Ghastly City Sleep - Ghastly City Sleep (V0)

Ghastly City Sleep was something that also helped me get into post-rock at the end of 2008, which is odd, since Ghastly City Sleep is not your typical post-rock. In fact, it's probably not even post-rock. I picked this album up at a store for three bucks, and I still keep it in my car so I can listen to it whenever I want. And that's saying something, considering I only have about four CDs in my car. In Utero, Hospice, The Fruit That Ate Itself and this album. An odd collection, I know, but that's what I drive to, I guess.

To continue, this album might actually be an EP. It has four songs that all accurately portray the band's sound, incorporating several musical elements into all of their songs, ranging from ambient, alternative, post-rock, and at times shoegaze sounds. There are vocals on all the songs, sometimes whispery and light, and at other times impending like those of Dan Barrett from Have A Nice Life. In fact, the song Suchness gives me major Have A Nice Life vibes.

It's hard to describe the music in a small group of words, but if there's one feeling to take away from this description, it's ambient post-rock with vocals.

You can find the album here and buy it here.

Helios - Eingya (V0)

Upon first listening to Eingya, I immediately decided I wanted to write about it instead of what I originally had planned for today. That's how much I loved it.

Eingya is more calming than most anything I've heard before. None of the songs are particularly catchy or stand out a lot, but it seems like that's the intent, as weird as that may sound. It's very mood/setting specific. If you put it on at a party or while you're looking to get hyped up and excited for something, then you're on the wrong track, going the opposite direction. But put this on while you're in a calm and comfortable place with your eyes closed and you’re relaxed I guarantee you'll become completely absorbed in it, and love every second. So while this music isn't incredibly versatile, what it does it does amazingly well. This album takes great instrumental compositions and then adds in elements of electronic in such a way that will take you on a experience like no other. The layers of instruments and sound used here are put so beautifully well together it's nearly seamless.

This would be an amazing introduction to ambient music for anyone who wanted to get into the genre. Even for those already experienced with ambient, if you haven't heard this album, I'm highly recommending you do so. There's not much else I can say that listening for yourself wouldn't say so much better. So listen, relax, and enjoy.

Highlights: Bless This Morning Year, For Years and Years, Paper Tiger

Download here.

John Fahey - Fare Forward Voyagers (Soldier's Choice) (V0)

One man and his acoustic guitar. No vocals, no real strong structures. Does this work?

Oh yes, oh God yes it does. To say Fahey is incredibly good at the guitar is an understatement. He is nothing short of a genius at his instrument, and his ever-changing rhythms and expressive playing style have been emulated the world over (not to mention he created an entire new genre of music, American Primitivism). So put on some good headphones, relax, and let Fahey tell his magical, musical story. Words are overrated, anyway.

plink plink pluck

Ruins - Tzomborgha (V0)

Trying to describe the sound of Tzomborgha in relation to most popular math rock bands makes little sense, as their extreme technicality, odd chanting/yelling vocals, and overall wackiness isn't likely to remind anyone of Minus the Bear. What I can say is that that Ruins have taken bits and pieces of groups like Magma and Primus and twisted their sounds into an aggressive, awe-inspiring beast like little else in modern rock. For nearly 50 minutes, Tzomborgha grabs you by the balls and doesn't let go.

What is this I don't even...

Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (FLAC)

"The album's title is a reference to a collection of fond memories and even invented ones, like my friendship with Ricky Wilson or the fact that I live in an abandoned victorian autoharp factory. The way that we write and rewrite and edit our memories to be a digest version of what we want to remember, and how that's kind of sad."

Download.

Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky (FLAC)

There aren't words adequate to describe the joy that I felt upon hearing about the reformation of Swans. Although M. Gira has been working with and distributing new material under The Angels of Light for the better part of the last two decades, his work has taken a turn away from the sheets of noise and texture that made Swans so bizarrely cathartic. My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky represents a return to that sort of Faulknerian post-industrialism, bringing the fugues of Swans to the new pastoralism of The Angels of Light.

The title of Swans' first release in over ten years is the first sign of Gira's ministerial sarcasm, a feature that always seems to work its way into his music. The overlying theme of Gira's music is as present as ever – aspirations to godliness, or nirvana, or, as Gira describes "what will [presumably] be [his] only experience of heaven." But beneath that is a sort of vaudevillian assemblage of all of the greatest developments in Micheal Gira's aesthetic in the last twenty or thirty years. The harshness and monophony of Swans are as present as ever, but Gira also seems to have greatly expanded his influences during the Angels of Light era. New Weird America luminary Devendra Banhart, accompanied by Gira's daughter, sings sweetly about what I can only construe as the murder of a child, devolving at its climax to the rumbling sounds of pianos and horns, beckoning the corruption of beauty so familiar in Angels of Light albums We Are Him and How I Loved You.

Every moment of My Father Will Guide Me... is marked by a careful juxtaposition of beauty and acrimony, laid out for maximum pain and maximum effect. Only Michael Gira can do what Michael Gira does, and he does it well.

Please open my mind and take what is left,
Let me sup, oh let me suck, upon that which does not exist,
Teach the weak, oh teach me please, to cease to resist.

Otto von Schirach - Global Speaker Fisting (V2)

What is there to say about Otto von Schirach? Well, one thing is for sure: he seems to be utterly off his rocker. Listening to his music is like listening to the frenzied sounds of hell, and can be summed up as the equivalent of being punched in the face for no reason, musically speaking. However, it's the kind of blow that leaves you feeling bewildered and wanting to understand how, and why, this happened. This album is no different. Each track sounds like it was individually murdered, butchered, and then stitched back together; almost like a musical variant of Frankenstein's monster. I think it's safe to say that after listening to the whole album, it feels like a total exercise of the mind to even comprehend what the hell you just listened to, but one that will prove to be more than worthwhile. That being said, Global Speaker Fisting destroys everything I thought I knew about IDM and breakcore, and has made me want to look into both genres further. It's vile, it's gratifying, and it leaves me yearning for more.

You can find it here.