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Directing Hand, "Beast In"

Taking a sidestep from Directing Hand’s vision for folk forms and improvisation, this live set is a collective’s ecstatic field holler for escaping reality. Recorded at 2005’s Glasgow Instal festival with a cast noise/free luminaries such as Dylan Nyoukis, Phil Todd, Karen Constance, Ben Reynolds and David Keenan, Alex Neilson leads a thirty minute charge of the doors of constraint.
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1431 Hits

Astral Social Club, "Super Grease"

This vinyl-only companion to Astral Social Club's Neon Pibroch album, also on Important, is the equal to its more readily available CD counterpart. Balancing organic techniques with digital tools like he just originated the perfect formula, Neil Campbell has truly found his calling with his ASC project.

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9097 Hits

Num9, "The Glow-Worm's Resistance"

Coque Yturriaga has plenty of ideas, but lacks the methods necessary to execute them well. Sprinkled throughout his confused, often muddy compositions and flat sounds are brief moments of beauty and impressive innovation, but they are too rare to save this record from being more than the first, tentative steps of his solo career.
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9747 Hits

The Threshold HouseBoys Choir, "Form Grows Rampant"

 This CD/DVD is the first proper release by Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson's post-Coil audiovisual project. The music on Form Grows Rampant is a logical continuation of Sleazy's contributions to late-period Coil and the reformed Throbbing Gristle, a suite of dense digital environments that combine shuddering electronics with sampled vocals. In the process, The Threshold HouseBoys Choir create a brand new genre that might be described as Post-Industrial Exotica.
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28517 Hits

Lichens, "Omns"

I would be a criminal if I called Robert Lowe anything but a master of his craft. Allusions to divine sources of inspiration and eastern meditative practices might help convey some intimation of what Omns feels like, but such a description would completely overlook how lyrical and detailed the entire record is. Included on this CD and DVD combo is the work of an artist with all of his facilities functioning on the highest level possible.
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8946 Hits

NVH / Chasny "Plays The Book of Revelations"

This Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) and Noel Von Harmonson (Comets On Fire) collaboration features two tracks previously available on cassette only through Folding. This super deluxe LP edition on Yik Yak is  housed in a screen printed black on black (Fushitsusha style) package that folds out to become an inverted crucifix.
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13803 Hits

Jazzfinger, "Orange Sauce/ Peace Factor Fashion"

The pop culture splatter of this square cut lathe's cover isn't a good indicator of the contents. Like riding the brain cortex on a crank-handle railroad cart, Jazzfinger's lo-fidelity routes are gorgeously gritty trails in electric drone. Even though it moves slightly left from their recent release of improvised melancholia, these two cuts create an idyll from structures and melodies that aren’t really there.

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10736 Hits

Aidan Baker & Thisquietarmy, "Orange"

Imagine there is a machine moving through space without any discernible origin, its shape and size are thoroughly alien to the human mind, and it is transmitting a series of communications as it ploughs through our solar system and back into deep space. Orange would be the recording of those communications.
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14018 Hits

Fridge, "The Sun"

Fridge are one of those bands that defy any categorization.  Largely instrumental, they take elements of conventional alternative rock, krautrock, and electronica and work out something that can only be described as Fridge.  The Sun is their first new material since 2001's Happiness, a six year break that allowed the trio to integrate new sounds and elements into their already diverse repertoire. 
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10188 Hits

Fennesz/Sakamoto, "Cendre"

The first full length collaboration between these two internationally known electronic composers lives up to the hype, showing both artists demonstrating their considerable strengths, and the sum is even greater than its parts. 
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7331 Hits

Taylor Deupree, "Landing"

 Deupree has been at the forefront of an electronic subgenre of music that revels in its own esotericness, challenging listeners with often unmusical sequences of tones and textures generated by computer programs that are just as difficult and unintuitive.  For this release, there is none of that ivory tower sort of composition or oblique Max/MSP patch-generated sounds, but instead a very warm, albeit minimal, set of three tracks that of course feature the digital bleeps and microsounds, but also much more conventional textures which add greatly to the lushness and warmth of the EP.
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9366 Hits

KTL, "2"

Like its predecessor, 2 is based on elements that Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O)))) and Peter Rehberg (Pita) created as a score to the Kindertotenlieder theater piece by Gisele Vienne and Dennis Cooper, but stands on its own as a coherent work.  The disc does not represent a new piece as much as a companion piece to the first, based on the same recording sessions from 2006-2007. 
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11794 Hits

Shit & Shine, "Cunts With Roses"

So while my girlfriend is swamped in a bunch of paperwork I sneak up to my hideaway  for a fix of sonic filth. I pull out the new 12" on Noisestar. This heavy duty slab of wax is limited to a measly 300 copies and was recorded live  on August 29th 2006 at  rehearsal in London. Everything about this record tells me that she's not gonna appreciate it, the title, the sleeve, So I put on my headphones in a considerate moment.
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12532 Hits

Ras Myrhdak, "Prince Of Fyah (Vol. 1)"

This debut full length stuffed with one drop rhythms and Rastafarian principles contains many of the ingredients for a great reggae album, from its backing band of seasoned session musicians to the talented up-and-coming vocalist at its center. Yet somehow, despite the considerable effort shown, Prince of Fyah congeals into an unremarkable dish that, while easy to swallow, never quite satisfies.
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8083 Hits

Dan Deacon, "Spiderman of the Rings"

Dan Deacon is classically-trained in electro-acoustic composition, but chooses to make clunky, junky electronica using bargain basement gear and canned Casio keyboard beats. He wears goofy oversized sunglasses and performs illuminated by a glowing green Halloween skull. The music is deceptively simple: low-fi, wonky outsider pop that reveals layers of fascinating texture and occasional side-trips into joyful postmodern pastiche.
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10015 Hits

Over the Atlantic, "Junica"

Over the Atlantic blend influences from some of my favorite bands: there's a touch of Jesus and Mary Chain here and there and the Magnetic Fields are all over this album. However, it would be unfair (and downright wrong) to suggest that Over the Atlantic are just a nostalgia band for the late '80s and early '90s indie pop scene. While they are obviously informed by some great bands, they put their own stamp on the music.
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7209 Hits

Asbestosdeath, "Dejection/Unclean"

To be quite honest, despite being a big Sleep fan, I had never heard of Asbestosdeath until this reissue became available. Asbestosdeath is an early incarnation of the sonic titans and this reissue collects their two extremely rare 7" singles onto one CD. The songs will be familiar to those who own Sleep's Volume One as the songs here ended up being recycled when Al Cisneros, Chris Haikus and Matt Pike changed the name of the band and got Justin Marler on board. To hear these early versions of the songs gives me the same feeling as hearing that Velvet Underground acetate for the first time.
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8731 Hits

Mochizuki Harutaka, "Muse Ni"

Despite some of the high energy alto sax improvisation here, this release by Japanese multi-instrumentalist Mochizuki Harutaka feels like the work of a sensitive soul. The gentle cover shot of Harutaka, with what looks suspiciously like a Tequila sunrise in the foreground, and some touching liner notes by post-folker Dredd Foole give the physical product an intimate, homespun feel.
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12449 Hits

Future Conditional, "We Don't Just Disappear"

Members of Piano Magic, Klima, Trembling Blue Stars, and friends gaze fondly back to the Kraftwerk and Factory Records blueprint of detachment, economy, and alienation. These carefully-weighed compositions will strike a chord for anyone with a penchant for some of the most popular independent music of the early-80s, though such familiarity needn't be a prerequisite.
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21277 Hits

Merzbow/Carlos Giffoni/Jim O'Rourke, "Electric Dress"

This three way live collaboration (recorded in 2006 in Tokyo) by these titans of electronic abuse focuses on the analog elements of their respective careers. Even Masami Akita dusts off his EMS Synthi for an old school excursion.
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10147 Hits