Part three of nine in the Ache Div/orce split seven inch series is, aspromised, a strange meeting between two groups that are already strangeenough. Despite the juxtaposition in sound, this split made me wonderwhat the two songs might share and, unsurprisingly, it's the spirit ofthese two songs that comes across has being most common and important.

Esmerine are an outfit for the end of the world: their songs arepowerful meditations on loss, pain, and dread. At their core are BeckieFoon (A Silver Mt. Zion) and Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You Black Emperor!and Set Fire to Flames). Their second album, Aurora,is the black smoke that arises from the rubble. Here, bleak orchestralmovements slowly build to breathtaking conclusions, such as on theopener "Quelques Mots Pleins D'Ombre," where pulsating cellos gatherforce and speed, culminating in a few brief moments of controlled furyon top of a barrage of drums, bass, and piano.

Oneida's gaze is fixed firmly on the 1970s, but rather then being allawash in overblown solos and misguided mythology, theirs is anall-encompassing view, surveying both the well known and the obscure."Lavender," with its insistent kick-drum and anthemic guitar heroics,is Oneida's call to arms with Kid Millions spouting off nonsense aboutlavender on winter days and braiding pubic hairs.

I Thought I Was Over That not only comes off the heels of a successful LP and tour, but the tracks included are of a varied enough nature to please devoted fans who missed a single here or there and curious newbies alike.

Elliott Sharp may be a very unlikely collaborator for Merzbow's MasamiAkita, but that's part of this CD's interest... and ultimately itsfailure, though the meeting is intriguing, even when it falls on itsface. Tranz is structured in a way similar to many of Merzbow'sother collaborative albums: two tracks are composed by Merzbow usingSharp's sounds as source material, and two by Sharp using Merzbow'ssounds.

NYC multi-instrumentalist Adam Pierce's Obrigado Saudadewas one of my favorite discs of last year; a most splendid mixture ofpop, jazz and Brazilian-inspired musics crafted with catchy hooks,memorable melodies and cool beats of various time signatures. What waseven more impressive was that Pierce hadn't relied on many guests topull off this recording, yet the performances are totally tight fromstart to finish.

Everything on this record screams of biological energy; the music casts a shadow over the room the second it begins and, as it continues, strange flora begins to bloom from it left and right. Lee Norris' work in Metamatics has little to do with this more abstract moniker and it's of little surprise that the Lampse label has decided to make Septs Vents its inaugural release.

They wear silly costumes onstage, are unabashedly sweet and sugary,utilize an arsenal of childish instruments (recorders, xylophones,possibly a Flintstone Phone), and basically make any of their fuzz popforebears look like Mayhem.

Recorded way back in 1999, Gruntsplatter's Pest Maiden7" and cassette release may not have made much of an impact on thenoise-loving public (perhaps due the limited nature of its release),but it is a fine album deserving of attention. Thus, Troniks/PACrec hasmade the split-up release one monstrous album and Scott E. Candey hasremixed the material especially for the occasion.

The first time I put on this CD I turned it off shortly after. Ibelieve I grumbled something along the lines of "Radiohead tributeband." Listening back to it over the last few days I realise I wassorely mistaken, Second Storeyis a lovely piece of work.

One of a recent clutch of new(er) releases by Earth, Living in the Gleam of an Unsheathed Swordcontains two live tracks, both recorded in 2002 as Dylan Carlson andAdrienne Davis reunited in for a series of live shows in the US andEurope. Earth's music has become something of an obsession for thosetuning into the current wave of imitators — Sunn O))), Black BonedAngel, Boris, etc. — but for those who were listening to Earth backduring early 1990s Sub Pop years, recordings like this seemanachronistic and retrograde.

Magic Moments is the new album from Simon Finn. If someone wereto have asked me six years ago, when I first heard Simon Finn'slegendary 1970 album Pass the Distance, to assess the chancesthat such a thing would ever come to pass, I'd have rated theprobability a big fat zero. Simon Finn was one of the many late-60spsychedelic folk and progressive artists that released one obscurealbum and then seemingly disappeared into the aethyr, never to be heardfrom again.

Michael Gira's work under the Body Lovers and Body Haters names hasbeen reissued as a double CD with a few changes. Gone are the albums'original titles and the artwork from the original Body Haters releaseis absent. In their place is an extra ten minutes of music on the BodyHaters disc.

Infamous among club DJs and producers for the deep tech-house styleincubated and pushed forward by their still potent Basic Channel andMaurizio records, Germany's Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald took amost adventurous step when they departed from the dancefloor for thelabor of love known as Rhythm & Sound.

The Hafler Trio's latest EP for Important is pretty much as expected ofthe series: one twenty minute piece of Andrew McKenzie's patentedatmospherics. The piece starts off with some soft metallic harmonics,sounding like heavily treated guitar strings.

As the members of Adult reconfirmed in last week's episode of The Eye,New York City is excessively clique-driven, obsessed with scenes,exclusivity and over-categorization. Nowhere is this more obvious thanin the current wave of so-called "Brooklyn Noise" artists, a group thatis said to include bands as various and sundry as Black Dice, Gang GangDance, Animal Collective and Excepter, among others.

This is, by far, the best record Keith Fullerton Whitman has released. Playthroughswas an album of electronic, fuzzy bliss and his two most recent EPswere introductions to musical accomplishments Whitman had never shownbefore.

A few years ago, Summersteps Records released Naked in the Afternoon, which was billed as a tribute to Jandek, but was really just a collection of other artists covering his songs. It must have seemed like a pretty funny idea at the time, and for Summersteps, it was an opportunity to showcase their mostly unknown roster of artists. Cassie Rose and the Pickled Punks, anyone?

This limited vinyl release is actually a reissue of an even morelimited live 3" CD-R. From start to finish it is relentless in itspursuit of deafness. Harsh digital noise is mixed with screeching andclangs.

The track listing for Pin Pointswas not impressive, as each bears titles like like map references (ie."555 W24" and "56 E"). It annoyed me when nearly every second Warprelease was named like this and it annoys me now. I was expecting somesort of bog-standard glitch and beat driven album. I was half right,Plumbline (Will Thomas) makes glitches and beats but most of the timehe does it well.