This new LP on Beta-Lactam makes an interesting companion piece to Beequeen's recent Important Records album. Where The Bodyshopwas a milestone for the work of Freek Kinkelaar and Frans de Waard withits unexpected emphasis on melody, structure and songcraft, Aughton—The Patient Booksis much more familiar Beequeen territory—organic drones, submergedloops and moody atmospherics.

Petri Laukka, Jonas D. Aneheim, and Henrik N. Bjorkk claim that theserecordings are the result of live improvisations on various machinesand electronic devices. The result of their work is a 15 track "album"of static, harsh detonations, bubbling soups, and metallic shuffles. Ihesitate to call this a true album because each of the tracks seemsfirmly separated from each other; the only uniting factor being themusicians that made them and the manner in which each track wasconstructed.

The Statler & Waldorf label wanted to kick things off with asampler based around the concept of European electronic musiciansworking with the theme of hip hop. Were this not an already a redundantassignment given the world-wide cribbing of hip hop mannerisms in allforms of electronica, it might seem like an interesting cross-culturalexperiment.

Old compositions from when an artist first began recording music aren'talways of musical interest. It may be nice to have a document of acomposer's work from a particular period, but this double CD release ofsome of William Basinski's earliest compositions is hard to justify asa whole. Basinski's music seems to be perpetually painted in thefeeling of melancholy; these eight pieces are, at times, painfully sadand emotive of only the deepest and most excruciating reflections.

Ben Chasny's debut album for Drag City is the culmination of all of his work as Six Organs of Admittance up to this point. I first saw Chasny perform as Six Organs at 2002's Terrastock festival, and heard his album Dark Noontide soon after. I was struck at that time by his intuitive technique on the acoustic guitar, and the fuzzy blanket of drones that rippled underneath his extended instrumental excursions. Each release since has been stronger than the last, but every one of them seemed oddly transitional, as if Chasny hadn't yet settled on a comfortable repertoire of techniques.

Franco Battiato is one of the most unfairly underrated and habituallyignored composer/musicians of the last few decades. The strength of hismaterial plus the careful selection of bands on What's Your Functioneasily rank this in my mental 'top list' of all time favorite tributealbums despite being one of the worst cover/packaging/font jobs ever.

März is part of the legacy nurtured by the likes of Phil Spector, BrianWilson, Brian Eno, and Cornelius; they are bedroom savants and esotericenthusiasts, studio hermits shyly convinced of their place among theranks of pop royalty. But while for Eno the pop format served as theschizophrenic outro to his feather boa phase and the harbinger ofthings ambient and self-contained, März instead chooses the oppositepath.

This CD is a welcome reissue of one of Mirror's most diverse sets,which was originally issued on vinyl in 2000. The remastering processhas aided this set immensely, as its often quiet atmospheric worlds cannow be heard clearly, without the interference of crackling andpopping.

Ben Vida is best known for his work in Town & Country, but his newproject is both different from and more alluring than his work in thatband. Without completely removing any sense of song structure oridentifiable melody, Vida has assimilated nine tracks of tumult,clatter, and lamentation built out of edited guitars, toy percussion,jazz influences, and secretive tones.

For his second disc as a bandleader, Chicago-based guitarist JeffParker (Tortoise, Isotope 217) has expanded his solo project from thestandard jazz trio format, accompanied by upright bass and drums, to aquartet with the addition of Sam Barsheshet on Fender Rhodes andWurlitzer electric keys.

Toby Dammit has played drums for Iggy Pop, Swans, The Residents andMark Eitzel, to name a few. He is also the creator of 2001's Top Dollar, a solo percussion album that took Hal Blaine's Psychedelic Percussionto its logical (and utterly absurd) extreme. Thomas Wydler is thedrummer for The Bad Seeds and formerly of Die Haut.

This companion EP to last year's Apropa'tLP finds Scott Herren and since-departed collaborator Eva Puyelo Munsin a less organic mode. Many of the eight short tracks included on Mananafeel less like songs than the pieces on the full length album did.Eva's vocals are still present, but feel more like an instrument thatHerren has manipulated in various ways.

Kalima used to be Swamp Children, a Mancunian post-punk funk ensemblesigned to Factory Records. A few of the band members did double duty aspart of A Certain Ratio. Despite releasing two well-received singlesand an LP, the Swamp Children could not rise above the C-list ofFactory artists, perhaps because there was nothing particularlygroundbreaking or unique about their sound.

Starting with the Lou Reed influenced "Modern Music," Black Mountainbegins its trek through the first of many musical allusions. The songbegins with a flatulent saxophone squawk. Then the rock music enters.Drums sticks count off and the guitars ring in while Stephen McBean'sreedy vocals count off "One two three another pop explosion; four fivesix another hit recording."

Food is one of my favorite Rune Grammofon groups and this is their bestrecord yet. Though less experimental in nature than the majority ofRune artists, and lacking in the sense of high concept that makes manyof the label's releases so attractive, Food is more fun without seemingoutwardly less complex.

Dion McGregor was a down-on-his-luck Broadway songwriter living in NewYork City in 1960, sleeping on the couch of his friend and partnerMichael Barr, when Barr first noticed McGregor's unique propensity forspeaking his dreams aloud

This set sounds amazingly cohesive for a collection of tracks recordedat various live venues with many tracks featuring different guests.Jeffrey Alexander and Miriam Goldberg, Black Forest/Black Sea's twopermanent members, are noble for sharing so much of the spotlight oftheir own project with others.

Minimal Man was founded in 1979, in San Francisco by avant-gardepainter and filmmaker Patrick Miller, and the band included a revolvingcast of musicians from fellow SF art punks Tuxedomoon and futuremembers of Factrix. Minimal Man have been historically marginalized ina fertile underground music scene that included many other influentialartists (including Z'ev, Flipper and Nervous Gender), and they are nodoubt unfavorably compared to stylistically similar artists such asSuicide, Chrome or even NON.

Not to minimize the great work that the LTM label has done dusting offthe extensive back catalogs of labels like Factory and Les Disques duCrepuscule, but when I hear something like this Steven Brown album, itmakes me wonder if their time and energy might be better spent on moreworthwhile archival projects.

People who can't rap shouldn't and programmers with some degree of ability shouldn't bother enlisting those tired vocalists when they aren't needed. Point in case: Todd Drootin of Books on Tape makes some mildly entertaining, low-end electronic fuzz dependent on bass and drums and then decides that it must be too boring to stand alone.