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Caïna I am the Flail of the Lord
‘Caïna, the UK-based black metal project helmed by Andy Curtis-Brignell, can described in a number of different ways, given how much its sound has evolved over the years. It’s rooted in black metal, and has carried at least some element of its ferocious darkness with every permutation, though Caïna has never been particularly faithful to the sounds of church-burners past. At times, like on 2008′s Temporary Antennae, Caïna more closely resembled post-rock. And 2013′s Litanies of Abjection, Curtis-Brignell once again stepped away from tradition and delivered a dark ambient record. Much of Setter of Unseen Snares is remarkably accessible, not just by Curtis-Brignell’s standards, but of black metal in general. Its first proper track, “I Am the Flail of the Lord,” has the momentum and roar of a great metal track, but it’s unusually catchy. In fact, it almost doesn’t sound like black metal, pummeling with the urgency of hardcore.’ — Treble

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The Inward Circles And in Their Groves of the Sun This Was a Fit Number
‘Richard Skelton’s explorations of the human soul within the landscapes of the British Isles have made for some of the most eloquent and evocative music of recent times, and his recent concert at LSO St Lukes with the Elysian Quartet was one of the live highlights of the year. Now, he returns with a new project, The Inward Circles, and a refreshing new direction. His distinctive drones and rough sonics, the capturing of water over landscape and air moving past rock, have taken on a tougher, more electronic edge reminiscent of artists like Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg’s KTL. Where before his music, and the beautiful books that he published to accompany them, might create images of the vast damp spaces of the north of England in a way that seemed to reflect the ambivalence of nature towards us fragile and fleshy mortals, The Inwards Circles is full of threat, things ancient and unknown appearing amidst the sphagnum moss and heather.’ — The Quietus

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Tujiko Noriko Minty You
‘My Ghost Comes Back sees the return of Tujiko Noriko after a hiatus exploring worlds beyond those we regularly inhabit. The results of these travels provided the formula for this, her most accomplished record to date. As rich in ambition as it is skewered in it’s melodic stance, the album is a decidedly more acoustic affair in which a host of guest musicians incorporate mandolin, viola, musical saw, optigon and other such wares into the exotic environment where her unique songwriting now resides. Furthering an exploration of unorthodox arrangements, rhythm and melody Noriko concocts engaging pop explosions where flickering electronics, staggered rhythms, shimmering vocals all dance on a plateau of melancholic ecstasy. ‘My Heart Isn’t Only Mine’ launches proceedings as a slow burning landscape of electronics, organ and subdued vocal arrangements which unfold over 14+ minutes, delicately setting the scene for a new kind of record. ‘Give me your hands’ and ‘Minty You’ exude a joyous warmth as pop perfection extends into the ether.’ — boomkat

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Secret Circuit Rogue Unit
‘Emotional Response have trawled through boxes of old cassette recordings from L.A multi-instrumentalist Eddie “Secret Circuit” Ruscha to compile a follow-up to 2012’s brilliant Tropical Psychedelics compilation. Predictably, the resulting collection is nothing short of brilliant. Typically eccentric, melodious, atmospheric and bristling with interesting ideas, Cosmic Vibrations delves deeper into Ruscha’s archives and comes up with gold. Highlights are naturally plentiful, but keep an eye out for the psychedelic ambience of “Electric Brain”, the analogue electronic explorations of “Nova Laser”, and “Shockers”, an acid-flecked chunk of chiming Balearic deep house with exotic, Arabic touches.’ — Boomkat

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Aaron Dilloway & Jason Lescalleet Black Mountain
‘It doesn’t mean anything to you until you decide that it does. That could easily work as a mantra to be repeated before playing any of Jason Lescalleet’s or Aaron Dilloway’s music, as a precursor to the experience and a step toward preparation. It’s an interesting premise, because there are no boundaries as to how far you can take it; you can nearly apply this concept to anything and feel content that what you are experiencing is a product of your own intrigue, your own desire to make “it” work. But in order for that to happen, you need to have an entry point that can send you somewhere fascinating. On Popeth, the second collaborative full-length from Lescalleet and Dilloway, that entry point is a deep-cut and disintegrating tunnel of sound, a fractured rumble that marks negotiated conversations between respective artistic methods of instrumentation.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Cassegrain New Hexagon
‘Building on ample evidence provided by previous EPs and their bracing live performances, the duo has crafted in a late masterwork of this particular school, even in the face of increasing creative overcrowding. Centres Of Distraction is very much in keeping with the zeitgeist of experimental techno, but it easily surpasses most of its contemporaries in clarity and depth of execution. The pendulum swings of stylistic popularity and focus may already be moving on, as demonstrated by newer outcroppings of noise, kosmiche, and industrial that are now merging their way into dance music, but that is immaterial in the analysis of this particular streak of creativity. Cassegrain may go down as an odd footnote next to more famous peers whose music broadly falls into similar stylistic territory, but they have accomplished the rare feat of creating their own interpretation of that style, and this album is the most formidable, complete expression of their ideas yet and a work that rewards intent listening, hopefully and deservedly for years to come.’‘ — collaged

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Ghost Culture Lucky
‘Ghost Culture excels in atmosphere and layering, rather than heading direct for the doof. That’s not to say there’s nothing to dance to; it’s like some sumptuous buffet of electronic wonder – minimalist techno, kraut, ambient house, full on electro. You feel you know something or half recognise a fraction or mood. Like a secret shared by only the listener, like sensual caress and warm whispers and a tune that sounds both familiar yet reformed into new shapes. Ghost Culture is well aware that everything has already come before, but not in an irritating “DO YOU SEE?” way. Managing to make the sounds you’ve heard millions of times from history, sound fresh and new. This isn’t some retro Jack White analogue borefest, this is a snatch of the beauty that remains in the wheezing and dying lights.’ — The Quietus

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canooooopy mono montaged oratorio
‘Japanese producer Canooooopy draws from the more mundane moments of daily life. “The sound of an air conditioner, the rhythm of a pen falling down, a conversation from other people,” are just some of the ho-hum influences on his music that he mentions in an interview with Japanese music blog Hi-Hi-Whoopee, capping his answer off with “a monotonous life.” Canooooopy subscribes to a “100% sampling” ethos, and builds every track on his first CD release Disconnected Words Connect the Worlds from noises that seem innocuous enough in their original context—an automated telephone greeting, people chatting, children singing. Yet he’s able to warp them into disjointed little worlds, and Disconnected serves as a solid introduction to one of the wonkier beatmakers to pop up out of Japan over the last couple of years.’ — Patrick St. Michel

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Napalm Death Smash a Single Digit
‘With much of the metal scene in a permanent state of superficiality, Napalm Death’s righteous fury and utter disregard for routine sonic styles mark the grindcore legends out as one of the few truly subversive bands around. But even by their own standards, Apex Predator – Easy Meat is startling. Thematically centred on the horror of industrialised slave labour in the modern world, the band’s 15th studio album revels in the perversity of such compassionate and humane lyrical ideas being tethered to music that seeks to leave real scars. It’s a diverse set that veers from expected bursts of dizzying speed and violence such as “Smash a Single Digit” and” Cesspits” to gruelling, hypnotic dirges such as the dense, unearthly Swans-isms of the title track and the churning “Dear Slum Landlord”, while the hammering, dissonant grooves of “How the Years Condemn” and “Timeless Flogging” add twisted accessibility to an otherwise remorseless onslaught. Untrained ears might shrivel in terror, but those who appreciate the joy of noise will recognise the sound of veteran masters on unassailable form.’ — The Guardian

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Spencer Radcliffe & R.L. Kelly Green Things
‘Chicago’s Spencer Radcliffe and L.A. native R.L. Kelly (alias for Rachel Levy) make an exceptionally compatible duo on Brown Horse, released earlier this month on Orchid Tapes. Though Radcliffe’s brand of heady and meandering pop isn’t perfectly congruent with Levy’s simple, saccharine tunes, the two converge on a thematic plane. Ultimately, Brown Horse is a record about yearning, whether it’s for a past we can no longer access or an idyllic future that may never actually play out. R. L. Kelly and Spencer Radcliffe both convey an understated authority, bordering the line between youth and maturity, self-deprecation and self-assurance, and quietly asserting themselves through their liminality.’ — Impose

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Dalglish Oidhche
‘Chris Douglas is one of the most enigmatic, progressive and emotionally arresting producer/ composers currently operating around electronic music’s fringes. After an eventful youth that saw him host seminal parties in his native San Francisco before taking up root in Detroit – where he worked with and learned from such luminaries as Underground Resistance’s Mike Banks and Drexciya’s James Stinson, and established his O.S.T. project – he moved to Berlin in 2003. He has since written a series of unexpected, mysterious and affecting albums that twist and reimagine electronic music in enigmatic yet moving ways. Douglas has operated under a variety of names such as Rook, Scald Rougish and Dalglish, with the latter rising to prominence when his 2011 album Benacah Drann Deachd drew considerable praise. This month sees the release of Dalglish’s much-anticipated third album, Niaiw Ot Vile, which sees Douglas make his debut on Bill Kouligas’ increasingly renowned PAN label. The album marks a clear progression from its predecessor – a beautifully nebulous collection of outsider electronics mapping out new territories that touch on techno, musique concrète and the avant garde.’ — The Quietus

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Black To Comm Hands
‘As the Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen’s video Earth traveled around the world, different musicians were enlisted to provide live music for it, from Australia’s Oren Ambarchi to Germany’s Black to Comm. The latter was a natural fit for a video in which long pans take in a fabulous landscape full of piled corpses and visual references to European painting. In Black to Comm’s music, we likewise feel ourselves to be plowing across wastelands of aestheticized violence and apocalyptic beauty. You could call it a match made in hell. Black to Comm’s music is as abstract as an inkblot, and so you can project your favorite influences onto it: 1970s German experimental music, contemporary noise, eccentric outsider art, classic film scores– all fair game. Liberated from any one set of formal constraints, Richter uses his many resources to conjure delicate effects of mood and graded shading. If you generally listen to music on the factory speakers in your car or computer, you can basically forget about Black to Comm. All you’ll hear is distant rustling and moaning; some indifferently fretted acoustic guitar. The music is for close listening or for nothing.’ — Brian Howe

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Peverelist Kinetics
‘One to roll with the punches, Tom Ford aka Peverelist belongs to dubstep’s most intriguing characters without being one for the spotlight. Biographical articles or even interviews are rarely to be found. Music nerds care about music, not about their public relations. Notable for holding down the Rooted Records specialist shop in Bristol, and curating the Punch Drunk record label, the man like Peverelist is a driving force behind the marriage of techno and British bass music, alongside his peers Appleblim or Shackleton. Techno at heart but dubstep in name, his sound bridges the gap between the hypnotic minimal patterns of the music first given its name in Detroit, and the heavyweight polyrhythmic machinations of dubstep. Check amazing and outstanding tunes like Gather on his aforementioned Punch Drunk outfit that combines the legacy of Bristol’s bass control, its sound systems and London’s DMZ and FWD>> scenes.’ — rbmaradio.com

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Who’s Leonard Reed? I’ll google him. Actually, the testiest waiter in Los Feliz, but testy enough to maybe win the prize for the whole East Hollywood area. ** Sypha, Hi. Do you have a publication date or general release time for your book yet? No, I really need to get Oscar’s children’s book. Thank you for reminding me. The Harry Potter movies take a big upswing in quality with the third one, if you ask me. ** Tosh Berman, ‘Fancy’ is great! That’s one of the few on that list that I’ve already read. Jeremy Davies is an awesome writer. He’s also one of the editors at the great, great Dalkey Archive press. Hardcore France 1970 sounds like plenty of an allure to me. ** Wvandenberg, Hi, welcome, and thank you a lot for coming in here! Wow, I don’t know if I have a very favorite Millhauser story. Huh. I would have to really think about that. Do you have one? ** Slatted light, D-ster! Always greatness to see you! Yeah, 2015 might just be the best US literary year yet. It’s crazy. You good? What’s up, man? Love, me. ** Steevee, Hi. That Facets set rings a bell. I think I saw it when making the post and spaced out on linking to it. Zachary Quinto as Glenn Greenwald, wow. Weird. Dylan doing standards is just such an incredibly uninteresting idea to me for some reason. No interest in hearing that, at least in theory. But I stopped following Dylan in general ages ago. ** _Black_Acrylic, I’m reading the Kitchell book now. It’s really great! Shit, evicted, ugh. I feel that. I have to start seriously searching for a new place right away. I’ve been putting it off because I’ve been so busy, but time is starting to run out, ugh, so I need to get on that. I hope the place that your mom found pans out. ** Gregoryedwin, Hi! Oh, well, man, ‘Hospice’ is a particularly shining light in there. Don’t forget that I’d love to do a ‘welcome to the world’ post re: it if you’re still game. Thanks for the props about this place. Very kind of you. Love, me.  ** Chilly Jay Chill, Cool, thanks, I’ll look into that Dibell novel. I’m going to scour the local shops for those Kluges first, but I don’t have much hope on that front.There’s only one actually really good English language bookstore here, and it’s mostly used books. So I’ll probably order them. That’s very exciting! We should start getting more feedback on the film soon. We finished it yesterday, and it’s going up on Vimeo Private today, at which point a couple of people we want to get feedback from will be able to watch it without the hassle of coming over to Zac’s place. The producers are being very curt with us. They’ll see the final version of the film tonight or tomorrow when it’s uploaded, I guess. I don’t have high hopes there at all. ** Keaton, As you know, I remember about 3% of the dreams I have, if I’m lucky. My dreams that I remember since I was a kid are like the same dream over and over just with an ever-changing cast of characters. That ‘Inferno of music’ thing is wild. ‘Bill Evans Trio with an 80 yr old David Gilmour’ is a hell of a brain-twister. Me, I vote for Dylan Carlson never ever ever working with singers again, unless I can pick them for him. Much love back. ** Grant maierhofer, Hi, Grant! That Gary Lutz book news bowled me over too. Exciting news about ‘Marcel’! I wish I’d found that in my search when making the post. Awesome! And I’ll go check out Queen Mob’s Teahouse, obviously! Lots of you = lots of great! Sean Kilpatrick’s editing help must have been super. He’s so good. Really excited for his new book. Cool, awesome thoughts on Blake’s work. Very interesting. New tumblr. I’m there. Everyone, mighty writer and d.l. Grant Maierhofer has a new tumblr. Go check it the heck out, why don’t you? It’s here. Thanks for your kindness, man. You’ve very important to this blog and to me too. Word. ** Misanthrope, The Mark Doten novel is fucking great, absolutely! Fingers crossed that … nothing comes of her trip down South. That’s the ideal, right? Yeah, poor LPS has been through way too much shit, and, yeah, heartbreaking it is. I hope he ends up okay. ** Brendan, Hi, B. Cool, let me know how it is. I’ve had zip luck getting a copy so far, but I’m still on it. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. You’re being really sane about the workshop experience, I think, cool. Very good. I find those things can be so traumatic, but, after going to poetry workshops for a couple of years in college, which actually was really helpful, I stopped. I’m easily spooked about feedback until I feel like something is completely finished, I don’t know why. Anyway, it sounds sound like a classic workshop experience, complete with the most praise being rained on the most conventional seeming piece. Bleh. Ha ha, unprofessional is a compliment in my book. It usually means ‘original’. We finished editing the film yesterday, or probably so. Any changes now will be minuscule, I think. The trailer we made was a quickie. It probably won’t go public unless our producers decide to make it so. We’ll make a proper trailer at some point. We hope to show the film to a couple of more people later this week. That’s a good answer: the camera in ‘Slacker’. That’s a really nice answer. Hm, your question today is one I think I can’t answer just because the film I showed would totally depend on what I knew of the person I was showing it too, like what I thought would be helpful or revelatory to him or her, I think. Yeah, I think I would have to have a particular person in mind. I can’t think of a film that would transcend and be fit for anyone. Strange. Can you pick a film that you’d show? Cock-a-doodle-do, Dennis ** The Man Who Couldn’t Blog, Hi, Matthew! This is so cool! That’s such great news about your new book! Re: the news I saw on Facebook yesterday, I mean. I’m very excited! I will definitely read the new Shya Scanlon. I seem to have accidentally missed that one when I was compiling. Cool! Great to see you! Respect! ** Mark Gluth, The honor is most entiely only mine, Mr. Gluth. Yes, the Purtill/Moore zine, absolutely! I would be a billion percent into hosting that interviewish thing as a post here. Please, even. I’m on my knees, even. ** Kier, Hi, hi, hi! Yeah, that’s what Gisele has assigned Zac and me to write. We’ll see. She gets a million ideas, but she does seem pretty set on this one. Generally, my health has been great since I went vegetarian. But I was 16, so maybe my body grew into accepting it or something? I do take supplements most of the time, and I do eat a lot of protein stuff. But, yeah, iron pills, for sure, Why not, right? I’ve never played a single Playstation game in any of its generations ever. Weird. I’ve always been a Nintendo guy other than one year during which a friend lent me his Xbox. Yesterday Zac and I spent all day into the night finishing the film. And we did! I guess if we get some criticism from the people we show it to, we could go back and fiddle, but we’ve worked the film to a point where we think its pretty perfect apart from the technical stuff we’ll do in post. I would imagine our producers will shred it, but since their opinions and suggestions on the rough cut were incredibly dumb and wrongheaded, I think that won’t change anything, and we’re confident enough now to defend the film, and I just hope we don’t have an ugly war with them. It’s been uploaded now, so they’ll watch it tonight or tomorrow, I guess. Anyway, we mostly corrected some sound and color issues, and we did a last fiddle with the edit of Scene 2, which is the ‘club scene’, and, yeah, I think it’s done. But we have a little less than two weeks to get select feedback and revisit it before we leave for Germany, at which point it has to be set in stone. That was the massive majority of my day. Then I came home and looked at emails and did a little work and blog-making stuff. That’s it. And you? And Thursday? How did you and these current 24 hours get along? ** Done. Up there is the latest gig from me, this one full of newbies after the couple of elderly psychedelic-focused ones. Some awesome stuff in there. Please try it out, if you like. See you tomorrow.

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COH ungear moi
‘While most of the previous COH records openly shy away from accentuated beat structures and instead build up their rhythmical content by layering waves and pulses, every track on TO BEAT is padded with just that – beats. The music transition is illustrated in the album’s artwork, displaying transformation of a sine-wave, a tone, into a waveform which is “beat”. This mathematical progression is made audible in the album’s opening track WAVE TO BEAT. The rest of the album, however, steers clear from dull math and presents the beats in their more traditional context of what could be referred to as “adventurous dance music”, taking the listener through various examples of beat use with the sense of playfulness and joy.’ — Editions Mego

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Shifted Second Wash
‘There’s been a clear direction of development in Shifted since it started, but up until now calling any of it something other than purist techno would be stretching things; Brewer would no doubt wholeheartedly agree with this assessment. Certainly his 2013 Bed Of Nails album presented a tenuous step away from the harshly clipped, razor edge techno he initially become known for, with the duskier sound palette and feedback-laced soundscapes taking in elements of pure noise and industrial music. Over the nine pieces here, for the first time the overriding aspect of the works is not techno, but instead Brewer’s increasingly adept sound designing, and much more than before, there’s an organic element that indicates he’s gone past mastery of production design and into performance flourishes. Turning up the volume on most of the tracks here yields a techno beat somewhere in the arrangement, but more often than not it’s buried in the mix, awash in layers of static, droning synthesiser textures, and often missing essential elements that create a much more impressionistic outcome than he has attempted in the past.’ — collaged

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Hiss Tracts Halo Getters
‘Hiss Tracts is the long fermenting collaboration between David Bryant (Godspeed You Black Emperor!) and Kevin Doria (Growing) that began with Bryant engineering three Growing albums from 2006-8. The partnership evolved, and they began making instrumental music together for the films of Karl Lemieux (GY!BE’s current projectionist). The duo produce a singularly haunting sound on their debut under the name, combining vital pre-established elements – Set Fire to Flames’ mysteriousness, Growing’s gentle meander – yet quickly establishing a signature all their own. The album moves forward as a dreamlike patchwork, with flickering dulcimers melting into decayed cassette tape drones, cut up dictaphone whispers morphing into cinematic ambience, and the ever-present sprawl of the pair’s electric guitars droning, fluttering and yearning in equal measure throughout.’ — Drowned in Sound

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Noveller No Dreams
‘Noveller is the solo project of Brooklyn-based guitarist and filmmaker Sarah Lipstate. She has performed in Rhys Chatham’s Guitar Army, and as a member of Glenn Branca’s 100 guitar ensemble. In March 2008, Lipstate joined Brooklyn art-rock outfit Parts & Labor as their guitarist. Her sounds drift from moments that conjure vivid mental movies to something more amorphous and undefined—more visceral than visual. According to press materials for No Dreams, these songs explore “blurred perception of reality and hallucination in the twilight of sleep and awakening.” The result is intoxicatingly hazy music, more fit for a half-remembered nightmare than a movie, with images flickering in and out of focus inside Lipstate’s shadowy soundscape.’ — collaged

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Rie Nakajima On The Desperate and Long-Neglected Need for Small Events
‘Rie Nakajima is an artist, originally from Yokohama, who lives and works in London. She studied art history and aesthetics at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and sculpture at Chelsea School of Arts and Slade School of Fine Arts in London. Her activities are mainly concerned with creating sound-based installations and performances. In both fields, her work develops from observing physical responses to the context of spaces/places by using sound and visuals. For materials she combines found objects, toy instruments, kinetic devices, and audio equipment. She has exhibited at SoundFjord (London), Void+(Tokyo) , and has performed at Experimental Intermedia (NY), Milton Keynes Gallery (Milton Keynes), Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin), Phonofemme (Vienna) and others.’ — monoskop.org

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Jar Moff Tziaitzomanasou
‘As both a visual and musical artist, Jar Moff’s approach to composition is not dissimilar to Burroughs’ infamous cut up technique. With his latest audio product, a large archive (more than 220 samples) of musical fragments were collected, cut, colored, spliced and repurposed to manifest a multilayered montage, one whose source material becomes unrecognisable, masked to the point of camouflage. The sound-design is astonishingly dense as a result, an extricable weave of analog, digital, organic, and synthesised sounds whose effect has an unusual physicality to it, making Financial Glam both strongly visual and extraordinarily immediate.’ — The Quietus

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M.E.S.H. Imperial Sewers
‘M.E.S.H.’s “Scythians” and “Imperial Sewers” both feature vocal cut-ups that wouldn’t feel out of place on Oneohtrix Point Never’s R Plus Seven, but their context feels much more grounded in the demands of club rhythm than an exploration of a hyperreal, futuristic VR simulation. Even so, the dense layering of audio on Scythians does create unusually spatial relationships for club music. Varying amounts of reverb and echo drench each stratum, the size and level of which determines the location of particular sounds in a simulated sonic space. Each layer seems to occupy a different area, as if Scythians itself is a massive club with different shows occurring in a variety of rooms, linking up with each other along a rhythmic axis. Whipple guides the listener through the complex’s liminal spaces, alternately swelling and burying sounds in the mix as we step through its thresholds.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Olivia Block Opening Night
‘Ever since her 1999 debut album Pure Gaze, Olivia Block has been exploring the surprisingly ephemeral sonic differences between field recordings, chamber music, and electroacoustic improvisation. With each successive release, Block’s disparate sound sources have grown more and more synthesized into a coherent unified whole. Block’s music plays with idiomatic instrumental technique and an extreme integration of sound worlds to create totally new acoustic spaces. “Opening Night” begins with a near Ligeti-esque cloud of voluminous harmonies that eventually gives way to clicks and clacks that seem to come from within the ensemble itself, but gradually transform into something that sounds natural yet completely alien and warped.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Locust Sky Black Horses
‘After the Rain is the latest offering from Mark Van Hoen and Louis Sherman’s Locust project. Following up the 2013 release You’ll Be Safe Together, this new album sees Locust stepping away from the abstracted forms of previous works, presenting a more melodic/harmonic proposition. Bathed in a warm nostalgic memory, After the Rain draws on Mark’s formative influences, primarily ’70s electronic music. With greater input by Louis Sherman (who, although being born when Mark was originally taking in this music, shares an equal enthusiasm for this particular period of European melancholic machine music). Unlike previous Locust and Mark Van Hoen releases which relied on programming and sequencing, much of this new record was played live, creating a space where innovation is secondary to the suggestive power of time, space, mood and melody. Rich in melancholia and a yearning for a world once suggested, After the Rain explores a crack in the historical framework, one embracing female identity and astute observations of melodic atmosphere. After the Rain is a melodic electronic mood record which presents itself as a triumph of historical revisionism.’ — Forced Exposure

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tētēma Tenz
‘While many music lovers have spent fall buzzing about the first new Faith No More album in 18 years arriving in 2015, another noteworthy project of FNM’s Mike Patton has simmered below the radar of the mainstream music community. Tētēma, the joint project of the prolific, multitalented vocalist and Australian composer Anthony Pateras. With Geocidal, they dismantle common notions of “place” (both geographic and of social construct), and use its destruction as a springboard into an alternate universe where identities are rebuilt and seemingly anything can happen. Recorded across several continents with an ensemble of accomplished musicians, the duo sculpt industrial noise, electronic beats, jazz, neoclassical, field sounds, tribal rhythms and even some quasi-traditional pop into an amorphous beast that is unlike anything else.’ — Wondering Sound

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Monopoly Child Star Searchers Bouganvillea’s Shallow Lobe
‘Monopoly Child Star Searchers is the creative audio project of Spencer Clark (a.k.a. Charles Berlitz, Black Joker, and Vodka soap, as well as 1/2 of Skaters), whose Romance Audio trilogy under the moniker has sought to explore a metaphysical relationship with an aviary sherpa. Clark has worked with an array of artists, including James Ferraro, Mark McGuire, Dolphins Into The Future, and Orphan Fairytale. His sounds as Monopoly Child examine esoteric and spiritual concepts through hypnotic layers of rhythm and melody, and might be exoticist if you find “the outerzone of infinite space” exotic.’ — Underwater Peoples

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Lee Gamble Motor System
‘The creative arc Lee Gamble’s music has taken is a strange and wonderful thing to behold. It began with a literal tearing apart of his influences, and then set off on a journey to see how much further away he could progressively move from them. His first full-length release, Diversions 1994-1996, tore passages from jungle mixtapes, stripped all the beats out, and reimagined them as dysfunctional bad dreams. The word “abstract” is never far away when people reach for descriptions of the London-based producer—and with good reason. Gamble’s music is staged in an unusual place, somewhere between the unreal and the all-too-real, where wretched drug experiences at past-peak club hours somehow end up in a form of metaphysical drift into the following morning.’ — Nick Neyland

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p.s. Hey. ** Sypha, Hi. Ha ha, oh, I do know that by now, James. ** David Ehrenstein, An auspicious start! ** Steevee, Cool, I hope Millhauser’s work pleases you. Looking forward to your film review. Everyone, Steevee has reviewed the ‘newly controversial’ film ‘Foxcatcher’ right here. ** Etc etc etc, Hi. The Barthelme comparison re: Millhauser is really lazy and unhelpful. It’s like the endless Burroughs comparisons my stuff gets. That fiction burn-out you’re going through sucks, but, I don’t know, maybe it’s good for the actual writing? I could see that. ‘Masterful’ is such a weird term. I mean the idea that there’s this thing that writing can become that could be mastered by one writer such that other writers doing that thing in some way or other would be consequently lesser. I like to think that in writing everything is collectively owned and can never be perfected or finished. Or something. That steam organ thing sounds awesome. Joy Williams, so great, so distinct, I think. Definitely one of my very favorite American writer/stylists. Have a superb day, buddy. ** Kier, How do you keep doing that with my name? Wow. I’m shocked by my name’s malleability in your mighty mind. It’s so cool. I ate Mac & Cheese two days ago! Your non- or non-ish day is a good bed fellow with mine. No, circumstances beyond our control, or beyond my control at least, ha ha, caused yesterday to be a complete wash-out on the editing front, so Scene 5 won’t be visible to the powers that be today. It’s still where it was the last time I wrote here, but hopefully we’ll have a long, productive editing session today so we can get it Vimeoed by tomorrow, which was our original deadline anyway, and hopefully that won’t make the Skype session later today scarier still. So, yesterday I mostly waited to see if we were going to start editing and did other work on the blog, my text novel, correspondence, email interviews, etc. while I was doing that. It was fine, but to describe it would be to describe me sitting at my laptop with fingers moving and various expressions, most of them samey variations on ‘concentrated’, crossing my face, which isn’t easy to do. I went out looking for food to buy at one point, but everything was closed. It seems like store owners here take New Years a lot more seriously than they did Xmas, which surprised me. So I ended up in the train station across the street buying and then eating muffins while watching people get on and off trains. It’s the train station that handles trains going to and from Germany, so most of the people were German, I think. Uh, yeah, that’s kind of the story of my yesterday. Blah. Today will hopefully matter more, and I’ll let you know. What did … shit, it’s Friday already, weird … Friday have in store for you? ** Misanthrope, Oh, my pleasure on the guffawing compliment. I hope I get to see you actually unleash one of those in person one of these days. I’ll try to pre-plan doing something that will cause that to happen. HNY to you! I don’t think I know Harold Jacobson. He doesn’t ring a bell. Why is it called ‘J’? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thank you. We need a wish of ‘every success’. Much appreciated. That sofa time sounds really nice. It does. I got tingly and relaxed just imagining it. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! I’ve been wondering and wondering how you are! I’ve missed you! This is awesome: seeing you! Oh, so are you not handling ALG anymore? Man, concentrating on your writing is such the genius move in my humble opinion. Nice Austin Islam quote. That’s a really good way to think about it, for absolutely sure. Real Pants seems really good. I just got alerted to it yesterday. And Enclave too, yeah. I had the same worry about the post-Alt Lit scandal effect, or I guess I wasn’t sure how damaging that would be to people’s reading and writing. But, from way outside the situation, it seems more like a decentralization has happened, or a new configuration has arisen or something mostly. I don’t know. I was really happy to see the new ‘Shabby Doll House’. I feel like that couldn’t have come at a better time. Anyway, yeah. So good to see you, my friend! Please please hang out here as much as seems fruitful to you in your own great efforts. ** Keaton, Hi. Is that quarter in the cabbage thing one of those kooky New Years ritual things like eating black eyed peas? Over here they have Galette de Rois (sp?), these flat cakes that have a porcelain toy-ette baked into them, and if you get the slice with the porcelain thing inside, you not only get broken teeth, you also get good luck for the whole year. Oh, old Horror stuff, or stuff with classically spooky, anticipatory sounding titles. Okay. It is going to be great New Year! It really is! I really think so too! ** Bill, Hi, Bill! Happy 2015 to you too! Welcome back! Was Vietnam fun or interesting or did it have a quality that doesn’t belong under the descriptive powers of those two adjectives? ** Mark Gluth, Yay. I’m so happy that you, of all people, liked the Millhauser post! Ultra-happy New Year, man! And, oh, I loved your Listi interview! ** James, Hi, James! ‘Edwin Mulhouse’ is one of my all-time favorite novels, yeah. Well, why not read another Millhauser instead of rereading ‘EM’? He’s almost always great. I think, as of this moment, that I will be visiting LA next at the beginning of March. I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen, and, oh, am I looking forward to it. I haven’t been to LA in over a year! Much love back. ** Slatted light, Hi, D! Cool about the Mullen. Yeah, seems completely logical that it would be great. The Carson too, I have no doubt. I.e., don’t hate me, Anne, if I may call you Anne. I’ve actually heard of ‘Lake Mungo’. I made a note to watch it at some point which got covered over in the gigantic pile of crap and non-crap on my desk. Cool, I’ll make a new note and float it on the pile’s top. Ha ha, good joke! And rimshot! I’m going to try to remember it because I only remember 3 jokes which I have now told everyone I know so often they are drones. The musical ones, not the flying ones. Good question about our film’s future. Our producers are extremely cagey and vague with us about that stuff. I think there’s some kind of deal in the US with some company who put a little money into the film’s production in return for getting to do a really limited theater release and release the DVD. Otherwise, I don’t know. I think the plan is to get the film into the best festivals possible, hopefully build buzz and then get swamped by distribution offers? Our producers seem to be into keeping us in the dark. But maybe I’ll know more soon when we finish the film, hopefully sometime this month. Cheerio for now in return! ** Okay. You get another gig today, this one featuring new stuff I’ve been listening to, and please have at it. See you tomorrow.