Back catalogue: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: So what happens when a European post-punk outfit meets an American 'ambient country ensemble'? The answer: A Nanocluster. In fact, three. This being the third. Immersion first met SUSS in September 2021, and the results were mesmerising. Three years on and the impact was no less staggering. Originally landing in September 2024, part tres takes us into the kind of musical places we're used to finding Spiritualized or Mogwai, and even then the references are misleading. For as many times as Nanocluster Vol. 3 sucks us into a thick soup of ambient and atmosphere, inviting us to get lost in opiate cloud formations, it also asks us to jump on board a stream train of rolling and driving rhythms, juggernauts gathering depth and complexity as they forge ahead. A stunning collection of highly evocative and incredible musical instrumentals.

Review: The words 'DJ Sotofett Remakes' is like catnip to lovers of obscure electric sounds. And here is the Allchival label with no fewer than six of them as the left-of-centre maestro adds his take to originals by Stano. His club mix of 'Room' is all spaced out and cosmic, then goes super slow and psychedelic with his snaking bass sounds on an Overdubble mix of 'Emma Wild & Whale' before Seance Of A Kondalike" (DJ Sotofett Newseance mix) picks up the pace but remains utterly psyched-out and intoxicating. There is still time for snaking dub techno and warped electronics on the remaining three sides.

Review: Transporting us to a waking dream of Los Angeles, two enigmatic music makers from the City of (Fallen) Angels present a truly stunning journey into hazy half-memories, afternoon fantasies, borrowed recollections and thoughts of things yet to happen. In many ways, Salt & Sugar Look The Same feels incomplete; tracks, half-tracks, movements, bits and pieces feel like our minds often work. Was that what we think it was? Did this happen? According to the official release burb, these 18 brief but beautiful compositions combine finger-plucked guitar work, the lens flare of electronica, and warped samples to create a take on the American primitivism music movement. The result is something that transcends boundaries of sound, time and place, and exists in a world of its own creation.

Review: Turin's reputation as an enclave of Italian alternative music and culture is well known. Southern Europe's Motor City has the stunning piazzas and palazzos we want from its country, but also the huge industrial areas, many now in decline or waiting to be redeveloped, that catalyse so much in electronic and industrial music. Meanwhile, a few miles beyond town we find spectacular countryside, national parks, mountain ranges, and inspiration for deep ambient. SabaSaba were born from and into this, and the duo have established themselves as one of the region's foremost purveyors of unusual tunes. Unknown City is a like a blueprint for what a contemporary horror score could be, whether that's the slow release of the John Carpenter-esque 'Night Plotters', haunting chants and shimmers of 'Wrists Free', eerie atmospheres of 'False Speech', or anything in between.

Review: Deep Valley is a new collaborative work by Australian artists Seaworthy aka Cameron Webb and Matt Rosner and they came together for it during a week-long residency at Bundanon Art Museum in New South Wales. The property which was gifted to the Australian public by artists Arthur and Yvonne Boyd in the 1990s offers a unique landscape along the Shoalhaven River and is surrounded by sandstone cliffs and diverse wildlife. Drawing inspiration from Boyd's belief that "you can't own a landscape," Deep Valley combines the inspiration of that setting with environmental recordings, guitars, piano, and electronic processing all of which aim to highlight the transient nature of ecosystems and encourage you to reconnect with the sounds of nature.

Review: Sightless Pit is Lee Buford (aka The Body) and Dylan Walker (aka Full of Hell). The creative pair's debut album Grave of A Dog put them right up there with the best bands in the heavy metal scene. They now follow it up with another album that redefined heavy guitar sounds. Lockstep Bloodwar is an eclectic one sound wise and it features some big names making guts appearances such as Gangsta Boo from Three 6 Mafia, YoshimiO from Boredoms, plus Midwife, Lane Shii Otayonii and more. This version comes on limited translucent red marbled vinyl for a look as freaky as the music sounds.

Review: The year is 1999 and while the sounds of Ibiza lounge house and blistering trance dominate much of the radio waves, elsewhere in Europe something very special is taking form. At this point in time, Sigur Ros had only put out one album, Vonn, in 1997, and followers who joined more recently, when the Icelandic oddities broke into major TV advertising campaigns and movie scores, but haven't looked back at their origins, might be surprised at what that one sounded like. Altogether darker, much more cacophonous.


Aegis Byrjun would follow the groundbreaking but largely unsung debut (Vonn only sold 300 copies in their own country) with a groundbreaking moment that set a precedent for everything they have done since. This is where big brands like Nissan pricked up ears, mesmerised by a sound that's at once alien, yet also deeply human, huge but intimate, classical yet contemporary, and fundamentally focused on triggering emotions.

Review: In many ways Spiderland is lucky to exist., Slint weren't exactly the most avid studio band in the world, only recording two full length albums during the five years in which they were properly active. They also disbanded around the time this record was released - 1991 - perhaps even shortly before, which could have scuppered any plans for their difficult second even after they managed to emerge from a recording facility with enough tracks.

But what tracks they are. Spiderland is rightly considered an absolute landmark, an LP that captures the spirit of rock 'n' roll in transition. Leaving one decade behind, and the hardcore punk that had dominated the underground guitar scene, while still retaining those ethics, it has one foot in grunge, another in experimental, another in garage and a fourth somewhere else. Enough limbs to mark it out as a real mutant.

Review: Konrad Sprenger, as any real heads will know, is a moniker of Jorg Hiller, who works in many fields including composing, producing and instrument building. His work seamlessly blends scientific exploration of sound with pop sensibility and humour. From the diverse instrumentation of albums like Miniaturen and Versprochen to the electric guitar explorations of Stack Music in 2017, Hiller's evolution is ever-captivating. Here he unites these elements into a playful, infectious epic performed by Hiller and the enigmatic Ensemble Risonanze Moderne with guest Oren Ambarchi weaving swirling harmonics into its vibrant soundscapes. These two side-long pieces feature polyrhythmic frameworks blending shimmering guitar harmonics, horns and synthetic bursts into a mix of avant-garde and techno wonderment. Hiller doesn't release very often but when he does, it's worth taking note.

Review: It's Squid, but maybe not as you knew them in short form. While musi-cally not a million miles from the earliest samples we had from the band, Bright Green Field is a different place that we find them in. An "imaginary cityscape", as the outfit have apparently put it, which is home to a multitude of things - people, events, movements, memories.

So whereas before things took a pretty intimate, even domesticated lyr-ical slant, here the scope is much greater. Track titles like 'G.S.K.' should be enough to prove the point (a not-so-subtle nod to Big Pharma giant GlaxmoSmithKline). Elsewhere themes range from aggressive propa-ganda of right wing politics to physical space itself. An outfit real-ising what can be done with the reach of their voice (or maybe just fi-nally releasing it), while remaining true to the punk, art rock, jazz fusion you were hoping for from this confident Bristolian debut.

Review: If you're not familiar with Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan's SQURL project, then it's time to rectify that. Over the past eight years, the two interdisciplinary creatives have been touring some of the most prestigious venues in the world (Art Institute of Chicago, Elizabeth Hall, London, Center Pompidou, Paris), presenting live scores to the experimental films of Dadaist pioneer Man Ray. Can you guess where this is going? As Logan puts it: "It's a journey we want to take the audience on, illuminating themes throughout these films. They are discrete, but there are also recurring echoes throughout the whole programme". Music For Man Ray presents some of those spellbinding ideas-as-soundtracks in an album form. Tunes and noises created and developed to accompany the film Return To Reason, when experienced as standalone audio it emphasises just how captivating the tones are.

Review: US producer SSPS is a ram outsider who is well known to fans of the weird and the wonderful. His adventurous experiments have landed on labels like L.I.E.S. and Kode run by Traxx and collide punk, noise, wave, hardcore, slow beat and jakbeat. This is a retrospective release that brings together some of his many highlights and proves why he is so well-loved by a community of fans on the fringes of the underground mainstream. As well as this genre references there are plenty of odd vocals and smeared synths unifying the sounds which here included four tunes recorded live For Unlimited Nation Summer Of 2020.

Review: Alessandro Asso Stefana's debut self-titled album showcases his diverse musical range as he effortlessly incorporates instruments and styles from rootsy folk and primitive blues to psychedelia, soundtracks, and ambient explorations. Drawing from the Smithsonian Folkways archives, he integrates Roscoe Holcomb's historic voice for a great blend of past and present. Each track unfolds like a little musical vignette that merges various instruments from different eras-such as the Marxophone, pedal steel guitars, and psychedelic organs. The second half of the album features Holcomb's voice, bridging folk traditions with modern improvisation and in all the record suspends you between earth and sky.

Review: On their seventh album, The Breaks, SUUNS embrace limbo and craft their most emotionally resonant and sonically rich work to date. The Montreal trio of Ben Shemie, Joseph Yarmush, and Liam O'Neill dive deeper into pop instincts than ever before here while also pushing their experimental rock boundaries. With O'Neill at the production helm, they explore loops, synths and MIDI instruments that might well draw to mind Tangerine Dream and certain downtempo trip-hop acts. The album was forged over two years of touring and remote collaboration and blends whispered intimacy with vast soundscapes best exemplified in tracks like 'Doreen' and the superbly adventurous title song.

Review: Damo Suzuki was with seminal krautrock outfit Can from 1970 to 1973, lending his vocal talents to albums such as Tago Mago, Future Days and Ege Bamyasi. Exactly fifty years after the latter LP, you can hear him on this new recording described as being 'derived from fantasy'. In collaboration with Spiritczualic Enhancement Center, an eight-piece group of self-proclaimed disciples from the CAN University that gathered at Berlin-based club Arkaoda, it feaures three tracks; 'U', 'Ra', 'Beya' - excerpts from this gathering at the beginning of 2020.

Review: There have been few experimental rock bands who've enjoyed (or perhaps endured) as tumultuous career as Swans. Since forming in 1982, they've broken up, reunited and changed personnel umpteen times, though bandleader Michael Gira has remained the creative force throughput. The Beggar, the band's latest album, is similarly turbulent in tone and approach, with Gira and company offering up sonically detailed, foreboding and off-kilter explorations that offer a more expansive and measured take on their trademark heady and often hallucinatory trademark sound. This is particularly evident on disc two opener 'The Beggar Lover (Three)', a shapeshifting, 45-minute instrumental meditation peppered with found sounds and recycled samples from their Soundtracks For The Blind album.