#432

Tyshawn Sorey & Marilyn Crispell - The Adornment of Time (Pi Recordings)



The final 20 minutes are sublime, as a delicate chordal figure develops into a passage of astonishing sensitivity and power. — Stewart Smith

#431

Catatonic Effigy - Putrid Tendency (Iluso)



Catatonic Effigy’s debut album is a powerful and effective attempt at inhabiting the zones between extreme metal, free jazz and modern composition. — Phil Freeman

2019

Wire 15 (7)
Éliane Radigue - Oeuvres Électroniques (Ina-GRM)
Black Thought - Streams of Thought Vols. 1&2 (Human Re Sources)
Hedvig Mollestad Trio - Smells Funny (Rune Grammofon) +#420
Alvin Lucier / Trevor Saint - Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle)
Wendy Eisenberg - The Machinic Unconscious (Tzadik)
Mopcut - Accelerated Frames of Reference (Trost)
The London Sound Survey - Thames (Persistence of Sound)
9T Antiope & Siavash Amini - Harmistice (Hallow Ground)
K-X-P - IV (Svart)
Olivier Messiaen / Linda Catlin Smith / Apartment House - Quatuor pour la fin du temps / Among the Tarnished Stars (Another Timbre)
Pharmakon - Devour (Sacred Bones) +#427
Keiji Haino / Merzbow / Balázs Pándi - Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer (RareNoise)
Zonal - Wrecked (Relapse)
Morton Feldman / Philip Thomas - Piano (Another Timbre) +#429
Eve Risser - Aprés un Rêve (Clean Feed)

record of the year
9T Antiope & Siavash Amini - Harmistice (Hallow Ground)

#430

Eve Risser - Aprés un Rêve (Clean Feed)



The pulse gradually builds to a syncopated rhythm. The effect is mesmeric, creating a rolling Can-like groove against which Risser lays minimal chords. — Stewart Smith

#429

Zonal - Wrecked (Relapse)



This collision of industrial noise and hiphop related poetics helped open the artistic door for Techno Animal’s 2001 album The Brotherhood Of The Bomb and now Wrecked – the latest from Martin and Broadrick’s long dormant Zonal project, which features a heavy vocal contribution from Moor Mother. — John Morrison

#428

Keiji Haino / Merzbow / Balázs Pándi - Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer (RareNoise)



Haino wrestles feedback storms, the odd jazz-like riffs and cutting squeals against Akita’s fluctuating whiteouts and mutilated radio sounds. — Antonio Poscic

#427

Olivier Messiaen / Linda Catlin Smith - Quatuor pour la fin du temps / Among the Tarnished Stars (Another Timbre)



Four members of Apartment House bring their cumulative insight and expertise as interpreters of experimental music to a performance that respects the intrinsic poise as well as the bold contrasts and occasional flamboyance of Messiaen’s score. By avoiding superfluous expressive artifice they allow this music to breathe. — Julian Cowley

#426

K-X-P - IV (Svart)



“Nimetön Tie” is truly magnificent, and any DJ with the guts to play it in its entirety at the right moment in a strobe-lit club deserves to be showered with glory. — Joe Muggs

#425

9T Antiope & Siavash Amini - Harmistice (Hallow Ground)



Even when Shamloo’s folky melismatic singing emerges, its tonal contrast with the ruthless electronics provides no respite, but rather makes the whole thing all the more unnerving. — Daniel Neofetou

#424

The London Sound Survey - Thames (Persistence of Sound)



“Tower Bridge North Bascule Chamber” sounds like a vast music box, and the tune that it plays could well have been a new work by Varèse or Ligeti. The raw, harmonious swelling of engines is quite captivating, reminding us that machines are sequenced in their actions just like a musical composition – even the whining of its parts is in tune. — Ken Hollings