Arnoldrecords - Echo Mike crashed and died burnt in horrible sufferings (2011)

Jamendo

8.0

/Chillout, Modern classical, Crossover, Soundtrack, Easy listening, Electronic pop/

Comment: Arnoldrecords is not a record company but an artist from France, offering laid-back electronica mixed up with angular piano chords, guitar snippets, and programmed beats on this issue. At times it gets evolved into the soundtrack-esque milieu, at times incorporating some elements from the spaghetti westerns and offering noir-drenched overthrows. This is an album which builds up the kind of safe continuation on sound and style, having succeeded to avoid any interruption throughout it.

Thousand Needles – Thousand Needles (2011)

Lepork

8.1

/Happy punk, Melodic punk, Easycore, Pop punk/

Comment: Four melodic punksters from Jakarta, Indonesia playing up the dynamical chords of guitar-based music sung in English and Indonesian (adding lots of excitement and exoticness to the whole). Though the 7-track release seems artistically to be unpretentious, the most important aspect is that their sound is organized in a high-energized, catchy way. The last track on it offers a surprising glimpse through the recruitment of march rhythms. Compare this band`s oeuvre to Shortcut To Last`s one, a Canadian band recently reviewed on this blog either.

Subterrestrial - The Goddess of Atvatabar (2011)

Subterrestrial
Lastfm

8.6

/Avant-industrial, Experimentalism, Ritualistic industrial, Sound-art, Minimalism, Experimental electronica, Avant-garde, Acousmatics, Electro-acoustic/

Comment: Call it either ritualistic drum music, grey-ish electro-acoustic/acousmatic workout, sonically diminished sound-art attempt, or creeping industrial elaboration respectively. More concretely, there can be detected for elliptically looping samples accomplished with the profound pulsating progressions of algorithms, abstract-stretched weird soundscapes, and heavily pounding drums in the backdrop of moaning shamanistic vowel experiments. Indeed, the album showcases different faces on its own. The set of 7 tracks comes nearby San Francisco, USA being primarily inspired by a novel by William R. Bradshaw.

Sobria Ebrietas - The Secret Chord (2009)

Abyssa
Abyssa
Myspace

8.8

/Dark ambient, Martial music, Ambient noise, Experimentalism, Soundscape, Dystopbient, Avant-garde, Minimalism/

Comment: Sobria Ebrietas was born around 1995-96 in France as a side-project to such band as Absolutely Curtains. Since then SE has been a profilic plodder, developing his vista about murky and noiseful soundscapes. Here is one album being released under the cult label Abyssa (now being defunct one already). Indeed, The Secret Chord used to "talk" about an almostly omnipotent merge of lush noise, epic dark ambient/dystopbient, "shouting" lopsided soundscapes, exorcized minimal and microtonal music, threatening echoes of martial fields, and reverberating spoken word ghosts. A profound set indeed.

Fake Plastic Heads - keeping an eye on the ones who deserve it (2011)

Clinical Archives
Fake Plastic Heads

9.3

/Avant-industrial, Experimentalism, Avant-garde, Power electronica, Psych-acoustics, Spoken word, Noise, Non-music, Avant-electronica/

Comment: 37-years-old Charles S. Kozmanovic aka the c aka lee01 can be considered a singer-songwriter, yet he is a very peculiar kind of singer-songwriter from Germany. Those 15 notches which are dominantly wraith-embraced ones showing up the darkest corners of the consciousness of a human being. All is wrapped up in a high-resoluting yet "soothing" forge of noise and industrial sound, it is like Freddy Krueger who used to told his "subtle" lullabies to the rest of the world. By a more historical side, falling into an array of the predecessors, it can be compared to Coil and the madness of Einstürzende Neubauten drifting between the destructivism and constructivism. Yet, keeping an eye on the ones who deserve it is an original one demonstrating a potent merge of spoken word and sonic palette - it is the kind of grower. For all the noise music lovers, power electronica and avant-industrial adorers, however, this issue is an obligatory one. And search for the man`s previous albums drone_iv, and ldf1st (at Jamendo) either.

OS TRASNOS DE MOSCOSO - Casa da Joaquina (2011)

Aregueifa

8.0

/Trip-hop, Hip-hop, Experimental electronica, Rap,Urban music/

Comment: This set of 2 short-running tracks starts out from the jungle of an electronic mess, evolving further into the trip-hop-relied rhythm structure. The second track is an example of whimsical hip-hop with a vast amount of energy rapped in Galegian/Spanish language.

Noosfera - IX (2011)

Jamendo
Noosfera

7.8

/Blues rock, Hard rock, Improvised music, Singer-songwriter/

Comment: Noosfera is Gildardo Ràbago, a musician from Mexico, who has issued a solid load of releases at Jamendo. However, his methodology seems to have respect toward old and new - toward the vintage era blues music-based roughness/dryness and linearity/monophonic-ness which is saturated with hard rock riff-drenched jammingness and embellished with psychedelic keyboard interludes and at times even groove-appealed rhythms.

Fixture Records Compilation No.2 (2011)

Fixture Records

8.8

/Experimental indie, Alternative, DIY, Psychedelic, Space pop, Post-pop, Avant-pop, Dreamwave, Nugaze/

Comment: Similarly to the compilations of Hobo Cult, Eardrum Pop, Beko DSL, Holiday Records and many other similar kind of labels, this miscellany of 21 tracks on Fixture Records reflects upon the situation of nowadays innovative indie music. It is mostly made in the vein of DIY aesthetics, dreamwave, nugaze, and psychedelia. Here are represented Dirty Beaches, Lantern, Sequin Kit, Jef Barbara, Cresting, Chevalier Avant Garde, Mavo, Silver Dapple, Brave Radar, Freelove Fenner, Sheer Agony, Omma Cobba, and Telephone Callers. My favorite track is Sheer Agony`s Caitlin And Peter And George Harrison, a kind of doo wop-drenched easy listening.

Clinker - So We Say

Cygnet Wings - Cygnet Wings EP (2011)

Bandcamp

8.9

/Baroque pop, Chamber music, Avant-folk, Dream folk, Vaudeville folk, Singer-songwriter, Alt-folk, Americana/

Comment: Dan Hall`s sonic templates are as blissful as the same used to be essentially melancholic at times. I just mean full of beauty with some infiltrated sense of bitterness. Moreover, the steps of progressions on it do hit into your feeling centre, especially if to regard those epic growings getting out of restraint chamber-drenched sequences into a sort of breathtaking Americana pop.