AFFEN - Like Life Easily Ended (2011)

BFW Recordings
Lastfm

9.2

/Alternative pop/rock, Soft rock, Pomp rock/

Comment: AFFEN does mean Anatomy For Fabulous Emergency Noise and is a quintet from Bandung, Indonesia, an Asian country so well-known due to its outstanding indie scene. Their 4-minute single can only be described in positive way. Indeed, they deserve their name partly - Next to embraced Coldplay aesthetics (mellow, dreamy singing manner, shadowed guitar chords) there you can enjoy massive, even punching guitar washes in the part of refrain. In a nutshell, this single can be compared with an intense sort of firework where you can experience different kinds of shapes and patterns, making people somehow happy and jubilant.

bryyn - Les Alpettes (2011)

Jamendo
bryyn
Lastfm

8.9

/Alternative pop/rock, Alt-folk, Electronic pop, Dream pop, Singer-songwriter/

Comment: here are up 41 minutes of convincing sort of pop music spreaded out over 13 tracks. Similarly to his previous issues Bryn Martin aka bryyn aka pinkle takes on electronic-drenched alt-folk approach, though, you can hear more mainstream-appealed turns and bows in his soundscape. At times it resembles such groups as The Killers, and Coldplay (About Anything), at times it used to be more buried into reveries (Let It Go). However, the favorites of mine are Suzanna, and Quiet. The latter is a suggestive example of electronic pop (those glacial glow-alike synth gears are truly outasight).

Invisible Elephant - The Lights Go Out (2010)

Bandcamp
Lastfm

8.7

/Post-rock, Singer-songwriter, Alt-folk, Shoegaze, Crossover, Dream folk/

Comment: Invisible Elephant is a singer-songwriter from UK, who used to record home exploiting guitars, electronics, samples, concrete sounds, vocals, and percussion. The Lights Go Out was his debut album providing an example of how shoegaze, dream pop, singer-songwriter-ism/folk, post-rock meet one another in a decent way. This issue of 7 notches has managed to got quite restraint in its dreaminess throughout the course, however, enabling to enter into a kind of no-man`s land filled in with majestic noise foray sometimess. The most exclusive moment is decidedly related to Wind-Up Bird which offers the ethnic-tinged singing in chorus.

Diaenoxe & Uberlulu - Satanique et hérétique divers

Sea Office - Freon (2011)

20kbps
Lastfm

8.8

/Psycho-acoustic, Acousmatics, Improvised music, Freak folk, Sound collage, Lobit, Weird, Experimentalism/

Comment: there are up five barely distinguishable outlets by Sea Office (also known as Lockbox) a 17-year-old native from Denver mixing up concrete sounds, accidental spoken word snippets, dirty kind of ambient, and a shitloads of sampled minutiae. Above the intertwined stuff you can hear either piano chords or guitar twangs overdriving it. In a nutshell, it is a spontaneous and clouded psychotic output which, furthermore, can be considered as a gap between improvised music and plain arrangements (of course, in the experimental sense of this word). If to compare it with someone I recommend to listen to Uberlulu (indeed, their only album under 20kbps), or some stuff in the list of the cult Bob Chaos Records.

Carmelo Amenta - L'erba Cattiva (2010)

Barbie Noja

Lastfm

8.7

/Progressive rock, Art rock, Glam pop, Alternative pop/rock, Pomp pop, Crossover/

Comment: Carmelo Amenta is a quintet from Italy taking on an idiosyncratic, spectacular patchwork of sensitive art rock, high-flying glam pop, progressive rock-tinged gliding, and some unexpected jazz and tango standards in-between. It may seem a little bit weird but it is soothing and propulsive simultaneously, at times it is longing, at times highly cheerful. This 10-piece track is released on an Italian cult label, Barbie Noja (this is a home for Barbagallo, Les Dix-Huit Secondes, The Last Merendina and many other quaint projects mostly coming out of Sicily). By the way, all the songs are sung in Italian.

Convex Mancave - Atomic Blonde In E (2011)

Tavern Eightieth
Bandcamp
Lastfm

9.1

/Guitar ambient, Post-rock, Space rock, Epic, Ambient noise, Minimalism, Avant-garde, Experimentalism/

Comment: this album (actually just one track turning off at the length of 21 minutes) provides at the first sight brutal kind of noise-infiltrated, dirty ambient or, on the other hand, a spatial yet bristled post-rock outlet (as you wish it to be categorized for). Behind those deliberately hiss-laden layers you can hear microscopic yet impressive changes in harmonies, almost invisible shades of melodies (indeed, at a time your imagination starts to work). In a word, the release is about permanent pulsations, ghastly phases and their modulations. Convex Mancave is the collaboration act of Matthew Collings, Chris Tenz, and Greyhound Out Of Mainline.

Dreamphish - Midnight Comes Around

The Gifted Children - Christmas 2011 (2011)

The Gifted Children

9.2

/Indie rock, Psychedelia, Alternative pop/rock, Noise rock, Experimental indie, Conceptual/

Comment: it might be I am being a little bit late with this set of 14 songs because the Christmas time is already over (though, for the members of the Russian Orthodox Church it is up to begin soon after the next week). Indeed, you can not be wrong - indie meets the Christmas songs produced by a prolific US-based indie rock combo who has been active since the mid of 90`s and produced approximately 1300 ditties. However, the miscellany hides within itself a handful of enthralling, poignant gems, however, extending from whimsical electronic developments and suggestive psychedelia to monumental noise rock and even medieval-tinged folk indie. May it be these songs will be widely accepted in 2050, for instance? Or sooner?

Delmore fx - No Ideas (2011)

FMA

8.6

/Avant-garde, Freak folk, Weird folk, DIY, Improvised music, Lo-fi, Experimentalism, New Weird America/

Comment: these 7 short-running tracks used to take ona kind of improvised music made up of miniature folk-alike twangs and some drum forays. Yet, its intention seems to be a little bit more to be classified as a part of the New Weird America scene only. Its pop direction is heavily covered up with a sort of shamanic experimental crust. You can draw parallels upon Thuoom, Pilesar, and Gang Gang Dance (it chimes like a little brother of this famous yet off-kilter combo). Altogether, let`s call it just bedroom tribalism.