Originally released a bit over ten years ago, this third (and final) album from the Sutcliffe Jugend side project had always been one of the lost masterpieces, as far I was concerned.  It was the most fully realized work of dark, anger fueled hate rock that the band put out, and ranks up there with the best work of somewhat similar bands like Swans, Godflesh, and Big Black.  Time has been kind to the disc, which sounds just as powerful and forceful today as it was upon release, and now it is much more widely available.

A single track live collaboration between the two New York composers, this was recorded in Portugal last year and focuses on the duo's interest in the composite of piano and digital music, both in the sense of laptop processing piano, and as the two working in harmony as different instruments. The result is a beautiful collage of sounds that never sounds like to disparate technologies in competition, but working together in a complex piece of art.

Harry Smith's 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music has long been considered the Holy Grail of Americana and was an enormous influence on an entire generation of folkies (including John Fahey and Bob Dylan).  Art Rosenbaum's Art of Field Recording series also plunges deep into Greil Marcus's "Old, Weird America" but with some inspired and welcome differences.  While the impact of Smith's archival work is impossible to repeat, Rosenbaum's work is similarly essential.

The first stateside release by 4AD's Minotaur Shock is a bizarre and frustrating assemblage of disparate elements that cannot happily co-exist (Philip Glass, Frank Zappa, Italian house music, etc.).  While often garish and annoying, Amateur Dramatics nevertheless features what is easily one of the best dance tracks to be released in 2008.

Pooling members from inside the Toronto improv scene, Blah Blah 666 remain an iconoclastic outfit. Their chosen name and album title belie their relaxed spontaneity. Starting with a straightforward overture featuring soft vocals and slide guitar, their music quickly gives way to unhinged time signatures, consistently defying my expectations at ever turn. Their solipsistic approach to musical styles reminded me of staying up all night with good friends, and the slap happy feeling that comes from being sleep deprived.

As much as I enjoy the music of KTL, there is a feeling that having heard one album, you have heard them all. This album bucks this trend to some degree; there is a feeling that that parameters that Stephen O'Malley and Peter Rehberg work within are widening. The darkness that permeates KTL's music is blacker than ever but the music has more gravity, pulling the listener in with more force than KTL have shown before.

While Tuareg guitar music continues to gather acclaim through groups like Tinarawen, the wider context of poverty and rebellion in Niger and Mali remains obscured from the outside world. In response, Sublime Frequencies continues its vinyl series documenting Tuareg music in the Nigerian city of Agadez.

Loren Chasse is a busy man. A founding member of the famed Jewelled Antler Collective, he also takes part in projects as varied as the delicate dronescapes of Thuja and the woodsy pop of The Blithe Sons, both of which also feature label co-founder Glenn Donaldson. When he sets out on his own though, Chasse opts for the Of moniker, and it is in this habitat that he seems most at ease. Combining ambient subtlety with a dense and immersive drone aesthetic, Chasse creates initimate sonic structures that seem to resonate from the earth itself.

Apparently the first time around just wasn't good enough. Rune Grammofon, in celebration of another five years of great music, has decided to rerelease another gorgeous hardcover art book with a two CD compilation for perusal accompaniment. Initially planned as a revision of the original and now legendarily hard to track down first edition, the second edition instead scrapes the palette clean and builds from the ground up with a new design layout and art by Kim Hiorthøy and 25 mostly exclusive tracks from many of the label's favorites.

Released in the spring of last year, this album was well received but didn’t get enough lasting credit to make it into the annual retrospectives that followed. Listeners hungry for a new take on loop based ambiance should take notice, since Ecstatic Sunshine bucks the plodding and formless conventions of lesser artists working in the genre.

Mirroring the economy, Larsen appear to be undergoing a bit of a recession following many years of seemingly unstoppable growth. On their difficult 8th album (just ask Black Sabbath about that), there is less consistency than there has been in their previous releases. There are still some fantastic moments on this album (not least some wonderful parts with guest vocalist Little Annie Bandez) but they are tempered by some lacklustre pieces which unfortunately drag the album down a notch.

Many (if not most) artists get maybe two albums out before falling into a rut and losing whatever magic they had. In the case of Stars of the Lid, the opposite occurred with their creativity only truly taking momentum a couple of albums into their recording career. This reissue of their debut shows the initial staggering steps that would eventually grow into the sure and elegant music that the duo now creates. This album may be patchy but it is here that the foundations for the unique Stars of the Lid sound are laid down.

It is little surprise that French electroacoustic composer Berangere Maximin's musical path has consisted of both conservatory studies under Denis Dufour and stints in rock and world bands. Her solo debut consists of six works that expound upon the tape manipulations of Pierre Schaefer, but whose sense of drama maintains her contact with the popular musical forms that she has partaken in.

Australian laptopper Mark Mitchell has made an insanely ambitious and hyper-literate psych-pop concept album.  Unfortunately, it is also a veritable volcano of twee.

This is space opera at its finest. (As in the subgenre of science fiction literature where tales of romance and dare doing heroes fight power hungry villains and alien monsters, all set against the backdrop of the stars.) There are no ear splitting sopranos singing in German on this record, but sultry vocals cooed into a microphone over gorgeous synth lines and hypnotic guitar riffs. This was the perfect band to sit down and listen to as I waited for my flight to arrive inside a dimly lit spaceport bar.

Colossal Yes is the quixotic side project of Comets on Fire drummer Utrillo Kushner. According to Kushner, this album was inspired by New Zealand indie rock bands like The Clean, The Verlaines, and The Tall Dwarves. Oddly, this influence appears to have had only a marginal effect on the band's sound, as they still most closely resemble the mellow '70s rock of The Band.

As far as I'm concerned, the Incapacitants are THE best noise band to ever come out of Japan.  While they aren't as prolific or esoteric as some of their contemporaries, they've consistently been responsible for some of the most complex, chaotic, loud, and downright fun releases in the genre.  Here, almost all of their cassette recordings have been complied into a lavish, lovingly presented 10 CD box set that stands up proudly with any other large-scale reissue release, and the material sounds as fresh today as it did some 10 to 15 years ago.

Dälek unleash industrial-strength beats, layers of juddering ambience, and a fierce verbal polemnic. Gutter Tactics matches rough, suffocating production to brutal subject matter. A few piano figures provide relief but the general mood of uncompromising defiance is signalled by the cover depiction of a lynched human recreated as a mtuant, and an opening track sampling Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Although it'll probably get the most attention for the participation of Sunn O)))'s Stephen O'Malley, this is much better looked at as an ensemble work that lacks overly sustained guitar drone in place of a bleaker, more complex atmosphere that, along with the vocals of Anok Pe David Tibet, conveys darkness in a more subtle, but equally as menacing way.

Historically speaking most musical reunions are, to be polite, lacking. More often than not the group's are well past there prime, and appear to be doing little more than either seeking a paycheck or reclaiming their past glories as pop culture icons. That Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius' recent Cluster reunion exudes none of these qualities is not so much surprising as it is encouraging. The duo's artistic integrity can hardly be called into question after their near 40-year career, even as they are in a position to exploit their earned roles as godfathers of experimental synth music. Yet Berlin 07, a document of their first show in the city since 1969, displays the duo in fine form as they broaden their legacy by continuing to create vital and challenging music.