#423

Mopcut - Accelerated Frames of Reference (Trost)



Mopcut are Audrey Chen from the US on voice and analogue electronics, Julien Desprez from France on electric guitar, and Lukas König from Austria on drums and synthesizer. — Andy Hamilton

#422

Wendy Eisenberg - The Machinic Unconscious (Tzadik)



Think of Boston based guitarist Wendy Eisenberg as a musical tardigrade, thriving in polarised environments of extreme heat and pressure. On the trio date The Machinic Unconscious she deals in scalding noise-puke, spurting out molten gouts of heat, with little regard for public safety. — Daniel Spicer

#421

Alvin Lucier - Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle)



He composed Ricochet Lady (2016) for solo glockenspiel. Trevor Saint’s beating of the metal keys is rapid and insistent. The distinct characters of a university rehearsal hall, a stone and oak chapel, a vacant foundry warehouse and cement grain tower are unlocked by Lucier’s magic formula. — Julian Cowley

#420

Black Thought - Streams of Thought Vols. 1&2 (Human Re Sources)



With barely a single hook, and a bunch of tracks cutting off abruptly after just a few dozen bars, these sets can feel like the hiphop equivalent to Dean Benedetti’s legendary bootlegs of Charlie Parker. Where those tapes contained nothing but the saxophonist’s solos, dropping out when anyone else picked up the tune, these tracks leave room for nothing but bars. — Rob Turner

#419

Éliane Radigue - Oeuvres Électroniques (Ina-GRM)



Oeuvres Électroniques is, in its 14 CDs, a monumental – in all senses – release, and it is both a legacy compilation and a learned review of Radigue’s electronic works. But it is also – and this is so important – an authoritative collection that now brings Radigue securely into the cultural archives of the French state. — Louise Gray

2018

Wire 15 (6)
Ariadne - Stabat Mater (Auris Apothecary)
Godflesh - Post Self (Avalanche/Hospital Productions) +#407
Joan La Barbara - The Early Immersive Music of Joan La Barbara (Mode)
Terre Thaemlitz - Deproduction (Comatonse) +#408
John Cage / Bonnie Whiting - The Works for Percussion 4 (Mode)
Susana Santos Silva - All the Rivers: Live at the Panteão Nacional (Clean Feed)
Eva-Maria Houben - Breath for Organ (Second Editions)
Kamaal Williams - The Return (Black Focus)
Pierre Henry - Polyphonies (Radio France/Decca)
Angélique Kidjo - Remain in Light (Kravenworks)
Serena Butler - We Want Neither Clean Hands Nor Beautiful Souls (Stroboscopic Artefacts)
Gazelle Twin - Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)
Puce Mary - The Drought (Pan)
Guttersnipe - My Mother the Vent (Upset the Rhythm)
Black Replica - Dreams Versus Reality (Metaphysik) +#418

record of the year
Angélique Kidjo - Remain in Light (Kravenworks)

#418

Guttersnipe - My Mother the Vent (Upset the Rhythm)



[I]t feels more notable, and slyly satisfying, when a band like Leeds duo Guttersnipe make a comprehensive lack of effort to offer themselves to the world and via word of mouth still get clasped to bosoms just through being freakishly good at five alarm no wave overload. — Noel Gardner

#417

Puce Mary - The Drought (Pan)



Her peers revel in fantasies of sex, power and death; meanwhile, the Puce Mary project engages with the same drives from a different perspective, grappling with intimacy, vulnerability and the horrors of the ageing process. This might somehow imply The Drought is a soft or sanitised take on the genre. In fact if anything, the opposite is true. — Louis Pattison

#416

Gazelle Twin - Pastoral (Anti-Ghost Moon Ray)



Collisions of disparate traditions and ideas are often found in the cinematic subgenre known as folk horror, and Pastoral is one of several recent albums (...) that have attempted a sonic interrogation of these tropes. — Aimee Armstrong