Chenard Walcker - Haut Le Coeur (2002/2006)

Free Sample Zone

9.2

/Mash-up, Plunderphonics, Avant-garde, Crossover, Sound collage, Samplecore, Sampledelic, Cut and paste/

Comment: Chenard Walcker was a French artist, thinker, visionary and fervent protagonist for the copyleft movement. He had basically been active in the first half of 00`s before he was diagnosed with the serious health condition. More detailly, he created a blog named Free Sample Zone and having had approximately 30-40 albums on his own account. In fact, a true legend in any cases and one heroes of mine.

This album contains of 18 tracks within 71 minutes, lifting its core from the Gregorian chants, old school soul music, rumbling pace shufflings, film score samples, easy listening, hip-hop, psychedelia, near-ethnic/ethno-pop and much more to be chopped up and re-conceptualized into a new form. Actually any of his tracks would freely be a subject for the quizzes with the purpose to figure out all of those hints coming forth from the concrete track.

brunk - Winter EP (2009)

Resting Bell
Lastfm

9.5

/Ambient, Ambient rock, Post-rock, Musique concrete, Found sound, Epic, Experimental rock, Experimentalism, Microtonal/

Comment: brunk is Bert Vanden Berghe, a DIY homerecording musician and sound artist from Ghent, Flanders, Belgium. Besides involving in various less and more pop-induced groups, however, by his solo enterprises he is known as noisenik (Passive Cable Theory) and as improvisational artist (invertebrata) and as cutting edge musician (brunk) either. However, this release being issued for Resting Bell in the second half of 2009 reflects upon his desires toward more atmospherical point of view (ambient folk/ambient rock/spherical angles-edges of post-rock, concrete sound-infused epic bars). Moreover, those stretched guitar chords which can be found from here at times do evoke similar perceptions to the Labradford, or microtonal, otherworldly pulsating overgrowths into the kind of still life are getting very close to Pan American. All in all, it is a powerful 4-track miracle indeed.

Os Ovni - Beko _81 (2011)

Beko DSL
Lastfm

8.5

/Lo-fi, DIY, Primitronica, Experimental pop, Post-pop, Covers/

Comment: Os Ovni is a duo from Austin, Texas, USA paying a fine tribute to Trish Keenan (1968-2011)/Broadcast (You Can Fall) and Kraftwerk (Radioactivity).

Musket - Musket EP (2011)

Bandcamp

9.4

/Dance punk, Dance rock, Alternative pop, Post-punk, No wave, New wave/

Comment: A period embracing the ending part of 70`s and the first years of 80`s was apparently one of the most interesting periods in the music history, more detailly, as punk-influenced youngsters on the either side of the Atlantic searched densely for innovative crossovers mixing punk skeletons with avant-garde, electronics, dance rhythms and much more. Musket, a combo from Lisboa in obviously influenced by those dynamical, bubblegum-ish bass loops-driven dance vibes and lofty vocal manners of post-punk, reminiscent of Gang Of Four and ESG. Indeed, this 4-track issue makes greatly itself out, so is is our obligation to discover this group and its roots for yourselves.

Human Elephant - Owner Without A Dog EP (2010)

Umor Rex

8.7

/Post-punk, Goth rock, Psychedelia, Dark pop, Singer-songwriter, Experimental pop/

Comment: In comparison with John Edward Donald`s previous work, however, some new influence lines can be admitted. For instance, dark folk influences are mainly replaced with post-punk/gothic and introspective psychedelia. So you can compare it freely with Joy Division and The Doors respectively. Indeed, it is an impressive journey into the past evoking lots of memories from your subconsciousness.

Deadman - Cerebral Frontier (2010)

Umor Rex

9.3

/Experimental folk, Indie folk, Folk indie, Eletronic, Folk noir, Alt-folk, Drone folk, Avant-folk, Baroque folk/

Comment: The Belfast-based musician Jason Mills aka Deadman`s 6-track submission does include oozing-droning folk chords and minimally designed fingerpicked folk formats and whistling careless pop and more or less murky experimental folk/indie pop and orchestrated folk appearances and near-dance occurences and some air-filled attacks from the outer space. Produced by David Baxter aka Filaria. Indeed, it is a near-brilliant workout/or an obscure one as it was used to say in past times.

Azoora - Tension

All Black Everything - Rapt Withal (2011)

Bandcamp

9.0

/Drone, Avant-garde, Noise, Psych-music, Electro-acoustic, Microtonal, Psycho-acoustic, Experimentalism, Acousmatic, Minimalism/

Comment: All Black Everything is back again with a brand new issue after the two excellent releases Gentle Floor, and Revenge Body, respectively. As ordinary as it is used to be by his side, some new tracks to be added with an obsessive concern upon tonality, form, and manipulated moods, embedded more in the tradition of early electronic pioneers (Pierre Schaeffer; Morton Subotnick, La Monte Young), rather than showcasing nowadays approaches regarding the sound.

PJ001 - transmission #01 (2011)

Pjoew

8.7

/IDM, Electronic pop, Indietronica, Drum and bass/

Comment: This is the first and the last issue under Pjoew to date. This is a compilation of 13 tracks based mainly upon spacious IDM-lines and burbling synth-driven electronic pop cores and at times guitar chord-dominated electronic indie as well. However, there are some exceptions as well. For instance, CruizeOfFiction`s Contrail is a subtle drum and bass/dream and bass, or HyeVolture`s Hye walkure, part 1: you're armed (...and your sick shit) resembles somehow those sounds made by Radiohead upon the Kid A. And a kind of shrilling lo-fi electronica made by Olkin Donder (Total Tendencies). Anyway, my favorite is Teebo`s The sound of 1000 growing trees which makes huge sense with slightly psychedelic synth shreds and crescending space around it. A strong output indeed.

Jetman Jet Team - Unfinished Album (2011)

Bandcamp

8.8

/Shoegaze, Fuzz pop, Dream pop, Psych-rock, Alternative pop, Trance rock/

Comment: After a two year hiatus, the former members of The Pop Eccentric Brenan Chambers, Miguel Diaz, Tyler James, and Quin Dickinson have returned, added singer Alisa Dickinson to the line-up, and become Jetman Jet Team. However, this is the debut issue by the Seattle-based group delivering a solid set of shoegaze/newgaze strivings. It might be the strongest notch from this 3-track release is Albatross which is filled in with blissed-out harmonies, up-and-down gears, reminding strongly of Pia Fraus. On the other side, the last track Corrosive merits its name blending Kevin Shields-alike mumbling lullabies with metallic reverbs and trance rock-relied ambience.