Yakuza Heart Attack - Yakuza Heart Attack II (2011)

Bandcamp

9.0

/Alternative, Leftfield, Acid pop, Mood music, Progressive rock, Electro-rock/

Comment: a dashing, electronically lopsided indie album containing the elements of fusion, and progressive rock. However, all you can experience here is just about a joyous noodling on guitars, drums, and first of all, on acidic, flame-spitting synths. Unlike the form, this instrumental issue seems at times to be rather an unusual sort of chill out/mood music than serious indie approach. Whatever it would be by its nature it rocks crucially with the help of dizzy grooves at least.

Palumbo/Tomasini - The Hunting Dogs Of Boötes The Herdsman (2010)

Chew-Z

9.2

/Dark pop, Glam pop, Avant-garde, Experimental, Alternative, Pomp pop, Art rock/

Comment: the first association by listening to this 3-piece album was "spectacular" and "theatrical". More profoundly, it is highly accentuated through the high-registered male vocals, punching drums, brooding synths. It was just the kick-off merely. Later it will be variegated with a spoken word snippet in the storytelling way (in Italian), the baritone singing hovering above the mesmerizing layers of a throbbing dark-hued composition. In fact, the more you listen to it the better it gets - a grower. Weird but convincing indeed.

The Sleeping Tree - Leaves and Roots (2008)

12rec.
Lastfm

8.4

/Art-rock, Indie folk, Singer-songwriter, Folk indie/

Comment: a nice acoustic guitar-based album by the Italian Giulio Frausin. By consisting of 11 tracks which used to chime, conjuring up diverse patterns and sometimes suggestive magic dust. The last usually happens when the fingerpicked strings are backed up with humble melodica drones. Half of ditties are song-centered, half of them are instrumental ones.

The Hirundu - Nancy

Giulio Aldinucci - Boule à Neige (2011)

Laverna
Lastfm

9.5

/Dark ambient, Soundscape, Avant-garde, Ambient, Minimal/

Comment: Giulio Aldinucci`s minor issue will be turned off at the length of 17.27. What could we experience during this course? At the first glance the case seems to be very simple because of taking on soothing yet somehow disaffected primal bits of soundscape, highly dreamy and fragile soundscapes indeed. At times it resembles of the still life worked out in the manner of Mark Nelson aka Pan American, at times borrowing more from Alio Die`s holistic sensitivity thanks to more orchestrated and dark-hued appearance. It would probably have been part of the realm of Plato`s (beauty) ideas.

Jay Curry - CheetahPrintRose$ (2011)

Mediafire
Bandcamp

9.2

/Cinematic, Hip-hop, Urban sound, Trip-hop, Spoken word, Sampledelic, Funk, Mood music, Cut and paste, Plunderphonics, Sound collage/

Comment: there are represented 9 amusing and uplifting ditties by Jay Curry, a producer from Long Beach & Coachella Valley, Los Angeles, USA. The album is a follow-up to Vanity issued in 2010. Similarly to Rimar, Phaseone, htrspltn, Ears, and Max Tannone (though he is not a mash-up activist in the first sense), he uses a sort of recycling approach to create new songs. More profoundly, trip-hop beats are seamlessly set below sunshiny, blissed-out layers of The US-based urban-approved music (digi funk, hip-hop, trip-hop) and lofty bossa nova floatation. In the ending track Web Surf Jay Curry is assisted by the Estonian superb trio Music For Your Plants. Ultimately, let`s invent a new genre name (cinemawave) for such music because the album makes your day.

Cave Bears - Jazz Hands (2011)

Free Music Archive

9.0

/Improvised music, Non-music, Noise, Avant-garde, Psych-music, Freeformfreakout, New Weird America, Primitivism, Psycho-acoustic, Experimentalism/

Comment: it is said that Cave Bears is the incredibly bizarre, noise-drenched, brain-damaged sound exploration project of pre-school teacher Nick Williams, Carrie Bren & friends. Indeed, I can only agree with the statement. The issue embarks on with noiseful, angst-loaded screaming forays which are backed up with the blurred electro-acoustic dust and digital crackles and hiss in the background. Moreover, at times it used to run on primitivistic mode. In the second track it is sampled a sober melody from very far past which soon gets conquered and displaced with the destructive landscape. All in all, this 3 long-track album is an improvisational freakout act, reminding of some Finnish free improvisational combos (Kemialliset Ystävät; Hipsu Jänis; Vierivä Viiksiportieeri) or the Brazil-based nu wave noise acts (Keroøàcidu Suäväk; LFC) or the Portugal-based traveller Xarhope or the Estonian combos Kreatiivmootor, Tuljak, Autharktos, EDASI.