Hive is one of the best record labels out there to get your rhythm-noise, glitch-breakcore, IDM fixes. Their 24th infection is Cenotype, a NYC-based industrial-noise project that has been active for some years but only now releases his debut full length album. Obviously Mr Cenotype has been around long enough to learn the lessons offered by traditional industrial outlets such as Daft, Body, Ant Zen etc, and with "Origins" he offers a consolidated yet personal outlook on power-rhythm-noise in the 21st century. From hard-hitting, pounding and zapping saturated beats to dance-flirtatious 4/4 patterns that might even make him remix-material for some DJs out there that are not scared of abrasive and raw sounds as opposed to liquid and chill ones. Cenotype's beats are always mixed in with saturated and droning dark-ambient visions that grind against each other with the idiosyncrasy of machinery and industrial landscapes a-la Blade Runner.

Normally a CD like this is probably a little too rock for our reader-base, however I am sure our reader-base will appreciate an exception if you consider that this CD originates from Bill Laswell's prolific creativity. 14 years into its existence, this incarnation of Praxis is comprised of Bill on bass, Buckethead on guitar (a name that will sound familiar to Guns'n'Roses fans), Brain on drums (of Primus fame) and Bernie Worrell on keyboards (P-Funk).
Although Praxis has been compared to Primus for good reason (the restless drumming, the freaky on stage attitude, the sonic impact), it is important to understand that Les and Bill are two different types of musicians. While Les prefers skillfully slapping his way through a track, Bill much rather goes for super-low-end dub bass line and loves his pedals to add distortion, heavy chorus etc. The guitar playing on this album is also pretty mind-boggling, in tune with the tradition of the jamband scene portrayed at Bonnaroo, where this CD was recorded live in 2004 by producer/engineer Oz Fritz (Tom Waits, Tabla Beat Science, Primus etc).
Being a live show recording, this CD contains a lot of solos and jam performances, so don't expect your typical song structure and only go for it if you enjoy long noodling, great playing and being "in the moment"...

Resonance will go down in history for being the first electronic music album made with Trinidadian steel pan sounds to ever be produced. Twelve artists from NYC, Austin, Greensboro, London, Brazil, Germany, Oslo, Australia, Tokyo and Belfast received samples of the peculiar sounding instrument by pannist Darren Dyke so they could get down and dirty with them and tweak from dusk to dawn. As you'd expect, there is a lot of the experimental/avantgarde thing going on (random steel pan sounds here and there amidst a bunch of other random noises, presumably all originated from the same sound sources but tweaked to the point where the source is almost unrecognizable) however there are also a lot of interventions where the processing is so heavy that you can't identify the instrument at all. In some instances the artists went to town creating their own beats and producing Warp-esque electro-ambient compositions (a great example of that is Paul Russell's exciting track, no wonder he is from London...). Other tracks go from pushing the limits of saturation to creating dreamy an crystallized ambient tunes or from glitch electronica to nightmarish dark drones. Diversity is definitely key so give this disc a listen on CDBaby, iTunes or on the distributor's site.

Rumskib is a Danish duo composed by multi-instrumentalist Keith Canisius Baerken and vocalist Tine Louise Kortermand with contributions from Jonas Munk (Manual/Limp) at synths and digital programming. They offer up an exciting slab of shoegazer mayhem with many glorious moments. Besides the stellar quality of the songs and Louise's vocal performance, the most astonishing thing about Rumskib's debut is the confidence with which the band deals with structured and multi-layered sonic sculptures. "Springtime" is an instant nu-gaze/dream-pop classic with cyclic rhythms and vocal patterns mirroring one another reaching the trancelike sonic bliss of
"Doppelganger"-era Curve, with unexpected continuities that leave you with your mouth wide open in absolute awe. "Where Are The Flowers" trips out to more introspective realms and it's an intense and heartfelt tribute to Cocteau Twins' lesson. "Girl Afraid" and "Love at First Sight" are quieter and sweet love-struck compositions. So far, the best debut album of the year, bar none.

The third Triple Bath release is Jan-M. Iversen's "1.05 Drone". Besides being part of the well known Origami collective, Iversen has released as much as 35 releases in the past years, which is quite an impressive number. Favoring
clarity and meditation, Iversen's hour long drone is a floating composition made of many sound layers - in the last five minutes there is a tone shifting which I intended as a gentle awakening from the droning trance. I suppose that the sound sources on this one are treated field recs because of the drone's irreegularity. As far as i can remember this is the best release of this artist.