Thomas Truax - Free As Fireflies In May (2011)

Bandcamp

9.0

/Experimental indie, Indie pop, Alternative pop, Singer-songwriter/

Comment: I fell in love with this velvet-like and harmonic-loaded single. This rings out like a crossroad between mellow Sonic Youth and jangle pop glimpses. Thomas Truax is an experimental indie musician who started off in 90`s. First of all, he is known through loads of self-mastered instruments like Sister Spinster, Mary Poppins (sic!), Mini Sister Spinsters, Mother Superior and some other ones. By the way, during this year he has released one single per month via Bandcamp. So please stay tuned on this cult musician.

Wingclipper – Recursion (2010)

Share Free Music

8.7

/Instrumental hip-hop, Trip-hop, Lo-fi, Sound collage, Crossover/

Comment: This 8-track issue is a patchwork of diverse styles - from instrumental hip-hop and trip-hop, down-tempo-backed rhythms to witty samples, mutanted sonic effects and arid lo-fi attitude. Sometimes it used to be hypnotically floating, at times nervously stomping and abrasive. It reminds of the workouts by the Canadian label Neferiu Records. By the way, the coverprint reminds in a funny way of the sleeve of Love`s Forever Changes (1967). However, the album seems to be the kind of grower.

Frame - Visions (2009)

Enough Records
Lastfm

8.6

/Psyambient, Electronic pop, Big beat, Crossover, Goa trance, Chillout, IDM/

Comment: Although the album kicks off with dark-hued, spaced-out electronics, it later develops into mainly chill-y mid-tempo electronic pop, which is embellished with glossy IDM and brooding psybient/Goa trance and thudding big beat-relied rhythm characteristics or containing the elements of all of them at once. A solid set of 10 tracks from Portugal.

Mythomaniacs Are Right - There Is No Such Thing As Death, Life Is Only A Dream And We Are The Imagination Of Ourselves (2011)

Bandcamp

8.5

/Noise, Avant-garde, Spoken word, Experimentalism, Sound collage, Cut and paste/

Comment: Mythomaniacs Are Right is a musical project from Chile making an apparent attempt for a very sort of cutting edge music. Massive digital noise plateaus, through the backbone drilling cacophony, divergent strums, ticking (quasi-)beats, loosely running-dropping bleak bleeps (regarding this aspect, it does sound quite similar to Mùm, an Icelandic post-rock/electronica group), weird-contexted outtakes (sampling the Voice, for instance), spoken word snippets, and at times absurd-like/very funny song titles. And the album title says much about us. This is not pop music during most of its course at all - rather it is a try to re-create a kind of new metaphysics (sound can be considered much stronger argument than any combination of words).

Beyond The Dune Sea - The Dune Sea

Clark Nova Portable - Birds fly out of the trees like dust beaten from an old sofa (2010)

Luvsound
Bandcamp

8.8

/Experimental electronica, Minimal, Sound-art, Ambient, Chamber music, Microtonal, Soundscape/

Comment: This is a single by the Oslo resident Rudi Simmons. It rings out vastly foggy, restrainted and wraith-like. Moreover, it is hardly audible. This is like a lone stake standing on the crossroad of ambient, chamber music, experimental electronica, and sound-art. It must be listened to loads of times to get a intuition and possible intention below it.

Quadrilles - {​[​(​Q​)​]​} (2010)

Bandcamp

7.8

/Indie rock, Alternative pop, Post-punk, Math rock, Dance rock, Crossover/

Comment: Quadrilles is a trio from the Foggy Albion mixing up indie rock with the elements of danceable post-punk ( a la Gang Of Four; or somewhat restrainted The Pop Group) and math-rock. Indeed, just a guitar, bass and drums (played by a gal, by the way). The Turks Are Restless is the most outstanding one on it.