ARTICLES
Benoît Pioulard's Précis
Label: Dynamophone
Label: Hidden Shoal

ALBUMS
Aemae
A Lily
Arc Lab
Blotnik Brothers
Gui Boratto
Cagesan
Jeremy Caulfield
Loren Dent
Do Make Say Think
Eats Tapes
Enduser
Domink Eulberg
Explosions in the Sky
Michael Fahres
The Field
Frivolous
Maximilian Hecker
Hug
Hush Arbors
Jan-M. Iversen
Espen Jørgensen
Kattoo
O.Lamm
Bruce Levingston
Tobias Lilja
Lusine
Marcia Blaine School
The Missing Ensemble
Nebulo
Ölvis
Charlemagne Palestine
Palomar
Pornopop
The Postmarks
Propergol Y Colargol
The Retail Sectors
R/R Coseboom
Sankt Otten
Scratch Massive
Slow Dancing Society
Stars of the Lid
subtractiveLAD
Sunosis
Aoki Takamasa
Amon Tobin
Tokyo Mask
Kate Wax
Wes Willenbring
Windmill

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
Chaos.Lovers
Cryosphere
Hub: 2004-2005
Rufs
Satoshi Tomiie

3" /7" /10"/12"/EPs
Agnes
AM/PM
Arctic Sunrise
Audion
Characterize 1
Dartriix
Death is Nothing To Fear
Don't Be A Stranger
Einóma
Fusiphorm
Heartthrob
Human Nature
Infant Cycle / Antmanuv
Lilienweiss
Luci
Mauve
Paco Osuna
Ben Parris
Carola Pisaturo
Portable
Sutekh
System
Aoki Takamasa
Cortney Tidwell
Andy Vaz

Loren Dent: Empires and Milk
Contract Killers Records

Austin-based Loren Dent follows up his 2006 Lamella release, Love Versus Dirt, with the even more impressive Empires and Milk. Though long at 78 minutes, Dent's fifteen-song album is nevertheless a marvelously realized suite of hymnal drones meticulously sculpted from field elements, samples, strings, and guitars. In Dent's subtly majestic settings, waves of shuddering guitars melt into slow-burning drones and epic cloud-like formations accumulate from multiple layers of piano tinkles, string tones, pealing guitars, and cascades of warm static. There is uniformity, but also contrast: acoustic guitars peacefully ripple throughout “Love Song: Years of Iron Static,” reverberant pianos and organs imbue “If Ever We're Alone Again” with graceful melancholy, and delicate tones conjure placid paradises in “Masters and Slaves” and “Independence.” Empires and Milk is so consistently strong it seems wrong to isolate individual highlights, but the eight glorious minutes of “Love Song: Kinetics and Hope,” for one, are so impossibly dreamy the piece demands to be singled out. For devotees of deeply textured ambient music, Empires and Milk offers a magnificent companion to Mole Harness's striking Out of the Walled Pathway.

April 2007