The thought of solo electric guitar improv generally fills me with a mixture of extreme apprehension, apathy, and an overwhelming urge to be elsewhere, but Justin Wright seems to have found a very compelling little glacial niche for himself.  White Ohms is a surprisingly hypnotic and unique album.

A pioneer in the use of laser technology in entertainment, Szajner's futurism carried into his other pursuits. His second album is a soundtrack to a documentary on capital punishment, but the mood feels more akin to the techno-dystopias popular in science fiction at the time of its release. Fans of Blade Runner or Escape from New York will be familiar with Szajner's aesthetic, but his dynamic songcraft sets him apart from the cinematic snyth musicians of his generation.

Punning does not inspire my confidence. Neither do vague album titles, literary references, or super limited releases.  This cassette suffers all four of those faux pas, but the music itself shows nothing but good taste. Considering my appetite for bubbly space music, I'll take it as a lesson not to judge by appearances.

Paul Taylor and Kevin Tomkins have been working together for well over 25 years, most notably as the notorious power electronics duo Sutcliffe Jugend.  After a few reinventions of that project, they emerged a few years ago as simply SJ and created two albums, Between Silences and Threnody for the Victims of Ignorance that channeled the same dark atmospheres and tension, but expanded to more instrumentation than just raw synths and screamed vocals. This evolution has continued into Inertia, where guitar is the main instrument, but along with piano, clarinet, and other traditional instruments, to create dark and disorienting audio paintings.

In their third release on Thrill Jockey in barely a year, the fraternal trio continue their trek into Appalachia-damaged stoner rock that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, yet takes their backwoods classic Sabbath through Earth sound into a realm all their own.

I don't know if music has ever been prescribed for people suffering from the vagaries of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Perhaps it is yet to be. I don't know if this album, the debut full length release from the Austrian duo of Roman Gerold and Richard Eigner, would help with the attention aspect of the disorder (its lush textures allow the mind to drift along lazily). I am positive though, that its soothing sounds can certainly calm the frantic, hyper-driven tendencies of the modern mind.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius' stature in German experimental music is well documented in his work with Cluster, Harmonia and Brian Eno. Yet Roedelius' solo output often drifts sadly under the radar. Here Roedelius' 1979 solo effort, his second, is reissued so that once again his distinctive musical style can be seen unblemished by a surrounding group. With this freedom, Roedelius used his simple compositional approach to achieve one of his most whimsical and curious statements.

Two sidelong tracks of low-tech miasma make up this cassette EP. While the individual sound elements are varied and potent, as a whole the compositions tend to drag in the middle. I'm sure that Millions didn't set out to be an example, but The Unanimous Night is typical of what happens when music gear is relied upon to generate mood music.

Sacros won the 1968 Chilean schools contest for "beat" groups. Five years later they recorded their only record: this Latin American country rock hymn cycle inspired in part by ancient Mayan and Andean Gods. Released September 18, 1973, seven days after a military coup installed the dictator General Augusto Pinochet, most copies were destroyed in the subsequent crackdown.

Fluxus artist Yoshi Wada has had a bit of a resurgence in the public eye lately due to a number of recent reissues of works that, in retrospect, fit alongside many of the best and most challenging minimalist works of the last forty years. Here, EM presents the fourth and final Wada release in their series with the world premiere of a 1974 performance in Syracuse, New York consisting of a single drone and four Wada-created "pipehorns" tuned to the frequencies of the room itself.

Almost disturbingly prolific, this is the latest (though that might change by the time you read this) disc from this noise/drone/metal duo.  While they have been cranking the releases out in their relatively short career, they have at least been consistent with the quality of their releases, and Drenched Lands, for all its metal look and presentation, is one of the more subtle releases I have yet to hear.

Kevin Tomkins is probably always going to be known for his tenure in the early (and some would say best) incarnation of Whitehouse, closely followed by his power electronics project Sutcliffe Jugend and the rock-oriented Bodychoke.  This first solo outing from him completely defies expectations, being based only on sounds generated by an autoharp.

Presenting a whopping 24 tracks in just over 45 minutes, this album is exactly what it says it is: a series of drone works the titles of which indicate the digital works' file type, size, bitrate and other pieces of information. If this sounds like a disjointed mess however—and you couldn't be blamed if the quantity and brevity of the material suggested as much—don't be fooled. This is an extended work whose whole is simply attained through the slight differences afforded by so many partitions.

An hour of mostly solo cornet played in a French monastery might seem a strict challenge. And that's the point here as Rob Mazurek battles his more extreme urges on 11 compositions recorded at Fontevraud l'Abbaye and dedicated to the controversial Robert D'Arbrissel who founded it in 1099.

Campbell Kneale may longer be known as Birchville Cat Motel, but he certainly has not stopped making abrasive, nightmarish music. Surprisingly, curating a Prince tribute album (Shutupalreadydamn!) has failed to translate into a funkier, sexier Neale. Stillborn Plague Angels is exactly the sort of album that Satan would make if he had the time and inclination to start a noise band.

Italian mutant jazz-metal no-wavers Zu have been plying their bludgeoning trade in the underground for a decade, but it seems that they are finally receiving some widespread attention now that they are signed to Mike Patton's Ipecac label.  In the past, they have collaborated with a staggering and varied array of folks, ranging from free jazz icons to members of Can, The Stooges, the Ex, Sonic Youth, and Dälek.  On Carboniferous, they largely opt to go it alone, although Mike Patton and King Buzzo make somewhat dubious contributions.

Over ten years after the last of these tracks were recorded the members of Fridge have selected their favorite songs from their slew of releases on Output Recordings, the label that first championed them. Luckily they turned out to be my favorites as well. With headphones on and 80 minutes of their choicest cuts cued up, it is hard to be unhappy. The relentless pace Fridge showed, in both their rhythms and sheer number of songs recorded over a two year period, would exhaust the creative energies of many musicians. They were just getting warmed up. Listening back, after a decade of new developments and notable side projects, we can trace the trajectory they have followed, and hear within these songs, many points of origin.

Consisting of only seven spare pieces lasting just over 25 minutes in length, Tenniscoats find themselves having to make a lot out of a little on this disc. That the duo of Saya and Ueno are displaced from their Tokyo home base and immersed in the Amazon rainforest for a series of essentially live recordings seems as though it would leave even less room for error. Yet this distillation results in a poignant intimacy that seeks and finds its own niche in the realm of location-based music interactions.

Led by Dave Heumann, Arbouretum doesn't beat around the bush. Out of the gate they make it very clear exactly what rock 'n' roll means to them: huge melodies, rolling rhythms, noisy solos, and few introspective moments for good measure. Over eight concise songs, the band wrings the guitar for everything its worth and then some.

Done right, calypso conveys succinct unpretentious pleasure. In the wrong hands, though, it can be murderously bad. Thankfully, there is no over production or lyrical inanity to interfere with the simple, timeless enjoyment of this consistent collection from 1950s West Africa.