This Portland, Oregon group alternates between folk songs and quasi-mystical drones on its fourth album and performs both styles fairly well. Yet they're at their best when they combine the two, which is something they don't do nearly enough here. Still, this album has several transcendent moments of note.

Alcorn's pedal steel music has always seemed to be more part of a journey rather than a recording career. Lauded by fellow Houston luminaries Charalambides and Heather Leigh Murray, she delves into the forests of possibility between jazz, improv and her own interpretations/transcriptions of choral work. Alongside other experimental players Alcorn is helping to prising the blackened fingers of Country music’s stranglehold on the Pedal steel.

Olde English Spelling Bee

The latest release from Norway's hungriest noise composers is comparatively a more subdued affair, and it is much more subtle than its boisterous title would have one to believe.  John Hegre and Lasse Marhaug present a noteworthy combination of heavily controlled guitar feedback and studio treatments characterize the work as a whole, but each piece is very different from the next.

Released with the help of United Dairies and Jnana Records, Freida Abtan's music is a strange cinematography of metaphysical conundrums and invisible events. Contained herein is time frozen, inspected, and unwoven into infinite threads of unusual shapes and proportions. Abtan's subtle flourishes are impressive, sometimes simultaneously fantastic and terrifying, but they do not add up to a wholly consistent album.

Another bewitching album to waltz from the Vortex Vault, this one evokes cinematic imagery if only because there is less of a focus on vocals here and more emphasis on atmosphere. One of the best things about Liles' music is how it sparks the imagination beyond the scope of intention, and Black Market is no exception.

One of the pioneering noise projects of the genre's early 1980s heyday has returned with a new disc that manages to both push the brutal aspect of their discography to its natural limits while still maintaining an ear for subtlety and depth that tends to be lacking in the realms of harsh electronics.

There are few, if actually any, musical series’ at the moment as interesting as Jandek’s chronological live releases. With his twenty five year old ‘Texan loner’ tag finally being shed, his live releases are revealing a whole experience to fans of his disturbingly bare vocal/guitar confessions. After the indifferent Austin Sunday release, Jandek seems to have taken some wise soul’s advice, getting players with improvisational chops in instead of local backroom bums.

Scuttlebutt around the intertubes is that no, this is not the product of one "Karen Tregaskin" discovered via a Myspace site, but actually good ol' Richard D. James.  Regardless of its pedigree, it's a nice slab of throwback electro that is as fascinating for nostalgic reasons as it is for its overall listening value.

This is a decent, if standard, double-A side 7" of noise. Neither side is particularly interesting but there is nothing inherently wrong with Axe Magnitude/Altered Beast. While I wouldn't call it recommended listening for the general public, it might be worth checking out for those with an ear for harsh sounds and an eye for nice screen printed sleeves.

This set marks the end of Tim Bracy and Shannon McArdles' marriage and musical collaboration. 30 Year Low is a terrific document of the death of love, the inevitability of aging, and is proof positive that in all musical genres, quality matters more than anything else.