| SPARTAK Ostpolitik hellosQuare, Double Business Card CD-R |
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| On Ostpolitik, Spartak take two unique improvisational approaches to the same basic chord structure, fusing their love of post-punk, freejazz and microsound across two business card CD-Rs. The wiry Ostpolitik (draft 1) sees Shoeb Ahmad force his guitar through a battery of effects while drummer Evan Dorrian fills the track with almost Squarepusher-esque beats. Ostpolitik (draft 2) is a calmer piece, with Ahmad switching from guitar to piano for a very different angle on the track's melodic foundation. Limited to just 50 copies, on hellosQuare Recordings. |
| SPARTAK Sunstrokes hellosQuare, CD-R |
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| Ahead of their debut full-length album, Canberra's Spartak offer this brief taste of what to expect. Sunstrokes rides on a huge bed of washy, processed guitar and shimmering beats, before slipping into a huge shoegaze groove for its finale. Can You See the Snow, Lover? is a blizzard of processed feedback recorded during the album sessions but only available here. Rounding out the disc are three exclusive remixes from Part Timer, Cleptoclectics and Tomasz Bednarczyk. |
| SPARTAK Tales from the Colony Room hellosQuare, CD |
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| Recorded at home in the summer of 2008, Tales from the Colony Room is Canberran duo Spartak's debut full-length album. Both a departure from and an encapsulation of their work up until this point, its seven tracks meld free jazz, microsound, post-punk and shoegaze into a meditative and occasionally explosive mix. Beautifully packaged in white Arigato Paks with inserts designed by Traianos Pakioufakis, Tales from the Colony Room placd highly in sound&fury's 'Best of 2008' list (well, it would have if we'd made such a list), and comes with our highest recommendation. |
| JOEL STERN / JIM DENLEY Tape and Paint Game Split, CD-R |
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| 42 minutes of colliding sax, electronics and field recordings from Stern and Denley. |
| TOTALLY DAD New Black Draughms Thor's Rubber Hammer, CD-R |
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| Some seriously blown-out blues, deranged scuzz-rock and destroyed improv from Brooklyn’s Totally Dad. Listening to New Black Draughms‘ sewage-clogged rawk, you get the impression that an instrument is beaten senseless every time a song ends, and by the close of the album, there’s just nothing left. |
| UBIQUE Triangles Meupe, 3" CD-R |
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| ULTRA BONBON / GRAND LUNGS Bad Breath Bonbon Bruises, CS |
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| Part of Canadian label Bonbon Bruises' "Especially Garbled Cassettes" series, which sees scuzzy electronics dubbed onto equally scuzzy old tapes, Bad Breath is an appropriately-named assault of frazzled frequencies and scorched ciruit boards, all packaged in individually hand-made sleeves. |
| UNEVEN UNIVERSE Nightcrawler Walls DNT, CS |
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| Not only does this release look great with its spraypainted case and skeleton-motif tape art, it sounds freaking awesome. As the label puts it, "Dan (Haunted Castle/Body Morph) and Holly acquired saxes awhile back and things haven't been the same since. Dank basement sax murk collides with bleak tape howls." Just like the rest of DNT's latest bunch, this sold out almost immediately, so these copies are probably some of the last going., |
| DANIEL VARRICHIO Daniel Varrichio The Rhizome Label, CD-R |
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| Live solo performance from Headdress member Daniel varrichio, recorded in May 2005.. |
| VESTIGIAL LIMB Apportioned for Wolves Glacial Avatar Archives, CS |
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| Immersible structures of defined, electrified chaos from Glacial Avatar's first off-shore mercenary. |
| THE VULTURE CLUB Live Young, Die Fast and Leave an Exquisite Corpse Utech Records, CD |
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| If you recorded the sound of a dying star and then pushed all the levels way into the red, you might get something that sounds like this. |
| WHALEHAMMER Subterranean Farmer Frontier, CD-R |
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| Recorded in a single day, Subterranean tells the story of "a subhuman underground mutant, living in darkness, who infects the over-ground populace with poisonous sex spores. Growing desperate for union with another, he meets his demise when enveloped and destroyed by a female of the species." You couldn't make this stuff up. Except, Perth's Whalehammer did. And then they made a soundtrack to it - dark, brooding kraut/psych, spaceflight drones and crackling bursts of noise. |