Hipster Youth - Teenage Elders (2010)

Bandcamp
Long Lost

9.0

/Chiptune, Lo-fi, Primitive pop, Crossover, Experimental indie, Electro pop, Psychedelic, Electronic pop, Alternative, DIY/

Comment: Behind Hipster Youth is Aidan Wall, a 21-years-old Irish musician who previously was known as Porn On Vinyl, and porn.exe. His previous album Hearse Road Trip (2009, Rack And Ruin – issued on the same label which happened to be the starting platform for Dylan Ettinger either, a famous indie/lo-fi musician now) was a rare masterpiece of the indie/shoegaze/experimental folk scene by the aesthetical point of view – more concretely, mixing up shoegaze-ish tunes and jubilant free folk with chiptune-ish borderlines and swings. It might be Teenage Elders, a follow-up, used to have obtained slightly less glaring colours, seamless curves and serpent line-alike trajectories, yet, this is an enjoyable one (the more I listen to it the less convinced I will be). More concretely, besides his previous tricks he has added some new ones to have this time much in common with his previous label mate Testicular Manslaughter, and Ariel Pink (those slightly tortured yet sublime vocals and seemingly easy yet warped electronic pop tunes). And of course, Thursay nights rocks your dirty (or clean) socks off.

Aphilas - Lifelong Fiction

The Very Most - ePop017 (2011)

Eardrums Pop

9.5

/Indie pop, Experimental indie, Alternative pop/rock, Jangle pop/

Comment: The Very Most, a sextet (being active since 2002) coming from Boise, Idaho, USA (as well as the hometown for the mesmerizing ambient/drone/experimental electronica project Eluder and downtempo collective ElectricWest (also as Electricwest), both overseen by Patrick Benolkin). However, this three-pieced set is a powerful and noble example of indie music merging various elements with each other derived from different epochs. Trilling jangle pop like the McCarthy; space pop and electronically patterned developments like Stereolab; hippie/junkie folk-naiveness a la Polyphonic Spree; the last track If Monday`d Never Come (a cover of the Brilliant At Breakfast`s track) is a galant cha-cha-cha-inflected independent outlook. Listen to and enjoy it.

Flora - Trip (2010)

Dissonant

9.4

/Sludge, Doom, Post-metal, Psychedelic, Avant-metal, Experimental metal, Drone metal/

Comment: For instance, similarly to Nadja, Sunn O))), and Talbot, to their soulmates, Flora is a duo consisting of zero nowhere (guitars) and fdj (electronics, samples). They represent three long-running tracks (from 12 minutes to 16 minutes) laying out a mesmerizing sludge/doom/drone mix which is decorated with incessantly overdriving synths/electronics. Its seems to be static, yet, not being this way actually (or having the opposite sites simultaneously). I don`t symphatize with the claims by those intellectual solipsists who tend to insist on that Mozart`s and Beethoven`s symphonies and their otherwise styled musical works were the one and only (as if the Rolling Stones (or Fauna) is less moral (?), for example). (Or the way round, Mozart or Beethoven`s music would have been an instance of black metal in the recent context). Trip is one of the most righteous answers to them. Indeed, is is another tremendous discovery of mine behing Wreck And Reference`s album Black Cassette in the realm of metal music.

Ebola - Brodmann Area (2008)

Acroplane
Lastfm

9.2

/Grime, Electro, Ambient, Avant-garde, Crossover, Experimental electronica, Industrial techno, Experimental electro/

Comment: Ben Hudson aka DJ Psylage (also known from a group, called Baconhead – with Paul Bowyer) comes from Devon, UK. Before this 6-pieced issue, however, he released music of diverse styles on such labels as Mutant Spider, Wrong Music, Sublight, and Proboscus. Similarly to his previous issues the dominantly instrumental Brodmann Area does have lots of cues to a loads of different styles, offering splashing industrial techno/and electro beats, grime-drenched dystopic-ness, slap-up tekno overthrows, digital glitch and eerily hollow ambient shades and much more worth to be discovered from this classic patchwork. The EP should not be misunderstood – this is not intended to be issued for dance floors, instead of it for your peripheric brain cells. Furthermore, by its ideological point, it is rather a hint at old school music for sure.

Claro De Luna - Quedarse

Steffaloo - My Heart Beats (2010)

Bandcamp

8.4

/Minimal, Electronic pop, Free folk, Experimental pop, Singer-songwriter/

Comment: Steffaloo is a musican from Los Angeles, USA who has issued some singles, one EP and one LP (and collaborated with Blackbird Blackbird, for instance). This mere one and half minute long single is pulled out through slight, autotuned vowel experiments and restraint slo-mo bounces subtly surrounding it. Is it either folk, electronic music or...? However, as a soul mate she go with iron like nylon, and Meredith Monk in the same scope but a little from different directions.