Deeply influenced by their Bulgarian culture, Irfan insert into their music elements deriving from Le mystères des voix bulgares along with classic phrasings a la Dead Can Dance. I know that at this point it could be difficult for a band to stand such comparison but Denitza's voice is so strong and particular that there's no reason to name any reference. Irfan music has enough elements to be judged as a personal emanation of their personality. Their concept of music is referring to the original concept of it, when music was the emanation of higher elements and when music was created by humans that were in a state of grace. Normally I'm not fond of these sounds but Irfan's album captivated me. Its rhythms and atmospheres will excite your senses while the choruses sing about mystic tales. Are you ready for fifty minutes of acoustic music coming from a land of no time?

The first few sampled seconds of the opening title-track, the art work (syringes ready to inject american flags), lyrics such as "don't pretend to know who you are 'cause your TV knows you best" immediately give it away: this is a band who's got something to say. "Dogmatic" is quick at throwing that wrench into the machine and does so with break-beat aggro-electronic music that is actually pretty interesting and anti-conformist itself. The band more or less evades the conventional EBM dogmas by limiting the use of sequenced synth patterns and concentrating on sounds, beats and the addition of scratchy guitar riffs that contribute to the strenght and the aggressiveness of their music. "Dogmatic" is pumping, throbbing, fast-paced, impactful, thought-provoking, ballsy and straight in your face, just as every industrial music record should be, pretty much. There's always room for improvement, but this is a great start, and it's only $7, so get your hands on it now.

Yney is a project formed by three different and particular musicians: Jury Orlov, Igor Shaposhnikov and Andrew Kireev. ANTARCTINA is their first release as Yney but each of them have got several other releases and you can visit the band page on the label's website to get more informations. Anyway, this release convinced me immediately as the eight tracks have got an experimental approach being accessible at the same time. Someway they had on me the effect that Kraftwerk's "Radioactivity" or Scorn's "White irisis blind" had. The tracks are capable of catching audience's attention in no time with their driving rhythms and they could be used also in alternative clubs even if their are more experimental than club friendly. Ever wanted to listen to a different dub ambient album? Well, with ANTARCTINA you've got the opportunity to listen to a good album that break the classic dub rules mixing them with early electronica.

This is how every DJ's album should be made in the new millennium! Finally somebody that displays some serious creativity and hands-on production, and, what do you know, from the one I maybe least expected it. After the success of "Airdrawndagger", two years ago, Dj Sasha's new album "Involver" (to be released June 22nd) presents an artist that has undergone some serious artistic growth and evolution, a Dj that has taken Djing to the next (ultimate?) level: each and every track has been written, remixed, re-produced or re-edited for the sole purpose of the creation of this album. So it's more than just spinning and mixing and blending a bunch of records together, Sasha's "Involver" is almost a real artist album. Contrarywise to the live environment he now has the tools and the time to make everything sound as if it is his own creation, and most importantly he chooses to do so. The tracklist includes pieces by Grand National, Shpongle, Petter, Unkle, The Youngsters, Spooky, Lostep, Felix da Housecat, Ulrich Schnauss. Sasha's artistic re-working covers all grounds from ambient, to funky-dance, from house to chill out, from electronica to lounge music, from world beats to latin-brazilian influences. Lots of ethereal voices and arrangments find their way into the sneaky electronica-based format of "Involver", which totally makes it a winner in my book.

Written and produced by L.A.-based drummer Rich West with the aid arrangments of other performers of the city of angels, such ass Chris Heenan (reed - who, unless somebody forgot to write there was a Didgeridoo, is able to make one of his horns sound like one of those beautiful Australian instruments in an extraordinarily close way), Bruce Friedman (trumpet), Jeremy Drake (guitar) and Scot Ray (tuba), "Bedouin Hornbook" is definitely to be filed under the improvisational free-jazz no-wave experimental music shelf. I don't have any info as to how much of this was scored and how much came up at the moment, but I'd say that compared to other albums you'd find on the same shelf, this one is most definitely "organized" and the compositions follow a logical direction and evolve in a more orderly fashion, so to say. In other words its very musical, which to me is a plus, and feels like a classically trained orchestra taking off on the wings of the free spirit of jazz, art-rock, kraut-rock and occasional sparks of latino, classical music etc. These fine musicians certainly know how to play together and it actually sounds like there's many more of them playing together at once. The tuba comping and solos and the drum arrangments are especially fascinating and the arrangments of the horns and the guitar also interact very well. The entire album is quite interesting I must say, and will appeal to fans of Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Jeff Kaiser, Peter Frohmader, Jacopo Andreini and that entire scene, and will especially please those who appreciate that scene but wish for a little more composition and a little less improvisation.