The moniker and title of this debut album from the enigmatic Russian artist translates to "radio sleep", the codename given to a secret USSR project during the Cold War. Much like similar experiments in the USA, it was an attempt by scientists to use radio waves and sound to control and subjugate the masses. Even though I had no idea about any of this for my first listen to this tape (the text describing the background is in Russian, with a URL for an English translation), I got a distinctly sinister feeling just based on the sound: a mix of dissonant textures and subtle, hypnotic melodies that lurk just beneath the surface, making for a multifaceted release that slowly reveals its brilliant secrets.

Unlike some of Jason Anthony Harris' previous work as Public Speaking, Mountainmurals is a conscious attempt at specifically creating a "noise" release. Using only a variety of household objects as sound sources (none of which are obvious), the 11 untitled pieces, or at least discernible segments result in a gamut of sounds, some very different but all exceptionally well executed.

After roughly a fifteen year hiatus, cult shoegaze/basement psychedelia visionary David Pearce has resurrected the Flying Saucer Attacker moniker, albeit in somewhat diluted form. Instrumentals 2015 is certainly sketchlike and devoid of vocals, but it still boasts Pearce's wonderfully smeared, fractured, floating, and tape-hiss-enhanced aesthetic, which is exactly what I was hoping for.  While some actual songs or a fully formed new album would certainly have been even better, late-period FSA was already quite abstract.  Also, I never looked to Pearce for great vocal melodies, tight songcraft, or killer hooks.  His talents lie elsewhere.  Everything that matter is here: this may not a complete return to form, but it nevertheless feels like the welcome return of an old friend who has not changed at all.

Although probably doomed to be primarily known forever as "the drummer from Slowdive," Simon Scott has had quite an impressive, varied, and somewhat inscrutable solo career, releasing some fine albums on labels like Miasmah and 12k and dipping his toes into a whole host of underground subgenres.  With his latest release, he continues to alternately dazzle and perplex me–even more so than usual, actually.  Curiously (and misguidedly?) presented as a single 42-minute track, Insomni feels more like multi-artist mixtape than a coherent longform composition.  Naturally, some of the passages are quite beautiful, but the overall presentation left me scratching my head quite a bit.

To my great shame, I slept on this excellent album for entirely too long, as Thomas Meluch’s mannered songwriting has never quite connected with me despite my appreciation for his hushed, bleary, and languorous aesthetic.  With Sonnet, however, he largely dispenses with vocals in favor of a suite of warm, lush ambient drone, which is (predictably) far more to my taste. That said, I would definitely hail this as a stellar album even without the benefit of my unfairly subjective stylistic predispositions, as it is an archetypal Great Kranky Album, consistently hitting the same woozy, blissed-out sweet spot as other label luminaries like Windy & Carl.  As if that were not enough, the end of the album shows hints of something even better (and far more distinctive).  This may very well be Benoit Pioulard's masterpiece.

Majutsu No Niwa is not a band that strives to be understated. The last release that I heard was the two part Volume V, capturing the classic rock excess in both presentation and sound, but in the most tasteful of ways. Their newest album is not only a disc of new material, but accompanied by a full length DVD collection of performances captured in 2014. Both capture the band’s peerless approach to space and psychedelic rock, with more than a bit of abstract improvisation to keep things unexpected.

Although she composes scores meant for others to perform, there are times when Ryoko Akama seems intent on preventing performances of her work. Like when she asks, on Kotoba Koukan’s "con.de.structuring," for two or more collaborators to play three "soundless" sounds at fixed intervals without the help of a clock or a stopwatch, or when she inserts an observation about silent letters into "e.a.c.d." that suggests silence will be as essential to its realization as positive sound. Even with a talented interpreter like Greg Stuart around to meet such challenges, questions are bound to arise in the audience, who might wonder how a sound could ever be soundless or how a piece of music apparently devoted to silence could end up being so concrete and loud. Attentive listening may resolve some of these quandaries, but is as likely to generate new ones. Ambiguity and irresolution appear to be at the heart of the matter, at least in part, and besides, focusing on the conundrums in Akama’s work overlooks its power and impact. Ryoko and Greg’s music works on the body and mind in equal proportion, tempting interpretations and provoking reactions with confrontational sounds and understated twists.

Lycia's reappearance after an eight year hiatus with 2013's Quiet Moments was a surprise for me, having heard very little about the legendary Projekt band for quite some time. That album was more than a mere blip, however, as it has been followed up with A Line That Connects, and the return of former band member David Galas. The result is a record that has a richer, more fully fleshed out sound than its predecessor.

Will Thomas Long has made some changes to the Celer sound in recent releases, such as the subtle rhythmic structure of Voyeur, or the unending meditative repetition of Jima. How Could…, in that context, feels like a call back to the traditional sound he pioneered, laden with light wisps of sound, and pieces that evolve slowly but beautifully, never forcefully commanding attention yet never drifting off into the background.

On his first full length album since 2013's An Occasion For Death, Andy Grant (The Vomit Arsonist) has crafted a record that clearly shows his influences, but bears his own distinct mark and sound. An extremely aggressive album, it is also an exercise in restraint, resulting in a set of songs that lurch more than assault, but is jam packed with evil and violence that festers dangerously close to the surface.

Francisco López came onto my radar beginning during his most prolific period, largely the mid-1990s to the present day. Even though his career began earlier, his 1980s period is often forgotten due to these earliest works published in extremely small numbers that have faded into obscurity. This new compilation, however, presents previously unreleased material from his earliest cassette recordings. Within the context of his expansive body of work, what is most striking is how established his aesthetic and style was, even at such a young age.

I tend to enjoy just about everything Luke Younger releases, but he has always been a bit of a tough guy to pin down stylistically, as he has recently seemed equally at home with abstract sound art, heavy noise, and his own unique strain of corroded, post-industrial exotica.  With Olympic Mess, he remains as compelling and eclectic as ever, but seems to have gotten significantly better at crafting a listenable and varied album that flows rather than overwhelms.  Also, he has a few welcome new tricks up his sleeve.  A few longtime fans might be disappointed that Mess leans more heavily upon shades of techno, drone, and ambient than dense, multilayered brutality, but I find Younger's quieter, more nuanced side to be quite an appealing one.

Functioning excellently as a conceptual split release between a legendary band (Controlled Bleeding) and a younger project (Sparkle in Grey) that pull from similarly idiosyncratic backgrounds, the two halves of this record differ greatly, but blend thematically. Both present genre defying, stylistically diverse and unconventional instrumental music that are another notch in their impressive discographies.

John Hannon is truly a man after my own heart, as his Liberez project recaptures an urgency, adventurousness, mystery, and revolutionary spirit that has been largely missing from underground music for a very long time.  In some respects, All Tense Now Lax picks up right where 2013's stellar Sane Men Surround left off, bringing back both vocalist Nina Bosnic and an unholy mélange of bludgeoning junkyard percussion and Greek/Eastern European violins.  In other ways, however, All Tense is quite different, largely abandoning any quietier moments of ethnographic forgery in favor of a heavier, pricklier, more anarchic, and more collage-damaged assault.

Stephen O’Malley’s already unusual career has certainly taken some odd and unexpected turns in recent years, as the erstwhile amplifier-worshipper currently has both an insanely ambitious and jazz-inspired avant-metal masterpiece (Monoliths and Dimensions) and a Scott Walker collaboration under his belt.  The latest unlikely development is that Frédéric Blondy recruited O’Malley in 2014 to compose for the French improv orchestra ONCIEM, helpfully noting that he should be "punk rock" about it.  Ethos-wise, O'Malley did not disappoint in that regard, cavalierly disregarding some very key perceived limitations for various orchestral instruments.  In a musical sense, however, Gruidés is a wonderfully droning, heaving, and dissonant epic of modern composition (and all done without distortion or a wall of amplifiers).

As a sound artist, I have always felt Jim Haynes is criminally underappreciated. His work always resonates with me as an intricate, dense matrix of processed and found sounds, always with some organic, natural elements, but demolished and treated to bear no resemblance to their origin. Like his visual work, Haynes captures that powerful sense of rust and decay on Scarlet, culled from electromagnetic and organic sources, and shaped into a dizzying but beautifully bleak cassette.

Too structured to be labeled noise, yet too dissonant to fit into any other genre, Robert Francisco's work as M Ax Noi Mach is an idiosyncratic project in the best possible way. On this collection of four track recordings over the span of a decade, guitar pedal feedback loops are set immediately next to skittering 808 hi-hat cymbals, defying categorization and being extremely memorable for just that reason. Clocking in at 22 songs and over 70 minutes, it is a daunting yet rewarding collection.

When Robert Hampson reactivated Loop and toured after a lengthy dormancy, I was rather surprised (as were many other fans). When the recording of new material was announced, I was shocked. As an artist who had gone so long intentionally avoiding his return to the guitar, it is not a move I expected. Not necessarily surprising, but definitely reassuring, Array 1 sounds exactly like Loop should sound in 2015, and the natural expansion of the sound Hampson and company perfected during their first phase.

As much of a showcase for vintage synthesizers as it is an EP of dance beats, the duo of Flatliner have complied this showcase of their combined collection of prized gear, but work those instruments into strong and memorable songs, rather than just collections of classic noises. Adam Fangsrud and Jesse Strait present four distinct pieces on Black Medicine that all have their own specific mood and identity, but also blend together thematically, resulting in a diverse yet cohesive release.

Ostensibly a hard rock band, there is much more to Black Love lurking beneath the superficial. Drummer Tony Cicero and Sergio Segovia’s bass (and electronics) may sound like a conventional arrangement, but David Cotner’s vocals and unconventional additions (a mule jawbone, for example), add an additional layer of depth. Across these four songs there is more than a hint of broken romance bitterness, but with the right amount of sardonic and wry self-awareness to make it anything but trite.