Journal
June 2020
- Stephan Micus - East Of The Night
- John Abercrombie & Ralph Towner - Sargasso Sea
- Massive Attack - Protection
- "Protection", "Weather Storm", "Karmacoma"
- Avaton - Unforseen as It Was
- Middle Class - Homeland
- Blawan - Many Many Pings
- Exael & uon - Bonding
- Alva Noto - Xerrox 4
- Voices From the Lake - Voices From the Lake
- Prince Of Denmark - Live At Planet Uterus
- Alva Noto - For 2
- The Comsat Angels - My Mind's Eye
- Satoshi Ashikawa - Still Way (Wave Notation 2)
- Mos Def - Black On Both Sides
- Eberhard Weber - Pendulum
- DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
- Donato Dozzy - Plays Bee Mask
- Massive Attack - Mezzanine
- Classic. "Man Next Door", "Dissolved Girl"
- Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
- Hum - Inlet
- Arjen Schat - Hitori
- Jonny Nash & Suzanne Kraft - Passive Aggressive
- Global Communication - Pentamerous Metamorphosis
- Donato Dozzy - MQF19
- Gridlock - Formless
- Postestetica Antinihilista Internacional - Nihil Est
- Deftones - White Pony
- Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
- Denki Groove - A
- "Shangri-La"
- Asleep In The Sea - Avenue
- Deftones - Koi No Yokan
- uon - Superbath
- Wagon Christ - Throbbing Pouch
- Jeff Greinke - Over Ruins
- Jeff Greinke - Moving Climates
- Wipers - Is This Real?
- Fross - Canvas EP
- Ensemble Organum - Messe de Tournai
- Regis - Gymnastics (Restored)
- Miroslav Vitous - Universal Syncopations
- Royksopp - Melody A.M.
- Music For Sleep - Infinite Tape Loops: Tampura And Organ Meditations (G)
- Regis - Penetration
- Gothic Voices - The Mirror of Narcissus: Songs by Guillaume de Machaut
- Kate NV - Room for the Moon
- Choeurs Des Moines Benedictins De Chevetogne - Chants De La Liturgie Slavone
- Helm - Saturnalia
- Tu M' - Monochromes Vol. 1
- Sun Ra - Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
- Telefon Tel Aviv - For James, To Sleep
- cv313 - [satosphere sessions]
- Roedelius - Tape Archive Essence 1973-1978
- Breathless - Three Times and Waving
- Not Drowning, Waving - Another Pond
- The Mars Volta - Frances the Mute
- Arboreal - Concurrence
- Joy Division - An Ideal For Living
- The Mars Volta - Noctourniquet
- Mathias Grassow - Sky
- Tony Wakeford - La Croix
- Chris Watson - Stepping Into the Dark
- Death in June - Nada!
- Joy Division - Still
- Terry Riley - In C
- Death in June - The Guilty Have No Pride
- Joy Division - Closer
- Phonem - Hydro Electric
- Death in June - Nada!
- Gas - Konigsforst
- Biosphere - Patashnik
- Sol Invictus - Trees in Winter
- Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
May 2020
- The Dillinger Escape Plan - Calculating Infinity
- Murmuure - Murmuure
- Burial - Untrue
- Nico - The Marble Index
- Global Communication - 76:14 (nth time but it's been a while)
- Gas - Pop (nth time)
- Gas - Oktember
- Ada Kaleh - Chemare Cosmica
- Bill Laswell - Invisible Design
- Freeform - Free EP
- Skinny Puppy - Bites
- Gas - Rausch
- Black Thread - Meadowlark (Premonition)
- Miles Davis - Get Up With It
- Miles Davis - On the Corner
- New Order - Technique
- 808 State - Ex:el
- Miles Davis - In A Silent Way
- I Am Spoonbender - Teletwin
- The Alan Parsons Project - Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allan Poe
- Elysian Blaze - Levitating the Carnal
- Coil - Summer Solstice: Bee Stings
- .O.Rang - Herd Of Instinct
- Abigor - Fractal Possession
- Leo Anibaldi - Void
- Biosphere - Substrata
- I Am Spoonbender - Shown Actual Size
- Death - Human
- Paysage d'Hiver - Paysage d'Hiver
- Massive Attack - Blue Lines
- Grant Green - Green Street
- The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
- Tuning Circuits - No Compassion
- I think this album is notable for reconciling the dancefloor-friendly, cheerful acid house with cacophonous industrial-EBM. I for sure enjoyed the noisiest tracks best, like It's In My Brain Too, which is so distorted that its beat and synth motif seem to threaten you into moving your body. The glory of the TB-303 is fogged out by distorted and fucky synth noises, but the bassy driving dance sections like I Am A Non Believer and Mindbender bear close resemblance to the contemporary 808 State. These tracks are downright fun. Another unique and disturbing aspect of these tracks is the vocals, cut up with tremolo to make them sound guttural and mucus-laden as well as menacing.
- Volahn - Aq'Ab'Al
- Norken - Spring Themes
- Various Artists - Decay Product
- Dean Blunt - Black Metal
- Korridor - Invariant: All four parts have the same foreboding feeling, similar length and similar structure. If you don't like repetitive techno with little change you won't like this album.
- A: mellow thumping, nice bass drum texture. Some bleeping, distant, reverbed synths which give some space. Repetitive and homogeneous (not a bad thing).
- B: This one vaguely resembles Porter Ricks' beatless experiments with dub sounds. It very slightly goes along with a beat; the kick drum sounds so quiet as to be almost imaginary.
- C: More traditional dub techno track. Sounds like Monolake's later stuff like on Silence.
- D: like B, the beat is very subtle. Synths cut in and out, more urgent and ominous than the rest of the album.
- Hozan Yamamoto - Ginkai
- Madteo - Noi No
- Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
- Voivod - Dimension Hatross
- These New Puritans - Field of Reeds
- Monolake - Interstate
- Voivod - Angel Rat
- Tool - Lateralus
- Coil - Horse Rotorvator
- Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk
- Laraaji - Ambient 3: Day of Radiance
- Underworld & The Necks - Appleshine Continuum
- Bill Evans & Jim Hall - Undercurrent
- God - Possession
- Two Lone Swordsmen - Swimming Not Skimming
- Jake Fairley - Crisis (partial)
- Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
- Tom Fahy - Courtesan
- The Young Gods - Second Nature
- Rod Modell - Incense & Black Light
- Doss - Doss
- VNV Nation - Burning Empires
- Autechre - AE_LIVE_MELBOURNE_220618
- Hallucinator - Landlocked
- Pentagram - Day of Reckoning
- Terrace of Memories - Terrace of Memories
- Future Beat Alliance - Hidden Emotion
- First track uses layered snares which almost resemble hand claps or slapping rubber; reverbed or layered? Boards of Canada used to use this type of snare sound, which kind of disappointed me. Kind of jarring and overly loud?
- "Earth Message" - brushed drums, slow, builds into something really IDM-y. Monotonous IDM like Autechre at their least engaging and innovative.
- Somnoroase Pasarele - ABECD
- Radius - Interpolation Tapes [Restoration Two]
- Radius - Interpolation Tapes [Restoration One]
- Deepchord presents Echospace - Liumin
- Vril - Anima Mundi
- cv313 - [ The Other Side ]
- Monolake - Silence
- Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
- Underworld - Dubnobasswithmyheadman
- Actress - Hazyville
- Actress - Splazsh
- 808 State - Don Solaris
- DeepChord Presents Echospace - The Coldest Season
- Metamatics - Dope For the Robot
- Acid Scout - Balance
- Synectics / Ono - Promo EP
- Autumn of Communion - Autumn of Communion 2
- Air - Moon Safari
- The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
- "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "I Know It's Over", "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others"
- Hardfloor - TB Resucitation
- Photek - Form & Function
- Porcupine Tree - Up The Downstair
- Velocity - Velocity EP
- Various Artists - Artificial Intelligence II
- Autechre - EP7
- BT - ESCM
- Orbital - Orbital [Brown Album]
- Ismistik - Remain
- Speedy J - Ginger
- cv313 - Analogue Oceans
- Orbital - In Sides
- Metamatics - Spook Tinsel Shoal
- µ-Ziq - Lunatic Harness
- Perbec - Chaser
- Bola - Gnayse
- Choice / Soofle - Acid Eiffel / How Do You Plead?
- Energy 52 - Cafe del Mar
- Yes - Fragile
- The Orb - Blue Room
- Metamatics - Neo-Ouija
- King Crimson - Discipline
- "Matte Kudasai"
- King Crimson - Beat
- King Crimson - Red
April 2020
- Cocteau Twins - Garlands
- "Grail Overfloweth"
- R.E.M. - Reckoning
- Rustie - Glass Swords
- Autechre - Move Of Ten
- Etchogon - S
- Traditional drum, snare percussion but in strange, unpredictable patterns. Very little else besides the percussion; some high pitched or square wave synth noises. Metallic unsheathing sword-like effect. y7: Very acid'y with a central 4/4 groove. This remains constant throughout the 5:09 runtime, with some high-pitch buzzing moving in and out. This noise and the acid seem to intensify and distort as the song progresses. It gets slightly piercing and harsh while the rhythmic elements remain soft and quiet. pce freeze 2.8i: pretty regular thumping kick drum + squeaky "snare". Mostly rhythmic, homogeneous. rew(1) glitchy squelching + groove
- Autechre - Gantz Graf
- Feldman - For Bunita Marcus (Hildegard Kleeb)
- R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
- Björk - Vulnicura
- Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
- SHXCXCHCXSH - Linear S Decoded
- Matrix - Isthmus #Fast
- Burial - Truant/Rough Sleeper
- Cocteau Twins - The Pink Opaque
- Jeru the Damaja - The Sun Rises In The East
- Kraftwerk - Computerwelt
- "It's More Fun To Compute", "Computer Liebe"
- Tujiko Noriko - Hard Ni Sasete
- "Bikini"
- Verve - The Verve EP
- Hiroshi Yoshimura - Pier & Loft
- Porter Ricks - Shadow Boat
- Burial - Street Halo
- NON - Blast of Silence
- Chain Reaction - Various ...Compiled
- Black Sabbath - Paranoid
- offthesky - Studies of Lifeform in Transit
- Chi - Chi
- Haziness is an aesthetic similar to what is now known as "Bandcamp cassette ambient" (well, at least to me). This is not a sound unfamiliar to modern online cassette culture. Like characteristic "tribal" ambient music, there is some light percussion, here produced mostly by what sounds like mouth clicking and drum machine. Atmosphere is produced with concoction of guitar distortion and synthesizer (and poor cassette quality). Some songs like "Kuhl" and "Before the Mountain" approach some kind of art rock structure.
- Fluxion - Bipolar Defect Chain Reaction's big 3rd. Title track, "Aviation" and "Multidirectional I".
- Klangforum Wien & Sylvain Cambreling - For Samuel Beckett
- Possibly the least sparse Feldman piece I've heard yet. It's slow, sure, but there's little space. It's like relentless breathing, and feels long despite being relatively short (to Feldman's other late works). As the piece progresses, it slows in pace, with gaps forming between chords as the musicians synchronize.
- Helical Scan - Index I / Index II
- This is the product of a short-lived Robert Henke side project pre-Monolake. Index was omitted from Hongkong upon reissue ostensibly because it ruined the flow of the album. While the rest of Hongkong is pretty mellow, this is a head-bopper. Alone, it is a cool track, but Henke was right, it's a misfit.
- Mobb Deep - The Infamous
- Autechre - Exai
- Aki Takahashi performing "Triadic Memories"
- Squarepusher - Numbers Lucent
- Morton Feldman - Piano and String Quartet
- Roger Eno & Brian Eno - Mixing Colours
- Jean-Luc Herelle - Clarines Et Sonnailles [Pastoral Bells]
- Gyorgy Ligeti - Continuum / Zehn Stücke Fur Blaserquintett / Artikulation / Glissandi / Etuden Fur Orgel / Volumina
- Gentle Persuasion - Sounds and Songs of the Humpback Whales
- This intensely obscure whale song release was sampled often in the '90s, by artists such as Bark Psychosis, Tom Waits, and John Beltran. The recording is only a few minutes long but is looped to fill 1 hour. A delay has apparently been applied to the already chopped-up and looped recordings. The effect is something sad or lonely, and fit for sampling!
- Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies
- I listened to this a lot over summer 2015, especially Shine a Light and Take Your Time. It has grown off me. Either I never really picked up on the bluesy and religious stylings or I tolerated them in between relishing spaced-out guitar jams.
- Stereolab - Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night
- There are high points (Velvet Water, Blue Milk), but mostly I sympathize with the negative reviews of this album. It can feel a lot like a blur of vibraphones and 4/4 piano thumping. Or a compilation of B-sides (even though Aluminum Tunes, which is such, was an interesting patchwork drawing on different eras). The two longest tracks are some of the best, however; Blue Milk digress from the onslaught of lounge into hypnotic, protracted, hella repetitive jams. As a whole it's not an unpleasant listen, especially if taken in halves.
- Robert Hood - Internal Empire
- Toshimaru Nakamura, Ken Ikeda, Tomoyoshi Date - Green Heights
- Zake - Carolina
- Panda Bear - Person Pitch
- Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
- Stereolab - Sound-Dust
- Autechre - AE_LIVE_CHICAGO_290915
- Squarepusher - Selection Sixteen
- "Dedicated Loop", "Tomorrow World"
- Darragh Morgan & John Tilbury - For John Cage
- Mercury Rev - Yerself Is Steam
- Autechre - Quaristice
- Coaltar of the Deepers - Yukari Telepath
- ASC - The Waves
- ASC - No Stars Without Darkness
- New Deluxe Life - Freed From the World
- Aloof Proof - Inside the Quiet
- Sora - Re.sort
- Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs
- Pulusha - Isolation
- Part 1 is synth-pad based with vocals. Part 2 is keyboard based. Both have the same sorrowful tone and are redolent of Pritchard's other work, especially with Global Communication. There are no beats, though.
- Motohiko Hamase - Technodrone
- Murky, repetitive techno-ish tracks. What makes this unique is the extensive bass soloing. It's fretless bass with some reverb, which contributes to the unfriendly atmosphere.
- The comparison to industrial probably comes from Motohiko's liberal application of bass synth and metallic sound fx/samples (title track, Chirico). I wouldn't be surprised if NIN's Pretty Hate Machine was an influence, seeing as the beat on "Invisible City" is lifted straight from "Sanctified". Yeah, that's what this is: a darker, emotionally detached Pretty Hate Machine. Lots of nifty little electronic maneuvers, some winds (last track is a right hook but it still fits) and various familiar sounds.
- Various Artists - Clicks + Cuts
- U - Lowlands
- Gum - Vinyl
- Autechre - Anvil Vapre
- Autechre - NTS Session 3
- Grandaddy - Under the Western Freeway
- Autechre - Garbage
- X-102 - Rediscovers The Rings Of Saturn
- Jan Jelinek - Kosmischer Pitch
- Jakob Ullmann - Fremde Zeit Addendum 4 (Solo III für Orgel)
- Model 500 - Deep Space
- Autechre - AE_LIVE_PHILADELPHIA_061015
- Cybotron - Clear
- Moon - Moon EP
- Fashion - Fabrique
- Autechre - AE_LIVE_NEW_YORK_031015
- Farmers Manual - No Backup
- SND - MakeSND Cassette
- Maju - Maju-3
- Yasunao Tone - Solo for Wounded CD
- Maju - Maju-1
- Various [Extreme Records] - X-X Section
- Neina - Formed Verse
- Twerk - Living Vicariously Through Burnt Bread
- DARKPYRAMID - A Heart Full Of Love
- EPO - Fire & Snow
- Sugar Plant - Dryfruit
- Bobby Beausoleil - Lucifer Rising
- Jeff Greinke - Lost Terrain
- James Ferraro - Last American Hero
- Vladislav Delay - Huone
- SND - Stdio
- Schloss Tegal - The Grand Guignol
- DJ Olive - Sleep
March 2020
- Sun Electric - 30.7.94 Live
- Ragnar Grippe - Sand
- Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts V: Together
- Microstoria - Init Ding
- This is rounded-edge take on the type of music introduced into the canon by Systemisch. It's a mid-point between that and _snd, which means it's pretty softened but squeals and buzzes remain. Yeah, _snd is a massive step up from this if we're talking glitch-ambient.
- Robert Henke - Floating.Point
- Thomas Brinkmann - Klick
- Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek - Schaum
- Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls
- Current 93 - Thunder Perfect Mind
- The Rain Parade - Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
- Giancarlo Toniutti - La Mutazione
- Vladislav Delay - Vantaa
- Mike Nock - Ondas (partial)
- Visible Cloaks - Reassemblage
- Emptyset - Collapsed
- Roxy Music - Avalon
- Per Norgard - Expanding Space
- Rain Tree Crow - Rain Tree Crow
- Eliane Radigue - Feedback Works 1969-1970
- Current 93 - Nature Unveiled
- Fluxion - Lark / Atlos
- Toshi Ichiyanagi - Sapporo
- Richard H. Kirk - Virtual State
- Radu Malfatti - Darenootodesuka
- Current 93 & HOH - Island
- Current 93 - Horsey
- Fluxion - Bipolar Defect
- Windy Weber - I Hate People
- Current 93 - Soft Black Stars
- Current 93 - The Starres Are Marching Sadly Home
- Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling
- Lync - Pigeons 7"
- Shinichiro Yokota - Presents Do It Again and Again
- Chris Carter - The Space Between
- Yello - Stella
- Cabaret Voltaire - 2x45
- The Raincoats - Moving
- The Go! Team - The Scene Between
- Steve Roach - Quiet Music 3
- The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
- Aurora Halal - Liquiddity
- Naofumi Hataya and Masafumi Ogata - Sonic CD Soundtrack (JP/EU/AUS)
- Motorpsycho - Blissard
- Nine Inch Nails - Bad Witch
- Xinlisupreme - Murder License
- The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
- The Golden Palominos - Dead Inside
- Rei Harakami - Red Curb
- Atom™ - Winterreise
- Nine Inch Nails - Quake Soundtrack
- Wendy Carlos - Sonic Seasonings
- Nine Inch Nails - Add Violence
- Nine Inch Nails - Not The Actual Events
- Nine Inch Nails - Fixed
- Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth
February 2020
- Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
- Mika Vainio - Kajo
- The Raincoats - Odyshape
- Minit - cc/bb
- CoH - Soisong
- Clear Horizon - Clear Horizon
- Mazzy Star - She Hangs Brightly
- "Halah", "Blue Flower"
- Oren Ambarchi - Grapes From the Estate
- Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms
- Aleph-1 - Aleph-1
- Toshimaru Nakamura - Vehicle
- Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
- sky - before
- Repeat - Select Dialect
- RAMZi - Phobiza Amor Fati Vol. 3
- Miharu Koshi - Tutu
- Yamaneko - Spa Commissions
- Hakobune - Apsidal Motion
- Telefon Tel Aviv - Remixes Compiled
- Flying Saucer Attack - Instrumentals 2015
- Oren Ambarchi - Quixotism
- Quickspace - Quickspace [US]
- Th' Faith Healers - Imaginary Friend
- The Wedding Present - Seamonsters
- Quickspace - The Death of Quickspace
- Oh, this is not the first time I listened to this album. Fall, early October 2016, I think. Discovered I enjoy this album as much as I think I did back then. I thought I just got myself too excited about an album because of novelty. That was not the case!
- Telefon Tel Aviv - Map of What Is Effortless
- "My Week Beats Your Year"
- Ryoko Akama - Code of Silence
- Michael Pisaro & Miguel Prado - White Metal (Grey Series No. 2)
- Various - Weightless Volume 2
- Neutrino - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Gothic Voices - A Feather on the Breath of God
- Prurient - Time Began in a Garden
- Taylor Deupree - January
- Thomas Köner - Motus
- More of a return to Porter Ricks' dark texture-works than a progression from his previous solo albums. Like almost all of Koner's records and unlike any Porter Ricks, most of the songs sound very similar, so it'd work well as a single sticky piece.
- Kevin Drumm - Concatenate
- Robert Henke - Layering Buddha
- Rei Harakami - [lust]
- Keeler - Planet Of Lovers
- Deerhunter - Cryptograms
- "Octet", "Providence"
- Toshimaru Nakamura - No-Input Mixing Board 2
- The Breeders - Pod
- Phantogram - Eyelid Movies
- China Crisis - Flaunt The Imperfection
- Strawberry Switchblade - Strawberry Switchblade
- Arvo Part - Litany
- Ruth Walser/Barbara Müller-Hämmerli - Air: works for flutes and organ
- Violeta de Outono - Violeta de Outono
- Pram - Helium
- Suzukiski - Utopia
- Dinosaur Jr. - Chocomel Daze
- Live Skull - Dusted
- My Coco - My Coco
- Various Artists (label-Rhombus/Cardium) - Ittiologia
- Flying Saucer Attack - Chorus
- Kante - Zweilicht
- The ultimate Hamburger Schule album. First impression is a very dramatic; there's strings and organs everywhere. Serious and reserved in an ECM jazz way. The artwork reminds me of those Scott Foresman Reading books where there'd be a story about some kid visiting his grandmother. Lyrics are probably profound but I don't speak German so I wouldn't know.
- zammuto - Solutiore of Stareau: Disc One
- Hampshire & Foat - The Honeybear
- Strange, mildly scary instrumental folk with chamber elements. Unlike their previous work. Some drone.
- Ron Geesin - Electrosound
- Early '70s experimental electronics that explores purey tones, textures, and drones rather than producing fleshed out songs (more so than contemporaries). Pure library music.
- Fabio Fabor / Armando Sciascia - N° 38 - Infini
- Half-classical, half-electronic experimentation. Pretty ominous. Categorized as library music.
- Bernard Fevre - The Strange World Of Bernard Fevre
- Purely electronic library music which leans towards the the synthpop and has hints of funk and krautrock.
- Holy Fuck - Latin
- Rec from Dan. Unfortunately don't remember much from first listen, though I believe it sounded quite like what I predicted: alternative dance like Antarctica or late 80s New Order but a little noisier. Will probably listen again.
- Slint - Tweez (3rd listen)
- Baby Slint! Overall, I enjoy this marginally more than Spiderland (I'm not really into the dramatic spoken-sung rock; For Dinner... was also my favorite song there. Blasphemy, I know, I know.). There's a lot of noodling, some studio banter, moaning, and even some loud drinking. Peppered with some questionable production choices. Eg. this mix of Rhoda is, well, botched, but I personally like it because it sounds "fucked up" but not only a little amateurish.
- Various - Biologia Marina (2nd)
- I enjoyed and remembered this much more on my first listen at UMN. Still better than a lot of library music albums.
- Pete Namlook & Tetsu Inoue - 2350 Broadway 4
- Not the tallest sunflower among new age-inspired pad ambient.
- Death Ambient - Drunken Forest
- Garden-variety "random noise" experimental. Don't remember much.
- Live Skull - Bringing Home The Bait
- Choose Death - Anamnesis
- I remember nothing about this. I don't even remember listening to it.
- Live Skull - Snuffer
Thurston Moore - Psychic Hearts
- Some pretty good (not pretty bad, ha) tracks, including title track, "Hang Out", and "Female Cop". Can undertand positive reception. A nice surprise since I don't have a warm relationship with solo albums in general.
- Bluetile Lounge - lowercase
- Rock that acts better as background ambient music. Not really any songs, just a thin atmosphere. Another album I liked much more when I fell asleep to it instead of actively listened to it.
- Fluorescent Heights - Relaxing In The New World
- Garden variety 2-sider cassette ambient from Bandcamp. Lo-fi and tape hiss doesn't help it, but it's pretty good for its class.
- Thurston Moore - Psychic Hearts
- Sonic Youth - SYR7: J'accuse Ted Hughes
- Sonic Youth - The Eternal
- Highs are very high, lows are simply bland. Great end to a discography. "No Way", "Massage the History", and "What We Know" are favorites and late-SY highlights.
- Pete Namlook & Tetsu Inoue - Shades of Orion
- Not the tallest sunflower among new age-inspired pad ambient.
- Maurizio Bianchi - Carcinosi
- Listen to Endometrio instead.
- Nathan Fake - Drowning In A Sea Of Love
- Sonic Youth - The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities
- Good all around. Mostly instrumental collection of contemplatives. Picks- "Loop Cat" and the extended version of "The Diamond Sea", one of my favorite Sonic Youth songs besides those on their 1982 EP/album.
- Pete Namlook & Tetsu Inoue - Shades Of Orion 2
- Not the tallest sunflower among new age-inspired pad ambient.
- The Associates - Peel Sessions
- Movietone - The Blossom Filled Streets
January 2020
- The Black Lamps - The Black Lamps
- Bill Nelson - Chimera
- Stabudown Productions - Strange Rabbits
- Ryoji Ikeda - Dataplex
- Call Super - Arpo
- Breathless - Three Times And Waving
- Munchener Kammerorchester / Christoph Poppen / Frances-Marie Uitti - Natura renovatur
- Jasmine Guffond - Yellow Bell
- Rrose - Hymn to Moisture
- Ralph Towner - Diary
- Kangding Ray - Stabil
- Barbara Muller-Hammerli, Eva-Maria Houben, and Ruth Walser - Eva-Maria Houben: Air - Works for Flutes and Organ
- Antarctica - 81:03
- Maeror Tri - Ambient Dreams
- Ulla - Tumbling Towards a Wall
- Jasmine Guffond - Yellow Bell
- Shuttle358 - Frame
- Candy Claws - Ceres & Calypso in the Deep Time
- Main - Transiency
- christtt - deep dark trench
- Jason Lescalleet - The Pilgrim
- i8u - 10-33 cm
- Steve Roach - Stillpoint
- D/P/I - Composer
- Ro70 - Ro70
- Vladislav Delay - Entain
- Soda Stereo - Dynamo
- Cool effect-laden pop rock with some unexpectedly danceable material strewn in. Strong vocals that are confidently placed in the foreground, which is an asset and a rarity in shoegaze in general. It doesn't matter that I can't understand most of the lyrics. It's from the heart, and I understand that.
- Robert Rich & B. Lustmord - Stalker
- Vladislav Delay - Ele
- It's Immaterial - Song
- "Your Voice"
- Kim Cascone - Cathodeflower
- Alva Noto - Transform
- Harold Budd - Jane 1-11
- Daniel Lentz - Apologetica
- The Haxan Cloak - Excavation
- David Torn - Cloud About Mercury
- Sweet Trip - Halica: Bliss Out Volume 11
- Apoptose - Nordland
- Fushitsusha - Hisou/4/Pathétique
- Max Corbacho - Dreaming Space
- David Axelrod - Songs Of Experience
- Rowland S. Howard - Pop Crimes
- Eliane Radigue - Adnos I-III
- Melt-Banana - Fetch
- Yuzo Koshiro - Bare Knuckle II
- Balam Acab - Wander/Wonder
- Fushitsusha - The Wisdom Prepared
- Drive Like Jehu - Yank Crime
- Eliane Radigue - Feedback Works 1969-1970
- Sutekh - Fell
- Jurg Frey, Stefan Thut & Dante Boon - Collection Gustave Roud
- Robert Fripp - That Which Passes
- Thomas Köner - Aubrite
- Dark Star - Twenty Twenty Sound
- Shudder to Think - Ten Spot