Sunn O))) - Flight Of The Behemoth (2002)

| Drone Metal | Dark Ambient | Doom Metal |
| Experimental |

Sunn's first two discs, The Grimmrobe Demos and 00 Void, established the group's droning, bass-heavy "power ambient" doom style and showed that the bandmembers had spent plenty of time listening to and learning from their Earth records. With Flight of the Behemoth, they begin with that same basic foundation (in fact, the first two tracks are impossible to distinguish from ones on their earlier albums), but for the first time also branch out to create something new, something that goes beyond any sort of mere Earth worship. This is partially true of the last track, "F.W.T.B.T.," which employs a drummer and a vocalist for the first time on any Sunn recording, but more so on the third and fourth ones, "O))) Bow 1" and "O))) Bow 2." Given the once-over by special guest mixer/legendary noise artist Merzbow, Sunn's hypnotic, slow-as-molasses feedback drones slowly evolve into a wall of distorted, swirling (although not completely overdriven) noise on these tracks, creating the sensation of being slowly sucked into a black hole while a symphony of chain saws plays in the background. Sound like fun? Well, needless to say, this music is not for everybody, but this collaboration has yielded something truly immense and frightening, bridging the gaps between dark ambient/drone music and electronic noise, between doom metal and avant-garde electro-acoustic sound. This is a remarkable album, recommended for brave connoisseurs of any of the above genres.

Catalog: SUNN15 (Southern Lord)
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Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (2008)

| Drone Metal | Doom Metal | Dark Ambient |
| Experimental | Black Metal |

Sunn O)))'s Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley began their career as an Earth cover band, and explored the extremes of the low-tuned electric's guitar's drone capability at maximum volume on The Grimmrobe Demos. Later albums, such as 2005's Black One, showed the duo expanding its sonic extremes, engaging a deep love of black metal by adding shrieking, growling vocals by Wrest, as well as additional instruments (like drums) by Oren Ambarchi. Altar, their collaboration with Japanese rockers Boris, provided them with a wider textural and ambient canvas to explore. Their vinyl-only release Dømkirke, recorded in a 100-year-old cathedral in Norway, utilized the building itself as an instrument, where its nooks and crannies echoed back microtones of the band's own high-powered drones on tape. That said, nothing could have prepared listeners for the wide-ranging adventure that is Monoliths and Dimensions. This 53-minute set contains four tracks. O'Malley and Anderson utilize more guests and collaborators than ever before, including vocalist Attila Csihar, who gives his greatest performance since Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas; Ambarchi; Earth's Dylan Carlson; trombonists such as jazzman Julian Priester and the Deep Listening Band's Stuart Dempster; trumpeter Cuong Vu; multi-instrumentalist Steve Moore; male and female choirs; other reed and wind players; and violist Eyvind Kang as an arranger. While Sunn O))) sound exactly like themselves, they seem to approach the music of composers such as Arvo Pärt and John Cage; they utilize the former's tintinnabuli (three bells) theory as well as engage the latter's notion of silence as a process.

If all this sounds pretentious, think again about who we're talking about: the kings of wearing black hooded robes to perform. The set begins with "Aghartha," full of power drone low-tuned guitars, as one might expect. Slow and plodding for five and a half minutes, it pummels on until Csihar enters in a lower than low yet barely audible voice speaking a long poem about the creation of a new Earth. Priester later enters playing a conch shell, two acoustic double bassists come in on the low end, Ambarchi plays a second electric guitar and effects, a piano sparingly adds both chord and single-note lines, and other horns and reeds flit about the background even as the piece remains unchanging in its focus. "Big Church" is the biggest shock. Commencing with an a cappella female choir, it's soon intruded upon by four electric guitars; Csihar eventually enters in throat-singing overtone mode, as does a synth, and the tension becomes unbearable before the tune stops in dead silence. Then, bells, an organ, Kang's viola, and trombone all find their way through the immense space provided by the slow droning yet extremely heavy riffs. Feedback screams in and then the bells enter again before power riffs crush them out. A "man choir" participates on "Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia)," with percussion, a huge Moog Voyager, electric tamboura, and horns amid the droning guitar mayhem slowly penetrating the listener's skull like a giant worm. By the time the set ends with "Alice," featuring a trio of trombones, woodwinds, reeds, ambient sounds, enormous guitars, and oscillators, the effect is complete. Monoliths and Dimensions succeeds because it is the sound of a new music formed from the ashen forge of drone, rock, and black metal. In its seemingly impenetrable, slow, spacious, heavy sonic darkness, this is the new way forward for not only Sunn O))), but for extreme rock music and possibly even what's left of the avant-garde. Brilliant.

Catalog: SUNN100 (Southern Lord)
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Ghost - Hypnotic Underworld (2005)

| Psychedelic Rock | Experimental Rock | Folk Rock |
| Progressive Rock | Stoner Rock |

A collective of psychedelic-minded Japanese musicians headed by guitarist Masaki Batoh, Ghost records commune-minded free-range psychedelia with equal debts to the Can/Amon Düül axis of Krautrock, as well as West Coast psych units like Blue Cheer and Jefferson Airplane. Batoh grew up in Kyoto, where he attended a private school well-geared to spark his interest in rock music, from Dylan and Pink Floyd to the Velvet Underground. Later, he formed Ghost with a large and varying lineup, centered around contributors such as Michio Kurihara, Kazuo Ogino, and Taishi Takizawa. According to reports, the group lived a nomadic existence, drifting from ruins of ancient temples to disused subway stations around the Tokyo area.

Five years after releasing both Snuffbox Immanence and Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet, Ghost returned with Hypnotic Underworld, and there were some changes in the band. Cellist Hiromichi Sakamoto and percussionist Setsuko Furuya (whose marimba gave those albums such a distinct sound) are gone, replaced by a great young rhythm section of Takuyuki Moriya (bass, conta bass, cello) and Junzo Tateiwa (drums, tabla, percussion). Also, Ghost co-founder Taishi Takizawa continues as producer but rejoins the group as a musician as well (he has served only as producer since the mid-'90s). Of course, Masaki Batoh is still here, along with longtime keyboard player Kazuo Ogino and guitar hero Michio Kurihara. With a brief U.S. tour (October 2002) under its belt, the band really jelled, and with Hypnotic Underworld, Ghost have released their most expansive set yet. The four-part title track starts somewhere near the Heliocentric Worlds, with Takizawa's sax playing over the sparest of bass figures and percussion as wisps of electronic ether float in and out. This morphs into a fuzzbass-led groove with great soprano sax that leads into a hard rock movement with a choir adding to Batoh's vocals and an ending so surprising I'll leave it for the listener. This epic track is followed by a glorious cover of Earth & Fire's "Hazy Paradise." The production here is amazing, with harpsichords, Mellotron, and sitar melting into each other and a majestic Kurihara guitar solo at the end. "Kiseichukan Nite" features a very pretty Celtic harp and recorder over a simple bass ostinato and Batoh speaking in Japanese with little washes of electronic treatment creeping in. This album is all over the place stylistically, yet it all sounds like Ghost, even with the electronic treatments and almost prog rock keyboards that hadn't been present on their prior albums. They turn in a version of Syd Barrett's "Dominoes" that is so completely personalized as to be virtually unrecognizable. "Piper" is a rocker featuring some blistering guitar work, and "Ganagmanag" is a classic Ghost-style instrumental trance jam, highlighted by Takizawa's flute and amazing production work. Batoh's vocals have never been stronger, and Ogino's various keyboards add a new dimension to the Ghost sound. Kurihara, as mentioned, is brilliant on electric guitar. The sound achieved by Takizawa and the band is a stunning mixture of ancient acoustic, hard electric, and electronic that Jimmy Page should be envious of. Hypnotic Underworld is a new high-water mark from one of rock's most interesting bands. Highly recommended.

Catalog: DC249CD (Drag City)
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Sunn O))) - Dømkirke (2008)

| Drone Metal | Dark Ambient |

When ambient drone overlords Sunn 0))) were commissioned to create a musical piece to be performed at the thousand-year-old Dømkirken Cathedral, in Bergen, Norway (aka the black metal capital of the world, where things really do go bump in the night), they were asked to take into account the sort of brooding, deliberate, low-pitched melodies typical of the Gregorian chants, which had echoed within the same walls back in the days when the Black Death was ravaging all of Europe. To which one can only imagine their response went something like: "Easy. Done. When should we show up?" After all, much Sunn 0)))'s output over the years already resembled a new millennium equivalent of Gregorian chanting, so it's quite possible that the dynamic duo of Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley had several works in hand, ready to be adapted to this very task. So after rounding up a few well-suited collaborators like Hungarian-born vocalist Attila Csihar (he of Mayhem and general black metal legend), local electronics wiz Lasse Marnhaug, and Earth keyboardist Steve Moore (who would man the cathedral's pipe organ), the expanded Sunn 0))) not only provided a momentous grand finale for the 2007 Borealis Festival, but also captured the unique occasion for posterity, via the following year's Dømkirke release. Ah, but there's more: as a final twist (and no, we're not talking about the group's coordinated hooded monks' cloaks), it was decided that the "purity" of the event should be preserved by releasing Dømkirke only on vinyl -- not a single digital format. And without getting into the many debatable pros and cons surrounding this decision from a consumer standpoint, the fact is that a commemorative, 180-gram double-vinyl package certainly works for presenting each of the performance's four, 15-plus-minute movements, one to a side.

All that said, what of the music then? Well: the first piece, entitled "Why Dost Thou Hide Thyself in Clouds?" showcases Csihar alternating between wild operatic cries and more controlled guttural croaks, above the predominantly peaceful reverie produced by Moore's sweeping organ chords; and it's not until the second piece -- named "Cannon," possibly to signify Sunn 0)))'s corruption of the canon structure for their own, perverse devices -- that Anderson and O'Malley make their entrance via characteristically earth-shaking power chords, occasionally spiked with almost horn-like electronic interjections from Marnhaug, sparse organs, and whispered/sung incantations from Csihar. Movement number three, "Cymatics," demonstrates the abrupt decay of these various elements into a throbbing mass of feedback, haunted by Csihar's petrifying howls and shrieks (sounding somewhat like dying birds of prey); and then the concluding "Masks of the Atmospheres" sees the ensemble wrestling their willful, shapeshifting sound-beast back into submission for an another powerful display of sonic seismic activities, culminating in a deafening, sustained climax. Only then, as the pulsing waves of sound gradually give way to silence, the assembled audience finally, almost begrudgingly reacts, as though snapped free, en mass, of a temporary state of hypnosis caused by Sunn 0)))'s devastating onslaught. Not bad for a one-off performance! And perhaps it is best, after all, that Dømkirke was produced in limited quantities and only on vinyl, as its contents truly work best when absorbed as a one of a kind event, than allotted alongside the natural evolution of Sunn 0)))'s discography.

Catalog: SUNN94 (Southern Lord)
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Sunn O))) - Black One (2005)

| Drone Metal | Doom Metal | Black Metal |
| Dark Ambient |

The self-described "power ambient" duo Sunn 0))) (pronounced "Sun") were formed in the mid-'90s by guitarists Stephen O'Malley (Khanate, Burning Witch) and Greg Anderson (Goatsnake, Thorr's Hammer). Known for its drone-heavy blend of black metal, dark ambient, and low-tuned noise rock, the band took inspiration from the early works of the Melvins and Earth, the latter of whom inspired some of the group's song titles -- Sunn 0))) began as an Earth tribute band in Los Angeles and originally played music under the related name of Mars. Sunn 0)))'s basic approach (droning guitars, feedback, distorted bass, and other sound effects) was laid down on their first two releases, The Grimmrobe Demos (recorded in 1998 but not released until 2000) and 00 Void (recorded and released in 2000), both of which were the first two releases on the Hydra Head Records subsidiary Double H Noise Industries.

Although claiming that Black One is the darkest Sunn 0))) album yet may be a little overzealous on their label's part (unless, of course, its meant as a not-so-subtle play on most recent predecessors White1 and 2), there's certainly a good chance that it's their most diverse. Whether that's a simple case of there being more and shorter songs present (all of seven, and only shorter by these guys' standards, mind you), or an unprecedented volume of outside collaborators (mostly underground black metal buddies lending their vocals), Black One experiments with a number of new tricks to go with the by now expected ultra-droning aspects of Sunn 0)))'s sound. For example, both "Orthodox Caveman" and "Cry for the Weeper" drink from the same old, Earth-derived dead-water pool that inspired Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley to start melting their amps in tribute to begin with; while the improbably brief "It Took the Night to Believe" (featuring blood-curdling shrieks and croaks by Wrest) may well be Sunn 0)))'s most unapologetically black metal moment ever, taking a page from Burzum's bloody book with its spooky loop of buzz-picked guitar melodies to go with a reliably subterranean foundation. Keeping with the black metal mindset, the pair then proceed to deconstruct Immortal's "Cursed Realms (Of the Winterdemons)" into a barely recognizable primordial soup of tonal thrumming, before calling Xasthur's Malefic down to the basement to supply additional screams for the splendidly named "Candlegoat" and megalithic closer, "Báthory Erzsébet." (For the latter, in fact, he was supposedly locked inside a coffin, microphone and all, so as to inspire a suitably suffocating feeling of horror -- proving that extreme sounds sometimes truly do demand extreme measures.) In other words, Black One is a cautious but unquestionable departure from Sunn 0)))'s pre-established m.o., and arguably their most accessible effort to date, in the bargain. But even though there'll always be those purists looking for a bone to pick, its difficult to imagine too many original fans not embracing these still remarkably blackened sounds.

Catalog: SUNN50 (Southern Lord)
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Les Rallizes Dénudés - Black Rainbow (2005)

| Avant-Garde | Noise Rock | Psychedelic Rock |
| Experimental Rock |

4 tracks from 1981. Issued as the 2 Bonus discs of Double Heads. More Info at Discogs.

Catalog: UNIVIVE-004
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Joy Division - Closer (1980)

| Post-Punk | Alternative Rock | Gothic Rock |

If Unknown Pleasures was Joy Division at their most obsessively, carefully focused, ten songs yet of a piece, Closer was the sprawl, the chaotic explosion that went every direction at once. Who knows what the next path would have been had Ian Curtis not chosen his end? But steer away from the rereading of his every lyric after that date; treat Closer as what everyone else thought it was at first — simply the next album — and Joy Division's power just seems to have grown. Martin Hannett was still producing, but seems to have taken as many chances as the band itself throughout — differing mixes, differing atmospheres, new twists and turns define the entirety of Closer, songs suddenly returned in chopped-up, crumpled form, ending on hiss and random notes. Opener "Atrocity Exhibition" was arguably the most fractured thing the band had yet recorded, Bernard Sumner's teeth-grinding guitar and Stephen Morris' Can-on-speed drumming making for one heck of a strange start. Keyboards also took the fore more so than ever — the drowned pianos underpinning Curtis' shadowy moan on "The Eternal," the squirrelly lead synth on the energetic but scared-out-of-its-wits "Isolation," and above all else "Decades," the album ender of album enders. A long slow crawl down and out, Curtis' portrait of lost youth inevitably applied to himself soon after, its sepulchral string-synths are practically a requiem. Songs like "Heart and Soul" and especially the jaw-dropping, wrenching "Twenty Four Hours," as perfect a demonstration of the tension/release or soft/loud approach as will ever be heard, simply intensify the experience. Joy Division were at the height of their powers on Closer, equaling and arguably bettering the astonishing Unknown Pleasures, that's how accomplished the four members were. Rock, however defined, rarely seems and sounds so important, so vital, and so impossible to resist or ignore as here.

Catalog: FACT 25 (Factory)
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Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (1979)

| Post-Punk | Alternative Rock | Punk Rock |

Formed in the wake of the punk explosion in England, Joy Division became the first band in the post-punk movement by later emphasizing not anger and energy but mood and expression, pointing ahead to the rise of melancholy alternative music in the '80s. Though the group's raw initial sides fit the bill for any punk band, Joy Division later incorporated synthesizers (taboo in the low-tech world of '70s punk) and more haunting melodies, emphasized by the isolated, tortured lyrics of its lead vocalist, Ian Curtis. While the British punk movement shocked the world during the late '70s, Joy Division's quiet storm of musical restraint and emotive power proved to be just as important to independent music in the 1980s.

It even looks like something classic, beyond its time or place of origin even as it was a clear product of both -- one of Peter Saville's earliest and best designs, a transcription of a signal showing a star going nova, on a black embossed sleeve. If that were all Unknown Pleasures was, it wouldn't be discussed so much, but the ten songs inside, quite simply, are stone-cold landmarks, the whole album a monument to passion, energy, and cathartic despair. The quantum leap from the earliest thrashy singles to Unknown Pleasures can be heard through every note, with Martin Hannett's deservedly famous production -- emphasizing space in the most revelatory way since the dawn of dub -- as much a hallmark as the music itself. Songs fade in behind furtive noises of motion and activity, glass breaks with the force and clarity of doom, minimal keyboard lines add to an air of looming disaster -- something, somehow, seems to wait or lurk beyond the edge of hearing. But even though this is Hannett's album as much as anyone's, the songs and performances are the true key. Bernard Sumner redefined heavy metal sludge as chilling feedback fear and explosive energy, Peter Hook's instantly recognizable bass work at once warm and forbidding, Stephen Morris' drumming smacking through the speakers above all else. Ian Curtis synthesizes and purifies every last impulse, his voice shot through with the desire first and foremost to connect, only connect -- as "Candidate" plaintively states, "I tried to get to you/You treat me like this." Pick any song: the nervous death dance of "She's Lost Control"; the harrowing call for release "New Dawn Fades," all four members in perfect sync; the romance in hell of "Shadowplay"; "Insight" and its nervous drive toward some sort of apocalypse. All visceral, all emotional, all theatrical, all perfect -- one of the best albums ever.

Catalog: FACT 10 (Factory)
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John Zorn - Astronome (2006)

| Avant-Garde | Noise Rock | Avant-Metal |
| Experimental Rock |

John Zorn's utter fascination with and envelopment in the mystical occult and outsider art of the 19th and 20th centuries continues on Astronome. Dedicated to the same three figures who informed Moonchild (also released in 2006): magician and philosopher Aleister Crowley, poet and dramatic Antonin Artaud, and composer Edgard Varèse. Drummer Joey Baron, bassist Trevor Dunn and vocalist Mike Patton take on three lengthy compositions by Zorn, all of which were inspired by the success of the original song cycle. Zorn not only wrote, but arranged and conducted what essentially comes off as an aural three-act play, or "pocket opera" covering seven scenes. In his liner notes, Zorn speaks of his title as the imagined continuation of a collaboration that actually took place between Varèse and Artaud. It was titled "Astronome," but was never finished. Zorn using his methodology of "combining the hypnotic intensity of ritual (composition) the spontaneity of magick (improvisation) and in a modern musical format (rock)," and with it actually transcends rock, classical, jazz and free improv. What is woven together here is a tight piece of work. It sprawls through mood, style, dynamic, and texture, but ultimately is revealed to be a work of intense musicality, physicality that comes out of noise and some free improvisation. The second scene that bridges the work reveals all of these elements and makes sense of their order. It uses thematic material from the previous scene and extends it all the way to scene three. This music is violent, spacious, full of shocks and surprises and an intensity beyond what one is used to listening to, even from this composer. It is possible that what appears on this disc will be regarded one day as actually quite beautiful and moving, especially when Patton seems to be incanting in the lower registers of his voice. Packaged like a fetish object, Astronome is contained in a two-part, glossy white box with four full-color -- yet minimal -- panels of the art of the Zodiac circle. There is printing on all sides of the box. There are also two glossies within the set loaded with photographs of the three spiritual guides who hover throughout this gorgeous monstrosity of a work; scenic sepia-toned plates, the occasional quotation, and text by Zorn. The sound on this baby -- thanks to engineer Robert Musso and the mixing sensitivity of Bill Laswell -- is simply amazing. Astronome cannot be explained or even commented upon with conventional written-language technology; that said, each true fan of Zorn should make the effort to try and take this work in.
It's a masterpiece.

Catalog: TZ 7359 (Tzadik)
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High Rise - Psychedelic Speed Freaks '84-'85 (1997)

| Noise Rock | Psychedelic Rock | Garage Rock |

PSF '84-'85 is, as the name suggests, a collection of early songs (not to be confounded with HR's first album, Psychedelic Speed Freaks). This is also their harshest and fastest album (which, by High Rise's standards, already says a LOT). Sounds like they've recorded this stuff using Merzbow's laptop and then put it twice faster. It must be nearly impossible for psychedelic rock to be louder or quicker than this. PSF '84-'85 makes harsh noise and speedcore bands sound like Jonas Brothers. The recording is visceral and psychotic as hell, and would exhaust even the most hyperactive kid in the block. Needless to say, run far away from this if you can't take massive destruction into your ears.

Catalog: Bomb-48 (Time Bomb Records)
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Earth - Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars (2001)

| Drone Metal | Doom Metal |

Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars is a kind of compilation, featuring a live performance and a handful of early demos. Ripped On Facist Ideas (live) is probably Earth's most noisy and abstract performance registered so far. For 30 long minutes, Dylan, joined by Ian Dickson, leave their instruments ringing alone in order to literally PLAY the amplifiers. Stretching, bending, flowing feedback bounces on the walls and crashes through the eardrums. Violent waves of noise contrast with long passages of atmospheric humming. Some occasional guitar is thrown in, which just adds more tension to the sound.

After the Drone assault, the album enters into a more riff-oriented territory. Songs like Geometry Of Murder and German Dental Work are extremely slow and heavy versions of Black Sabbath's riffage. Divine And Bright is the most catchy tune on the disc: Some melancholic, yet massive, guitar strums its way through illumination, followed by guests Kurt Cobain and Kelly Canary on vocals. Dissolution 1 is another riff-drone track, but this time they play a little more with the amp's power and less with the instruments themselves.

The Album also features one of the firsts Earth's releases: two tracks extracted from the Bureaucratic Desire For Revenge VHS (the self-titled and Ouroboros Is Broken). Both tracks are heavier than the rest of the album together, and at the same time, lots atmospheric. Sunn amps at their maximum and smashed guitars closing this classic CD. Highly recommended.

Catalog: NQR001 (No Quarter)
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Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull (2008)

| Post-Rock | Stoner Rock | Drone Metal |

What a long strange trip it's been indeed. When Earth -- basically Dylan Carlson -- disappeared from the music scene after Pentastar: In the Style of Demons, he'd become a black sheep to virtually everyone. Lost in the swirl of drug addiction, and having bought the gun that Kurt Cobain used in his suicide, it took years for Carlson to come to grips with his own evil spirits. While interest in the band never completely waned, it took the likes of Sunn 0))) and other big feedbacking drone worshipers to bring it to fruition. In 2005, Carlson's new Earth returned with Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method, a record that was less deafening, but strangely and hypnotically beautiful nonetheless, taking as a primary inspiration the spaghetti Western soundtracks of Ennio Morricone as a cue to create a new minimal soundscape that was sun-bleached, bone-dry, and more mysterious than anything they'd done before. Issued by Stephen O'Malley's Southern Lord label, 2008's The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull has a package that is something to behold, with a black textured slipcase, the band name and title embossed in gold, and a booklet featuring a perfect illustration of the title by Arik Roper in four-color glossy glorious art. The title of the album comes from the Old Testament of the Bible in the narrative of Samson and Delilah. Other than Carlson on guitars (and amplifiers), Earth also include drummer Adrienne Davies, Steve Moore on acoustic and Wurlitzer pianos and Hammond B-3, and bassist Don McGreevy (both electric and upright). Guitarist Bill Frisell helps out on three cuts as well, and Randall Dunn produced the set. Fans of the heavier, more ear-shattering version of the group will find themselves drawn to this more than Hex or the live Hibernaculum set; that said, The Bees Made Honey should also attract more recent listeners. Big guitars abound, but they're musical; they're as informed by a much more ringing brand of country sound that can be heard on records ranging from those of Lee Hazlewood to Thin White Rope's Tucson-drenched sonic six-string wind-downs. But in true Earth fashion, the long droning form is back, albeit tempered by minimal repetitive melodies that are simple in structure but hold great power.

The set begins with "Omens and Portents I: The Driver." It's nine minutes of controlled crawl. Carlson's guitar and wah-wah pedal are colored by the high ringing tone of Frisell's trademark sound -- albeit it far less ornamental than listeners are used to hearing him. Davies' drums, so easy to overlook, are perfect in their minimal, muted tom-tom pace; they help to register the tension in this gradually unfolding melody. Reverb, controlled feedback, detuned drone, and high-pitched whine all gradually flood the foreground while the bass and drums hold the line and simultaneously make the tempo nearly unbearable. The Wurlitzer paints the ground between the front-line instruments and the rhythm section, and hints of a lyric statement emerge, fade, disappear, and mutate into others -- very, very slowly. It's dark, powerful, forbidding music. "Rise to Glory," while still heavy despite the restraint in volume, is somewhat brighter. Carlson uses big chords, a slowly evolving riff, and a high-twang country ring in his attack, and the drums walk a middle ground between pulse and actual time signature. The acoustic piano that creeps and asserts itself between the guitar sounds is painterly, and feels like some kind of arrival from the wasteland. Frisell is more immediately present and noticeable on "Miami Morning Coming Down II (Shine)," which has almost a nursery rhyme melody, but its gradual pacing cleanses the palette of sentimentality and instead evolves into something resembling movement toward a much richer sonic landscape. With large B-sharp washes, off-rhythm single beats, and a droning bassline, this is as close to a song as Carlson has ever composed. The front-line complexity reaches its zenith in the middle of the record on "Engine of Ruin," where Frisell gets to work his magic in concert with Carlson playing an octave apart. The ringing open tone of his guitar and the low-slung harshness of the latter are complex, dynamically rich, and beautifully textural. Elements of the blues, big-riffing '70s rock (albeit tempered by the wonderful separation and clarity of the sound), and rockist sway make this one of the album's highlights.

The darkness returns on the latter half of the record, more pronounced with less actual articulation on the second part of the opening theme, introduced by a rumbling acoustic piano, knotty harmonics, and a framed melodic statement that is more complex and slightly faster, but still s-l-o-o-o-o-w; think of the flow of raw honey as it emerges from the cone. The final two cuts, "Hung from the Moon" and the title track, are so deeply atmospheric and beautifully arrayed that they need to be heard rather than discussed -- except to say that the latter is actually Earth's attempt at a shuffle, but in a time signature and dynamic manner that is all their own. The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull is more musical and adventurous than anything Earth have ever issued. It's a record that gets inside your body as well as your head and won't let go. It's rich and adventurous, and still contains the kind of restraint that allows for the spaces between sounds to accommodate their own voices. If Carlson and Earth don't get real soundtrack work for this brand of monumentally cinematic rock, there is no justice. It's odd to think that a band around this long is finally reaching its peak rather than trying to hold on to past glories.

Catalog: SUNN90 (Southern Lord)
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Earth - Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version (1993)

| Drone Metal | Doom Metal |

Earth isn't just the pioneers of Drone metal (a very repetitive and minimalist form of Doom Metal), they are also probably the best band in the whole genre. And all this because of this album. Earth 2 (which is their debut LP) is undoubtedly the heaviest album ever made. Composed by three long tracks and with more than 70min, 2 is an incomparable epic journey. Chords as low-tuned as possible and amplifiers louder than humanly bearable, guitarist and leader Dylan Carlson with bassist Dave Harwell produce probably one of the most repetitive Drone albums (which already says a lot), and at the same time, one of the most intriguing, textured, challenging and labyrinthine. Earth 2 dedicates itself to the proposition that there's no such thing as too loud, trudging, or doom-laden.

Earth 2 starts with the blacksabbath-ish Seven Angels. Even around all the humming chaos that surrounds the record from head to tail, things are still based around riffs (riffs, which, endlessly repeat and flows through the ground). And Seven Angels has the best riffage (if one could call it that) in the album. Massively slow and low-tuned, the guitar and the bass intertwine and reiterate infinitely, as the amps create a dense and tectonic atmosphere. Even the muted chords are powerful enough to blow the speakers and rupture the eardrums. As the record progress, the droning gets louder and the riffs gets longer. Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine takes over with no pause, and crawls the album's longitudeness restlessly. The notes get even more distorted and stretched, until the music becomes sort of ambient-ish. But when you give it attention, for one second even, you simply get helplessly dragged by it. The timeless notes and the eternal fuzz forcefully carries you into the melodic damnation. When you feel like you can't hold it anymore, Like Gold And Faceted comes to finish it. "Finish it", since it is even longer, louder and more powerful and destructive. The riffs now are so slow that even its notes are unrecognisably lacerated, and the impact becomes extended to the eternal pain. The slow-motion massive eruption's heath is solar hot, and yet, feels quietly warm. When you finally gets involved and absorbed by the drone, your mind gets bounded to the amplifier's endless walk. A tectonic and oceanic percussion leads the final way to glory, as the war rages to an end. An end that never seems to come.

Catalog: SP 185b (Sub Pop Records)
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Otomo Yoshihide ( 大友良英 ) - The Night Before The Death Of The Sampling Virus (1993)

| Experimental Electronics | Noise | Glitch |

If I had only a few words to describe this album, it'd be "random experimental electronics". On the liner note, it's written: "Application. Contained here is a total of 77 viruses. When you play this CD, you should be sure to utilize your CD player to it's maximum ability. This may be to set it on random play mode to shuffle its contents, or to adjust a given track on repeat mode and play it over and over, or to listen to it on fastforwarding... All ideas are acceptable. What is important to remember is that the user is the one to decide how they are to be utilized. And, of course, how they are to be executed (killed). Playing this CD through as regular music may cause the virus to perish or change in quality." As it's been said, the objective in here is to make the music as random as possible, as this factor is important for the enjoyment. The music consists of 77 short tracks of electronic work - including lots of vocal works (most of them delivered by Yamatsuka Eye and Tenko) -, which spawns from simple collage of samples from television advertisements (a characteristic in most of Otomo's works, and as seen in Ground-Zero), some "standard" Glitch music and, as expected, some Noise tracks. Overall, it's a very, very interesting album. Also, the songs are funnily titled with the name of big corps: Nintendo, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Sony, Sega, Toshiba, and a bunch of others.

Catalog: XCD 024 (Extreme)
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Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992)

| IDM | Electronica | Ambient Techno |
| Experimental Electronics |

Techno in general, is a test of one's endurance to repetition. For me it's about finding a balance between the trance state of the music and the overall composition of the song: rhythm, texture... etc. And what to say about Ambient? Before AFX, Ambient music was almost completely following the ground laid by Brian Eno and minimalist composers like Philip Glass, without many enhancements.
Both are based upon endless loops. Ambient tried to reach one's subconsciousness, but usually lacked of complex structures and/or catchy rhythms, what techno might had tried to accomplish, but failed upon giving the music a feeling as deep as in ambient music. That's where Richard D. James's, with the Aphex Twin monicker, geniality kicks in.

A landmarking album, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 sounds different from everything that precedes it. It takes the best aspects in both Ambient and Techno music and enhances them into a whole new level of musicianship. Its influence is highly visible in both the later sounds of electronic and minimalist music, and also fronting the IDM movement. If I had to pick one album of electronica, it'd be SAW.

As the name sugests, SAW is a collection of songs produced by the early period of Richard's musical life (obviously, from '85-'92). As for being a collection of songs, instead of a proper album, SAW lacks a little bit when it comes to cohesiveness (specially on the later half of it). Still, the songs are so strong individually that the lack works positively here, enhancing the individual power of each composition and giving the album a higher 'replay value'.

When it comes to the sound aspect, SAW 85-92 is mostly filled with a dark atmosphere. The aspects of ambient music are perfectly blended with the electronica style, each song being a otherworldly trip into the deep of the mind (yeah, that 'close your eyes and enjoy' stuff). Furthermore, the songs are beat-oriented - which, despite being quiet complex sometimes, feels really fragile and delicate. The album is also highly and desperately sparse, thin percussion and several haunted-synth lines are the only components on most songs. Besides, the album's whole sounding is pretty unique, due in large part to the effects James managed to wrangle from his supply of home-manufactured contraptions.

It's impossible to pick 'highlights' in such a perfect record, but my favourite tracks are Xtal, Pulsewidth and Ageispolis. Tha, We Are The Music Makers, Green Calx and Heliosphan are also among the strongest and catchiest. Overall, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is pretty much an example of a flawless album. It always gives me a hard to describe feeling, which I don't even know if is good or bad, but which I love profoundly.

Catalog: AMB 3922 CD (Apollo)
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akaaka - Anatomy (2010)

| Psychedelic Noise | Experimental Electronics |
| Tape Music |

Only a few noise albums are remarkable at one-listen, and only a fewer are strong enough to keep being puzzled and interesting after many plays. And that's the starting point of why do I love this album. Anatomy also differs itself from standard noise music by the method of its production. The album's skeleton is a collection of almost-musique concrete songs, supplied by field-recordings, tape loops and self-built electronic instruments. Then you add the muscles: the touch of electronica music, with added ambient-like synths; and the skin: the post-produced and modifier noise. Lots of layers of noise. Stripped down, Anatomy would sound like a 50s avant-electronics recording. But fully armoured, it stands strong as a huge monster of experimental noise. An extremely well-produced and excellently crafted album, Anatomy is one of the most innovative and avantgardist albums to come out from Brazil, when it comes to electronic music.

Embryological and Anatomy are as massive as Merzbow's best stuff. Lumen starts off as an affair of musique concrete with ambient music, before entering in a shrieking reign of abstract pain. Centers of Vomiting and Rash are collections of sonorous puzzles, which will mostly like blow your mind off before you put the pieces into place. And the intro, Ribcage Introduction, holds a funny story within: It's a recording, with post-production, of course, of an acoustic guitar burning in flames.

Catalog: VB-20 (Velvet Blue Records)
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Die Like A Dog Quartet - Fragments Of Music, Life And Death Of Albert Ayler (1994)

| Avant-Garde Jazz | Free-Jazz |

This first recording of the Die Like a Dog Quartet is fittingly subtitled Fragments of Music, Life and Death of Albert Ayler. In the liner notes (in both German and English), Peter Brötzmann writes of his passionate empathy for a musician whom he considers a kindred spirit; Brötzmann feels a link with Ayler since each were doing a similar thing "at the same point in time" although neither musician had heard the other. And so, lightly scattered throughout this first meeting of the Die Like a Dog Quartet are fragments of quotes from Ayler's Bells, "Ghosts," "Prophet," and more. In August 1993 Brötzmann was joined for a live concert in Berlin by legendary free jazz trumpeter Toshinori Kondo (who also occasionally utilizes electronics effects) and the wondrous rhythm section (although they are no straight time-keepers) of bassist William Parker and percussionist Hamid Drake. And so here, on one recording, you get four musicians who, whenever they're playing, play with every ounce of their attention, passion, and ability. Add to this each musician's great ability on his respective instrument and you get music that is alternately moving, invigorating, and astonishing. The dynamics range from rattles, long, low breaths, and short staccato blurts to the kind of exploding intensity and energy that is usually associated with Brötzmann. There are also two takes (one, just over a minute long) on the standard "Saint James Infirmary" that come at the beginning and end of the three-part "No. 2."

Catalog: FMP CD 64 (FMP)
Album Overview on Allmusic
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Die Like A Dog Quartet - Little Birds Have Fast Hearts No.2 (1999)

| Avant-Garde Jazz | Free-Jazz |

This second installment of the Die Like a Dog Quartet's live performances at the 30th Total Music Meeting in Berlin picks up right where the first volume (with two long cuts, "Part 1" and "Part 2") left off, with a first track entitled "Part 3." Leader Peter Brotzmann signals the beginning with a clarinet call, soon answered by trumpeter Toshinori Kondo (who often utilizes electronic effects), and it's not too long before bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake come rolling in. The quartet warms up slowly during this opening number, giving themselves plenty of space between the colors and shading for the first many minutes before things start to heat up and really get going for a few minutes until the quartet drops back into an unhurried, exploratory mode. The second half of this 20-minute improvisation finds them intensifying, with solos from both Kondo and Brotzmann (still on clarinet) during the tail end. "Part 4" matches the first track in both length and dynamics, finds Brotzmann on tarogato and tenor sax, and includes two brief sections where Parker and Drake go it alone. "Part 5" actually opens with a fragment of a bluesy melody from Kondo and Parker has his bow in hand for this number that stays, for the most part, whispery and abstract. The short "Part 6" is a finale during which the quartet plays full force. Little Birds Have Fast Hearts, No. 2 complements the first volume, including more of this quartet's excellent interplay and self-feeding energy.

Catalog: FMP CD 101 (FMP)
Album Overview on Allmusic
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Keiji Haino & Sitaar Tah! - Animamima (2006)

| Avant-Garde | Avant-Classical | Drone |
| Experimental | Noise |

Animamima–or Aunt Jemima as I like to call it–is a sprawling two-disc set of spectacular drone ‘n’ tussle from a huge all-star ensemble, including Keiji Haino on electric hurdy gurdy, electric sruthi-box, electric tanbur, flute, rhythm box and voice; Yoshida Daikiti on sitar; Sitaar Tah! manning 20 more of the things; and Fuyuki Yamakawa offering up some throat singing and igill–whatever the hell that is. Brought to you by the same label, recording and mastering folks that foisted Haino’s Reveal’d to None as Yet 2-CD upon the world, the whole thing is beautifully packaged beyond the call of duty in one of the nicest fold-out cards this side of Hallmark. We’re talking a deluxe die-cut job with intricate folds and ornate borders that lusciously frame photos of Haino and Sitaar Tah! in action. So, of course, I had to drop mine and crease the corner!

As the CDs twirl on, some saltine-raspy throat singing supports Haino’s own loud wailing, as he pilots his drone instruments and a heavily reverbed flute over an army of nicely monotonous sitars. Coated in the maximum amount of reverb possible, this whole aural contraption coalesces into layers of knocking, buzzing and low-pitched chugging to create a super shrill storm over a massive coastal bay with occasional rays of sunshine peeking through the dense fog. Needless to say, I highly recommend Aunt Jemima to fans of any and all minimal drone music…and a short stack of pancakes.

Catalog: archive22+23 (aRCHIVE)
Album Overview on Arcane Candy
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