Xela - The Divine

Not The Original Cover Art

Genre: Ambient, Noise, Drone, Experimental, Abstract
Label: Digitalis Industries

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oh xela, what's left to say? just in time for john twells' move to the united states, "the divine" drops at your door. whereas it's predecessor, "the illuminated," was a dark, twisted trek through the most uncomfortable reaches of the xela psyche, "the divine" looks toward the light, attemping to find solace but, again, finds nothing to hang on to. and it's one hell of a jam.

starting out with endless loops of church bells battering your skull into a reverie, the next thing you know it's like you're suddenly a cockroach in the house of god. cryptic voices haunt the bells and get dragged through the dirt. everything and everyone is lost in the static. toward the end, a choir of voices emerges, escaping the black hole plague.

but twells ain't done yet. flip things over and it leads to something else entirely. an electronic stew is the bedrock and twells' voice is the steeple. washed-out drones build momentum until the only place to escape is into the galaxies beyond. there's something sickly beautiful at work here with everything under a layer of frosted glass. twells wails, a siren song to certain doom no doubt, but it's a choice we make time and time again to embrace our delicious demise.

Grouper / Xela - Tsuki No Seika: Volume 1

Genre: Drone, IDM, Ambient
Label: Root Strata

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Strictly speaking, this split 7" from Grouper and Xela is a subscription-only release, and so shouldn't really be available to shops.
This record marks the very first installment of Root Strata's 'Tsuki No Seika' series, a sequence of four 7"s that will go on to include contributions from Christina Carter, Richard Youngs, Islaja, Zelienople, Hisato Higuchi and Valet. The common theme running throughout is a restriction to acappella compositions, and the overall air of autonomy and self-sufficiency is even carried over into the artwork: each artist illustrates their own side of the sleeve. Grouper's musical contribution has something faintly festive about it, sounding like the warm-up hum of undead Christmas carollers. The piece acquires the seamless, fog-caked, drone-like quality that characterised Liz Harris' earliest output, momentarily abandoning her more songwriterly instincts for a return to the brilliantly intangible and esoteric qualities of 'Way Their Crept'. The Xela side is more discernible as a vocals-only piece, and avoiding droned-out abstraction he layers darkly reverberant falsetto recordings that tap into the almost Arvo Part-like streak recurrent in his work of late. The tone encroaches on something that's at least similar to ecclesiastical music, taking on the improbable aesthetic of a one-man church choir from the fourteenth century. Only the song's title upsets that logic: it's called 'I Drowned Her In A Dreamless Sleep'. This all makes for an exceptional start to the series, and with the likes of Carter and Youngs - both seasoned purveyors of unaccompanied vocal recordings - waiting in the wings, this bears all the hallmarks of an absolutely classic collectors edition.

Kuupuu - Lumen Tädhen

Genre: Weird Folk, Acid Folk, Experimental
Label: Time Lag Records

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Jonna Karanka has been slowly leaking out little Kuupuu jewels for six years now, somehow it's taken just that long to materialize her first 'proper' album. Maybe it has something to do with the time she's devoted to her beautiful artwork, or her time spent in a highly impressive string of other bands, included Hertta Lussu Assa (with Islaja and Lau Nau), Anaksimandos, Avarus, and many others. But, you know, I always figured Kuupuu music didn't have much to do with 'time' anyway. It's music from another reality, to put it bluntly. A beautiful place no doubt, but somehow totally other. You could call this music a lot of things, all without really saying much. Post-everything? Pre-birth folk? Bedtime acid-art? Naive avant-garde loop witchcraft? Maybe something like a thousand memories & vague images folded into each other and spooled out infinitely like a sloppy film loop. The sound of tiny bioluminescent insects systematically devouring an urban cityscape in hyper-speed, while just as quickly slithering neon flora entwine the metallic gray remains, only to then be gobbled themselves by a leaderless army of pulsating micro-robots. Got that? Now play backwards in slow motion. Surreal might just be an understatement. Packaged in a stunning ultra-heavy laminated full color gatefold cover with full color art labels, all created by Jonna.

Aidan Baker & Noveller - Colorful Disturbances LP

Link removed by request

Genre: Drone, Experimental, Noise
Label: Divorce Records

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Guitars warped so hard they dissolve into pure consciousness! Seriously, this record had to happen because these two are the NOW of transcendental guitar weirdness. In families like ours where deformed music of one kind or another pours out of the speakers all day long, Toronto's Aidan Baker is a household name. He is no doubt one of the most imaginative experimental musicians of the new generation, quickly creating a universe of limitless sound with his bursting discography. He offers this record an extensive piece which mixes drone, texture, and an ever-bowing foundation--imagine the sound of falling backwards...forever. The new blood on this split is guitarist Sarah Lipstate from Brooklyn, New York (aka Noveller). Sarah's prepared twin guitar works up a slow hypnotic force, gently pulling way out to the furthest deep end of pulses and patterns. Beautiful repetitions effortlessly skirt over a dark undercurrent. Edition of 600 copies.

Valgeir Sigurðsson - Draumalandið

Not The Original Cover Art

Genre: Neo Classical, OST, Ambient
Label: Bedroom Community

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Dreamland is a truly epic film about a nation standing at cross-roads. Leading up to the country’s greatest economic crisis, the government started the largest mega project in the history of Iceland, to build the biggest dam in Europe to provide Alcoa cheap electricity for an aluminum smelter in the rugged east fjords of Iceland. The mantra was economic growth. Today Iceland is left holding a huge dept and an uncertain future.
Dreamland tells the story of a nation with abundance of choices gradually becoming caught up in a plan to turn its wilderness and beautiful nature into a massive system of hydro-electric and geothermal power plants with dams and reservoirs, built to power the increasing heavy industry that will soon make Iceland the largest aluminum smelter in the world.
This was a limited edition release of 200 cd sold at the Whale Watching Tour. It´s sold Out

Infinite Body & Emaciator - Split Lp

Link Removed By Request.

Genre: Drone, Noise
Label: Monorail Tresspasing

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A bristling static rests upon the tone-float arcs of guitar and analog synth on both sides of this exceptional split release from SoCal’s Infinite Body and Emaciator. The two share an ability to coax bright distortion capable of an enveloping warmth rarely witnessed in the context of noise culture. But, these two artists cannot be accused of being interchangeable with each other. Infinite Body (aka Kyle Parker) overlaps chords into harmonic sets of roughly stitched minimalism set below that pulsing stream of distortion; and if anything, the Infinite Body tracks resemble the more aggressive pieces from the Spire commissions for church organ. Emaciator’s taut lazer-beam of sound is far more linear in structure, pulsing with buzzing vibrations and steadily evolving from cold steely mass into a golden mist of radio-luminescence. After this track and the 2008 Reflection 2LP, Emaciator (aka Jon Borges) is quickly developing into quite the craftsman.

FINAL - Infinite Guitar 3 / Guitar & Bass Improvisations 3

Part 1 / Part 2

Genre: Experimental, Drone, Electronic

Label: Avalanche Recordings

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The third in the series of 'Infinite Guitar' and 'Guitar & Bass Improvisations', a CD for each of these third volumes put together in one double CD package in 6 panel digi sleeve. By a longshot the best of this series so far, deep highly processed improvisations for the late night somnambulist. For 'Infinite Guitar 3', Justin K. Broadrick for the first time in this series, improvised through a loud Marshall stack, processing the recordings after, which results in a wider set of nuances and textures once compared to the previous volumes of 'Infinite Guitar'. 'Guitar & Bass Improvisations 3' featuring Diarmuid Dalton on bass, is again, the most comprehensive of this series to date.