Celan - Halo (Exile On Mainstream)

Celan is somewhat of a musically cross-cultural super-group, initially conceived as it was by composer/conductor Ari Benjamin Meyers of Redux Orchestra and Einstürzende Neubauten and Chris Spencer, guitarist and vocalist with seminal hardcore noise-rock outfit Unsane, and also featuring, amongst others, guitarist Niko Wenner, the driving musical force behind Oxbow. For all this, it is the heavy hardcore influences that loom most prevalently over the album, as the five piece power through a series of aggressive, dynamic, undeniably rocking blasts. The riffs are crunchy, fast-paced and heavily catchy and Chris Spencer's savagely screamed vocal delivery is as emotional and intense as ever. With the ex-flu.ID rhythm section of Phil Roeder and Franz Xaver behind the bass and drum-kit, the songs hit hard, with plenty of dynamic shifts and pummelling, precision beats to keep things moving. Beyond undisclosed compositional duties and the epic slowly crashing chords of 13-minute long closer 'Lunchbox', Meyers' keyboard work is relatively discreet, with just a handful of subtly atmospheric passages bringing him to the foreground via subdued piano interludes that nicely accent when the band do kick back in with raw riffing and heavy power once again. As befitting the luminous line-up, Celan's debut "Halo" is an emotionally intense, subtly diverse and masterfully crafted and executed piece of work.

'Halo' is available now on Exile On Mainstream.

Celan

Elfin Saddle - Ringing For The Begin Again (Constellation)

Elfin Saddle is another sign of the diversification of the Constellation label away from its bedrock family of art- and post-rock bands, and 'Ringing For The Begin Again' is the latest in a short string of releases that step away from the label's stalwart artists (Do Make Say Think, Silver Mt Zion, Fly Pan Am and their many associates) in favouring of bringing some new names to the fore. The musical project of artistic and real-life partners Jordan McKenzie and Emi Honda, Elfin Saddle betrays some of the same interests as the label's earlier Black Ox Orkestar releases, with its rootsy, ethnic folk stylings, albeit this time travelling further east to Emi's Japanese homeland for some of its influences. A breadth of acoustic drones, bells, bass, strings and percussion meld with Jordan's English and Emi's Japanese vocals to give much of the album an intimately mystical feel. Even with its handful of still skewed, but more pop-oriented stompers, the album has the definite sense of being a musical realisation of the odd but endearing, finely-crafted, otherworldly miniatures that Jordan and Emi construct together and that adorn the album's sleeve.

'Ringing For The Begin Again' is available now on Constellation.

Elfin Saddle

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. - Lord Of The Underground: Vishnu & The Magic Elixir (Alien8)

With a discography stretching across tens of labels and hundreds of releases, it is no exaggeration to say that keeping up with Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple outfit is something of a Sisyphean task. Comprising of two typically extended psychedelic workouts and one shorter intermissionary piece of acoustic folksy oddness from bassist Atsushi Tsuyama, this latest offering is released by Alien8 to honour the band's trip to North America at the start if the year. First track "Eleking The Clay" pitches Kawabata's amazing "speed guru" guitar playing front and centre and accelerates over 14 minutes of ravishing rock histrionics, with flurries of notes falling over themselves as the band power us full-speed towards the heart of their psychedelic sun. After Tsuyama's "Sorcerer's Stone Of The Magi" intermission, the final track, "Vishnu And The Magic Elixir", provides the usual Acid Mothers style epic album closer. Starting quietly with eastern-soaked acoustic explorations, it builds gradually into a head-swirling cosmic extravaganza, powered by racing bass and drum grooves underpinning more of Kawabata's fiery soloing and plenty of Higashi Hiroshi's trademark swooping spacey synthesisers, finally staggering to a ravished close some 25 minutes later. Amongst the seemingly endless cavalcade of AMT releases, this is one for the psych-rock fans to keep their third eye open for.

'Lord Of The Underground: Vishnu & The Magic Elixir' is out now on Alien8.

Acid Mothers Temple

Tortoise - Beacons Of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey)

Though synonymous with the post-rock tag right from their beginnings in the early nineties, Tortoise have always played with a much broader palette than most of the quiet-loud rock instrumentalists that predominantly inhabit the genre now. Tortoise may be an indie rock band in the broadest sense, but the diverse worlds of jazz, electronica, dub and the avant-garde are still out in force on this, the band's sixth studio album. Escaping the clutches of overly cerebral po-faced-ness, what makes 'Beacons Of Ancestorship' so immediately appealing is the sense of fun and playfulness that infuses much of the record, with synthy krautrock barn-stormers, prog rock bassline grooves and all manner of swirling rhythmic instrumental jams firing the album along. The album's real strength (and Tortoise's by extension) is that this immediacy is backed by a vast depth of influences and by their assured musical expression, to make 'Beacons...' a genuine thinking man's head-nodder of an album.

'Beacons Of Ancestorship' is available now on Thrill Jockey.

Tortoise

Clues - Clues (Constellation)

A splendid slice of raucous pop energy and indie rock idiosyncrasy that continues the strand of wonderfully individual yet oddly accessible releases of the last few years proving that there's a lot more to Montreal's Constellation label than the apocalyptic post-rock epicism of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and A Silver Mount Zion for which the label is still most famous. With rough-hewn authenticity, infectious vocal harmonies and multi-instrumental exuberance, Clues offer up garage rock stomp, post-punk angularity, occasional melancholy interludes and a host of soaring, anthemic, indie rock stormers, all delivered with just the right slant of oddness and genuine originality.

'Clues' is available now on Constellation.

Clues

Gregg Kowalsky - Tape Chants (Kranky)

On this, his second album for Kranky, Gregg Kowalsky documents a full-length studio incarnation of the Tape Chants compositions and live installations that have been the focus of his work since shifting away from the digital realm following 2006's 'Through The Cardinal Window'. Using cassette players, tape loops, analogue synths, sine-wave oscillators and various acoustic instruments and sound sources he constructs a series of long, slowly-shifting drone pieces, with the warm ambient analogue fuzz underlayed with subtle rhythmic textures and amniotic pulses to create a beautiful lost-in-time other-world drift.

'Tape Chants' is available now on Kranky.

Gregg Kowalsky