Last Romantic - Find Your Machine (2009)

Burnthenation
Love Torture
Lastfm

9.0

/Post-metal, Shoegaze, Trip-hop, Big beat, Alternative rock, Crossover, Experimental rock/

Comment: this is an example of nowadays enthralling guitar-based embodiment which consists of monumental guitars, galvanic riffs and its furry overdrives, and heavily stomping rhythm patterns. Behind the project is Dan Stone, a musician from the Foggy Albion who soon changed the project`s name (he is known as Masske now). It extends over the realms of shoegaze, and (post-)metal, and on the other side it veers away the influences of trip-hop, and big-beat at the lowest level. In conclusion, while Stone at times calms down the most of the time the concept is filled in with a huge amount of energy and electricity thus offering up an outstanding experience.

Azwarm - A Morning ´s Work (2010)

Bandcamp
Lastfm

9.3

/Dark ambient, Minimalism, Soundscape, Dystopbient, Drone, Ambient drone, Avant-garde, Experimentalism, Post-industrial/

Comment: Azwarm used to be one of those countless projects by J.C Thorne, a wonderman from Seattle who has been involved in music for many decades. Here are represented two very long tracks (both of them do have the length for a little more than 22 minutes). Indeed, it is a testimony about the hybridization of experimental music made up with the carcasses and touch of minimalism, drone, and (dark) ambient. More concretely, the album does have the glacial glimmer around its axis which allows for the light to penetrate into its core at times. An elusive effort indeed.

Vernon LeNoir - Another Glass Of Melonade

Various Artists [Chinstrap Music] - Sounds to Come (2011)

Chinstrap
Free Music Archive

9.4

/Soundtrack, Avant-garde, Hauntology, Sound collage, Film noir, Experimentalism, Cut and paste, Conceptual/

Comment: Sounds to Come is the second installment of a series on Chinstrap of music and sound-design cut from public-domain horror and science-fiction films from 1940-1970 offering up an amusing 6-track blend of haunting and joyful sounds. Lots of ghastly monologues which are supplemented with glass shattering explosions, mechanical sonic effects and otherworldly displayed big band orchestrations. Ergo Phizmiz-approved compilation is very thrilling indeed. The excerpts are taken from such films as The Man Who Changed His Mind, Svengali, The Phantom Ship, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Horrors of Spider Island, Teenagers Battle The Thing (all under the CC licence at Archive.org).

Romantic States - Soft Fest 2010-10-24 (2010)

Mediafire

8.8

/Organcore, Dream pop, Drone pop, Experimental indie, Live recording, Post-psychedelic/

Comment: a set of 5 tracks being performed at a stage by Jim Triplett, and Ilenia Madelaire. Just played up with the help of a guitar and a synth (and reverb-loaded vocal turbulences). The gig was shot at the 2nd annual Soft Fest in 2010. By listening to it, however, I can only admit that Romantic States seems to be a solid live combo either. By the way, there is one video evidence (One Way Is Right) about it at Youtube too.

P.asha S. - 3 Winds (2011)

Pocket Fields

9.1

/Ambient, Soundscapes, Epic, Musique Concrète, Ambient noise, Minimal/

Comment: yesterday I reviewed Shinobu Nemoto`s album Tetsuo which used to run on austere and bleak digital processing and modulation. In fact, Tallinn, Estonia-based artist Pavel Semenov (Semjonov) used to exploit similar shapes and patterns, though, being more involved in a sort of musique concrète touch (bird songs, wind dashes, street sounds, the sea). Semenov`s soundscapes used to rise and fall (down), swell and diminish, however, thereby constituting the epic ambiance in your ears.

Five Star Debauchery - Salt (2011)