April saw the release of the first podcast by autralian label ROOM40.
"ROOM40 is a record label based in Brisbane, Australia. ROOM40 has released a diverse range of artists from Australia, Europe, Japan and America, mostly focussing on contemporary electronics, electroacoustics, improvisation, modern classical and avant pop."
npr.org: ""Tom Verlaine and his band Television helped establish the punk rock music scene in the mid-1970s, influencing music for years to come with the records Marquee Moon and Adventure." Listen here
npr.org: "Guitarist Tom Verlaine, best known for his work with the New York punk band Television, talks about his own work and shares some of his favorite recordings. Verlaine's just released two CDs, his first new work in 14 years. Hear selections from Around and Songs and Other Things, plus works that have inspired Verlaine over the years, like the classic soundtrack to The Day the Earth Stood Still and Henry Mancini's "Experiment in Terror." Listen/Download here
wfmu.org: "Tom Verlaine, the innovative singer/guitarist, most famously of the trailblazing late-70's New York band Television, will stop by to chat and perform guest-DJ duties." Listen Real Audio
wnyc.org: "David Byrne and Brian Eno are reissuing their classic 1981 collaboration "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" with a twist. The musicians are inviting fans to edit, remix & sample two tracks from the album. We’ll look at that experiment and talk with a forensic musicologist on the legal ramifications of sampling." Listen here
forcedexposure.com: "Somewhere between electronic noise, drone and psychedelic rock, you will find the Brooklyn duo, Mouthus, coiled and ready to strike. his album is a return to more abrasive and heavy Mouthus territory after forays into acoustic instrumentation and, yes, a Fleetwood Mac cover on their recent Troubleman full-length. Free/tribal percussion spatter 'n clatter duels with endlessly mutating three chord sludge-riffage beneath thick, poison clouds of delayed-out vocal groan. Truly CHOCK full of manic bad-mood energy but maybe psych-droney and resin-soaked enough for the new crop of crunchier noise-heads to nod to as well. Electric guitars strung with duct tape and drums equipped with hundred-year old heads are jettisoned into deep space and dynamited, combusting so vividly that the after-images soak our retinas with mandalas of interwoven earthworms and beer funnels for hours afterwards"
allmusic.com: "Famed for his trailblazing work as the singer and guitarist for the seminal New York punk band Television, Tom Verlaine also carved out an acclaimed and eclectic solo career. [...]
Beginning with their landmark 1975 debut single "Little Johhny Jewel," Television became one of the most renowned groups on the burgeoning New York underground scene; though lumped together with the punk phenomenon, the band's complex songcraft -- powered by Verlaine's strangled vocals, oblique lyrics and finely-honed guitar work -- clearly set them apart from their peers. However, after only two albums, 1977's classic Marquee Moon and the disappointing 1978 follow-up Adventure, Television disbanded, and Verlaine started a solo career." More info at allmusic.com
die-schachtel.com "In 1977 an obscure Italian private label issued a record that sounded like it came from outer space. A long and dense trance-inducing drone of sustained notes, rich with overtones and harmonic embellishments, coming from a space so vast and unexplored that seemed almost of non-human, even electronic nature. Paradoxically, each and any molecule of that sound was produced using only the most original and archaic instrument, the human voice. " More
musicforone.com: "Stark but beautiful guitar motifs emerge as skeletons of songs. They are dressed in the skin of abstract sounds that are wrestled from a guitar, effects, and bits from the hardware store. This process is never laboured; it has the freedom of the moment to let the possibility of wonderful mistakes unfold" More
staartje.com: "Apestaartje co-founders Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp follow up their critically acclaimed self titled debut as 'Mountains' with this second offering of slowly evolving sound. Recorded over several lengthy excursions outside the confines of the city in upstate New York and Connecticut, 'Sewn' invokes a sense of ease and delicate precision. A beautiful combination of clean crisp texture and warm pulsating harmony that shows a group developing and expanding their sound with an extreme attention to detail that reflects new layers in each melody and texture." More
forcedexposure.com "Berlin-based Jahcoozi is comprised of Sasha Perera (London), Oren Gerlitz (Tel Aviv), and Robot Koch (Berlin), and this is their debut album for Kitty-Yo. Despite singer Perera's background as a London-born Sri Lankan, the M.I.A. references stop here. A sometimes-gritty, sometimes slick mash up of blip-hop, ragga-tech, R'n'B-fused punk and click-pop illectronica, this is much more than what misinformed people might call grime." More
nexsound.org: "HANDMADE BIO BEATS this is a collaboration between ukrainian musician, producer and graphic designer ZAVOLOKA aka KATERYNA ZAVOLOKA and german vocalist, poet, musician and producer AGF aka ANTYE GREIE AGF contacted ZAVOLOKA in 2003 after hearing her tracks on the internet and they soon realized a passion for each others music and decided to work together.
during several live collaborations, for instance in belgium and france, and some sound material exchanges they developed the concept of creating TECHNO LIKE TREES.
nature beats. the idea was to extract sounds from existing and form a variation of beats and vocal snippets to make powerful techno of nature which can be seen as identical and not similar as structure of plants and nature. repeating of otherness and repeating of difference." <a href="More
asphodel.com: "Loping, wine-soaked electrical r+b, AGF's third album (her first for Asphodel) finds her dropping neu beat poetry over cookie crumb beats and snaking across sly bass and piano. Antye Greie's tales of friendship, longing, and wandering through anonymous city streets permeate the airwaves. 19 tracks of lopsided pop and soundtrack interludes, sparse and torch lit, Mini Movies is the complete sound of disastrous freedom" More
warprecords: "After two eclectic electroid EPs for Warp, Edgar comes forward with Colorstrip, his debut long player. Still marked by insane programming skills and ultra-melodic synthesizer touches, the scalpel-sharp tunes on “Colorstrip” are pure hip shakers. Like Timbaland producing Metro Area under the watchful eye of Carl Craig, these are dance tunes that you can hum as you gyrate.
What may strike those who thought that had Jimmy and his music pegged is that Colorstrip is a deadly pop album. The tracks here are a sinister and mysterious set of dark R&B with Juan Atkins like vocals added in perfect places, mammouth synth hooks and plenty of sub bass."
Degenerate Art Ensemble: "Think punk, classical, think jazz, think beautiful haunting melodies, think thashing passions, think horn sections, strings, wild drums, vocals that are sometimes soft and dark and sometimes terrifying, lots of gentle songs... a unified szitzopheric world... its just best to just listen. Allow some time to listen to the different albums and songs, as they walk very different territories." More info
wikipedia.org: "Analord is a series of 12" vinyl recordings by UK-based electronic music artist Richard D. James. The first installment, Analord 10, went on sale through the Rephlex Records website on December 15, 2004, and was packaged in a leather binder with sleeves for housing the rest of the series. The record was marketed under James' primary alias "Aphex Twin", although subsequent Analord recordings have so far been released under the "AFX" pseudonym.
There is a condensed, album-sized version of the series titled Chosen Lords." More info
southern.com: "Analogue Shantytown" is an epic feral disco jam, starting off with harmonica and chanting, before falling into a click-n-cut afrobeat extrapolation, complete with hollers, delayed vocal crescendos and processed geetar, it's one of the most skewed and intriguing songs we've heard all year.
Beginning in summer 2003 as a one-off commission for audio weblog Muted Tones, Glissandro 70 is the result of two years of intermittent collaboration between Toronto's Sandro Perri (Polmo Polpo , Continuous Dick) and Craig Dunsmuir (Guitarkestra). More info + one sound file
The Wire Magazine, April 2006: "London based 12-string guitarist James Blackshaw's playing style can be firmly linked to the Takoma school of John Fahey and Robbie Basho, as well as to more contemporary players such as Jack Rose and Steffan Basho-Junghans. But, like them, Blackshaw has successfully found his own voice, as becomes instantly obvious when listening to the four tracks that make up "O True Believers". [...] This often dreamlike combination ensures the music gathered here deftly avoids pale imitation and leaden devotion." Read the whole review
DOWNLOAD a track from Tom Verlaine’s forthcoming Thrill Jockey album Songs And Other Things
VIEW a photo gallery featuring additional images of kinetic sculptor and film maker Len Lye and his work
DOWNLOAD accompanying soundtracks to the motion sculptures of Len Lye.
VIEW a video clip excerpt of Linder's "The Working Class Goes To Paradise" performance.
VIEW a photo gallery featuring additional images of the work of Linder.
DOWNLOAD an exclusive track from Mouthus' recent album The Long Salt.
Listen to an exclusive recording of the sounds of Kyzyl.
freewaves.org: "William Basinski is a musician, composer, auteur who has worked in experimental media for over twenty years in NYC, expanding the boundaries of the aural landscape. A classically trained clarinetist, he studied jazz saxophone and composition at North Texas State University in the late 70’s. In 1978, inspired by minimalists such as Steve Reich and Brian Eno, he began developing his own vocabulary using tape loops and old reel to reel tape decks. He developed his meditative, melancholy style experimenting with short looped melodies played against themselves creating feedback loops." More
wikipedia.org: "Ned Sublette (born 1951 in Lubbock, Texas) is an American composer, musician, and musicologist. He is a classically trained guitarist, and studied composition with Kenneth Gaburo at the University of California, San Diego. He grew up in Portales, N.M, moved to New York in 1976, and has worked with John Cage, LaMonte Young, Glenn Branca, and Peter Gordon. He is well known as a country music singer and is leading scholar of Cuban music. His label Qbadisc releases Cuban music in the United States and he has produced Latin musicians including Ritmo Oriental and Isaac Delgado and has co-produced Public Radio International's "Afropop Worldwide" show." More
Listen:
Eugene Robinson, author of Last Dance in Havana, and Ned Sublette, author of Cuba and Its Music, discuss the important role music plays in Cuba’s identity. Listen here
japanimprov.com: "Tetuzi Akiyama is a highly unique and experimental guitarist heavily applying free improvisation and noise. Besides guitar, he also plays electronics, viola, and self-made instruments.
Akiyama became an enthusiastic hard rock fan when he was eleven years old, and started playing electric guitar at the age of thirteen. Later, he also came to be very interested in free improvisation and classical music. He formed the improvised music band Madhar in 1987." More
theknife.net: "This is the world of The Knife: precise, particular, dark, occult, funny-peculiar, funny-ha-ha. This Swedish brother-and-sister duo work mostly on their own in splendid isolation; they release music on their own label, licensing it to selected partners around the world, so they have to answer to no one. They have only ever played live once because they’re still wrestling with the old conundrum of how to present ‘computer music’ in an interesting way on the stage. Within the steely electronic pop of their last album Deep Cuts lurked songs about women’s rights and the duty of good citizens to pay their taxes."
Degenerate Art Ensemble: "Think punk, classical, think jazz, think beautiful haunting melodies, think thashing passions, think horn sections, strings, wild drums, vocals that are sometimes soft and dark and sometimes terrifying, lots of gentle songs... a unified szitzopheric world... its just best to just listen. Allow some time to listen to the different albums and songs, as they walk very different territories." 
