Four years after the discovery by Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian, a group of American and Russian researches and nuclear physics of the 117th element by means of the fusion of Calcium and transuranic radioactive chemical element Berkelium at Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Raster-Noton discovered its 117th element for unun series, the notorious series of releases, named after the family of transuranic or superheavy elements. Its scientific connection got emphasized by Japanese sound-artist Ueno Masaaki, whose four tracks for the seventh ring of this chain are aimed to be a sort of reconstruction of natural laws and forces by means of complex polymeric grooves, clipped rhythimcal cuts, clusters of chopped metallic hits and overclocked suctions of piercing bass pulsations, which could be vaguely described as a possible groovy declension of Autechre or Emptyset stuff. It might sound repetitive only to absent-minded listeners, as more attentive listeners will easily appreciate the rich assets of sonic detailes of this zipped stuff.

The concept behind this interesting collaborative release by double-bass player Adriano Orru' is summarized by its title: "Palimpsest" doesn't refer to tv or show schedule as the word to describe it derives from the same Latin word, but to the scratches which were made on old parchment manuscripts in order to rewrite on them. Likewise that operation, this release comes the overlapping of improvisations on previously recorded improvisations on electric bass by other musicians. Besides this p2p-like compositional technique, which has already been widely used in electronic music even if it's quite orginal in the field of electroacoustic improvisation, the most remarkable aspect is the way the following inserts highlights or mutates Adriano's inputs and I suggest a proactive listening to anyone who are going to have a listen to it by trying to mntally separate the electric bass parts from the following layer before focusing on their amalgamation. The inputs I liked a lot are the ones by brilliant Portuguese musician Paulo Chagas who shows a versatility that I already appraised on a release he co-signed on Creative Sources by keying his soprano sax to the oblique slides of "Bortadie", by let his bass clarinet stressing the path Adriano traces on "Chant and by emphasizing the spiritual tension of "On Different Shores" and the final "Haze" on flute. The scrapes by composer and pianist Silvia Corda are likewise interesting, particularly the one on the slightly neurotic "Ostinato" and the narrative "The Rain Tree Under The Rain", one of those track where listener should try that "detaching" attempt in order to appreciate the magnifying lens that following musicians put between the draft and their musical hand, while many followers of Chain DLK will supposedly appreciate the duets with Mauro Sambo (samples, electronics, marimba, tibetan bell, gong) as it seems that he focused on the concept of "scraping" by means of the wider palette of simulated sounds and suggestions that electronics could provide whereas Adriano's electric bass sounds more "scraped" as well. The release is available as a free download as well here: http://www.panyrosasdiscos.net/audio/palimpsest.zip

Despite the fact they keep on orbiting around the glacial sonorities that they usually explore, the third album by Norwegian duo Pjusk on 12k and their fourth one in their discography reaches highest stylistical peaks as this masterpiece just derives from the (both natural and processed with the help of label boss Taylor Deupree) sound of Kare Nymark Jr's trumpet. Rune Sagevik and Jolstein Dahl Gjelsvik come back their icy homecountry after their previous excursions over the snowy Russian landscapes and immediately introduces a foretaste of their forthcoming collaborative release with Sleep Orchestra by the ethereal track "Streif", the only one of the album which can be properly considered a droning piece as most of the following tracks are astonishing alternation of natural and wisely processed trumpet, which becomes a sort of medium between the glacial places they manage to evoke and netherworld. The unpredictable eruptions of trumpet, which breaks Pjusk's effusions of placid frequencies on tracks like "Falmet" or "Blaff" are real emotional plunging and got often camouflaged together with other instrumental entities and field recordings in a sort of mimetic game as it happens on the astonishing "Demring" or even more dramatically on "Glod", the track which precedes the entrancing final track "Skimt", whose pulsating mantra got enhanced by Japanese sound artist Yui Onodera. Definitively one of the best electroacoustic "environ-mental" ambient album that titilated my eardrums this year.

Belonging to a group of rare producers who are managing to find new creative pathways to so-called grime, Mr.Mitch finally got signed by Planet Mu after he gained some visibility by means of Boxed 'Instrumental Grime' night and excellent releases on his own Gobstopper label, and if you have never listened to anything by this guy, many listeners who like this genre (and surrounding ones) will immediately suss his talent out by listening to this appetizer which precedes his forthcoming album "Parallel Memories". That sort of supplication on the opening "Don't Leave" (me down...to complete the looping refrain) whose synth chords and floating drums sound like mirroring tears give you an idea of the unusual emotional alveoli that Mr.Mitch's grime airs out and such an intense ventilation gets closer to harrowing sentimentalism of Sebastian Tellier or Trentemoller on "Padded" after turning into a proper bordline poem Ruffneck's notorious refrain "everybody wants to be somebody" on "Be Somebody" and before getting closer to the typical mood of the genre on the final "Oh", whose mellow marimba, bouncy bumps and syllabic interjections. Really tasteful grime!

In spite of the fact there are no previous traces of Mistake Made - no releases, no tracks in compilations/selections, no white labelled vynils have been recorded in any public archives -, the stylistical proximity to the stuff coming from appreciated Vault Series, one of the Berlin-based labels that spreads an interesting "industrial" variation of Berlin minimal techno out, persuaded Subjected, its faceless owner, to lock their tracks up in the vault. A slap on the "Wrist", the first of the three tracks of the 15th ring of this technoid chain, features a seized industrial-techno engine, which sounds a little bit more oiled on the following track "Ricochet", whose claps over hypnotical basslines sound like whiplashes, while menacing nodules of low frequencies, alarm bells and resounding rattles slides on dry kicks and subterranean clashes on the assembly line of "Indec".