In this age of countless injustices, there are few ways to make your frustrations clearly heard without being loud and angry. Calm debate and compromise is no longer a functional solution; instead, brash and noisy hardcore punk is the way to go. Regional Justice Center’s LP World of Inconvenience is a short but fiery and confrontational slice of blistering thrash-punk, tackling the unfortunate reality of mass incarceration with both violent music and lyrics. The production is weighty and thick but retains a biting, harsh edge, the furious trebly hi-hats and serrated guitars cutting through like rusty knives. Admittedly, the songwriting is nothing particularly special, often adopting the favorite slow-fast-slow-sample-repeat that is so common in powerviolence records, but it’s done so well that I can’t really complain. The sludge breakdowns never devolve into boring indulgence, the pace always picking up just in time. Sure, World of Inconvenience doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to heavy punk music, but it’s exactly the type of savage, vicious music the (inconvenient) world needs right now.

“Listening” is more than just hearing sounds that were meant to be heard. In the words of sound artist Loren Chasse, listening is “wondrous and personal,” and places the decision of what sounds “good” on the end of the listener. Weiwei Liang’s new tape When I Am Not Listening to Music presents sound situations that sounded good to her, a classification loosely defined by the artist as having notable abstract qualities such as texture, rhythm, distance, movements, and self-formed composition. This latter characteristic is one with which I especially identify; there’s an amazing subliminity when you hear a random sound or group of sounds that seems to have a natural beginning and end. The situations recorded for When I Am Not Listening to Music – anything from “crickets in the tall grass by the river” to the sound of a “1300°C Kiln” – display it exceptionally well, and the pairing of their own organic dynamics with artificial ones created by their sequencing is something really special. Liang’s is just one perspective, and while I think she has an incredible ear for picking out sounds there is nothing that can match the beauty of hearing something on your own, an isolated event with an audience of one. Thankfully, this tape allows for an audience of many more.

Glistening Examples is one the only labels from whom, on a consistent basis, I invariably buy music, and I haven’t regretted this behavior a single time. Unsurprisingly, this is also the case for the new CD from Boston musician Matt Azevedo, also known as Retribution Body. Self Destruction is a minimal but punishing album of low frequency drones and electronics, with a bottom register so prominent that it penetrated my cheap Panasonic earbuds before I realized that I had better listen on speakers. Much like the cover art, the disc is shrouded in inky darkness, with very brief moments of color and light that emerge; it’s almost like we’re listening to much brighter music through a wall of cotton and stone. Actually, that’s an awful analogy because it implies some sort of distance. Self Destruction resides almost too close for comfort, rattling around in your skull with merciless force. The ending of “Self” is disarmingly physical, as all of the layers built up throughout the track are pulled away and the remaining bass, barely audible but vibrating every object in the room, folds in on itself, taking your brain with it. And this is all just the standard version; Azevedo independently released a low frequency edition, for which he states “on most speakers, no audible sound will be produced.” I don’t think I have the kind of woof power to do that idea justice, so the audible version will be just fine for now.

Newcastle musician D. Dixon’s new tape as snmtmns, Convolved Spaces, is beautifully insubstantial, from the music itself to the simplistic cover design and uninformative track titles. Composed using field recordings, “semi-modular synthesis,” and digital signal processing, the tracks progress through minimal variation and expansion on already sparse, spectral structures. It’s a purposefully reserved approach, and allows Dixon to draw attention to the auditory properties of these quiet, cryptic sounds, forcing the listener to maintain patience and attentiveness. Though they (presumably) use multiple tools, for the most part the constructions are presented as single entities, homogeneous amalgams of their components – with the exception of closing track “B2,” which explores a sort of call-and-response relationship between metallic drones and outbreaks of modular crackles. I love when perspective is forcibly directed toward such subtlety, and when it’s done well this magnification can make the music so much more rewarding; and when it’s not done well it’s incredibly frustrating. Thankfully, the former is true for Convolved Spaces; I find it capturing my attention even more than considerably more bombastic and lush music.

Whales Have Hind Legs, a new C20 from multi-disciplinary artist Hannah Dargavel-Leafe (HDL), collects tracks made using recordings of an old whaling station in Iceland. These recordings are largely unmanipulated aside from layering and sequencing, and because of this Whales Have Hind Legs is able to paint a vivid picture of this mysterious location. The tape has much less whale sounds than you’d expect, instead focusing on the mechanical processes and metallic creaking of the station, though the atmosphere created definitely has an aquatic tinge to it. The unaffected sounds are quiet, modest, even thin, on their own, but together they conjure images of hulking, rusted structures and murky ocean skies and waters, and somehow still retain that sparseness. HDL’s works are cryptic, immersive, slightly unsettling, and weirdly addictive; I’ve listened to this short tape about four times since discovering it yesterday. Dargavel-Leafe has a sound installation at Maskinhuset in Sweden and is releasing an LP on Calling Cards Publishing later this year.

On their new album, Philadelphia electronic duo Metasplice deals in cerebral, high-frequency warbles and damaged rhythms. Mirvariates is certainly a noisy album, with its piercing glitches and distorted rumbles, but it clearly has more goals in mind than aggression and harsh textures. It has those things too, however; opening track “Cirrension” is a swirling range of metallic timbres, an abstract wall of sound whose oscillating tones and mechanical groans shift lazily along a liquid current. Even here, when Mirvariates is at its least structured, the muffled, woozy rhythms that ground everything are present; and they only become more apparent as the record progresses. After the breathtaking “Vase Weight Re-Route,” middle tracks “Aridtaq” and “Subaltic Render” present a less violent approach, with much of the distortion absent in favor of drifting synth clouds. Metasplice have achieved something really special with this balance between calm and confrontation, and it’s what makes Mirvariates that much more diverse and immersive, even with its already captivating arsenal of textures.

Attilio Novellino and Collin McKelvey come together once again to create an ambitious album of disjoint electronic collages. Metaphysiques Cannibales, their second collaborative release after their Hypehunt split series cassette, is a haphazard amalgam of an impressive range of sounds. The pair utilizes granular synthesis and other techniques to process instruments, tape recordings, and synthesizers, creating cryptic and complex sonic mixtures. Overlooking the insufferably pretentious description of these processes on the album’s Bandcamp page, the results materialize in truly unexpected and amazing ways. Part I begins with cut up stutter-steps of noisy contortions and travels through a whirlwind of unpredictable maneuvers before culminating in a beautiful ambient passage, whose unceremonious disintegration ends the piece. Part II is more subtle, building from foggy synth frequencies to lethargic, swirling frequencies that lift to reveal mechanical recordings and a distant speech sample. The conclusion of this part is my favorite part of the record, and sees distorted keyboard chords battling with oscillating noises and disturbing background sounds that resemble the gurgles of some horrible monster. I don’t think Metaphysiques Cannibales is as complex as the creators and/or label think, but it’s definitely incredible and is one of the most fulfilling releases I’ve heard this year.

Whenever I listen to a new black metal demo or album, I always feel a certain apprehension before the vocals come in. At least for me, this is the element that can make or break a band for me, especially in this type of music because I consider them to be one of the most important parts of building the depressive atmosphere that I look for. Thankfully, when the desperate, throaty screams of guitarist John Gossard enter the fray on Enantiodromian Birth, it’s one of the demo’s most powerful moments. Together with the fluid blasting and doomy amblings of the drums, the muddy distortion on the guitars, and the pestilent, rotting aura that presides over the whole tape, Dispirit succeeds in constructing an overwhelming darkness. Each of the two tracks will take up a full side of the pro-pressed cassette (the version available now is a self-pressed C60), but there’s no dragging indulgence to be found. “Besotted by Feral Whims” progresses purposefully from its sludgy intro to its desolate middle section and finally to a driving, almost melodic climax, while “Golden Scar” focuses more on repetition, expanding on a tense halftime double bass riff throughout; and neither track feels anywhere near their twenty-plus minute durations. Overall, Enantiodromian Birth is a fantastic release, and while it could have used a better mastering job I’m hoping we’ll get that with the pro-pressed version.

Matchess, also known as composer and singer Whitney Johnson, has created a reserved yet deceptively powerful album with Sacracorpa. She layers her delicate, hazy vocals over minimal electronic percussion and sweeping synthesizers, yielding a sweetly hypnotic effect; from the very first minutes the music gently takes your hand and leads you on a peaceful journey through the clouds. Despite its dreamlike blissfulness and immersion, Sacracorpa is more sparse than lush. Every single one of the few elements that are present feels necessary and important, from the soft pulses of rhythm to the new-agey synths and even occasional nature recordings, and this purposeful simplicity is what makes the music so profoundly intimate. Johnson describes the music as being “dedicated to the healing love of women,” and though I and many other listeners may not be women it is impossible not to feel the love she has so reverently embedded within it. Sacracorpa is modest, wispy, even reticent, but it’s also one of the most emotionally resonant records I have encountered this year. Every listen is like a warm hug from a special someone, a bundle of comforters after a long walk through snow… it’s been a long time since music has brought me this particular type of happiness.

The only thing that does a better job of crafting a vivid environment than the title of Alison Cotton’s new album is the music itself. All Is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre is a mysterious, spacious album; one of the first things I noticed is the cavernous, reverb-filled production, which frames the sounds throughout in much the same way as I imagine a high-ceilinged, shadowy, dusty chapel would. Cotton’s drones, played on viola, recorder, and her own voice, ring out through the darkness, coexisting with the weighty silence as they materialize and dissipate. The compositions are lushly layered but not in a boring way; instead of simply piling each note and instrument on top of each other, Cotton operates each element individually, bringing them in and out separately to create shifting complexity with only a few components. The album is only about 35 minutes, and it’s over way too soon. I felt myself wanting Cotton to utilize her powerful voice more; the mainly vocal piece “The Bells of St. Agnes” and the latter part of the eponymous opener are hands down the record’s best moments, and they introduced a great contrast without disrupting the hypnotic atmosphere. Regardless, All Is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre is a fantastic solo effort, capturing both the majesty of an orchestra and the intimacy of a single performer.