Sea Things - See Thangs (2010)

Bandcamp
Lastfm

8.4

/Glo-fi, Chillwave, Lo-fi, DIY, Experimentalism, Psychedelic, Avant-garde, Weird, Cut and paste, Plunderphonics, Crossover, Samplecore, Sampledelic/

Comment: The American Mike Froeling aka Sea Things` debut album See Thangs makes lots of chillwave/glo-fi grooves, on the other side, it is not an usual mix of lo-fi/DIY and chillwave/glo-fi album at all. Why? Because it used to exploit much sound collage/cut and paste/plunderphonics aesthetics thereby having more broader extension and off-kilter approach than usual to its adjacent styles. Moreover, a reliable reference to it may be founded out from the fact that there do shuffle 21 songs in total. Some examples? For instance, Drakewave (What Am I Doing) seems to use Knight Rider-esque theme-paces. All in all, I suggest you have a perspective of it as if a Chenard Walcker-like frenzied sampledelic session meets Blackbird Blackbird.

Plastic People - Good As You (2010)

Myspace
Af-music
Jamendo
Bandcamp
Lastfm

7.7

/New rave, Post-punk, Art-punk, Dance punk, Alternative pop, Gothic, Electro-rock/

Comment: Today the frenchman Sèbastien Ficagna aka Plastic People just released the sophomore album Pink Narcissus. His first release Good As You takes on electro-rock, dance punk, post-punk, dark pop, art-punk sounds (some symphonic progressions, some whimsical synth burblings, treated effect-loaded appearances, cabaret-alike undercurrents), however, paying mostly tribute either to the British post-punk/gothic rock groups like The Cure, and Bauhaus through those bouncing dynamical bass guitars and rigidly stomping drum sections or the nowadays new rave sounds through its snooty approach though sounding even a little interesting than contemporary comrades like The Klaxons, and !!!, for instance.

Tsone - A Sound Beyond Reckoning (2010)

Audiotalaia
Lastfm

9.5

/Ambient, Microsound, Minimalism, Experimental electronica, Drone, Microtonal, Soundscape, Abstract, Avant-electronica, Ambient drone/

Comment: This is an excellent issue of the nowadays ambient music (actually masterpiece) filled in with subtle sounds of droning electronics, chopped-up microsounds, and fluttering, highly emotive electric piano chords (by its sound characteristics you may suppose this way). However, I cannot myself to tear apart from the Arctic-related ice plateaus and cold yet warm imaginations. Indeed, very minimal yet following the maxim less is more. The author of such blessing soundscape is Anthony Obr from USA (not to be confused with another tsone, an artist from Finland).

Fuck Her, or the Terrorists Win - Up The Ante

Yves Rakotomalala - Ce matin encore (1981/2010)

Free Music Archive
Golden Pavilion
Arachnid Records
Lastfm

7.8

/Folk, Singer-songwriter/

Comment: A set of 12 tracks sung in French and English were originally released in 1981, though later being some times re-issued (most lately at Golden Pavilion and Free Music Archive). Cute folk songs wherein one chord is soothingly followed by another, where acoustic sounds are mixed up with electric ones, indeed, having all premisses for some commercial success on the album which physical copies have apparently been very rateable in the circles of old folk music completists.

Venice - Animals, Stars & Other Psychedelic Creatures (2011)

Bad Panda
Lastfm

9.6

/Avant-garde, Avant-pop, No Wave, Post-rock, Post-psychedelic electronica, Electronic, Krautrock, Avant-rock, Experimental rock, Psychedelic/

Comment: The Rome-based Venice`s album kicks off as a kind of vanguard-ish tribal sound (Faust`s proto-industrial hypnotism) which step by step is getting evolve into...ehh...vanguard-ish tribal sound. A way too tautological, isn`t it? Indeed, but it so bloody cool. However, the second track makes some turns rightward (or is it leftward actually?), incorporating the elements from the vibraphone-centered post-rock a la the early Mice Parade and The Dylan Group and some full railing atmospheric layers of Kosmische Musik. It is almost undescribable how soft and subtle it used to be chiming throughout the course. The third track continues principially in the same vein, though, turning its focus more upon bouncy yet cutting edge paces, however, reminiscent of No Wave-drenched ones and besides it adding some treated guitar effects either. No doubt, a superb issue.

[aftersun] - Goodbye (2011)

Bandcamp

9.8

/Shoegaze, Post-punk, Goth rock, Psychedelic, Alternative rock, Space rock, Covers/

Comment: [aftersun] seems to be a combo from Brooklyn, New York which makes a mesmerizing sound loving heavily to loan from a mix of cosmic shoegaze, proto-shoegaze, and the British post-punk/gothic punk music. Indeed, this 2-track issue bases on atmospheric, astonishingly overdriving guitars, rigid bass undercurrents and the same way stomping drums. More detailly, it resembles of such bands as The Chameleons, Swervedriver, Moose, The Comsat Angels, and the French post-punk legend Asylum Party whose track Old Dreams Are Not Innocent is covered herein. An amazing trip.