This is a better successor to Coco Rosie's La Maison de Mon Reve than Noah's Ark, with similar gloomy smoke and theatrical mirrors allied to louder bursts of percussion and fuzzy, metallic guitar. As with La Maison a poignancy emerges from an imitation of the passage of time, like the sound of a woman singing as she mends clocks.

I’ve always had a thing for 33 rpm 7" singles, it's probably something to do with the wilful misuse of the cheeky chappy pop format. Here Dominick Fernow aka Prurient joins Richard Dunn of F.F.H. (not to be confused with the Christian band of the same name) and Drums of Myrrh’s Joe Potts in the forced mating of black metallicisms and walls of no-fi noise.

Randy H.Y. Yau and Kazumoto Endo of Killer Bug fame united on this album in an effort to fulfill Yau's vision of "action concrète." Conceptual attempts at changing what a particular genre does to the listener scare me; they tend towards academic efforts, dull attempts at revolutionizing what music is and can do. Strangely enough, this album forced me to reconsider noise, performance, and what exactly sound "should" do-in other words, it actually changed me in some way.

Described as a band that were overlooked and way ahead of their time, Space Needle sounds just like every band that never made it big but should have. This collection of recordings show that they were a talented bunch but if these songs are anything to go by, they are not all the hype makes them out to be.

Mysterious, east European gypsies get together with crazy, German, acid eating Can fans only to allow some guy with an accordion into the party. This guy, Alec K. Redfearn, happens to be pretty sharp with the old squeeze box and he brings a couple of friends to stomp, shout, and holler beside him. With horns, violins, glockenspiel, and the kitchen sink in tow, this motley crew cranks out some righteous tunes with caustic bravado and surreptitious sensuality.

Darsombra is Brian Daniloski who is better known as a member of Meatjack. This solo project is a big step away from the sludgy blasts of metal that Meatjack produce. Ecdysis still showcases huge overdriven guitars but there’s no chugging. Instead Daniloski creates atmospheric drones and riffs and combines them with tape collages of voices and noise.

With some band members formerly of Deerhoof, one from Xiu Xiu, and a drummer who’s played with John Zorn, Tom Waits, and Fred Frith, such a pedigree carries high expectations for 7 Year Rabbit Cycle’s third album. Too bad, then, that it falls a little short. There are some fine moments, but too frequently their ideas seem to lack vitality and inspiration.

Forced dramatic line after faux energetic riff mar Ladyhawk's debut from beginning to end. Their proclaimed influences all catch up with them as the disc moves along, promising plenty but eventually crashing in a blur of warn out conventions and over-cooked clichés.

This CD-R by Papercut has moments of brilliance amid stretches of standard, by the book noise. By no means is it a masterpiece of noise but it's not a lazy effort by anyone's standards. There are enough shades of detail to make this a rewarding listen even if it won’t light the world on fire.

This remix collection assembles an improbable group of producers and musicians to deconstruct and rearrange songs from the Knut back catalog. Justin Broadrick, Dälek, Mick Harris, and Oren Ambarchi are among those who are along for the ride.

Getting the reissue treatment is this solo album by Tom Carter of Charalambides. Dedicated to the friends and times he left behind in Austin, these are the last recordings he made before his move to the West Coast. By improvising with a different type of guitar on each of the three tracks, Carter explores the limits of each instrument while evoking the heat, pace, and vastness of Texas itself.

Apparently recorded on a Canal Street rooftop in New York, this double disc set documents the No-Neck Blues Band's first ever Orthodox Easter concert in 1996, an event they've repeated every year since. The group's tribal rhythms and crackling electronics have little to do with the Savior, though, and more to do with the strange world they create on their own.

Kid 606 has once again maintained his distance from glitchy cut-up breakcore that so many still assume he still records and has come out with fantastic results. Unlike last year's subdued, melody-heavy Resilience, Pretty Girls is a brilliant 4/4 techno homage, both worthy of the tireless movement from a sweaty night club and a perfectly blastable summertime album.

Despite playing and recording with various groups for nearly ten years this is the first solo release by Norway’s Thomas Strønen. It is a fine way to start a long overdue solo career. Pohlitz is a delightful album focussed mainly on Strønen’s speciality of hitting unusual objects with drumsticks.

For Todd Drootin the commonly held belief that most band's earlier records are better than their later ones must hold true. Dinosaur Dinosaur is a fun record, one that I still listen to; Throw Down Your Laptops surpasses it on every level, however. It's not just a better record and a better place to start with Books on Tape, it actually manages to make sense of the term "beatpunk."

With Six Organs of Admittance, Ben Chasny has orchestrated both guitar-themed and noise-based releases, and on the latest masterpiece he has split the album in half with six bright, guitar heavy songs on one side and a single, deep, dark, and sprawling drone-based song on the other.

Niblock makes drones that, even at low volumes, fill the entire room. At more appropriate volumes the drones replace the room with a thick goo of sound. This three disc album is intimidating to say the least. It is a fulfilling and gratifying endurance test to listen to it all the way through.

Reverence is a powerful force that shapes the way we hear music. Matmos' most recent record channeled that force and constructed new music for outsiders and artists of strange history. Ekkehard Ehlers' approach is different; if the past haunts the present, it is evident in how this music sounds, not in how it was created. The deep dark blues are alive and well, swelling up in new places, but telling a hauntingly familiar story.

I would be lying if I didn't say that Mojave 3's fifth album was immediately met with a whole lot of trepidation, however, a few songs into the record I found myself bebopping to Neil Halstead and co's most upbeat release ever.

This deluxe 5xCD set acts both as a box for collectors wanting some restored concert recordings and a fantastic archive of Wire's 1970s studio albums all in one place for those who might not own them already. While the covers are artfully restored, the accompanying booklet is immaculate, and the mastering is stunning, it doesn't make the 1995 Japanese CDs nor the Behind the Curtain release obsolete (yet).