Can an anaesthetic drug reawaken from a prolonged catalepsy? Contrary to what medical science asserts, the answer is yes, especially when the giver of such a musical medicine is a talented one such as the American (from Kentucky) composer Jason Corder aka Offthesky, who intertwines translucent acoustic pearls which are able to carry the listener away in a daydreaming state so that enlighting his emotional inner world. Falling into some reverie while listening to Offthesky's guitar-driven melodic dilatations which are often emphasized by lovely chimes, distant whistles, dull percussive hits, amplified cellos, kalimba tolls and other instrumental sketches, turning up like invisibly dynamic details of a static landscape picture, whose intimist eagerness sounds amplified by some intermittent and caressing Jason's vocalizations, is quite easy, but the intense emotional charge of many pieces of this whirling sonic maze could cause some palpitations of your heart even if some moments are steeped with a vague sense of melancholy and solipsism, which are easy to be imbibed by listener's consciousness. While listening to The Beautiful Nowhere (this is the title of this new issue signed by offthesky) I got literally dazzled by the cold luminescence of many tracks such as the impressive Whittling You Little Lights (my favorite one), the solitary little poems of Daydream Tarnation or Waiting To Fade (another light nocturnal track I enjoyed listen repeatedly) or the dream-injecting chirpings of Now We're Nowhere, whereas musical memories such as Stars Of The Lid, Eluvium or Labradford could reoccur. Beauty could be not easy to be precisely located as the title seems to suggest, especially when it's so widespread!

As a consequence of their stylistical decision to shift their musical loads from agit-prop-like grunde to electronic dance music, many reviewers argued Piemont's Sand Hills maybe ushered in a new season for minimal techno, even they prefer to say the mutation fo their style was almost automatic, as it belongs to the tectonic plates' movement between indierock and idm, whereas some rocks easily crumbled into dancehalls. The acclamation they mainly received from dancing audiences for their fuzzy live-sets and from music press who understood the real value of their balanced sound dosage appears to be confirmed by this nice release, available on mp3 and vynil, issued by Suchtreflex and supported by many notorious lights of techno star-let such as Laurent Garnier, Chris Wood and Gregor Tresher, which contains four nice dance-oriented remixes (plus two other ones if you opted for digital download), a logical step after Piemont's choice of assembling a kind of techno, whose harmonics made it appreciable not only on firing dance halls but also on listener's sofa. I particularly enjoyed the remix of Run Down by the Italian producer Hugo (it's just a coincidence his studio is located in Turin, the administrative centre of Northern Italy's region called Piemont!), who decanted some jazzy trumpet slices into his elating deep house according to a sort of musical osmosis he already proposed in his album "The Sloop and the Siren" on Jay Haze's label Tuning Spork. The mentioned Jay Haze itself, quite known for his philantropic attitude as he raised some money for important causes (including the disgusting phenomenon of child abuse during the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the devastating Asian tsunami in 2004), signs the "Jay Haze For Palestine" remix of With Small Pupils, a more bumpey version of the original, whereas childish vocal samples and sounds reminding a boat in the act of werighing off for a new harbour (!) are perfectly balanced. I've noticed no particularly deforming warp on Instead Of Multiple's remix by the Spanish producer Uner (better this way!), while Philipp aka Sante' flambes the track Self Of Sense with many recipes, which are going to espouse the tastes of many Ibiza frequent visitors! The bonus remixes on digital version, the rhythmically rumbling one of A Bound Of Passivity by Re:You and the vortical crunchy plaything the French producer Lowris made from Try To Read The Numbers - my personal favorite one! -, are very easygoing tunes as well. Nice stuff.

The petrified stern face standing out on the cover artwork's makes resurface to my mind one of the most iconic fictional character of the notorious L.Frank Baum's Oz books I used to read when I was a little child, the Nome King, so that my mind started to find any possible similarities out with this astonishing proof of sound ballistics by Swiss producer Marcel Gschwend aka Bit-Tuner and the fearful antagonist of Oz villains! Even if I cannot be sure Marcel doesn't like eggs (if you've seen the Disney movie adaptation of that story, you'll arguably remember the Nome King was killed by an egg, laid by Billina, the nuisance-hen Dorothy accidentally brought in Oz during his second travel in the emerald city!), his style, a juicy hybridization of ill-bient, booming dubstep and experimental hip hop, sounds rocky like the cells of any gnome and dim like the obscure underground hollows where they use to dwell. Another feature of this stony civilization consists of their habit of hiding jewels. Well, this could be undoubtedly a controversial point as you'll unlikely deny his skills in melting styles in a turgidly psychedelic way by mining authentic gold from previously drilled soils (especially in gorgeous tracks such as Traffic, Anger or Dizzer - what a guessed title! -), but you'll notice Bit-Tuner is inclined to bury the nice harmonics he assembles with layers and layers of heavyweight basslines or thrilling samples (I appreciated the sci-fi nuances of tracks such as the final Full Bass Bonus or the clocking abrasive dubstep of Nuclear Silence). Really bewitching stuff, which is potentially going to daze the listener...especially if related to some Oz stupidly happy villain!

This third release in the self-devolping Magick With Tears catalogue, whose elements are always elegantly cardboard packaged in a hand numbered limited edition of 474, signed by the Italian electronic musician Corrado Altieri (aka TH26 - some listeners could have intercepted his collaborative work with Maurizio Bianchi issued by Small Voices - and one leg of Monosonik, maybe one of the most interesting electronic music project coming from italy), is not be trifled at all even if it's quite short. The moniker Corrado has chosen for this debut maybe refers to the decision of avoiding any computer aided sound designing or manipulation as he just uses a set of both analog and digital devices in order to notch, cut and superpose frequencies as well as piercing tones. "The Pathway", the first of the three tracks (Corrado prefers to entitle them phases), starts with a sort of white noise slightly varying in pitch before the rush of a cryptic obscure low-tone glitter which acts almost as a cataleptic catalysis for the listener, who could experience the sensation of crossing an infinite tunnel before the sudden black-out of the sonic stream, catapulting the listener itself in the second phase, entitled Receptors, whereas distorted noisy mumbles and sometimes ear-splitting hi-frequency tunes look like hailing in a random way. The third and final phase, whose drone-like forging is close to the one the above-mentioned Monosonik build during their involving installations, features a thundering pulse on layers of shattering frequencies finally resulting in a cinematic magma, whose bumps, similar to the ones of the rumbles of an earthquake, mixed with acute scary sounds look like a portrait where the geophysical phenomenon of a seism melts in the emotional aspect unleashed by this natural event. The artwork by Daniele Serra on the sleeve seems suited to the somewhat post-apocalyptic nuances of Altieri's sonic textures.

I seldom paste and copy complete phrases taken out of the label info sheet, but for this latest Experimental-Electronica compilation album of the Russian label Lagunamuch, I have to make an exception: 'It took us two years to finish this monolithic release. The result was worth the effort. Unfortunately during these two years many unexpected things have happened. One year ago, an excellent musician and creator of this project, Alexander Matrosov, passed away. One year later we are dedicating this compilation to him. It is exactly the way he wanted to see and hear it.' There isn't that much to add, since Alexander Matrosov has been one of the leading forces of the Lagunamuch community and his passing is still a shock for all involved. We send our deepest condolences in the name of the whole Chain D.L.K.crew. Regarding the tragic happenings, this compilation deserves respect. Since this release acts like a requiem, it is nearly forbidden to alter any component of it with a review. Be assured, that you'll get an awesome looking (digipack- and artwork-design by Arthur Berent ' that dark and bluish city in between some mountains is his best work so far'¦), and heavily Industrial-minded compilation, which is an ideal introduction to several artists of this Russian Underground-Electronica scene. I have to name some favourites, although this is rather based on personal preferences: Speyer ('¦ that is one of the projects with Alexander Matrosov involved'¦) impresses with a straight and linear IDM-track named 'Dust', which offers a hypnotic rhythm pattern and grows on opulent synth-layers. Arthur Berent has his own project Abstract Avenue taking part with two tracks, from which 'Oxid' gets my vote especially regarding the cutting snare drum in use. Riverz End, also featured on here with two tracks, has received the 'honour' to compose the title track of this compilation, which is an Experimental-minded Downtempo-tune with several foiled recording quells.
Life and business somehow goes on, but this compilation is a great pearl, if you like to check out some alternative IDM/Modern Ambient-/Electronica artists. That shall not sound disrespectful, but I am sure that Alexander Matrosov wanted to see us and all involved from the side of the Lagunamuch community to continue with normality. Make your contacts and purchase this awesome looking and sounding compilation.

Tracklist

01 Indu Mezu vs Flagra - The Game
02 Speyer - Dust
03 Riverz End - Triangle Man
04 Abstract Avenue - Oxid
05 Autopilots - Machine
06 Nightech - Grey Strata of Subways
07 L.F. - Delta-Foxtrot
08 Abstract Avenue - Kolkster
09 Speyer - Connecting to You
10 Riverz End - Main Control Board
11 Egofriend - Condition Rock
12 Alexandroid - Station MIR