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

#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