There won't always be room for new, instrumental, and rhythmicelectronic music. Albums like this one suggest that only so many synthpads and sampled instruments can be combined in an entertaining andquality way. At first Pureis a pretty album—sliding like a slow mass of ice over the surface of astill body of water.

On his third full-length album, Maximilian Hecker has truly establishedhimself as a fantastic pianist, composer, and arranger. Lady Sleepopens with the climactic piano melody of "Birch." It sets the scenemuch like a tragic love story: patient and powerful, set against lushstrings and underscoring Hecker's frail voice.

It's difficult for a band with ten years and a solid reputation of having a signature sound to take a bold step without feeling the repercussions. While The Great Destroyer is shockingly different for a Low album, rest assured that all the elements people have grown to love are still in the mix. The first three songs rush the album in with a fierce tempo—much faster than what Low are expected to do—and layered fuzzy organs and chunky guitars over thumping rhythm lines and buried acoustic guitars.

In the post-World Serpent world, it's refreshing to see a tastefullooking, properly packaged, elegant layout on a Nurse With Woundrelease which isn't completely driven by capitalism or auctionable (oreven questionable) "special" editions.

Longtime hip-hop journeyman Oh No's long awaited debut full-length isvibrant, musically diverse, and best of all refreshingly-gimmick free.The son of a jazz trumpeter and a soul/jazz composer, Oh No was signedto Stones Throw nearly five years ago, in no small part due to hisprolific older brother Madlib (of Madvillian, Jaylib, Lootpack,Yesterday's New Quintet and Quasimoto fame).

Mike Cooper has been making music far longer than I've been alive. Hebegan his career as a folk-blues guitarist and singer-songwriter in the1960s, moved on to working with London's most prominent improv groupsin the 1970s, and in the 1980s and 1990s he gradually began toincorporate greater experimentation into his music. In contrast to manyartists who grow tame in their old age, Cooper, now in his sixties, ismaking the most adventurous music of his life.

I would never have expected a group like Beequeen to record an album like The Bodyshop.The duo of Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar first became associatesbecause of their mutual love for The Legendary Pink Dots, and since1990 they've been recording and releasing (quite prolifically) asBeequeen.

Despite being a fairly straight-forward instrumental rock unit, Larsenhave nonetheless willfully cultivated a hopelessly enigmatic image forthemselves. Everyone has heard the story of how M. Gira came to producethe Italian group's second album Reverby now, and while the story might well be total bullshit, it hassuccessfully perpetuated an air of mystery and intrigue around theband.

"Bring Me On" begins the album with some quality Force Tracks stylevocal tech house, adorning guest Laura Delicata's hypnotically effectedvoice with airy pads and funky bleeps. Delicata returns a few songslater on "Decandence," the album's first single and certainly worthy ofsuch treatment.

The second collaboration by Karkowski and Xopher Davidson (Antimatter)is a masterful work that rewards any patient listener with slowlyunfolding layers of analog hum and buzz. The CD consists of one 45minute piece, and this format suits the work well, as this kind ofpiece needs to develop slowly over a long period of time. The first 13minutes are calm, and consist of low end rumbling and quiethigh-pitched tones.

This album is aptly titled, as the 17 tracks it contains sound neitherhi nor lo fi. Stephen Wilkinson's debut release as Bibio is made up ofa mixture of muffled field recordings, well-recorded live guitarplaying, and ambient drones. Although individually these elements aresuccessfully executed, the finished product could have been more fullyrealized.

Around the time of Hood's Rustic Houses, Forlorn ValleysLP and their "Filmed Initiative" single, the band evolved from writingshort and brilliant pastoral odes into writing longer and digressiveelegies. Effectively, Hood changed from late afternoon ramblersmarching from pub to pub into long trail through-hikers. There is morejazz than noise in their songs these days.

The idea of a hyper-quartet feasting on the remains of dead metalguitars, hyperventilating percussion, and over-romanticized melodiesmight, at first, sound like a fun trip through nausea. Due to a lack ofvision, however, the EP these four Texans have crafted becomes too dullafter its first half has expired to even be considered satisfyinglydizzying. Four tracks full of spinning drum sticks and convulsingguitar strings amount to a whole lot of yawning when they all beginexactly the same.

Divided By Lightning is what happens when a willowy, sexuallyindeterminate club kid named Philip (who, like allclub kids, lists his occupation variously as model, artistand entertainer) decides to record an album.

Throughout 2004, the typically prolific Richard H. Kirk dug deep into his vault, releasing several discs and twelve inches of previously unavailable solo material. Still, after 2003's politically charged albums The War Against Terrorism and The Bush Doctrine, likeminded fans seemed eager for more new work amidst the increasingly bloody Iraq quagmire and the rhetoric-heavy U.S. presidential election campaigns.

The most important and pleasing aspect of Andrew Liles' latestfull-length is that it doesn't depend on any one formula, nor does itever venture into the realm of total and complete chaotic madness. Attimes the music is wonderfully melodic, featuring ballroom-like musiccirca 1930s or 1940s and, at other times, it is an admixture blossomingwith strange digital reverberations and analogue distortion.

The aural assault unleashed on Cosmic Trigger/2AM Visitis nothing short of a head cleansing catharsis of the best kind.Japan's Kohei-chang (AKA Filthy Dabo) uses homemade electronics andscrap metal to assault the senses on his third full length release.

Eyvind Kang is the avant-garde violinist whose work can be heard onalbums by a multitude of artists including Secret Chiefs 3, John Zorn,Bill Frisell, Beck, Marc Ribot and Arto Lindsay. He has also released ahandful of solo albums that are each more impressive than the next,culminating in last year's majestic Virginal Co-ordinates.

Early Day Miners have this odd quality of meticulously recalling a veryspecific mid-90s, Midwestern emo/indie sound, though slowing it to anear halt. It's as though the Miners spelunked their way to somefossilized sound from the Polyvinyl/Tree/Caulfield label nexus of 1996and successfully unearthed it, thawed it, and unleashed it, albeit at aslower tempo (perhaps the lethargy can be attributed to a neardecade-long hibernation).

Brian Williams has been operating as Lustmord for more than 20 yearsnow, churning out an impressive number of albums, all of which havebeen classified, for want of a better term, "dark ambient." Not thatit's an inappropriate term for what Williams does, creating rhythm-freesoundscapes that evoke an oppressive atmosphere of loneliness,desolation and dread.