The unobscured natural photography on the cover of this disc sets up what is contained within.  While the label is usually focused on the dark, opaque droning sounds, Gargaud’s contribution to Utech is much clearer and lighter, at least in relative terms.  Mixing abstract electronics with some occasionally plaintive guitar playing, it stays relatively warm and organic throughout, with a few intentional, but compelling bumps along the way.  At its core, it feels like a more stripped down version of Fennesz.

8-Bit artists and circuit benders active in today’s vibrant scene have met their match—and their aesthetic ancestors—in the League of Automatic Music Composers. Regarded as being the worlds first computer band, their unique foray into electronic sound worlds began in tandem with the budding world of microcomputers, which in the mid-1970s were just then newly available on the commercial market.

At Brainwaves last year, Peter Christopherson claimed that this album was the best thing he had ever done. Such a lofty claim raised eyebrows and now it is time to see if this is the truth. While I cannot agree with Christopherson, he and Ivan Pavlov have certainly made a fantastic album. It is of a far different character to their previous transmission under the SoiSong name; xAj3z is warm and vibrant compared to the fragility of their debut.

This is the fourth beguiling release culled from Honest Jon's plunge deep into the EMI Hayes archive of forgotten 78s. Like Sprigs of Time, Living Is Hard, and Give Me Love before it, this is a singular and expertly curated exploration of some seriously obscure music.  Unlike those albums, however, Open Strings also features the curious (and possibly misguided) addition of a companion album of modern artists that mine similar territory.

In 1969, Mississippi Fred McDowell plugged in an electric guitar, and like Bob Dylan just a few years earlier, alienated many purists who could not fathom such radical change. So as not to encourage any ambiguity or doubt, McDowell's first electric record was titled I Do Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll. Whether or not Jack Rose is trying to cure ambiguities of his own with this record is unclear, but it is obvious that he's ready to move into new territory.

Fabrique documents many of the performers included in Lawrence English's long-running experimental music series.  The focus is largely on laptop-based ambient glitchery, but several artists contribute strong-based tracks that depart from this aesthetic (usually by incorporating human or organic elements).  Notably, the lesser-known artists (such as Tujiko Noriko) often steal the show from more established folks like Scanner or KK Null.

Soundtrack music has always held its own odd space in the music world. Living in constant relation to the images it is meant to accompany, soundtrack music can (and has) made movies as well as destroyed them, as any Ennio Morricone fan can attest to. Yet the best soundtrack music has always been able to positively shape a film while still standing on its own as strictly a musical work removed from its image-based companion. It is, it seems, this trait alone that separates the comparatively schlocky Hollywood mood-manipulations of a John Williams score from the intrinsic depth and subtlety of form found in an Anton Karas, Carl Stalling, Nino Rota, or Bernard Hermann piece. JG Thirlwell (most know him as the man behind Foetus, Wiseblood, Steroid Maximus, etc.) proves himself more than an adept contributor to the genre.

Montreal's trio of talented multi-instrumentalists hit pay dirt on this album. Revolving around a core of keyboards, drums and French horn, the group has carved out a pleasant niche for themselves inside the well traveled corridors of cinematic psychedelia, employing numerous other devices and useful effects along the way.

For An Outbreak of Twangin', the follow-up to 2008's Phantom Guitars, The Bevis Frond's Nick Saloman has again assembled a couple dozen incredibly obscure and kitschy surf guitar gems.  I am pleased to report that the influence of legendary paranoid reverb-monger/occultist/murderer Joe Meek looms large here.

This split album between Ohio’s Emeralds and Japan’s Pain Jerk was initially made to accompany their co-headline tour of the UK but thankfully it has made its way into the wider world. Both groups have done the decent thing in including top quality tracks when any old tosh would do. On paper, the idea of pairing these artists seems bizarre and with over half an hour of bliss from Emeralds and a truck load of sonic hell from Pain Jerk, the word “split” has never felt so apt.

After three years since their demise, the final album by Khanate has finally seen the dark of night. After a lot of speculation as to whether it would actually emerge or not, my expectations were high and unfortunately they were not quite met. The improvised music was recorded during the sessions for Capture & Release with the vocals added much later. This approach has lead to a hit or miss album that is awesome when on form but a touch disappointing when not.

"Free-folk" is a term that gets thrown around a lot, and to some extent it has come to represent a certain strain of quirky indie cuteness far removed from its more primitive punk precursors. Both elder statesmen of the style, Dredd Foole and Ed Yazijian have been playing together for years to little public acknowledgement. But in an increasingly open musical climate they have at last reconvened for an album of loose extrapolations within the form, proving their collective voice to be as stylistically prophetic and effective as one could hope from these two luminaries.

Not the most obvious instrumental choice for the modern age, the lute is far more often associated with Renaissance fairs and Dungeons & Dragons then contemporary minimalist composition. Yet that is exactly the approach that Jozef Van Wissem takes with this disc, combining seven compositions whose conceptual prowess ultimately proves tangential to Wissem's relaxed and stark approach to his instrument.

Although not part of any of the various art related series on the label, this release from the duo of Antoine Chessex and Ktho Zoid mine similar territory as either the Arc or URSK series do: dark, bleak, meditative drones; and in this case sourced from electronics, guitar, and tenor sax.  It does, however, lean more into the realms of noise than some of the other releases, and it is all the stronger for it.

Originally commissioned for a solo dance performance, the single piece on this disc not only stands on its own without any visual elements, but also showcases De Mey's history in film school as well, because it has the dynamicism, variation, and drama of that medium as well.

Reworking a site-specific piece she performed in 2007 in New York City, this disc finds sound artist Andrea Parkins using a slew of amplified objects along with her own processed accordion to create an hour long work of bloops, blips, and scratches. The combined effect of which transcends genre in favor of a pure and unadulterated sonic exploration for the electronic age, as her myriad patches decompose much of the sound into pieces that situate the listener on the verge of witnessing, in her own words, "things falling apart."

Kentucky's Vestigial Limb is not likely to emerge from the endless, faceless hordes of the harsh electronics tape underground anytime soon, but Ray Shinn is intermittently really damn good at what he does. I did not expect Kentucky to be a particularly fertile bed for avant-garde electronics.

Twenty years removed from his landmark solo debut Workbook, the former Hüsker Dü frontman belatedly produces another album worthy enough to bear his name, after a lengthy string of middling efforts. A mix of vibrant uptempo rockers and hooky ballads, it displays his maturation free of the masturbatory electronica and incredibly uneven songwriting that sullied his legacy these past eleven years.

Two artists that I am largely unfamiliar with (Brittany Gould of Married in Berdichev! and Eva Aguilera of Kevin Shields) have formed a band together and unexpectedly floored me with an EP of fractured, otherworldly beauty.  I wish surprises like this occurred more often in my life.

Bernard Szajner is a significant and influential figure in the composition and performance of electronic music. He created Superficial Music mainly from recordings of his earlier album Visions of Dune; by reversing tapes, slowing to half speed, mixing and adding effects. The intriguing results sound harmonious, anxious, consistently stunning and emotionally involving. The 1981 release is now reissued with relevant bonus tracks and extensive liner notes.