Chevalier Avant Garde - Selectronic from Montreal (2011)

Beko DSL

8.6

/Post-psychedelic electronica, Electro-indie, Electro-rock, Glo-fi, Lo-fi, Experimental indie, DIY/

Comment: Dimitri sings and Filip plays the guitar... . A duo from Montrèal, Quebec, Canada, providing a pair of songs which are obviously influenced by the nowadays chillwave/glo-fi aesthetics and the first attempts in the realm of electronic rock/indie like The Silver Apples by the end of 60`s either. The 2-headed single starts off with Toy, which is sustained by heavily bounding, high-frequencied sequence machines (the recent beat music, isn`t?) which later, in the second track Sixteen Candles, will be converted into the sort of mid-tempo, a little drowsy sound. But thumbs up anyway. It might freely be possible that the duo will be famous in 2012, for instance.

The New Mystikal Troubadours - Second Spring (2011)

Free Music Archive
Mt6

9.7

/Psych-folk, Trance rock, Experimental indie, Drone folk, Psychedelia, Avant-rock, Avant-folk, New Weird America, Free folk/

Comment: Second Spring is the duo Dave Gibson (Agrarians) & Matt Perzinski (Bad Liquor Pond)`s sophomore outing (after the self-titled debut album in 2009). Anyway, such kind of psychedelic (folk) music makes most of the times subtly out. No doubt, the duo is able to straddle diverse elements into a seamless blend of psychedelia, drone folk, and psych-folk. But you can get intoxicated on guitar strums and halo-like washes within and around it. In true, experimental folk seems to be their most but not just only realm to get steps into it. At times it reminds of the trance rock incantations by wizards like Jason Pierce (Spacemen 3; Spiritualized) and Peter Kember aka Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3; Experimental Audio Research; Spectrum) or warblely exorcized indie folk songs a la Animal Collective or contemplative drone folk groups like Children Of The Drone, and Natural Snow Buildings. In a nutshell, this is a highly synergic set of 12 tracks and it can be considered a manifesto for beauty in music and universally either. One of the best albums during 2011 so far - by this shamelessly underrated group.

F.S.Blumm/Lucrecia Dalt – Cuatro Covers (2011)

La bèl

9.3

/Folktronica, Cowbell indie, Avant-folk, Krautrock, Experimental folk, Chamber folk, Dream folk/

Comment: This collaborative act between F.S Blumm and Lucrecia Dalt is just more than mesmerizing - it is quite hard to search for a more proper sentence to describe the result. One`s can detect for elaborated guitar chords, semi-tones and fully fragmented light, adjacent to the organic electronic imprecation which is brought forth through repetitive loops (moreover, acquiring even krautrock-ish characteristics at times) and gently rising progressions, all of that reaching out from the subtle glockenspiel touches to noiseful guitar explorations, from quasi-orchestrated developments to drowsy fingerpicked magic. In a nutshell, a subsequent folk-related instance under the La bèl label.

Fescal - Into The Atmosphere (2011)

Test Tube
Lastfm

9.5

/Drone, Minimalism, Avant-garde, Dark ambient, Epic, Microtonal, Sound art, Soundscapes/

Comment: Fescal, a UK-born but now in the South Korea residing musician provides an astonishing set of 5 tracks relied on the profound explorations of droning soundscapes. Indeed, it is quite hard to realize out where reality could be distinguished from possible fictive vistas. As Fescal`s brand used to be to date, all is enveloped with a tight mass of tape hisses, making all the content ring out really subtle and organic. If to try to convert the recent impression into rock music and to find out the equivalent for it, however, it might be considered dream pop, for instance. In any cases, such kind of dreamscapes cannot be transcended upon the frames of time and space. It is rather a kind of mental level, though.

Mobyl - The Pact EP (2011)

17 Sons
Jamendo
Lastfm

8.5

/Minimal techno, Tech-house, Avant-techno, Experimental techno, Bubblegum techno/

Comment: As we know very well one of the intentions by the French-based label 17 Sons used to be releasing catchy techno music among other genres. However, I really get involved in listening to this 4-track EP, which is a crossroad of Autechre-like intellectual techno (dynamic breaks seem to be a bit corroded and angular) and bubblegum-mish yo-yo-tech-house appearances. There can be perceived for propulsive up-and-down filtered cadences, drilling machine-like grooves, swelling-squealing sonic effects. Less is more - this would be a motto of the issue. It almost sounds like someone`s life observed through the spectrum of a stroboscope.

Good Dangers - Brasilia

Cinchel - glitch.dump (2010)

Bandcamp

8.8

/Glitch noise, Glitch, Noise, Microtonal, Avant-garde, Experimentalism, Sound-art, Repetitronica, Experimental electronica, Crossover, Sound-art, Abstract/

Comment: Cinchel is a musician from Chicago, Illinois, USA and glitch.dump is his sophomore album after Drone.Dump and before friday.destruction and practice.dump, respectively. As you can assume from these titles, his music is heftily experimental, exploiting diverse concepts and sonic narratives on his workouts. However, 7-track glitch.dump is filled with a speck of glitch, microscopic tonality, static or dynamical sonic effects, rhythms, hardly audible (micro) rhythms, subtle noise (more or less minimal) and much more. Indeed, Cinchel does have an astute ear to create inspite of a sparse number of (signal-alike) particles vigorously emotive soundscapes (which at times do ring out truly eargasmic), remaining compelling throughout the course. Most of the time it seems to be likely a ghost from the past, from those times when the pioneers of electronic music embarked on with their experiments. Highly recommended.