Chalk has again walked a very fine line between complete abstraction and conscious identification. It's something that I feel only this genre is capable of and that Chalk, in particular, has managed to portray on Vega.

As if the allure of Jessica Bailiff's voice isn't enough to get any reasonable person excited about Northern Song Dynasty, then knowing that her fantastic song writing mixes exceedingly well with Jesse Edwards' approach should be enough to motivate everyone else.

This is a landmark album in the Acid Mothers Temple oeuvre for a variety of reasons, but not all of them are good.  On the positive side, Cotton Casino has returned to the fold and Kawabata Makoto and company have ambitiously stepped out of their comfort zone to attempt a "true electric jazz album" in homage to Miles Davis' 1970 masterpiece.  Unfortunately, the end result of their bold experiment is a bit of an exhausting, self-indulgent, and muddled mess.

En's 2010 debut (The Absent Coast) was pretty much universally regarded as a great drone album, finding a nice balance between Stars of the Lid-style shimmering bliss and subtly harsh crackle and hiss.  Happily, their latest album repeats that formula, but takes all of their impulses a bit further: the harsh parts are harsher and the dreamy parts are even dreamier. Although it may not be not quite as uniformly solid as its predecessor, the highlights are a bit more impressive.

There is no denying that Kawabata Makoto is an uncompromising and unique artist, but the sheer volume and unbridled excess of his work as Acid Mothers Temple has been yielding diminishing returns for me for quite some time.  Consequently, I always look forward to his more experimental and intimate diversions, such as this uneasy, drone-heavy collaboration with enigmatic Japanese accordionist à qui avec Gabriel. The two musicians make an inspired and complementary pairing, but Golden Tree does not entirely avoid some of Makoto's more irksome tendencies.

Fabrika is a new label based out of Athens, Greece, for exclusively vinyl-only limited editions focusing on obscure and up-and-coming minimal synth groups. Their first release, limited to 500 copies, is a sampler of analog synth acts, primarily from Europe, a few of who have since released full-length LPs through Fabrika Records as well. This collection ranges from the complex, pulsating cold wave ambience of NY-based Led Er Est to the bopping "electrobilly" of Berlin-based Jemek Jemowit. Over half of the tracks are from Germany and the general feel of the record is bleak, robotic and danceable with serrated edges.  It is essentially a dance compilation for the disaffected contemporary nihilist.  I envision futuristic sci-fi dancefloor party scenes with a looming, omnipresent antagonist while some of the characters might be overdosing yet no one seems to care.

While Yasutoshi Yoshida is not nearly as prolific as he was in the early days of Government Alpha, the result has been a "quality over quantity" approach, much like the Incapacitants, and the opposite extreme from the likes of Merzbow and Dissecting Table. This not only makes each new release something I look forward to, but also seems to ensure what he does put out stays of exceptional quality. Exemplified by this single: no shtick, no pretense, just a great 7" from one of the masters.

A collaboration between G. Stuart Dahlquist (formally of Burning Witch) and prolific French composer Philippe Petit is sure to elicit some dark, disturbing imagery, and on that front, Empires Should Burn definitely does not disappoint. With guest vocals from Edward Ka-Spel, Jarboe, and Bryan Lewis Saunders, the resulting album is a dark, though not impenetrable slab of metal hued experimental sound collage.

A relatively new solo project out of Canada, Bryan W. Bray's discography is currently brief, but with releases such as this, I hope to see that list grow dramatically in the near future. Hints of drone metal, pure harsh noise, and unclassifiable experimentalism abound on this all too brief tape.

While he has been an extremely active artist in the past 20 years as the leader of Circle, as well as a member of Split Cranium, Pharaoh Overlord, and a multitude of other projects, Interlude for Prepared Beast is only his second solo work. Both of the chaotic, hyperactive sides of this tape are unquestionably unique and fit into no existing category.