Ben Woods - Things Weren't Always This Way

Genre: Ambient, Instrumental
Label: Wise Owl records

My Space

Things Weren't Always This Way is yet another stop on the ceaselessly evolving path of Ben Woods' creativity. Ben takes neo-classical minimalism to an entirely new level by blending, reversing, and layering pianos and other instruments to capture a surreal snapshot of his own psyche.

The album is as serene as it is sublime and the title track captures its essence with heavily layered harmonies and swirling ambiance, leaving the listener to be slightly caught off guard by the uneasy tension of Leaving Them Only, which only serves to strengthen its impact.

As he mentions in the liner notes, the album was created with something of a balance in mind. Each track can be reversed by the listener (using Audacity or something similar) to create a completely new listening experience. I personally encourage everyone to give this a shot because the reversed tracks stand quite strongly on their own and allow the listener to experience the album more thoroughly.

Wet Hair - Dream

Genre: Experimental, Psychedelic, Noise, Drone
Label: Not Not Fun

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When Iowa City freak-out free-rockers Raccoo-oo-oon called it quits last year it left a bummer scar in the Midwest underground scene. But time is a great healer, and so are new bands. So out of the ashes of the Rac pack comes Wet Hair, a synth-punk-trance duo composed of keyboardist/vocalizer Shawn Reed and keyboardist/drummer Ryan Garbes, and Dream is the band's debut vinyl full-length after a series of increasingly shredding limited-edition cassettes on their own Night People label. Piling together an unlikely trash heap of Suicide-style drum machine beat-bops, zone-droned krautrock keys, and fucked up outsider crooning, the LP's four tracks careen across a spectrum of moods and mangled melodies. Wet Hair's cult electric annihilation has never gleamed with such razor-edged weirdness; this is their dream made real.

Ekca Liena - Drones Between Homes

Genre: Ambient, Drone
Label: Under The Spire Recordings

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Ekca Liena is the recording alias of Daniel WJ Mackenzie, who recorded this album "in a lifeboat bedroom in Brighton, April 2009". I have no idea what a "lifeboat bedroom" is, but i'd like to think it involved a novelty, nautical bed with 'RNLI' emblazoned across it, much in the same spirit as one of those Formula One-themed bedrooms where small boys get their snooze on in a bed that looks like a car. Getting back to matters at hand, Drones Between Homes is a record of two halves: 'The More I Cut From One' and 'The More I Add To Another', the sort of titles you might find on a Hafler Trio record. Musically, this has more in common with the kind of sleepy tones you'd find on one of Kranky's more sedated releases, pouring bitcrushed electronic signals into the same melting pot as processed guitars and subdued atmospheric recording fragments. The second piece is especially good, featuring an escalating sense of drama thanks to an all-consuming minor chord that gradually accumulates power across the final third, before dissipating away via a linear downwards slope. A rather mysterious, ever so slightly traumatic example of the drone genre, this album is a peculiar thing but certainly worth spending some time with.
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Mountainhood - Wings From A Storm Lp

Genre: Acid Folk, Psychedelic, Lo-Fi
Label: Time Lag

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The counterpart to "thunderpaint the stone horse electric" is equally lovely, lo-fi, and lysergic, but here the somewhat euphoric zone has become ultra lovesick moody. dominated by just piano & vocals, with bits of guitar, tapes, chiming tones and dusty wooden night sounds stirring. definitely glassy-eyed voyeurism... pressed on 180gm bright red vinyl, with printed, hand stamped, and hand numbered labels. packaged in a foldout whale grey art paper cover with full sized full color high quality paste-on art front & back, screen printed interior, and hand stamping, plus two big art sticker inserts & 3rd xerox track list insert.

Fabio Orsi & Seaworthy - Near and Faraway

Genre: Ambient, Electronic
Label: Low Point

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Italian ambient maestro Fabio Orsi reaches out for yet another collaboration on this, his latest project, teaming up with Antipodean 12k types Seaworthy. There are three individual pieces on the disc: the first is Orsi alone and the last is solely Seaworthy, while the middle track is a collaboration between the two parties. Orsi's 'Evening By Evening' is a luscious quarter-hour of drifting synth strings and effulgent major-key timbres - a typically masterful and immersive exercise from the composer - although Seaworthy are keen to tackle their piece from a different angle, embarking upon a more minimal trajectory with 'Branch And Stone', using the guitar as a drone-sculpting machine, quietly emitting digitally processed tones over a lovely, very patient piece of music. The collaboration is most consistent with Orsi's sound, taking on a nebulous, densely packed sound that seems to hover enigmatically over the course of its seventeen minutes, brought to life through symphonic minor chords and breakdowns that reveal heavily treated, downbeat guitar fragments. You get a rare sense of cogency from this creative partnership, and the album's three long-form compositions make for rewarding, cohesive listening.

Wet Hair - Glass Fountain

Genre: Psychedelic, Noise, Drone, Experimental
Label: Not Not Fun

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My Space

The Reed/Garbes duo mainly sticks to their guns, mining the same post-Suicide art-trance vein they perfected on Dream, but with Glass Fountain there’s an added emphasis on the disembodied, oscillator pop mode that Wet Hair often toy with. Fountain’s five tracks include some of the band’s simplest but catchiest songs (“Crucifix In The Waves,” “When The Right Time Comes,” etc), mesmerizing organ melodies over plink-plonky vintage drum machines with weirdo soulful singing and outer space electronics, like an outsider-punk Silver Apples or something. Hard to say exactly what universe Wet Hair are operating in and that’s probably part of why we love it so much. A killer record that gets better each spin.

Burial Hex / Zola Jesus - Split

Genre: Experimental, Drone, Psychedelic
Label: Aurora Borealis

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Zurial Jex and Bola Hesus have done a split LP what's limited to the 500 copies.. I loved the Buriaa Hes album (also on Aurora Borealis) and thought the Zoll Jesux effort on Troubleman was mighty fine so this one seemed an exciting propostition from the off. The side with Burial Hex (to use their non-stupid name) let me down a little bit on first listen, I wasn't sure that it compared well with the material I'd previously heard but now that it's on again and I'm giving it my full attention it's actually a highly satisfying thing. The first tune is a funereal electronic dirge that brings early Coil to mind (but pushed far more over the top than that comparison suggests by the crazy screaming man who clearly doesn't want to clean the oven) while the second is all over the place during the course of its fifteen minutes, taking in ambient noise, little piano sonatas, electroacoustic whirrs and whistles, exotic percussion and heavy riffing along the way. Zola Jesus (to use her non-stupid name) contibutes one big fuck-off track that isn't dissimilar to that long Burial Hex track in its variety - elements are constantly dropping in and out, ideas toyed with then discarded and textures never quite left long enough for you to get too comfortable.. Obviously her witchy voice is the most remarkable thing and there's a moment about halfway though where scratchy static vies for attention with a near operatic croon that got my hairs standing right on end. Just one special moment in a superb overall listen and having digested it a little bit more I can wholeheartedly recommend this experimental little industrial tyke. (Norman Records)