On this combination CDR and 7" single, Crumer continues to demonstrate why he’s so highly regarded in the noise scene.  The 7” channels the best elements of the junk metal and maxed out overdrive pedal style, while the CD takes a slow, droning direction to nicely contrast the cut up harsh stuff.

Towards the end of his career, Soleilmoon put in a request to the late Bryn Jones to put together some material that was conventional enough to allow some crossover into the electronic and dance scenes.  This wasn’t an absurd request, because at this time his work more than flirted with dance and hip-hop beats, but often it was just as likely to slide into harsh, abrasive textures.  The proposed 12" requested by the label was delivered as a 90 minute DAT, all of which is reproduced here.  It is two discs of the most ass shaking, head-nodding material he ever did that conjures images of burka clad women shaking their asses, Miami bass style.

As I grow older and more culturally saturated with each passing year, my capacities for surprise and wonder have become nearly non-existent.  Nevertheless, 2006’s Ys completely floored me and has been very firmly entrenched as one of my favorite albums ever since.  Given the stunning beauty and imagination of that album and the enormous progression that it displayed from The Milk-Eyed Mender, my expectations for its follow-up were impossibly, crazily high.  Unsurprisingly, they were not met.  Have One On Me is an enjoyable and accessible album, but it is a decidedly anticlimactic one.

Charlemagne Palestine's monolithic 71 minute organ riff is a sensual, pleasure inducing drone. The crisply sparkling sonority creates a sense of drift, a foreword carrying motion propelled by colliding tones. Buoyed by slow changes that create illusions of movement, the experience of listening to Schlingen-Blangen is one of floating between parallel worlds of harmony and noise.

One of the first images I remember associating with Coil is the sticker that asked, "When you listen to Coil do you think of music?" After listening to Gold is the Metal many times, my answer remains a strong "no." In a discography filled with bizarre and bewildering recordings, this collection of odds and ends still stands out as one of Coil's most difficult and oblique.

This has always been a hard record for me to understand. It's not a typical long-playing album but it feels like more than just a collection of four singles. The botched track listing on my CD didn't help matters. As a product of remix culture, it's a far-reaching experiment that runs the gamut from funky breaks to outright noise.

Ida is a perfect example of pop music in its finest form. At the heartof the group are three multi-talented singer/songwriters, who, whentogether make some of the most beautiful harmonies and memorable songs.

With their live shows, Mouse On Mars defy any and all accusations andprejudiced expectations of electronic music in performance. However, asa musical token, this live collection is more of a "greatest hitsrevisited" than an essential live archive.

This CD/DVD set of Henry Jacobs'work has a lot to offer for  anyone who decides to crack it openand spend a few hours exploring. The CD does amarvelous job of illustrating the breadth and variety of Jacobs' soundart, contained in 39 digestible little nuggets while the included DVD is also a fantastichistorical artifact, collecting all three episodes of a surrealtelevision show assembled in a free-associative manner.

Although the members of XXL insist that the project be considered a new band, and not a one-offcollaboration, I can't help but suspect that this might be the onlytime XXL will be heard from. This brief album, though strong musically, feelslike the product of a specific place and time, inexorably tied to thefortnight of drinking, reveling and recording during which it wasproduced.

I have long had a theory that cold and miserable climates produce the best art and music, but the Canadian underground (aside from Skinny Puppy) has never played a serious role in my record collection.  Nevertheless, there is a small but flourishing scene of people there making appropriately hostile and abrasive music, and this debut release from the fledgling Prairie Fire Tapes label is an ear-shredding first step towards making the rest of the world notice it.

The late Fela Kuti was such a larger-than-life cultural supernova that it is very easy to forget that a host of other excellent Afrobeat bands spawned in his wake.  Of course, the comparative obscurity cloaking the rest of that scene was also not helped by the fact that virtually none of Nigeria’s other hot bands from that period ever had their albums released outside of their native country (or even reissued once the boom had ended).  On this, the fourth installment of Soundway’s Nigeria Special series, indefatigable curator Miles Claret sets out to redress that injustice (and assemble another great album in the process).

20 years ago I got my first taste of Meat Beat Manifesto in the form of Armed Audio Warfare. In the early 1990s, I knew DJs and collectors who had some of the early Sweatbox singles, but for most of my friends the Meat Beat odyssey began with this disc that served as the group's sort-of debut album. The history behind Armed Audio Warfare's release and subsequent reissues is full of mishaps and misspellings, track-listing gaffs and questions about what might have been. Now, 20 years later, I'm going back over the MBM discography to remember why it worked so well for me back in the day, and how it holds up now.

Looking back, it has only been a bit over a year since the Greyfield Shrines LP, my first exposure to these guys, yet in that year I’ve heard as significant amount of development and change in their work.  While that release was reminiscent of the intentionally minimalist drone of Sunn O))), subsequent work has brought in greater elements of noise, electronic music, and post-punk alternative.  This LP is perhaps the ultimate culmination of that, being released by no less than four labels and featuring guest appearances from members of Bloodyminded, Nachtmystium, Yakuza, and Velnias.

The announcement of Yellow Swans' dissolution last spring was a very disappointing one for many, as the duo were very firmly entrenched as one of the leading lights of the North American noise scene.  Their final album together makes for a strong end to an impressive career, yet it displays a degree of evolution that is unexpected for a band at the end of their life.  The band has certainly come a long way from their more unrestrained roots, but it seems like that trajectory may have continued still further if allowed.  Obviously, vanishing in style with enticing hints of still more unrealized potential to come is an admirable feat of showmanship, but it is also a frustrating one.

A Young Person's Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn is the first record from Kyle that I have really loved. Built in part from songs featured on his 2009 album, Fervency, Dunn's latest adds a second disc of all new songs, which fit together perfectly and emphasize his unique approach to orchestral ambience and soundtrack music. Where I heard apprehension and hesitation in his music before, I now hear more confidence and a greater willingness to experiment.

The death of Jack Rose in December brought a premature end to a career that was just getting started. His last album covers nearly every aspect of his repertoire, from ragtime to country-blues to his signature long-form guitar ragas.  While it should not be taken as a last testament, Luck in the Valley contains the stylistic and expressive breadth that defined Rose's life as an artist.

With a slew of vinyl releases in their backcatalog, this is the first digital release for the enigmatic ultra-minimalist electronic project, formed to pay tribute to the titans of drone such as La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros, and Charlemagne Palestine.  Their approach definitely demonstrates their lineage, but it is never derivative or stale.  The result is a beautifully sparse tapestry of analog electronics, which is both enhanced and slightly hindered by the purely digital medium.

The dichotomy at work through Kyle Parker's exquisite new album rivals the highest peaks of heaven and the lowest valleys of Hades. Mixing a bit of congestion within his soaring pieces, Parker—under the pseudonym Infinite Body—produces an album that borrows just as much from his noisier past as it does from Classical and Baroque masters long forgotten amidst the digital age.

Declaimed in a number of pompous and unhelpful reviews for mostly unintelligible or contradictory reasons, Marc Nguyen Tan's second full-length as Colder is, in reality, a dark and seductive electronic record with virtues to spare. Whether updating the anthemic possibilities of new wave or cross-breeding fake jazz with dub and cold motorik, Heat exudes a cool, sophisticated, and infinitely accessible atmosphere that is entirely unique to it.