For all of the "prog/fusion lovers" out there: this is not Premiata Forneria Marconi, the famous bestseller of italian fusion-prog rock italian combo (together with Demetrio Stratos' Area) from the seventies, PFM stands for Poor Father Material. The music is even more different, Myk Thomas could be filed under "ambient music", sometimes the keyboards reminded me of the best works recorded by mr. Eno, but this' not another "music for airport wonnabe". While the first track sounds really "old school" ambiet, "Prophet making" owns much more to movie soundtracks and to minimalism while the keyboards at times sounds like they've been stolen by some records came out on Warp during the Eighties. But mr. Thomas probably loves being heterogeneous and the final track is again different, this time his "calm and rural" (?!?) soundtrack get fused with "shoegaze" music and its like hearing Swerverdrive or Bark Psychosis diluted into an "empyreal-echo". This tracks should be nothing but an extract from an album from 2000, sincerely I can't imagine if in the economy of a long release it could be boring, but on a 3" mcd it's really good (damn I'd like to listen to the whole record). If ambient and shoegaze for you mean something I think you will appreciate this 3"mcd.

Cascading textures, ambient tones and glitcherrific breakcore styled beats find themselves nestled in the dark and damp corners of Duncan Avoid's "Metaphysics" release. For the most parts, releases of this nature rely heavily upon the use sound. Old/new/recycled/made/stolen/ whatever and for the most part they succeed. The beats are great and a lot of the sound design is fantastic which is why I find it all the more frustrating that they depend so heavily on the use of bit-reduction type effects. They're all over the place and at first it's fine but they persist track after track which does nothing but get in the way of the much more original tones and textures buried underneath. Also... I found the dialog samples used in this distracting. There aren't many of them but I don't like to recognize samples... they take me out of "Duncan Avoid" land and push my memories towards a film or tv show or whatever. Point is... I stick on a CD to listen to the disc, not be propelled back into movie memories. If your whole premise revolves around sample placement into collage-like orchestrations ala Negativland, it works fine when it's a constant and integral part of the song. In Duncan Avoid's case... they just get in the way. Now, I've been a little overly negative here and it's mostly out of frustration. I hear a lot of things I like with this release. The songs take their time to evolve and nothing sounds rushed... despite the hectic nature of some of the compositions themselves. The beats and sounds for the most part are fantastic. I for one, however, would like to hear a less bit-dependent Duncan Avoid in the future.

French label Axesscode presents a debut CD release by the solo electronic musician Christopher Kah. It is a release which is a bit difficult to categorize. It is all electronic-based of course, building up a mixture by taking elements out of Dark Electro, Techno and Electronica with here and there some experimental undertones. While the Synth layers and string sounds are almost infiltrated with a dark Electro mood, the sequences and beats provide a Techno background. Some vocals of Mr. Kah are featured as well, mostly very sparse and re-stranged with some KRAFTWERKian robot-like effects. Favorites I have found with the steady "Camille ist Tot", "Sextronic Bacteria’s" or the title track, while others like "Intumeti K" suffer from repetition and a too long playing time of over 9 minutes. Christopher Kah made a decent album here which is to my taste more designed to listen at home. Club visitors could be disturbed by the way back too experimental beats and the globally dark flair the release has to offer. Good stuff here for people who like to explore something different with an edge, and surely not designed for some pseudo-aggressive rivetheads. Well, it is a wonderful dark world, isn’t it?

Ethelscull is one Amelia Peel. The 20 track long "ribbons into hysterics" is a really hit or miss situation. Fortunately none of the "miss" tracks are overly long. Recorded on a 4-track 2002 to 2003 the albums recording quality is definitely lo-fi but not hard to listen to. "ribbons into hysterics" works it's best when Amelia gets behind the mic and whisps her soft vocal style over her droning guitar melodies. When this is happening the CD is moving full swing at a slow but hardly boring pace with some great stuff happening. The best examples of this would be the stand out tracks ""perishedinfits", "crash" and "strange fatality". However, when she opts to leave the mic behind, the tracks drop a notch and things get a little boring. The droning, heavily delayed guitars and textures aren't interesting enough on their own to fly solo and unfortunately I'd say that describes just about half of this release. So despite the mixed bag with this release it is still, without question, worth getting a copy if you're a fan of chilled out ambient melodic guitar work with extremely pleasing vocals.

Right before Tvmvlvs Seraphim, Genoa's Beyond productions put out this release that could break into the heart of the same kind of listeners (although there're some consistent differences). During the first listening you can have the "itch" to file this cd under "dark ambient", sure, it doesn't go that far from how "L'odore del ramo spezzato" sounds like, but I'm afraid with such a definition you'll end underrating an interesting record. This cd displays a misty landscape in front of your own eyes and it's not the ususal "all black" thing, since there's a full range of colors hidden in between the lines. I'm sure Sostrah Tinnitus will conquer the favor of those into many releases on Hic Sunt Leones, as I've no doubt at times it's even better than some national heroes like Alio Die or Oophoi. This guy is able to lull the listener into a comfortable trip much better than Codeine (the drug not the band), imagine a solitary ride in the the forest shot on the cover. While the canvas it's made out of drones, the use of shells, rainstick, field recordings (together with synths and magnetic tapes) gives a religious atmosphere to the whole thing. For all of you skeptics out there the quality mark of this project could be guaranteed by the fact together with Cria Cuervos this guy it's one of the few italians to put out a cdr on belgian cult label Mystery Sea, but even without you just need to give it you hears. A good release: autumn is at the door but in "L'odore del ramo spezzato" the winter is already there.