Articles
2009 Artists' Picks
Lymbyc Systym

Albums
Cory Allen
aus
The Bird Ensemble
Canaille
Catlin & Machinefabriek
Greg Davis
Loren Dent
Dirac
Drafted By Minotaurs
Flica
Sarah Goldfarb & JHK
Gown
John Hollenbeck
Viviane Houle
I/DEX
Akira Kosemura
Andrew McKenna Lee
Le Lendemain
LRAD
Lymbyc Systym
Melorman
Muskox
The Mercury Program
Nikasaya
Northerner
nörz
Noveller / Aidan Baker
Redshape
Marina Rosenfeld
Stripmall Architecture
Sturqen
Wes Willenbring
The Tony Wilson Sextet
Julia Wolfe
Peter Wright
Zelienople

Compilations / Mixes
Blackoperator
Glimpse Four:Twenty 03
Kod.eX
Portland Stories

EPs
Molnbär Av John
Tommi Bass & B.B.S.C.
Julian Beau
Colours-Volume 5
Dalot
Echologist
Simon James French
Geiom & Shortstuff
General Elektriks
Geskia
Ernest Gonzales
Gradient
Jacksonville
Joker
Ann Laplantine
Loko
Machinefabriek
Stefano Pilia
Damian Valles

Noveller / Aidan Baker: Colorful Disturbances
Divorce

Gown: The Old Line
Divorce

Colorful Disturbances pairs a side-long piece by Torontonian Aidan Baker with Brooklyn, New York-based Sarah Lipstate who contributes two spectral settings under the Noveller name using nothing more than electric guitar, voice, and tape player for gear. Her pieces—fifteen minutes in total—are atmospheric formations of powerful design. Graceful picking brings “Under the Color Cave” to life, after which Lipstate augments its suspended motion with slow-burning tendrils that deepen and darken the track's meditative mood without destroying the balance. As hypnotic in its slow unfurl of shuddering pulses and spacey warble, “White Rabbit” plunges further down the rabbit hole when Lipstate's distorted voice surfaces near the track's end. Baker's side-long “Disturbances Part 1 & 2” hovers overhead like an immense black cloud, its droning, wave-like shudder a pointillistic, Rorschach scrim on the surface of which shimmering micro-melodies dart hither and yon.

Some may know Andrew MacGregor from the collaborative work he's done with Thurston Moore in Bark Haze, but The Old Line finds him operating in solo mode under the name Gown. The Nova Scotia resident works up five guitar-based settings—instrumental and vocal—of forceful design across the vinyl slab's sides. On the positive side, the instrumental pieces are powerful. In the opener “Roots,” blistering and clangorous sheets of distorted guitars bleed over one another, while in the orgiastic workout “Full Moon Morning,” bluesy shards collectively interweave like vultures circling roadkill until the guitars swarm so feverishly, they blur into a raging torrent. It's a shame, though, that he opted to include vocals as the tracks where they appear are diminished by their presence. “My Shade” would be a more satisfying stream of echoing guitar lines splintering into the distance were it not for the sour residue his off-key singing leaves on some of it. Likewise, the title track's morphine-soaked ambiance is already dark enough all by its lonesome without his vocals factored into the equation.

January 2010