Water Borders - Harbored Mantras

01. Tread On Them
02. What Wiwant
03. waldenpond.com
04. Bad Ethos
05. Even In The Dark
06. Feasting On Mongeese
07. See Bank
08. Miners
09. Antechamber

Another compelling entry from Tri Angle Records, who've cleverly snapped up the frightening debut album by Water Borders. With 'Harbored Mantras' the San Fran-hailing duo of Amitai and Loric use the rhythms of contemporary ritual dance music to resurrect the occult soul of Coil and their cabal in unique and succinctly pop balanced new forms. A couple of mixtapes - both self-released and for the brilliant DIS magazine - display their influences quite clearly, working in a circle of influence ranging from Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson's eerie Threshold HouseBoys Choir to James Blake's chamber pop and the rhythm schematics of Doc Daneeka or DJ Elmoe, and it's fair to say this album sums up all of those and more. The opening palette cleanser 'Tread On Them' crosses swords between gamelan, narcotically-blunted House and a deeply uncanny channelling of Jhonn Balance-like vocals, whose inspiration looms large into the stunning 'What Wiwant', practically scratching at the hairs of the neck with vocal anguish over the tuffest 'ardcore subs and clammiest ambience. We could happily play this on repeat this until the national grid shut down. That chilling vocal continues to pervade deeper in, with 'Bad Ethos' summoning depth charge Bristolian Dubstep in a tableau of sneering choirs and poltergeist shrieks, and to sour effect on 'Even In The Dark' and the 'Feasting On Mongeese', beautifully sustaining the aura of affected gothic torment. In the closing rites, this poise is held to elegant effect in the sepulchral space of 'Seed Bank', MIDI sax bleat circling abyssal 808 bass hits, and to exotic infusions of 'Antechamber' leaving us to dreams of grotesquerie even Pasolini would be proud of...www.boomkat.com

Ursula Bogner - Sonne = Blackbox

01. Sonne = Blackbox
02. Jubiläum
03. Nach Europa
04. Trabant
05. Or Dor Melanor
06. Uranotypie
07. Strahlungen
08. Der Chor Der Oktaven
09. Illusorische Planeten
10. Permutationen
11. Shepard Monde
12. Signalfluss
13. Homöostat
14. Refrain für einen Formanten
15. De Planetarum Influxu
16. Liner Notes

Germany's answer to Daphne Oram or Raymond Scott - or more likely an elaborate wind-up perpetrated by Jan Jelinek, on whose Faitiche label her "archive" recordings sporadically appear - Ursula Bogner is back. Whether or not it's Jelinek behind the Bogner corpus (and I think by now we know the answer to that), there's no disputing the consistently brittle beauty, dizzying complexity and easy charm of her radiophonic constructions. You certainly get a lot of Bogner for your buck on Sonne = Blackbox, with 15 tracks showcasing her brand of primitive electronic composition and tape manipulation. On 'Or Dor Melanor', 'Shepard Monde' and the title track, Broadcast and Stereolab immediately come to mind, while the eerie synthetic ramble of 'Trabant' is like the Ghost Box crew relocated from Belbury to Berlin. There are killers throughout: 'Signalfluss' and particularly 'Uranotypie' with its combo of droning, minimal electronics and Teutonic spoken voice, sound like vital cold wave (cold war?) artefacts, while the playful, impish quality of 'Der Chor Der Oktaven' and 'Permutationen' (before it lapses into a kind of slanted techno groove) invoke the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's John Baker and Delia Derbyshire. If there's a dead giveaway that this is Jelinek's work through and through, it's the heaviness of the sub-bass and the attendant dub-head's sense of space, both hard to imagine in late 60s and early 70s Germany. Whatever you want to believe, make no mistake, this is a truly delightful collection of off-kilter electronic music and quite simply a must for all dedicated heads...www.boomkat.com

Pole - Waldgeschichten

1. Wipfel
2. Wurzel
3. Wipfel Dub

Good to have you back Pole, where've you been lad? Germany's foremost practitioner of crackle-infused dub atmospherics seems keen to emphasize his music's reggae DNA here: the organ melody of 'Wipfel' sounds like the hook from a Jahtari digi killer put through the Berlin blender. 'Wurzel' is similarly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but with a fiercer skank on it, and a more minimal, focussed sound design. The highlight for many though will be Pole's own dub of 'Wipfel' - in which he hollows out the original, filling the space with extra sub-bass pressure and some rude echo FX. It's the sound of a master at work and demands to be heard LOUD...www.boomkat.com

Jasmina Maschina - Alphabet Dream Noise

1. Scott Free
2. Noise is Noise and Feelings Are Feelings
3. Forgotten Wood
4. Sun
5. Retrospective Hallucination
6. The City is Moving Like a Map
7. Crying Dream
8. Invisible Rays
9. Marry Me
10. Community
11. Nina's Feelings

Jasmina Maschina is Australian Jasmine Guffond, and ‘Alphabet Dream Noise’ continues her voyage into shimmering avant pop territory after 2008’s killer ‘The Demolition Series’. Through noisy field recordings, chattering guitars and her own gorgeous vocals we are led on a journey that is neither pop music, rock or drone – and like fellow Aussie Sanso-Xtro she manages to emerge with a sound that defies easy classification. There’s a little bit of Empress, a little bit of Hood, a little smattering of Slowdive, a hint of Stina Nordenstam – but nothing in ‘Alphabet Dream Noise’ sounds nostalgic or retro. Rather this is an album with both feet in the unsettling misery of 2011, and one that isn’t afraid to represent this with music just as woozy as its setting. Gorgeous stuff...www.boomkat.com

14 Tracks: Not Not Not Not Fun

1 Maria Minerva – Unchain My Heart
2 High Wolf – Dream Is Good
3 Peaking Lights – All The Sun That Shines
4 Psychic Reality – Elle / Elle Beat
5 Cuticle – Flair
6 Pocahaunted – Riddim Queen
7 Ensemble Economique – Red For The Sun
8 Xander Harris – Tanned Skin Dress
9 Pedro Magina – Shout In Your Face
10 Swanox – Cross The Water
11 Gypsy Treasures – Tadpole Walks Home
12 Holy Strays – Waves
13 Sex Worker – Without You (Couldn’T Be Alone)
14 Deeep, The – Mudd (Grand Am Version)

LA's Not Not Fun is an incredibly prolific label dealing in all manner of outré psych, synth and noise music. Both NNF and their 100% Silk sublabel are lovingly curated by Amanda Brown (LA Vampires/Pocahaunted) and Britt Brown (Robedoor) whose tastes run the gamut of esoteric underground sounds from a rhizome of artists across the globe. With over 250 releases (and counting) on vinyl, cassette, and digital, they've shaped a parallel hypnagogic reality where masticated memes from Dub, '70s psychedelic rock, Kosmische, '80s MOR pop and '90s dance music converge under the protection of gauzy tape noise and distortion. The label's resolutely Lo-fi stance is commendable, but never feels forced. It's more that they represent this scene as it should be, with dilated ears, a sincere sense of psychedelia and implacable intent. In our selection we've largely drawn from their recent diversions into Pseudo-Pop and soundtrack-y themes, featuring many taken from their super-limited cassette releases. OK, yeah, we're a bit jealous of their eternal optimism and über-cool LA disposition, but when the music's this good, we'll get over it...www.boomkat.com

Young Man - Ideas of Distance

01. Enough
02. Nothing
03. Low
04. Only You
05. Fall
06. Then and Now
07. Tired Eyes
08. Felt

Young Man is a true American success story of the modern age. The solo project of Colin Caulfield (no relation to Holden), the upstart singer-songwriter began posting home videos of himself on YouTube, covering some of his favorite songs. These ranged from contemporaries like Bon Iver and Animal Collective to classics such as the Beatles and David Bowie. People started noticing. A record deal was signed. An EP was released. Tours were embarked upon.

Young men grow up fast these days. A mere two years after Caulfield began posting his homemade videos, his first full-length album, Ideas of Distance, is scheduled to drop on Sept. 27th via Frenchkiss Records. It’s actually the launch of trilogy that Young Man plans to roll out over the next 18 months. First, however, he has tours slated with Cold War Kids and Gardens & Villa, following his current excursion in support of Grouplove.

Caulfield wrote, recorded and mixed the record himself, but unlike the lo-fi approach of last year’s EP, Boy, this one comes with upgraded production value, which highlights the singer's layered vocals and ethereal guitar parts...www.rollingstone.com

Walls - Coracle

1. Into Our Midst
2. Heat Haze
3. Sunporch
4. Il Tedesco
5. Vacant
6. Raw Umber Twilight
7. Ecstatic Truth
8. Drunken Galleon

Walls waste no time in following up their widely acclaimed debut album (MOJO's #1 Electronic LP of 2010) with a glorious set of eight swooning slow trance tinglers for Kompakt. 'Coracle' is as cute as the name suggests, yet perhaps with a keener dancefloor edge than we've previously perceived from their music. The sleek Techno engine which drove this album's predecessor is fine tuned to a Balearic tempo, but with a trustingly Teutonic dancefloor efficiency. From the top of 'In The Midst' the groove steadily purrs at a chugging 110bpm while sublime shoegaze guitar repetitions unfurl across the long, straight road ahead. On cruise control, they pass into the lushly mirage-like 'Heat Haze' before the beat reappears to propel the heart-fluttering arpeggios of 'Sunporch' to almost giddy heights, and we plane across the gazing Techno scapes of 'Il Tedesco'. Down the line 'Vacant' is more blissed, coolly riding the brakes into the elated second wind of 'Raw Umber/Twilight' and the majestic kosmiche disco dissonance of 'Ecstatic Truth'...www.boomkat.com

Young Legionnaire - Crisis Works

01. Twin Victory
02. Numbers
03. Chapter, Verse
04. Even the Birds
05. Black Lions
06. A Hole In the World
07. These Arms
08. Blood Dance
09. Nova Scotia
10. Mortgage Rock
11. Young Salute
12. Futures Finished

To some, Young Legionnaire is a super-group in the sense that members have previously played in other, well-received bands (and continue to). To others, they’re a super group exclusively on their own merits. To these ears: a bit of both. There’s no doubt the trio make an impressive, melodically savvy racket – think Foo Fighters with greater crunch, or a clean-shaven Biffy; post-hardcore without the more cacophonous catharsis. But there’s the nagging feeling that the end result of their efforts doesn’t completely add up to more than the sum of its impressive parts. Crisis Works is accomplished, polished in all the right ways (it sounds good without the grit at the heart of the songs becoming obscured), but perhaps lacks the soul that a musician’s primary project might be instilled with.

Frontman Paul Mullen puts in a committed performance, the ex-yourcodenameis:milo man, currently in The Automatic, able to switch from understated reflection to soaring might come the choruses. His versatility lends Crisis Works essential variety – over its 12 tracks, there’s a good spread of influences coming to the fore, and the interplay between the melodic and rhythmic elements is superbly studied. The band is completed by Bloc Party’s Gordon Moakes on bass and drummer Dean Pearson; originally, Brontide/La Roux sticksman William Bowerman sat at the kit, but demands on his time meant he handed ownership of the stool over to Pearson. At times they recall the tightly-wound punk of stateside outfits like Hot Snakes and Wichita labelmates The Bronx – propulsive, punchy, yet relatively minimalist of instrumentation. At others, they dip into emo waters: not Fall Out Boy style, but more turn-of-the-millennium Jade Tree/Deep Elm in approach. It’s a commendable mix, and one that instantly clicks with listeners of a certain age (hello, this listener).

The only problem is that such a sound hasn’t aged brilliantly, which while not an issue for fans of the Small Brown Bikes and Promise Rings of this world, does rather leave Young Legionnaire at odds with current rock fashions. But such is the transitory nature of this side-project endeavour that it shouldn’t matter – more than anything else, Crisis Works comes over as a labour of love. No, it doesn’t have that extra something, a spark to truly make it essential. But these players have carefully assembled a collection that ticks their own boxes, and there’s much to be said for personal gratification over trend-chasing commercial mindsets. A very respectable debut, all told, and one that deserves an eventual sequel...www.bbc.co.uk

Mark McGuire – Get Lost

1. Get Lost
2. When You're Somewhere
3. Alma
4. Another Dead End
5. Alma (Reprise) / Chances Are
6. Firefly Constellations

Drone artist Mark McGuire has been releasing music on his own for years, but made a name for himself in Emeralds, a drone band that struck a chord last year with the psychedelic LP Does It Look Like I'm Here. Since then McGuire's solo efforts have gotten more attention, especially Living With Yourself, a memory-obsessed LP from last October. Much like those releases, Get Lost is a psychedelic, emotional album built on Mcguire's synth and guitar loops. It sees release next month on Austrian avant-garde outlet Editions Mego. Head over to Altered Zones to hear the title track...www.residentadvisor.net

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lenses Alien

1. Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name)
2. Shore Points
3. Keep Me Waiting
4. Plainclothes
5. Definite Darkness
6. Another Tunguska
7. The Current
8. Wavelengths
9. Secret Family
10. Gary Condit

Old-school indie purists could use a modern hero, and while it may be unfair to peg Cymbals Eat Guitars as '90s revivalists, their second album will speak to fans of Built to Spill's squall, Superchunk's chug, and Modest Mouse's string-bending strangeness. Frontman Joe D'Agostino, a.k.a. Joseph Ferocious, belongs in such lofty company: His dense, inventive songs evoke imagistic glimpses of mucus and ice-covered cars, moving from a gentle keen ("Plainclothes") to a desperate scream. Gorgeously harrowing album closer "Gary Condit" plays both sides, its prettiness collapsing into ferocity before disappearing entirely...www.spin.com

St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

1. Chloe In The Afternoon
2. Cruel
3. Cheerleader
4. Surgeon
5. Northern Lights
6. Strange Mercy
7. Neutered Fruit
8. Champagne Year
9. Dilettante
10. Hysterical Strength
11. Year Of The Tiger

Annie Clark strikes a downright divine balance between scornful rock squall and serenely sweet vocalizing. Her third album is her most mercurial yet, a dense clash of post-punk fuzz and baroque-pop rumination, with esoteric 
new elements, from atonal electro-jazz to synth scratches to cheeky talkbox. While she was charmingly fey on 2007 debut Marry Me and caustic on 2009 follow-up Actor, she's introspective and fanciful here, crafting a single mother's lullaby on the title track, and repenting for her insecure past on "Cheerleader." Yet she's no passive pom-pom girl: Clark's complex femininity, both self-possessed and keenly evolving, is what makes her music so powerful and fascinating...www.spin.com

Chad VanGaalen - Diaper Island

01. Do Not Fear
02. Peace On The Rise
03. Burning Photographs
04. Heavy Stones
05. Sara
06. Replace Me
07. Blonde Hash
08. Freedom for a Policeman
09. Can You Believe It!?
10. Wandering Spirits
11. No Panic / No Heat
12. Shave My Pussy

In addition to turning in three very solid albums of his own in the past few years, Chad VanGaalen also produced fellow Albertans Women. The two albums he made with that band in his basement were distinctly homespun and lo-fi sounding, but packed with some of his characteristic idiosyncrasies-- from recording on boomboxes to unexpected appearances of synth to flourishes of odd percussion. There was a sense that Women were being let into VanGaalen's world rather than the other way around.

So it makes sense that he returns to the sound of the two Women albums on his fourth LP, Diaper Island. VanGaalen's previous records are characterized by their eclecticism, veering from acoustic folk songs to electronic synth workouts, and they often sound like grab-bags drawn from his apparently prolific recording habits (he recently told an interviewer he had recorded 80 songs leading up to this record). Part of what makes Diaper Island a success is its cohesive sound and restraint. There's an economy in his instrumentation and recording that allows a set of well-written songs to take center stage.

On Diaper Island VanGaalen internalizes feelings of restlessness into the fabric of his songs, giving them more depth than before. The de-tuned guitars of "Peace on the Rise" hew close to the sound of 1990s indie-- bands like Sonic Youth and Pavement loom large here-- spinning a downtrodden riff that's also quite an earworm. But the song's melancholy tinge takes an unexpected nosedive halfway through the song in a beautiful, droning mid-section that opens out with horns and rough textures. It's a characteristic left-turn, the kind of unexpected shift that VanGaalen used to perform with production switches on previous records.

But there's a lot of surface-level enjoyment too, as VanGaalen's excellent riffs compete for the spotlight. The best of these comes on "Burning Photographs", as glassy guitar propels zig-zagging verses in front of a loose, ticking drum beat. There's a satisfying energy at the heart of many of these songs, and VanGaalen allows them to sound slack and jammy as he launches into taut solos on "Replace Me" and "Blonde Hash".

The record manages to be compelling even during some of its weaker moments, such as spiky second-half cuts "Freedom For a Policeman" and "Can You Believe It!?". Both have an almost mean edge to them. VanGaalen sounds prickly on the latter song as he sings, "That fucking mind scanner/ That made me piss myself/ Now that I'm calming down/ I'm really thankful they erased it." It's not the most instantly enjoyable track on the record, but it shows a different side of VanGaalen's character and makes his songwriting feel more engaging on the whole.

VanGaalen closes the record with the line, "Baby, will you love me/ I'm really feeling ugly," on a song called "Shave My Pussy", and Diaper Island-- as hinted at with that title-- isn't the prettiest record he's ever made. Instead, it's gritty and honest. Beneath the surface-layer thrill of some of these songs are subtle character shifts and brave one-liners, all of which confirm VanGaalen's status as gripping songwriter as well as a producer...www.pitchfork.com

Chelsea Wolfe - Apokalypsis

1. Primal / Carnal
2. Mer
3. Tracks (Tall Bodies)
4. Demons
5. Movie Screen
6. The Wasteland
7. Moses
8. Friedrichshain
9. Pale On Pale
10.To The Forest, Towards The Sea

LA's Chelsea Wolfe hounds the Goth vibe into ever more enticing alleys with her followup to 'The Grime And The Glow'. Her 2nd album, 'Apokalypsis' opens with a feral snarl before 'Mer' exhibits a startling upgrade to her sound, from 8-track tape to full studio clarity. Fittingly, this is in keeping with the album's title, translating from Greek as both "apocalypse" and "revelation", as she unveils nine songs of doomy folk guitars, slow and bellicose drums and sorrowfully atmospheric synths creating the perfectly sepulchral backing for affected, moaning and ghosted vocals...www.boomkat.com

Julia Holter - Tragedy

01. Introduction
02. Try To Make Yourself A Work Of Art
03. The Falling Age
04. Goddess Eyes
05. Interlude
06. Celebration
07. So Lillies
08. Tragedy Finale

*Quite honestly one of the best albums of any description you'll hear in 2011...* Julia Holter is one of the most singular female artists we've encountered from the current groundswell of American indies. Leaving Records is possibly an unusual home for her latest, but then again, what's "usual" about Sun Araw, Matthewdavid or Dem Hunger? Her high concept fifth release, 'Tragedy' is based on the Ancient Greek play 'Hippolytus', and mixes elements of synth work with droning neo-classical strings, cloud-like ambience and dreamily surreal vocals, almost like an amalgam of Robert Ashley, Maria Minerva and Laurie Anderson. There's very little else out there right now with this sort of ambition, and most importantly, such a shockingly effective sense of wonder. A stunning, stunning album and an absolute must regardless of the kind of music you usually listen to...www.boomkat.com

Ganglians - Still Living

1. Call Me
2. That's What I Want
3. Evil Weave
4. Sleep
5. Jungle
6. Bradley
7. Things to Know
8. Good Times
9. The Toad
10. California Cousins
11. Faster
12. My House

Sactown janglers Ganglians conceived Still Living, their nearly hour-long third LP, as something of a clearinghouse. Working, as they put it, "with no metronome," they went into the Still Living sessions to stretch out their limber melodies, tamp down their nervous energies, and wipe away some of the murk of their earlier work. That they did; the airy Still Living brings their gently unfurling, sunlit melodies and towering blasts of harmony into sharp focus. Still Living's cross-section of Byrdsian folk-psych, loose-limbed 80s indie rock, and fizzy Beach Boys-derived harmonies in the nouveau Grizzly Bear/Fleet Foxes mold finds the quietly confident Ganglians nimbly folding in one sliver of melody after another until their songs just glimmer. With an album's worth of agile tunes at their disposal and Dirty Projectors associate Robby Moncrieff behind the boards, Still Living slips by with an elegant ease that seemed beyond them even on their two fine 2009 efforts.

For all its musical poise, Still Living stumbles right out of the gate and-- vocally, anyway-- occasionally struggles to regain its footing. "This is a sad sad song for all you sad sad people," Ryan Grubbs lets go at the album's onset, and this overeager announcement proves memorable in all the ways they didn't intend. What follows is, thankfully, a tad subtler, as Grubbs' lyrics recede more often than they pop, often buried in a sea of enunciation-divebombing harmony. Ganglians aren't alone in their fondness for the swelling, Beach Boys-derived vocal pileup, as filtered through the aforementioned animal bands. They're fine enough singers, but after a while, Still Living's reliance on ornate vocal kumbayas seem to weigh down its willowy music. The chorus of "whoah-oh-ohs" that sets off "Jungle" is close kin to Fleet Foxes' "Ragged Wood", and "Evil Weave" isn't the only number that breaks into a round; lovely stuff, but brought out this frequently, the distinctions between songs-- and, occasionally, syllables-- begin to blur

But if you can accuse Ganglians of anything after Still Living's opening salvo, it's drowning in their own loveliness; not the worst problem to have, really. Though they may nick liberally from fairly familiar sources-- the clear-eyed but slightly sneaky melodies of the Feelies, R.E.M., and Galaxie 500, ornate symphonic-pop vocalisms of past and present greats, and an indie-popper's low-key mentality-- their crosshatching of influences has enough finesse to make easy comparisons seem beside the point. Ornate but never ostentatious, Moncrieff's production brings clarity and fluidity to the proceedings; even the occasional overreach does better on coherence than their earlier, more scattershot stuff. Even Still Living's wealth of straight-up guitar-pop isn't quite so straight-up after a handful of listens, the bends in the road ahead becoming clear as day after a few passes. Though they could still stand to pull back on the vocal fanfares, brushing away some of the gunk that mottled up their earlier records and doubling down on melody each open up new avenues in their sound, and Still Living finds Ganglians delivering on their early promise while stepping confidently toward whatever's next...www.pitchfork.com

Active Child - You Are All I See

1. You Are All I See
2. Hanging On
3. Playing House (featuring How To Dress Well)
4. See Thru Eyes
5. High Priestess
6. Ivy
7. Way Too Fast
8. Ancient Eye
9. Shield & Sword
10. Johnny Belinda

Though no sound suits every taste, the harp has to be one of the most inoffensive instruments in existence, which is why we aren't greeted in heaven by angels with marimbas. Active Child's Pat Grossi makes free with the harp's transfiguring power on his new album, and it's not the only thing stacking the deck in his favor. You Are All I Seeis full of stuff that almost everybody likes, or seems to, right now: epic electronic landscapes, monastically minimal R&B, and currents of rumbling post-dubstep sound design. Grossi's strong yet ethereal voice-- its corners neatly squared by a childhood spent in choirs-- masses and hovers, imparting an elevated piety to the music. The slick, timely aesthetic is appealing, but works at slight odds with the timelessness Grossi cultivates.

If you enjoyed how harps and beats entwined in a glittery haze on Active Child's Curtis LaneEP, you'll enjoy You Are All I See, which is similar but runs on finer gears. The EP's fairly rigid boundary between dance numbers and atmospheric ones has become much more porous, creating a subtler flow that carries us smoothly from the frosty soul and coiled percussion of "Hanging On" to the expansive art-pop of "High Priestess" and "See Thru Eyes", where jagged but spare synthetic drums and holographic tone colors make Grossi's voice seem to tower even higher. It all sounds like the work of someone whose computer expertise is catching up with his instrumental chops.

With this welcome refinement of style comes a minor downside, namely, that it feels overly familiar. This isn't to say that Grossi is ripping anyone off-- at a time when music is so instantly responsive to its own immediate context, his recombinant approach is routine. But on You Are All I See, craft edges out personality. The allusions to modern trends are so well-realized that it at least creates a slightly numbing impression of opportunistic pastiche, even if the similarities were unintentional. If you enjoyed the experimental soft-pop moods of Bon Iver's recent album and are looking for more spiritually glamorous music, step right up. Pacesetter How to Dress Well, who mines a vein similar to Grossi's but more ghostly, guests on the excellent "Playing House", while "Hanging On" sounds like a heartfelt synthesis of "Lady Luck", "The Boy Is Mine", and "Pony". To top it off, "Way Too Fast" and "Shield & Sword" both have the prayerful, hollowed out turbulence of James Blake. With a figurative dugout like that, it's hard to go wrong in 2011.

Nothing wrong with a low-stakes success if it sounds this good. But it's odd when a record that puts such a high premium on the personal feels so formal and emotionally opaque. Grossi's lyrics about longing and engulfing isolation have been polished to the point where they are immaculately vague, and sometimes, precious. They project plenty of emotional grandiosity. What's missed are more specific details, which might have led to something more relatable. As it stands, the sound of Grossi's voice is much more eloquent and moving than his words. Taken together, You Are All I See still can't help but feel like an old cathedral-- easy to admire in awe, but somehow cold and remote; hard to really make your own...www.pitchfork.com

Sanso-Xtro - Fountain Fountain Joyous Mountain

1. Fountain Fountain
2. The Origin Of Birds
3. Wood Owl Wings A Rush, Rush
4. Golden Hour
5. Hello Night Crow
6. Light Come, Light Go, Ghost
7. Goodnight Thylacine
8. Observes Shadows
9. Exit: Joyous Mountain

Sanso-Xtro's long awaited follow-up to her 2005 debut for Type finally arrives, and sees an amazing development of sound. It's a gentle, fragile collection of songs and instrumentals that remind us at one moment of Talk Talk, at others of old Alan Lomax recordings, with Gamelan and Kosmische experiments dropped in-between the gaps. In the time that has passed since 'Sentimentalist' Melissa Agate removed herself from the UK to South Australia near Adelaide. Living in relative "hibernation" gives some explanation to the more intimate and sublime new sound she's put together, revealing sugared and reduced glosolalia applied to an array of synths, accordion, melodion, kalimba, guitar and custom-made percussion contraptions which fold into her exquisite and fragile blend of Kosmische, electronica and avant-pop. With 'Fountain Fountain Joyous Mountain' she builds on the ideas of her first record with ornate detailing and a blissfully attuned sense of arrangement, making her multi-dimensional songs seem playfully effortless. After catching us by the hairs of the neck with hypnotic, alien gamelan tones in 'Fountain Fountain' her layered vocal unexpectedly closes the track with a blissful flourish. Following this, her background as a drummer soon becomes evident in the tingling percussion of 'The Origin Of Birds' coupled with daubs of dizzying melody, which, in its fragile balance of microcosmic chaos refracts into the natural world themes of 'Wood Owl Wings A Rush, Rush' and the album's literal and figurative centrepoint 'Hello Night Crow' where her vocals make another poignant intimation. Like all good things, Agate uses her voice sparingly - they don't return until the album's closing strokes after the refracted Jazz tumble of 'Goodnight Thylacine' and the suspenseful acoustic guitar piece 'Light Come, Light Go, Ghost'. When 'Exit: Joyous Mountain' arrives it feel like an old Alan Lomax gem dug up from a creek bed, wheezing melodica/harmonica in systolic synchronization with tantalising vox...www.boomkat.com

Motion Sickness Of Time Travel - Luminaries & Synastry

01 Luminaries
02 Synastry
03 Late Day Sun Silhouettes
04 Ascendant
05 Athame
06 Day Glow
07 Moving Backward Through The Constellations
08 Eight Nineteen
09 The Walls Were Dripping With Stars
10 Like Dunes
11 Night

Rachel Evans left many listeners stunned with her debut album 'Seeping Through The Veil Of The Unconscious', released on tape and vinyl to pretty much universal acclaim at the end of last year. Her follow-up proper, 'Luminaries & Synastry' is a divine, subtly dizzying descent from the heights of that album, catching Rachel cocooned in a feather-like freefall to more pastoral climes without ever actually touching down to solid ground. The simplicity of instinctively layered, ethereal vocals and seemingly infinite arpeggios make for a mesmerising take on pop music, where the atmospheric composition contains far more nitrous oxide in a lower pressure system, and duly everyone floats about dazed in a state of post-rave/orgasmic bliss. This suspended sensation is unmistakable on opener 'Luminaries', those whispered vocals condensing around beads of glinting machine rhythms and convective synth swirls, precipitating the mood of things to come. Following this, 'Synastry' provides a poignant moment of clarity where you can almost make out whole phrases through the pillow of gaseous drones, slowing the systolic rate for the twilight glide of 'Late Day Sun Silhouettes' and the lambent organ glow of 'Ascendant' or 'Athame'. Entering the kosmische vortex of 'Day Glow' and ''Moving Backward Through The Constellations' the mood turns less blissed and more viscerally tactile, where creeping arpeggios envelope Rachel's haloed vocal in a tangle of bittersweet dissonance, before the gaseous glades of 'Eight Nineteen' opens out, eyelids fluttering, to the scenery of 'The Walls Were Dripping With Stars'. Sublime...www.boomkat.com

Dam Mantle - We EP

1. We
2. Meet Me In The Ambulance
3. Somnambulate My Dear
4. Not A Word

First run of the year for one of 2010's most intriguing production units, Dam Mantle. Starting up the GetMe! label with the 'We' EP, they concoct an ethereal blend of spidery, skittish 808s, displaced vocals and rustic horror vibes, the likes of which we couldn't recall hearing anywhere else. From the top, 'We' rolls up shroomy, twirling arpeggios and Jukin' 808s with a defintively melancholy lilt which permeates the rest of the 12". It's apparent in the swift highlight of 'Meet Me In The Ambulance', where the rhythms roll in and out of 4/4 sequences under moodily grey-skied pads, and there in the lightly shrill dissonance of 'Somnambulate, My Dear' with it's BoC-like pastoral outro, and twystin' the midnight electronic soul of 'Not A Word' with a more fractal yet fluidly jazzy quality. Quite importantly, their sense of funk throughout these tracks is highly nuanced and way more devleoped than so many in their field, bar the actual Juke guys or the likes of Zomby and others, but applied with their own eerie melodies and voices, it's a unique affective brew. Recommended...www.boomkat.com

Sun Araw - Ancient Romans

01. Lucretius
02. Crown Shell
03. Crete
04. Lute And Lyre
05. At Delphi
06. Fit For Caesar
07. Trireme
08. Impluvium

Over a handful of albums, Sun Araw main man 
Cameron Stallones has become adept at getting neck-deep in swampy 
dub, even as he drizzles syrupy Afro-beats atop 
his psych-tinged noise. This double album (complete with lush art booklet) is styled like a toga party, but some tracks ("Fit for Caesar," "Lucretius") are closer to the 'shroom-chewing highlights of Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. "At Delphi" toes the line between synth shriek and baby wail, while epic closer "Impluvium" is a 
pagan ritual fit for the decline of Empire...www.spin.com