The bio starts that nula.cc “is the brainchild of intermedia artist Lloyd Dunn, a founding member of the Tape-beatles, and editor and publisher of the zines “PhotoStatic” and “Retrofuturism.” It comprises hours of sound works, hundreds of photographs, travelogue essays, and similar digital artifacts, which often reflect the artist’s frequent travels and esthetic thinking.

Side A is “Cicadas of Lake Lisi, on a rise overlooking the Saburtalo district of Tbilisi, Georgia.” This is exactly what one would expect, and for those unfamiliar with the sound of cicadas, it sounds like a million maracas shaking in unison. It is repetitive, but still fascinating and hypnotic.

Flipping it over to side B, we have “Bells of the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Spaso-Efimeyev Monastery in Suzdal, Russian Federation.” This is an interesting composition of bells pounding away, but the actual effect is rather soothing. Overall, this is quite nice and concludes with some people clapping, voices talking and animal noises.

One can think of nula.cc as a kind of curator of sound, and with these field recordings, he has pointed us to the everyday in an extraordinary way. If you enjoy field recordings, this will certainly be up your alley. This release weighs int at around 16 minutes and is limited to 250 copies. For those who prefer it digital, it also comes with a Bandcamp code.

The Brain is the Alias of Karl Gottlaus, a German-born guitarist and electronics engineer now living in Portland, Oregon. This is released on “Workshop of Filthy Creation, which is an allusion to Frankenstein. I was unfamiliar with either the artist or label. The label describes the album thus: “Featuring a battery of analog synthesizers, audio generators, and tape machines, as well as slashing, angular guitar and thunderous drums, All Human Is Error takes the molten past of 70s-era “kosmische musik” as an aural starting point before erupting into a volcanic hailstorm seething with calculated menace and unpredictable mayhem that at times recalls the instrumental fury of King Crimson and the industrial fumes of Heldon and Lard Free.” Sounds promising, so let’s drop this on the turntable and see what we have on the slab.

“Latent Violence Part 1” is a slow grooving guitar-based droning number. I was just starting to wonder where the experimental side would come in when “Latent Violence Part 2” kicked in with sweeping analog sounds and more Moog than you can shake a stick at. You could look at Part 1 as the solid and Part 2 as the gas version, in that one is much more solid and put together and the other is much more airy. “Red Noise in a Distortion Field” features “guitar, Minimoog, ARP Odyssey, ARP Omni, Audio Generator, Moog Filter Bank, Mu-Tron Phasor, Tapes” This is an analogfest with hiss and crackle and a repetitive beep throughout with a whole lot of phaser effects. Think 1950s sci-fi background sound effects and you’ll be on the right track.

Flipping the album over, we have “Scission,” which is almost funky with some serious drum lines by Body Hammer, who I could find nothing about, other than the bio that describes him as a Japanese drummer. “No Peace In Our Time” opens with a political speech snippet and then kicks into a repetitive synth line and sweeping synth washes. Finally, “Iron Lungs for Cities That Rust” closes it off with an atmospheric piece that evokes the title. Body Hammer plays both drums and sheet metal over The Brains sweeping synth, guitar wails, and static to evoke a post apocalyptic wasteland. Then, it just suddenly ends.

This is interesting stuff, and the variety is nice. If you like experimental with structure, this is well worth checking out. This album weighs in at around 41 minutes and is limited to 200 copies.

In the past I’ve reviewed work that found Philip Gayle collaborating with others such as "BERP," which was a collaboration with Ben Lind, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, and Barbara Rose Lange, but I believe this is the first thing I’ve reviewed from Gayle solo. The label states that "Philip Gayle’s 'reject. defect.' is his 10th solo album and last release before becoming an American expatriate and relocating to Japan. On these 11-tracks Gayle, again expands on his own personal free improv orbit of acoustic guitars, mandolins, waterphone and who-the-hell-knows what else. A massive wallop of sound." Sounds like a good time, so let's get into it.

There’s an old joke about free jazz music that states that the way to do it is to simply throw all of your instruments down the stairs and record that. Philip Gayle has, in this disc, assembled a whole host of people to join into the cacophony and from the very start, we have a whole lot of chaos. This can be expected when the notes say that Philip Gayle plays guitars, mandolins, water phone, and other things. But it’s not all complete chaos on "Gowanus Spittoon, Part 1," "Gowanus Spittoon, Part 2," and "Third Doctor Miracle Box" we have stories of sorts with Shelly Hirsch. "Gowanus Spittoon, Part 1" is kind of like strange poetry, where on Part 2 we have a tale that revolves around the connection between belts and borscht. "Third Doctor Miracle Box" gives us a story about Brylcreem and the swimmer Esther Williams. It’s difficult to find a thread throughout because it’s all stream of consciousness, which works well with the music itself. But this is not all completely in your face cacaphony. The last three tracks are actually kind of peaceful. At almost 12 minutes, "Gotham Spleen" is the longest disc on the track and has a kind of spacey ambience to it that is almost mournful. "Müßiggang" has a minimal feel to it and at the conclusion we keep this feeling going with the brief track "Le Mal Aimé."

This is not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, and I’m certain that Gayle understands this. On the other hand, there are times where you just want to hear a whole lot of racket and this disc would certainly scratch that itch. Gayle brings in a whole lot of other guests including Lauren Connors on guitar, Michael Evans on percussion, Emilie-Anne Gendron on violin, Stephanie Griffin on viola, Charles Waters on bass clarinet, and the aforementioned Shelley Hirsch on voice. Overall, this was a fun ride and would certainly appeal to fans of improvisational music. This album weighs in at around 70 minutes.

I was unfamiliar with Allen Ravenstine when this series of four discs showed up in my mailbox, but he was a member of Pere Ubu and is also a commercial pilot. These discs together form the collection "The Tyranny of Fiction." The first of these is called "Electron Music." One would expect based on the cover art that this would be kind of a throwback to the 60s and the height of the nuclear race and you would be correct. Ravenstine has assembled a host of other people to help him with this with synthesizers, theremin, Ondes Martenot (an electronic instrument from the 1920s), prepared guitar, and mellotron.

The disc gets off to a kind of shaky start as it's kind of standard synth-based ambience with a simple melody, but then we move into "Firefly," which starts off with some synthesized strings but then turns into an interesting mix of metal, chimes, and analog synth weirdness. There is a lot of crackling and hiss, which I suspect is intended to evoke the idea of a Geiger Counter. "Going Upriver" is a spacey ambient track with lots and lots of synths and more sawtooth wave than you can shake a stick at. "110 in the Underpass" keeps the spaciness going with a nice mixture of synth washes and analog blips and crackles. The disc gets more experimental as it goes along until we reach "5@28," which is the longest track on the disk at almost 10 minutes and seems to be broken up into two movements. This is what a mad scientist's lab sounds like when he's left for the day and still left his machines running. We have theremin and feedback washes and plenty of analog bleeps and blips that would be right at home in the background of a 1950 sci-fi movie. It maintains the kind of clattering noisy ambience that gives it a retro space-age music feel until halfway through, when it takes a more whimsical turn with the theremin. This is by far the strongest track on the disc. Overall, this is an interesting beginning to the "Tyranny of Fiction" collection and leaves me interested to see what disc number two has in store. This disc weighs in at around 25 minutes.

New York-based musician Shane Lavers is the main responsible for Chanel Beads' music and for his first album "Your Day Will Come" he's been aided by his live bandmates: Maya McGrory (vocals) and experimental instrumentalist Zachary Paul (strings). After his 2022 singles “Ef” and “True Altruism” were shared on the band's Bandcamp page for free, Lavers found a home at Jagjaguwar, record label that is part of the Secretly Group along with Dead Oceans, Friends Of, Ghostly International Company, etc. "Your Day Will Come" is the first Chanel Beads album and it will be released on April 19th. It contains nine tracks for less than 29' of music and despite the short length, you'll have a good example of the band's music palette made of experimental sounds, orchestrations, catchy melodies, and jangly guitar sounds. Most of the time the atmosphere created is the main aim and the album contains also really short tracks that under three or two minutes succeed in capturing the audience and taking it through a voyage made of dream-pop atmospheres, catchy melodies, scarce syncopated rhythm lines, and experimentation (check the six minutes of "Coffee Culture" with its dissonant strings arrangement coupled to a choir). Try to imagine My Bloody Valentine with less guitar noise, more orchestrations, and a bit of synth sounds. A nice debut, for real!