The British Ambient/Avantgarde artist Marvin Ayres has released another experimental CD and the title gives you already an idea on what he has worked this time. For this release he has placed two grand pianos in different locations with different rooms, hall and reverberation effects. One piano got immaculately tuned in a big orchestral studio, the other was out of tune in an empty room. He has done several experiments with the key sounds, speed, kind and conditions and has recorded only the harmonics of the chords. The recordings of both pianos got merged and reassembled. Marvin could so "win" several resonant overtones and subtle quartertones – a real psycho acoustic experiment which he couldn’t ever expected has happened. So the here presented sound collages are hardly to understand as real compositions, this is a real acoustic experiment after a lot of work and effort. Nobody – including Marvin – could ever expect how this experiment would have been sounded before – so here is the result of Marvin’s very own world of static noise collages. A real companion to his "Scape" CD.

Crap? No way, if there's something far from being pure crap is the music featured on this cd. Megaplomb’s profile as a label is getting clear, you just need hears to perceive the guy is mainly free/jazzy/avant/tecnique oriented or at least that's what it seems. Going back to Crap I'd better start by saying this four letters birth name hides four well know musicians haling from the jazz circuit (both from the institutional and the off one), but they all are quite popular for having played "other music" and to have hybridized jazz in many of their countless side works. Jacopo Andreini (Enfance Rouge, Arrington De Dyoniso Quartet, Bz Bz ueu, etc.), Edoardo Ricci, Helmut Cipriani and Roy Paci (Manu Chao, Aretuska, Corleone, Zu, etc.) on trumpet. This a quite old recording since this ensemble was kicking back in 1998 and in some ways it has a "retrò" aftertaste of free-jazz-rock but that's not absolutely bad indeed. I think many will compare this to Zu and sure it has some similarities with the debut release of the band that at the time (more or less) featured Roy on trumpet, but this not a carbon copy of the power trio nay it has some significant differences. The arrangements are damn clean and neat and it makes you think to something that's much more absorbed in the jazz world than in the rock one but it's something that really want to cross the boundaries of its genre. Featuring both Andreini and Paci the first idea I was pondering was that it sometimes smells like popular-funny music mixed with serious muscular playing and that’ ok with me. Free-jazz-rock, yes, but still not jazz-core therefore you're warned and there's a hell of difference so please don't blame me for this jerking on definitions. I can't say how many people into jazz will buy it or get it, but they should dig it even though its schizophrenia, c’mon Trane and Parker probably would have moved their black feet to the rhythm of these four white folks and that's enough for me to justify the listening.

Are you in love with early Killing Joke and with Sheeps On Drugs or Alien Sex Fiend approach to song writing? Well, the new Flesh Eating Foundation could be the one for you. Their raging guitars and distorted synths are capable of make you stomp on your granny’s bed while you’re waiting she passes out. I’m just joking, but that was the best way to describe a situation where nothing can’t stop you from being carried away by Flesh Eating Foundation tunes. Each of the three tracks sound different from the previous one and if the opening "The dead" (be sure to check the enclosed video made using "The movies" videogame) is an industrial e.b.m. version of Killing Joke, "Pass the knife" remember me an industrial version of early Alien Sex Fiend, while the closing "Kiss the tears" sounds like good e.b.m. should (is for this reason that recalls me Front Line Assembly mixed with a little bit of goth?). I was waiting for their first full length but for the moment "The dead" E.P. is a good appetizer.

Malissa Creasey and Mark Prier are a Canadian duo who releases music with the Hellothistsalex moniker. The duo is also active with their online record label called Aelectric (it was a CDr label before deciding to go online only). Their latest release is titled THE STUMP ACT and it is a limited edition CDr (only 125 copy) containing 10 tracks of minimal electronic pop. Don’t ask me why it has been released on CD even if the label is now mainly online. It is probable that the releases of Hello This Is Alex will be also released as CDrs and the other bands releases are going directly online. Anyway... From their press sheet I read that THE STUMP ACT project born from a trip on Ontario's Yonge Street, 1,896 km from the shores of Lake Ontario to the US-Canada border at Rainy River, not far from Manitoba. Along the way, they put up twenty rectangular wooden signs depicting tree stumps, dividing the street into twenty sections. The whole experience inspired this new collection of music a brief and seamless travelogue taking you along Yonge Street at a scale of approximately 8 km per 5 seconds of music. From Popular Lane to Swedish Adventure Church, we’ll guide you through ten different sites of activity. Their electronic pop short experiments succeeds into giving to the audience the same sensation of discover and melancholy that a travel could give. Sometimes they sound like an alien combo playing with Atari and a tracker program (the first version of samples sequencer) but their music has feelings and if you love bands like The Books you could also dig Hellothistsalex.

Maple Bee is the newest release by Prikosnovenie which after Misstrip seems to have found a new path to follow after the dark folk medieval sound that characterized the past years of the label. The folk attitude is always present but on the new releases you can also find a sort of electronic pop attitude that could help the promotion of the releases to a wider audience. Maple Bee is the creature of Melanie Garside (already bass player with Queen Andreena and singer with Mediaeval Babes as well guitarist/vocalist with Vertigo Angels) and HELLO EVE is her first album. Prikosnovenie did an international version of her "Chasing Eva" double album and picked up eleven tracks out from the twenty one lot and added a new track: "No place". Since the first tracks you realize that Melanie is a talented and gifted vocalist/music writer and ideally her music is linked to names like Kate Bush or Tory Amos. How does her music sounds? Well, try to imagine a combo of a jazz trio (piano, guitar and drums) teaming with some folk players (cello and strings) all produced by an electro producer. A perfect example are tracks like the opening "Something" or "Turn in". There’s also a beautiful track produced by John Fryer (he produced bands of the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Cocteau Twins, Cradle Of Filth, etc) titled "Rare colors" where the cello and the flangered guitar duet with a synth bassline and a jazzy light drum. If you love acoustic songs with a little bit of electronic and folk, try this one. P.s. Check also the video of the beautiful "The messanger" (maybe that was the song I preferred).