Antonymes - 31: before the light fails pt.1 (2010)

Basic, minimal, schematic, pure, simple and efficient.  "31: Before The Light Fails Pt.1" is like having one very good idea and intuition and translate it quickly with spontaneity.

This is one of these instants you'll would like to last for hours, days, and maybe weeks, a feeling of contemplative plenitude which will make you feel great, appeased and quiet.

Sunday Parlours / Anois - split ep (2007, Poni Republic)

Free split ep between two duo/couples from Germany, which I both enjoyed through previous releases, this record is even better than expected.

And only bands with a similar structure can be conceived as references and these four songs are made in their own essence to please fans of Komeit, The Secret Stars, Ida, A Weather or even Empress / New North Wales.

Sonmi451 - ruis (2010, Slaapwel)

Sonmi451 is  the project of Bernard Zwijzen, from Hasselt, Belgium and while the name is taken from a novel (David Mitchell’s novel “Cloud Atlas” another reference seems obvious, Shuttle358 but I don't know to which extent as it is the first time I listen to his music.

Very Secretary - best possible souvenir (1997, Mud)

There is something unique with Very Secretary, like an emo version of slowcore with occasional interesting math-rock rhythms and a rural summer quality. But at the same time, their music never becomes completely or totally extraordinary. “Best Possible Souvenir” was their debut album and is more tense and dynamic than their second and final record, “Standing on the shade”. It sounds very close to American Football and Gloria Record debut ep's but without song as strong as theirs.

The Album Leaf - into the blue again (2006, Subpop)

While I'm still totally found of the first releases of The Album Leaf, this albums leaves me undecided and skeptical as there are too many weaknesses and not enough assets.

Federico Durand - elin (Imoto, 2008)

With "La siesta del ciprés", released on Spekk in 2010, Argentinian ambient musician imposed himself as a particular, unique and poetic sensitivity, but it wasn't his coup d'essai.

His first album was released two years earlier on Imoto, on a smaller UK and less visible label and stayed more or less completely anonymous until now.

Karate – unsolved (2000, Southern)

Karate is no more and among the six studio albums, it's difficult to pinpoint a favorite and it's simply complicate to have one because there is none I can adhere to completely. 

Lots of jazz-rock / math-rock / punk-rock oriented tracks and only a very few completely balanced and sensitive.

Taylor Deupree - January (2004, Spekk)

Taylor Deupree (b. 1971) is a sound artist, graphic designer, and photographer residing in New York, he is also behind the record label 12K which focuses on minimalism and contemporary musical forms.

There is a blunt radicalism with his music, in the sense that with his actions, works and positions in the minimal, experimental, ambient electronic forms of music, he imposed himself and emerged naturally as a major figure, strangely much more as an obvious reference than as a musician through his records. Taylor Deupree is a land-cleaner, a pioneer, with a keen interest towards theoretical, abstract and prospective sound structures and textures. 

Rivulets - stray songs: 2000-2010 (2010)

"Stray Songs", a digital-only release, compiles every single and comp track released by Rivulets from 2000-2010, including rare, live and alternate versions of Rivulets songs, and covers of Sparklehorse, Big Star, Palace Brothers, Codeine, Jandek and Remora songs.

Padang Food Tigers - born music (2010, Under The Spire)

Padang for piano and organ, Food for field recordings and their subtle and authentic processing of atmospheres, Tigers, for the guitars, banjo and other strings.

We are accustomed to the capacity of versatility of Rameses III, Padang Food Tigers, two thirds of this UK formation (Stephen Lewis and Spencer Grady) cannot really take us by surprise.

Mike Tamburo - beating of the rewound son (2005, Music Fellowship)

Now Pittsburgh-based, Mike Tamburo was born in 1977 in New Kensington, PA. In the late 90s Mike founded the band Arco Flute Foundation, and a few years later Meisha, both instrumental bands with releases on The Music Fellowship and many shows behind the counter. Finally both bands broke up, leaving Mike to pursue a  solo career.

M. Ostermeier – chance reconstruction (2010, Tench)

After short releases on Parvo Art and Hibernate, M. Ostermeier is back at home for his first full length, first release on his new sublabel of Words on Music, Tench.

Minimilk – sa trace silencieuse – (2008, Phonic Kidnapping)

Minimil is Remi Parson (A Place for Parks, Electrophonvintage, Badr, The Sunny Street) adding french vocals to an acoustic guitar with bossa nova accent played by Sébastien Linares. 

Hammock - raising your voice... trying to stop an echo (2006, Darla)

When you listen to Hammock it becomes quickly certain that they owe some debt towards bands like Windy & Carl, Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, Album Leaf, Harold Budd or Auburn Lull, as they translate their music into something directly enjoyable and there lays probably their "emo" part, this ability to convey strong and warm, ecstatic and melancholic, blurry and dreamy emotions, in a way not really dissimilar with what Appleseed Cast did on their "Low level owl" double ep or the kind of blissful shoegazing Pia Fraus  offers.

Talons' - rustic bullshit (2008, Bark and Hiss)

Balance is delicate. Musical alchemy is a capricious phenomenon.

While the two first release of Talons' already reviewed here were impressive (“Falls Chagrin” (2005), “Shitty Emo”(2006)), this particular one seems to miss gaining the same level of intensity for me.

Mountainhood - brother the cloud (2008, Reverb Worship)

A limited release, 50 CDR copies of it, on an obscure experimental indie label, solo project of Michael Curtis Hilde, living in New York, playing as Mountainhood and previously as Almaden. It could be one more of these folk artists mixing their basic songwriting with experimentation but it's just not that.

Antonymes - beauty becomes the enemy of the future (2009, Cathedral Transmissions)

Antonymes is the solo project of Ian Hazeldine, a Wales-based UK musician, who is creating instrumental piano & keyboard  ambient pieces, layered with additional electronics and buried  in an ocean of reverb. 

You picture desolate natural landscapes, rainy days under gray skies, low lights and bare trees, decomposing leaves on the ground and a wind carrying away endless masses of clouds.

Rivulets - d e m o s (2010, Silber Media / 2000)

In 2001, just before his first album, I discovered Rivulets on MP3.com, a kind of ancestor of Myspace and Bandcamp were musicians were able to feature this music. 

S. Carey - all we grow (2010, Jagjaguwar)

It's a good think to see Secretly Canadian's alter ego Jagjaguwar returning to this kind of music both labels defended a few years ago, from Patrick Phelan to Richard Youngs, from South to Spokane, from Early Day Miners to Havergal.

The Morning Paper - it's getting clearer (2008, Skipping Stones)

I was 17 when I first heard Field Mice's 7 inch “September's not so far away”. 17 years later, the beauty of The Morning Paper's first album left me speechless, in a close state of emotional effusion. 

Karaocake - rows & stitches (2010, Clapping Music)

If she was American, Camille Chambon would be , probably, from the West Coast, somewhere between Seattle, Portland and Olympia, sharing shows with artists on K Records and similar labels.

She is French and after a few self-released records , which, I sadly missed and never heard of, she is making the jump with a "real" album on a "real" label with "real" musicians, "real" melodic & accessible songs, a "real" production and it's a remarkable artistic product which escapes the d.i.y. attitude typical to the style which often offers only generic stuff.  "Row & Stitches" is as a whole an unexpected surprise.