Armpit:Butta Daze CD [CPsiP] $12
Revolving feverishly around their own dark-matter, escaping Armpits unbelievable gravitational pull borders on the mathematically-impossible. Utterly impenetrable 'songs' coupled to unfathomable blankness (sometimes I swear they've packed up and gone home!), makes 'Butta Daze' one of the most fearfully disorienting, supremely damaged, and seriously beautiful recordings ever allowed out into daylight. Imagine your frontal lobe being sandwiched between two pink mattresses, and then subjected to the entire Gate discography, backwards, on 16rpm. Yep... Its THAT good!

Arc: Glassine 1 CD [A silent place] $12
Glassine I" was recorded live at the Ambient Ping in Toronto in 2006 and can be easily described as an organic space ambient, with very strong references to Pink Floyd (Ummagumma), Popol Vuh, Ashra Temple, Jackie-O Motherfucker, O Yuki Conjugate, AMP and Flying Saucer Attack or "Fourth World" ambient music! Four tracks of pure vibrant multi-layered psychedelic drone music from Aidan Baker & Co! Now, close your eyes, listening to "Glassine I" and start for your trip, even without the intake of any substances, waiting for "Glassine II". Digifile.

Avarus: Jättiläisrotta CD [Secret Eye] $12
From the circle of psychos who bring you Kemialliset Ystävät and the Anaksimandros comes this release by the one and only Avarus. These Finns play a freaked out blend of noise, folk and, could it be... free jazz!???!??!!??! Packed with aural mayhem and musical non-sequiturs, this music will make you dance like Dr. Huxtable, no joke. Although they have released many tapes, 7", and CD-r's all over the world, this is Avarus' FIRST CD!

Ashtray Navigations: Four More Raga Moods [Ikuisuus] $12

Aidan Baker: The sea swells a bit... [A silent place] $12
One of the most important emergent artist of the last years...! Probably this is the most important "musical" Aidan Baker release..., in fact here the sound is comparable to the best (obscure) psychedelic post-rock releases including great droning, hypnotic and honeiric atmospheres. Spontaneously composed by Aidan, who plays guitar (electric & acoustic), bass, tapeloops, drum machine and percussion in his droning 'fashion soup'.

Kinetix (Gianluca Becuzzi): Selected E_Missions CD [Small Voices] $12
Kinetix (Gianluca Becuzzi): White Rooms 2xCD [Small Voices] $16
Kinetix (Gianluca Becuzzi): Memory Makes Noise [Small Voices] $16
Modern electro-acoustic music similar to the releases which have appeared on the Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes (though with some drone elements).  In other words, demanding conceptual works that will be highly rewarding for the patient listener. (You can listen to some tracks here.)

Gianluca Becuzzi / Fabio Orsi: Muddy Speaking Ghosts Through My Machines CD [A silent place] $12
Muddy Speaking Ghosts Through My Machines' is the brand new album released together by Fabio Orsi and Gianluca Becuzzi. This album will be certainly followed by other cooperations, considering the big friendly artistic sodality between them. Fabio e Gianluca are a strange duo, considering the big differences of their artistic back-ground. Fabio Orsi is a young and unexpected talent. After his first album, "Osci" (LP, SmallVoices 2005), produced by Gianluca Becuzzi, he got a lot of positive feedbacks, worldwide, by the most important international media, confirmed by his second official release "For Alan Lomax" (CD, A Silent Place 2006) splitted with cosmical Italian duo My Cat is an Alien. Gianluca Becuzzi is a very well known character of the Italian experimental scene since from the 80s, under many different alias. Recently known as Kinetix, Gianluca latest release is the very well appreciated "Memory Makes Noise" (CD, SmallVoices 2006) a great electroacoustic pearl. The unexpected encounter between different forces, experiences and visions of this two artists is perfectly melted in this album: strong and tied, an imaginary place where folkway and research, past and present, distance and closeness, mud and clouds, ghosts and machines meets. Shreds of ballads, guitars and old keyboards floating on the vibrant surface of this fairy river and disappear, towed off by drones and rumors, pouring between distant voices and centenary blues songs from the Alan Lomax archive. Rapture and sweet lostness: this is the main sensation. It could be listed as Avant-Folk, or Experimental-Blues, Ambient- Roots or contemporary aesthetics and aching nostalgia...

The Big Huge: Crown Your Head With Flowers, Crown Your Heart With Joy CD [Secret Eye] $12
Brought up on American folk and British psychedelic pop music, The Big Huge wears its influences on its sleeve, while being sure not to recreate the past. After the split of Sonna, a Baltimore-based instrumental ambient group with releases on Temporary Residence (two of which were recorded by Steve Albini), The Big Huge (Drew Nelson) decided to revert back to his love of acoustic instrumentation. After a few solo shows, he decided to recruit fellow Baltimore-based musician, Michael Lambright, to help with accordian, ukulele, glockenspiel, and banjo. After a year of shows in Baltimore and the east coast, Drew and Michael began recording this, their first LP. Recorded by Chris Freeland and Drew in Chris' parents living room, the record has a summer vibe with lyrics harking back to a time of Welsh communes during the summer of love.

Brasil: Wander till spring CD [Nefryt] $12
AKA Brasil & the Gallowbrothers band, but here it is just mirt.  Comes in special 'tall' packaging.

The Dead C: Trapdoor Fucking Exit [Siltbreeze] $12
Whitehouse [Siltbreeze] $12
Tusk [Siltbreeze] $12

Dead Raven Choir: Selenoclast Wolves CD [God is myth] $12

Duozero: Esperanto CD [Small Voices] $12
Duozero builds its own philosophy out of whatever is unprogrammed. Organicity insinuates itself between digital data that prostitute themselves to analogic, Duozero’s ear is trained to catch all the micronoises, faxes’, modems’, computers’ glitches. Upon these drifting hardware symphonies, echoes kraut rock, musique concréte, free jazz, warped sinusoids, freakadelics and cosmic abstractions land softly and mix with each other. The first album “no programma 1999/2000” is released in september 2000 on the Snowdonia label: it gets rave reviews and it is followed by a series of presentation concerts. Then there is the participation to two chapters of the series “illicit sounds of maffia” (a compilation with contributions coming from italian and international artists gravitating around Maffia Club). Duozero goes in stand-by mode until 2004 when the next release is announced. “Esperanto” is the title of the new work that will be available in the first months of 2005, released by Small Voices. The album will be preceded by a single with a remix by Tim Motzer, guitarist known for his collaborations with Ursula Rucker, King Britt and other names of the new philly sound, as well as for several singles for cult label Ovation. “Esperanto” is a further sonic challenge, focused on words, language and communication. This explains the wide use of texts, spoken materials and readings in several languages, that find their space within sonic environments made up by field recordings, electronic sounds and deep rhythms. The verbal interventions are by several guests among which are Massimo Zamboni (cccp, csi), writer Davide Bregola and actors Gabriele Tesauri e Marco Valerio Amico, Milo Sepic e Alessia. From the no-programme manifesto we get to a greater digital component, to a surgical dissection of sonic cells. Phonetic poetry, automatic writing, cut-up. Utopia.

The Franciscan Hobbies: Masks & Meanings CD [Soft Abuse] $12
"The second album from this satellite of San Francisco's Jewelled Antler Collective is packed full of earth mystery, permeated by the smell bone fires and vegetative rites. The sound of rust-caked acoustic guitar and banjo dominates, while the ripple of earthworked gongs, tremulous sitar and percussion makes this the perfect soundtrack to a version of The Wicker Man performed by a group of California heads." - The Wire

Goem: Robbed CD [Small Voices) $12
This new Goem release is a solo work by Roel Meelkop (this time without Frans de Waard and Peter Duimelinks). The source material is an anonymous CD, whose samples are used for these eight tracks. The result is a combination of rhythmic patterns with minimalistic passages, strange loops, repetitive elements. Therefore, an interesting episode into Goem’s production, quite different from early releases of the trio, maybe preluding an evolution in its music.

The Golden Oaks: Autumn Testament CD [A silent place] $12
(North Sea + Sunburned Hand of the Man)

Iditarod: River Nektar CD [Blue Sanct] $12
Iditarod: The Ghost, the Elf, the Cat and the Angel CD [Blue Sanct] $12
Now defunct free-folk Providence band. Jeffrey Alexander's prior project to Black Forest/Black Sea.

Jennifer Gentle: A New Astronomy CD [A silent place] $12
Jennifer Gentle & Kawabata Makoto: The Wrong Cage [A silent place] $12
Finally it is here, the long-awaited re-release of "The Wrong Cage", the superfreaky , acid rock album that introduced Italian psych-pop mavericks Jennifer Gentle to the rest of the world, leading to their subsequent Sub Pop signing. Originally self-released in late 2002 on their own imprint Sillyboy Records, "The Wrong Cage" saw the young Italian quartet (who had already home-recorded a couple of eccentric albums) join forces with Kawabata Makoto, the legendary Japanese guitar-god leader of Acid Mothers Temple and zillion other projects, for a live album that captured the band at it's most ferocious. The result was over 30 minutes of wonderful loud sonic carnage: two long, ultra-heavy guitar freakouts plus a eerily beautiful solo sarongi track played by Kawabata - all in all, a must for all fans of heavy, guitar-driven psychedelic avant-rock. Long out of print, "The Wrong Cage" is available again, now with the addition of a lo-fi BONUS TRACK, 18-minute long version of "Bring Them" cut on the another night of that tour and burning with even more fire and primal power than the original album. Comes in elegant digipak!!!

Julie's Haircut & Sonic Boom: N-Waves / U-Waves (w/2 extra tracks) CD [A silent place] $12
In late September 2005 Sonic Boom, alias Pete Kember – historical founder member of Spacemen 3, Spectrum and Experimental Audio Research – meets Julie’s Haircut at Studio Alpha in Bologna to cooperate with them to the final editing of their new album (“After Dark, My Sweet” - 2006). This was a new starting point for Julie’s Haircut in the field of music research… only a part of 3 days of studio recordings was released in that album. N-Waves / U-Waves contains, for the first time, two takes produced in that session. Gemini, pt. 1 & pt. 2 is presented here in its first take. Scarfo Spanks DC is another completely unreleased improvisation. Two more songs complete the cd release of this ep. Sister Pneumonia and Ingrid Thulin, formerly released on the album After Dark, My Sweet, feature the band in two more studio improvisation together with Sonic Boom playing esotic electronic devices such as the Raagini (a sitar-simulator), Kraakle (a random electronic noise generator) and the famous EMS Synthi AKS sinthetizer.

Luigi Turra: Enso CD [Small Voices] $12
Field recording, electroacoustic, evanescent resonances, minimal acts full of organic substances, atmospheres finely wrought in the void by impenetrable geometries, evoking zen gardens (graphically portrayed on the cover with a Roberto Zingales' photo). All these elements and even more is embodied in this Luigi Turra's project published by Smallvoices. He's a clever sound designer, modulating contrasts, and describing with obsessive care circular universes (expressed by the Japanese language term 'enso'). It's a project that, in settings and drafting, somehow follows the intercultural research concerning writings and languages of the world, previously started in projects developed together with Gianluca Becuzzi (here he's the executive producer). Three tracks, dilated in suggestive and aesthetic scores, escaping on one hand the emphasis and reflecting it on the other hand like in a mirror, alerting our listening experience on every possible tone.

Christian Marclay & Okyung Lee / My Cat is an Alien: From the earth to the spheres vol. 6 CD [A silent place] $12
This is the re-release of the split ART-LP (Opax Records - special SPACE ART ltd ed of 100/ original 31x31 cm painting on wooden support by Roberto Opalio as cover). Last release in the "From the earth to the Spheres" split series set up by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio aka My Cat Is An Alien on their own Opax Records imprint, sees the Italian cosmic duo splitting the media with well-known audio visual artist, performer and turntable-art innovator Christian Marclay together with cello improviser Okkyung Lee, ubiquitous figure of downtown NY avant-garde scene. Their track "Rubbings" is the result of a live performance recorded at Tonic NYC in December 2003. Christian Marclay's trademarked technique of mixing several ranges of Lps on his multiple turntables, manipulating, fragmenting and altering the phonograph records' sonic nature in accordance with his "theater of found sound" esthetics meets the uncompromising and passionate playing of Korean-born performer Lee, whose powerful cello's stabs interact with Marclay's waves of screaming sounds creating a unique, stunning scenario. My Cat Is An Alien's piece "Beyond the limits of the stars/ Beyond the limits of the grooves" was recorded in 2003 at their Space Room studio in Torino, and has been kept safely in their archive 'till September 2005, when it's been completely remixed and edited appositely for this release. One of their heaviest conceptions to date, the piece is built on electric guitars' strings moaning onto walls of space drones and electronics like ectoplasmic presences emerging from the brillliance of the Void. The initial minimal and claustrophobic guitar chords become more and more an ocean of howling moduled feedbacks combined with fragmented and distorted real-time inserts of post-romantic classical music from old 78rpm shellac records, sounding like radio frequencies transmitted via ether from the furthest reaches of the Cosmos. As the title suggests, MCIAA's need of a non-finite "space music & art" aesthetics research has led them to etch a ghost track (instead of the final lock-groove you can find on the original vinyl) to un-seal the sounds from their actual support; a purpose expressed throughout the whole "From the earth to the Spheres" series' conception.

Antony Milton: The End of this short road CD [PseudoArcana] $12
How I wish this was an LVD release!  Among the best solo stuff by Antony, somewhere between the material on our Sirens release and the Swagger Jack comp.

Mirt: Oh! you are so naive CD [Catsun/Monotype] $12
Moods and atmosphere from Poland.  Between his solo work and the recordings with Brasil and the Gallowbrothers band, Mirt has created something truly unique which has no analogy in the West.

My Cat is an Alien: The secret of the Dancing Snow CD [Ikuisuus] $12

My Cat is an Alien / Steve Roden: Voume II CD [A silent place] $12
CD re-issue of the second installment in the "Cosmic Debris" split ART-LP series set up by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, aka My Cat Is An Alien, on their own Opax Records. The Vol.II sees the two space brothers from Torino, Italy, alongside Californian visual and sound artist Steve Roden. What makes this collaborative release so peculiar is the natural interactive exchange occurred between the artists, and that came out from the concept behind the experience itself. Roden's contribution thus represents the unique experience of hearing him literally 'playing' guitar chords. His first track, "E-bows and Rainbows", developes through the minimal and reiterated sound architecture of Roden's so-called 'possible landscapes', where singular source materials such as objects and field recordings are abstracted through electronic processes to generate new audio spaces, characterizing the artist's aesthetic in sound works; the following "My dog is a Yufo" is so far a pretty unheard aspect of Roden's ability to shape a fascinating intimate piece only with an old electric guitar and his own fingers, and it also demonstrates how a true artist can re-create his own personal universe, no matter what kind of source utilized. On their side, MCIAA deliver another piece of 'cosmic debris', centered on multilayered echoes of voice, toy piano, space drones raising from a distant horizon, and their own physical gestures performed during the recording, which reproduce themselves through the air, re-play and give birth to echoes of real time that overcomes its own essence, becoming field recording itself, mirror and spectre of its immutability. Their track entitled "Everything waves like cosmic debris" also features Ramona Ponzini's Japanese bells contribution

Robert Opalio: The last night of the Angel of Glass 2xCD [A silent place] $16
'Double CD set reissuing the acclaimed "The last night of the Angel of Glass, Vol.I", original soundtrack to the omonimous film by Roberto Opalio (released on the long-out-of-print DVD-R/CD-R set by Foxglove, USA), plus the totally previously unreleased "Vol.II" (entire disc 2), representing the second half of a unique recording session. The work here available for the first time in its entire and remastered version was recorded by the artist himself at home in Torino, Italy, on November 1st 2005, while his camera, set on the balcony, was filming Opalio's glass-art creation (the Angel) animated by the soft light of a candle under a blackened sky. Here are the words by the artist himself, reported as liner notes inside the 6-panels gatefold sleeve featuring stills taken from the film: 'my voice/ my astral guitar/ instants of life/ home/ window of memories/ blue afternoon/ winter 2005/ cold burning flame/ torino/ whispers of glass/ suspended/ between/ day & night/ before black falls'. Released in an elegant Matt varnished digi-sleeve. Strictly Limited Edition of 600 copies.

Of: The Sun & Earth Together CD [Ultra Hard Gel] $12
2008 release or organic texture and drone from Loren Chasse (Jeweled Antler Collective)

Fabio Orsi: Find Electronica CD [A silent place] $12
In only two years of work Fabio Orsi has achieved critique and fans, imposing his name as one of the most promising and representative of the entire Italian independent scene. A drift began with the excellent vinyl LP "Osci" (SmallVoices 2005), followed by the famous split CD "For Alan Lomax" (A Silent Place, 2006) together with Italian My Cat is an Alien and a couple of cooperations with Gianluca Becuzzi: "Muddy Speaking Ghosts Through My Machines" (A Silent Place 2006) e "The Stones Know Everything" (Digitalis Industries 2007). Today, as final confirmation of his talent, A Silent Place is proud to present this new Fabio Orsi solo. "Find Electronica" is a wonderful album finely full of lyric, structured as a long drone/ambient suite divided in two portions which are the frames of the articulated central track. A strictly personal exercise on the "Weird Folk" theme, hypnotic and seductive. The "found" electronica meets the humoral sonorities made by the six chords, projecting enchanted landscapes on a vibrant horizon, with an intimate sensibility. Abstract and emotional, deep and dreamy,

Fabio Orsi / Mamuthones: The First Born CD [A silent place] $12
THE FIRST BORN is (quite aptly) the first collaboration between Fabio Orsi (more than a recurring name in the In A Silent Place catalogue) and Mamuthones - better known to friends and family as Alessio Gastaldello and founding member and drummer of Jennifer Gentle, the Italian psych band signed to Sub Pop Records. After six years with the Jennifers, Alessio split amicably in late 2006 and reinvented himself as Mamuthones, a one-man project delving into primitive percussive jamming and equally primitive one-finger astral keyboard-playing. After a telematic chance meeting with Fabio Orsi, now the crowned prince of the Italian experimental noise, this album slowly started taking shape via e-mails and file-sharing. Built around a series of percussion-cum-keyboard sonic landscapes performed by Mamuthones and enriched by deep, droney electronic layers later added by Orsi, THE FIRST BORN contains four long tracks of dark, brooding modern psychedelia. From the splashing cymbals and martial beat of the title track to the hypnotic surge of "The infinity within" or the ritualistic feast of "The battle", the whole album feels like an ancient sea ebbing and flowing on some distant alien shore, making for a curiously disjointed listening experience, at the same time peaceful and menacing. The ever-shifting sonic textures evoke both the starchildren krautrockers of old and more recent outer-world explorers but always keep a strong personal identity, firmly rooted in the current weird Italian take on space rock. Released in extra heavy and luxurious package!

Fabio Orsi & Valerio Cosi: We Could for Hours CD [A silent place]$12
We Could For Hours is instability. It represents the will to open the gates of unknown. It is the dark, whispered sounds and hidden truths. Chaos. And now here it starts, everything takes form, sensations rise, objects acquire colours, distorted vision but still a vision of reality. Everything dances and follows the rhythm of music, an unknown tribal dance. Silence. Sounds follow themselves but always hidden in a veil of mystery, words are mute, everything is listening attentively to the enchanting melody of nature. Mind, free from human limits, goes straight towards a long journey and meets the supernatural and then sinks into the knowledge oblivion. Everything is nothing. Nothing is the time. Time becomes memory and memory brings us to happy thoughts that rise first, then fall in the end. Hallucinations. The precariousness feeling is overwhelming us, tollings of a clock without hands are molesting our ears and they scan the slow and endless flowing of life. Too late to be back. There's no possibility. We have to live desolate countrysides burnt by an August sun. Lysergic vision. Void.

Painting Petals on Planet Ghost: Fallen Camellias CD [A silent place] $12
Second full-lenght album from Italy's Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, aka brothers Maurizio & Roberto Opalio (My Cat Is An Alien) and vocalist Ramona Ponzini (also involved in the duo Praxinoscope, as well as a new project with Z'EV). 'Fallen Camellias' is a tribute to one of the greatest poetess ever, Japanese Yosano Akiko, whose work in literature in the early 1900's is considered as manifesto of the Japanese Romanticism. Imagine a Vashti Bunyan or a early Marianne Faithful singing sweet melodies in Japanese language, and you can have an idea of the musical and poetical universe of Painting Petals On Planet Ghost. Here Ramona Ponzini's singing comes from the use of Akiko's selected original poems in Japanese along with Ponzini's own typical soft and enchanting wordless vocals style, a out of time muse-like chant hypnotizing the ears and the minds of the listeners. The songs of 'Fallen Camellias' are built on acoustic guitar melodies composed by Maurizio Opalio,and are made of the same pure, melancholic essentiality of the legendary Nick Drake; while, after contributing arrangements of the most ecstatic nature, the other brother Roberto Opalio has played the role of producer of the whole album, searching for not only an aesthetic, but especially an emotional ideal of perfection. In the heart of winter covered by snow, let 'Fallen Camellias' be your warm blanket, as well as the promise of a new future spring. Here's a special Painting Petals On Planet Ghost's dedication: 'For those who drink the wine of love springtime is forever'. Comes in a deluxe 3 panels digipak!!!

The Pin Group: (selt-titled) CD [Siltbreeze] $12
Absolute classic with Roy Montgomery and Peter Stapleton fusing the sound of Chairs Missing, Unknown Pleasures, and The Velvet Underground.  One of my personal favorites!

The Puddle: no love - no hate [Fishrider] $12
The Puddle: The shakespeare Monkey [Fishrider] $12
Two recent releases from NZ singer-song writer who has been active since 1984.  Compared by some to Syd Barrett.

Pumice: White CD [Stabbies] $12
Pumice: Yeahnanvienna CD [Soft Abuse] $12
Pumice: Pebbles [Soft Abuse] $12
Buy them all!

Maryrose Crook & The Renderers: Ghost of our Vegas Lives CD [Ajax] $12
More in the school of rugged, broken NZ pop music (or is it country?)  Both of these albums come highly recommended.

Ben Reynolds: Music is Language CD [Ikuisuus] $12 

Reynols: Sosina Arada Mica CD [CPsiP] $12
From the same country that brought you the Argentine Rugby Team comes the brand new bucket of steaming hot-fong from the globes finest heavy metal shamen. Lurid-green, audio-slime that whispers your name and threatens to suck you down its own psychic plughole. The shiniest examples of everything Reynols-ish: visionary wail and murmer, cyclopean beating, and unshackled string twist. Powerful, deeply sinister, and truly beyond your wildest dreams.

Seht: Application Antarctica Download Form  CD [CPsiP] $12
Brrrrr, its gettin cold in here... don't fall asleep ‘cause you may never wake up. Like its namesake, ‘Antarctica...' comes on like a vast cathedral of suspended ice-prongs dripping out action at a pace roughly comparable to the formation of a glacier. Natures fractured architecture pixelated and amplified through the green luminescence of night vision goggles... almost TOO beautiful to be real? My esteemed friends, this hugely confident release falls well inside the parameters of ‘effortless' and represents a pinnacle of sensual, hypothermic dream-states. File under ‘Near Death'.

Spires that in the Sunset Rise: Four Winds The Walker CD [Secret Eye] $12
Four-piece freak folk unit out of Chicago.  Diverse instrumentation includes mbira, bul bul tarang, cello, ankle bells, bongos, tiny little harp things and wordless vocalizations of ecstasy. Some people describe the Spires sound as a cross between Comus and The Raincoats. Not completely accurate, but not too far off either...

Troum: Symballein CD [Small Voices] $12
"Symballein" is the second Troum release on the Small Voices label after "Autopoiesis" LP picture disc. This album is a collection of very rare material, from the very beginning of Troum (period: 1997 - 1999). As Troum meaning the music is dreamy... The concept of the ‘Dream’ is the common thread running through Troum; the name, the music and the philosophy. For not only is Troum the old German word for "dream" but, according to their website, ‘the dream, seen as a central manifestation of the unconscious, symbolizes the aim of Troum to lead the listener into a hypnotizing dream-state of mind, a pre-verbal and primal consciousness sphere. Troum uses music as the direct path to the Unconscious, pointing to the archaic "essence" of the human’s inner psyche. Troum tries to create music that works like a direct transformation of unconscious matter’. In Symballein dreams are obscure and indecipherable..., in one word nightmares; the music is archaic and droney, with multi-layered guitar drones... oneiric ambient industrial nearly to Maeror Tri best releases. Served in elegant embossed digisleeve.

Urdog: Eyelid of Moon CD [Secret Eye] $12
URDOG follow their influences down the rabbit hole to create a pulsating mix of kommische-prog-psych-drone INSANITY. Jeff Knoch 's Farfisa shifts from King Crimson to Alice Coletrane, to Amon Düül II, and back while Dave Lifriri lays down the heavy acid guitar licks. We hear more of drummer Erin Rosenthal's ethereal voice this time out.

Various Artists: The Tone of the Universe (=The Tone of the Earth) 2CD [PseudoArcana] $17
Blithe Sons, Peter Wright, Keijo, Eugene Carhesio & Leighton Craig, CJA, Anla Courtis, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Hands of Satisfaction, A.M/Uton, The Moglass, Neil Campbell, Birchville Cat Motel, The Skaters, seht, Of, 1/3 Octave Band, The Nether Dawn, My Cat is an Alien. 

Various Artists: For the Dead in Space vol. 1 CD [Magic Eye] $12
Includes Damon & Naomi, Flying Saucer Attack, Tower Recordings, Bevis Frond, Batoh (from Ghost), Metronome (Eric from Yesteryear), Shy Camp (Tom's son David Rapp) and 9 more - even Tom Rapp himself (with an unreleased track from 1971). The CD version has 2 extra tracks. Receiving rave reviews and air-play worldwide. Glowing reviews in Popwatch, Washington Post, NY Times, National Public Radio, Magnet and countless other indie magazines.

Various Artists: For the Dead in Space vol. 2 & 3 2CD [Secret Eye] $14
The new double CD set FOR THE DEAD IN SPACE is a continuing tribute to TOM RAPP and PEARLS BEFORE SWINE. This new 2CD volume features more than 25 different artists. Both sets represent simply the finest artists in the folk, experimental and noise undergrounds paying tribute to an acid folk legend. Liner notes by Phil McMullen (editor of Ptolemaic Terrascope) with additional notes by Jeffrey Alexander.

Wander CD [Small Voices] $12
Wander are Freek Kinkelaar and Frans de Waard, also known as Beequeen. Since changing Beequeen´s musical direction in the summer of 2000 (drones out and `popmusic´ in). However, since they both love drone music, they founded Wander in 2001. In Wander they explore drone music in it´s widest possible form, with each new release exploring a specific concept. Wander will release their music on various formats, but every format only once. Each release is called Wander, and there is a total absense of any information on the cover. So far they have released a 10inch on their own Plinkity Plonk label, a LP for En/Of, a split 7inch on Plinkity Plonk (a split single with Beequeen), a CDR on XZF and a 7inch on Edition... and a forthcoming split 7inch recorded in collaboration with Andrew Liles.

The material was recorded in the analogue studio Geluidswerkplaats Extrapool in late 2004 and early 2005, using a wide variety of vintage synthesizers (juno 60, korg MS20, roland SH 102 and Arp synthesizer) and a Philicordia organ. The four long pieces breath an atmospheric, pastoral sound of slow and deep evolving drones. The CD was mastered by Raymond Steeg of The Legendary Pink Dots´ fame. The images on the cover and the disc were made with the help of Elise de Waard. Released in a special cardboard package with varnished images.

Simon Wickham-Smith: Two4Dancin CD [CPsiP] $12
As you probably know, Mr Wickham-Smith is a truly unique voice and ‘Two4Dancin' sees him at his most profoundly grand... a double album released simultaneously on a single CD. No, I'm not joking! Damn near exploding at the seams with wonderfully resonant contradictions, it's exquisite textures are capable of blissfully enveloping daily life AND driving your neighbours completely batty. Massive Attack meets Steve Reich? A slave to an infinite, block-rockin' beat which melts into deep transparency revealing a subterranean omniverse of casiotone-mantras, silicon-chip psalms, and the mystical babblings of angels and derelict gutter-drunks. Free your ass and your mind will follow... this is incredible, and completely out of left field for C/Psi/P.

Z'ev: Rhythmajik CD [Small Voices] $12
In "RHYTHMAJIK", Z'EV has radically reformulated the mystical tradition commonly known as the Qabalha from an Astral/Cosmological focus, to an Earth-based paradigm, in harmony with the needs of our current time. It requires no knowledge of the Qabalha, nor does it assume or call for a prior knowledge of any of the traditional literatures. Stripping away the mysticism surrounding these teachings, Z'EV elucidates the principles behind the theories and transmits the results in as neutral a form as they have ever been presented. Rhythmajik comprehensively and clearly explains an easily applied system allowing anyone to harness the semantics of number to the power of sounded rhythms. Rhythmajik is not about music but spells out the use of rhythm and sound and proportion for Trance, Healing, etc. It features a unique Numerical Encyclopedia and two Numerical dictionaries comprising over 5000 beat patterns with their semantic meanings encompassing both healing and ritual vocabularies. RHYTHMAJIK illuminates the processes allowing these vocabularies to be transformed into potent rhythmic patterns enabling you to focus the awesome energies of the Earth and Mother Nature and let them flow throughout and then out through you. It includes information and has applications for people interested in Astrology, Divination, the Music of the Spheres, Numerology, Tarot and Visualization regardless of any particular interest in drumming. And by the way, for the first time it delivers the functions of the 9 Chambers.

Z'ev & Ramona Ponzini: Ankoku CD [A silent place] $12
Ramona's personal touch is certainly her own particular Japanese chant, together with the use of traditional percussions, bells  and cymbals from Japan. Z'EV has been enchanted by all those elements (listening to Praxinoscope), asking to Ramona for this cooperation. This is the result of this "long-distance encounter". ANKOKU is a Japanese word which means "deep darkness". For this debut Ramona's voice and percussions has been registered by My Cat is an Alien in their mysterious studio, placed somewhere in Western Alps, adding some field recordings. Recordings has then been sent to Z'EV who has processed them with some of his typical percussions. Z'EV deconstruct the sweetness of Ramona's chants, enfolding the pieces with a darker atmosphere. We have an obscure 5 tracks album, structured on charming vocal melodies moving out from a "haunted house".