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Ambarchi, O'Malley, Dunn

Shade Themes from Kairos
Drag City (2014)

The idea for Shade Themes From Kairos started when Belgian filmmaker Alexis Destoop asked Ambarchi and O’Malley to provide the score for his short film Kairos. The two musicians travelled to Belgium and started working on the score for the film, and after they finished with the soundtrack they returned to Randall Dunn’s Aleph Studios in Seattle to further explore … Read more

Aphex Twin

Syro
Warp (2014)

Sometime around the mid-2000’s, I began to realize just how much I missed having new music by Richard D. James, who typically records under the name of Aphex Twin. I’d been spoiled in the 1990’s: starting off the decade with a pair of outstanding and other-wordly ambient releases (the positively sublime Selected Ambient Works discs), James continued to regularly produce … Read more

Pan & Me

Ocean Noise
Denovali (2014)

Christopher Mevel, one of the founding members of the Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones, set up his solo project, Pan & Me, in order to step outside of the jazz based sound of the main band and to explore other sonic domains. Ambient music and drone are the key aspects of Pan & Me and their main focus of … Read more

Pharmakon

Bestial Burden
Sacred Bones (2014)

Just last year Pharmakon was putting out Abandon, tearing our brains apart. Margaret Chardiet (the artist behind Pharmakon) was collecting aspects of industrial, noise and power electronics, filtering all that through her mind and producing one of the most intense listens of (at least) 2013. Now how can you top something like that? Inspiration usually comes from personal experience and … Read more

Mannequin Pussy

Gypsy Pervert
Tiny Engines (2014)

It’s kind of remarkable how vaguely similar the debut album by Philadelphia’s Mannequin Pussy is to that of another of 2014’s breakout artists, Perfect Pussy. Both these similarly-named, female-fronted bands utilize rough sound production to create a listening experience that’s raw, ragged, and jarring, but while Perfect Pussy’s churning Say Yes to Love almost borders on being unlistenable (at least … Read more

Perturbator

DANGEROUS DAYS
Independent (2014)

If Daft Punk were commissioned to score a cyberpunk horror film of the likes of Hardware, the resulting work may sound something like what Paris musician James “Perturbator” Kent has come up with on 2014’s Dangerous Days, the latest of his four albums. Utilizing vintage synthesizer sound straight out of the Miami Vice era, Perturbator lets loose with aggressive arpeggios … Read more

Blut Aus Nord

Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Debemur Morti Productions (2014)

Starting back in the early ‘90s, Blut Aus Nord exists in two intersecting realities. Their earlier releases, which includes the first part of the Memoria Vetusta trilogy (a trilogy so far, I guess it might be extended), showcased an atmospheric black metal band, in the vein of acts such as Norwegian black metal legends Emperor. But soon enough, Blut Aus … Read more

Mamiffer

Statu Nascendi
Sige (2014)

Even though Mamiffer started off as a studio project of Faith Coloccia, throughout the years it has blossomed into something much more. The atmospheric experimental band of the former mastermind behind Everlovely Lightningheart, and Aaron Turner (also of Old Man Gloom and previously of ISIS) released a couple of full-lengths and a number of splits and collaborations with other amazing … Read more

Sunn O))) and Scott Walker

Soused
4AD (2014)

The moment I heard Scott Walker would be collaborating for a full album with Sunn O))), I assumed I was dreaming. That was just too good to be actually true. In the past Sunn O))) have had great collaborations with bands such as, Boris, Nurse With Wound and Ulver, all of which really fitted their style. But this goes beyond … Read more

FKA Twigs

LP1
Young Turks (2014)

Tahliah Barnett, who looks something of an art-school alien, first descended into the tellurian realm as a Grimes incarnate: girl with space-cadet aesthetics turned one-woman powerhouse. twig’s status as Robert Pattinson’s new beau, her paint-smeared, caricatured album cover, and inclination for the grotesque have a way of garnering the important questions. Who is she? Is the breadth of her facial … Read more

Modest Midget

Crysis
Multi-Polar Music (2014)

Following the group’s ambitious 2010 debut The Great Prophecy of a Small Man, Dutch group Modest Midget returns with 2014’s Crysis, an album that’s equally as sprawling, eclectic, and generally cheerful as its predecessor. Admittedly, it took me a few listens to really get into what Modest Midget had to offer on their first album, and this second effort is … Read more

Ourlives

Den Of Lions
Spartan Records (2014)

Somewhere among the snowy and otherworldly environs of Reykjavik, Jón Björn Árnason and Leifur Kristinsson created Ourlives. They've been together for nine years, having already released two albums in their native Iceland. Their second album Den of Lions has now been released stateside, and neatly displays the band's penchant for minimalist, atmospheric songs. Think early-00s Coldplay, but with more weight.Den … Read more

The Tim Version

Ordinary Life
No Idea Records (2014)

The Tim Version’s set at Fest 12 was slower. The songs were drawn out—still loud, and angry—but they were a notch slower, going for expansive and big instead of that 1-2 punch. Was that to be the style on their next album, or was it just the hangover influencing their set list?Ordinary Life is their second LP on No Idea … Read more

Burial Hex

The Hierophant
Handmade Birds (2014)

Burial Hex, the project of multi-instrumentalist Clay Ruby has put out a plethora of releases, with their excellent debut, self-titled album and Book of Delusions really standing out. Now with his latest release, Ruby takes the project even further in terms of how dark his sound can get and how interestingly his music has evolved. Ruby is a great molder … Read more

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