Here’s the description from the press release: "7 tracks of ultra bleak, abstract atmospheres, with sounds and textures that seem to seep from catacomb walls and come slithering out of subterranean chambers." This is a pretty fair description. This is dark ambient, but it’s noisy dark ambientsoothing bass drones with just a bit of dissonance and noises beneath the surface that at times completely overwhelms the drones. For example, in "LaMoraleComeCorollariodellaVittoria" (talk about a radio friendly name!) the noise breaks through the drones to slow pounding and grinding staticy noise. But this isn’t too harsh; it would still function fine as background music for doing something else. It’s engaging enough to be interesting but not so demanding as to keep interrupting your concentration. I had it playing in my office and a colleague stopped byI felt no inclination to turn off or turn down the music. The obvious comparisons to Lustmord apply, but Eidvlon seems to have more in common with some of the more experimental Zoviet France pieces. In other words, it fits quite well with the other material in the Malignant catalog. This disc weighs in at 41 minutes.

Despite the name of the band, this is the solo work of Mike Fazio. I had not heard of this project, but I am familiar with his work in Copernicus, which is a wonderful blend of poetry and music. The label describes the disc thus: "This new recording consists of an improvised solo electric guitar soundscape originally intended for an exhibition of local area visual artists that never came to be. This piece was totally improvised and freeform, recorded live and captured in one take and then divided into 4 parts." Guitar drone is often polarized in terms of qualitywhen it’s good it’s really good and when it’s bad it’s really bad and there is little in between. Fortunately, this falls on the good side of the spectrum, probably because it doesn’t really sound like just guitar drone. I’m assuming that there are a lot of effects being used to create the variety of sounds in these tracks. The album opens with what sounds like an orchestra warming up for performance. As the disc progresses, the layers become more and more intertwined to the point where, in Part 3, it becomes almost like a wall of noise that continually crescendos and decrescendos. But this wall of noise is not to be confused with the Merzbow style of wall of noise. It never becomes oppressive, just intense. Overall, this is a nice disc to relax to but still engaging. I suppose it would work for your next gallery installation as well... . The main comparison that comes to mind is Vidna Obmana. This disc weighs in at 49 minutes and is nicely packaged in a digipak. You can check out some of it at his myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/orchestramaxfieldparrish.

Here’s how the press release describes the disc: "Shape of Poison, for solo piano performance and electronics, mixes unique live electro-acoustic experimentation with cut-up gamelan, crunched-out Casio tones, and other uncharted sonic landscapes." OK - sounds promising. Unfortunately this disc is pretty heavy on the piano and very light on the experimentation. It’s not bad, but it’s not what I was expecting. If I had to compare it to anything, I would say it’s sort of like Nature and Organisation’s "Death in a Snow Leopard Winter" or perhaps Feu Follet & Miina Virtanen’s "The Icicle Lectures Vol. 1" without the drones. Let’s look at the individual tracks. "The Waves Sound Sometimes Close and Sometimes Far Away": This is pretty much straight piano improvisation. It’s nice, but it doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. "A Dragonfly Vainly Tries to Settle onto a Leaf": Piano with some noisy elements, but not terribly chaotic. "Kotekan Seniman Alam/Waves Fade into the Distance": This twenty minute track is by far the standout on this disc. It’s a lot more engaging, mixing slow but heavy piano with fast paced gamelan. It almost sounds like two separate tracks, with a long pause about six minutes in. The track later goes back to straight piano for the most part, but I really wish that the rest of the disc was more like this track. Overall, the disc is a pleasant listen, but not terribly demanding. This seems to just flirt with the idea of experimental music. This disc weighs in at 44 minutes.

I had not previously heard of this Polish act. This is generally decent synth based ambient music with a bit of guitar thrown in for good measure. The music is soothing and peaceful. It doesn’t really have any of the noisy or dissonant elements that one would expect from dark ambient. Maybe it’s a stretch, but the only comparison that I could come up with is Orb. There are some exceptions to the formula though. For example, "Na szczycie olbrzymiej góry" (try saying that 5 times quickly) brings in some processed voices and some lightly distorted guitar. Even so, it doesn’t really seem to go anywhere. Overall, it’s a pleasant listen but doesn’t really break any new ground. This disc weighs in at 44 minutes.

Extreme records gives a morsel for every artist of its present roster in this free sampler you can download here: (http://www.archive.org/details/XLTD-010/), it's a great idea since you can taste the heterogeneity of their catalogue that goes from electronic music to free jazz, from power-noise to quasi ambient music. As you can guess by reading the interview featured on this site a label sampler in the case of Extreme, Tzadik or Ipecac is really useful for the simple fact while having their own identity they follow blindly the idea of open-mindedness regardless of genre compartimentation. You think I'm exaggerating? The sampler opens with a boombastic masterpiece of Terminal Sound System (who's last cd was probably one of the best electronic release I've heard the last year), and remains electronic-music oriented with Mr Geoffrey and JD Franzke then you have this sort of post "Elliott Sharp-Carbon Orchestra" meets David Shea in gangster salsa of Ether that's been a real surprise. You have a bunch of avant-jazzists that go from my personal favorite Robert Vincs to uncompromissory "soloist" Scott Tinkler, from jazz/contemporary/avant pianist Mark Hannaford to the Antripoden Collective who's free jazz essence is more than explicit. You have this bunch of new artists that recently joined the label like visionary Claudio Parodi that this time, beside using electronics plays his own turkish-clarinet, post-ambiental, post-Eno elegant Luca Formentini and Dario Buccino here frozen with a weird harsh-noise vs ambient track (my expectations for the forthcoming dvd of this guy are really high since from what I've read his work should be really unconventional). In this free sampler I've found a couple of great surprises since it's the first time I happen to hear their music: Maju coming from Japan plays a top notch and classy japenese-ambient-electronics you can expect to be realized on labels like Spekk or Flop so if you're into Yoshihiro Hanno, Minamo, Fourcolors or in the likes put their name in your agendas. The other surprise arrives from the collaboration between John Rodgers and Ken Edie that I could describe as a contemporary cocktail of unordinary classic violin vs a concrete performing the reminded me of mighty Michel Chion.