Inhabiting a murky, future-primitive electronic world akin to some of Coil's best work, Formication blends opaque ambient passages with mutated, unnatural rhythms that carefully straddle the line between formless chaos and repetitive, occasionally almost danceable beats.
![cover image](/brain/images/carlos_giffoni-adult_life.jpg)
![cover image](/brain/images/oceanpantheonofthelesser.jpg)
![](/brain/images/surfcity.jpg)
![](/brain/images/aidan_baker-iwishtoo.jpg)
![](/brain/images/herbst9-the_gods_are_small_birds_but_i_am_the_falcon.jpg)
![cover image](/brain/images/va-dfa_supersoul.jpg)
Christopher Leary combines beats with orchestral elements in this mostly airy and pleasant album. The songs are all solidly constructed and easy on the ears, but frequently lack distinction. Leary expresses a limited emotional palette on these compositions, and as a result the album is short on personality.
![](/brain/images/the_north_sea_rameses_iii-night_of_the_ankou.jpg)
![](/brain/images/black_devil_28after.jpg)
This disc, the first of two collaborative volumes, is the live studio seed of Hototogisu and Burning Star Core, and stands as tall as the best of their own work. Creating something beyond their usual repertoires, this five-tracker collaboration sees both acts oozing into one five-brained monster. These are not the usual furious black-outs or dolorous droning jeremiads of much underground collaboration.
On his first true solo follow-up to 2008's brilliant Black Sea, Christian Fennesz has once again presented a work of hazy, inviting brilliance. With the addition of percussion from Steven Hess on the title track, there’s an even greater sense of pop musicality shining through the more abstract moments.
This massive double-album was pretty much a dream commission for Simon Fisher Turner: being asked by the British Film Institute to score the restored footage from Robert Falcon Scott's doomed 1910 expedition to the South Pole.  Given the demands and difficulties involved (soundtracking endless silent footage of cavorting penguins, for example), I'd say Simon's efforts were hugely successful in regards to verisimilitude, ingenuity, subtlety, and creating an appropriately haunted and desolate mood.  When taken as a stand-alone album with no visual context, however, the long lulls between flashes of beauty and interludes of bittersweet whimsy can be a bit wearying.
This is Alec Koone's full-length debut and it is a feverishly anticipated one in many circles, as his 2010 EP (See Birds) boasted some pretty spectacular moments.  Wander/Wonder thankfully keeps most of elements that I love about Balam Acab's languorous, spectral soul intact, but takes a large leap forward in sophistication and ambitionl– in fact, quite a few people are already hailing it as one the year's best albums.  There are a couple of things that keep me from making that claim myself, but there is no denying that Koone is a goddamn wizard at what he does.
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma's Love Is A Stream was one of my favorite albums from last year, but somehow the fact that his Tarentel bandmate released a great solo album of his own slipped completely under my radar.  Curiously, the two albums could not be more different, as Grady almost completely eschews any hints of the languid post-rock experimentalism of his main gig in favor of more traditional acoustic fare informed by both West African kora music and Eastern-tinged acoustic guitar titans from the '70s folk scene.  Some of it sounds a bit too familiar to make much of an impact on me, but the album's high points are impressive enough to easily eclipse such moments.
Fans and critics have uncontrollable tendencies to place far too many expectations on something they had no expectations of to begin with. Think back to the first time you heard this Canadian collective: there was something about that very moment which COMMANDED your attention whether you care to admit it or not, even if you like the band or not. The sound was fresh and warmly welcomed, grand and overwhelming at times. Transcending a number of genres, there was little room for comparisons or classifications. They achieved something which my friend, Jeremy, of Temporary Residence considers a mark of success: people started comparing -other- things to them. There was something more, however—something almost indescribable and intangible—which started out like a small mystery and has built to a frenzied, inescapable force-field which surrounds this simple instrumental rock group. Godspeed certainly could share the blame of setting the winds in motion—perhaps due to the choices of samples and the use of symbols and messages tucked inside artwork or projected on the stage screens. Couple these with a feverish, caustic and sensational media, aching for a soundbyte to exploit or an individual to single out, and things can easily spin out of control.
![](/brain/images/blackdicebeaches.jpg)
samples:
![](/brain/images/iamspoonbendershown.jpg)
samples:
![](/brain/images/k2monotonous.jpg)
![](/brain/images/urbanrenewal.jpg)
samples:
- Diverse - Time
- Caural - Our Solstice Walk
- While - Haze-3