Coming with a particularly beautiful cover, showing two wooden huts burning in a barren field, "Long Night" is a 25-minute piece for three pianos, composed by renowned musician and journalist Gann in 1980-81, and here executed by Sarah Cahill, who has previously worked with the likes of Terry Riley, George Lewis and Pauline Oliveros. The composer regards this as "the most successful piece from [his] early, Brian Eno-influenced, ambient period, a variable-length piece for three non-synchronized pianos at different tempos". Far from being jarring or chaotic, the piece is indeed very "discreet" music, with clusters of notes and recurring patterns layering and going adrift - much as when you try to remember a beautiful and long-lost melody, its contours and details blurred and faded.

"Hybrid Still Life" is the newest release from Chicago's "Infinity Interrupt". Riddled with oppressively dark moods and textures, "Hybrid Still Life" plays from beginning to end like a detailed soundscape to a life gone wrong. You can still see glimpses of a beauty that used to exist but now only shadows and detached memories of what that beauty was remain. It sounds great I know BUT I'm a bit split over this release. When sticking to ambient textures, tones and whispered story telling (used to great effect here) "Hybrid Still Life" excells. Haunting, dark and always intriguing. If this were the entire CD the review would end here and I'd say run out and get it. However, not everything is rosy in this darkland. "Hybrid Still Life" starts to lose ground a bit when Infinity Interrupt moves away from the previously described textures and start to employ more arpeggiated synths and drums. The songs aren't bad... they just aren't inspiring and seem flat when compared to the more texture oriented tracks. These tracks just take on a generic tone that don't match up to the coolness of the ambient stuff. All that said... I still recommend this disc for anyone who is a fan of relentlessly dark music and for those fans of Cold Meat material, you will find a good deal to like in "Hybrid Still Life". Stand out tracks: "Still Life" and "Crawl".

Latest solo release from this increasingly prolific artist, "Anamnesis", featuring three lengthy tracks of guitar-generated ambience, seems an ideal continuation, and counterpart at the same time, of Bradley's most isolationist works, like "Sepulchral" or the first "Drone works" ep. Raising the pitch of some octave, he builds serene and mind-expanding, rather than claustrophobic, soundscapes - the guitar notes dilate in immense clouds, only streaked by the chirp of delayed strings. I'd never have thought I'd come to say this, but this is Bradley at his most peaceful and approachable. Fans of prevalently or often melodic guitar-based drones (Troum, Moljebka Pvlse, True Colour of Blood...) should take note.

Genoa's pride Port Royal are one of the new italian sensations since they landed on a wellknown english label like Resonant and also for the fact one of their songs is included in the cd coming together with the issue #256 of The Wire. This five-piece play that mix of electronic music and indie rock (even if I wouldn't label it as "indietronic") that has become pretty popular lately, it's surprising how these guys have been able to do it really well despite their young age, anyhow that's not such a surprise for those who had the luck to own their demo. Somebody described their sound as something not so far from bands like Sigur Ros (for the fact theyr music is somehow "arctic"), Mogway (more ambient and with less explosions), Slowdive (for the "liquid-psychedelic" guitars and since some tunes are depressive but yet in a "shoegaze" manner). Even if the record is not meant as a concept the most of the tracks have been produced as two compositions in three movements apiece, that (but not just that) gives the whole cd a real sense of unity, one of the consequence of it is that many listeners will remain partially stoned by a sort of "trance-like" sensation that haunts the ten tracks. The record is a bit too long maybe but probably some of the early bands on Kranky would approve the over sixty minute of music, other listeners probably will be complaining about the fact it can be boring, but it's just up to your ears!. Some episodes of "flares" are surprisingly inspired and incredibly well projected, plus it's rare to hear such a production from a band at its debut. Somebody told me they're working on a remix record, I think it should be really interesting considered how remixable is the music they play. I don't know if a new star has born, but if you think "polar/north-european" indie-music "has it": you'd better give a listen to Port Royal.

Third cdr release from Andrea Freschi's solo project, and after the self-released "Outfall" (2003) and "Insomnie" (2004) it's also the first one to be released and distributed by a label, though on a limited run cdr. And, well, "Deserted Factory" could also be a good description for this work: deep cavernous drones juxtaposed or blended with reverberating machinery noises, truly bringing to mind a huge abandoned factory. Freschi uses pretty much the same palette as in his previous releases, but I really think he's dramatically improved the sound quality and mix, which obviously makes a huge difference in works like these. Electronics and software processing obviously play a major role, but there is no synth/keyboards abuse as in many ambient discs. A short, focused and monochrome (in a positive sense) work, "Obstacles" offers top-quality pieces of post-industrial ambient, like "The corridor of empty rooms" and "Asynchronism", which will hopefully give this now mature project the attention it deserves.