The Cavemen "Euthanise Me (Slovenly)"
New Zealand’s stank beacons of irresponsibility THE CAVEMEN are back in the Slovenly saddle with four new merciless hits to the chin, as if 2020 hasn’t been painful enough! Like, who doesn’t wanna get euthanized, right? Only time will tell if this year’s NZ ‘End of Life Choice Act’ to legalise euthanasia passes. If not, at least you get three square meals a day in the clink!
Seems like the ‘Men would have already tackled a tune titled “Eat Your Heart Out” on one of their hundred previous releases, but cannibalism is only the tip of the iceberg here – these guys want to “Eat Your Heart and Wear Your Face.”
HOW DISGUSTING(LY ROMANTICAL).
But don’t flatter yourself, baby. They’re fine with going to see a shrink to get “Over You” while you’re twisting with your new squeeze. So enjoy yourselves, because as they say, it’s later than you think.
William Basinski "Lamentations (TRL)"
William Basinski’s reputation as the foremost producer of profound meditations on death and decay has long been established, but on his new album, Lamentations, he transforms operatic tragedy into abyssal beauty. More than any other work since The Disintegration Loops, there is an ominous grief throughout the album, and that sense of loss lingers like an emotional vapor.
Captured and constructed from tape loops and studies from Basinski’s archives – dating back to 1979 – Lamentations is over forty years of mournful sighs meticulously crafted into songs. They are shaped by the inevitable passage of time and the indisputable collapsing of space – and their collective resonance is infinite and eternal.
Pole "Fading (Mute)"
Pole is the project of ground-breaking electronic musician Stefan Betke. The new album Fading is the first since 2015’s Wald. As with every new Pole record, it’s part of a continued forward trajectory but it also connects to a pre-existing sonic framework. “Every Pole record connects to recordings that I’ve made before,” Betke says, “in order to stay in this kind of vertical development. The ideas from 1, 2, 3 [his groundbreaking first three albums] up to now are connected. I keep the interesting elements, languages and vocabulary that I designed and add new elements.” Fading follows the physical released on Mute of remastered versions of his iconic albums 1, 2, 3 to much acclaim.
Black To Comm "Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens (Thrill Jockey)"
The music of Black To Comm is as powerfully intoxicating as it is subtly unnerving. Shapeshifting producer and sound artist Marc Richter has established himself as one of the most inventive and ambitious voices in contemporary music. Richter’s mastery of sonic manipulation is matched only by his astounding clarity of vision. Working heavily with sampling and electronic processing, each of his phantasmagoric works is meticulously constructed from a truly omnivorous array of smudged samples, found sounds, and other sonic detritus, collected by Richter from across the history of recorded music and altered into beguiling new shapes. Sound sources seem tantalizingly familiar and yet forever just out of reach, flickering at the edges of memory and perception or submerged in a bristling sea of static. A single piece might strafe elements of Eastern European folk, medieval plainsong, sky-clawing metal and shimmering ambient music, all ingested by Richter into his singular sound-world. Oocyte Oil & Stolen Androgens sees Richter’s turn his wild imagination to an exploration of the human voice, compiling some of his most immediate and affecting music to date.