Second The Caretaker release after critically acclaimed "The Haunted Ballroom" (evoking Kubrick's ballroom scene from "The Shining"), "A Stairway to the Stars" has been in the making for over two years and is built around forgotten ballroom classics from the 30es and the 40es. Comparisons to Richard James' "Selected Ambient Works II" (whom elegedly they collaborated with) are not way off, but you rather have to think of this in terms of original recordings restored, edited, processed and re-processed. The result is an awesome timeless soundtrack of memories where a predominant reverb wash helps amplifying the sensation of distance (in time). A true beauty, a record where time becomes a ghost, nostalgia becomes evocation and past becomes present. Old crackling tunes that become so real that if you close your eyes you can probably see ghosts from a past life dancing in front and around you with light waving moves and transparent faded blue and gray colors... Like memory loosing focus and detail, this aural record brings you back a dreamy history letting you fill in the blanks, while the lush ambient wash wraps you...
The record is released on V/Vm's label V/Vm Test, and if you aren't familiar with them and their controversial, silly, funny and provoking releases you should do some ressearch and find out what they're capable of! ;-)

Anticipating the fifth In Strict Confidence's CD (which will be released on June the tenth) titled "Mistrust The Angels", HERZATTACKE bring us a band which in the years gathered increasing interest and which with this mini CD sees a major company taking them under its wing and a deal with Sony for sure can help the band getting much more exposure (let's say so, even if I've got some example that demonstrate the contrary. Anyway...). The fifty minutes of the CD show a different band respect old CDs like "Face The Fear" or "Angels Anger Overkill" but this isn't shockig, as for the band it has been a continuing evolution. The tracks are well produced, dancey and all but I feel a lack of energy. I don't know, but it could be that five remixes of the same track plus three new ones (but "Kaleidoskop" is an instrumental track) could be attractive for a fan of the band but honestly I prefer the old sound, really. Let's wait for the album...

Are you ready for thirty eight minutes of noise anarchy? Natiho Toyota and Kouhei deconstruct improvised noises(hisses and various electrical noises for the first and various percussing objects mixed with tones and drones for the second) just to give sound to what seems to be their own personal hell. The two Toyota's tracks "Phantasmagoreal #1" and "Phantasmagoreal #2" are really disturbing and evocative and during their fourteen minutes you'll be attacked by hordes of ectoplasmatic non beings. The three Kouhei's tracks, instead, are more noise loops based: three growing beasts that seem to live a life of their own. For the lovers of the genre...

And the swiss folks are back ladies and gentlemen, with an even more radical experimental record. Teleform, aka Bernd Schurer, releases his second CD on Domizil and takes one step further in the un-linear explotation of noise, the un-establishment of traditional song composition and the most uncompromising deconstructivism. Balancing on the thin line between soft experimental and harsh noise, "cosine f" runs over you for 37 sharp minutes with 35 anonymous tracks (playable in shuffle mode, if you please) made up of buzzes, digital distortion, jitter, crackles and other random hardcore noise. And talk about being true to continuing experimentalism, check out their flickering website, if you dare!

Austrian label Mego just released the debut 12" of ddkern, drummer and Dj also collaborating with Fuckhead, BulBul and Angelika Koehlermann's Wipeout. This vinyl (achieved with the help of Reverend Crook on keys/gear) delivers some quite cool minimal techno with non-aggressive kick tracks and delay-processed layers of sounds, samples and some noises. They attempted the terms "old-school" and "fusion techno" to describe it, but it really is dubby ambient-mini(mal)-techno. So "fusion techno" will work only if by fusion you understand "mix of different things", but not if you're thinking about Pat Metheny. I enjoyed this record, especially the last of the six tracks (that is if side A is what I thought was side A ;-) where a little more experimental sounds (smooth, almost static-like noises) step in and make the whole thing even more interesting, rhythmical and cryptic...
PS The guy loves cats and there's a cat on the round sticker ;-)