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This is arguably the formal debut album from Portland harpist Sage Fisher, though she previously surfaced with a fine cassette (Orchid Fire) back in 2016. Liminal Garden is on a completely different level than its more homespun predecessor though. If someone had told me fifteen years ago that several of my favorite artists would be harpists in the not too distant future, I would probably have thought they were completely delusional, but the instrument has undergone quite an incredible renaissance since Joanna Newsom's early albums blew up. While it is probably too soon to tell whether the more mysticism-minded Fisher has definitively earned a place in the same illustrious pantheon as Newsom and Mary Lattimore, her inventive use of effects and processing here frequently transcends harpistry altogether and calls to mind some of the most iconoclastic laptop composers of the early twenty-first century (if they lived in a fairy tale-like crystal palace in an enchanted forest). This is a wonderful and unexpected gem.
Sage Fisher is an quite a complex, curious, and inscrutable artist, as her "Druid high priestess" look and her self-description as a "portal opening reverberating witch sister" suggest that her work would share a lot of common ground with some of the more pagan-minded proponents of the largely dispersed and forgotten Freak Folk/New Weird America milieu.That would be just fine by me (as long as the album was good), as I remain a devout Fursaxa enthusiast and likely will be one forever.Fisher, however, takes that foundational sensibility in quite an unexpected direction, combining folk instrumentation, a deep connection with natural world, Hindu philosophy, and a fascination with geometry to yield something altogether her own.In fact, Liminal Garden almost feels perversely futuristic–like the kind of art a mysterious feminist revolutionary would be making in a William Gibson or Blade Runner-esque dystopia.Wielding a battery of pedals, Fisher frequently transforms her harp's tumbling arpeggios into an unrecognizably squirming and snarling electronic abstraction.In fact, on the most experimental pieces, such as the roiling and churning "Labyrinth I" or the chirping and bleeping "Iridesce," it is nearly impossible to discern that a harp was involved at all…at least, not from the sounds.From a compositional perspective, however, Fisher's choice of instrument seems to play an extremely crucial role in the shape her vision takes, as these ten pieces could all be roughly described as variations of gently hallucinatory soundscapes built from rippling lattices of notes.
Fisher sings sometimes as well, an occasion that yields two of the album's most strikingly beautiful pieces: "Grass Grow" and "Mirror."The former resembles kind of a time-stretched and smoky choral work punctuated by dense swells of exotic-sounding backwards melodies."Mirror" is even more gorgeous still, as Fisher unexpectedly sings an actual melody (with words!) amidst a swooning, fluttering, and cooing web of hazy vocal layers.For an artist this devoted to effects, processing, and experimentation, Fisher has a remarkably strong intuition for nuance and clarity, subtly embellishing the piece's simple motif with unpredictable disruptions and fitful glimpses of a glimmering descending harp melody. According to a recent interview with Self-Titled, "Mirror" is the album's most conceptually heavy and personal piece, as Fisher attempted to evoke the feeling of "being devoured by a gaze…looking in the mirror and seeing someone you weren’t expecting to see looking back."While I suppose that rightfully makes "Mirror" a strong contender for the album's centerpiece, it was actually the languorously lovely "Junglespell" that initially won me over to the album, as it unexpectedly blossoms into a passage of visceral, churning catharsis that recalls prime Tim Hecker.That is not something I would expect to encounter on an album by a harpist at all, yet Fisher makes it feel convincingly earned and authoritative.The following "Castleshell" pulls off a similarly inventive twist, as its pretty descending melody gradually becomes engulfed by layers of backwards countermelodies as it inexorably builds towards an increasingly heaving and vividly chaotic climax.
I once heard a yoga instructor liken culture to nutrition, explaining that what your mind ingests determines the quality of your words and thoughts.That might not sound especially profound on its face, but it stuck with me and recently popped into my head when I was reading about the esoteric inspiration behind some Richard Skelton albums: artists with deeply restless minds and unusual, far-reaching interests tend to make some of the most fascinating and unique art.Liminal Garden triggered the same thought, as I was struck by how many interesting and divergent directions Fisher was able to take with an instrument that I always felt was fairly limiting.In hindsight, I now grasp that a harp is only limiting if the player's influences are primarily other harpists.Fisher seems blissfully unaware of such perceived constraints herself, as her instrument is merely a tool for realizing a much more expansive and ambitious vision teeming with Cambodian ruins, mazes, seashells, tropical plants, Hindu mythology, and significant moments from her personal life.Of course, realizing that inspiration lurks everywhere is just one piece of the puzzle, as the execution of one's vision is every bit as important as the vision itself.Fortunately, Fisher completely nails it with Liminal Garden.Some credit is probably due to Rafael Anton Irisarri's mastering work, as these pieces feel vividly and vibrantly alive, but Fisher gave him one hell of an album to work with: I can find something to love about nearly every song here.Part of me admittedly wishes the album was a little longer, as it seems to go by too quickly, but that is a fool's wish.  Liminal Garden is already a focused and near-perfect statement that seems to only get better each time I listen to it.No sane person would tamper with that.
 
 
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Sound In Silence is happy to announce the return of Amp, presenting their new album Entangled Time.
Amp is the electronic/post-rock duo of Richard F. Walker (aka Richard Amp) and Karine Charff, based in London, UK. Amp's lineup has changed many times over the years, since their formation in 1992 by Walker, after his collaboration with David Pearce (Flying Saucer Attack) on The Secret Garden and the Distance projects. During the last years Amp have centered around Charff and Walker, while in the past the duo has been joined by a succession of collaborators, including Matt Elliott (The Third Eye Foundation, This Immortal Coil, Hood, Flying Saucer Attack, Movietone), Matt Jones (Crescent, Movietone), Guy Cooper (The Secret Garden), Gareth Mitchell (Philosopher's Stone, The Secret Garden), Ray Dickaty (Moonshake, Spiritualized), Robert Hampson (Loop, Main), Marc Challans (Fraud), Donald Ross Skinner (Baba Looey, collaborator of Julian Cope), Dave Mercer (Light), Jon Hamilton (Part Chimp, Drumm Chimp, Ligament), Kevin Bass (Moonshake, Snowpony) and many others.
To date Amp have released several highly acclaimed albums, EPs and singles on labels such as Kranky, Darla, Wurlitzer Jukebox, Space Age Recordings, Enraptured, Very Friendly, Ochre Records, Blue Flea, RROOPP, their own Ampbase and many others, while Walker has also released solo records as Richard Amp and Amp Studio.
Entangled Time is Amp's first full-length album of brand new material since their Outposts album back in 2011. Featuring five new compositions, with a total duration of about 44 minutes, and emerging out of the extended recording sessions for a new studio album, this concise album presented itself, serving as a soundtrack or pointer to the ongoing work in the studio.
Amp perfectly blend together soothing ambient, dreamy post-rock, slow moving electronica and fragile shoegaze, while the sound palette of Entangled Time includes drifting textures of resonant synths, tranquil pads, shimmering waves of heavily effected guitars, seductive vocals, deep bass, glitchy electronic beats and hypnotic loops of hazy drones, resulting in one of their most interesting works to date. Entangled Time is a mesmerizing album that will appeal to anyone moved by the music of artists such as Bowery Electric, Lovesliescrushing, Windy & Carl and Fennesz.
More information can be found here.
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"Another brilliant posthumous album by Letha Rodman Melchior. Letha's music, as her visual art, was a great collaged pile of extreme strangeness, with seemingly irreconcilable objects butting heads in ways that end up making great sense.
I met Letha a long time ago, when she was in Cell, but I had not much idea of her work beyond that until she had moved to North Carolina and I started hearing her health was bad. Siltbreeze put out an amazing album called Handbook for Mortals, and it was essential listening. Letha managed to create very very warped music without making it off-putting. Although her sonics were whacked as hell, they were created with such a warm and gooey center that even people who'd usually shy away from such things, would ask what was playing when we floated the album through the store's stereo system.
Siltbreeze followed up with the ungodly brilliant, Shimmering Ghost, after cancer claimed another genius, and we were stunned when Dan Melchior offered us the chance to do this LP.
Letha Rodman Melchior was a truly singular artist. And it is with great pride that Feeding Tube presents another chapter of her largely undocumented saga."
-Byron Coley, 2019
More information can be found here.
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"Spaces is a series of compositions based on recordings in museums. Each work builds on a binaural recording of the environmental sounds a museum and each has been processed based on different concepts. The approach for processing and adding of electronic sounds was inspired by an artwork that was hanging in the museum space. So space and artwork form a unity.
As a composer and mastering engineer I am extremely sensitive to the sounds around me. But I’m also a keen visitor of museums and while there I always listen to what the museum sounds like. Museums are spaces where people encounter works of art and are given the opportunity to contemplate on this experience. Some do this silently while others keep chatting their route and only vaguely take in what is presented. There’s a lot going on and each museum has its own sonic character.
I have started collecting sounds in 2008. Snippets from these recordings have been part of many works in the years that followed. In 2015 however I decided to construct a complete sound work revolving around the sounds that I recorded. That has become A=F=L=O=A=T. This track was part of my annual musical gift to friends and colleagues and received positive feedback. Then, begin 2017, I decided to make a next move and see if other recordings could be evolved into real compositions. Gradually the concept formed, by composing, experimenting, returning to museums and study the artworks and actually the whole sonic environment of the museum.
Listening to a museum makes you aware of the spatiality of a museum. The, sometimes, huge halls where art is presented also seem to make space in my mind. And so I thought that space would be a good metaphor for the first dimension that I want to express. The second dimension is the work of art itself, which is a silent object. It just hangs there. But it represents a whole universe of thoughts and ideas that the observer can take in and tumble around and around in his mind. My own observations I have translated into the electronic layers on top of the binaural recordings.
The music on the CDs has been laid out as spacious as possible, leading to long almost silent intermissions between the tracks. In the hope of a listener with a wide-open mind-set."
-Jos Smolders
More information can be found here.
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FEAN started as a musical artist-in-residence project in a little church in the Frysian village Katlyk. The group consists of Jan Kleefstra, Romke Kleefstra, Mariska Baars and Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek), who also form the quartet Piiptsjilling. For FEAN they are accompanied by Belgian guests Annelies Monseré, Sylvain Chauveau and Joachim Badenhorst.
The FEAN project gets its inspiration from the ecological decay of peatland in the Dutch province Friesland and in other parts of Europe. Agriculture and peat extraction are threatening the landscape severely and with long term consequences. This forms the underlying thought for the improvised recording sessions, which were overseen by Jan Switters.
Although the Piiptsjilling members are obviously used to performing and recording together, adding the three Belgian guests (who hadn't played together before) added an extra dimension to the group's dynamic, resulting in a concentrated yet playful series of improvisations, that were later mixed and edited for the FEAN album.
More information can be found here.
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Pacific City Sound Visions greets wonder again, this fall, to bring you a third vinyl release from the late '80s/early '90s European experimental/industrial scene. After Vox Populi!'s "Half Dead Ganja Music" and Frank Dommert's "Kiefermusic," we have a hand-picked compilation by the Hamburg artist MAAT.
MAAT is a solo project by Dörte Marth, who created two secretly powerful and underappreciated records in 1993. They were released on two labels (Dragnet, Dom Elchklang) run by Achim P. Li Khan, the co-founder of H.N.A.S.
MAAT'S musical palette is at once, strikingly, a more dark and brooding occult version of Anima and Limpe Fuchs. One can hear classical music references much like Coil's Unnatural History, but played further, blurring the shadowy lines between sampling and virtuoso playing. MAAT'S dark and glisteningly illustrated use of electronic drums, Pan-Asian arrangements, and classical styles, invent a private world where she uncovers and projects forth, a new and ancient female energy. It's almost as if she is orchestrating her palette and shooting it through star-clusters beneath the world. Probably Typhonian Highlife and 4th World Magazine's greatest influence.
More information can be found here.
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"I first met Lionel Marchetti in Australia during the Liquid Architecture Festival in 2010. Decibel were touring our Alvin Lucier program, and Lionel was on the same bill performing a live performance set manipulating electro-acoustic materials with dancer Yoko Higashi. I was so taken with Lionel's performances and the resulting music, that I asked him if he would write a piece for Decibel.
I didn’t realize that he hadn’t done something like this before. The first work was "Première étude (les ombres)," communicated as a text score, and premiered in 2012. I was asked by Lionel to make some recordings of ocarinas, harmonicas, and folk instruments – and I sent these to him for the creation of a 'partition concrète d'accompagnement'– a fixed media part that is featured in the live performance. For this piece, the part comes from speakers beside each performer, and a bass amplifier beneath the piano. Like his own performances I had seen the year before, the work was naturally performative – with unique speaker and performer configurations, interesting and odd additional instruments. It was such a rich work, a remarkable combination of electronic, spatial, acoustic and textural music. The performers use the partition concrete as a score.
I visited Lionel in Lyon, France in 2014, recording flute improvisations in his studio. He used these as a basis for "Une série de reflets," again communicating via text instructions and each performer having their own dedicated speaker to interact with. "Pour un enfant qui dort," which again requested flute sounds that were this time part of the live performance as well as the partition concrète, was also written around that time. The next work saw a more 'compositional' collaboration - "The Earth defeats me" began as a graphically scored work written by me and recorded by Decibel in the studio. That recording was used to make the partition concrète which is now an embedded as part of the animated score file, thanks to the software we had developed to do so.
These works exist as live performances, but also as singular concrète works, when heard without the instruments. Working with Lionel has been remarkable: he has a singular way of thinking about sound and its relationship to works and images. Music concrete is a lifestyle for him, it is a way of thinking, communicating and being. These pieces enable the acoustic instruments to be part of that – extending the ideas in the partition concrete, using them structurally and texturally, as well as being part of them.
When I first met Lionel, I didn’t realize he was in Australia because it was originally planned he would be travelling with French composer Éliane Radigue, performing some of her electroacoustic works, as her preferred diffuser. I would commission a work for Decibel from Élaine ("Occam Hexa II") in 2014 and it was during that process I realized the link between them. Decibel performed Lionel and Eliane's music together – it is music that concerns itself with the incredible power of sound, but from the most delicate and dream like perspective."
-Cat Hope
More information can be found here.
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"As I’ve tried to understand what is happening now without judgement––a collapse of systems, boundaries, and symbols that crumble faster with each forcible attempt to reinstate them––I am finding equal failure in streamlined, singular methodologies for both comprehension and composition. Outside, reason and rationale wane in heft and clarity. Representation in a world that refuses fact is uncertain and deceptive. Time is complicated by the failure of the linear. Inside, what we see is not what we hear, what we hear is not what we think, what we think is not what we feel, and so on.
The dread incited by this precarity is difficult to interpret without announcing failure: the anxiety of watching our own hourglass is palpable and demanding. I feel existence in this moment has required a move away from my own humanity in order to simply live in it, live through it, live with it while refusing to release the idea of environmental recovery. It is to request your humanity to unwillingly shift, to mutate toward something sharply resilient and relentless. The sounds on this record embody this sense of mutant consciousness. It is, for me, a representation of a vigorous sprint towards complexity, towards the interdependencies that serve as stop-gaps, towards freaky, slippery, compounded stacks of reality.
The title, A Parallel Array of Horses, is derived from a geologic phenomenon in which a block of a specific type of rock has been completely separated by mineral veins from its counterpart within another body of rock, and then stacked upon multiples of others like it. Sounds on this record are both recorded and produced: the album opens with recordings of a Mojave wind storm and closes with the world’s largest colony of Mexican free-tailed bats departing their cave to roam the summer night air of Southeast Texas. Both scenes are landscapes of precarity, politically or meteorologically or otherwise. Interspersed are a variety of electronic instruments and processes, and compositional techniques that are variously clear-cut or intentionally buried by digital processing. Tracks three and four are composed entirely with my own voice––my own body as the original playback mechanism for experiencing the world, but manipulated, elaborated upon, and layered to express a more complex interpretation of that subjective reality.
Through listening, I find myself able to retrace my steps back to a sense of decentered, porous presence––the present is still here, with all of its shifts and confusion and valuable interdependencies. No matter is created or destroyed, only new forms arise."
>-Geneva Skeen
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Thanks again to everyone who participated in the Recount of the 1999 Annual Brainwashed Readers Poll.
The original vote which took place at the end of 1999 was clearly less expansive and inclusive, however the new top picks aren't drastically different than the original vote for the most part. Numerous releases which have now charted weren't even on the radar of most readers at the time while other releases have noticeably dropped in popularity due to changing times and changing opinions.
No more polls until the end of 2019.
Album of the Year
- Coil, ""Musick to Play in the Dark volume 1"" (Chalice)
- Nurse With Wound, ""An Awkward Pause"" (United Dairies)
- Labradford, ""E Luxo So"" (Kranky)
- The Angels of Light, ""New Mother"" (Young God)
- Low, ""Secret Name"" (Kranky)
- Coil, ""Astral Disaster"" (Acme/Prescription)
- Trans Am, ""Futureworld"" (Thrill Jockey)
- Pan Sonic, ""A"" (Mute)
- Mogwai, ""Come on Die Young"" (Chemikal Underground)
- Add N to (X), ""Avant Hard"" (Mute)
- Stars Of The Lid, ""Avec Laudenum"" (Sub Rosa)
- Sigur Rós, ""Ágætis Byrjun"" (Smekkleysa)
- Current 93 / Michael Cashmore / Christoph Heemann, ""Untitled"" (Durtro)
- Jim O'Rourke, ""Eureka"" (Drag City)
- Dome, ""Yclept"" (WMO)
- Al Jabr (Richard H. Kirk), ""One Million and Three"" (Alphaphone)
- Andrea Parker, ""Kiss My Arp"" (Mo Wax)
- Pan•American, ""360 business/360 bypass"" (Kranky)
- Stereolab, ""Cobra and Phases Group Play ""Voltage"" in the Milky Night"" (Duophonic)
- Porter Ricks / Techno Animal, ""Symbiotics"" (Force Inc)
- The Magnetic Fields, ""69 Love Songs"" (Merge)
- People Like Us, ""Hate People Like Us"" (Staalplaat)
- Godflesh, ""Us and Them"" (Earache)
- Mouse On Mars, ""Niun Niggung"" (Sonig)
- To Rococo Rot, ""The Amateur View"" (City Slang)
- Monolake, ""Interstate"" (Imbalance Computer Music)
- Four Tet, ""Dialogue"" (Output)
- Bonnie ""Prince"" Billy, ""I See a Darkness"" (Palace)
- Nightmares on Wax, ""Carboot Soul"" (Warp)
- Arvo Pärt, ""Alina"" (ECM)
- The Caretaker, ""Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom"" (V/Vm Test Records)
- Tactile, ""Borderlands"" (Sentrax)
- µ-Ziq, ""Royal Astronomy"" (Astralwerks)
- GusGus, ""This is Normal"" (4AD)
- Mirror, ""Eye Of The Storm"" (Streamline)
- Surgeon, ""Force & Form"" (Tresor)
- The Necks, ""Hanging Gardens"" (ReR Megacorp)
- Papa M, ""Live from a Shark Cage"" (Drag City)
- Matmos, ""The West"" (Deluxe)
- Plateau, ""Space Cake"" (Subconscious)
- Songs: Ohia, ""Axxes & Ace"" (Secretly Canadian)
- Chris & Cosey, ""Union"" (Conspiracy International)
- Faust, ""Ravvivando"" (Klangbad)
- Hox, ""It-Ness"" (Origin)
- Bill Laswell, ""Hashisheen : The End Of Law"" (Sub Rosa)
- The Cinematic Orchestra, ""Motion"" (Ninja Tune)
- Rachel's, ""Selenography"" (Quarterstick)
- Chris Carter, ""Small Moon"" (Conspiracy International)
- Hood, ""The Cycle of Days and Seasons"" (Domino)
- Volcano the Bear, ""The Inhazer Decline"" (United Dairies)
- Jessica Bailiff, ""Hour of the Trace"" (Kranky)
- Aranos, ""Every Bright Body Gleams Green"" (Noise Museum)
- Tangerine Dream, ""Mars Polaris"" (TDI Music)
- Six Organs Of Admittance, ""Six Organs Of Admittance"" (Pavillion)
- Six Organs Of Admittance, ""Dust & Chimes"" (Pavillion)
- Andrew Chalk, ""Over the Edges"" (Streamline)
- Fly Pan Am, ""Fly Pan Am"" (Constellation)
- Tarentel, ""From Bone To Satellite"" (Temporary Residence)
- Pantaleimon, ""Trees Hold Time"" (Durtro)
- Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., ""Pataphisical Freak Out Mu!!"" (P.S.F.)
- Interzone Orchestra, ""Programmed"" (Planet E)
- Irr.App.(Ext.), ""Foreign Matter, Nor Frequency Carrier"" (Errata in Exelsius)
- Twilight Circus Dub Sound System, ""Horsie"" (M)
- Pole, ""2"" (Matador)
- Cyclobe, ""Luminous Darkness"" (Phantom Code)
- Volcano the Bear, ""Yak Folks Y'Are"" (Pickled Egg)
- Peace Orchestra, ""Peace Orchestra"" (G-Stone)
- Hallucinator, ""Landlocked"" (Chain Reaction)
- Omni Trio, ""Byte Size Life"" (Moving Shadow)
- Peter Benisch, ""Waiting For Snow"" (Fax +49-69/450464)
- The Necks, ""Hanging Gardens"" (Fish Of Milk)
- Thomas P. Heckmann, ""Raum"" (Mille Plateaux)
- Plaid, ""Rest Proof Clockwork"" (Warp)
- The Sun Ra Arkestra, ""A Song For The Sun"" (El Ra)
- Z'EV, ""Face the Wound"" (Soleilmoon)
- DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist, ""Brainfreeze"" (Sixty7)
- Tom Waits, ""Mule Variations"" (Anti-)
- Señor Coconut Y Su Conjunto, ""El Baile Alemán"" (Emperor Norton)
- Aranos, ""Making Love In Small Spaces"" (Pieros)
- Mika Vainio, ""Ydin"" (Wavetrap)
- Bass Communion v Muslimgauze, ""Bass Communion V Muslimgauze"" (Soleilmoon)
- Lobe, ""Hibernation"" (Swim)
- Sneakster, ""Pseudo-Nouveau"" (Bella Union)
- The Hope Blister, ""Underarms"" (4AD)
- Bill Laswell, ""Invisible Design"" (Tzadik)
- Mirror, ""Ringstones"" (Some Fine Legacy)
- The Black Heart Procession, ""2"" (Touch & Go)
- Songs: Ohia, ""The Ghost"" (Secretly Canadian)
- Headcase, ""Mushiness"" (The Music Cartel)
- Death In June, ""Operation Hummingbird"" (New European Recordings)
- Volcano the Bear, ""Volwheat"" (Volucan)
- Piano Magic, ""Low Birth Weight"" (Rocket Girl)
- Sam Prekop, ""Sam Prekop"" (Thrill Jockey)
- Squarepusher, ""Selection Sixteen"" (Warp)
- Bauhaus, ""Gotham"" (Metropolis)
- Irr.App.(Ext.), ""Their Little Bones..."" (Errata in Exelsius)
- Jimmy Scott, ""Holding Back the Years"" (Artists Only!)
- Ku-Ling Bros, ""Creach"" (Off World Sounds)
- Fennesz, ""plus forty seven degrees 56' 37"" minus sixteen degrees 51' 08"""" (Touch)
- Ghost, ""Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet"" (Drag City)
 
Single of the Year
- Coil, ""Winter Solstice: North"" (Eskaton)
- Aphex Twin, ""Windowlicker"" (Warp)
- Elph, ""Zwölf"" (Noton)
- Autechre, ""EP7"" (Warp)
- Boards of Canada, ""Peel Session"" (Warp)
- Mogwai, ""EP"" (Chemikal Underground)
- godspeed you black emperor!, ""slow riot for the new zero kanada"" (Kranky)
- Pan Sonic, ""B"" (Mute)
- The Angels of Light, ""Praise Your Name"" (Young God)
- Add N to (X), ""Metal Fingers in My Body"" (Mute)
- Co–Ω, ""Vox Tinnitus"" (Raster-Noton)
- Sigur Rós, ""Svefn-G-Englar"" (Fatcat)
- Einstürzende Neubauten, ""Total Eclipse of the Sun"" (Mute)
- Jim O'Rourke, ""Halfway to a Threeway"" (Drag City)
- GusGus, ""Ladyshave"" (4AD)
- Tino, ""Tino's Breaks Volume 3: Christmas"" (Tino Corp)
- Tino, ""Tino's Breaks Volume 4: Mambo"" (Tino Corp)
- Four Tet, ""Glasshead/Calamine"" (Output)
- Add N to (X), ""Revenge of the Black Regent"" (Mute)
- Low, ""Christmas"" (Chairkickers' Music)
- Broadcast, ""Echo's Answer"" (Warp)
- CoH, ""Into Memories Of S-Tone. For Gavin Bryars"" (Noton)
- Squarepusher, ""Budakhan Mindphone"" (Warp)
- Squarepusher, ""Maximum Priest"" (Warp)
- To Rococo Rot, ""Cars"" (City Slang)
- GusGus, ""Starlovers"" (4AD)
- Stereolab, ""The Free Design"" (Duophonic)
- Stereolab, ""The Underground Is Coming"" (Duophonic)
- Richard H. Kirk, ""Darkness at Noon"" (Touch)
- Four Tet, ""Misnomer"" (Output)
- Mouse On Mars, ""Distroia"" (Sonig)
- Komet, ""Manhatten"" (Noton)
- Low, ""Immune / I Remember"" (Tugboat)
- Mouse On Mars, ""Diskdusk"" (Sonig)
- To Rococo Rot, ""Telema"" (City Slang)
- Ladytron, ""He Took Her To a Movie"" (Invicta Hi-Fi)
- GusGus, ""VIP"" (4AD)
- The Black Dog, ""Peel Session"" (Warp)
- Current 93, ""Misery Farm"" (Durtro)
- Ladytron, ""Miss Black And Her Friends"" (Bambini)
- Monolake, ""Gobi. The Desert"" (Imbalance Computer Music)
- Mr. Oizo, ""Flat Beat"" (F Communications)
- Andrea Parker, ""The Unknown"" (Mo Wax)
- Natacha Atlas, ""One Brief Moment"" (Mantra)
- Nightmares on Wax, ""Finer"" (Warp)
- Papa M, ""Up North Kids No. 2/She Said Yes"" (Acetone)
- Papa M, ""Travels In Constants (Vol. 5)"" (Temporary Residence)
- Ice, ""Wrapped In Three Dimensions"" (Morpheus)
- Pan•American, ""Quarry"" ((K-RAA-K)³)
- Edward Ka-Spel, ""Share the Day / Dream Stealer"" (Brainwashed)
 
Vault/Reissue of the Year
Swans, ""Various Failures 1988-1992"" (Young God)
- Swans, ""Cop/Young Good/Greed/Holy Money"" (Thirsty Ear)
- Swans, ""Public Castration is a Good Idea"" (Thirsty Ear)
- Cocteau Twins, ""BBC Sessions"" (Bella Union)
- Mimir, ""Mimyriad"" (Streamline)
- Dif Juz, ""Soundpool"" (4AD)
- Skinny Puppy, ""The Singles Collect"" (Nettwerk)
- Skinny Puppy, ""The B Sides Collect"" (Nettwerk)
- Scorn, ""Anamnesis"" (Invisible)
- Pan Sonic, ""X"" (Mute)
- The Legendary Pink Dots, ""Live at the Metro"" (SPV)
- The Legendary Pink Dots, ""–ü–æ–π –ü–æ–∫–∞ –ú–æ–∂–µ—à—å"" (Brudenia)
- Current 93, ""Calling for Vanished Faces"" (Durtro)
- Current 93, ""All Dolled Up Like Christ"" (Durtro)
- Can, ""Music (Live 1971-1977)"" (Spoon)
- Stereolab, ""Switched On"" (Too Pure)
- 808 State, ""Newbuild"" (Rephlex)
- The Birthday Party, ""Live 81-82"" (4AD)
- Psychic TV, ""Best Ov: Time's Up"" (Cleopatra)
- Dopplereffekt, ""Gesamtkunstwerk"" (International Deejay Gigolo)
- Pere Ubu, ""Dub Housing"" (Thirsty Ear)
- Talk Talk, ""London 1986"" (Pond Life)
- Fluxion, ""Vibrant Forms"" (Chain Reaction)
- Psyche, ""Insomnia Theatre"" (Synthetic Symphony)
- Swell Maps, ""International Rescue"" (Alive Records)
- Xhol, ""Motherfuckers GmbH & Co KG"" (Ohr)
- Guru Guru, ""Hinten"" (Ohr)
- Lisa Germano, ""Happiness"" (4AD)
- Psychic TV, """"Origin Of The Species"" Volume Too! A Second Supply Of Two Tablets Of Acid"" (Invisible)
- The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud, ""Rest On Your Arms Reversed"" (Arthur's Round Table)
- Pere Ubu, ""New Picnic Time"" (Thirsty Ear)
- Lisa Germano, ""Excerpts from a Love Circus and Small Heads E.P."" (4AD)
- Andreas Martin & Christoph Heemann, ""Lebenserinnerungen Eines Lepidopterologen"" (Robot)
- Biosphere, ""Biosystems - The Biosphere Remixes"" (Beatservice Records)
- Lustmord, ""The Monsterous Soul"" (Soleilmoon)
- DNA Le Draw D-Kee, ""DNA Le Draw D-Kee"" (Soleilmoon)
- Annexus Quam, ""Osmose"" (Ohr)
- Roy Montgomery, ""324 E. 13th Street #7"" (Drunken Fish)
- Tarwater, ""Silur"" (Mute)
- Quoit, ""Lounge"" (Invisible)
- The Sound, ""Propaganda"" (Renascent)
- Crispy Ambulance, ""The Plateau Phase"" (LTM)
- Gila, ""Night Works"" (Garden Of Delights)
- Sergius Golowin, ""Lord Krishna Von Goloka"" (Ohr)
- Anima-Sound, ""Musik Für Alle"" (Alga Marghen)
- A Minor Forest, ""So, They Were in Some Sort of Fight?"" (My Pal God)
- His Name Is Alive, ""Always Stay Sweet"" (4AD)
- Kammerflimmer Kollektief, ""Incommunicado"" (Temporary Residence)
- Red House Painters, ""Retrospective"" (4AD)
- Black Tambourine, ""Complete Recordings"" (Slumberland)
 
Various Artist Compilation of the Year
- ""Warp10+1 Influences"" (Warp)
- ""The Swinging Reflective - Favourite Moments of Mutual Ecstasy"" (United Dairies)
- ""Splendor - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack"" (Astralwerks)
- ""Warp10+2 Classics 89-92"" (Warp)
- ""AuralOffalWaffleTenPintsOfBitterAndABagOfPorkScratchings"" (V/Vm Test Records)
- ""Total 1"" (Kompakt)
- ""Warp10+3 Remixes"" (Warp)
- ""Points In Time 001"" (Good Looking Records)
- ""Points In Time 002"" (Good Looking Records)
- ""Points In Time 003"" (Good Looking Records)
- ""From Brussels With Love"" (Les Disques Du Crépuscule)
- ""π: Music For The Motion Picture"" (Silva Screen)
- ""The Ghost Orchid: An Introduction to EVP"" (Ash International)
- ""Sub Rosa vs. Kompakt"" (Sub Rosa)
- ""Shanti Projet Collection"" (Badman Recording Co.)
- ""Four Ways Of Saying H‚ÇÉO"" (Hushush)
- ""Time : Space"" (Transmat)
- ""End ID"" (Digital Narcis)
- ""The Final Solstice"" (Piski Disk)
- ""X-Ray Music: A Blood And Fire Dub Directory"" (Blood & Fire)
- ""Ischemic Folks"" (Schematic)
- ""Tonal Evicence 1999"" (Mute)
- ""Rude Mechanic"" (PIano)
- ""Modulation & Transformation 4"" (Mille Plateaux)
- ""Adrian Sherwood Presents The Master Recordings Volume 2"" (On U)
Boxed Set of the Year
- The Creatures, ""Zulu"" (Sioux)
- Can, ""Box"" (Spoon)
- Robert Wyatt, ""EPs"" (Hannibal)
- [V/A], ""On-U Sound Box"" (Cleopatra)
- Muslimgauze, ""Box of Silk and Dogs"" (Staalplaat)
 
Artist of the Year
- Coil
- Add N to (X)
- Current 93
- Pan Sonic
- GusGus
- Stereolab
- The Angels of Light
- Low
- Four Tet
- Mogwai
 
Label of the Year
- Warp
- Mute
- 4AD
- Kranky
- Young God
- Drag City
- Raster-Noton
- Durtro
- United Dairies
- Soleilmoon
 
Worst Album of the Year
- VNV Nation, ""Praise the Fallen"" (TVT)
- Pita, ""Get Out"" (Mego)
- Buckethead, ""Monsters and Robots"" (CyberOctave)
- Ovuca, ""Lactavent"" (Rephlex)
- Alec Empire, ""Miss Black America"" (Digital Hardcore)
- Plone, ""For Beginner Piano"" (Warp)
- Skylab, ""#2 (Large As Life And Twice As Natural)"" (Eye Q)
- The Church, ""A Box of Birds"" (Cooking Vinyl)
- B. Fleischmann, ""Pop Loops For Breakfast"" (Morr Music)
- The Rapture, ""Mirror"" (Gravity)
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- Albums and Singles
It took more than just some time and imagination to believe that Carte Blanche, this piece of astonishing contemporary music by some of the most talented and able musicians of the international avant-circuit, could be realized. Karkhana, a highly explosive mostly Middle Eastern/Mediterranean ensemble -- Sam Shalabi (Land Of Kush, Shalabi Effect, Dwarfs Of East Agouza), Sharif Sehnaoui ("A" Trio), Michael Zerang (Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Jaap Blonk, Vandermark, etc.), Mazen Kerbaj ("A" Trio), Maurice Louca (Dwarfs Of East Agouza), Tony Elieh, Umut Caglar (Konstrukt) -- is weaving a tapestry of sound for Egyptian songstress Nadah El Shazly's voice to slide deep into. On the other side, two grand seigneurs of underground, ex-Sun City Girls and Rangda guitar whirlwind Richard Bishop and W. David Oliphant (Maybe Mental) play it loud. Far Eastern post-industrial. Very heavy, sharp, and crystal clear. Ripe. Carte Blanche will be released as a one-time pressing. It is released as a part of Unrock's Saraswati Series. Vinyl cut by Peter Koerfer at Ivory Tower. Extra-heavy deluxe cover, printed cardboard insert. 140 gram vinyl.
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- Albums and Singles
Hot on the heels of the seismic sine-wave experimentation of Front Variations, this pair of EPs rounds out Richard Skelton's prolific winter with a welcome return to more familiar territory. Both intended as accompaniments to his most recent book of poetry (Dark Hollow Dark), the two releases take differing themes as inspiration, but both paths ultimately lead to strong, slow-burning drone pieces. Of the two, the darker and more primal Another Hand is the more powerful and fully realized work. Together, the releases complement each other beautifully to form an extremely satisfying and haunting diptych.
It is difficult to imagine a Richard Skelton release these days that does not have a thoughtful conceptual inspiration rooted in either arcane antiquarianism or regional geologic history.In this case, Another Hand is explicitly indebted to the former, though it is not a great leap to see how Skelton's fascination with latter might lead to the same place.More specifically, this EP blossomed forth from a notation in the only extant original manuscript of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.The notation addresses a word that is "rewritten, over stain, in another hand … in darker ink over another letter."That unintentionally evocative series of words became something of a guiding force for Skelton as he worked on the piece, triggering some deep reflection on how our own stories may be overwritten by "unknown - and possibly supernatural - agencies."That phrase also inspired the artwork within Dark Hollow Dark, as Skelton wrote over handwritten texts from a previous book (The Look Away), erasing their original meaning and transforming them into a dense and enigmatic tapestry of layered symbols.
Such a process of accretion obviously mirrors the changing landscapes of the earth and provides a winning template for making great drone music, provided the artist has a good ear for loop architecture and an even better intuition for pacing.Skelton has both, of course, and employs those talents to wonderful effect on this twenty-four-minute piece.Opening with just a simple foundation of deep, repeating throbs, "Another Hand" quietly blossoms into a melancholy dream-spell of layered and undulating string drones.It steadily accumulates further mass and texture as it unfolds, which is enough to make it a solid example of standard Skelton drone fare if that was all it offered.Happily, however, he had considerably more compelling plans, as the drones gradually start to become subsumed by a ghostly repeating howl around the piece's halfway point.That is the piece's only real transformation, but the half-grinding/half-spectral beauty of the new motif is more than enough to make "Another Hand" a wonderfully heavy and visceral piece.Characteristically, Skelton stays true to his thematic conceit to the very end, as the coda that remains after all the howling fades away feels like a newly bell-like resurrection of the opening motif.Perfect symmetry.
A Great Body Rising and Falling also has some literary roots beyond its ties to Dark Hollow Dark, though they are a bit more modest this time around.Rather than looking to an ancient manuscript from the collection of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, Skelton finds inspiration in his own words–specifically a passage from The Look Away.It is a somewhat lengthy passage, but the crux is "…even then I feel movement.Not the dull workings of my body, but something greater.It is another body, massive and restless, shifting beneath me."The greater "something" in the original quote refers specifically to the hidden and not-so-hidden movements within the streams and hills that surrounded Skelton at the time, but it is certainly evocative and poetic to contemplate even deeper and more unknown forces at work.Naturally, Skelton does exactly that here, using the piece to abstractly explore the possibility of "sentience within the apparently inanimate."
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