Compared to a not too distant past, the German label Frank Mark Arts and many of its stalwarts and regular collaborators, whose artistic incontinence seems to be an existential hallmark, appear to have veered towards the relative abandonment of experimentation on electric guitars and processed, sometimes mannered, dives fully into forms completely free from patterns and migrations towards territories of improvisation and electronics, which seem to be functionalized to make one abandon listening to their own mental digressions. So, it becomes very likely that, listening to some artifact of the Frank Mark brand, one might forget about the underlying structures of the citaredic interweaving of the various tracks to let one's mind embark on abstract journeys submerged by a set of aural stimulations as in an imaginary Lily pond. And one of these listens could be the one proposed in this album, the result of the munificent collaboration that has already gifted very interested moments under the aegis of Frank Mark's label, between guitarist Roman Leykam and composer Frank Meyer. As in other previous episodes, the Steinberger owned and played by Roman remains the absolute protagonist, evoking forms that constantly change with the application of effects. Shapes that hover within clouds sometimes reassuring (as in the initial "Blind Trust" and the sci-fi streaks of "A Sphere of Time and Space") sometimes alienating (as in the refluxes of "Enduring Effect" or in the progressive saturations of "Time Out of Joint") of synths, which intersect in oscillating digressions between ambient sounds that strongly evoke glorious rides of ambient predecessors like Brian Eno or Robert Fripp and elasticized forms (because they really seem stretched like an elastic band) of certain psychedelia of 80s rock, adapted to the aesthetic translations of some new laboratory polymer. Recommended for enthusiasts of the genre.

CrAwE is the work of one Adam Colman, who hails from Norwich, UK and describes his music as "Solo Improv Dark Ambient Guitar Soundscape Dronez with occasional contributions, the sound of the impending apocalypse and fridge buzz." I had previously reviewed "TogetherWeSashayThroughVariationsOfHell" and enjoyed it, so I was interested to see how this disc compared.

"IntelligenceExplosion" kicks it all off with a nice, dark composition with a simple beat and a heavy, droning guitar line. This is hypnotic and lovely. " Death " switches gears a bit with an intro of man speaking about Asimov's 3 laws of robotics before the main composition kicks in with heavy, plodding drums and a simple guitar line, which increasingly becomes more insistent and intense. In fact, "intense" would be the best descriptor for this album. For example, "ReturnToTheDesert" features heavy, plodding drone and drums and "DroneSwarm" brings us the sounds of pounding on metal dissolving into droning guitar. For me, the best tracks were "Kargu-2," which opens with an intro about machines taking over before diving into a minor tone multilayered composition with a heavy beat and "CapitalismInvestsInDeathNotLife" which would be right at home on an old school Projekt Records release (think Lycia or Black Tape for a Blue Girl).

Overall, this album is really solid, and the closest comparison I can come up with is Lycia. If you like droning, apocalyptic music, Cr(A)wE has got you covered. If there is a criticism to be had here is that the compositions are similar in feel, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unlike most Inner Demons discs, this is not a 3", but a full length album. This album weighs in at around 58 minutes. However, like most Inner Demons discs, this is limited to 42 copies, so you’ll want to get this before it is gone.

For those of you unfamiliar with Platonoff, this artist hails from Saint Petersburg, Russia and has been quite prolific on Inner Demons as of late. I had previously reviewed some of Platonoff's other work on Inner Demons and enjoyed it, so I was interested to see what this installment had in store for us. With a name like War, it is sure to be a nice, uplifting album, right? Let’s see what we have here from General Platonoff.

"Obeying the Call of Thanatos" kicks it off with interesting digital noise and squalls mixed in with clanking machinery-like metal. Kind of reminds me of a noisier Bardosenetticube, which is always a good thing. "Foreign Affairs Now" follows with squealing noise, like running over a bunch of elephants with a lawn mower. Next up, we have "War," and if the goal is to think of the machinery of war, Platonoff has a pretty good auditory metaphor going. "War" is machinelike, with a warbling bass undercurrent. This is the factory of war. There are no heroes here, only workers that function as cogs in the machinery. I am reminded of Adolf Eichmann's assertion that he was simply a technician, a bureaucrat that kept things moving. As Hannah Arendt observed, evil is not so much spectacular, but banal. "Defeat" closes it all out, and if the previous track was the battle, this is the crumbling aftermath. This is the sound of ruins that are actively falling apart.

Overall, this is very well done, and manages to evoke the presumably desired emotions. This album weighs in at around 32 minutes and is limited to 42 copies.

Juice Machine hail from Eugene, Oregon and is the improvisational live electronics wife and husband duo of Heather Chessman and Roger Smith, better known as Chefkirk. They describe their music thus: "Working in and around the confined genres of noise, tape music, found sound + drone while focusing on minimal tonal + maximal textural audio with rhythmic pulses and sharp jabs of uneasy waves and slurred motivational speeches." I enjoyed Smith’s solo outing, so let’s see what happens when we throw a spouse into the mix.

This is incredibly glitchy with plenty of analog bleeps and bloops, static washes, and filters that have been dropped to the bottom. Bits of voice are heavily processed beyond recognition to the point where it is absolutely unintelligible. Animal noises, looped sirens, and other field recordings round it out giving it a weird feel that is not quite noise. It's noisy, of course, but this is kitchen sink style noise, which I enjoy immensely. The overall effect is heavily improvisational, and you get the sense that they did this in one take. This is an instance where the collaboration is clearly more than the sum of its parts.

This is a good time and if you like noise with a heavy analog flavor, this is likely to be up your alley. Well worth picking up. This album weighs in at around 18 minutes and is limited to 42 copies.

I very much enjoyed Noise Hangover’s previous releases, "Event Horizon" and "Azathoth," so I was interested to see what was in store this time around. And in case the Azathoth title piqued your interest, their stated workplace on Facebook is "Plateau Of Leng at Yuggoth Inc." Watch out for the fungi out there, everyone. So let’s get hammered with Noise Hangover and see what happens.

"No Future" is a heavy droning number with low end drone interspersed with high pitched feedback squalls and analog tones mixed together. The feeling is unsettling, and the toggling between high pitches and low drone puts you on edge. Towards the end everything becomes more spastic, and the measures shifts are replaced by frantic turns of the knobs and everything sort of falls apart into a cacophony of noise. Well done.

"The End of Everything" unloads a slab of dissonant drone that is heavy enough to put on a scale. Imagine someone holding down all of the keys on a synth and then turning it up to 11. This is underscored by rumbling noise, hiss, and feedback. At the end, it all dissolves into a sea of feedback and fades away. Like everything.

If you're looking for peaceful drone, you'll need to look elsewhere. If you want to piss off your neighbors, Noise Hangover has got you covered. This is incredibly well done, and I have yet to find a Noise Hangover release that I didn't enjoy. Well worth picking up. This album weighs in at around 18 minutes.