Our monthly round up of albums we’ve not had the chance to review at length. Reviews by Andrew Bowman (AB), Rich Hughes (RH), Scott McMillan (SM) and Matt Poacher (MP).

A Winged Victory for the Sullen – s/t (Erased Tapes)

The collaborative project between Stars of buy drug tramadol the Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and composer Dustin O’Halloran as A Winged Victory for the Sullen could easily fall into the non-descript category of ‘neo-classical’. It’s awash with those familiar sounds of piano and strings arranged sparsely and morosely. Rather than using studio trickery to achieve this though, the album was recorded in Grunewald Church, ensuring a complete openness to the record; there are vast amounts of space between the instruments. There’s also a real emotional edge to the music rather than it being cold and disengaged – there’s a connection between the listener and the artists. Having recently chatted with the duo about its recording, it’s now obvious as to why: both Wiltzie and O’Halloran were going through some emotional times, and it’s a credit to them that this is conveyed so eloquently. The mournful strings of ‘Requiem for the Static King Pt1′ bring to mind the works of Richard Skelton, while the dull keys and quiet strings on ‘Minuet for a Cheap Piano’ bring to mind the works of Philip Glass or Michael Nyman at their most stripped back. This is an album that, without notice could fall into pure ambience, and that could be acceptable but, given full attention and a grand stereo on which to listen, the record truly comes alive. (RH)

Chubby Wolf – Maudlin And Elusive (Teosinte)

Chubby Wolf was the recording name of Dani Baquet-Long, one half of Celer, who sadly didn’t live to viagra viagra online buy viagra see the realisation of so much of her work. The extravagant, oversized, map-clad packaging dwarfs the understated content of this cassette, a suite of the quietest of drones. On Maudlin And Elusive, we are given a chart of the heart, and left to orienteer it with no compass. Hints and hidden meanings dance among the dark shadows, and coded references populate track titles. A voice emerges: a moan? a scream? a cry? of pleasure or pain? Traces of quiet emotion float on the surface like white paper on foam, being pulled back under the ebbing sea of tape hiss. Limited to one hundred copies, these pieces feel like whispers to friends, shared secrets, and love letters; like eavesdropping on something deeply personal. It hurts. It haunts. (SM)

Corrupted – Garten der Unbewusstheit (Nostalgia Blackrain)

This is reported to be the final album from the classic Corrupted lineup. This ur-sludge band, buy cialis viagra first formed in Osaka some 17 years ago have remained elusive and remote throughout this period, releasing 5 albums and various split records, with the likes of Noothgrush, Cripple Bastards and Sloth, but Garten der Unbewusstheit, if it indeed is to be a swansong, does feel like a casting off somehow, a reaching upwards. It might sound strange to talk of an album featuring 3 tracks of massive weight and density – 2 of which nudge or go past the half hour mark – as ‘up’ or light, but in the context of their back catalogue, Garten der Unbewusstheit is definitely an emotionally positive album. Their relentless heft hasn’t been necessarily cast aside, instead it feels buoyed, levitating maybe. Even Hevi’s vocals (and lyrics for the first time sung in Japanese instead of Spanish), so long an instrument of bubbling magmatic immensity, seem less abrasive, happier to ride on the upward arc of Talbot’s sheets of guitar. The album is built around the two aforementioned long tracks, which gather around the calm of the acoustic crawl of ‘Against The Darkest Days’. The closing track, ‘Gekkou No Daichi’, however, is the standout thing here, and possibly the band’s crowning achievement. It moves from a gentle acoustic figure into a series of massive riff-mountain crescendos, all seeming to pile emotional weight upon emotional weight and yet never toppling into melodrama. There are reports that the band may continue in another guise. Respect to them for calling it a day, and for leaving such a massive legacy.  (MP)

Ricardo Donoso – Progress Change (Digitalis)

The temptation with this is to link Progress Chance to Donoso’s past as both a jazz percussionist and a member of an experiemental doom/death metal outfit Ehnahre, and also to link in his darkly ambient excursions on 2010′s cassette release Deterrence. And in truth mapping these influences onto Progress Chance isn’t too great a leap. Despite Progress Chance‘s entirely electronic, beatless sound, there is an element of doom-laden space and elegance to this, and the sense that you’re listening to an electronic suite that has had the beats surgically removed. In a Burial-like move, Donoso has channelled his sonic memories of post-rave comedown music, and as such there is a murky, patchwork element to the overall sound: arpeggiated synth washes gain and lose focus; background ambience, like encroaching unconsciousness, seems to thicken and consume the benign surface colours. Despite the album’s beatless nature, it does have its own pulsing momentum, much like the gloopy forward march of early Tangerine Dream albums, and tracks like ‘Chrome Decadence’ and ‘Baiting Disappointment’ with their early techno exo-skeleton induce an odd quickening of the pulse, though this is tempered by the studied, even filmic, sense of darkness. Progress Change is subtly affecting, and it undoubteldy holds a dark magic that I’ve still not quite managed to get a hold on. (MP)

J.D. Emmanuel, Trance-Formations 1: Ancient Minimal Meditations (Aguirre)

If the title of this album title invokes a shudder, wait until you see the website (Time Traveler J D Emmanuel Presents His Electronic Music and Guided Deep Relaxation and Meditation. Yikes). Matt has discussed the aversion to new age music, and its current unstated influence, on this site previously, but with J.D. Emmanuel the issue is right up front, even more so on 1986′s Trance-Formations 1 (a 1986 cassette here reissued on LP) than on his celebrated Wizards LP. But leave any preconceptions there: for Trance-Formations is far from a soporific ambient experience, but instead a fascinating piece of experimental electronic music. Deep synthesizer pulsations, their roots in minimalism as much as kosmische, coalesce to provide the overnight cialis backdrop for Emmanuel’s melody lines: from within blurred, soft-focus shapes emerge Alice Coltrane-like expositions. By the time it reaches the locked groove throb of final track “Midnight Meditation”, I’m a convert, entranced even. If people are to draw from New Age music, then let them draw from this, please, this. (SM)

Evangelista – In Animal Tongue (Constellation)

For her fifth album for the Constellation label, Carla Bozulich has found a marriage between form and subject matter. Her unsettling vocal performances have long given the impression of one completely consumed by her subject, lyrics tumbling from her with an intensity reminiscent of the religious zealot. The themes of religion and ritual recur throughout In Animal Tongue, typically intertwined with more sexual subject matter. “Get onto to your knees”, she intones on “Black Jesus”. Well, gotta try to buy viagra online online a href reach those ecstatic planes somehow. You know there will be no happy ending though; behind, the music is some of her sparsest and most abstract yet, with regular band members Tara Barnes and Dominic Cramp joined by the likes of sometime Ben Frost collaborator Shahzad Ismaily to up the dread quotient in plenty time for Carla to announce that “tonight, she’ll die alone”. There are few sacrifices Bozulich would not make for her art: this dark and deeply experimental record may be less accessible than its predecessor, but ultimately it is even more fulfilling. (SM)

Horseback – The Gorgon Tongue (Relapse)

Jenks Miller is gradually accumulating a powerful catalogue of releases – both under his own name, in the guise of Horseback and in various collaborations with the likes of Locrian and Nicholas Szczepanik. The Gorgon Tongue collects two Horseback albums: Impale Golden Horn, originally released in 2007 on Burly Time, and Forbidden Planet, a cassette only release on Brave Mysteries, which first appeared in 2010. The former is a collection of epic, bright drones and sky-wide piano and treated guitar pieces. It has nods towards post-rock but skirts that genre’s clichéd recourse to light and shade and instead works on layering colossal banks of sound until they split and drift, rising like strata of underlit vaporous clouds. In 2009, tramadol no prescription no consultation Horseback recorded and released the huge sludgy The Invisible Mountain, a record (aside from the closing track) that eschewed this brightness for an exploration of a kind of mutated stoner metal. That kind of seething neurotic sound bleeds into Forbidden Planet, which while largely beatless and perhaps lacking The Invisible Mountain’s momentum, has a warped, fizzing majesty of its own. The sound is dominated by rapidly strummed, almost black metal guitars, and subtly layered synth lines, which create a fibrous metallic screen under which Miller’s diseased snarl of a voice seethes and writhes. Pairing these two albums together is a great move, both in the commercial sense of having them available at all, and in the sense that they perfectly compliment one another and highlight the breadth of Miller’s undertaking. (MP)

Humcrush – Ha! (Rune Grammofon)

For their fourth album, the Norwegian duo of keyboard player Ståle Storløkken (Supersilent, Elephant9), and percussionist Thomas Strønen (Food, Meadow and more) are joined by the improvising vocalist Sidsel Endresen (who also sat in on the recent Huntsville album). The introduction of a third member has resulted in a shift of the dynamic: Strønen’s hyperkinetic flourishes, and Storløkken’s jagged shards of noise are left, for the most part, in the locker. Instead, the approach is far more textural, creating a surface for Endresen’s unmistakeable voice. She picks up on the rhythmic undercurrents to scatter fragments of phrases to the waves, while over ringing organ drone she floats fully-formed melodic constructions. Repeat listens bring out the subtleties of Storløkken and Strønen’s playing, a masterclass of very fine and delicate interaction. It may have less of the relentless momentum of previous releases, but Humcrush are still moving forward at a pace. (SM)

Dickie Landry – Fifteen Saxophones (Unseen Worlds) 

These days Dickie Landry spends much of his time gigging with a Southern swamp rock/boogie combo in his native Louisiana, but when these recordings were made in the mid-seventies, he was a key participant in New York’s new music scene and a member of the Philip Glass Ensemble. Reissued a few months ago, this lost document of minimalism surfaced at an opportune moment, around the same time as the release of the much-lauded New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges by contemporary reeds man Colin Stetson (whose long list of collaborators shares a few names with Landry’s). A perfect compliment to the former’s visceral, gut-punch dynamics, Fifteen Saxophones also deals in layering and overtone-heavy solo instrument experimentation, but comes from the opposite end of the spectrum. The title track is serene and hypnotic in mood, using multiple overdubs of Landry’s tenor to create a vast expanse of drones, overlapping and converging ripples that often bring to mind the early compositions of Terry Riley. ‘Alto Flute Quad Delay’ is even more subtle in its unfolding as Landry concentrates on much longer tones with long delays that reveal their surprises slowly – you might find yourself hearing strings in several places. ‘Kitchen Solos’ returns to the sax for some live delay-enhanced soloing that hints more towards jazz and perhaps the late sixties Echoplex experiments of Eddie Harris’s marvellous Silver Cycles. Here Landry explores the full tonal range of his instrument in an apparently improvised setting. The results are both controlled and unpredictable, alternating between fast runs, screeches and birdcalls, with the soloist allowing just enough time for each bouncing reverberation to inspire his next flight. (AB)

Roly Porter – Aftertime (Subtext)

Poor Roly Porter couldn’t have known we were heading for a bout of bonus late summer sunshine when crafted this truly apocalyptic suite. One half of Planet Mu-associated dubsteppers Vex’d, Porter pretty much eschews beats altogether for this terrifying solo excursion into noise and drone. What he does retain is a punishing low-end, overnight shipping cialis though here it is stretched out into a seismic rumble that will likely find fans among Sunn O))) devotees. ‘Tleilax’ is seven minutes of slow violence punctuated by machine gun fire and distorted and distressed voices, recalling the atmosphere of first-person shooter games like Doom. It’s thrown into relief with a solemn coda played on the ondes martenot, the theremin-like keyboard instrument (beloved of 20^th century composer Messiaen) that makes numerous appearances throughout – put to use beautifully on the spooky, reverb-heavy tracks that alternate with more oppressive, Ben Frost-esque punishers. When there is a discernible pulse, as on the second half of ‘Hessra’, it’s slow and funereal and likely to be punctured by some ungodly noise bubbling up to the surface. The balance between pressure and reflection is well balanced though and takes repeated listens to reveal its full complement of dark charms. You just might want to save the immersion for a few weeks yet. (AB)

Roll The Dice – In Dust (The Leaf Label)

The Stockholm duo of Malcolm Pardon and Peder Mannerfelt who make up Roll The Dice have a bit of a thing for antique analogue equipment. Rather than resorting to the tried and tested set up of two blokes and a laptop, they aim to add a real energy to their recordings, and their live performances offer much more than watching someone check their email while crisp sounds fall out of the speakers. Using pieces of electronic equipment with a bit of character, they manage to blend a mix the retro with a sound very much of the now. On their debut full-length release for The Leaf Label, their approach is pretty simple: explore the inherent rhythm of repetition. This is a long album that sprawls, mostly unchecked, and roams where it pleases; the sounds, samples and music continuously exploring each other as they entwine and cover new, yet frequently familiar, passages. The dawn-like sparkle of ‘Calling All Workers’ unfurls in a bleed of lightly sketched keyboards, a robotic beat keeping the track in check, perhaps the very call to work that we hear every morning when the wretched alarm clock chimes. ‘Maelstrom’ broods over a sinister chug of beats before a piano refrain appears, rather shifty looking, in the background. It slowly all comes together, and, like the album as a whole, nothing is rushed. Everything is allowed to happen of its own accord. It’s almost as if Roll The Dice are the antidote to the instant-fix lives we know seem to live – why cut a piece of music to three minutes when it can be seven? Much like the subject of the album title, the music here will slowly accumulate and you’ll find sounds, beats and rhythms in places you might not expect for some time to come. (RH)

Sully – Carrier (Keysound)  

As much of the post-garage milieu heads towards straighter beats, four-to-the-floor thump and pronounced house influences, Sully remains firmly committed to rhythmic ingenuity and excitement. Like Burial without the overtly spectral elements, the first half of his debut on Dusk & Blackdown’s Keysound label concentrates on the kind of sensual swinging 2step patterns and dark atmosphere that dubstep forefather El-B used to specialise in. The first two tracks ‘It’s Your Love’ and ’2 Hearts’ set things up nicely with a deceptively simple formula of rock solid bass, ominous chords, phone sounds, and cut-up vocal science that leads nicely into slip’n'slide tension and carefully controlled rave blurts of former single ‘In Some Pattern’. When, halfway through, Sully moves onto Chicago footwork rhythms, he transplants the foreign form into his own world more successfully than any other UK producer to date. The moodiness is kept up to the max as ‘Scram’ filters footwork’s 808 spasms through a grime prism of staccato strings. ‘Trust’ and ‘Bonafide’ meanwhile, make things more cinematic with drawn out Vangelis-style synths and mournful piano motifs respectively. With just 10 tracks and 37 minutes, this is a beautifully focussed set that for all its manic drum work never strays off course and certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome. (AB)

Ghédalia Tazartès – Repas Froid (Pan)

“Stepping into Ghédalia Tazartès’s Paris apartment is not unlike entering a parallel reality. A single room…it’s immaculately tidy yet crammed with an overwhelming array of objects” (Nick Cain, The Wire, September 2008). For Paris apartment/room, read discography/album. Repas Froid translates as “packed lunch”, another boxed collection of specifically selected artefacts, released while – for once, and at long last – Tazartès’s name is starting to get some deserved recognition. It jump cuts from looped fragments of classical music to snatches of dialogue, shuffles Gallic harmonium into primitive rhythm, and adds Tazartès’s unmistakeable (if usually unintelligible) vocals on top. Doors out of this particular chamber lead towards musique concrete, pop, industrial music and other ethnic musical forms (traces of the muezzin and throat singing), but you sense that the handles have been long since removed. All he has left are these souvenirs, remembrances of memory; in this sealed environment, Tazartès’s work has become ever more idiosyncratic and individualistic, and this presentation of previously unreleased work may well be the finest example. Up there with the very best of the Pan catalogue, and one of the most beguiling records of the year. (SM)

Bobb Trimble – The Crippled Dog Band (Yoga Records)

The lost psych-pop-rock of Bobb Trimble is undergoing a bit of a renaissance at the moment. Having had his first two albums reissued a couple of years ago via Secretly Canadian, we’re now treated to ‘the one that got away’: The Crippled Dog Band. The record was pressed in 1984 but Bobb, in an extremely emotional state, threw all of the records in a skip. Fortunately for us, the master tapes survived the cull and Yoga Records have repressed from these. There’s a more ramshackle feel to this when compared to the previous albums Harvest of Dreams and Iron Curtain Innocence. The arrangements are mostly stripped back as well, as if Trimble was experimenting with a full band set up: guitar and drums are augmented with some samples of arcade games, street talking and ‘live’ takes. It’s a surreal mix that gives the impression you’re eavesdropping on Trimble and co. rehearsing in some garage down the road. Are these completed songs? Are they fragments of more than one song? Are they, in fact, just jams? It doesn’t really matter when the songs are as good as ‘Live Wire’ with its opening slow drawl of a guitar riff which races into a great lost pop song that’s a mix of early Stones and Neil Young. ‘Camel Song’ drags up images of dusty desert landscapes with its rough and ready guitar and Trimble’s pained warble whereas the fun-time vibes of ‘Poker Game of Life’ rings with spilt poker chips and shouted curses over the top of wrestling drums and guitars. While not as out and out interesting as the previous two reissues, there’s a warm glow to these recordings that makes them feel homely and cared for. It seems bizarre that they were thrown away. These could’ve propelled Trimble into the mainstream with their catchy hooks and almost power-pop ways. Perhaps, in the end, that was the problem. (RH)

Wilco – The Whole Love (dBpm)

With the release of their eighth studio album, the first on their own label and recorded entirely at their own studio, The Loft, in Chicago, it finally looks like Wilco are having it all their own way. There’s a sense that Jeff Tweedy has finally found the comfortable niche he’s always wanted: he can finally do everything on his own terms. The Whole Love is their most complete album since 2002′s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Listeners expecting the same experimental blur of Americana and country might be slightly disappointed that the album doesn’t continue in the vein of opener, and standout track, ‘Art of Almost’. There’s a wonderful krautrock-infused rhythm with skittish pieces of noise dancing across the top, the bassline a driving force pinning it all together. However, it’s Cline’s ferocious closing solo that ensures this will ruffle the feathers of the alt-country fans. There’s also an overtly retro feel to the album: a Hammond organ swirls through lead single ‘I Might’ and there’s a George Harrison glow to ‘Open Mind’; the ghost of Guthrie hangs heavy over the acoustic led ‘Rising Red Lung’. Ultimately though, it’s Cline that drags this above and beyond a mere alt-country record. His guitar work skids through everything – a glaringly obvious and deliberate attempt to try something different. It acts as a perfect counterpoint to Tweedy’s, now comfortable, songwriting. The squeal of feedback that opens ‘Dawned on Me’, the pretty notes that waltz through the title track: these are the moments of beauty that stick in the mind. Although, I will admit that the elegant and delicate ‘One Sunday Morning’ has one of the most heart-breaking piano refrains I’ve heard for years. There’s always one “what if” though that irks me: what if Tweedy and Cline could talk Jim O’Rourke into coming back? Could we see something that would finally join all these dots and top their masterpiece? Perhaps we’ll never know. In the meantime, this is as close as we’re going to get. (RH)

Related posts:

• Liminal Minimals – April 2011 An ongoing but intermittent series, wherein we try and cover a host of releases we simply haven't been able to review in full but don't want to slip away unmentioned....
• Liminal Minimals – May 2011 The second in our monthly round up of releases we haven't covered in full but don't want to slip away unmentioned. ...
• Liminal Minimals – June 2011 This month's multi-author, cross-genre selection of short-form album reviews....
• Liminal Minimals – July 2011 As we walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer, our bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. Time, then, for July's Liminal Minimals roundup...
• Liminal Minimals – August 2011 As the dark nights draw in and we hope for some warmth from the glowing orb in the sky, it's time for August's Liminal Minimals roundup....