
Kiloton - Language Lost (Side B) from Urlyd Audiovisual Recordings on Vimeo . This from Kiloton 's Language Lost DVD via Urlyd - a bunch of Danes spurning Geld to give quality electronic music and video on vinyl/DVD releases. The ideology of the label, we're told, "is to embrace net culture and enthusiastic music lovers' impulse to share with each other." And who are we to argue with a gratis Dane. Kiloton is, it emerges after a sneaky search, [...]

A Gareth Hardwick post pushing current Low Point releases listing Ben Fleury-Steiner forthcoming: prompted harking back to and digging out of lamentably overlooked gem from last year (March 2010 release). Ben's Keep a Weather Eye Open on the estimable Infraction got an 'Also outstanding' in LMYE's Festive 50 , but there's been barely a peep from anyone elsewhere on this accomplished bit of ambient-drone gear. Good pretext for bigging it up a bit. Ben F-S lists [...]

Enjoyable out-zoning to the droning of Saffron Slumber , whose Somnogen is gifted by Resting Bell (discovered thanks to disquiet ). Good enough for Low Point , or Hibernate , or maybe Under the Spire ? You decide. Resting Bell blurb: "Kevin Stephens has been writing music under the name of Saffron Slumber since 2004. Originally started as a project to explore ideas in ambient music, the project has continued to evolve over its lifespan to include aspects of noise, drone, and other forms [...]

For all his digi-fidgety clicks'n'cuttings, Pleq is clearly a Proper Musician. Pleq's effects come from felicitous juxtaposition of chilly and warm, sharp and delicate, warped and winsome, with a penchant for the addition of a peculiar or plangent ingredient. Bartosz Dziadosz , for Pleq is he, has been active only since 2008, but prolific enough to have accumulated a small pile, incl. releases on u-cover , Databloem , dataObscura , October Man , Basses Frequences , and Impulsive Art . Pleq's style is self-designated "Glitch & Melancholy," which, however [...]
Lest any of you had got the impression that we here at Earslend Towers are too shy to shake a leg, too timid to toe tap, or even too hung up to head nod, this is to serve notice that LMYE approves the use of beats. Below are beaty products we authorise use of - in moderation, naturally, between consenting adults, or with the guidance of a qualified person, these contain just the right blend of dub-infused, noir-ish, or filmic properties to provide ambient relief when combined with judiciously administered beat matter. [...]

Three reflective, subtle Stephan Mathieu pieces - precisely the right soundtrack for a bitter-sweet day yesterday. I was already listening to his fine new A Static Place a lot. One new year's resolution: work through the rest of his huge & hugely impressive output ... [...]

"You're wearing red. I'm wearing red. Coincidence? I don't think so." Three exceptional new pieces surface in SoundCloud within minutes of each other - leaving me musing idly about a Jasper TX / Erstlaub / John Chantler supergroup (a prog crime that I seem willing to tolerate, even laud, in more experimental contexts). While that liaison seems remote, even if each o ther's [...]

No, I don't know why Sam Landry should be The Shepherd either. Sam Shepherd, perhaps? Probably not. No matter. The new self-release Everything is Everything Else* (which coincides with the dextrous remastering of his earlier De fe'kun.dus ad salus & Sounds of the Sleepless Sam Vol.I ) marks a further [...]

Witness a striking new outpouring from Celer 's Will Long - five languidly unfolding but gripping pieces already this year, two dated & uploaded just yesterday, from an apparent sojourn in Japan. Even by Celer's standards , that's pretty epic output. These ears especially appreciate the long, faintly rasping sweeps of Blue [...]

Call off the search. Well, not quite - but two slots in LMYE's Festive 50 for 2011 can be confidently reserved for Tim Hecker 's Ravedeath, 1972 ( kranky ) & Deaf Center 's Owl Splinters ( Type ). Stream a hugely compelling first slab of each - Hecker's belligerently blissful organ swirls, DC's beautifully stately insistence - below... [...]

Set sail into a Seaworthy quartet - four contrasting tastes of Cam Webb's always-beguiling & increasingly location-rich (see his Environmental Sounds blog with Two Lakes partner Matt Rösner ) 'project', for want of a better word. Some of the contrast comes from Webb's relentless collaboration, clearly - besides Rösner , the pieces & streams here also feature post-jazzers Pollen Trio (the new Triosk ?) [...]

A pair of reverberating, churning 'impromptu' collaborations between Fennesz & Festive 50 er Rafael Anton Irisarri last July & September - the longer, more recent one eventually gushing out into a floodplain of partial resolution . The two emerge as Irisarri (a key part of one of LMYE's shows of last year , though he's too modest to acknowledge it ...) makes a 'pay what you want' album of compelling live performances available via his Bandcamp . [...]

The last of three playlists celebrating our 'festive 50' , a half-century of albums that particularly mattered to LMYE in 2010 -featuring Celer & Yui Onodera , Chris Abrahams , Clouwbeck , Erstlaub , Koen Holtkamp , Listening Mirror , Pantha du Prince , Piiptsjilling , [...]

The second of three playlists celebrating our 'festive 50' , a half-century of albums that particularly mattered to LMYE in 2010 - featuring Christopher Hipgrave , Clem Leek , D emdike Stare , Fabio Orsi , Jefre Cantu-Ledesma , Mark Templeton , Moritz Von Oswald Trio , Nickolas Mohanna , Oneohtrix Point [...]

After another orgy of label of the year -ing (also here ), some album highlights of the past year. L ike two years ago , our couple of lists together form an LMYE Festive 50, a half-century of new records that particularly mattered to us in 2010. Of course, the cut-off is arbitrary (& so is [...]

Labels' rol e as visible exercisers of taste, as rallying points, as cultural lenses, was at least as crucial this year as last . Following our label of the year ( Low Point ), LMYE highlights five other curatorial efforts that helped define 2010. Besides our picks - below, alphabetically [...]

Hailed 12 months ago as our 'new discovery' label of 2009 , Low Point is LMYE's label of the year after a near-flawless septet of releases that refined its traditional aesthetic to new levels of intensity & beauty, & moved beyond it with an invigorating boldness . W hat started life five years ago as a vehicle for Gareth Hardwick (both solo & as Bologna Pony ) ends 2010 [...]

A welcome pretext to revisit Jefre Cantu-Ledesma 's blissed and blown out epic, Love is a Stream , among the very best releases of an uneven year for Type , is its appearance in vinyl format, which comes with a nifty bonus disc, Love is a Dream , on which head Type-ist, Xela , re-channels tracks from Stream into Dream . [...]

A footnote to a fret - a few survivors of an earlier curatorial attempt: there were twice as many tracks originally, but - in the way of SoundCloud - some are no longer available & I went off one). As before, n ot a mix but a segue curated from LMYE's SoundCloud stream into some kind of logical or persuasive or otherwise appealing sequence... [...]

To cosmic indifference, naturally - but still fretting over last week's semi-auto post of SoundCloud sifting & this notion of curation as a model. That's despite my continued pining for the great Good Vibrato, the purest of all curatorial blogs (in our territory, at least) & much lamented even though long gone ... [...]