Boomkat – new NATE YOUNG, SUNN O))) MEETS NURSE WITH WOUND, etc

*We’ve just not been able to stop listening to this amazing album from Wolf Eyes’ Nate Young – an immense collection of dark, atmospheric synth constructions that sound like an unholy mix of Demdike Stare, Fabio Frizzi, Wolf Eyes and Photek’s seminal “Ni – Ten – Ichi – Ryu” stripped of its beats* Nate Young’s ‘Regression’ was a marked departure for the Wolf Eyes man – not just from the teeth-chattering noise his disciples are so familiar with, but also from his previous solo efforts. The horror-movie influenced synth and tape manipulations displayed a development of sound that bypassed the white noise he might have been associated with, but in volume rather than mood – and ‘Stay Asleep’ sees a similar shift. At no point does the record reach cacophonous volumes, but the effect is as moody and unsettling a record as you’re likely to hear all year. Not the sort of thing you’d expect on NNA I hear you say? Well think again – these are deftly modern synthesizer constructions, and while harrowingly dark (think Friday 13th / Fabio Frizzi axis) retain an air of the new that smashes the retro/nostalgia jams of Umberto or Xander Harris to tiny pieces. Young is a tried and tested expert in music that seeps from the gutters of US subculture, and ‘Stay Asleep’ is his most assured statement to date with its slippery synthesized leads and heaving basslines. In another life this might be placed alongside the academic electronic works Delia Derbyshire, but Young operates in a parallel universe far removed from our own, away from the trappings of taste or trend. All that’s left to do is sit back and absorb these alien transmissions, and marvel at the strength of character and originality once again displayed by this ever intriguing artist.

This is an album of Nurse With Wound remixes of Sunn 0))). You shouldn’t need any further inducement to buy it, but hey, we’ll indulge you…These are NWW versions of Sunn’s ØØVOID LP, and first appeared as a bonus disc on the 2008 Japan edition of the album; Stephen O’Malley has now dusted them down for a dedicated vinyl release on his Ideologic Organ imprint. It’s a clash of the titans, yes, but the results are more pensive and subtle than you might expect: Stephen Stapleton and Colin Potter zone in on the ambient character of the source material, and bring to it their own expertise in that field: the miasmic drones of Dsnystaxis have more in common with The Caretaker or GAS than metal, while ‘Ash On The Trees’ brings Pete Stahl’s imploring vocal – virtually inaudible in the original track – right to the fore, only to submerge it in a swamp of mercilessly reverbed SOMA guitar, smashed glass and digital shrapnel. If, like us, you have a soft spot for Nurse but have spent the last two decades craving something as considered, engrossing and creepily beautiful as their ’88 masterpiece Soliloquy For Lilith (also O’Malley’s favourite release of theirs, apparently), then it’s fair to say your time has come. Jaw-droppingly good.

*Edition of 300 copies only * Husband/wife synthesists and nu-New Age dreamers Grant and Rachel Evans commemorate their crystal anniversary with a lush split in their solo guises. As Nova Scotian Arms, Grant contributes the magical, deeply arresting ‘Navigation (Devotional)’ to the A-side. It’s one of the most impressive pieces we’ve heard by him, charting a dramatic, rolling topography of Kosmische astral projections, gravity-defying synth harmonics and passages of mind-bending electronic chaos with a steady hand and romantic vision. B-side Rachel appears as Motion Sickness Of Time Travel with two beautiful pieces: ‘Censer’ is a pop-wise meditation on sustained synth chords and cascading, heavenly vocals, while ‘Lotus Flower’ is a longer segment of copulating drones and fluid, bloopy textures conducted with a mystical, female sensuality.

Wow, well that was unexpected. “Ecstasy And Wine” was originally released in 1989 and compiles the ‘Strawberry Wine’ EP and the “Ecstasy” mini-album, both originally released in 1987. It’s an amazing 10-track document of the band’s earliest recordings and predates their better known recordings for Creation. Now, over 20 years later, Kevin Shields has unearthed a stash of mint, unplayed, original copies, still in the sealed pressing plant boxes they were originally shipped in. We have very limited copies available from that original stock – an unmissable opportunity to grab yourself a slice of British music history in its original, vintage form.

Mark Fell is on a roll right now, and his latest offering is as conceptually considered and sonically visceral as we’ve come to expect. Periodic Orbits Of A Dynamic System Related To A LP consists of two 23-minute pieces (entitled simply ‘This Side’ and ‘That Side’) that riff on past material – including an outtake from his recent Multistability LP, a quadraphonic piece composed for the Supersimetria event in Barcelona earlier this year, live versions of previously released and unreleased tracks. Fell describes it as an “almost-live-album”: it was entirely written, mixed and edited with MIDI, and features three modified ’80s Yamaha presets; it also happens to contain some of his most accessible and melodic constructions to date. Few people are capable of bringing such depth and charisma to hardcore electronic music, and we can safely say that Periodic Orbits is essential tackle for fans of the brain-scrambling stuff.

*2011 Remastered reissue – includes a bonus disc plus 2 previously unreleased mixes from the 80s’* “For the first time in 30 years Throbbing Gristle are now back on their own original Industrial Records label. To mark the occasion we are pleased to announce the rerelease of TG’s first five albums on vinyl & CD. Each album has been restored and remastered specifically for each format by Chris Carter from 24bit ‘baked tape’ digital transfers of the original first generation analogue master tapes. Vinyl – The newly cut 180-gram vinyl editions include painstakingly restored cover artworks, using original source material from the Industrial Records visual archive. In addition each of the vinyl releases include an exclusive large format 8-page colour booklet featuring an abundance of Throbbing Gristle archival material, including some previously unpublished photos of the band. Each vinyl release is limited to 2000 copies. COMPACT DISC Each of the CD special-editions are presented in a gatefold sleeve featuring restored and remastered cover artworks and an integrated 8-page booklet (* the booklets feature different artworks and content to the vinyl editions). While the CD releases feature the same track count and running order as the vinyl editions each CD special-edition also includes an exclusive bonus CD containing content from the year of the albums original release. This additional content includes TG live tracks and remastered singles. The Greatest Hits CD special-edition also includes two previously unreleased Throbbing Gristle mixes from the 1980s’. CD Tracklist Disc 1 1/Hamburger Lady 2/Hot OnThe Heels Of Love 3/Subhuman 4/AB/7A 5/Six Six Sixties 6/Blood On The Floor 7/20 Jazz Funk Greats 8/Tiab Guls 9/United 10/What A Day 11/Adrenalin Disc 2 01/The Old Man Smiled (Alternative Mix) Previously Unreleased 02/Zyklon B Zombie – 7″ Single 03/Dead On Arrival 04/We Hate You (Little Girls) 05/Five Knuckle Shuffle – 7″ Single 06/Discipline (Berlin – Edit) -12″ Single 07/Persuasion 08/AB7A (AB7B Mix) Previously Unreleased 09/Distant Dreams (Part Two) – 7” Single

*Second pressing of quite honestly one of the best albums of any description you’ll hear in 2011 housed in custom Metallic Silver Jackets designed by: Jesselisa Moretti and hand-stamped, hand-stickered centre-labels* Julia Holter is one of the most singular female artists we’ve encountered from the current groundswell of American indies. Leaving Records is possibly an unusual home for her latest, but then again, what’s “usual” about Sun Araw, Matthewdavid or Dem Hunger? Her high concept fifth release, ‘Tragedy’ is based on the Ancient Greek play ‘Hippolytus’, and mixes elements of synth work with droning neo-classical strings, cloud-like ambience and dreamily surreal vocals, almost like an amalgam of Robert Ashley, Maria Minerva and Laurie Anderson. There’s very little else out there right now with this sort of ambition, and most importantly, such a shockingly effective sense of wonder. A stunning, stunning album and an absolute must regardless of the kind of music you usually listen to. *Please note that this is a hand-assembled LP that comes in a custom jacket – even the centre labels have been hand-stamped and stickered. As a result the record has a handmade feel to it and should not be bought by those of you who like your pressings and sleeves flawless. Personally we find the whole thing adds to the charm (our copy has a centre label that kinda peels off, and the pressing certainly isn’t the cleanest we’ve ever heard ) – so if that’s not your bag then please steer clear. To the rest of you – enjoy!*

*Strictly limited Initial copies come in a thick-spined LP-style printed sleeve* Blackest Ever Black’s dysphoric duo present their most exquisitely realised single. A year in the making, ‘Hennail’ renders their illicit sound with an ever finer appreciation of tonal subtlety and tendon-tightening rhythmic dynamism. Their influences – militant, misanthropic post punk, hydraulic hardcore jungle and wasteland ambience – are more explicit than ever, yet utterly dissolute from the mass. On ‘Told And Collapsed’ the drums hang and swoon with a filigree syncopation owing as much to The Danse Society as Source Direct, while vein-popping industrial hollers are inverted deep into the matrix, beautifully accenting the track’s barely-repressed violence at the most crucial, tongue biting moments. On ‘You Will Lift Your Frame Clear’ shuddering bass takes precedence, desecrating their soundsphere with a noxious, choking presence giving license to the onset of cenobite synth sighs and awning strings which subliminally ratchet the terror levels to startling degrees. Play it as loud as you can take…

*Strictly limited copies – just 100 of these have been made* Promising new imprint Snug Life finally kick-start their run of limited releases with a two-track 45 of blasted post-industrial beat-offs by Ekoplekz and Drvg Cvltvre. The label are proposing a series of 7″, CD and DVD releases from the likes of Leyland Kirby, Cosmic Dennis Greenridge and Vindicatrix and more in coming months, and if this one is anything to go by, the quality of tunes and curation should be impressive. First up, with ‘Like Cattle You Run’ Drvg Cvltvre (fka Ra-X) hits a sodden rut of effluent electronics on sounding like KPLR-meets-Madteo deep under the influence of some untested  Dutch pharmaceuticals. Flipside Ekoplekz’s ‘So Allein Replekz’ inversion is far more destroyed, extruding your third ear thru flanging, echoic chamber dub noise sounding somewhere between Kevin Drumm and something off Laurel Halo’s ‘Antenna’ tape. TIP!

*First pressing Includes postcard + A4 insert with extensive sleevenotes by Tony Burnham aka Antonym* ‘White Savage Dance’ collects five seminal recordings by Karl O’Connor (Regis) as Sandra Electronics made between 1986 and 1999. They document the very earliest years of a canonical artist and his nascent experiments influenced by late ’70s electro, post punk and European Industrial – from Robert Rental to DAF, Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire – which would lay the foundations for a wealth of inspirational, definitive Techno productions. The A-side features three calcium and vitamin C-deficient tracks dating to 1986-88: the hypnotic, wheezing synths and dry rhythms of ‘Clean Air’ from 1986, beside the scrawny, phet-infused german version, and clenched english version of ‘Here And Now’ from 1988. The mindset and aesthetic is caustic, stripped-searched and sly but not without a prototypical form of the dark elegance which would come to define his later work. The flipside tracks ‘I Understand’ and ‘A Man Has Responsibilties’ came about a decade later and feature Karl’s spiky brummie vocals set to brittle, mechanical drums played by Go Go Girl and recalling the stripped-down repetitions of his heroes DAF. In total, these tracks isolate an essence of urging, prodding funk and punkish noise which has been integral to certain strains of the techno lineage since rockabilly and found thru Can, the Cab’s and right up to the likes of Powell nowadays. Essential works – a must for Regis obsessives and newbies alike.

*Brand new 7-track EP, pressed up on white vinyl and housed inside embossed inner and outer sleeeves* Special request for Zomby!!! 4AD drop an addendum of sorts to one of the albums of the year, ‘Dedication’, comprising seven brand new tracks spanning ‘ardcore jungle revives, glassy digital steppers and swaggered bleeps. On a ‘ardcore tip, there’s ‘Labyrinth’ no doubt dedicated to the legendary London venue, plus the stush breakbeat twyst of ‘Sens’ and the cusp-o-the-’90s-styled freewheeler ‘Ecstasy Versions’. Steppin’ melancholy, there’s the austere, finger-poppin’ ‘Digital Fractal’, the tucked-in, Arabesque roller ‘It Was All A Dream’ and the iced-out, Kuedo-styled stunner ‘Trapdoor’. Limited copies!

A bit unexpected this – Night Slugs dude Egyptrixx and pals, Ohbijou, cover Dylan Carlson’s Earth song ‘Old Black’!? Backed with the equally experimental, yet more dancefloor-oriented ‘Hiawatha’ it comprises his most intriguing and esoteric release to date, succinctly melding a shiny electro aesthetic with more bruised drone/shoegaze textures in a strange, syncretic union. Floor Toms and rusted railway rhythms swirl with electronics, guitars and cooing vocals somewhere between A.C. Marias and Tropic Of Cancer on the cover version, transposing the windswept intent to a more artificial framework but keeping the dramatic quality intact. Flipside, the deranged ‘Hiawatha’ finds a more urging hybrid of sculpted guitar noise and snapping 808 augmentations with whisky-faced synth dissonance, frothing slightly at the mouth and locked into glazed-eye swing. It’s remarkably bewitching and highly recommended.