In a year without an overwhelming quantity of standout metal releases, it’s nice to be won over immediately for once—and I’m confident Prygla’s eponymous debut will have a similar effect on most readers. The short “Praefica” introduction is humble but also dense and full of portent, in retrospect foreshadowing many of the distinctive idiosyncrasies that make the rest of the tracks so great. There isn’t much in the way of information about the project itself, so for all we know Prygla could either be a quar/quintet or a solo project; at first, I deemed the latter more likely, since the opening moments of “Serafernas Song” feature some blurred hi-hat blasts that sound quite programmed at first, but then the drums start hitting a lot harder with hard-grooving halftime breaks and propulsive gallops heavy on the ride bell, and at that point it starts to not really matter what exactly is making the sounds. The vocals are at their best when they’re higher-pitched and shriek-y, but the guttural growls work well too, especially when the riffs get extra thrashy and chromatic on “Rit” and “Vider,” or when the pace picks up into energetic melodicism for the tentatively hopeful “Ögat.” I found Prygla via the “raw black metal” tag, but the guitars are surprisingly clear and clean-cut; perhaps the rawness comes from somewhere deeper than the surface of the music itself.

Pick up CD copies via Cryptorium’s Discogs page.

I’m not yet sure what to call this style of superpowered, complex, often maximalist form of electronic and electroacoustic improvisation that has been cropping up in various unlikely places this year—Beauson’s first two releases and Concrete Gazebo’s Peacock Juice Box, to name a few—but I do know I’m digging it. Kamon Kardamom is a (presumably) new trio consisting of Hungarian musicians Bálint Bolcsó, Orsolya Kaincz, and Máté Labus, and for Chronic Euphoria, their inaugural full-length they route toy turntables, sewing machines, amplified objects, and other doohickeys through a system of analog effects and digital processing that converts inconsequential clunk and clatter to flexible, high-velocity electronic tendrils. After the hyperactive density of the first two tracks (“Baby Robots’ Dance” turns out to be a more fitting title than one would think), “Just Distancing” begins with a hearty helping of fecund emptiness, an empty but well-tilled field out of which formidable stalks slowly begin to snake: long, stretching strands of sheening plastic; effervescent electrical discharge; pressurized spouts of various fumes and gases. The way this piece evolves from sparse, ephemeral atmospherics to immersive tactility is quite amazing, and it somehow happens both gradually and all at once, like poured water simultaneously filling and disintegrating a hole dug in the sand. Brief snatches of voice also play a minor role in the trio’s unique interactions, adding to the feeling of sieved and sculpted totality that permeates the entire release: there’s so much to discover within each and every moment.

In the wake of the stadium-sized disappointment that was Eli Keszler’s most recent record, I’ve been on the lookout for new skittering ambient jazz fixes, and have found them in individual fragments and semblances across various releases—e.g., the ongoing Jusell, Prymek, Sage & Shiroishi series, Jelinek & Johannson’s puls-plus-puls—but never in a full-fledged form that hits the same spot. below the river above the air, the first recording from this trio of Indianapolis musicians MOS FET, Eustress, and Solid Squares, drifts lazily in the same humid dream-city of shimmering oil-slick rainbows and prismatic vapor as the aforementioned works, but it has little to tangibly ground it other than the occasional swish of brushes dragged across drum pieces or puffs of breath hissing through brass valves. The physicality that keeps things interesting comes in sparing pinches and splashes: crackling artifacts crumbling off the edges of gelatinous synth sweeps, tinny beat loops and warbling shortwave twiddles heard from far off, crowd noise and car horns suddenly too close for comfort. The fluidly organized tape feels extremely narrative, a quality that makes the music seem like it passes faster than puddles evaporating off asphalt on a hot day, and yet this crucial current is never too conspicuous, obscured enough by countless steamed-up panes of stained glass that anyone can imagine their own story. Without the constant presence of anxious drum set trembles, Geomag’s debut is much more of a glide than a stumble, and I can’t imagine it would work as well any other way.

Everyone should have a hip holster stuffed full of “musical EpiPens”: short releases, preferably those which can fit cozily on a 3″ CD with room to spare, that can quickly fill any sort of temporary low-stimulus period with glorious, ambience-canceling sound. I’ve been closely following Ukraine’s Full Logic Control Recordings and their fledgling yet also extremely well-curated catalog since I reviewed Luxury Mollusc’s DEFENCELESS RECIPIENT OF OVERTURES right at the beginning of the year, and both before and after that tape they’ve issued plenty of concise cassettes that fit the unusual classification described above, most recently meatcreamcompoundingpharmacy (which you must pronounce with no pauses—and, if you can help it, no defined syllable breaks either) by Amsterdam project sitbQ. The title track immediately lulls with a false promise of comfortable detachment from vicious volume levels that’s unseated almost as soon as it’s evoked as the distance-muffled distortion grows louder and louder before exploding into an all-out assault. Like many of their labelmates, sitbQ makes effective use of the oft-offputting mono recording approach, feeding so much white-hot fury into the capture device that the noise overflows out of the center channel and subtly bleeds into its next-door neighbors’ yards on both sides. The titular “pharmacy” is ostensibly represented by this first chunk, but “late night news and entertainment” sounds even more like the cold, bleached tedium of neatly organized medication shelves and prescription pickup counters, spiraling into piercing insanity from a smattering of barcode-scanner beeps. For maximum effectiveness, firmly jam into neck, bicep, or thigh.

Like fellow dial-twiddler and object-botherer Daniel J. Gregory’s album Heard Under Orphan Eyelid, Пустая Волна’s self-titled debut tape (the name, appropriately, translates to “Empty Wave”) feels simultaneously active and passive, participatory in the most understated and innocuous of ways, small but noticeable kinks injected into apathetic everyday occurrences. “Пустая Волна,” the eponymous multi-part piece that comprises the majority of the release, is an extended radio improvisation that feels densely physical, as if we’re placed inside the car or small room in which the dead air and garbled voices are actually located. Interludes such as “Код 112” provide spatial and textural diversity between the successive segments, turning the lens toward wider public areas and hints at more sweeping expanses before diving back into the static-soaked sarcophagus. Parts five through eight may be the strongest slice of the extended centerpiece track, each individual fraction uniquely illustrating the amazing, diverse sublimities that can be coaxed from such a simple process: empty frequencies hypnotize ghost-tones and other hallucinations into unsuspecting heads, a motorcycle ignition is briefly fiddled with, and just about all of language itself breaks down, all within the confines of the aforementioned vessel, the identity of which likely to remain unknown. The “Звуковой Объект” (“Sound Object”) series brings further complexity to the table, and it’s the first section that provides the most enduring contextual basis for the whole release: Пустая Волна, whomever they are, is both portable recorder–toting field recordist and active musician, creating their own self-contained, imperfect environments that tightly focus even the most inconsequential of sonorities, whether they are produced, observed, or both.

The explosive revival of Myspace metallic hardcore aesthetics and musical styles in the past few years largely manifests in two distinct forms: exhumation (e.g., collectible reissues by Wax Vessel, Tomb Tree, Zegema Beach, and others) and, obviously, continuation. While Why Im Dead, a new band out of Indiana that’s most likely a solo project, mostly belongs in the latter category, there are plenty of instantly recognizable tributes drawn directly from classic scene releases that work tremendously well as catalysts for more modern elements to take shape and remain sturdy. The most noticeable example of this is the vocals, which are undeniably reminiscent of Richard Lombardi’s distinct abrasive yowls atop the impatient chaos of beloved quartet The Sawtooth Grin. Unlike genre touchstone Cuddlemonster (which recently received an amazing remaster for its vinyl reissue that enables the already violent music to hit ten times harder), though, How to Handle the News, While Sailing Through the Confusion has a smelly foot planted squarely in contemporary metalcore, whiplashing between low-end sludge chords and fretboard-scaling dissonant stabs just as often as it grinds and growls. “Tribal Tats & Backwards Hats,” besides evoking the magical time that was the mid- to late-2000s just with its title, bulldozes eardrums with snappy Tower of Rome snares and dense guitars to culminate in a ridiculously heavy-hitting just-on-the-verge-of-deathcore breakdown, and while you’re still recovering from that it launches into “Cage Caster,” whose anthemic surges and eviscerating coda provide an epic conclusion that makes the diminutive EP feel more complete than one could have ever imagined. Make sure to check out myspace.com/noisenotmusic for more sick tunes and talented goons.

“Anyone could make this” is never a valid criticism of any piece of art, but it often becomes egregiously inaccurate and misrepresentative when it comes to abstract forms of music like noise, which as a genre is too often the punchline for sneering accusations of pretension or pointlessness. For me, it’s difficult to imagine listening to something like Peace Doctrine’s second self-titled tape and thinking it’s anything but virtuosic; of all the many forms of noise music, cut-up noise is one of the most difficult to get “right,” and it’s certainly no easy task figuring out how to even make these sounds in the first place. This new project from Matt Gomes, which flared into conspicuous existence with June’s C20 debut on PRESSORTAPE (also self-titled), doesn’t just flirt with negative space via jarring stop/starts or stitch together dizzying assaults of disparate samples, instead focusing on filtering diverse flavors of harsh distortion and feedback through meticulous sound design and clever left/right channel play. My immediate thought was that the music could use a more robust mastering job, but the (relatively) quieter presence of these eleven tracks quickly grew on me, settling somewhere between violent cacophony and airy detachment, all the while running merciless circles around your head. I probably bring up Jesper Forselius’s Blod project too often, but I think the comparison is reasonably apt here in that both artists seem to blare their caustic blasts from somewhere quite far off, and yet the sharp edges refuse to dull even the slightest bit. A promising (to say the least) new project with releases on two equally promising new labels? 2021, as I’ve said many times already, seems to be the year of noise.

There are quite a few keywords that, if included in an album description, are instant attractors for me, but the same isn’t really true for bands, because most comparisons between artists—especially those made by the artist themselves—are notoriously unreliable. That being said, if C.C.C.C. is brought up in any capacity, I’m automatically all in, and Space Beyond Space, the most recent tape from relatively new Finnish duo Fricsvel, thankfully does not disappoint. The aforementioned comparison was made as part of a demonstrative stylistic continuum between the legendary Japanese project and Skullflower, and for the most part it tracks; the two ten-minute slabs of psychedelic mayhem evolve from unstable pedal-distortion rumble and sheet metal shriek to fleeting bouts of delirium, whether it’s the distant, deranged vocal specters at the end of “Within the Outer Planes” or the hallucinatory layers that shift and smother on “History of the Afterlife.” Despite these presumably being studio recordings, they still feel sweeping and gargantuan, and would sound just as majestic flooding the cavernous confines of a massive warehouse venue as they do on cheap earbuds or portable speakers. Fricsvel members Veikko Rajanen and Mikko Ahokas faced multiple tall orders with this release in living up to the high expectations set by both the introductory text and the memorable cover artwork, but their soaring conjurations easily surmount them all. See you on the other side of the asteroid belt.