It’s an interesting time for Tim Hecker to revisit these two early records. It’s been 17 years since the first album came out under his own name – he put out a few techno cuts as Jetone in the early 2000s – and, in that time, his sounds have evolved, shifted, and progressed far beyond those initial recordings. So much so that, on dipping back into them now, the music almost sounds typical, plain, even. Especially when compared to his recent work on Love Streams.

In the most recent series of Will Sharpe’s Flowers, the daughter Amy – a visionary but deeply discomposed musician (played masterfully by Sophia Di Martino) – is engulfed by the desire to pen a gothic opera based upon the folk-horror tale of her ancestors. She believes that, in doing so, she will achieve a form of redemption that will disperse the spectres of bi-polar disorder and depression that cast long shadows over her family. Her music is increasingly erratic and frenzied.

It was 14 years ago to the day that motivational hardcore punks Modern Life Is War last stopped off in Brighton. Finally, on a blazing hot June evening, they have returned to level the building, with the hotly-tipped Svalbard in tow. Starting the night off, however, are Swain. Their music is a rock stomp with phased pop-licks and vocals that add a snarl to ‘70s stadium fare.

If, as myth has it, sold his soul to the devil to play the blues, what if more of his enslaved countrymen had followed suit? Struggling through slavery whilst believing in a god that appears to condone and reward the oppressors seems counter-intuitive. What if the repressed had turned to the unholy spirit for solace instead? This very theme is explored by. Now performing with a full band,(the brains behind Zeal & Ardor) has expanded his approach from the “black metal performed by a gospel choir…

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