Jóhannsson's second installment of a series inspired by iconic American names is as dazzling and solemn as we have come to expect. Hopefully the final component won't refer to The Golden Arches.

This murky combination of raw electronics and mistreated guitar that knows when it’s time to roar, and time to just menace makes for a strong entry into the vinyl world for this relatively new project.  What a debut it is though, in an ambiguous letterpressed sleeve and heavyweight marbled vinyl.  Luckily, the quality of the music presented (a live session for WHPK radio) matches the packaging quite well.

Following their two other collaborations, Tinnitus Vu and Tocsin -6 Thru +2, here Z'EV initially began reworking tracks from the Organum back catalog, and then collaboratively with David Jackman, who then took it upon himself to finish.  What remains is characteristic of both artists' work, and is more reminiscent of Jackman's early work as opposed to his recent triptych of Sanctus/Amen/Omega.

The third album from Michael Begg and Deryk Thomas explores the moods and sounds of the witching hour: deep, dark chasms of sound littered with shimmering tones that dot the music like stars on a night sky. This album is good by day but playing it during the still, cold hours of early morning reveal a different hallucinatory creature. Instruments morph out of recognizable shapes into extended timbres and tones, voices call from somewhere beyond and an uneasy sorrow permeates the music.

After the critical success of last year's multi-disc fetish item recognizing Wolfgang Voigt's pioneering Gas project, Kompakt wastes little time in reissuing this less expansive, previously out-of-print collection of the producer's concurrent minimal techno works.

The promise of Fire on Fire's debut EP on Young God is easily met by their dream-like, somnambulistic follow-up. Less extravagant and aggressive than their previous effort, this Portland Maine-based quintet showcases their softer side with rich and mellow songwriting cut through by pining voices and twang-scored harmonies.

Montreal's Menace Ruine stormed onto the extreme music scene in early 2008 with their blistering debut Cult of Ruins. The enigmatic male/female duo's unusual mixture of black metal, noise, and dark ambient quickly won them a lot of fans (the world clearly needs an evil antipole to Mates of State), as they succeeded in sounding like absolutely no one else. A mere eight months later, they have made the dubious career move of temporarily abandoning much of that sound to release a medieval music-based concept album.

Guitarists Loren Connors and Jim O'Rourke have individually been fixtures on the experimental music scene for years. Yet their frequent collaborations throughout the past decade have resulted in only one release preceding this, a collection of three pieces hand-picked by O'Rourke from performances the duo made on tour in Europe in 1997.

Given Neil Campbell's musical track record, it may be surprising to hear him state that, "I don't take psychedelic drugs." With a penchant for experimentation, Campbell's hallucinogenically inclined pallet has been an important presence on the British side of the experimental pond for years now. Having left the rock-drone pursuits of Vibracathedral Orchestra in favor of his own unit, Campbell continues to explore levels of electronic catharsis on this album, which moves from techno-inspired ravers to drifting expanses of electrified psychedelia.

Masami Akita is deeply troubled by the rampant, unchecked growth of the Tasmanian Blue Gum tree in India. It seems there is a eucalyptus apocalypse brewing. Nay, a Eucalypse, and he has written an album about it, insomuch as a Merzbow album can plausibly be topical, anyway.

This EP is the third collaboration between British artist/filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood and the Pet Shop Boys. The trio seems to convene every five years or so to cover odd, semi-forgotten pop songs (they’ve previously tackled Serge Gainsbourg’s "Je T’aime…Moi Non Plus" and the uncomfortably sexual Donna Summer/Georgio Moroder disco smash "Love to Love You Baby"). This time around, they unearth a minor 1981 hit by obscure postpunk band The Passions. I am mystified as to how this wound up being released on Kompakt.

Tim Macuga and Dan Barrett's musical project is as much an ambitious and frustrating piece of conceptual art as it is a crushing and soaring rock record. Composed over a five year period, Deathconsciousness was produced with only the most basic equipment, is accompanied by a 70 page booklet describing a dead religion, and features cover art ripped right from Jacques-Louis David's overtly political masterpiece, La Mort de Marat. The music is excellent, but making sense of the rest of this monstrosity isn't easy.

Lucas Schleicher reviewed one of the other Merzbow releases this month, the collaboration with Richard Pinhas, Keio Line.  Also having that album, I listened to it and agreed with Lucas’ summation:  the balance of the two artists helped pull Akita out of his usual scraping noise and into something else entirely.  Anicca, on the other hand, is not so different or unique.  It’s sort of like a relative that you have fond childhood memories of, but once you visit them again, you realize they're sort of an asshole.

Although not overly prolific in his output, Andrew Moon has added another installment to Utech Records' URSK series which fits in to the ethos that the project has established:  a disc of dark, ominous drone with a slight edge of noise.  Considering there have been contributions from such scene titans as Skullflower and Final, RST holds their own, and is idiosyncratic enough to stand out among the throngs of guitar drone projects.

Up until this CD, SoiSong have been a shadowy presence, marked by rare concerts in Asia, special editions limited to one copy and password-protected Web sites. This confoundingly designed and packaged EP is the first above ground broadcast from the duo and, musically, things are as shadowy as their real life and online presence. Like any good collaboration between established artists, it is this combination of the familiar and unfamiliar that gives SoiSong part of its appeal.

Richard Dawson's work under this pseudonym is not far from the classic '70s Kosmische drone groups, there are certainly elements of Tangerine Dream in the glittering pulses of Seal-Skin Satellite. However, there is a more modern sheen to the electronics; the precise and sharp sounds that make up the details of this one track album are a world away from Dawson’s influences. The modernity luckily does not mean that the music falls into the trap of being cold and machine-like. Throughout the half an hour or so that this CD lasts, the sounds produced by Dawson are more like an artist's impression of travelling through the solar system.

The fifth solo album in Morgenstern's decade-long career marks a radical and somewhat bewildering departure from her previous releases. While her label claims she is "Berlin's queen of fragile and poetic electro-pop,"—and goes on to list a bunch of electronic acts she has done work with or for—nearly all electronics have been jettisoned from their central position and replaced with anachronistic piano-based rock.

Roel Meelkop is best-known as one-third of the long-standing (and arguably seminal) electro-acoustic improvisation ensemble Kapotte Muziek. He is also a member of THU20 and Goem and has worked with Merzbow, Thurston Moore, Asmus Tietchens, and many other experimental luminaries. This, his first release for Norway's zang:records, is a foray into high-concept sound-collages composed largely of field recordings.

Put out by a small Japanese label that apparently gets no minor thrill off disseminating deliberately obscure reissues, this kooky collection of leftfield funk showcases an artist too unknown to have the honor of being forgotten, begging the obvious question of whether such a set even needs to exist.

Wasting little time, Diana Rogerson is back with another album of unhinged and gloomy psychedelica. Aided this time by Andrew Liles, this album shows a marked difference to her previous releases. While some of the pieces are surprisingly accessible and (dare I say it) musical, the harder edges of this album are made of a far different material than the scratchy creepiness of Chrystal Belle Scrodd. This impressive album sees Rogerson shed the soft cocoon of A Bad Diana and bear her claws for the first time in ages.