event - salem at the russian club, london

23rd november

Salem are famously shit and apathetic live. In fact, they're not shit live. Granted, they're pretty apathetic

in their demeanour, and aren't as edgy as you'd hope or expect. The hugeness of King Night isn't really captured in its live reproduction. But what they make doesn't require a great deal of technical skill so they're fighting a losing battle night after night in that sense. They do have a lot going for them though. Heather Marlatt's vocals are trippy and pretty, harmonising with the deep electronics and muddy beats on standouts Redlight and Sick.

It's in keeping with the studied carelessness – actually a lot less studied than many would have you believe – that vocalist Jack Donoghue can come

from sitting under a keyboard for a large part of the set to rap in slow motion right in the faces of the people at the front during Trapdoor. What's even more bizarre is how he can pull it off with a straight face. On record Salem really are quite a bit better – there's not much point trying to pretend otherwise. The fact that they sometimes even make music over the internet, living in different cities and putting the parts together digitally, gives us a clue that some of the organic feeling of a live performance is bound to be lost on them. However, this faintly self-aware, shady vocal style is presented much better live than on record. It doesn't feel incongruous at all, and there's an immersive darkness to it that Salem do very well, and use to make the actual experience of seeing them live better than listening to a record.

The atmosphere of the gig is very dank and heavy, managing to make do with a fairly small PA system. The whitewash of the small underground

space and the simple stageless set-up of electronics show us just how grimey Salem can get without any real squalor in sight. But you can probably guess that their real lifestyles aren't this pristine. Yes, the myths and the image of Salem are probably working their magic just as much as the music, but they do have some great songs, and they do it their own way. The attitude is so anti that they couldn't be aiming for success in any real terms, and that's a trait we'll never have enough of. Instead, we're taken on an intimate and dark journey into Salem's unique world of murky hedonism without actually having to suffer for it.

event - liars at heaven, london

11th november

Though he's probably better known for working with the likes of Yellow Swans, Wolf Eyes and Merzbow, it's interesting to hear John Wiese's disarming sounds on their own, freed from the full-on noise of his collaborators. He hovers over a range of unsettling images for the first half of the set, punctuating his layered frequencies with the smashing of glass and the shaking of prison doors. It's intense without being overbearing, and quite uncomfortable to hear in a live setting. The attention to detail is the really impressive thing, with Wiese often bringing motifs back into the mix as he heads towards a wild and clamorous finish, pulsing and rattling through laptop-generated waves.

Sian Alice Group are something of a break from a harsher opening slot, and they play gorgeous, edgy pop with subtly forceful instrumentation and just a hint of darkness. Sian Ahern isn't a naturally possessing stage presence, but her voice is strong and she has no problem holding the higher notes. They play a dreamy collection of songs that gets a good reception, with some interesting riffs and drum patterns, but it's only at the end where the instrumental finish verges on post-rock that they really impress.

Liars are visibly comfortable playing live, giving a well-balanced set that, more than half a year down the line, doesn't focus too much on their

recent album Sisterworld. Playing with two extra musicians they are now five, and make enough of a racket to justify it. They start with It Fit When I Was A Kid, one of the singles from Drum's Not Dead, which sets the bar high with its low-key pounding and almost-spoken vocals. They handle its stark outro brilliantly, showing the sensitivity they are capable of. It's in direct contrast to this when they play Loose Nuts on the Veladrome, with its spiky, jagged guitars and unashamedly punk delivery. If anything it gets an even better response just because singer Angus Andrew can throw himself about on stage, the audience soon following suit.

The songs played tonight seem to fall into these two camps. The first is one of tribal drums,

ghostly vocals and humming, chiming guitars, drawn largely from Drum's Not Dead. The other is an unhinged, twisted noise rock that creeps towards anthemic, taking reference points from every stage in their colourful back catalogue. Angus seems comfortable with anything, jumping around with the frenetic crowd during a raucous version of Scarecrows on a Killer Slant, but showing a gentle touch for The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack. For an album that's had a slightly mixed reception, it's amazing how well the songs from Sisterworld slot into the set, though Liars could make even the most average music sound exciting live.

During the encore the band play as a three piece again, returning to the stage one by one. An extended version of the eerie and actually quite alarming Be Quiet Mt. Heart Attack! is followed by Broken Witch, the epic opener from They Were Wrong So We Drowned that is equal parts punk and no wave. These are the highlights of the concert, but that's not to criticise the touring musicians – it's just that Liars' music relies on energy and creativity as much as instrumental complexity. Luckily we get all three tonight.

event - london openframe 2010: day one at café oto

4th November

This year's OpenFrame marks ten years of ROOM40, the Brisbane-based label led by composer and sound artist Lawrence English. The festival arrived in London for the first time last year, and this time is taking a few stops up and down the country. Tonight there are three performances from a range of collaborators with the label.

Primarily a drummer, Italy's Andrea Belfi wires

cold ambient in and out of his sparse, dry rhythms. Neither component dominates the sound, instead they ring around each other with thudding precision. His approach is improvisational, drawing subtle changes from his synthesizers on one hand, and from his careful assembly of percussion on the other. His otherworldly metal discs are intertwined with microphones and stranger metal objects still, foregrounding the hazy kick-drums. The entirety of his short set is an exercise in looping, the sounds he makes tangibly being fed into his electronics. The overall effect is one of calming balance.

Next up is a rare performance from David Toop + Scanner + I/O3, the last itself being a group comprising Lawrence English, Tam Patton and Heinz Riegler. Having five musicians on stage is something of a shock after

Belfi's quiet and restrained performance, but they don't compete for space. They use their different talents to bring in an incredible palette of sounds, as showcased on their album A Picturesque View, Ignored. Sometimes David Toop leads at the front of the sound, pouring what look like seeds from a jar into a tiny dish, shaking them with precise movements. At other times it's Scanner, pitched at the front, who responds to this heady mixture with methodical glee, looping and sampling with his novel array of tabletop instruments. Lawrence English's spacious, wavelike sounds form a considered backdrop to the onstage dialogue, giving a constance to the piece. Trip-hop beats emerge from time to time, as do Toop's electronic flute, which he nonchalantly picks up from time to time. Towards the end guitarist Heinz Riegler injects some more obvious emotion into a performance that, while not exactly studied, is never overwrought.

Chris Abrahams' solo piano performance comes in three parts, getting progressively more interesting. It begins with lush, unwinding melodic cycles reminiscent of Philip Glass, which cascade gracefully up and

down the keyboard of the baby grand before falling on a single note. This note is played out for the middle part of the performance, testing out different tempos and rhythms, conjuring up different notes in the ear of the listener as the intensity varies, but resting ultimately on this one note. It takes great skill to come across like a virtuoso on the basis of one piano key, but with careful control over the intensity with which he plays, and the creation of complex rhythms Chris Abrahams gets away with it. Moments after reaching an incredible speed, more and more notes start to return, and the performance culminates in a cacophony of dirge-like minimalism. It's mesmerising and overwhelming, and a great shame when it's over.

event - ariel pink's haunted graffiti at hoxton square bar and kitchen, london

2nd november

Ariel Rosenburg has had, and probably still has difficult time playing live. His musical beginnings are far from the kind you'd expect to be workable in a live setting, having been in isolation when recording most of his output, and his solo concerts as Ariel Pink were by all accounts pretty challenging. It's no surprise then that since signing to 4AD last year with his full band Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti he's come a long way. What's interesting though is how much of his personality and his refusal to conform shine through. He's charismatic and sometimes charming but he's also awkward and at times set on making the crowd feel the same way.

Intended to be a secret fan show, tonight's show was organised at the last minute to mark the end of his European tour, and still makes heavy use of recent album Before Today. It's a blessing in disguise, as his newer songs stand up to his earlier work without relying too heavily on Ariel's instrumentals. They begin with Bright Lit Blue Skies, first performed by the Rockin' Ramrods in 1966, but a great example of Ariel's ability to channel the past. His voice is deep and soulful, but with enough irreverence to remind us that this isn't the real thing. It's a lot more fun than that.

After just one track he has a problem with his microphone, worried that the 'echo thing' isn't prominent enough, and has to navigate his way through the crowd to the mixing desk where he has a quiet word with the sound man. On returning, he checks to see that this echo thing is working, and happily his voice is now subject to lengthy delay in spite of

the band's tight and funky backup. They play a fair few from the new album, including a great version of Friday Night (Nevermore). His ability to write fantastic, psychedelic pop music doesn't feel like any kind of compromise from the less structured focused sounds of his bedroom experiments. It's the best of both worlds, and he seems to be having a good time, temporarily abandoning his contrarian stage persona to declare: "it's time for some French kissing". He lives up to his promise and I don't see a single boy or girl in the crowd – just previously heralded by Pink as a 'bunch of poseurs' – do anything to refuse his bizarre advances.

They close the set with lead single Round and Round, one of the year's catchiest songs, and rare among his

catalogue in that it tightens that gulf between dancey and actually danceable. A few people try their best amidst the four-part harmonies of the chorus, and when it's over the band retreat to the side of the small stage to cries for an encore. After a beer and perhaps a little bit of haunted graffiti they come back for a trio of songs that ends with For Kate I Wait, a highlight from The Doldrums. It was originally recorded on 8-track, but is unharmed by a four-piece band treatment. In fact, it's probably the best song of the night.

event - merzbow at xoyo, london

27th october

Not sounding anything like the warped noise of Merzbow himself, the first band on have presumably been plucked out of East London for the volume they create. Their music is noisy, but born out of rock traditions and

instruments, and with no laptops in sight. They come onto the small stage very casually, and start with Shellac-esque atonal riffing that takes a few minutes to grow into something more catchy and conventional. The transition is carried out expertly as they move through noise rock, sludge, stoner and doom and all the way back again. What's even better is the way they strike a consistent tone – the singer's distorted, angry screams do most of the work, and hint ever so slightly at the angst of Harvey Milk's Creston Piers. It's hard hitting but captivating and a lot of fun to watch, and much better than the few recordings available online at this point would suggest.

Next on are Nadja. Aidan Baker is a very busy man, releasing several albums a year under his own name but a finding the time to collaborate with the likes of Tim Hecker and as with Nadja, 'bookbinder' Leah Buckareff. Things start well, fierce guitar and bass drones being processed through a tabletop covered in samplers, effects pedals and mixers, some looping the sounds while others play progressive drum patterns and spoken word samples.

Sadly, the reliance on technology takes its toll when the power shorts, cutting out everything. Obvious frustration from the band is greeted with a we-know-it's-not-your-fault round of applause and calls for an unplugged show, but the sound man comes on and seems to get things back on track. They abandon the loops they'd been building for the past fifteen minutes and try a different song, but this only lasts about five minutes before everything trips again. They soldier on, and move into a haunting piece with murmuring samples and rich stringed harmonies. Again the sound man comes on to sort the next power failure but the recurring problem is really starting to interfere, and after a few more outages Aidan says they'll have one last go until it cuts out for the final time. They don't last thirty seconds and a gutted Nadja leaves with a great and very understanding reception. In better circumstances they'd surely be sublime, but it was hard to get totally involved with the fear that everything could stop at any moment.

In spite of the venue's best efforts, Masami Akita has been recording under the name of Merzbow for over thirty years and it'd take a staggeringly bad set up to stunt him. He senses that a large amp on the left isn't working and sorts it out well before starting, and with that there are no more technical issues. Joining him is Hungarian metal drummer Balázs Pándi, who gives extra bite without laying down too tight a structure over Merzbow's often searching sounds.

And it's an absolute onslaught – Akita rarely pauses, with Pándi spending most of the time pounding away somewhere in the middle of the mix. He plays his strangely assembled guitar-like instrument resembling both a

defibrillator and a dystopian Japanese landscape. It lives up to its looks, producing all the harshness and dissonance you'd expect from someone who sticks so rigidly to a formula of white noise. His interest in BDSM definitely comes across, appearing calm and collected as he does, sat at his office desk while subjecting the entire audience to the most nightmarish aural monsters he's collected and built over the course of his career. When it finally does come to an end there's a sense of relief, especially for the sake of tortured ears, but there's an unsettling desire for it to continue. It's not quite victim's guilt, but a longing for the intense, carefully structured extremes that he conjures up so readily.

Originally posted on Rare FM

event - health at ec2 warehouse, london

16th october

Coming on just after midnight, HEALTH were the main event at the first night of Lanzarote, a new club night and live music venture in London. The idea is to put bands and DJs on at hours

normally expected of clubs and to do it in mostly improvised venues. Tonight's event took place on Great Eastern Street in the basement of what looked like an office building, and featured several DJs including Hounds of Hate, Richard Fearless and Andrew Hung. There was also a support slot from upcoming post-dubsteppers Dam Mantle, who built up a fair bit of atmosphere in their twenty five minutes on stage.

So the night worked. Sort of. It was a sloppy conversion, with minimal toilet facilities and a simple paint job. But the worrying part of it was the set up of two lighting rigs and two speaker stacks. They looked precarious, placed on either side of the small stage, and later pushed to their limits during HEALTH'S set. Either through inexperience or laziness, or maybe the fact that the only act anyone was here to see were coming on after midnight, the place had a sterile atmosphere for a long time, only really broken up by Dam Mantle's funky, energetic shuffles. All that was about to change though.

About fifteen minutes after soundcheck, HEALTH returned to the stage, and singer Jake explains that there was nothing rock 'n' roll about their

disappearance: "we walked up to the top of the stairs, and then I started crying, and..." But he suffers an aural ambush from the rest of the band and never finishes, instead hurling glitchy, violent tones into the burgeoning mosh pit. What was a tame, slightly bored crowd has been turned on its head, and quite literally for those taking part in the projectile crowdsurfing that begins straight away. Hours of no readmission have taken their toll, and people are snatching the opportunity to lose themselves in HEALTH's onstage intensity.

The songs from their latest, Get Color, just feel so much more important live. The breakdowns in Nice Girls are tight and ominous, giving John a breather from his sinusoidal bass-swinging and letting his hair calm down. The dynamics are fully accentuated in such a small live setting, and it's the range of volumes, tempos and instruments playing at the same time that really excite, not just the fact that they can recreate their spooky sound perfectly in a whitewashed cellar.

They play some new material, which sounds very promising, and close the set with Heaven from their debut, recent semi-hit singles Die Slow and We Are Water and USA Boys from their latest release, remix album DISCO2. The speakers look like they're actually going to fall over on many occasions, the light fittings rock around from time to time, and inevitably the band decides the crowd is 'pumped' enough for an encore. Finishing up at about half past one, HEALTH are certainly a band worth sticking around for.

event - oceansize at koko, london

1st october

Playing a one-off support slot for Oceansize on their current European tour, Yndi Halda are an unexpected treat. Sadly though, time constraints mean that what was intended to be a swift two-song set is cut down without the band's

knowledge to a meagre one-and-a-half. By the standards of most this wouldn't be much stage time but Yndi Halda get around half an hour, managing to showcase what they're most widely praised for as well as giving a taste of what's to come. After a good stint in post-rock done to perfection where the band move in sinuous, tectonic synchronisation, they introduce a new song, which retains only some of these elements. There are vocals now, and acoustic guitar tapped at the harmonic intervals. It's still as spacious and complex as the first song, but it's more delicate, using subtler dynamics than changes in volume. It's a real shame to see it cut short, but the band promises to play a full set next time. Let's hold them to it.

Next up are This Town Needs Guns, and while they stay true to the math-rock sensibilities of fellow Oxford bands Youthmovies and Foals, they have all the technical abilities of the latter without the pomposity.

When playing tracks from 2008's Animals they do have the tendency to lose themselves in complex rhythms and self-regarding finger-tapping, but on new material they recover the crunch and the heart of their earlier sound, making whatever they release next something to look forward to. The announcement that they'll play old favourite 26 is Dancier than 4 is greeted with many cheers, and they go so much further than on the studio recording, Stuart Smith looking like the moment means everything to him, and moving his torso accordingly. Their ability to convey emotion alongside obvious proficiency is what marks them out from their peers, and they don't do it any better than when they're on stage.

Taking the stage at a slightly premature ten past eight, Oceansize waste no time introducing themselves and dive straight into Part Cardiac, the opener from recent full length Self Preserved While the Bodies Float Up, which you can read about here. It's intense, it's frightening and it's the only song they'll play that sounds at all like this. But that's what makes Oceansize such a fantastic live experience, constantly changing what they do over the course of their 90 minutes. They create huge swells of distortion, intricate three-part guitar patterns, and show they can do anything the two bands we've already seen tonight can do.

The loyalty among their fans is obvious, with practically every song getting a cheer in its opening moments, but the reception to their latest album is just as warm as for the old favourites like Ornament/The Last Wrongs. Singer Mike Vennart says the new one's their

best album and, maybe realising the faux pas he's just made, simply reaffirms what he's said. And for the first time in musical history he may actually be right. In any case, everything they play is a winner, and the only noticeable discernment among the audience is when someone shouts "play something heavy". They do, of course. Highlights include Paper Champion, which builds over funky bass riffs into a menacing climax, and the encore of Women Who Love Men Who Love Drugs, the mostly instrumental saga from their debut Effloresce. It's as this song ends that they depart for the last time, one by one, until three guitars remain, repeating lush, melancholic notes that gradually quieten as enormous cheers see them off stage.

release - world's end girlfriend - seven idiots

type: album

released: 13th september 2010

label: virgin babylon

genre: glitch, electronic, idm, post-rock

Katsuhiko Maeda has never been one to go for simplicity in his compositions. His works are invariably sprawling, multi-faceted beasts that blend complex song structures, strange electronics and beautiful melodies. At 79 minutes and 43 seconds, here is another epic that carries on several of those traits, but ignores a central element of his previous albums – subtlety.

Described by Maeda himself as 'irregular pop', this is a brash and outrageous homage to jazz, glam rock and psychedelia, filtered through robotic guitars and unpredictable drum patterns. Written originally with vocal tracks which were then taken out, the directions of the songs are intentionally hard to follow, seemingly changing course every ten seconds.

The Divine Comedy Reverse begins with clean-sounding fret-tapping as tinkling keys bring in romantic strings, saturated in electronics and closing with a synthetic flourish. Screeches, drums and horns decorate the background. At just over a minute, this is quite a lot to take in, but it's a good indicator of what's coming.

Les Enfants du Paradis contains everything this album does well – prominent guitars used for lead and rhythm, uplifting and buoyant Mega Drive electronics and a sense of ordered chaos. It's immediate and impulsive, mutating through its hyperactive, metallic textures and finally finding its groove at around five minutes to reach critical mass. It has beautiful, reflective strings in parts but overall it's a song that's meant to be fun.

There are songs on this album that are far more hectic. TEEN AGE ZIGGY is nonsense in musical form, totally over the top. It's weightless and shallow, lacking the resonance of some of his earlier work, inspiring only momentary feelings in its aural hedonism. Helter Skelter Cha-Cha-Cha is messy too with its chugging bass and big drums. Its horns are abrasive and snarling, but not quite dissonant.

This wild and fractured side to the album ends after GALAXY KID 666, when we are introduced to the album's centrepiece, the three-part suite Bohemian Purgatory, which clocks in at 25 minutes. Part. 1 begins with slightly distorted ambient followed by ominous piano and a tinkling, minimalist melody that's as sparse as the first songs were dense. It builds logically and uniformly, in a way not yet seen on the album, before jumping back to more erratic sounds. Part. 2 is more easily comprehensible, spending time pressing at the edges of each idea it has, blending them all into something akin to swing played with the instruments of electronica. The trilogy closes with some gentle lullaby tinkling, continuously disturbed by white noise and fragmented vocal samples.

After this, the album does get a bit more minimal. Der Spiegel im Spiegel im Spiegel leaves a lot of space open, breaking into silence a few times and allowing haunting piano keys to chime alone. They return at the beginning of The Offering Inferno, the penultimate song and the scariest. Sounds of violence have been used before in Maeda's music, and they are tortured into the music here with car alarms, breaking glass, laughter and the monotonous piano that still chimes at regular intervals. There is a sense of building intensity and power electronics come in and out of the mix, until the halfway mark when it loses all structure to become a glitchy, noisy assault of which only the Japanese are truly capable.

Closer unfinished finale shed is more like Maeda's former style, hymnal and mournful. It meanders but never leaves its territory for complex drum patterns and guitar solos. It tells us that we've come a long way in the album's CD-squeezing running time, and gives balance to the often overwrought sounds of Seven Idiots. The fade out is probably the most beautiful thing on here, and its inclusion is a sign that Maeda hasn't completely abandoned his graceful, peaceful side.

World's End Girlfriend - Les Enfants Du Paradis

release - deerhunter - halcyon digest

type: album

released: 28th september 2010

label: 4ad

genre: dream pop, art rock, neo-psychedelia

Deerhunter are annoyingly consistent. It could be because they're so prolific – they've produced two solo efforts between them in the two-year gap between their last release and this, their fourth album, so there's obviously a lot of spare energy kicking about. The result is that every Deerhunter album is excellent, the focused efforts of several talented people. Of the three albums that preceded it, Halcyon Digest has most in common with Microcastle and its companion disc Weird Era Continued, leaving behind the garage punk of their debut and the krautish ambient of Cryptograms. Jerky riffs and abstract vocals still abound, but this is very accessible.

What Halcyon Digest has over its immediate predecessor is balance. Microcastle had its best parts at the beginning and a forgettable middle section, whereas this is both cohesive and, while it doesn't always reach the highs of Microcastle, is engaging throughout.

Earthquake isn't actually earth-shatttering, though the band are more than capable, but actually breezy and glitchy, an atmospheric opener warmed up by Bradford Cox's laid back and undemanding vocals. It's testament to the band's ability to pretty much craft ambient songs out of their production techniques. What they don't do this time however is take that to its logical conclusion, leaving such experiments firmly in Cox's bedroom. Instead, a simple idea can sound big and lush, and this glossy sound is heard throughout.

When the sheen is removed things get interesting. On Sailing, a simple set of percussion and lonely guitar get behind Cox as he sings a plaintive, spaced out ballad, whose placing on the album is bold and succeeds where the equivalent tracks on previous efforts felt like they needed fleshing out. It only sounds like Atlas Sound in as much as it's written and sung by the same person, but the inclusion of a single song this intimate on a Deerhunter album is a very clever move. Poppy Helicopter is the antithesis. Uplifting and spartan, it runs at a perfect pace and Cox's vocals are sweet and immaculate without sounding robotic, building up but always staying gentle.

Everything else on the album is somewhere between these two, with a lot of distortion and attitude added along the way. Coronado is a standout for its catchy buildup that gets straight to the point, before culminating in a jazzy swell. Desire Lines starts off with swirling vocals and guitars lined up in orderly repetition, but has an instrumental send-off that allows the band to add in every last studio flourish they can without spoiling the broth. The broth is thick and consistent.

This is great album by Deerhunter that doesn't do a lot to challenge the sound we're used to hearing but does nothing to tarnish the reputation either. A welcome addition to the pile.

artist - fetch the witches

Still under a year into their career, four piece Fetch The Witches are one of the more promising emerging acts of the North West, hailing from Stoke-On-Trent and currently residing in Manchester.

They play a brand of moody, melancholic rock not unfamiliar to such

parts of England, but also convey a love for Oxford bands like Radiohead, Fell City Girl and early This Town Needs Guns. What is perhaps their calling card is a spacious use of atmospherics in their sound that allows them to break away from ordinary song structures without sounding contrived. Instead, the impressionistic pieces they create can last up to six minutes while sounding much shorter, sounding big without the help of too much studio interference.

So far they've released a digital EP available here, heavy with saddened choruses and tense, jagged riffs. The highlight is X, recalling the math-rock leanings of early Biffy Clyro and carrying an urgency that's shockingly convincing for a first release.

Upcoming single, also titled Fetch the Witches has a more instant feel to it, but never lets go of the band's tendency towards stranger song

structures. It starts with intimate vocals and a one-note guitar line and a skipping drum beat before lush, organic guitars are brought in. There are plenty of great melodies here, often more than one at once, and the chanting of the band's own name is bold and inspired. What's in line with everything else they've done here is the slightly darkened passion residing in the faintly tortured vocals and discordant twin guitars. The single's out September 24th, on a limited vinyl run of 300, available for purchase on the band's shop and featuring some rather exciting cover art. You can also catch them at Manchester's Night and Day Café on November 11th.

release - oceansize - self preserved while the bodies float up

released: 6th september 2010
type: album

label: superball music

genre: progressive rock, alternative rock, post-rock

Oceansize are one of those bands who seem to follow their instincts musically rather than any apparent external forces or trends. They've been constructing progressive and emotionally charged rock music since 1998, and still sound as fresh as they did then. This their fourth album, recorded in their own studio in Manchester is their shortest yet by some distance at 51 minutes. It's effectively their pop album, if Oceansize are capable of making one.

It's not a pop album. 2008's Frames didn't contain any songs under 6 minutes, and while only two reach that length here it's not because they've toned down the progressive side of their music. If anything, the extremes are more extreme. While SuperImposer is gentle and intricately melodic, with opener Part Cardiac they give us their take on doom metal, Mike Vennart slipping into the role with frightening ease.

The differences between these first two songs on the album do give a good idea of the variation to come though. There are furious, fast-paced ones like It's My Tail and I'll Chase It If I Want To with its long heavy intro and backing screams from Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro. There are also slower, mellow songs which make use of Oceansize's ability to craft complex two or even three-part melodies from trebly guitars, like A Penny's Weight, with its muffled drums and occasional scratchy, delayed guitar.

The two focal points of the album are the two longest songs, which unlike the majority Frames don't rely on repetition or long instrumental passages. Instead they blend different styles to create an impressionistic effect much like Women Who Love Men Who Love Drugs from their debut, Effloresce. Oscar Acceptance Speech recalls Mew's latest effort with higher vocals backed by more bassy ones as they come in for a second time halfway through the song. This leads into an extended, understated string outro, offering a brief moment of sparsity on the record. The other longer track on the album, Silent / Transparent, opens with jangly guitars and a warm vocal melody that for the attentive listener signals something brasher to come. A long-held note at around the fourth minute brings some delicately distorted riffing that then slows the pace of the song completely for a build of uplifting guitars and tapping drums that, unlike the outro of Oscar Acceptance Speech, only increases in size.

Pine is a slow-burner, taking from post-rock with its siren-like strings and Mogwai-esque murmuring and developing into an utterly mournful, bruising finish of complex drums, romantic violin and distortion. It's a beautiful song, and segues unexpectedly but not jarringly into closer SuperImposter, which starts with a jazzy rhythm and low-key vocals, taking care never to fully unleash itself. It keeps a certain level of restraint throughout, using the guitars to offer a different rhythm from the drums. It takes a while to settle in, but proves the band are using everything at their disposal here.

While it's an album that could clearly be cherry-picked for great singles, it's uncompromising, working well as a complete piece much like their other, much longer records. They're simultaneously fearless in writing catchy pop songs and in taking their sound further with every record, which is quite rare, and very much welcome. Having said that, it's definitely an album that rewards repeated, careful listens.

event - phosphorescent at the night and day café, manchester

6th september

Composed of ex-members from two very different bands (Piano Magic and The Fucking Champs), Citay manage to do quite a lot of things at once with their seven-strong stage presence. The combination of

psychedelic rock, folk and americana gives away a love for bands of the 60s, and the frequent references to their hometown of San Francisco also place them firmly in that category with influences of Bay Area bands like Quicksilver Messenger Service showing through. A highlight was the fantastically titled Careful With That Hat, which managed to combine these influences with accessible, poppy singing. Nevertheless, they manage to sound fresh and inspired, and make a huge sound, taking breaks to talk about their trip down from Edinburgh and the joys of touring Europe.

Next up are Timber Timbre, whose name Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent was later chastised for mispronouncing, but probably shouldn't have been as at least half a dozen variations were heard being tried out by audience members

during the evening. The first song crept up slowly, with soaring violin taking around five minutes to reach its agonising crescendo. The sparsity of the sound was the polar opposite of Citay's all-at-once aural assault, but if anything it had more of an impact, core member Taylor Kirk's voice sounding powerful in the relatively small venue. It reminds of Win Butler's at times, but the songs are more freeform and abstract, building in a less linear way, instead taking in several changes in momentum and rhythm, created largely by Mika Posen's harrowing violin. A very rewarding set from a band that needs more recognition.

Phosphorescent take the stage at about half past ten and despite complaints of tiredness seem very happy and relaxed. A beautiful rendition of Wolves early in the set gets the pace going and is the first of many highlights from 2007's Pride, including Cocaine Lights, which has much more impact in the live setting, and the last song of the encore At Death, A Proclamation, which is dragged out into

a crashing tide of instruments played to their extremes. They answer requests, such as Reasons to Quit, a cut from last year's Willie Nelson covers album, and the conversation between songs is, just like the support bands, really friendly – you get the impression they want to be here. But what's really surprising just how much better live Houck's voice sounds, given the overt highlights of their appearances are the charged instrumental passages that don't appear on record. The Mermaid Parade, a highlight from recent album Here's To Taking It Easy sounds gorgeous tonight, the vocals pure and deeply resonant. It seems they're having so much fun that they don't want to leave, but they finally come off stage after a sizeable encore, a little bit before midnight.

release - kyle bobby dunn - a young person's guide to...

type: album

released: 18th january 2010

label: low point

genre: ambient, drone, minimalism

Butel, the seventeen-and-a-half minute opener to this double album cuts a sinuous figure. The wavy ambient of the rising action seems to find its footing in the slowly plucked notes of a guitar, only for its lower end to be gradually taken out, reduced to a fundamental hiss. Though this climax happens at around the seventh minute, the carefully shaped changes in intensity are repeated several times throughout, gentle white noise in the background taking the place of rhythm. The fading moments bring in disfigured classical instrumentation, which gives an exit point that the music can fade towards.

It also gives some context for the listener. While it might seem daring to put the longest song at the front of an album that spans nearly two hours, the title tells us that this is a journey into the sounds of Kyle Bobby Dunn, an assortment of tracks from various works of his released so far. Though his work chiefly falls into the territory of ambient, he most certainly wants it known that his classical background is just as relevant.

So the first track feels like an introduction mostly by way of its breadth. That is, it showcases a wide range of what's on offer over the course of the record, but it doesn't go nearly as deep as the following song The Tributary (For Voices Lost), which in ten minutes creates a spacious and deep atmosphere that is both stripped back and rich in harmony, shorter in length than Butel but still carrying the sense of running through several movements.

Songs here drift between dreamy pulsing ambience and droning strings, Promenade showcasing the latter with bass tones entering the mix at choice moments to amplify the sense of tension. The Second Ponderosa manages to straddle both, breaking into blissful drone every so often as it trundles through its loosely assembled beauty.

The opener of the second album Grab (And Its Lost Legacies) is perhaps the true ambient song on here, only signalling tonal dissonance indirectly and never shifting too much at any one moment. Another gentle piece that doesn't disturb is Bonaventure's Finest Hour, which is warm and hymnal, and never says too much.

Sets of Four (Its Meaning Is Deeper Than Its Title Implies) allows a little bit of a break from the general formula for sombre, haunting piano that stays true to Dunn's minimalist tendencies, and blends well with closer The Nightjar, a piece which is sliced down the middle by slightly off-balance strings without ever being too harsh or abrasive. Neither is the spoken word ending, which brings us from the depths of Dunn's aural landscapes and offers an insight into the themes explored over the course of these two discs. This collection of songs is accomplished technically, and layered with romantic and impressionistic stylings that never have to sacrifice subtlety for emotional reach.

event - women + zola jesus at the deaf institute, manchester

2nd september

Were it not for the talented crop of independent events promoters currently running the Manchester live music scene, the listening public would've been forced to make a choice between the operatic and the noisy this past Thursday. Whether or not there's much of a crossover in terms of fans isn't too important, because between them Pineapple Folk and Now Wave have created a lively atmosphere at Manchester's Deaf Institute for Women and Zola Jesus' one-off co-headline concert.

Women's support act for the duration of their European tour is Idiot Glee from Lexington, KY, and he plays before Zola Jesus tonight. With just a keyboard and a handful of effects pedals scattered on a small table and on the floor around him, he relies on soaking his voice in

reverb and layering it over and over to create a sort of blissful a capella. His songs are good but not striking, the vocals maybe being buried under too much tampering to really stand out, but a cover of Bill Withers' Ain't No Sunshine gets a great reception, and for one man barely a season into his career it's great to see him fill the room with sweet ambling melodies. It is a missed opportunity in some ways, because with a voice as strong as his he should look to undress it and turn a pleasantly surprising opening slot into a brilliant one.

Beginning the set in what appears to be a hooded cloak and cross legged Nika Roza, who goes by Zola Jesus, gradually emerges from the back of the stage through the dark electro pop of her two keyboard players, ready to show off further eccentricities. And unlike the experience of listening to her on record, especially her earlier work, all the attention is on Nika's voice, its force and clarity holding the audience in position for the duration of her set. She doesn't waste her freedom of movement though,

pacing from side to side before stacking plastic boxes at the front as a sort of podium, before sitting on it in a twisted lotus position. These strange antics don't distract from the fact that she's playing material taken mostly from her recently released album Stridulum II. It's perfectly understandable, but for her first time in Manchester it's a shame to see her so completely abandon the lo-fi aesthetic of her past that probably earned her half the fans here. The closing run of Night and Manifest Destiny is powerful, and her Moses-style parting of the crowd to pace up and down the middle of the room is novel, but at the end of the day it's a highly polished performance that leaves many wanting something more.

Maybe it's because it's really their headline tour, but Calgary's Women seem totally comfortable on stage tonight, and not losing any of their energy for it. They apologise profusely for being slightly late on stage and go straight into a storming set that takes in lo-fi, garage rock, punk and surf pop. They do wear their influences almost literally on their sleeves (guitarist Patrick Flegel sports a Deerhunter t-shirt worn inside out), but they have an intensity and a tightness as a group that is all their own. Like Zola Jesus before them, they're not

impartial to the odd on-stage quirk, Christopher Reimer seemingly intent on using a Nintendo DS as a MIDI outlet and drummer Matthew Wallacehaving a nap on the floor during one of the more spaced-out feedback passages. But for all of this they really deliver, not least on first album almost-hit Black Rice where they invite James Friley of Idiot Glee on stage to help out, or on next song Venice Lockjaw where the chiming, brittle riffs are set against each other and sound completely bittersweet. What they really get right that sets them apart from Zola Jesus however, is they use the live setting to showcase the full range of what they can do as a band, and they look like they're having fun doing it.

release - boduf songs - this alone above all else in spite of everything

type: album

released: 6th september 2010

label: kranky

genre: folk, slowcore, singer/songwriter

Though Mat Sweet has broadened his sound dramatically for this cryptically titled fourth album, his minimal instincts are as present as ever. The drums, bass and electric guitar never overpower the bleak lyrics, exposed in full on the album cover. Instead, they accentuate the despair in his rich voice, the set up of a single microphone allowing the two elements of the sound to coalesce.

There are heavier moments to be found, but nothing is as hard-hitting as the opening lines of Bought Myself a Cat O'Nine, lit up by gentle and melancholy piano. Sung in a beautifully hushed way the line "my hammer feels the urge, to nail you to the ground" sounds all the more imposing, giving power to the slight increase in pressure on the piano keys that follows. This lyrical theme is continued throughout the album, right until "the hammer cracks my skull for the last time". This dark and surreal relationship is played out over the album's length, with the changes in melody kept to a claustrophobic minimum.

One moment of surprising force is Decapitation Blues, where words gradually become whispers, hanging over a foreboding vibraharp and pulsing electronics that fade in an out as bass guitar begins to take hold. Seemingly out of nowhere the dynamic changes and a drum roll welcomes in crunchy distortion that dares to do musically what he's been doing lyrically for years, and the vocals rise again as if nothing has changed. There is no jarring effect – the shift feels totally natural, and Sweet is completely at home in this bluesy psychedelia.

Several of the songs here achieve more or less the same thing stylistically and emotionally. They are menacing pieces of brooding songwriting, with enough variation to keep them from sounding too similar – a sometimes valid criticism of his earlier albums. There is the jazzy atmosphere of Absolutely Null and Utterly Void, the crisp post-rock guitar towards the end of They Get On Slowly and the sparse harmonics of slow-burner The Giant Umbilical Cord That Connects Your Brain to the Centre.

Perhaps the most intimate song is the closer I Am Going Away and Never Coming Back, which for all its title suggests actually sounds the most hopeful and optimistic on the album. It's morbid but comforting, with promises of "I will be here for you" sitting alongside more talk of cracked skulls. This balance of ugliness and beauty finds its footing in a perfect summation of the album as the acoustic guitar is fading away: "I'll stay with you until the blood has drained from you completely". I feel he's going to be waiting a long time.

Boduf Songs - Decapitation Blues

release - salem - king night

type: album

released: 28th september 2010

label: iamsound

genre: electronic, dubstep, witch house

King Night gets straight to the point. What sounds like a guitar solo played through AM radio is followed by an eerie, almost soulful voice half-singing "I love you". Next a bit of meandering electronics is backed by gentle snare tapping before gaudy, blaring synths come in at full force over rumbling bass. It's the title track to Salem's debut album and it sounds like a hymn from the dark side, otherwordly, terrifying and deeply sensual.

This is the face of so-called witch house, also known as drag, ghost drone and a variety of even more spurious names. It's a highly stylised genre, drawing on a wide range of sounds past and present including dark ambient, dubstep, ethereal post-punk and a general love for the occult. Salem, who had been releasing EPs for over a year before the trend began to take off have fortunately managed to escape the fetishising of obscure unicode characters singular to witch house bands – †‡†, oOoOO and ▲ haven't been quite so lucky.

King Night doesn't quite live up to the promise of its opening title track or indeed the intrigue surrounding the genre, but there are a lot of interesting experiments put forward and some of it is very enjoyable. Asia follows on from the first track as a sort of refrain, the stuttering bass and fractured vocals doing all they can to refute that less is more. It's nowhere near as effective but it's recognisable as coming from the same thought process.

This seems like an album that's unaware of what it really wants to be. It may be a dark and sometimes bleak listen, but it's too wilfully oblique to be truly scary. Songs like Trapdoor and Tair show an attempt to try different things, but in reality are not particularly interesting experiments and border on ridiculous. The twin rapping on Sick works however, recalling Sleigh Bells' efforts earlier in the year to combine hip-hop vocals with unexpected instruments. This album is also wise to revert occasionally to the noirish disco of acts like Fever Ray, with the glacial dream pop of Frost and Redlights standing out, the latter being a massive improvement on the EP version.

For the most part the more daring parts seem to be the more successful. It takes a good deal to get away with a lack of songwriting, but there is plenty to enjoy in the chaotic, glitchy textures of the vigorously titled Hound and Release Da Boar. Killer, the last track is a strange mix of sad vocals and power electronics, but it offers some much-needed space and perspective, making it an ideal choice to frame the album alongside its polar opposite opener.

At its best this is a heavy and engaging take on dubstep, a welcome change from other acts mixing traditional rock structures with electronics, and all in all a well balanced album. At its worst it's affected edginess that almost reaches self-parody. What can be said though, is that Salem is a band crafting their sound independently of a need to be assigned to a genre that might not be around this time next year.

Salem - King Night

track - wild nothing - golden haze

In his breakout year, Virginia-born Jack Tatum has gone from strength to strength, releasing his critically acclaimed album Gemini and adding three musicians – Jeff Haley, Nathan Goodman and Michael Skattum – to the live setting, even though it's still just him in the studio.

His affectionate and often sad dream pop brought some truly beautiful songs, and this addition, set for inclusion on the upcoming EP of the same name, is no exception.

Here the lazy, humid guitar riffs add to the feeling of nostalgia in Tatum's voice instead of just offering a beach-tinged backdrop, as he sings "I wanna know where you are". It's a song for the end of summers never truly lived, and a fine one at that. The EP is set for release on 13th September, and will have several formats, each containing a different tracklist.

Wild Nothing - Golden Haze

release - the vaselines - sex with an x

type: album

released: 13th september 2010

label: sub pop

genre: indie rock, noise pop, indie pop

Hesitant to embark on a 'comeback' tour on the strength of just one album, The Vaselines give us their first in twenty one years. With not a song under two minutes on the thing, it's quite a departure from the charged twee pop of the early days, but as the title indicates it's very much the same band who gave us the likes of Sex Sux (Amen) and Monsterpussy.

The sound is much bigger and sharper now. The guitar has more of a kick, and the drums are meatier. It's stylistically a different group, and while it still has Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee at its core (both are visible on the sensuous and questionable cover), James Seenan and Kelly's brother Charlie have left and been replaced by Bobby Kildea and Michael McGaughrin respectively, with Stevie Jackson adding to the guitar sound. The rare forays into disco-pop are also now gone.

One thing that hasn't changed, however, is the sense of humour. The lyrics are impossible to ignore, and constantly entertain with charm and sardonic wit. I Hate The '80s is damning and funny, and it has a youthful bite that might not be expected from a duo now in their mid forties. There's something about hearing the 80s – the year the band formed – described as shit that's genuinely refreshing, and to be told that it wasn't all Duran Duran is certainly reassuring, though perhaps that isn't quite the desired effect. Having said that, they do need to be careful not to be seen to be writing their former selves out of musical history.

Though this is a mature-sounding album, the immediacy of the songs shines through, no more than in the opening seconds of Mouth to Mouth where Kelly begs "kiss me, I'm in season". The tongue-twisting chorus doesn't disappoint either. For the most part, it's the lyrics and vocals that are the real focus on this record, lest they attempt to recreate twee aesthetics that would sound affected and out of place two decades down the line. Luckily, the character of the songwriting stands out among the sometimes bland instruments which often serve only as backing tracks.

While titles like Sex With an X and My God's Bigger Than Your God prove that the band still has the ability to be silly and playful, it's moments like the shared vocals on Poison Pen and Exit the Vaselines that are moving, and which really justify the release of something new. These are songs that carry real weight and offer a great counterpoint to their previous work instead of simply trying to repeat its success. Sex With an X may not be as chaotic or exciting as their EPs or Dum-Dum, but it doesn't need to be for it to be worthwhile, and nor does it need the title to spice it up.

The Vaselines - I Hate the '80s

The Vaselines - Sex With an X

release - grouper - hold / sick

type: single

released: 6th october 2010

label: room40

genre: ambient, psychedelic folk, drone

This limited edition tour single is being released exclusively on 7" and is already proving near impossible to track down. It's no great departure from 2008's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, the album which brought Portlander Liz Harris widespread attention and appreciation, but she does a fine job of recalling her sombre, reverb-heavy atmosphere over the space of just two songs, Hold and Sick.

The former is the real gem here, with a simple, brooding guitar melody based around four notes that mutates subtly over its five minutes, both eerie and quietly menacing. Sick feels like an extended outro, with no discernible beat or rhythm, a wash of claustrophobic ambient haze. It's gentle and meandering as tracks such as Tidal Wave from her last album, feeling like a song made out of pure acoustics. It's a worthy transition between two albums.

Grouper - Hold / Sick

release - no age - everything in between

type: album

released: 28th september 2010

label: sub pop

genre: noise rock, punk, noise pop

On their second album L.A. two-piece No Age have chiselled away at the harsher, fuzzier elements of their sound to create a record focused around songs in a more traditional sense. After the first two you could be forgiven for thinking they've gone a bit soft, but it's as far as they go in that direction, and for the most part they keep the best parts of their sound.

There's a lot less frenetic shouting in general, and the tighter production makes everything feel a little bit more restrained. You don't feel like a burst of feedback could hit you at any second, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to be excited about. The opening door-knocking drum-tapping of Life Prowler is reminiscent of Miner, and the consistent pace and rhythm of the first two tracks has a sense of the duo warming up, that they're storing the tension. Some of it can be heard being unleashed on the following track Fever Dreaming, where howling guitars compete for space with the vocals without ever betraying too much attention to detail.

Musically, this is miles ahead of its predecessors. The majority of Weirdo Rippers was charming for its irreverent structures and vibrant sound rather than its beautiful melodies, whereas here there is a blending of the two, giving the album a greater range. The cleaner riffs show off sincerity and thought rather than just raw emotion, but there is still plenty of energy. Depletion has a poppy groove that wouldn't sound out of place on debut full-length Nouns.

Katerpillar and Positive Amputation between them provide some gorgeous distortion that gives the album a bit of diversity in terms of the shape of the songs, and they also act as great build-ups to highlights Valley Hump Crash and Shred and Transcend respectively, the latter of which is noisy and chaotic, and true to their older sound doesn't get properly started until about halfway through.

They may have cleaned up their sound a little here, but they haven't lost their feeling. There is diversity in the way the songs sound and feed into each other, and there's a good mix of fast-paced songs such as Fever Dreaming, laid back ones where the line between singing and talking is blurred in idiosyncratic No Age style like Common Heat, and beautiful guitar-led instrumentals like Dusted. Some of the middle section feels a bit too much like filler, but overall it's an enjoyable listen.

The last song, Chem Trails, combines several signature elements of the band's sound, and might well be shining a light into their future. The meandering guitar and call-and-response vocals recall early Yo La Tengo, but the real catch of this song is that it builds in a linear way in the space of less than three minutes, something that most of their work hasn't managed to up until this point, and an obvious benefit of the slightly improved production.

Maybe it's because it was Weirdo Rippers, a compilation of their work up to that point that brought them fame, but Nouns showed that while they had lots of interesting ideas, they hadn't fully worked out how to structure an album. With Everything In Between it seems like they've nailed it, even if they've left the best until last. And while this isn't immediate as Nouns, it's just as exciting and well written.

No Age - Glitter

release - benoît pioulard - lasted

type: album

released: 11th october 2010

label: kranky

genre: dream pop, ambient, singer/songwriter

For a decade Benoît Pioulard has been dilligently perfecting his take on ethereal, accidental pop, and though Lasted gives the impression that everything is natural in its place on the album as if it's always been there, it is in fact an act of careful precision. His real name is Thomas Meluch, and in addiction to this curious francophone contrivance he has taught himself guitar and drums, the most prominent instruments on this album. Lasted is anything but accidental.

Though he's been signed to Kranky for five years now, Pioulard still retains the sense of being a bedroom artist, the songs occupying intimate spaces in a generally lo-fi sound. His alluring baritone voice is recorded expertly, and sticks out on highlight RTO without sounding out of place or disrupting the overall feel. Songs like Tie also seem to fit in, the vocals and guitar resting just above the almost watery sounds in the background.

Through all the field recordings and hazy production, he strives for simplicity in his structures. Shouting Distance is upbeat and melodic, a great pop song. But the real charm of this collection is that it doesn't need to be simply a pop album to work, instead gently coaxing the listener into appreciating it not just for its catchy melodies but also for the warm ambient passages and delicate instrumental backing.

Not just through the shimmering interplay of guitar and drums, and the less decipherable background noises, but also the track lengths does Pioulard manage to play with our perceptions of time. The 40 minutes and 14 songs seem to pass by almost undetected in their introverted beauty, save a few precious moments when you chance upon a forceful drum beat or surprising guitar line, such as the gorgeous playing in Tack & Tower. However, even such moments as these seem to reverberate naturally into the spaces where they are played out.

The longest song is closer Nod, five minutes of a simple but rich drone filled with interference that draws a distinction and in doing so a connection between the digested sounds the come from Pioulard's head, and their ambient origins in the real world that mostly go unnoticed. It also allows the album to be brought back to its beginnings, recalling gauzy opener Purse Discusses.

This is an album to fill up the empty spaces in the day with a glorious hum, to soak up the background noises and turn them into something necessary. This is an album that will continue to resonate, ghostly and lush, long after it has been switched off.

Benoît Pioulard - RTO

release - james blackshaw - all is falling

type: album

released: 24th august 2010

label: young god

genre: american primitivism, psychedelic folk, minimalism

James Blackshaw's latest presentation is a single piece that, in its eight constituent parts, further takes his sound from its folky, fingerpicked beginnings and matures it into a haunting modern classical suite, with simple arpeggios and clean production. The longer passages we're used to are left until the end – the final two tracks take up half the length of the album.

The first part of All is Falling is a stately and slow piano loop, the lower end becoming gradually darker and tenser as arpeggios at the higher end are brought in and out. It's a retreat from the virtuoso guitar we've seen from him recently, and the heavy use of atmospheric sounds on 2008's Litany of Echoes. This is something stripped down, and closer to modern classical.

Part 2 is quieter at first, his twelve-string acoustic guitar playing a slow and mournful melody as strings gradually accompany its cycle up to a cinematic climax, where romantic violins invite faster playing without fully abandoning that restraint set down in the opening minutes of the album. The next song is more upbeat, a swelling of strings and tinkling piano parts keeping an urgent pace. Part 4 continues this tension, with different rhythms working alongside each other and colliding to noisy strings and key changes towards the end, as Part 5 concluded this first half of the album in a similar vein.

The closing notes of the first half are continued into Part 6, which acts as a segue between the first five songs and the longer ones at the end. Here sparse and heavy timpani keeps time alongside two-part counting, feeling more like tribal chanting. All this is done with a simple guitar pattern playing to time with the beat and urgent strings beneath. By the end of this short passage there is only counting, and then silence.

The penultimate part of All is Falling is twelve minutes long, and while that would be normal on any of Blackshaw's earlier works, it's the longest here by some way, and starts with guitar and cello, played in a more enunciated way than most of Parts 1-5. After one and a half minutes a lone violin joins. The sound assembles into a drum-led crescendo at around the sixth minute and unfolds for a further three until harsh, dissonant strings take full control of the sound, cascading and falling around the diminishing guitar, and fulfilling the images suggested in the album title.

Part 8 is something of a recovery – an eight-minute drone that pulsates warmly in its ambience, free from the harshness of the previous track, but also the strings and piano that provided most of the sound on the album. It brings the concept full circle and shows off Blackshaw's ability to, without needing to play guitar at the level he's already shown himself to be capable of, create real psychedelic beauty.

release - pale sketcher - jesu: pale sketches demixed

type: album
released: 24th august 2010
label: ghostly international
genre: dub, ambient, electronica

Pale Sketcher is Justin K. Broadrick's latest project, and it's ostensibly a vehicle for him to explore what he calls "the Jesu 'electronica' sound", wanting to keep it separate from their guitar-orientated beginnings. So here he single-handedly demixes – the idea that the guitar elements are taken away from the songs – every track from the 2007 Jesu compilation Pale Sketches.

There are two problems emerging from this choice of source material. Firstly, the only real contributor to seven years' worth of previously unreleased Jesu songs was Justin K. Broadrick. He wrote it, he programmed it, he produced it, and he performed it all alone. So to put it cruelly he's simply rehashing an assortment of unwanted songs. And what's more, they're not anywhere near being the most guitar-driven songs he's written. While there might be scope for separating the works of Jesu from his own electronic flights of fancy, there weren't many changes to make to the songs here – it was more or less electronica to begin with. The second problem is that the songs just aren't up to the quality of Jesu's earlier work. Where Godflesh's guitar was biting and savage, and early Jesu's atmospheric, the sounds on Pale Sketches are shallow.

The separation of this from Jesu could be a blessing in disguise for the latter, who may return to the swirling soundscapes of old, but there is also some potential on the electronic side. However, while the different versions of individual tracks are easily distinguishable from each other, both albums struggle to find any coherent identity. It all feels a bit too much like variations on a theme, and two albums worth is too much.

The main changes apart from the guitars are that the Pale Sketcher versions tend to have a greater feeling of space and peace. And even though Broadrick can more easily convey emotion through heavy guitar than computerised drum patters, there are times when the layered textures of Jesu feel tired compared to Pale Sketcher's smooth and balanced listening experience.

Don't Dream It (Mirage mix) abandons the dirge-like repetition of its older sibling for a mild euphoria, where the Gone version of Can I Go Now doesn't change much other than pitch-shifting the original, leaving it inorganic and soulless by comparison.

One of the things wrong with Pale Sketches Demixed is that Broadrick allows a small palette of fairly simplistic drum patterns to guide the flow of the album, meaning that the welcome first ambient minute of The Playgrounds are Empty (Slumber mix) sounds starkly beautiful. It also acts as an interlude between the two halves of the album, the latter being the more varied and interesting. Tiny Universe (Interstellar) is haunting and edgy in the most minimal way possible, while Supple Hope (2009 mix) meanders for about five minutes before peaking into relaxing, unintrusive synths that are played out on the following track.

The last song here is also the best, and while the original version of Plans That Fade wouldn't sound at all out of place on the demixed album, the Faded Dub version takes it much further and suggests better things to come from Pale Sketcher. At best it verges on soulful, thoughtful dubstep and sets a dark tone for the end of the album.

Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed is undoubtedly an improvement on the source material, but Broadrick doesn't go anywhere near far enough in differing from the originals or creating much diversity within the album itself. Nevertheless, I'd be interested to hear a 'demixed' version of Godflesh's Streetcleaner, or a full band Jesu album.

Pale Sketcher - Can I Go Now (Gone Version)