Toronto-born Scott Lanaway decided to take everything he loved about music, melt it down, and create his own silver bullet. “Mergers & Acquisitions” is the fruit of this labor. Granted this is sophomore release, it still feels like a birth. The songs and sounds contained are so well thought-out, planned, and composed that it feels like it was the work of a debut simply because the majority of songwriter’s best songs are created as their first body of work rather than their second or later efforts. “Oprah, God Wants You to Have a Private Jet” shows Lanaway doesn’t need to be cornered amid the subject matter of his songs that are often mind-wandering noodles and thoughts of love, death, time, the mind, and everything in between. His textures are sprinkled with electronica and acoustic vibes that are just unbelievable and uninhibited. He bares his soul, unafraid to let anyone in to peer in curiosity at what this creature is thinking and doing. Beautiful, please pick it up and tell him I sent you.

Phil Western and Mark Spybey together again! Well at least for two tracks that is. Dead Voices on Air, one of Spybey’s many projects, once again takes us to new and exotic locations. Amid their album photography on the digipak we’re whisked to far-off Argentina amid the beautiful landscape of Patagonia taken by Argentinean artist Marco Roberti. In addition to his collaboration with Western, Spybey enlists American-Serbian singer Ivana Salipur to assist on the title track, a track that is inspired by the Serbian poet Desanka Maksimovic, a poet perhaps most famous for poems regarding the atrocities committed by German soldiers during World War II. The album is Dead Voice on Air’s 14^th and their 2^nd collection released on seminal Lens Records. Songs range from ethnic world ambience to experimental to pure relaxing ambient. I’m constantly amazed at how Spybey and likeminded audiences are able to create such intense ambient pieces that just ooze attention-grabbing passion. Yet another notch on the proverbial belt of essential for DVOA.

Ah a band that is near and dear to my heart. The Walking Hellos is an infectiously catchy bizarre band who strives to do everything so damn well that you’ll never listen to music the same way. On this latest effort, “Because I Wanted to Know”, The Walking Hellos combine field recordings with banjo, clavinet, accordion, and sickly twisted bass licks. Add in a sprinkle and dash or two of percussion that marches up and down your head with spastic guitar that twinkles in the moonlight. Vocally this is five years better than their debut album. The group spent time writing stirring songs that last. Experimenting a bit with song structures deconstructing them down into a melting pot of melody, chaos, harmony, and piecemealed sound, The Walking Hellos have fashioned a steady and undeniable appeal.

Hannis Brown, a creative indie rocker, spends time on “Oh Ah Ee” exploring free jazz compositions, improvisational arrangements with spazzy yet smart lush textures dominating the experience. Lovely, I love how the title track has vocal harmonies that sound like Thom Yorke. Very intriguing minimalism at times that sounds removed from Tortoise and injected with the oddities of Charles Mingus. How many artists can you name that count the following objects as instruments on their album: rustling paper, running water, tapped beer bottles, and the percussion nature of heating systems and trash cans? Rhetorical I know. Only one comes to mind and it’s Hannis Brown.

Okay pretty much any band can have my immediate attention when they start their album off with huge tom and snare rolls. “The Living Breathing Organ Summer” just gets better from then on, improving on avant-garde indie punk. Boasting a surprise around each corner, Child Bite sucker punches you with a funk-oriented soul that is so quirky you can imagine this being a band that is frequented by the likes of Mike Patton and The Jesus Lizard. Eclectic and freakin’ weird, Child Bite is certainly going to be an acquired taste for many people. The Detroit-based band is yet further proof that a crappy economy can have profoundly good effects sometimes – only unemployed maniacs who are craving the prescription drugs they can no longer afford would put pen to paper and come up with lyrics this fucking maniacal.

You wonder if the twin brothers Blaze and Reid Bateh and their longtime friend William Brookshire decided to name their band after the beetle, the groundnut, or the ethnic group in Mali. Well however they were inspired to self-identify as Bambara, the group is certain to inspire some indie noise acts out there. “Dog Ear Days” is a manic EP of creepy compositions made up of feedback, distortion, beats, airiness and noise, and lots of delay. Thrilling and suspenseful, each song seems to build on the last further tightening their grasp around your entire body. While everyone else seems to focus first on melody and then build from the ground up, it seems as if Bambara’s approach is more visceral with an intelligent ear honed to crafting a cinematic and moody backdrop and then Lego-ing the various pieces together unlike most of their fellow Athens, Georgia based bands.

Cascading loops with dark soundscapes and Latin-influences and velvety melodies, “Pequenas Canciones de Amor” reminds me of something off of Acuarela Discos out of Spain. Inflected indie rock noodles throughout this stirring experimental album. Exploring a variety of styles, O Paradis deploys a king’s ransom worth of diverse instrumentation. But the one all encompassing common denominator is heady vocals and a knack for crafty a finely tuned song. There’s seventeen tracks here that bridge the gap between Euro-pop, indie-pop, electronica, experimental, and abstract. I love it. Thank you Tourette Records!

Interesting remix of the original tracks from Species of Fishes albums “Songs of a Dumb World” and “Trip Trap” were utilized throughout this rather lengthy 56 minute jaunt into experimental music land. Muslimgauze is known for their Arabic influences and brooding electronica with an interesting mixing technique. They shed some of that here with shimmering electronic stabs and manic looping techniques that have sometimes only percolated in the backdrop of past endeavors. I found this remix album to be fantastic and totally fascinating. Worth a deep dive for the adventuresome music listener for sure.

Two tracks written as a non-song but one long-form poem that is both spoken word and sung lyrics by Chris Connelly and his varied assembly of guests, “How This Ends” is the soundtrack to doom and melancholy. Featuring contributors such as Sugar Bullet’s Izi Coonagh, Tania Bowers of Via  Tania fame, Bill Rieflin known for his diverse work with bands such as R.E.M., Ministry, and Swans, and David Levine, “How This Ends” is a stark soundscape devoid of true composition but glowing red with the pulse of improvisation and controlled chaos. There is more than just harsh white noise and penetrating terror; indeed there are sinewy lines of piano, synth pads, and underlying rhythms. But it all centers around the poem, a flowing free-verse of intrigue and a glimpse inside the melting pot of Connelly’s genius and showcases him as a Renaissance Man and artist. Perfect for the left-of-center crowd who strives to find a unique gem out there.

Trangendered artist famous for paintings for Psychic TV album releases and more recently for her self-released lo-fi albums, Val Denham collaborates with Black Sun Productions for this brooding and dank experimental electronic excursion. Beginning the album is a spoken word reading of Charles Dickens “A Tale of Two Cities” with a Coil-esque backdrop drone. No surprise on the Coil reference as Massimo and Pierce have their tight ties with Coil in the past. Sexual undertones perverse the soundtrack collapsing words into a separate entity that is both instrument and vision all at once. Industrialized rhythms dominate some of the tracks while the druggy green visions of “Absinthe” portend their influence with cooled keyboards and manipulated loops.