#506

Mark Vernon - Sounds of the Modern Hospital (Death is Not the End)

Vernon's dark revelation is that our hospitals are now hives of robots, from the automated vehicle muttering garbled commands as it shunts dirty linen to the frantic OPEX machine that sorts the ward's mail. — Rob Turner

#505

Tyshawn Sorey - Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) (DACAMERA Editions)

[Sorey] adapts the instrumentation for Feldman's Rothko Chapel (viola, celesta, percussion and voices), adding a piano alongside the celesta and a bass-baritone solo. — Kurt Gottschalk

#503/504-2

Tashi Dorji - low clouds hang, this land is on fire (Drag City)

The revolution will not be televised, but it may be soundtracked. — Bill Meyer

#503/504-1

GORZ - my tongue on your cheek (Numeral)

[T]hey tear the world apart with uncontrollable screams and blasts of the most abrasive electronics imaginable. Then, just like that, as if to calm the listeners and themselves, they switch — Antonio Poscic

2025

Wire 15 (13)
Tashi Dorji - we will be wherever the fires are lit (Drag City)
Dotz & DJ Goblin - Mirtazapine Dreams (True Unity)
Golem Mecanique - Siamo Tutti in Pericolo (Ideologic Organ)
Various - Aggregate: New Works for Automated Pipe Organs (Wergo)
Sumac & Moor Mother - The Film (Thrill Jockey)
Bill Nace & Evan Parker - Branches (Otoroku / Open Mouth)
Joy Guidry - 5 Prayers (Jaid)
John McKay - Sixes and Sevens (Tiny Global)
John Cage - Chamber Works 1943-1951 (Another Timbre) +498
Cerys Hafana - Angel (tak:til)
SYPH - SYPH (Tapete)
Brighde Chaimbeul - Sunwise (Tak:til)
HAYWARDxDÄLEK - HAYWARDxDÄLEK (Relapse)
Dog Soup - Fragments (Dark Circles) +502
Merzbow / Cavalera / Bernocchi - Nocturnal Rainforest (Pan) +502

record of the year
Brighde Chaimbeul - Sunwise (Tak:til)

#502

HAYWARDxDÄLEK - HAYWARDxDÄLEK (Relapse)

Drummer Charles Hayward and MC dälek unite for an album of hypothermic foghorn terror — James Gormley

#501

Brighde Chaimbeul - Sunwise (Tak:til)

Scottish smallpipes player Chaimbeul's fourth album takes a thrilling step further out. — Francis Gooding

#500

SYPH - SYPH (Tapete)

By 1981, SYPH had split, but as repayment, Czukay took out his scalpel and pieced together the swansong SYPH (Album 4). — Louis Pattison

#499

Cerys Hafana - Angel (Tak:til)

Moving between instrumental and vocal cuts, Hafana builds hugely powerful swells of feeling and atmosphere, with their virtuosity on both harp and piano allowing a push beyond avant folk toward darkling, rain-washed minimalism and sharp-eyed jazz-not-jazz. Don't sleep. — Francis Gooding

#498

John McKay - Sixes and Sevens (Tiny Global)

Who could have predicted this? Sixes And Sevens consists of 11 unreleased tracks from ex-Siouxsie & The Banshees guitarist John McKay, whose post-Banshees musical output was previously thought to be a lone 7″ with short-lived group Zor Gabor. Its mere existence is noteworthy, as is the music itself. — Claire Biddles

#497

Joy Guidry - 5 Prayers (Jaid)

Her playing sounds at one with the world, even if it’s only for this brief time. — Derek Walmsley

#496

Bill Nace & Evan Parker - Branches (Otoroku / Open Mouth)

The piece concludes after 40 breathless minutes, but in a way it feels eternal, already in progress when the record begins and stretching toward the heavens even as each musician falls silent. — Peter Margasak

#495

Sumac & Moor Mother - The Film (Thrill Jockey)

[I]n genre vernacular terms The Film (...) is probably the heaviest of the rock orientated releases Ayewa has worked on to date. — James Gormley