This long gestating project from Jason Kohnen (perhaps better known as Bong-Ra) and Gideon Kiers eschews any expectations for a ragga jungle assault in exchange for something more nuanced.
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9133 Hits
I'm left completely confused listening to this album, trying to keep up with Dustin Krcatovich's wily, random sense of humor and creative, scattershot imagination. Musically, Krcatovich is ubiquitous. One moment his music is the product of exposure to home recordings and pop music and at another it is the product of listening to "Revolution 9" too many times.
5567 Hits
This album is the soundtrack to a film called A Little Trip to Heaven which unfortunately I haven’t seen. As such, I cannot even begin to guess if Mugison’s music suits the film or not. Without the movie to skew my opinion in any direction I can safely say that this release is pretty damn boring and a chore to listen to.
5563 Hits
At the center of this quartet is Fly Pan Am guitarist Jonathan Parent and Shalabi Effect/solo experimentalist Alexandre St-Onge, but the eponymous debut sounds like it might as well be the most logical progression from Fly Pan Am's last record.
6134 Hits
This is a better successor to Coco Rosie's La Maison de Mon Reve than Noah's Ark, with similar gloomy smoke and theatrical mirrors allied to louder bursts of percussion and fuzzy, metallic guitar. As with La Maison a poignancy emerges from an imitation of the passage of time, like the sound of a woman singing as she mends clocks.
8033 Hits
I’ve always had a thing for 33 rpm 7" singles, it's probably something to do with the wilful misuse of the cheeky chappy pop format. Here Dominick Fernow aka Prurient joins Richard Dunn of F.F.H. (not to be confused with the Christian band of the same name) and Drums of Myrrh’s Joe Potts in the forced mating of black metallicisms and walls of no-fi noise.
6283 Hits
Randy H.Y. Yau and Kazumoto Endo of Killer Bug fame united on this album in an effort to fulfill Yau's vision of "action concrète." Conceptual attempts at changing what a particular genre does to the listener scare me; they tend towards academic efforts, dull attempts at revolutionizing what music is and can do. Strangely enough, this album forced me to reconsider noise, performance, and what exactly sound "should" do-in other words, it actually changed me in some way.
6642 Hits
The free MP3s available online go back two years, but they show a band that's got a fantastic handle on the balance between sludgy noise and charming pop, unfortunately they don't seem to leave NYC that much nor do they update this website often.
8956 Hits
Described as a band that were overlooked and way ahead of their time, Space Needle sounds just like every band that never made it big but should have. This collection of recordings show that they were a talented bunch but if these songs are anything to go by, they are not all the hype makes them out to be.
8544 Hits
It comes as no surprise that the label that "broke" Vex'd would so eagerly snap up this sinister record from one of the darkest soundsmiths coming from the dubstep community.
11239 Hits
On paper, a New Yorker named Thomas Meluch recording and releasing music as Benoit Pioulard reeks of pretention, but this brief 7" single is actually a very pleasant, personable, and whimsical peek into one of Kranky's newest artists.
12021 Hits
Mysterious, east European gypsies get together with crazy, German, acid eating Can fans only to allow some guy with an accordion into the party. This guy, Alec K. Redfearn, happens to be pretty sharp with the old squeeze box and he brings a couple of friends to stomp, shout, and holler beside him. With horns, violins, glockenspiel, and the kitchen sink in tow, this motley crew cranks out some righteous tunes with caustic bravado and surreptitious sensuality.
7182 Hits
Darsombra is Brian Daniloski who is better known as a member of Meatjack. This solo project is a big step away from the sludgy blasts of metal that Meatjack produce. Ecdysis still showcases huge overdriven guitars but there’s no chugging. Instead Daniloski creates atmospheric drones and riffs and combines them with tape collages of voices and noise.
6009 Hits
With some band members formerly of Deerhoof, one from Xiu Xiu, and a drummer who’s played with John Zorn, Tom Waits, and Fred Frith, such a pedigree carries high expectations for 7 Year Rabbit Cycle’s third album. Too bad, then, that it falls a little short. There are some fine moments, but too frequently their ideas seem to lack vitality and inspiration.
5198 Hits
Forced dramatic line after faux energetic riff mar Ladyhawk's debut from beginning to end. Their proclaimed influences all catch up with them as the disc moves along, promising plenty but eventually crashing in a blur of warn out conventions and over-cooked clichés.
4942 Hits
This CD-R by Papercut has moments of brilliance amid stretches of standard, by the book noise. By no means is it a masterpiece of noise but it's not a lazy effort by anyone's standards. There are enough shades of detail to make this a rewarding listen even if it won’t light the world on fire.
6182 Hits
This remix collection assembles an improbable group of producers and musicians to deconstruct and rearrange songs from the Knut back catalog. Justin Broadrick, Dälek, Mick Harris, and Oren Ambarchi are among those who are along for the ride.
5613 Hits
Getting the reissue treatment is this solo album by Tom Carter of Charalambides. Dedicated to the friends and times he left behind in Austin, these are the last recordings he made before his move to the West Coast. By improvising with a different type of guitar on each of the three tracks, Carter explores the limits of each instrument while evoking the heat, pace, and vastness of Texas itself.
7111 Hits
Apparently recorded on a Canal Street rooftop in New York, this double disc set documents the No-Neck Blues Band's first ever Orthodox Easter concert in 1996, an event they've repeated every year since. The group's tribal rhythms and crackling electronics have little to do with the Savior, though, and more to do with the strange world they create on their own.
7044 Hits
Kid 606 has once again maintained his distance from glitchy cut-up breakcore that so many still assume he still records and has come out with fantastic results. Unlike last year's subdued, melody-heavy Resilience, Pretty Girls is a brilliant 4/4 techno homage, both worthy of the tireless movement from a sweaty night club and a perfectly blastable summertime album.
9481 Hits
