Bellini appeared to have stumbled out of a time machine. Their barbedguitar hooks, thumping rhythm section, and obtuse lyricism seemstrangely out of place in 2005. One listen through songs like “RoomNumber Five” and “The Buffalo Song” make things remarkably clear:Bellini belong in 1993.

Thosewho have had the pleasure of seeing Wolf Eyes live know that someof their on-stage announcements can be a littlemore on the Bill & Ted side rather than the sort of vitriolichate expected from a trio jamming nasty freeform noiseshit. With their past releases ranging from the blackest of black noiseto stiletto drones it was only a matter of time before they addeda disc of spoken word rambling/stand-up comedy/on-stagenonsense to their catalogue.

Eclectic Discs' superlative reissues of Bill Fay's pair of classic1970s LPs are well-timed, appearing at the crest a few years of slowlybuilding buzz around this most arcane of British singer-songwriters.

“Break My Heart,” the first track of Malcom Middleton’s second solorelease, declares that the singer “don’t want to sing these shit songsanymore.” A jaunty, mid-tempo number which features Middleton’sself-effacing lyrics and is delivered in his thick Scottish accent, itis anything but a “shit song.”

Thisalbum is the transatlantic collaboration between Ben Chansy (Comets onFire, Current 93 and solo as Six Organs of Admittance) and HiroyukiUsui (Ghost, Fushitsusha, and solo as L) and it is based on theproposition that artists, even ones separated by the largest ocean inthe world, can endlessly inspire one another.

Mat Sweet is the primary musician behind every band on the Blue Baby Recordings label, a label that he is also the founder and principle head of. As Jonathan Dean mentioned in the final issue of the Brain, Sweet has a battery of talents that spread across musical styles both diverse and exploratory. Boduf Songs is the demo Sweet recorded and sent to Kranky, hoping to facilitate a relationship that might involve future albums. Thankfully Kranky was stopped dead in their tracks by this demo and released it as is.

Robert Lowe might be recognized for his work with 90 Day Men and hisinvolvement with TV on the Radio. As a solo performer Lowe contacts thesublime and unspeakable, evoking masses of digital voices recorded fromwastelands, deserts, and temples.

Obviouslytrying to reaffirm his status as the king of drones, Carlson has beenreleasing a steady stream of records this year. This is the second livealbum to be belched up this year and it is a patchy affair.

After nearly 30 years of defying the system, it seems that The Ex are ripe for a retrospective. This isn’t necessarily surprising, given the overwhelmingly positive response that greeted last year’s Turn.

As a bigbeliever in sensory deprivation in pursuit of a better listeningexperience, Francisco López has gratiously included a blindfold with his latest one-track live CD. As criticalanalyses of blindfolds go, my review is damning.

The New Pornographerssound friendly and homey, and listening to Twin Cinema reminds me ofall those times I've attended carefully-planned parties thrown byfamilies of slightly tipsy identical twins.  

This is the first solo album from former lead for Rock*A*Teens, a bandso good that they will be forever underrated no matter how many times they’repegged as the archetypal underrated band.

Released on UnitedDairies in 1984, Hausmusik is part ofa dramatic transitional period for Tietchens in which he abandons the vintagespace-age lounge music of earlier releases (see all the brilliant, trulyunclassifiable major ones reissued by Die Stadt) for a more spatially adaptabletechnique, far from the pop format and owing more to the sound and vision nowinsufficiently classified as early industrial music.

Thoughthey are comfortable in a number of guises, be it twee girl-boycrooning, electro-clash, or baroque chamber pop, Architecture inHelsinki clearly have trouble staying focused on one idea, and thoughit can be an endearing, it gives the album a feeling of beingunfocused.

This long overdue double-disc compilation not only makes Comus' superlative First UtteranceLP widely available at an affordable price for the first time, it alsoincludes the legendary band's oft-ignored second album and a handful ofrare tracks, singles and b-sides.

Palace/Drag City
Any attempt at summarizing Will Oldham's pre-millennial output underthe Palace name will necessarily be a difficult, even defeating task.Like that of any great songwriter, Oldham's body of work visits amultitude of distinct voices, illustrated by his undeniable lyricaldensity and legendary dissatisfaction with any kind of stable moniker.If one constant could be established, at least among his Palacerecordings, it might be the ingredient of self-doubt: that healthyfrailty that seems to provide the characteristic, tortured quiver inevery vocal; the half-sardonic/half-serious tension that fills everyother line; and the regular shifts in both the dominant persona andstylistic frame of each record. The artist's stubbornness duringinterviews has guaranteed that his songs remain the only windows intohis life, and they do create an incredibly human picture: passionate,diverse, and perpetually uneasy: always second-guessing, experimentingwith, and even contradicting his methods. Anyone who's seen Oldham livecan attest to his tendency to perform even the most sacred of fanfavorites in ways completely alien to their recorded versions, and thiskind of behavior—while aggravating for a sorry few—is largely whatkeeps him such a vibrant figure, refusing to let his music perch idlyin the ivory tower of indie, alt country, folk noir, or whatever set ofrules comes closest to housing his talent as of late.Over the decade since the first Palace record (still-)interestedparties should be used to having their expectations thwarted. In truecountry style, Oldham's Bonnie Billy has taken some Palace favorites(nominated by fans, supplemented by the artist) and rerecorded them inNashville with the city's finest session men and women. It's honestlyhard to think of Oldham agreeing to this kind of collection withoutturning it to parody. The session turns fifteen of his most fragileanthems and cryptic ballads to full-blown golden country greats, fullof enough pedal steel, fiddle and haggard crooning to make the mostdie-hard fan wince more than once. The result is equal partscelebration and satire, for as much as Oldham is having fun playinginto the C & W stereotype (at the expense of those emotionallyinvested in the originals, of course), he is obviously trying hard tomake each new version a thoughtful reworking. The artist's admitteddesire to rerecord several tracks no matter what the voted result("Viva Ultra" and "No More Workhorse Blues" among them) points to agenuine interest in revisiting older material as an older man, withboth wise distance and obvious affection. Oldham knows that this newbatch will never replace the old, and he's aiming this collection atthose well enough acquainted with Palace history to ease up attachmentsand take a long, joyful look back through the eyes of a different man.Some moments are sublime, more are shockingly different, and many aredownright painful, but Greatest Palace Music is absolutelyessential for any previous fan of Oldham, if only for a furtherchiseling of one of the roundest characters in contemporary music. NewPalace listeners, however, should be warned; start here at your ownrisk. Greatest's appeal, or lack thereof, relies on priorexposure to the originals, and if you somehow come to like this withouthearing its origins then we surely have some sort of postmodernconundrum on our hands?probably what Oldham wanted all along.

• Horses
• West Palm Beach

Chilling, vast and haunting no longer fully describe Mika Vainio andIlpo Vaisanen's palette, as their recorded work as Pan Sonic has recently become asvolatile and fresh as their unmatched live performances. But, whenpaired with Alan Vega's uneasy singing-muttering-growling, the equation isfamiliar; it's difficult not to think this could be a forthcomingSuicide album.

The firstdischarge on the newly minted No Fun label kicks off with a typicallynegative-titled Wolf Eyes solo affair from that dude with the longhair.

While not creating strictly-formulated conceptalbums, the Legendary Pink Dots frontman does tend to take an idea or a mood and run with itthroughout a release. This is very much apparent on Fragments ofIllumina, which has a sense of wholeness and completeness despite theradically different approaches in its songs.