Poignant and introspective guitar/piano sounds from this new duohailing from Westmead, Australia, 'It's Humbling...' is a gorgeous setof instrumentals that wax and wane, caressing the psyche with a warmand subtle touch.

A delicate and mesmerising 6-song mini-album (at just over 35 minutes),"Windmills vs. Shrapnel" is the latest exquisite offering from thisotherwise obscure Australian quartet.

The first release from new Irish label Spitroast kicks off superbly. Asyou would guess by the title, this is quite melancholic stuff, not 4/4pumpin' house.

Released on the Anticon label, whose motto 'Music for the advancementof hip-hop', sets out their aim to put into the marketplace analternative to money and ass-obsessed pop-hop. Inspired equally byindie rock, electronica and old-skool hip-hop, their output isexperimental, eclectic and among the freshest, newest sounds out there.

Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer originally created the bulk of their latestmanic loop noise excursion as a credit card shaped CD full of MP3versions of some mostly fairly short tracks. This was sold only viaAquarius Records of San Francisco who have been longtime admirers ofthe Fflinty Ones. Now they've plonk the bulk of those MP3's onto aregular music CD-R with six mostly longer and dronier extra tracks,adorned in a sleeve featuring a grinning Bob of the Church of theSubgenius lookalike that could be a homage to the fifties spoofcollages of Winston Smith's Alternative Tentacles sleeves.

Cousin Silas is a new addition to the ever more rotund girth of CD-Rlabel Fflint Central. This secretive sci-fi writer broadcastingbackwards from the wilds of darkest Yorkshire fits right in with theFflinty Ones, so if you feel at home with the Fortean soundscapes ofPendro and Cavendish Sanguine then Cousin Silas will bring welcome earfodder.

At the end of a week in which reviewers for the Brain were accused ofrecommending too much 'gay music', homo-synchronicity struck as a discfeaturing a couple of over the top camp electro songs from the prolificKhan arrived for me to review.

This massive 5-CD boxset is the second attempt to publish the 15 CDsworth of material that the Japanese psych-rock legend Magical PowerMako recorded while making his magnificent debut and second albums.

Here's a very strange album that resides along a blurry line betweentape collage and electro-acoustic improvised music.

The second CD compilation to emerge from Unbearable Recordingshighlights recordings from Cursor Miner, Goodiepal and Nish. Anybodyfamiliar with the music of Nordic wonder, Goodiepal knows there isabsolutely no predictability.

I was living in NYC in 1991 when a co-worker's roommate had asked me togo down to where he worked for something. He was working for MTV andwas on a team putting together a new show called "The Real World" andwanted me to audition. I picked up the entry form, filled it out, butwas kinda revolted and reluctant and turned around and left (with theentry form in hand!) One of the things they asked was to name some ofyour favorite bands. Funny thing is, five years later I would neverhave guessed I'd be hosting web sites for nearly all of them. (Thenagain in 1991, a graphic internet was barely even conceptual anyhow.)Regardless, Meat Beat Manifesto was on that list.

The sky is grey and dismal on a cold, rainy winter day. You're alone ina room, looking up at the ceiling, with piles of things to do and noenthusiasm to do them. All is not bleak, however. As fate has it, thereare excellent albums like this one to keep you company, painting abright picture on an aural canvas.

Part of the Intransitive Recordings series of limited edition discs andvinyl, this CD documents a live collaboration between sound artistsHudak and Lescalleet in a chapel in Cambridge, Mass, while a blizzardtook place outside.

Another limited-edition release from Intransitive Recordings, this is acollection of six pieces by Viennese artist Bernhard Gal, each createdfrom Gal's own field recordings.

Death Cab For Cutie was at first the brainchild of Ben Gibbard, hisstab at a solo project. After early success, however, he recruited aband, a strong and tight group of players who could bring across hisbrand of post-punk pop with fervor and skill.

Canadian space rock ensemble Sianspheric have been making music since1994, despite several key line-up changes that might make lesser bandsthrow in the towel.

One of the few remaining pieces of the digipacked and remastered re-issue puzzle, 1994's The Great Annihilator is reclaimed from Invisible Records for Michael Gira's own Young God Records.

While I had always enjoyed what I've heard from Troum and Maeror Tri,it was the first part in their 'Trilogy' ('Harmonies') which made mefall in love. Be warned, however, as the second part in the trilogy isnot nearly as gentle as part one. Ironically, 'Drones' is not 100%drones, a characteristic of a number of their other releases.

Ex-members of Maeror Tri are behind this atmospheric, beat-orientatedalbum which stands somewhere in between traditional German electronicpioneers and current artists like Maju and the more experimentalstructures of Zoviet France.

The second in Mancester based RSI label's Spilt Signals series bringstogether a pair of unique improvising duos from the North of England.