambulant sonic meandering, heavy rockout and lengthy coda chant. "Ego : Echo" is a dynamic rock record thatresonates with passion and a sense of straightforward urgency. It'sone of a handful of cool musical things lately from France and it fitsright in with the rest of the Young God catalog. Up next from YGR arealbums by Calla and Flux Information Sciences in January and the newAngels of Light album "How I Loved You" in February.

samples:

• Hemisphere
• Let Go Ego
• Soeur Violence

Can't say I'm terriblysurprised that a label run by the Autechre folks would put out an EPlike this. Team Doyobi's style is relatively remeniscent of an older,more squarish 4/4 beat-filled Autechre sound, yet the group exploresmore with melodic motives than Booth and Brown seemingly did back in"the day." The release is an eight track mini-lp stretchingapproximately a half hour. The music is enjoyable, bright and bouncey,with innovative usage of sampled and synthesized sounds tapping out themelodic rhythms. Fans of glitchy Mouse On Mars beat music willdefinitely be keen on this one as there's various video-game esquesamples and over-processed primitive sounding analogue syntheticstossed in to color the tunes. As good as it is, however, it's nice tohave it short and sweet. There's not an incredible amount of variety interms of tempo change and feeling between the different songs, sosomething like this would be a bit heavy to digest had it been twice aslong.

samples:

• Push Chairs for Grown Ups
• Kitten Development
• Spidermonkey

Following the energy fromthis year's spectacular full-length offering, "And then Nothing Turneditself,..." Yo La Tengo have come up with three pleasant newinstrumental gems. The group called all three songs Danelectro andcoupled them with a remix of each to round out the CD EP. A short butsweet hip-hop variation is brought to the table by somebody who goes bythe moniker of Q-Unique, while a rather intense jazzy cut, spliced andover-layered version has been treated by San Fran's Kit Clayton. Myfavorite however would be the 11+ minute electronic sunshinereinterpretation from Nobukazu Takemura. In my opinion, whileTakemura's work was in no way 'cut out' for him, he did have theprettiest source material to work with. While I'm fond of Yo La Tengo'sLPs and this EP, these songs might sound rather out of place on analbum from the group known for their vocal pop rock material. There'ssomething that's somewhat indescribable about the brightfulness of themelodies themselves, it's almost as if they possess a certain Holidayspirit. Perhaps this EP was intended to be a Christmas-type releasefrom the NY threesome. I'm not aware of this yet I'm not convincedotherwise.

samples:

• Danelectro 1 (Q-Feel mix)
• Danelectro 2 (Nobukazu Takemura mix)
• Danelectro 3 (Kit Clayton mix)

It's tough to try to talk about a release from the High Llamas without mentioning Stereolab, but when you've got Sean O'Hagen leading a chorus of girls singing pretty "la la"s combined with airborne melodies, loads of chimes and vintage organs, comparisons are as unavoidable as the moose standing in the middle of the highway as you barrel towards it at 65 miles per hour. I quite like this disc however.

Talk about variety, thesecond Echoboy album of the year once again follows a seeminglymulti-genre'd blueprint as Volume 1. Richard Warren, who goes by thename of Echoboy has gathered another ecclectic collection of nineself-recorded self-produced delves into audio experimental popinfluenced rock tunes. Whether it echoes early 80s electro pop a'laPeter Schilling's "Major Tom" or 90s analogue synth retro, Warren'senergy is fiery and relentless, his talent as a songwriter and musicianis undying. Some songs carry a feverish pulse, with a utilization ofguitars and vintage keyboard sounds not entirely unlike good oldSuicide or Trans Am. When the slower paced tunes creep through thespeakers, the music is never less saturated. The usage of variousorganic drums with electronic drum machines, guitar filters, bass linesand special effects . Echoboy's loved by critics and adored by collegeDJs all over the world, I assume because it seems like the guy's arabid music fan like the rest of us, and hasn't decided to make a'band' to only focus on one style. If I only had one complaint aboutEchoboy, it would be that this guy has way too many limited editionsingles and EPs of which many tracks will probably be lost, never tosee the light of day again. Brilliant asshole.

samples:

• Telstar Recovery
• Sudwestfunk
• High Pitch Needs

With a fondness of vintage analogue keyboards and rockin tunes is this defunct (?) Detroit duo. Herein lies 23 tracks recorded between 1996 and 1998, pulled from various out of print 12" and EP releases. Le Car's automobile has been retrofitted with analogue keyboards, but it drives quite smoothly and is exciting to show off.

This is the first release of DirkDresselhaus (schneider TM) since his 'Moist' full length was licenced for UK release by Mutefrom Germany's City Slang Records. He has made this 6 song mini-album in collaboration withKPT.michi.gan aka Michael Beckett (who usually joins schneiderTM as part of his live band),and Japanese artist Hanayo http://www.hanayo.com/ (her site has a lot of fun things tolook at). Hanayo is a very interesting person based on a look around her site. She provides thevocals (another first on any schneider TM release) on 2 songs" "Onnanoko" and "The Light3000", which is a cover of The Smiths song "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out". Prettyneat, huh? In fact it is. I loved the Moist album and I like this a lot too. The first song on eachside are busy instrumentals, the second song on each side are quiet instrumentals, and the lastsong on each side are the vocal tracks.

"Part of the 'Atom Series', a series of limited vinyl only releases by AtomicRecordings favourite new artists from around the globe" informs the website. Atomic Recordingsis a Belgium label, The Remote Viewer is a Leeds UK band formed by 2 ex-members of Hoodwho also used to record as The Famous Boyfriend. The music is 4 instrumentals that areelectronic and slightly somber in tone, kind of like an early morning/late night ISAN. AtomicRecordings was also associated with 'In The Fishtank', the series that released the collaborationbetween The Ex & Tortoise, and a Guvner disc as well. 'In The Fishtank' captures exclusiveAmsterdam recording sessions by touring bands. 'In The Fishtank' is run by their dutchdistribution company 'De Konkurrent' with Atomic Recordings taking care of the vinyl. TheRemote Viewer also have a new 12" out on Domino Records as part of their resusitated 'Series500' 12" line.