Project Divinity - Hollow City (2009)

Jamendo

8.4

/Chillout, Downtempo, Electronic pop/

Comment: How I was listening to this album? Firstly, because of having only 5 tracks in 17 minutes, I set the mp3 player on repeat mode. At the moment I have no idea how much I have enjoyed it in a row. It seems to sound as if a whole track now. If you are intended to avoid the word "blissful", then subtle, soothing synth sounds will be revolving around your hear. The kind of film music as if made by the Estonian famous film composer Sven Grünberg who has scored for so many sci-fi films among others. By the way, PD is a Finnish project.

Cootie Shot - OO.. (Circle Circle Dot Dot) EP (2009)

CLLCT

9.0

/Alt-folk, DIY, Lo-fi, Americana/

This is a fine ukulele-based strumming pop from Gainesville accomplished by baby glockenspiel touch. Kia and Spence. All the stuff is minimally but in an astonishing way designed into irresistible dynamics where lush, deep-timbred female singing is dominating or at times unisoned with man`s voice. The lyrics goes about love, fairy tales, and bluetooth headsets.

Pfranco - Lucky Seven EP (2010)

Pfranco
Bandcamp

7.8

/Hip-hop, Rap, Urban sound/

Comment: Not bad, not bad...the album of a Melbourne-based rapper contains an intense rhyme-punching during 7 tracks. There are some good moments, for example at Love, It`s Just You and Sour Grapes where finely exorcised MC-ing gets backed by infiltrated brass and orchestrated sounds. Acctually those tracks are getting grow with each new listening time. Yet some other tracks Someday Maybe; Debt and Education) are used to be a bit too generical having no signs of alarms and surprises and thereby fooding my sometimes suspicious stereotypes regarding all the rap stuff.

ZMG - The Sect (2011)

Black Square

8.5

/Dark ambient, Illbient, Sound-art, Minimal, Dysopbient, Microtonal, Neoclassical/

Comment: The dark is rising and atmosphere is filled in with black-and-grey dust before the impending apocalypse through the continuing and approaching collapse of a dying star. In principle, in its restrained yet grave havoc it would be a decent candidate as film score for a horror movie.

Richard Rich & Max Tannone - Selene (2011)

Selene
Max Tannone
Lastfm

8.6

/Hip-hop, Alternative hip-hop, Sci-fi, Conceptual/

Comment: The nowadays mash-up king Max Tannone (Jaydiohead, Mos Dub, Dub Kweli, and the re-conceptualizing of Beastie Boys` album Check Your Head) is back with his new release and fresh "victims". Being inspired by the film Moon by Duncan Jones and its original score by Clint Mansell, however, it is a collaboration act with MC Richard Rich, thereby not considered a mash-up enterprise. Indeed, it sounds as an original hip-hop-moulded workout (hip-hop/rap music, however, bases mainly on samples and loans). More detailly, those sampled sci-fi-hued minutiae make up a solid impression on offset face to face with Rich`s convincing manifestation.

Lockerbie – Laut / Snjóljón (2011)

Bad Panda
Lastfm

8.9

/Post-rock, Epic, Soft rock, Chamber pop, Baroque pop, Ambient rock, Alternative pop, Pomp pop, Experimental indie, Ambient rock/

Comment: Following the appreciated traditions of icelandic songwriting and innovative section of the Scandinavian pop manners (Under Byen, Sondre Lerche, Jens Lekman), this 4-track mini album is a successful effort of grandeur pop hooks and epic sensibility, as a final result having found out a balanced stand of pomp postures and whimsical pop moments. No doubt, the shadow of Sigur Ros is used to strongly hover over it. Yet, I feel I am able to love Lockerbie much more.

Mequetrefe - Play off (2010)

Mequetrefe
Mequetrefe/Bandcamp

9.4

/Alternative rock, Shoegaze, Post-rock, Psychedelic, Space rock, Experimental rock/

Comment: I am not used to think that post-rock in traditional manner (instrumental crescendo-biased rock/up`n`down guitar-based moving) could save somebody`s life. However, quite rare some groups are able to offer a high-stake for the certain genre, i.e coming across the borders of expectations. Mequetrefe is such a quintet coming from Spain, coalescing post-rock with psychedelia, towering exultations of shoegaze, and lush electronic undercurrents. Some post-metal elements are visible here, though, being expressed a bit weaker than the abovementioned influence realms. And even John Barry-esque airy and blissful harmonica snippets are on the screen. This is a potent accomplishment which contains lots of gems indeed. Imagine as if My Bloody Valentine (or Mercromina - the another and actually more famous indie band from the Iberian Peninsula) meets God Is An Astronaut.

Alexei Rafiev, Alexei Borisov, Olga Nosova - Demon Onegin (2010)

Clinical Archives
Archive.org

8.6

/Spoken word, Conceptual, Avant-garde, Minimal electronica, Mystical, Microtonal, Avant-electronica, Experimental electronica, Downbeat, Noir, Freeformfreakout, Minimal techno, Dark ambient, Illbient, Electro-acoustic/

Comment: Duo Rafiev-Borisov continues their way offering a blend of spoken word and digitally processed austere sounds. This time the duo is complemented by Olga Nosova who operates with electronics and sonic effects and plays bass and drums. More concretely, the album is revolving around the texts of great Russian poets Pushkin and Lermontov, which is wrapped up by bent human voices, exalted and resigned declamation, dense drill-alike snippets and its hisses, and of course, "faulty", constantly interrupting electronic soundscapes. It is a spasm-filled oeuvre, moving inbetween acoustic shades and electronic luridness. All in all, at times rigid, sometimes playful.

pous - VPLE (2011)

Noecho

8.7

/Hip-hop, Noise, Crossover, Avant-garde, Psychedelic, Experimental, Avant-hop, Noise-hop/

Comment: This is a crossover issue of psych-out hip-hop, digitally crackling and droning-beaming noise, though, lots of other sounds are adhered with them here as well (cut and paste aesthetics, warped ambient, off-kilter psychedelia). Indeed, all the stuff is built upon rough and bleak sonic skeletons. It is the other sort of hip-hop having no similar intentions with mainstream/gangsta music/rap. It is guite similar to such acts as Dälek, Techno Animal, and Kid 606.

SineRider - Ambivert (2011)

BFW Recordings

8.5

/Ambient, Subtle soundfields, Soundscape, Post-rock, Ambient rock/

Comment: At first, all the kick proceeds off with evolving into soothing and wide-scale yet austere soundscapes, which in the middle of the issue tends to grow upon more post-rock-ish realms, wherein guitar chords are drenched into a dream-filled fog. Yet, the best moment is a track called Dream Sequence which is static and dynamic simultaneously on its own, fluttering in effect-based escapism. The album - which can be called an instance of classical ambient sound - finds its closure in the similar way as it embarked on.