Kirill Platonkin - Repose (2011)

Darkwinter

8.8

/Dark ambient, Illbient, Dystopbient, Musique concrete, Minimal, Drone, Ambient drone/

Comment: Brooding, howling, void, bleak, elemental, permanent growings into somewhere. An intense composition by a Russian dark ambient-nik.

Moon & Sun - The Wild Things (2010)

Beep! Beep! Back Up The Truck
Jamendo
Bandcamp

8.6

/Lo-fi, Slowcore, Dark pop, Indie pop, Singer-songwriter, Psychedelic pop, Experimental/ indie/

The Swedish singer-songwriter Monica Tormell issued an interesting, 6-tracks album recorded on Curacao, in Amsterdam and far out of urban noise in the countryside of Sweden somewhere. She was using instruments like the tambu drum, steeldrums, clavé sticks and the Swedish zither, balancing mainly between slowcore tunes and dark-hued pop.

Zoom-On-A-Kill - Couleurs Sans Danger (2010)

Bandcamp

6.4

/Lo-fi, DIY, Drag, Haunted house, 8-bit, Cut and paste, Digital hardcore, Samplecore/

Comment: This is a bulimic formation of 8 tracks obviously having no basic stylistic stream for the concept. The issue is mainly constructed as a murky lo-fi/primitive progression without a clear intention, however, having incorporated the minutiae of witch house, 8 bit, harsh digital sound processing, tekno and sound collage.

Dimaension X - Loco-Motives (2003)

Archive.org
Dimaension X

8.2

/Metal, Progressive rock, Fusion, Crossover, Crust-punk/

Behind this project and issue is David Lanciani, a profilic musician from the USA who is used to combine diverse sound elements with each other - for instance, inserting the samples from video games into metal music, lo-fi-esque synth sections are set over billowy gears of progressive rock, and even for contrast moreover, some soft rock minutiae and fondness for flaky progressions are showcased here. Yet, the album is just one station for to be moved further to another station.

Noosfera - Factor

Noosfera

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.