Deep Puddle Dynamics - The Taste of Rain... Why Kneel?

'white guy hip-hop' may be enough to put off some hip-hop purists, but this is truly a fantastic album. one of the first albums made by the anticon collective, featuring Alias, Sole, Doseone and Slug (from Atmosphere), it sticks to its roots much more than some of the very weird released after this, yet the rhymes (basically everything is quotable) and production are top-notch.

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Current 93 - All The Pretty Little Horses

widely regarded by many to be one of Current 93's best albums, All The Pretty Little Horses serves as a transition period between his darker industrial albums and his folkier work. there are a handful of tracks featuring dark ambient soundscapes, such as "Twilight, Twilight, Nihil, Nihil" as well as the simple yet emotionally charged and beautiful folk songs like "The Blood Bells Chime" and "The Frolic". the album overall is packed with emotion and lovely to listen to.

(i swear i'll stop posting C93 albums soon)

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Tera Melos - Patagonian Rats

it's new Tera Melos.

if you don't know who Tera Melos are, they're a math rock band who are influenced by post-hardcore and jazz. guitarwork is mindblowingly good as usual. whenever the saxophone is used it works its way into the songs flawlessly. could do with less vocals but overall the album is fantastic.

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Current 93 - Haunted Waves, Moving Graves

and here is the second of Current 93's 2010 albums, and this one couldn't be more different than Baalstorm. this album sees David forgoing conventional song structure and creating an hour long ambient album full of lovely soundscapes and tinkling piano.

MP3 320

Current 93 - Baalstorm, Sing Omega

Baalstorm, Sing Omega is one of Current 93's two 2010 albums, and at first i was a little underwhelmed by it. with the exception of 'Baalstorm! Baalstorm!' none of the tracks really struck me as excellent. however, that's just the way the album is; it's incredibly solid all the way through, with fantastic instrumentation and various subtleties making it a fantastic and intriguing listen. it feels lacking at first, but i found it to be a major grower and probably one of 2010's best albums.

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Fingerspit - Space Demos

Fingerspit is a one-man post-rock project. despite being for the most part completely unknown, it is quite original, mixing soft ambience with feedback-laden space rock guitar riffs and trip-hop beats.

get it in lots of formats

Current 93 - The Nodding Folk In

i have no recollection of downloading this, but it seems pretty rare so i may as well post it... this is an extremely short EP (?) and i vaguely remember reading that this is a collaboration between a few neofolk musicians. it's a couple of weird circus-y tracks with some odd high-pitched vocals.

MP3 160 (pretty awful, but you'd probably be hard pressed to find it in higher quality).

Foetus - Flow

Flow was released in 2001, 16 years after Nail, yet as soon as the opening track begins it's immediately obvious that it's a Foetus album. J.G. Thirlwell's gritty vocals again work together with the equally rough industrial soundscapes and well as swing jazz to add an extra level of uniqueness to the music. standout tracks include the guitar heavy The Need Machine and the more saxophone / trumpet focused but no less exhilarating Heuldoch #7B.

(link removed as per request. if you want it, buy it here)

Venetian Snares - My So-Called Life

this leaked at like 5 AM my time so it's already been posted everywhere but fuck it, it's new Snares.

most of the songs were apparently made in a day or so, yet this album is remarkably good and has a bunch of great songs (and a couple of silly ones like Welfare Wednesday). Ultraviolent Junglist is in particular a brilliant song, pounding your ears with glitchy breaks for almost 6 minutes.

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The Residents - Third Reich 'N' Roll

in which The Residents take a ton of pop songs released in the early / mid 70's (officially 29, though there could be more) and parody all of them. the result is a bizarre mish-mash of genres and the result is a confusing, borderline difficult listen. though as usual the band retain a good sense of humor throughout the album, and anybody who's heard the original versions of the songs would find it hard not to crack a smile.

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Young Widows - Old Wounds

Young Widows play a bass-heavy style of post-hardcore with riffs that almost border on sludge. their first album was basically a Jesus Lizard ripoff which is by no means a bad thing but it was fairly unoriginal. Old Wounds, however, whilst still retaining the sounds of their influences, is much more creative and sees them expanding on their original sound.

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5ive - Hesperus

great instrumental sludge / stoner doom album from 2008 that was definitely not made by the pop band 5ive. has some truly heavy moments such as the first track, which begins on a long drone but soon evolves into a kickass riff, but there are also some lighter moments on the album, such as Heel. the last two tracks have brilliant climaxes and make the album well worth downloading.

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The Birthday Party - Junk Yard

when people think post-punk, they usually think Joy Division, or Talking Heads, or maybe LCD Soundsystem if said people are stupid. The Birthday Party takes all those assumptions about post-punk and shits on them. Junk Yard is gritty, heavy and insane, mostly due to Nick Cave's incredible vocal delivery and the wild guitarist.

JUNK SCULPTURE TURNING BACK TO JUNK

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dev/null - Necrobestial Sadobreaks

after glancing at the cover art most people would assume dev/null's second release, an EP barely reaching over 15 minutes, would probably be a grindcore / death metal release. and despite him being a breakcore artist, they wouldn't be wrong. this EP has four tracks under a minute, titled Grind1 to 4, that heavily sample, unsurprisingly, grindcore tracks. these songs allow dev/null to create completely unrestrained breakcore, and end up being the highlights of the album. the other songs, especially Gorechestra, a piano-based track that sounds incredibly sinister, are top-notch as well.

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Foetus - Nail

Foetus is the musical project of J.G. Thirwell that has been active for almost 30 years, and his 1985 release Nail is a completely bizarre mixture of jazz and industrial music. drum machines,various noises of some sort and Thirwell's hateful vocals work together with trumpets and saxophones to create music that's out there but still manages to be ridiculously catchy.

(link removed as per request. if you want it, buy it here)

Zu - Carboniferous

Carboniferous is a bizarre mixture of jazz, hardcore punk, sludge, math rock and god knows what else played by a drum / bass / saxophone trio. the bassist goes from heavy droning to insane Lightning Bolt-esque wailing and is definitely the highlight of the album. King Buzzo from the Melvins and Mike Patton (though i personally dislike the latter) make a couple cameos as well.

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Woodblue - North Letter

Woodblue is an instrumental hip-hop artist from Japan. his approach to hip-hop is similar to Nujabes, with piano a frequent addition to many of the songs. however, Woodblue incorporates world music into the album as well, the most obvious example being Green Flash in which tribal percussion and chants play a large role. the album is very long, reaching an hour and 12 minutes in length, but the whole thing is chilled and relaxing and as such difficult to dislike.

MP3 192

Can - Tago Mago

and finally, the most well known and acclaimed album by Can, Tago Mago. quite honestly, the music speaks for itself, with a perfect balance of brilliant psychedelic rock (the first half of the album, in particular Oh Yeah and Halleluhwah) and demented, downright scary mayhem (Aumgn and the bizarre Peking O, which you almost can't help but laugh at). truly a classic album.

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Can - Future Days

another Can album. this one is the shortest of their 3 perfect albums and isn't very abrasive. instead, the main highlight is the 19 minute long Bel Air, which is a whirlwind of psychedelic soundscapes, hypnotizing drums and dreamy vocals.

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Can - Ege Bamyasi

Can were one of the first 'krautrock' bands who created a trio of critically acclaimed, close-to-perfect albums: Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi and Future Days. each is a slab of brilliant psychedelic rock with the odd venture into noise and whatnot. anybody looking for a quirky, experimental rock album should not pass over this.

MP3 320

A Silver Mt. Zion - Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upward

post-Godspeed members (though it was actually released before the band went on hiatus) making more post-rock. like all Godspeed related releases, it is dark and depressing music, though not quite as ambient. unlike their later albums, Efrim's vocals aren't overbearing and are subdued, so they don't get grating and instead add to the music wonderfully, especially on the closing track, The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes.

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Höyry-Kone - Hyönteisiä voi Rakastaa

Höyry-Kone are a progressive rock band whose other album, Huono Parturi, i posted a while back. despite only ever releasing two albums the band created a unique sound using multiple instruments. this album feels less polished due to it being their debut, yet it is still a very solid album of its own, having its own little quirks like the strange 2 minute synthy Pannuhuoneesta.

MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS - ZERO COMMA IROTORIDORI NO SEKAI

MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS ARE A BAND FROM JAPAN. AS SUCH, THEIR NAME IS IN ALL CAPITALS BECAUSE THEY ARE JAPANESE AND NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE OBNOXIOUS (UNLIKE THIS REVIEW). ANYWAY THEY PLAY DISTORTED, ALMOST SHOEGAZEY INDIE ROCK AND THIS IS THEIR 2010 ALBUM, ZERO COMMA IROTORIDORI NO SEKAI. BASICALLY EVERY SONG IS GOOD AND IT IS DEFINITELY WORTH GETTING.

ALSO THEY'RE AN ALL GIRL BAND AND THEY CERTAINLY KICK THE SHIT OUT OF THE SPICE GIRLS OR WHATEVER TERRIBLE ALL-FEMALE BANDS ARE POPULAR.

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Enablers - Output Negative Space

Enablers are one of the few bands that i would consider similar to Slint, in that it's post-rock accompanied by spoken word. unlike Slint, this band leans more towards noise rock and this difference is accentuated through the vocalist who occasionally bursts into a shouting rage to accompany the music. it's great stuff.

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Atari Teenage Riot - The Future of War

Atari Teenage Riot were a band who basically pioneered the (still mostly unknown) digital hardcore genre. it's exactly as it sounds: lo-fi punk / hardcore music with a strong focus on beats. obviously since Alec Empire is in the band the electronic work is closest to breakcore.

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