With the best of intentions, self-proclaimed "new age music composer" Brett Branning of Abandoned Toys lays out what is meant to be a 9-course feast of melodious shadows in this instrumental, piano-driven Dark Classical disc. Immediately, however, it's clear that the piano in the opening track, "Within A Lilac Clutch," is either un-practiced or un-quantized, and it does not bode well for the rest of the CD. Luckily, the piano-predominant songs alternate with some nicely treacherous, wicked, haunted landscapes of more-than-Tolkienesque splendor, so all is not lost. In a vein belonging to Current 93, creepy female chorale-voices crescendo very well at the end of track two, the "Prelude" to the title cut. The brief track seven, "Spiraling Into the Sun," too, works best at redeeming the shakiness of this oeuvre.

As a composer, Branning is capable of many good turns of phrase, yet since he also claims film soundtrack experience on his website, it's all the more surprising that he'd put down so many pieces in need of tighter rhythm. Although he is ably assisted by a guest violinist on track five, "Flickering Embrace," the accompanist still can't find where to sync up with the choppy piano. Even with all the other scary, cool sounds to his credit on this release, it looks like Branning could stand to make better use of his toys for the next go-round.

After releasing "Smiling, At The Hypogonder Club" back in 1985 change was around the corner for Attrition as they switched record label passing from Third Mind Records to Antler and they also temporarily lose Julia Waller, who briefly joined the Legendary Pink Dots. Martin then collaborated with an old friend and veteran punk guitarist Garry Cox. The tracks of the album are a blend of synth wave with guitars and dance 4/4 rhythms. At a first listening this is one of the less charismatic album by the band as with this one seems to team up with the sound of bands like Balaam And The Angel or the Mission. Fortunately Attrition had always their dark twist to save them from a total commercial attitude. Thing that, strangely enough, is more balanced on the 12"s B-sides of the period (see "Lady look now"). You'll be able to judge by yourself as all the tracks from "Hadyn (or mine)" 12" and "Turn to gold" 12" are included into this new edition.

Alien has been released in 1979 after years of work and different times Ridley Scott was about to quit because production didn't care about his vision and for them the movie was beginning to be too expensive because of the director's maniacal precision. That movie had also the merit to introduce to a wider audience a master of the visionary art: Giger. He created the monster and he painted different sets. If you know the movie and you also checked the interviews included into the DVD editions you can understand why Sleep Research Facility on 2001, for their debut release, decided to take inspiration from the Nostromo crew story. Especially inspired by the first eight minutes of the movie, NOSTROMO, tries to reproduce the tension and the atmosphere of that great movie. This new edition of the album allow to the dark ambient lovers to rediscover a good CD where Kevin Doherty gave his best by creating five different movements able to scare the hell out of you. Dark ambient isolationism and drones will make you revive the first time you saw the dark corridors of the Nostromo space ship. This reissue include also a bonus track titled "Narcissus": an eight minute suite with fluctuating loops, light hisses and different other hypnotic sound layers.

Inspired by the Nietzsche concept of "eternal return" (only a person who has the courage to live his entire life just like he already did, could break the wheel/cycle and free himself) SIGN OF ETERNAL RETURN is the debut album by Korinth. Already released by Construct Destroy (personal label of the band Phragments which months ago released their latest album for The Eastern Front label) on a limited edition of 111 copies CD-r, the album is now reissued as a real CD on a 500 copies run with a new package and all. Musically the album contains a 44 minutes long suite based on hypnotic structures made of humming sounds and choirs/orchestrations. Despite the long track "double edged weapon" (in my opinion it's difficult to compose a track able to create a good ambience but it's really hard to make it work properly and sometimes is easy to repeat stereotypes and sounds) the track has a lot of good moments where the alternation of choirs/orchestrations/percussions keep the listener's attention awake. Reverbs and the right amount of hallucination help keeping the tension high and this is a good result. I'd prefer different movements rather than a long track but Korinth is worth a listen.

Another essential chapter in the Messthetics collection of rare and forgotten tunes from the golden age of DIY. This one deals with the South Wales area, and you'll find a bunch of irreverent youngsters floating around the Z-Block label, a label set up in a disused student house in where Reptile Ranch installed themselves (check out their website ... they're still alive and spreding the DIY philosophy: www.zblock.co.uk) and playing various kind of do-it-yourself post-punk. As the previous Messthetics, along with those amazing tracks (24 songs + mp3s for a total of 90 minutes of music), you'll get a thick and detailed booklet with precious information, documents and interviews with the bands. Before this one, the only band I could remember from Wales were my beloved Young Marble Giants - quite obviously they're not here (even if I read that "someone" from YMG plays in the, here included, Table Table track) because they're well known and they've never been forgotten. So I discovered those rough diamonds with extreme pleasure - some highlights here: The Czechs track is like hearing Coxham's bass over a speed-fueled postpunk; What To Wear and Crash Action Winners both from Swansea and both more rough and punk-oriented; both tracks by Decadent Few that blend postpunk rhythms with softer psychedelic singing. A mention must be made to the work of the music archeologists at Hyped2Death, always after those lost b/w-cover 7"s - always caring to restore the sound avoiding tape hiss and vinyl crackles without compromising the full dynamic range of the originals (and that's where lots of re-issues fall short).