Manchester is synonymous with music. From the Factory Records days of Joy Division and John Cooper Clarke, to Muslimgauze, Samuel Kerridge, The Fall, and that nationalistic lump of ever-diminishing returns – Morrissey – a through line of fatalism can be felt. This is true of even the most disparate sounding of the city’s offspring. With a discerning ear you can also find a thread of melancholia in the output of Mr Scruff and The Chemical Brothers.

End Christian is a wild chimera. A beast of disparate elements all drawn together. From projects as diverse as Dälek (Alap Momin), Brutal Truth (Richard Hoak), Fad Nauseam (Gillian Dreadful), and Hex Inverter (Christian McKenna) comes a fascinating cast of characters whose experimental leanings manage to gel, surprise, and test on Bach Part One. Oh and their bassist – Vincent Rosa – wrestles on the side as Vinny the Fixxer.

CEEYS have created an album that is rooted in the division and integration of opposing concepts. A binary approach, if you will. Here we have two brothers, Daniel and Sebastian Selke, playing the two instruments that they first picked up age five. Their name is, in fact, a portmanteau of those instruments – ‘violoncello’ and ‘keys’ – and, like a portmanteau, this album is about the merging of disparate ideas to create a greater whole.

“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it” Uniform and The Body. Two pummelling duos. One is responsible for releasing the first industrial sludge pop record and the other helped to cleave minds with two head-splitting tracks in last year’s return to Twin Peaks. Both inform their traumatic sounds with bleak references to cinema and literature – the titles for their most recent releases were taken from Virginia Woolf’s suicide note and an Australian film of booze-fuelled carnage

“Do we miss not only the past but every future the lost past describes? Is that just the nature of missing? All the lost might-have-beens? The certainty that those uncertain futures are gone?” It’s been four years since Pascal Savy’s last record – Adrift – and, on first listen, there would appear to be certain textural similarities between that exploration of a fictional island and his new album, Dislocations.

In the most recent series of Twin Peaks, amongst various inexplicable goings on, a dream sequence occurred in which Monica Bellucci (as herself) asked “We are like the dreamer who dreams and lives inside the dream, but who is the dreamer?”. With The Long Sleep it feels as if Jenny Hval is attempting to answer this question.

“The thought of suicide is a great consolation. By means of it, one gets through many a dark night.”work has long been synonymous with viscera; their name alone conjures imagery of violent crime. Of decomposing flesh. Of human form beyond use. Factoring in their propulsive and all-consuming deranged noise-pop sound only solidifies this further. Their music pistons like adrenaline-flooded tendons thrashing for dear life.

Raffaele Pezzella is a busy man. When he’s not recording under the name Sonologyst he’s in charge of the Unexplained Sounds Group. Or the sub label Eighth Tower Records. Or running the weekly delve into all things underground and experimental that is the Sunday night Recognition Test. Suffice to say his plates are full and spinning. Still, he has somehow managed to find the time to concoct one of the most suspicious and mistrustful records to be released so far this year. Released on Cold Sprin

Since 2013’s Immunity, Jon Hopkins has been busy. Not in terms of a torrent of creative outpourings, the resistance of which (despite our apparently insatiable appetite for cultural consumption) can often be a good thing – over saturation does more harm than good in my book. No, instead he has been busy preparing himself physically, mentally, and emotionally for existence. Freezing baths, desert treks, and controlled breathing exercises have all been enlisted to help rejuvenate his weary frame a

Thirty years is a long time in the music industry. For, Dylan Carlson it’s just about the right duration to release his first record under his own name. Since the late 1980s, Carlson has produced and influenced some of the most vital music to burst from the shores of the United States. From creating sound collages with his roommate Kurt Cobain, to inspiring Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson to form Sunn O))), his clout can be sensed any time a musician summons waves of thick drones from a shaking amplifier.

Taking its cue from the 1966 Ingmar Bergman film of the same name, Persona explores an electronic landscape of impatience, impermanence, and, much like the aforementioned Swedish masterpiece, themes of duality, self, and fractured realities.

Following on from a split with St Louis-based doom mongers Fister, Chrch signed to Neurosis’s Neurot Recordings and set to work on their sophomore effort – Light Will Consume Us All. A title that seems to recall the 2008 documentary on Norwegian black metal, Until The Light Takes Us. And, for the most part, the music here is less face rending than that infamous genre although there are similarities in terms of vocal performance and an undeniable shared tone of cacophonous despair. The last track

Since putting out $uccessor at the back end of 2016,has been through a number of shifts both geographically and metaphysically. Moving away from Dominick Fernow’s Hospital Productions label, on which both American Zen and the aforementioned $uccessor were released, Dedekind Cut (real name) opted for Chicago-based, home to the likes of, and prominent within experimental ambient circles.

Daniel W. J. Mackenzie, a fellow Brighton resident, has been concocting music under various monikers for the past decade. His improvisational work with Plurals has led to collaborations with artists such as Timothy C Holehouse, and tours with the likes of Nadja, Sly & The Family Drone, and Master Musicians of Bukkake. Under his own name, his piano work has been exhibited in Helsinki. But it is as Ekca Liena that Mackenzie has been at his most prolific and highly acclaimed. Slow Music For Rapid E

Their name brings to mind clashing ideas of groaned apathy, writhing sadness, and unendurable ecstasy. All of which help to inform the post-punk soundscape of these Sub Pop debutants. Their music sounds like the endless summer twinkle of Los Angeles brushing up against those dark Mulholland nights.

Brighter Wounds begins with the sounds of an ailing record player, squeaking and dipping in speed. This metaphorical struggle and determination to carry on mirrors that of the past couple of years for Son Lux’s Ryan Lott. Since 2015’s Bones, Lott has had to work through the emotional toil of a close personal friend dying, a son being born in need of immediate CPR, and the harsh realities of the world into which his son will grow. Unsurprisingly the tone of this album is more overtly sorrowful th

In January 1909, FT Marinetti debuted his manifesto on Futurism. The 7th article of this pronounced that: “There is no longer any beauty except the struggle. Any work of art that lacks a sense of aggression can never be a masterpiece. Poetry must be thought of as a violent assault upon the forces of the unknown with the intention of making them prostrate themselves at the feet of mankind”

Wolves and Vibrancy Records, who recently released Hundred Year Old Man’s latest EP, contacted Worriedaboutsatan about putting out some new music but, alas, the pair had already locked in the release of a new album (due later this year). Seeing as they had spent the past year holed up in a studio writing and recording this, rather than take a break, they opted to put something together for the German label and promptly did so in one short six hour session. The resulting sonic slice is Shift.

Supergroup SUMAC, who are already comprised of members of such hallowed groups as Botch and Russian Circles (Brian Cook), Mamiffer, Isis, and Old Man Gloom (Aaron Turner), Baptists (Nick Yacyshyn), and, occasionally live, Earth, Melvins, and Thrones (Joe Preston), have opted to join forces with shades-sporting, psychedelic and improvisational noise virtuoso, Keiji Haino for their third full length recording.

Hookworms first record in three years is likely to be perceived as somewhat of a departure for those that have been onboard since 2013’s Pearl Mystic. Gone are the reverb-sodden, wild man shrieks from singer/guitarist MJ. He now appears more introspective and measured with his heartfelt vocal melodies. The guitars are taking a bit more of a backseat too and, instead, at the forefront are synthesisers and looped samples.