Sacred Bones US Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Canadian composer Mort Garson enjoyed an eclectic career, though in electronic music circles he's most celebrated for a string of experimental electronic albums he produced using early Moog synthesizers. "Mother Earth's Plantasia" is a bizarre but brilliant beast: a 1976 set that was designed to be played to plants to help them grow (really) and was given away free at a Los Angeles garden store. As this first ever reissue proves it remains a dizzyingly far-sighted set. Sometimes symphonic, occasionally spacey and always intoxicating, much of the material is far quirkier than contemporaneous synthesizer-fired sets. Highlights include the pulsing ambient spaciousness of "Ode To An African Violet", the twinkling, cascading beauty of "Rhapsody In Green" and the jaunty cheeriness of "You Don't Have To Walk a Begonia".

Review: During the making of Arkhon, her ninth solo album as Zola Jesus, Nika Roza Danilova found herself in the middle of an almost crippling creative block. Listening to the album, you'd never know. Crafted with the help of a small number of hand-picked collaborators (producer Randall Dunn and drummer/percussionist Matt Chamberlain included), it's a confident, ear catching and constantly invigorating set, with Danilova's trademark vocals seemingly soaring above backing tracks that, while rooted in the darker and more atmospheric end of electronic pop, defy simple categorization. Highlights are plentiful, with our picks including the percussion-laden power pop builds of 'The Fall', the alternately dreamy and breathlessly intense 'Into The Wild', the tactile, slow-build opener 'Lost' and heart-aching piano ballad 'Desire'.