Aranos has always been reliably unpredictable and this strange, disorienting, and difficult new album will do nothing to dispel that perception. It begins as a cerebral drone work, but Surrounded by Hermits gradually escalates (degenerates?) into Dadaist cabaret, absurdist noise, and mischievous buffoonery with characteristic anarchic glee.

This collaboration between the English double bassist and one of my favorite drummers is superb. While Corsano rarely disappoints, when he is matched by a player who is equally as inventive and fluid then things heat up nicely. Edwards puts his immense experience to full use during this album, the two players sparking off each other to create music with enormous clout. Tsktsking is repeatedly brilliant, all four pieces showing that these two musicians are at the top of their respective games.

The only full-length album from this London based trio has been high on my needs-a-CD-reissue list for years. Originally released in 1988 on the Mute subsidiary Product Inc., this abrasive and unapologetic stew of noise rock, punk, and reggae is a vibrant and flawless classic that sounds as peerless now as it did 21 years ago.

Important Records describes this seventh(!) solo album by Grails/Om drummer Emil Amos as “going toe to toe with Roger Waters in the race to become the most bitter songwriter in the world”, but I don’t quite see it (too bad, as I love bitterness).  Instead, it seems like an exuberant and odd (though sometimes surprisingly successful) collision between existentialist introversion and the virile extroversion of the best classic rock.

This large box of vinyl collects up tons of odds and ends from the Nurse With Wound archive years and it is a considerably good collection of Steven Stapleton’s earliest sonic explorations. The hours of material included here cover all the tape collections, compilation tracks and live recordings that have been out of print for years (decades in most cases). It goes without saying that this is a treasure trove for anyone like me who looks at those rare recordings for sale online, looks in their wallet and sighs with resignation that those recordings will go to someone else. With superb sound quality and a decadent presentation (well, red velour), it is an absolute goldmine of classic recordings and I simply cannot get enough of it.

Emily Jane White’s melancholy and dusty Americana is an unexpected surprise on a label that is better known for being home to acts like Merzbow and Acid Mothers Temple, but it was easy to see why Important Records wanted to put this out once I heard it.  Dark Undercoat is an often powerful and mesmerizing debut.

On the surface, it seems odd that this album would be put out by Taylor Deupree’s 12k label, one that is known for its challenging, often esoteric, output of heady clinical electronic sounds.  Small Color is a band that leans far more into the realms of pop than expected from the label.  However, by putting this album in the context of the label’s discography, it both shows that 12k does not want to be pigeonholed and that there is far more going on with this band than only pop sounds:  there’s a world of complexity that fits right in on the roster.

Fjordne’s fourth album is a warm and evocative plunge into glitchy, immersive ambiance that is (very) loosely inspired by Dazai Osamu’s novel of the same name.  While certainly reminiscent of artists like Chihei Hatakeyama in tone, the density, invention, and experimentation on display here make The Setting Sun rather a unique and beguiling entity.

It is difficult to avoid being moved by the four years of hard work, love, and tireless enthusiasm that Stéphane Grégoire has poured into assembling this globe-spanning homage to the music of Coil, but I have to admit that it completely subverted my expectations in many ways.  The Dark Age of Love is a deeply curious and oft-excellent album, but it is also a surprisingly tame one (given its inherently aberrant inspiration).

Pure wildness is a difficult aesthetic to grasp. In rock, attempts to evoke it often devolve into tribal kitsch. On their sixth album, OOIOO negotiates that subtle distinction with skill and integrity. Despite some lapses into tedium, the band remains impressive, both in natural musicianship and in the complete absurdity of their art. Armonico Hewa satisfies and frustrates in equal measure and ends up succeeding by blurring the difference.

Borrowing their name from the famously disturbed German surrealist/girlfriend and inspiration to Hans Bellmer, Stephen Thrower's first collaboration with experimental guitarist Daniel Knight (Arkkon/Shock Headed Peters) is a challenging and hallucinatory plunge into claustrophobic dread that shares stylistic territory with Thrower's own Cyclobe and (to a lesser extent) his former Coil band mates' late-period ambient work.

Supergroups rarely turn out to be all that super but when The Hidden Hand/Saint Vitus’ Wino, Om’s Al Cisneros, Neurosis’ Scott Kelly and Dale Crover of the Melvins announce that they are making an album together, it is hard not to be expectant of an earth-shattering collection of songs. While they are not earth-shattering, the pieces on this album certainly shake the patch of ground around my stereo. Shrinebuilder’s debut is by no means the best thing any of them have put their names to but the promise of something bigger lurks behind each of the songs featured here.

As the fourth in their long standing domestic activity collaboration series, Marhaug’s harsh noise penchant meets Ratkje’s nuanced and bizarre collaborative techniques to create an album of random cutup sounds, occasional harsh noise blasts, and everything plus the kitchen sink instrumentation that rivals the absurdity of the Schimpfluch Gruppe crew in the best possible way.

Some nine years into this millennium, this former Wire member has released his first album's worth of new material (Ordier was technically an archival release from 1996) just as the decade winds down and another begins anew.  Here the sound harkens back more towards his earlier work for dance and installations rather than the full force electronic noise of In Esse or the more electronica based sounds of Ab Ovo.

The idea of a journalist throwing a hat into the music creation and distribution business makes peers and fans alike cringe concerning the possibilities. Often the results are disastrous and quickly forgotten, yet here we stand face-to-face with Steve Lowenthal’s attempt at curating a series of acoustic guitar-based albums. Cleveland’s own Mark McGuire, renowned the synth world over for his work in Emeralds, is given a new and unique platform through VDSQ to show a different side of his creativity, and Solo Guitar Volume Two accomplishes just that.

For almost a quarter-century, Boredoms defined eclectic. Little said about them would hold up a few albums later.  The band dashed expectations in a way that made even failed experiments seem exciting.  Whatever they did, they did it weird; their genuine oddness was the thread that ran through their entire carrier. With their new EP, Super Roots 10, Boredoms break that tradition by relying on remixes to elevate weaker source material.

It seems that there has been a recent surge of interest in experimental music coming out of the People’s Republic of China in recent months, perhaps culminating in the recent Sub Rosa compilation that John Kealy expertly covered here on Brainwashed.  Now, the diffusion is taking place, and artists like Li Jianhong (one half of VagusNerve) and Torturing Nurse are making strides into the global experimental and noise scenes.  The venerable Utech label is mining this fertile ground with the new Shokyo Ontei series of albums, which begins here.

Lasse Marhaug’s Pica Disk label is shaping up to be a powerful force in the world of noise.  In the spirit of this year’s sprawling Incapacitants Box is Stupid collection, here the work of Yasutoshi Yoshida is compiled from rare tapes and CDRs, along with a nice smattering of previously unreleased tracks.  It is a chance to hear the development of one of the modern titans of Japanese noise.

In 1973, Gary Higgins and his friends recorded Red Hash, an album that (completely unbeknownst to him) gradually became hailed as a lost psych-folk classic.  More than three decades later, he returned to the studio to record this follow-up.  The result is most definitely not another minor masterpiece, but it certainly is strange and memorable nonetheless (though often not for the right reasons).

Without doubt, this is the best rendition of Erik Satie’s marathon piano piece to surface. Performed last year in Brussels by Stephane Ginsburgh on Satie’s own piano, this is beautifully recorded extract from the mammoth work is breathtaking. Listening to this in the still of the night is anything but vexating. The calm, contemplative music brings about feelings of bliss and by the end of the recording it is difficult to be annoyed about anything.