Blending concrete sounds with electronics and homemade instruments, the success of Anakrid's latest album hinges on its unpredictability. New, strange sounds lurk around every corner, ready to subvert expectations by adding a spontaneous rhythm, dropping the volume, or the arrival a sudden arrhythmic crash. The result is a frequently bewildering yet thoroughly entertaining recording.

The Antripodean Collective is an ever-changing group of Australian improvisers that create music without the limitations and responsibilities of a bandleader. While the musicians in this incarnation had all previously played with each other in various groups, this was the first time that this particular quintet had played and improvised together. The title suggests that it was a grueling process, but the results were clearly worth it.

Sakana Hosomi and Masaki Narita's fifth album as Maju finds them exploring meditative territory with electronics. While much of the material is atmospheric, they also use textural layers to give their compositions a captivating emotional resonance.

This disc of Norwegian psychedelia is much different than the kind other countries put out.  Instead of sloppy stabs at slow repetition, there is instead four sprawling tracks of constantly shifting musicality that show obvious influences of psychedelics, new wave, classic and post-rock.  However, the actual result isn’t as bizarre as it could be.

Although many (myself included) have accused this duo of being overly prolific and simply releasing every bit of recorded material that exists.  While this is still a debatable case, this new full length album feels much more fleshed out and conceived when compared to some of their other works, and the addition of live drums on a few of the tracks doesn’t hurt either.

It’s hard to believe maybe, but Cornelius Waldner of Sagittarius started out his musical career playing in a black metal band, Hailstorm. Like many in that genre, he has felt the need to explore other avenues of musical expression and Sagittarius is one such exploration. Songs from the Ivory Tower is essentially the first proper release on a big label from him, delivering fifteen songs showcasing his quietly melancholic, small-scale songs and neo-classical instrumentals.

When everything went quiet in the Tindersticks camp a few years ago, Stuart Staples released a couple of solo albums, Dickon Hinchliffe started doing soundtracks and I was worried that the group was no more. A couple of Tindersticks compilations were released (a greatest hits and a BBC sessions double CD) but these felt like posthumous releases, nails in a coffin I was hoping did not exist. However, despite losing half its members, the band continues and has returned with a wonderful album that sounds like it could have been by the full line up in their prime.

I would have to consider the title of this disc either a misnomer or an intentional joke.  As a recording, it is definitely warm and inviting, and though almost entirely based on looped elements, has an organic feel unmatched by most similar projects.

Chef Menteur’s second full length retains the sense of a group setting obscure crossword clues while working out what their equipment will do. The sound is deeper and tighter but doesn’t completely abandon post-space-drone- audio-collage.

Every once in a while something extraordinary manages to come my way with a power that is hard to deny. Such is the case with this London-based band's debut album, a stratospheric collection of musically mature, beautifully crafted, and subtly layered compositions that refuse to remain earthbound. This is the vision and brainchild of just one individual—Oliver Barrett, only in his early 20s and literally fresh out of University.

By all accounts Bryn Jones of Muslimgauze was a prolific musician, as any glance at his discography will confirm. Even nigh on a decade after his untimely death, new (or rather previously unreleased) material is still emerging steadily into the light of day. Jah-Mearab is one such, bringing together unheard material originally recorded in 1998 and simultaneously inaugurating a whole series of archive CDs to be issued by his European label.

Lustmord's latest, Other finds the ever-busy sound designer, film composer, and reigning king of dark ambient turning in another assured work of drift and despair.

The Tupac of the experimental world, even some nine years after his death, various labels are still issuing posthumous work from Bryn Jones.  However, unlike Mr. Shakur, these aren't ramshackle scraps slapped together to make a quick buck, they're simply the product of one extremely prolific artist.  The second volume of Staalplaat's Archive Series (the label that, at one point, was receiving a full length DAT a week of new material), this disc compiles mostly previously released material, including the whole Jaagheed Zarb LP that was issued as one fourth of the Tandoori Dog set, three of the four tracks from the MP3 only Melt EP, and three unreleased tracks.

Having been in the field of abstract and noise art for some 19 years now, Joke Lanz is definitely not a neophyte.  This album makes that readily apparent in its highly structured, controlled noise elements, but is also willing to step outside of the boundaries of what is expected from him and instead is happy to toss in elements of punk, traditional industrial, and something that is often lacking in this genre:  humor.

In the past Karl Blau has been inspired by A.A. Milne. On Nature’s Got Away he conjures up a fabulous landscape somewhere between dreams and wakefulness. This unfussy yet 3D music seems almost theatrical in an era where 1.5 dimensions are too often the norm.

Tarek Atoui is a young Lebanese-born musician who went to study at the French National Conservatoire in Rheims in 1998. He now seemingly divides his time between France, Lebanon, the Middle East, and Amsterdam (where he is the co-artistic director of the Steims studio), performing and giving workshops. His Mort Aux Vaches release is composed of breakbeat-anchored cut-ups, samples, sound collages, noise, and unabashed experimentalism.

Thisquietarmy's Eric Quach (Destroyalldreamers) hails from Montréal. Paradoxically though, it appears the frozen landscape of the far north of the country has seeped into every crack and pore of his music. However, it is not just physical cold that inspires these eight tracks of ambient dronescape. Running through them is an equally icy glaciality redolent of a sense of utter despair and unalloyed distance and loneliness. Quach's world is one of constant twilight, illuminated solely by the light of stars and aurorae reflecting off a thickly snow-blanketed land.

In a situation that is not entirely unexpected, the latest album from Steven Stapleton has caused much controversy amongst fans with opinions ranging from it being one of his best to it being one of his biggest turds. Even here on Brainwashed, opinions were mixed with the review here concluding that "disappointment" sums up the album to my own view that it is pretty damn good. This 12" will probably not change many people's views of the album, it is an aside that those who are enjoying Huffin’ Rag Blues will dig but I am not so sure about those who found it hard to stomach.

This noise rock trio from Providence, Rhode Island, uses massive amounts of distortion over meaty bass, bruising drums, guttural screams, and squealing electronics to make sludgy music fit for exorcisms. Vicious slabs of aggression make this a visceral yet surprisingly enjoyable album.

Our somewhat semi-regular feature covering the newest dance singles goes full-length this week, reviewing new albums by Hercules and Love Affair, Syclops, Girl Talk and Ladytron.