Three years after the mesmerizing Homage to Dick Raaijmakers, Thomas Ankersmit is back with yet another bombshell inspired by an underappreciated electronic music visionary. In this case, that visionary is Maryanne Amacher, who also happens to be the person who fatefully introduced Ankersmit to his Serge modular synth. Naturally, the Serge retains its central role from the Raaijmakers album and Ankersmit masterfully wields it again to conjure up another hallucinatory swirl of phantom sounds and strange aural phenomena. The conceptual themes are bit different this time around, however, as Ankersmit explores the ideas laid out in Amacher's "Psychoacoustic Phenomena in Musical Composition: Some Features of a Perceptual Geography" essay. Unsurprisingly, Ankersmit does a stellar job psychoacoustically mapping out his own compelling perceptual geography with this release, but his most striking bit of sorcery actually occurs off the album, as the piece was engineered to trigger otoacoustic emissions, which are "sounds emanating from inside the head, generated by the ears themselves."

Shelter Press

The album fades into existence with a quietly oscillating electronic hum that gradually becomes increasingly disrupted by squelches, blurts, crackles of static, swells of feedback, and something resembling shortwave radio transmissions. That is admittedly not radical territory for a vintage modular synth album, yet each sound feels like a meaningful building block that incrementally moves the composition closer and closer to one of Ankersmit's beguiling set pieces. The first of those starts taking shape around the 9-minute mark, eventually reaching a crescendo that sounds like asteroids slowly smashing into the hull of my spaceship while I fight off a swarm of psychedelic crickets. Things only get wilder and more intense from there, as the simmering brew of abstract electronic sounds repeatedly blossoms into striking new forms, at times even resembling a killer noise guitar act. The first truly "wow" moment hits around the 16-minute mark, as a haze of beeps, buzzes, and other squiggling and squirming electronic sounds starts to feel like it is actually burrowing into my goddamn mind. That is a hell of a trick, as the piece seems to transform as I turn my head from side to side. I suspect the live experience is even more transcendent, as Ankersmit always "tunes his instrument to the resonant characteristics of the performance space, so that the sounds activate the structure." He clearly takes the physics of sound very seriously and it pays off beautifully. Naturally, there are more dazzling climaxes as the album unfolds, including one that starts forming around the 26-minute mark in which Ankersmit sounds like the best damn noise artist on the planet. I easily could throw around some more colorful terms describing what transpires ("lysergic space aviary" and "gibbering, squelching cacophony" spring to mind), but the only thing that matters is that Perceptual Geography contains some of the most challenging, absorbing, and masterfully executed sound art that I have ever heard.

Samples can be found here.

Newly reissued on vinyl (and digitally) with beautiful new artwork, Paradise Lost was originally released as a cassette back in 2019. As is the norm for many Chalk releases, additional details beyond the fact that it exists are quite thin, but this one takes that to an amusing extreme, as the Discogs entry for the original cassette notes "label and artist name are not listed on the release." That said, I believe I can say with moderate certainty that these two longform pieces were recorded on an 8-track reel-to-reel between 2016 and 2018 and that Chalk primarily played a synthesizer. Also, his Ghosts on Water bandmate Naoko Suzuki contributed some very well-hidden vocals and created the artwork for the original tape. To some degree, it makes sense that this album originally surfaced as a very limited-small run tape, as it does not feel like one of Chalk's more significant opuses, but it is quite an enjoyable and interesting release nonetheless. In fact, the title piece feels like legitimately prime Andrew Chalk material to me, though I suspect many longtime fans will be more fascinated by the surprising and divergent "This Pendent World."

Faraway Press

One interesting bit of information that I stumbled upon while researching this album was a blurb from Daisuke Suzuki's Siren Records noting that this album "strongly recalls the atmosphere of home recording in the '80s." I got exactly the same impression myself from the opening "This Pendent World," as I had scribbled down that it felt like a duel between two very different artists from the golden age of private press New Age: one kosmische-inspired synth wizard hellbent on taking me to space and another guy who just wants to lull me into a blissful, bucolic reverie with some pretty string swells. There are also some traces of a third guy who closely resembles contemporary Andrew Chalk, as there is a loose melodic theme of wobbly, liquid tones likely originating from an electric piano. While that is certainly an odd collision to encounter on a Milton-themed Andrew Chalk record, it works surprisingly well, amiably and amorphously drifting and curling like a trail of smoke. The following "Paradise Lost" is similarly form-averse, but in a much more compelling way, as its frayed and smeared swells of warm synth tones feel teasingly just out of focus. Additionally lurking within the artfully blurred dream-fog are a slow-motion tumble of acoustic guitar fragments, ghostly traces of Naoko's lovely singing, and probably some pedal steel too. I am tempted to make a wince-inducing pun on the album title here, but "Paradise Lost" is simply too beautiful of a piece to deserve such an indignity, vividly evoking the slowly streaking and shifting colors of an especially gorgeous sunset.

Samples can be found here.

Minneapolis-based Magic Castles make a glorious return with their fourth release on Anton Newcombe's label, weaving together jangly hooks and minor chords and slathering it with fuzz. The release is triumphant in that it was released at all, following the band's 2016 hiatus and songwriter Jason Edmonds' near-fatal car accident in 2019, not to mention contending with a pandemic. Sun Reign is a lush and dreamy masterpiece of layered musical intensities, awash in evocative imagery and heartful melodies.

'A' Recordings Ltd.

The music grabs hold with the plaintive "Sunburst" and never lets go, producing a perfume of joyful wistfulness atop minor chords, dropping low to rise airborne in exuberant joy, vocals low in the mix in favor of musical atmosphere and jangle onslaught. Hazy vocal harmonies interplay with sparkling guitar, ethereal violins, and a gentle yet encouraging rhythm section, preferring to drift comfortably through a paisley landscape but unafraid to cross into pop or folk territories. Case in point, "Lost Dimension" would appear to be the most blissed-out title, but at its heart is a song of longing: "Feeling so torn in two / caused me to lose time and space / gotta leave this empty space / Lost in another dimension without you." Many of the tracks reference a certain nostalgia for sixties folk, brought firmly to modern terra firma riding on a darker, but not despairing, energy. "Ode to the Wind," "Valley of Nysa" and "Surmise" are particularly reminiscent of that timeframe, suggestive of bands like Pentangle or Fairport Convention but with a thick topcoat of distortion and a paisley pop sensibility dialed to the maximum. The result is a masterful blend of evocative atmosphere and memorable melodies fueled by fuzzy guitars and passionate musicians.

The video for "Lost Dimension" can be found here.

The return of Sasu Ripatti's beloved and long-dormant Vladislav Delay project last year was quite a well-received one, suggesting that fans were unfazed by the fact that Rakka marked a sharp detour from the work that made the project so beloved in the first place. Naturally, that warranted a sequel and Rakka II sticks with roughly the same aesthetic as its predecessor, though Ripatti envisions this latest release as "a romantic summer vision full of hope and optimism," which is theoretically a very different tone from the cold "brutalist vibes" of the previous installment. To be fair, Rakka II does feel somewhat less like an pummeling assault from start to finish, yet Ripatti's "romantic summer vision" is still quite an intense ride. It roughly approximates what I imagine a Tim Hecker live set would be like if he wound up on an extreme metal bill and was hellbent on whipping up a mosh pit. I am not sure if that is an unambiguous compliment or not, but I genuinely do think Ripatti is onto something quite good here (sublime beauty faintly radiating from oversaturated textures and punishing, obsessively looping rhythms). While Rakka I was likely the bolder and more distinctive artistic statement, I feel like this successor is ultimately a bit more enjoyable, immersive, and amenable to repeat listening.

Cosmo Rhythmatic

The roiling and sputtering roar of the opening "Rakkn" unavoidably calls to mind the blown-out soundscapes of Tim Hecker or Ben Frost, as Ripatti shares a lot of aesthetic terrain with the two this time around (corroded textures, enthusiastic maximalism, endless sizzle, etc.). As the piece unfolds, however, it starts to feel the hissing, roaring soundscape is merely a sample in a larger piece that is slowly taking shape. While it never quite reaches full transcendence, the whooshing electronics and oddly lurching bass drum pattern Ripatti mixes in are nevertheless a very enjoyable enhancement. For me, however, this phase of Vladislav Delay is most compelling and distinctive when Ripatti unleashes a complex polyrhythm, as he does with "Raaha." In fact, I think my dream late-period Vladislav album would be just a longform collage of idling engines and other machines periodically syncing into cool patterns (someday, perhaps). Interestingly, there is one piece on the album that heads in the complete opposite direction ("Rakas"), as Ripatti dispenses entirely with percussion to craft a beautifully half-vaporous/half-rumbling dronescape. The other extreme is represented by the closing "Rapine," which sounds like an absolutely apocalyptic assault of crash cymbals, stuttering loops, and throbbing bass rumble. To my discerning ears, the best pieces are "Rakas," "Raaha," or the dub-techno-meets-engulfing-roar of "Raato," but every piece is compelling if you happen to enjoy stuttering, crackling, hissing, and disrupted textures. Ripatti clearly loves those textures himself, but his production talents are the real star here (along with Andreas Lubich's mastering), as this album feels like one visceral, richly textured, full frequency assault after another. If Rakka I felt like being repeatedly hit by a truck in the arctic tundra, Rakka II feels more like occasionally noticing some flowers while getting repeatedly hit by a truck in the springtime.

Samples can be found here.

This latest release from the prolific claire rousay has been deservedly getting quite a lot of attention, as it can reasonably be called a creative breakthrough of sorts. At the very least, a softer focus documents an especially accessible and melodic strain of rousay's singular (if understated) vision. Obviously, most of the credit for that goes to rousay herself, as her work has always been on a upward trajectory, but this album was also significantly influenced by the involvement of visual artist Dani Toral, who is the creative force behind the album's non-musical content (cover art, videos, song titles, album title, etc.). While the artists' two visions seamlessly combine beautifully into one, some of the best parts as a pure listening experience involve the participation of less-central contributors, as my favorite pieces are warmed by violin and cello accompaniment from a trio of guest musicians. While I have always found rousay's work generally intriguing and unusually intimate, the more melodic and organic elements here definitely enhance her aesthetic wonderfully. This album genuinely feels like it is on a completely different level than most of rousay's previous releases.

American Dreams

After a brief and enigmatic introduction that sounds like a dictaphone recording of someone moving around a room and using a typewriter, the album begins in earnest with the absolutely gorgeous "discrete (the market)." It is essentially a continuation of the sounds from the opening "preston ave," but they are now joined by slow, beautiful drone swells and a shifting host of other elements (wind chimes, a tender piano melody, and an intensifying low-end surge). It evokes the sensation of blissfully lounging in an apartment on a perfect spring day while sunlight streams in, curtains gently sway, and sounds drift in from neighboring apartments and the street below. The following "peak chroma" is similarly excellent, as it feels like home videos of childhood vacations are flickering across a shimmering dronescape while an autotuned R&B jam plays on a fitfully operational radio. While "peak chroma" is ostensibly the album's hot single since it has a video, the next two songs are every bit as good, which adds up to an impressive four-song run of near-perfection. I especially enjoy how "diluted dreams" sounds like a reprise of the heavenly "discrete (the market)," but with added playground sounds and the impressive aural illusion of making me feel like I am slowly submerging in a bathtub. I also greatly appreciate the honesty and simplicity of rousay's overarching vision (using the mundane sounds of daily life as the building blocks for a deeper, more poignant whole), but it is the execution that makes this album such an immersive and wonderful delight, as the best moments feel like a warm and dreamlike fantasia of overlapping memories playing at different speeds. Rousay and Toral have done quite an impressive job of blurring the lines between sound art, visual art, poetry, drone, and pop in a pleasing and soulful way here, which is a definitely not a feat that many other artists could convincingly pull off so gracefully. I probably do not need to say this, but I will anyway: a softer focus is unquestionably destined to be all over "Best of 2021" end-of-year lists.

Samples can be found here.

Miasmah celebrates their 50th release with this second solo album from Norway-based bassist/composer James Welburn. In some ways, this is a perfect album to add an exclamation point to that milestone, as Welburn and his collaborators take the label's "shadow music" aesthetic in an uncharacteristically epic and aggressive direction (though the same could be reasonably be said about 2015's Hold as well). Notably, Swans were invoked as a rough kindred spirit for Hold when it was released and that comparison seems apt here too, as Welburn certainly shares early Swans' love of raw textures and pummeling repetition. The similarities mostly end there, however, as Welburn's vision is considerably more abstract, deconstructed, and stylistically fluid and the individual pieces on Sleeper in the Void are significantly shaped by the collaborators involved. While I sometimes wish Welburn would take his aesthetic in a less texture- and rhythm-centric direction, he has a definite talent for bringing a blackened, visceral intensity to his brooding and gloom-soaked soundscapes. This is an impressively heavy album.

Miasmah

The fact that Welburn partially identifies as a bassist came as quite an amusing surprise to me, as I would have guessed that he was a drummer: not because the drumming here is conspicuously better than the bass playing, but solely because the heart of this album seems to be slow, punishingly primal percussion. That said, I do not question Welburn's love of bass frequencies, as rumbling low-end heaviness is recurring theme too. His style has been described as "reductionist, monolithic, and raw" and it is certainly all of those things, yet the best songs on this release tend to be the less reductionist and monolithic ones, which is why the collaborators loom unusually large. Drummer Tomas Järmyr turns up most frequently, enlivening "Raze" with a thunderous crescendo of rolling toms and supplying the killer doom-lurch of the album's best song ("In and Out of Blue"). Vocalist Juliana Venter appears on the latter as well, contributing a layered climax of chopped and manipulated wails and warbles. I believe Welburn himself is responsible for the awesome gnarled guitar hook though, as well the piece's sheer seismic force. Venter returns once more on the closing "Fast Moon," as her voice drifts through the violent shoegaze of its surroundings like a ghost. Hilde Marie Holsen, on the other hand, only appears once, contributing a tenderly undulating pulse of dreamlike drones to the album's least hostile piece ("Parallel"). While Welburn is only completely solo on a single piece ("Falling From Time"), that one is admittedly a hell of a banger, beautifully combining psychotropic smears of darkly twinkling organ and a wonderfully pummeling and machine-like rhythm. "Fast Moon" is similarly industrial-tinged and those looping, machine-like rhythms definitely suit Welburn's aesthetic quite well. I hope they stick around for the next album. I hope Welburn's collaborators do too. In fact, I wish the foursome would just form a damn band, as Welburn's greatest gift lies in simply making everything sound crushingly heavy and it would be nice to hear him do that with a more varied palette of sounds and textures. For now, however, Sleeper in the Void is an impressively bracing dose of bass-heavy brutality.

Samples can be found here.

Forthcoming.

Time Spun

Ready later today.

Sound byte.

Samples can be found here.

Important Records' Cassauna imprint has quietly released some woefully underappreciated stunners over the years and the latest one to blindside me is this brief yet near-perfect tape from The Spring Press's Jeff Burch, whose work seems to steadily grow more compelling each time he surfaces. While last year's collaboration with Tres Warren explored similarly heady and timeless "deep psych" territory, Samum Suite takes a very different route to get there, as it was composed and recorded primarily with acoustic instruments at the edge of the Sahara Desert. I am always delighted when acoustic drones, Eastern modalities, and field recordings collide in a pleasing way, but this album feels like it was recorded in an entirely different timeline in which The Theatre of Eternal Music relocated to Morocco and got assimilated into The Master Musicians of Jajouka. Sadly, that is not the timeline I wound up living in, but Samum Suite legitimately feels like the kind of album no one makes anymore. Or maybe ever made. While plenty of artists have borrowed liberally from traditional Middle Eastern sounds in service of their own vision, Burch seems to have achieved full ego death and dissolved into the streets of Morocco only to re-emerge with a beautifully crafted collage that replays his experiences as a hypnotic swirl of sensory impressions.

Cassauna

The heart of Samum Suite is a pair of field recordings that Burch made during his travels back in 2015 (a Khatna procession in Tangier) and 2017 (street musicians in Marrakech). While "Muslim circumcision parade" is certainly an enticing thread to encounter on an album, Burch incorporates the festivities in a purely impressionistic way, evocatively conjuring a vibrant, richly textured, and enigmatically exotic (to me) street scene. The Marrakech musicians likely provide the clattering percussion and winding melody that open the album, yet the magic of this four-part suite lies in how blurry the line becomes between the field recordings and the eclectic host of instruments played by Burch and his guests. Admittedly, the clarity of the recordings provides some differentiation, but it never feels like Burch merely added an organ to some cool sounds and called it a song. Instead, the album feels like an endlessly dissolving fantasia of dreamlike vignettes that grows steadily deeper with each new section. Each segues seamlessly into the next, so the delineation between individual parts is largely academic, but the suite starts to catch fire near the end of "II" when the percussion fades away to leave a lysergically spectral haze of warbling tones in its wake. From that point onward. Samum Suite feels like an organically effortless, gorgeously psychedelic reverie, as haunting woodwind drones appear like a shimmering oasis over a simmering and subdued backdrop of found sounds and twanging baglama. The return of the warbling tones heralds the transition into the fourth and final part, in which blurred, sustained tones lend a soft-focus unreality to the raw, clattering jubilance of the Khatna procession. The whole experience lasts less than twenty minutes, which probably explains why Samum Suite is modestly entering the world as a tape, yet the arc is a perfect one and I am pleased that Burch had no inclination to dilute his sublime distillation into an LP. Had it been recorded by Roberto Musci or Futuro Antico in the '80s rather than by Jeff Burch in 2021, Samum Suite would likely be a much-sought classic that would cause a feeding frenzy when inevitably reissued by Black Sweat.

Samples can be found here.

In 2017, C-Schulz’s late '80s-early '90s work was compiled in this mesmerizing album. Barely in his twenties, Schulz created some genre-defying music which, although clearly located between the kosmische music of 1970s Germany and early techno-electronica, resists easy classification or dating. The compilation is impossible to become bored with since it is memorable and satisfying yet so unpredictable that it is strangely difficult to recall the atmosphere and pace of individual tracks. This sprawling array of shifting sounds can perhaps be understood as the equivalent of a classic neuroscience memory test where the subject tries to recall 20 unrelated items after they have been covered by a cloth. I remember a Dada collage, industrial rhythms, a tiny piece of acid funk, library musique-concrete, heavy breathing, carbonated liquid cracking ice cubes, galloping static and clattering train tracks, looped chanting, economic radio news chatter, giggling children, a growling beast, a racing heart beat, poignant brass and synth tones.

Unseen Worlds

For all the juxtaposition and surprise, this is an uncluttered and precise soundtrack of sustained tension which, decades later, sounds neither dated nor gimmicky. Music does not need a purpose but Schulz's could be suited for waking an astronaut from a deep space pod in the year 3000, or for having a panic attack sipping cocktails in a late-1960s airport lounge as the Mike Sammes Singers refuse to be drowned out by occasional road drills. Marcus Schmickler co-produced many of the 20 tracks and he contributes liner notes. Frühe Jahre came to my attention three months ago when (aged 64) I began a vicious bout of shingles. When it seemed nothing could distract from that nightly agony, thank God for these glorious, innovative, and timeless recordings.

samples available here

Friends Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) and Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards) are fans of each other's work, and so in 2014, they decided to work together out of their respective projects. Last Time I Saw Grace is the second long-player from their union. The latest from the two maintains the feel of the one-take sound of 2014's Voices in a Rented Room with the addition of a rich layering of instrumentation, affording a more lavish sound. All of the lyrical wit from the first album is present, and the emotional intensity of dual acoustic guitars in glorious interplay soars to new heights.

Drag City

Chasney and Quinn are two incredibly talented musicians that know the strength of memorable melody. Quinn's lyrical prowess strengthens the power of the emotional exchange of these two highly proficient guitarists. The album wastes no time in showcasing their muscle, launching with "Billy, God Damn," striking first with slide guitar while Quinn lines up his lyrical attack: "Billy, it's a god damn shame / the strain on our bodies / the stains on our name." "Marlene Left California" is undoubtedly a song Dylan wishes he had written, a story of four people—including the author—tied together in disparate ways, all lost and floundering to find direction. Word to Al Stewart: get busy on a cover of "Onward to Devastation." There is plenty of dark gallows humor within, lightened by lyrical playfulness ("Cover Band") and jangle ("Obliteration Time," "Tune to Graffiti"). I would urge listeners that appreciate bluesy folk, outsider acoustic singer-songwriters a la Robyn Hitchcock, and dual guitarists to give this a listen.

Samples can be found here.

Active for over 30 years, with a 10 year break in the middle, Contrastate’s idiosyncratic take on challenging, industrial tinged music has certainly changed and evolved through the years, as this compilation indicates. What has not changed though, is a dark sarcasm that injects just the right amount of absurdity into their otherwise dour works. Collecting various singles, compilation pieces, and unreleased material onto one CD, it makes for an excellent career overview.

Black Rose Recordings

The opening "Taste the Waste for the Human Race," a b-side from 1993, sets the tone for this set of songs pretty well: gently malignant loops meshed with treated guitar and down pitched vocals. There is certainly a conventional music undercurrent here, but bent and twisted into something else entirely. There’s that same broken music feel to "The People Who Control the Information" from 2017's Your Reality is Broken tribute album, which is an odd combination of erratic synths, protest chant like vocals, and eventually an almost hip-hop rhythm loop constructed from noisy fragments. "The Silent Fish," released in 2018 as part of a Troum tribute/compilation continues the dramatic spoken word and sweeping synthesizers, but with a great bass guitar like distorted passage and subtle percussion beneath it all, it makes for a particular standout.

The droning electronics, spoken word, and crying baby recordings on 1994's "English Embers" captures their more challenging style. Similarly abstract is "True Believer," which is all grandiose piano, voices, and a chaotic low-bit rate sheen to it all. "Revolution Sera la Nom de la Civilisation" almost resembles Contrastate's take on traditional power electronics: pulsating electronics, low end rumble, and guttural vocals (albeit in French). All the elements of that genre are there, but there’s a cleanliness to the proceedings that make it sound utterly unique. There is a RLW/Ralf Wehowsky treated unreleased piece from 1999, "From the Opened Red Lips," that represents perhaps the most out there piece: a short burst of sputtering vocal treatments and insect buzzing.

I know Recorded Evidence II is a singles/compilation/unreleased material compilation, but it melds together like a traditional album, while still giving an overview of nearly 30 years worth of content. At times difficult, and at times almost catchy, Contrastate covers a bit of everything in their sound, and that black humor component (which is also well reflected in the liner notes, and I cannot find any indication there was ever a Recorded Evidence I) makes for a project that I can never predict what they will sound like next, but I know it will be fascinating no matter what.

In characteristically enigmatic fashion, this inscrutable Illinois collective recorded a two-album series over the winter and opted to release the second part first. The two releases were conjured into existence during a brief "real-time, studio interaction" earlier this year, but the source material actually spans roughly a decade of scavenged sonic ephemera. If this were any other project, cannibalizing old recordings might be considered a "vault clearing" of sorts, but with Fossil Aerosol Mining Project, the whole point has always been to dig up long-forgotten shit from the past and repurpose it into something thoroughly weird and disturbing. Before this album, I was admittedly starting to wonder if this project was in a rut, as there have been a couple recent releases that I was less than enthusiastic about. However, it would be more accurate to say that this project is an unpredictably hit-or-miss one and this album is mostly a hit, as these murky nightmares nicely approximate an aesthetic best described as "what I hope to hear whenever I unearth some incredibly obscure yet revered '80s noise tape."

Self-Released

This particular album does not have an explicit conceptual theme lurking behind it (beyond the collective's usual morbid fascinations), but it does not exactly need one when the project's general vibe is nearly always some variation of "disturbing fever dream set in a George Romero movie." That said, the collective's vision has encompassed a few different strains of disorienting and creepy analog murk over the years and I tend to prefer the albums where some glimpses of melody, kitsch, or black humor brighten the pervasive atmosphere of rot, ruin, and existential horror. The humor this time is limited to the title's droll nod to the pandemic, sadly, but that is not a deal-breaker: if the spectral fragments that billow up out of the slime are compelling, I am always willing to submerge myself in Fossil Aerosol's seething miasma of tape loops and abandoned film canisters. The fragments in this case evoke a mysteriously abandoned secret military base in a malarial jungle, as the recurring themes seem to be ghostly machine hum, enigmatic loops of echoing voices, phantom radio transmissions, and a host of vaguely menacing "natural" sounds like buzzing insects and distant, muffled howls. In the closing "Passage Three" there is even an unexpected and visceral flurry of percussion, but it only emphasizes the existing dread further, resembling the war drums I might hear if I found myself suddenly dropped into Cannibal Holocaust. Fortunately, that has not happened to me yet, so I am free to wallow in the less extreme sensation of watching a cursed video cassette that makes everything around me curdle, wilt, rot, and corrode. Admittedly, few crave such a refined pleasure, but those who do will find an especially focused, tightly edited, and immersive Fossil Aerosol Mining Project experience here.

Samples can be found here.

This fascinating and inspired album is both the debut vinyl release from guitarist Jeremy Hurewitz and the first Flower Room album that is not a Matt Lajoie or Ash Brooks project. To some degree, that union makes perfect sense, as both Lajoie and Hurewitz are guitarists with healthy appetites for improvisation and psychedelia, but docile cobras takes those appetites into some impressively inventive and unfamiliar territory. While enhancing his acoustic guitar work with flutes, percussion, field recordings, and psychotropic electronic flourishes is nothing new for Hurewitz, this album is the fruit of a two-day collaboration with Mexican musician/folklorist Luís Pérez Ixoneztli, who oversees a "collection of priceless, one-of-a-kind, indigenous instruments from Mesoamerica." This is not a document of a jam with some unusual instruments, however, as Luís Pérez made his contributions only after listening to the pieces and thoughtfully reflecting upon the ideal accompaniment. Sometimes he opted for shakers made of dried cocoons or ancient clay flutes, but his instincts also led him to less traditionally musical sounds like "water poured into a tub" or "Shamanic breathing." To my ears, the result feels like a pleasantly lazy jam around a campfire, except I am wildly hallucinating and a displeased owl god just reawakened to punish me for blundering into his sacred clearing.

Flower Room

The album opens with some improvised-sounding variations on a vaguely Spanish or Middle Eastern acoustic guitar theme, which is normally not a promising sign for me. However, before I could start wondering if an actual song was going to appear, I was immediately drawn into the evocative and enigmatic backdrop of echoing drips and deep, whooshing breaths. Eventually "lost at sea" coheres into a kind of desert-psych crescendo, as Luís Pérez joins in with some shuffling percussion while additional layers of guitar weave an intricate web of melodies, but it illustrates an interesting and unusual aspect of Hurewitz's aesthetic: he seems extremely disinterested in songcraft in any kind of conventional sense. That said, the finished pieces each feel like part of an organic, complete, and a vividly realized vision, as the guitar parts serve as a thread guiding me through a phantasmagoric jungle of eerie, unfamiliar sounds pregnant with hidden meaning. However, there is one song ("peculiar travel suggestions") that is structured and melodic enough to approximate a "single," as Hurewitz even goes so far as to include a tender piano melody. Later, the rippling arpeggios of "shared consciousness" come within shouting distance of a conventionally structured song once more, but my favorite piece is the more loose, abstract, and epic "docile cobras." As usual, the most exquisite pleasures are not the chiming minor key arpeggios that act as the piece's backbone, but the rich panoply of mind-bending sounds that bleed slowly into the tableau with maximum hallucinatory impact. In fact, the piece even gets sucked into a still deeper black hole of psychedelia after I thought it had already reached peak mindfuckery, which is quite an impressive feat. The album as a whole is also quite an impressive feat, as Hurewitz and Luís Pérez cooked up one hell of a vibrant and memorably unique deep listening experience.

Samples can be found here.

No one can say that Randall Taylor is insufficiently committed to analog media, as the Portland-based tape wizard’s discography is teeming with cassettes released on a varied and international host of small labels. This latest release is one of his infrequent high-profile appearances, however, so Blooming can reasonably be viewed as the proper follow-up to 2018's Between Distant and Remote. In the interim, there were collaborations with Drowse and Midwife, both of which actually seem like closer stylistic brethren here than more purist tape projects like Tape Loop Orchestra (not always the case with Amulets). The album's precarious balance of sludgy, "doom-gaze" power chords and blurred, dreamy tape loops sometimes errs too much on the "doom" side to land Blooming a spot in my personal pantheon of favorite Amulet releases, but I am sure my highly subjective weariness of metal is a factor in that. That said, the line between "violent ambient" and "mannered, understated shoegaze-metal" is a blurry one and there is plenty that I love around that convergence. In fact, the occasions when Taylor perfectly hits the mark ("Observer Effect," for example) are damn near spellbinding. Also, it is quite impressive that Taylor has managed to make tape music so song-like and accessible that it could easily appeal to someone who has never heard of musique concrète.

The Flenser

Like many releases these days, Blooming was composed and recorded in isolation during the pandemic, which at least partially explains the album's darker-than-usual tone. More specifically, however, it was inspired by the flowers that Taylor encountered during his daily springtime walks, which triggered some deeper thoughts about how "nothing lasts forever and everything is cyclical." While Taylor is certainly not the first person to have that revelation, he is unusually good at applying that bittersweet wisdom to his art, as Blooming sustains a complex and shifting swirl of melancholy, decay, violence, fragility, and transcendent beauty for its entire duration. "Observer Effect," for example, slowly fades in with warmly dreamlike drones, tender arpeggios, and field recordings of sloshing waves, but ultimately coheres into an elegiac-sounding chord progression beneath a looping and gorgeously anguished-sounding hook. Elsewhere, "Collapse in Memory" is another triumph, as a warm sea of frayed and decaying loops gradually transforms into a considerably more heaving, violent, and stormy sea. The following "Empty Tribute" is also a jewel, as smoldering smears of tortured loops mass over a backdrop of industrial clatter. Even my not-favorite songs have their killer moments though, as the heartache reverie of "Tears in the Fabric" is beautifully ripped apart by an eruption of churning noise, while the closer "Whirl" offers a cathartic crescendo of looping howls. In fact, I suspect that I would absolutely love this album if it was a bit less moodily brooding and a bit more gritty and hiss-soaked. I do love Amulets in general, however, and can easily imagine that other fans of Taylor's work might view this as one of his most focused and powerful releases to date. For me, it is a solid album with two or three sustained flashes of "career highlight" brilliance.

Samples can be found here.

It has been roughly a decade since this French duo of gnarled guitar enthusiasts last surfaced as Sun Stabbed and I have certainly missed them, though Thierry Monnier and Pierre Faure's similarly excellent La Morte Young project helped fill the void nicely. Aside from the different line-ups, the main difference between the two projects is that this one is kind of a direct homage to some of New Zealand's most iconic purveyors of blacked drones and noisy guitars. While no discussion of that subject would be complete without Campbell Kneale, it is The Dead C and the woefully underheard Surface of the Earth that explicitly provide the most inspiration here.  Characteristically, Monnier and Faure are admirably up to the task of continuing that fine tradition, as In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni is a feast of manipulated feedback, burned-out wreckage, and simmering drones. Occasionally it can be eerily beautiful and haunting, but I also like the parts that resemble an onstage brawl between Skullflower and Sunn O))). This is an instant noise/drone guitar classic.

Doubtful Sounds

The album opens with its most slow-burning pleasure, as "Le soleil couchant de cette cité laissait quelques lueurs" opens with a single distorted tone that lazily twists and undulates for several minutes. As that note drones on, a haze of feedback and overtones starts to form around it and the higher pitches begin to resemble Tuvan throat singing. Eventually the central drone is fleshed out a bit, but the piece continues to feel like a single smoldering and gently twisting drone loaded with seething tension. It is a beautifully crafted piece, but I appreciated it even more once I translated the title (roughly "The setting sun of this city left some light"), as I started envisioning all of the slowly unfurling tendrils of sound as streaks of deep red and bruised purple in the darkening wake of a sunset (definitely made me wish I had synesthesia). The following "La sensation de l'écoulement du temps" is another slow-building masterpiece of controlled violence and superhuman patience, as ghost trails of feedback lazily wind across a landscape of drones and gently sizzling and crackling amp noise. The neat twist this time around is that the spectral feedback and the underlying drones both cohere into rhythmic patterns that are as languorously hypnotic as any Indian raga I have heard. Sun Stabbed differ from raga in some very significant ways though, particularly in the passing storm of stuttering, blown-out distortion that soon consumes the song. Yet another perfectly titled piece (roughly "So here is a civilization that burns, capsizes and sinks in its entirety") closes this album with a convulsive catharsis of roiling guitar noise and buzzing, low-end hum. It is not quite on the same level as the previous two pieces, but compensates with its comparative brevity and provides an enjoyably volcanic finale.

Samples can be found here.

Detroit-based project Mission to the Sun is Christopher Samuels (Ritual Howls) and vocalist Kirill Slavin. For those familiar with Ritual Howls’ catalog, there are brooding melodies and electronic forays akin to that band, but listeners will not mistake this for a Ritual Howls release. Cleansed by Fire’s modus operandi is founded on minimal ambient electronics that serve as the foundational context for Slavin’s bleak lyrics and haunting vocals.

felte

When it works, it does so to significant effect, particularly on "Damaged." Vocals set back in the mix provide a robust and brooding balance between Samuels’ sad synthesizer melody and gloomy lyrics, crying, "I tried to reach the sky, but I burnt out." Instrumental "Mission to the Sun" is a standout track that brokers a hypnotic industrial rhythm splashed with fuzz and interspersed with ghostly and staccato vocals.

Some songs come off as more challenging in that they start slow and straightforward, sounding as if they are building towards a grand finale that never arrives. ("Take Me Back," "Three Crossings") That said, concert rock this is not - far from it - intending instead to invoke a contemplative if darker mood. Consider "The Unbroken Sea," founded on a straightforward underlying synth melody; from here, carefully listen as it becomes embellished with soft static, wind effects, and the occasional ghost chorus. The lyrics match the mood, with Slavin matter-of-factly imploring the listener to "Take all my possessions / Release me from confession / Drain me of ability / In the deepest water / Just waiting for the slaughter." None of Mission to the Sun’s melodies are as direct as those of Ritual Howls, but patience will reward with darker gems of a different sort.

Samples can be found here.

It is unfortunate that this final album from Tomaga is being released in the shadow of Tom Relleen's untimely passing, as Intimate Immensity probably could have been the London duo's breakthrough release otherwise. I first became aware of the project through a combination of drummer Valentina Magaletti's many other appearances (Vanishing Twin, Raime, Helm, etc.) and stumbling upon Memory in Vivo Exposure while briefly obsessed with exotica-inspired ambiance. While I would not describe this latest album as particularly exotica-inspired for a Tomaga release, Relleen and Magaletti have always had a unique, eclectic, and constantly evolving off-beat vision, so there is no dearth of unusual juxtapositions and unexpected divergences among these ten songs. I suppose Vanishing Twin's Stereolab-esque aesthetic is as good a reference point as any, as the best songs here feel like the soundtrack of an arty European cult film from the '60s or '70s improved with subtle hallucinatory flourishes, exotic atmospheric touches, and muscular dub-wise grooves.

Hands in the Dark

I would not describe myself as particularly drum-obsessed, but there are definitely a handful of drummers and percussionists who are reliably compelling when freed from the constraints of conventional songs and Valentina Magaletti is one of them. She is a bit of an aberration in that regard though, as she tends to churn out killer beats rather than wild, free-form solos. Tomaga has long been the home for those killer beats and Relleen is the perfect foil on Intimate Immensity, enhancing Magaletti's grooves with deep, dubby bass motifs, evocative splashes of color, and eclectic melodic themes. In some ways, Muslimgauze is another one of Tomaga's closest kindred spirits, but if Bryn Jones had not been monomanically obsessed with the Middle East and had instead spent his time in tiki bars watching Serge Gainbourg and Guy Maddin films and obsessively absorbing every weird soundtrack that Finders Keepers reissues.  In that light, the album's best song is a bit of an anomaly, as "Intimate Immensity" has the feel of a bizarrely sensual, tripped-out elegy, as an achingly lovely descending string motif floats above a slowed-down "Funky Drummer"-style beat and rubbery, ping-ponging electronics. The industrial-tinged "British Wildlife" is a delight as well, resembling a Carter Tutti remix of a Martin Denny album, yet the album's most sustained run of greatness occurs mid-album, as "The Snake," "Very Never," and "More Flowers" are all cool as hell. All sound very cinematic and would be perfect for a late '60s spy movie set in Marrakech or my next escape from a haunted tropical island, but the alternately rolling and lurching grooves ensure that they feel like something for more visceral and vivid than a mere pastiche of cool influences. While I have not quite made it through Tomaga's entire discography yet, I would be extremely surprised if any of the duo's previous albums surpass this one, as the highlights here feel impressively revelatory.

Samples can be found here.

I have belatedly realized that I was an utter fool for sleeping on this unusual electronic duo from Berlin for so long, as an idiosyncratic dub techno-inspired project from a former member of Lali Puna seems like it should be right up my alley. Unfortunately, their debut (Nocturnes) was a bit too indulgent, deconstructed, and eclectic to resonate with me at the time and I filed them away as "mutant techno for people who are way too enthusiastic about modular synthesizers." Whether Driftmachine has gotten better in the ensuing seven years or whether I just caught up to the inspired aesthetic that they had all along is hard to say, but Spume & Recollection instantly sounded great to me, so my guess is that there have indeed been some improvements. While all four of these pieces are definitely still a bit too vamp-like and strange to fit within my personal dub techno comfort zone, I now feel like the quirks and subdued spaciness of the pair's vision make Driftmachine a compelling entity in its own right, as the best moments of Spume & Recollection feel like simmering, surreal, and mechanized psychedelia in perfectly distilled form.

Umor Rex

The curiously titled "Albatross follows a killer whale" opens the album with bleary, swaying smears of synthesizer and lazy beeps before a slow and deep bass groove kicks in. From that point onward. Driftmachine continually display a real knack for crafting hypnotically stark and throbbing rhythms, always finding the perfect tempo for their heady, simmering magic to slowly reveal itself. In the case of "Albatross," that magic comes in the form of shuddering, buzzing drones and dubby slashes of echoing percussion. Without the latter, the piece would still be a pleasantly slow-burning dub techno-inspired delight, but the unpredictable violence of those slashes elevate it into something better. The following “The surge at the end of the mind” kicks off with a blurting and lurching off-kilter pulse, resembling some kind of stark, robotic funk (a good summation of the entire album, really). Gradually, however, the strange collection of clicks, pops, swells, and beep coheres into an unexpectedly propulsive groove. Or maybe an expectedly propulsive one, as Driftmachine are unerring in that regard on this album. The duo's rhythms are unconventional though, involving a number of moving parts that rarely seem like they will seamlessly lock together into a precision-engineered, futuristic pulse (and yet they always do). Elsewhere, “Memories of the lakeside" comes out of the gate with an odd, quirky groove that achieves something akin to imagining "Hotline Bling" as a classic Rhythm & Sound single. The final piece, "Soon I will disappear," is an unusually melodic one, as a minor key chord progression of frayed, spectral synths unfolds over a characteristically erratic and bubbling synth pulse. Of course, once the kick drum and the bass come in, yet another smoky, simmering, and heavy groove is born. All four pieces here are legitimately excellent and quite similar to one another, as Spume & Recollection is essentially just a handful of cool grooves allowed to play out in ten-minute doses, yet the duo's surgical exactitude, flawless instincts, and talent for manipulating small details keep the album smoldering from front to finish.

Samples can be found here.

It seems like William Ryan Fritch has a new album coming out practically every other month these days and I dearly hope to catch up with his voluminous output someday, as that relentless work ethic does not seem like it has disrupted his near-supernatural hot streak one bit. This latest gem is one of his more high-profile recent releases, billed as a labor of love two years in the making. Normally, soundtrack albums are a bit of a red flag for me, as they are not generally intended to stand alone (by design), but some artists can transcend that restriction beautifully and conjure vivid sound worlds that are satisfying and complete experiences in their own right. Unsurprisingly, Fritch is one such artist and Freeland is an absorbing, inspired, and fitfully mesmerizing album. Granted, some of the strongest pieces are teasingly brief due to their intended context, but the heaving, shuddering, and fluttering rustic drones of pieces like "Devi’s Last Deal" and "The Old Commune" are haunting and memorable enough that I do not lament their brevity much, as I will happily take whatever glimpses of heaven I can get.

Lost Tribe Sound

As the opening piece is the achingly beautiful "Devi's Last Deal," I did not need any added convincing to help me fall in love with the album, but my appreciation for Fritch's vision actually did deepen a bit once I learned more about the film. In broad strokes, Freeland is about "an aging pot farmer" who "finds her world shattered" as the legalized weed industry threatens to destroy her fragile outlaw refuge of hippie idealism (and her livelihood). Given the trailer, the tone of the music, and the choice of the elementally intense Krisha Fairchild for the lead role, it is probably safe to say I will find the film heartbreakingly sad when I finally see it, as powerlessly watching capitalism consume counterculture is certainly a subject that resonates with me. In keeping with that theme, Fritch's music evokes flickering and ghostly memories of distant happier times in a long-abandoned commune. If that spectral commune had a spectral house band, it would probably be a drowned orchestra of moss-covered skeletons rather than more expected "commune fare" like Amon Düül II or the freak folk milieu, as the slow, sad drones are invariably organic, haunted, and haunting. There are also a couple of shimmering and radiant pedal steel-sounding interludes ("Bygones" and "What You've Built"), as well as a tenderly melodic and dreamlike piano piece (the closing "Resurface"). All are likable, but it is definitely the more drone-based pieces that make me think "no one could have made a better soundtrack for this film than William Ryan Fritch, as he is a goddamn textural sorcerer." In pieces like "The Old Commune" and "Dropped," the strings sound like the deep, heaving, and woody groans of an old forest, while the woodwinds breathily sigh and flutter like phantasmagoric birds and butterflies. When Fritch stretches out enough to conjure a sublimely immersive and bittersweet scene in vivid detail, the results are gorgeous. Admittedly, only a handful of pieces linger around long enough to make such an impression on their own, but these fourteen fragments cumulatively make for quite a memorable whole.

Samples can be found here.

Disciples' wonderful series of resurrected home recordings from Warren Defever's precocious teenage years winds to a close with this third album (coinciding with the release of A Silver Thread, which compiles all of Defever's recently issued early home recordings in one place). In one way, it can be said that the best was saved for last, as Hope is a Candle features remastered versions of some material from the demo that fatefully landed His Name is Alive on 4AD (which has circulated as a bootleg for years). To my ears, however, it does not quite rival the pleasures of All the Mirrors in the House, but that makes sense since Mirrors was the revelatory bombshell that unveiled this treasure trove in the first place. That said, the "songs" are sometimes a bit longer and more fleshed out this time around, making Hope is a Candle feel like an enjoyable outtakes collection from the project's earliest albums. While that is certainly enough to satisfy me as an HNIA fan, the album also boasts quite a lovely and sublime closing piece.

Disciples

Now that this wonderful series of archival finds is (probably) at an end, it occurs to me that its appeal often lies more in hearing what a bored teenager with limited resources can achieve with sufficient vision than as a window into how the early His Name is Alive aesthetic took shape. After all, there are already several great HNIA albums out in the world, but getting a glimpse into how the young and extremely resourceful Defever worked around his limitations is considerably more instructive and inspiring. As Defever himself put it, "I wanted to do my own Music For 18 Musicians. But I didn't know 18 musicians; I barely had two friends, and even they couldn't stand me." While nothing on Hope is a Candle is in any danger of being mistaken for a classic Steve Reich composition, the album does feature an impressively varied and inventive series of song sketches. The strongest is the aforementioned closer, "Insiders," which is a warmly lovely and slow-moving procession of shimmering chord swells. "Liadin," the album's single of sorts, is a gem as well, as Defever deftly combines slow, chorus-heavy washes of chords with airy, jangling strums. Elsewhere, the swirling, reverb-swathed orchestral loops of "Nearby" are another sublime delight. That said, while Hope is a Candle does feature some song-like moments, it still does not quite reach the "songs" stage, so it has the feel of a collection of ephemeral highlights plucked from a mountain of improvisations (which is exactly what it is). At various times throughout this series, some unearthed pieces have transcended those origins beautifully, but the bulk of this album falls more within the "cool vignettes" category. Some of those vignettes ARE quite good though, particularly the all-too-brief harmonized acoustic guitar interlude of "Never" and the droning bowed strings and sharp harmonics of "Still."

Samples can be found here.