Only a handful of selections this year; many favorites already appeared on the cassettes list, and even then there just wasn’t a lot that blew me away. But based on the other impressive lists I’ve been seeing, I missed a hell of a lot. I want to spotlight some of those (I’ll continue adding more as I find them), and also humbly ask for recommendations from all of you, my lovely readers, for whom I’m so thankful every single day.

Thomas Carroll, “2025 in Review” | Beehype, “Best Albums of 2025” | Burning Ambulance, “Year-End Roundup” | Thurston Moore, “350 Best Records of 2025” | Chris Monsen, “Year End Picks” | Free Jazz Collective, “Top Albums of 2025” | Sun 13, “Top 50 Albums of 2025” | Treble Zine, “25 Best Experimental Albums of 2025”

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OsamaSon – Psykotic (Atlantic, Oct 10)

The hype level could not have been higher when OsamaSon’s long-awaited follow-up to Flex Musix, Jumpout, finally dropped in January of this year—and the disappointment level also could not have been higher. So I spent the year looping his past releases once again, latching onto the few underground collaborations he put out (which had some gems; “Shitshow” off his short tape with xaviersobased might be the song of the year) and hoping that the major label curse hadn’t claimed his creativity. And the hope was worth it, because Psykotic is the breakthrough full-length its predecessor purported to be. It delivers a hammer blow in the rage distortion war with opener “Habits,” the thumping beat cranked and compressed to buzzsaw register. Despite some minor pacing issues, the tracklist offers pretty much everything, from bangers to ballads and everything in between. Hoping for a CD release soon.

Sachiko M – Sounds from M (Party Perfect!!!, Oct 17)

Looking back to Sine Wave Solo at Ftarri 2022, that material foreshadowed the direction Matsubara would take for her first studio album in nearly two decades. After so many years of honing her craft on one of the most stripped-down musical setups possible, she’s arrived at a mode of free improvisation that subverts the practice’s already nebulous idioms—or, more accurately, doesn’t care to acknowledge them at all. The single session that comprises Sounds from M is more analogous to sketches, or even breaths. She plays a sustained tone here, lets it fall back into silence, works up a crystalline flurry of clicks and bleeps, harps on a stutter, more silence before a fade-in… nothing seems to lead anywhere, and yet everything leads to something. 

Jae Stephens – Total Sellout (Def Jam, Nov 14)

If the 2010s was the era of soulful 90s R&B diva revival, then naturally the 2020s is all about dance-pop girl group nostalgia. Last year FLO’s hit-heavy ACCESS ALL AREAS made it onto the list, so it’s appropriate that the trend continues with Jae Stephens and Total Sellout. I debated including it with the compilations since it’s more of a collection of EPs than a proper debut album, but more than half of the songs were released in 2025, so here it is. Even working with the team of songwriters typical for a major label release, Stephens still manages to define her voice. The tunes are tight and impossibly catchy, the slinky “Precious” especially (it’s still stuck in my head as I write this). True to the aforementioned roots, the choreography doesn’t disappoint either—check out the music video for “Afterbody.”

Robert Fuchs – C.O.T.H. (Usagi, Apr 15)

Even though I didn’t put it on the midyear list, C.O.T.H. has stuck with me the way few other recent noise releases have. It feels like the logical conclusion that all the Robert Fuchs material thus far has been leading toward. Here Dean Fazzino’s minimal toolkit achieves its most maximal results, each part of the suite its own world of constrained tension. The logic at work is both singular and familiar: feedback teeters over a shallow abyss in drones and loops, threatening to boil over but remaining enclosed in its sketchy shapes. The elusive, intimate “09/23/1999” is a sleeper that took time to show its hand, but now it’s my favorite track. Original review

Jackzebra – Above & Beyond (626company, Feb 14)

Above & Beyond snuck up on me. I was immediately impressed by how well-structured it was for an hour-long, 34-track tape, but maybe it was too much all at once. And then I kept coming back. Now I’m convinced this is the Chengdu-based underground MC’s best work, an indulgent yet consistent showcase of stellar instrumentals and (based on what translation apps give me, at least) his most thoughtful lyrics, both personal and political. A clear standout is “狗叫” (“Dog Barking”), which features an unforgettable vocal performance that underscores why people are so drawn to and obsessive over this music: the bleeding heart it wears right on its sleeve.

Iris Our – Victual Vittle Bottle Cunt (Recital, Oct 31)

This debut CD from Iris Our has only been out for a couple months, but I already can’t imagine it leaving rotation anytime soon. It also begs inclusion here because the pastel cover art by Maggie Fitzpatrick is some real 2025 shit. I said plenty about the poetic aspects in my review, so now I’m inclined to emphasize just how detailed and immersive it sounds. Each component is precisely placed and inseparable from the whole, and every listen reveals new secrets. The shifting stereo image of “The Columns of Echo’s Lymphatic Library” and the dense, muggy layers of “Unshaped Murmuration” are mesmerizing through both headphones and speakers. Original review

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Scathing – Venomous Blossoms / Carnivorous Blooms (self-released, Feb 28)

By far my most-played tape this year. It’s already too easy to listen to a great C10 over and over—another recent example that I picked up after last year’s lists is Terror Mirage’s Piquer—but especially when the material is structured with precise momentum and dynamics. After so many times through, the anticipation of the blasts and breaks to come is just as energizing as the surprise of first hearing them. It’s also a compact overview of the Scathing arsenal: unyielding sheets of high-pitched squalling feedback, raw vocal attack, swirling texture-mash that lulls and then lashes. The sweet spot between meatier stuff like Fever Land Phantasmagoria and the fast-paced assault of his live sets. Original review

Sawn Half – Sea of the End (French Market Press, Apr 27)

Sawn Half is a project that has been recommended several times since the Sink CD came out on Flag Day last year. While I dug the textures at work on that one and Faults, something wasn’t clicking all the way. Then I gripped Sea of the End and suddenly I understood. Maybe it’s a brand new direction, maybe the mud of magnetic tape was the missing piece, but in any case I love this shit. “Pressure” and “Collapse” are two heavy, hulking slabs of slow-paced harsh that sounds like the earth itself crumbling away. It revels in the thick crunch but knows when to rise out and build tension before plunging back in. Crank the volume as loud as you can, then even louder—this one needs to be felt.

Mouths Agape – Verrückt (Bent Window, May 2)

Verrückt is a tape I’ve thought a lot about this year, but words tend to fail when I sit down to write about it. This time I find myself looking at the artwork, which shows the planning sketches for the titular waterslide and a yellow triangular caution sign with a graphic of a crying child. The minimal design is still about as close as we can get to such an unspeakable event. We can read testimony, pore over documents, even visit the place where it happened, but only ever at a profound remove from what took place. Mouths Agape engages not just with the horror of the incident but also the horror of our futile fascination with it. The music is a queasy but intentional weave of analog and digital: the body and the metal, death and its recreation.

Helena – Bilbao MMXXIII (Blu-Rei, Dec 19)

Last-minute gems like this are the reason I wait until the actual end of the year to compile my lists. Helena is the trio of Spanish improvisers Clara Lai (keys), Àlex Reviriego (bass), and Vasco Trilla (drums), who have played together previously and subsequently in various combinations. In December 2023 they convened to perform loose compositions by Reviriego in a quiet, careful chamber-style configuration. The mood is placid and pensive, each of the three musicians hanging on each other’s considered tones, anticipating the right moments to meet in fragile harmony. The performance is wonderful, but the humble audience recording is what really makes this tape special. Every creak, every cough is audible, erasing the partition between music and space Skylark Quartet–style.

Agitant Group – Manipulated Feedback for Tape 2025 (Head Meat, Nov 12)

I can’t name explicit links in the stylistic lineage that led to this tape without revealing my hypothesis of who “A.H.” and “C.M.” are, but anyone who’s been keeping up will pick up on the radical, almost diagnostic distillation of harsh feedback techniques explored here. It’s a lovely surprise from the Head Meat catalog, which has previously featured some of the most active direct-action noise of the past few years. That’s not to say that these two movements are stagnant. The only point of reference I can think of is Sissy Spacek’s CD Slow Move and its use of  to create a hypnotic illusion of contrastive but coexistent speeds. Each side hits with a boom, almost like a wall but with so much, so little movement.

Dictée Magique (Un je-ne-sais-quoi, Oct 24)

This self-titled cassette by the aptly named Dictée Magique, the duo of DJ **** and Nils, could be considered a sonorist survey of the French language. Both lengthy sides are surreal mishmashes of an expansive collection of talking records, mixed together with an array of four turntables. Stripped of their origins, the words and utterances—and, later on, even some notes—stand alone in themselves and together in the collage, forming new contexts and conversations as they collide, clash, and overlap. RIYL the humor and roundabout musicality of Martin Tétreault’s Snipettes!

Pink Thistle – False Memory (Hibernian Leather, Sep 5)

It was such a relief to find Pink Thistle this year, just when I was realizing how little new wall I was coming across. Alan Doyle’s new project doesn’t exactly push any boundaries, but his execution and vision are so distinct that “wanting more” is the last thing that comes to mind. The False Memory 2xCS is my favorite of the many tapes and CD-Rs he put out this year, a four-part odyssey from thick crunch to spectral hiss. The tracks are static structurally but not somatically; there’s always a real human presence, especially in part II when you can hear the noise roar into existence after a second or two of dead air.

Sick Days – Dress Entire (Vacancy, Jun 16)

Any Sick Days release is a world inside a world. Jeffrey Sinibaldi zooms into the nebulous zones between everyday interactions in nature—the rain and the surfaces it hits, the air and the sound it carries—and takes his time capturing the elusive complexity within. Dress Entire is an excellent place to start if you haven’t heard his work before. Its slow pace and intoxicating humidity welcome new ears like a hothouse on a cold day, and once you stay long enough you’ll see the cracks in everything and how the water heals them. Original review

FUXIT – Shine in the House mix (GLARC, Jul 25)

There are some moments on Shine in the House that want you to dance. There are also some that just want you to cackle in disbelief. It’s at its best when it does both at once, such as right at the beginning, when Cali Cartier’s Elmocore masterpiece “Fastlane” transitions into a bumping synth-bagpipe track by self-described “Celtronica” act Stinky Ocean Kelpie. This is the kind of mix I love, one that no one other than this specific DJ would ever think to make, where the choices are so absurd that they come back around to making perfect sense. The Overstimulation Age’s answer to DJ Pica Pica Pica.

Deep Grey – Lifestyle Determines Deathstyle (Focus Media, Aug 10)

A serious contender for Most Unserious Offender, Deep Grey has been making waves in the godforsaken tundra of Canada and beyond with his tools for transcendence, netting such prestigious back-cover blurbs as “Sounds sorta like Expressway Yo-Yo Dieting rocking a Knox Mitchell rig.” Though devoid of the excessive samples that made Self-Healing Transformation Seminar so memorable, Lifestyle Determines Deathstyle is just as scatterbrained, a knob-twiddler’s dream. It’s paced like a sketchbook, throwing shit at the wall and not even looking to see what sticks, yet comes across surprisingly put-together.

Hewn – Tendency (self-released, Jun 22)

Tendency is the perfect soundtrack to a slow, bitter winter. I didn’t realize that during the summer when I first heard it, even though I already liked it. I even made the mistake of thinking it was warm, cozy even. But as December set in and the frigid winds and ice arrived, Hewn’s true essence revealed itself. There are two sets of initials credited, implying the project is a duo, which comes through in the many delicate layers of sluggish tape shuffle, wistful drones, and shadowy field recordings. The coldness isn’t total, mind you, and there are some beautiful albeit fleeting bits of sunlight streaked throughout. Frail but nonetheless flesh-and-blood ambient.

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un poco fría (Yakima)

The name of the game for un poco fría is abundance—of quality, of quantity, of diversity. Despite only having been in operation since September of last year, the catalog has already swelled to a whopping thirty-six tapes, with no repeated artists other than owner/operator Ķæ P. Rujhaan. I mentioned upf in the previous list because of its association with fellow Washington state dilettantes Yeast Culture, and that influence certainly shows through in Rujhaan’s work and many of the releases, but a wide curatorial net extends to noise and power electronics both stateside and beyond (Dead Door Unit, Woods Mattress, Awenydd), formal field recording and sound art (Éric La Casa), improvised music (Ted Byrnes, P Wits), and things even less classifiable (Ezio Piermattei, Chana Levanah). Rujhaan also pays homage to the greats beyond just YC, reissuing material by Jeph Jerman and Francisco López. It’s hard to keep up with everything, but that’s far from the worst problem to have.

Head Meat (unknown location)

On the surface, Head Meat might seem like a rehash of tired trends in classic US noise: anonymous operations (though if you follow the clues, it’s not hard to identify the culprit), high-contrast xerox layouts, blown-out deck-minced masters, etc. There’s some truth to that observation, and it might be more of a downside if every single one of these tapes weren’t absolute fire—the Ants in the Afterbirth self-titled, Outdoor Horse Shrine’s Water Course, and the Executionists’ The Gerry Commission are handily some of the best harsh of the decade so far—but this most recent batch makes clear there’s more at play than just nostalgia-bait rippage. I still haven’t gotten my hands on the Erik Nystrand tape, but the Ants follow-up Privy to a Great Becoming and the Agitant Group debut are both excellent. I’ll have more to say about the latter in a forthcoming list, so stay tuned.

ETAT (Vienna)

Running a digital-only label is ostensibly easier than a physical one because you don’t have to deal with the headache of duplication, printing, shipping, etc. But it also presents unique challenges, one of which is the struggle of making file downloads feel as distinct and special as tangible objects. Thanks to a beautiful website and thoughtful liner notes, each of ETAT’s releases is indisputably an event. The imprint is curated by Austrian composer Stefan Juster and is perhaps best known for their presentation of Florian Hecker’s 51-hour Syn As Tex [AC] back in 2021, they had a modest but fruitful 2025, with works by both new and established figures in process/computer music: Two Weeks, a collaboration between Juster and RM Francis (see my review), Stefan Maier, and Ryu Hankil.

presses précaires (Montréal)

Run by sound artist Anne-F Jacques, presses précaires has been a reliable source for forward-thinking abstract music on cassette for half a decade now, with a varied output that straddles the border between the DIY and academic spheres. 2025’s showing was particularly strong, with impressive tapes by Bárbara González, Sun Yizhou and Tom Soloveitzik, Gudinni Cortina, and W K Werkowicz and Zheng Hao, as well as a.hop, a remote correspondence ensemble project led by Jacques herself. All releases from this year are available from Tobira.

Clangor Tapes (Cincinnati)

For those who may not know, I grew up in Cincinnati. It was where I first got into noise, so even though I’m elsewhere now it’s great to see new things happening in the scene I still have so much love for. Clangor is run by Black Corolla members Zach Collins and Lauryn Jones, originally an outlet for their own projects (Apple Cottage, Gangstalker, Otra Vez) but now expanded beyond that with a tape by the superb NYC project Mouths Agape. The Black Corolla / Slacking Lonely God C30 was my favorite split of the year (see my review). Several releases are available direct as well as from Torn Light, another Cincy-area institution now based in Chicago.

Discreet Archive (Wales)

The house style for Discreet Archive releases is simple: artist name and album title, recording date and locations, equipment used, all listed out in basic sans-serif type on a grey background. This is not to indicate homogeneity of the material (in any case the exact opposite is true), but rather to emphasize the neutrality of the platform and let the sounds speak for themselves. Following a modest schedule since opening in 2022 until 2024, the Wales initiative kicked into high gear this year. My personal highlights were the documents by Narval and Hello Spiral. In addition to music, they also sell custom instruments and specialized microphones such as the friction idiophone and the earthphone.

Malevolent Relics (Albuquerque)

In ABQ it seems that the noise, metal, and dungeon synth scenes form a loose triple Venn diagram, and right at the center of it is Malevolent Relics, a label/distro that produces and stocks the best of each. Though ops are currently on pause, 2025 saw the release of the Skafrenningur 3xCS box (see my review), V/A compilation Upon the Return of All Radiant Creatures (which features a wide range of artists, from forest droner Desiccated Hemlock to neighboring noise maniac Ineffable Slime), and two raw black metal demos by Vuajtje and Mazeofith. MRR also produces their own slim zine and stocks issues of others, including Untitled and Mortar.

Pube Provisional Society (Calgary)

Pube Provisional (don’t ask) is dedicated to the symbiotic faiths of green hue (I said don’t ask) and good old fashioned harsh noise. Home to Kale Van Reekum’s flagship moniker Met Glas and his duo with cofounder Jack Sinclaire, Pube, the Society plucks the best and brightest from around the globe: Peking Crash Team, Gemengung, Vincent Dallas. Though they only dropped one three tape batch this year, it was a heater, with top-shelf stuff from Snake Oil Merchants (international triple threat of Dallas+Geseling+Sisto Rossi), Outdoor Horse Shrine, and fellow Great White Norther Wasauksing Sniper. Also of note are the one-of-a-kind editions they hand-craft for the artists.

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Heat Signature – Trench Trapped (Input Error, Apr 18)

Heat Signature’s set at this year’s Ende Tymes was the best one I’ve seen them play, and one of the best I’ve seen anyone play. Trench Trapped, released both on CD and as a mud-caked, bamboo-staked special edition cassette, captures the ferocious energy of the duo’s live attack through the cracked, dirty scope of hand-stitched tape assemblage. This approach continues the loose-strung structural inclinations of their last tape, Wired for Intrusion, once again plundering scrap metal sources from Ahlzagailzehguh as well as gunfire by infamous Texas noise fixture Keith Brewer and a collaboration with Diaphragmatic.

Xang – Watch Over My Body (self-released, Mar 6)

Abbreviated on Soundcloud as WOMB, Maryland-based MC Xang’s first proper solo full-length deals in nocturnal atmosphere so thick and dark that it can feel claustrophobic at times. But at others it’s as open and limitless as the night sky itself, unfurling into the shadows like a blooming violet. The rapper’s dense low-register flows twist and tumble over a diverse set of beats, from the layered bliss of opener and clear highlight “Turkey” to the obtuse minimalism of “Paid.” Though quite brief, Watch Over My Body integrates the best of Xang’s scattered singles and collabs into an exciting mission statement for his career to come.

Darksmith – Everybody Thinks This Is a Joke (Useful Artists, May)

One of my personal highlights of 2025 so far was hosting the NYC date of the Great Men & Grateful Pawnbrokers tour, which was the first time Bay Area underground legend Darksmith played in the city. The Everybody Thinks This Is a Joke 2×7” was distributed via mail-order postcard at the merch table, which also became the release cover when the record set came in the mail a few weeks later. The four side-long pieces are, appropriately, some of Darksmith’s most heavily turntable-based work yet, graverobbing both beauty and horror from empty grooves and stretched-out samples.

Lucy Bedroque – Unmusique (deadAir, May 16)

The convergence of many different stylistic strands in trap music is what makes Unmusique unforgettable: rage, digicore, bop revival, etc. Every song is stuffed with countless bells and whistles, pulsing polychromatic club synths and triumphant autotune and glitches and melodies and joy. Even though it has more mass appeal than Lucy Bedroque’s previous releases, it’s definitely still weird, which is always a winning combo. Anyone who questions the creativity or artistry of so-called “mumble rap” need look no further for proof that this new generation of rappers and producers are pioneering an invigorating, life-affirming, decidedly new music.

PinkPantheress – Fancy That (Warner, May 9)

PinkPantheress is an artist I’ve always wanted to like but never quite gotten there with—until Fancy That. Starting strong with “Illegal” and the memorable line “My name is Pink and I’m really glad to meet you,” the short mixtape bounces along a rainbow of UK electronic flavors. The whole twenty-minute run time is nonstop hits, but favorites include the infectious reverb-washed bob of TikTok-dance hit “Tonight” and the propulsive, charmingly naïve love anthem “Romeo.” Easily the most replayable thing of the year so far.

Mouths Agape – Verrückt (Bent Window, May 2)

Power electronics has always been a tradition interested in extreme, uncomfortable subject matter, but with that comes the tendency to exploit rather than actually examine. Mouths Agape gets it right with this single-sided C20, digging into the unsayable horror surrounding the titular waterslide and its decapitation of a ten-year-old rider in 2016. On the surface, Verrückt seems like a departure from the project’s deeply personal previous work like The Twitching Clot, but the piece is strangely just as introspective as it is voyeuristic, wrestling with the visceral humanity of a so-called “senseless tragedy.” There’s actually a whole lot of sense to it, but no one wants to—or should—stare long enough to see it.

TDK – ZHVK (self-released, Mar 7)

Everyone to whom I’ve recommended ZHVK has responded with some variation of “that’s fucked up” (complimentary). I first encountered TDK’s cursed, angular prog when I heard the track “Avtomontyora” off their 2023 LP Nemesta. This new EP takes things in a similar direction while adding some hints of hardcore; “Zhiveya v Kanalizatsiyata” (“I Live in the Sewers”) kicks off with what might have been a slamming breakdown before it fell off its hinges and turned inside out. Vocalist Nikola Nikolov is as terrifying as ever, ranting and raving sweat-soaked horror stories over the dizzying instrumentals. The end of “Burkana s Heroin” is one of the quintet’s highest highs yet, the lyrics and the music both ascending (or descending?) to horrific catharsis.

Rie Mitsutake – Across the Water Mirror (self-released, Feb 1)

Chandelier, released under the alias Miko back in 2010, is one of my favorite singer-songwriter records ever. Other than a tape Rie Mitsutake did as Soft Candy in 2014, Across the Water Mirror is the first material she’s released since, and it was worth the wait. As befits an eponymous debut, the record feels much more direct and personal, each song based on intimate voice-and-piano performances with minimal effects and post-production. When new layers emerge they are always well-earned; the droning strings in “Rendezvous” will bring you to tears. As diaphanous and sun-dappled as the surface of a garden pool, Mitsutake’s meditations ripple far beyond her own heart and right into ours.

Looking ahead to 2025, I’d love to finally follow through on making this site more collaborative. If you want to write a review or feature or scene/show report, make a mix, do an interview, whatever, hit me up.

As always, thank you for reading. All the love.

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Mamaleek – Vida Blue (The Flenser, Aug 9)

Shocking, I know. It’s hard to conceive of Mamaleek putting out a bad album at this point, but it’s still surprising that they manage to knock it out of the park every time. That phrase has specific relevance to Vida Blue, named for the legendary pitcher of the Oakland A’s who died in May of last year. It’s an album haunted by loss: of Blue, of the team, and of band member Eric Alan Livingston. In characteristically cryptic fashion, Mamaleek explores these voids via lurching grooves, dissonant jazz-rock noodling, and wounded moans drenched with pain. It’s pitch-dark and achingly sad, loose and meandering and unsure in a way the previous two records weren’t—which makes the brief flashes of hope, like in the sublime diptych of “Hatful of Rain” and “Legion of Bottom Deck Dwellers,” all the more affecting. Every single time I listen to this album it gets better.

Fatboi Sharif & Roper Williams – Something About Shirley (POW, Feb 14)

A holdover from my mid-year list; in a year of darkness, confusion, and violence, Something About Shirley continued to be terrifyingly felicitous. Everything that Jersey MC Fatboi Sharif released this year was great, but none remained in rotation as long as this ten-minute suite, which ended up being one of my most-played tracks of the year. Sharif and producer Roper Williams reach heights only hinted at by their previous collaboration Gandhi Loves Children, weaving a hallucinatory web of horror both concrete and abstract. A landmark achievement in contemporary experimental hip-hop.

Kazumoto Endo – At the Controls (Dada Drumming, Jun 10)

Since it dropped in June, At the Controls has remained the CD I reach for when I need to drown something out. Endo’s genre-defining technique reaches a new pinnacle here, thriving off the freedom afforded by 15-minute track lengths. Self-imposed constraints ensure that each of the three cuts is uniquely eviscerating: “Into” twists and lurches, “At” punctures and pummels, “Out of” loops, loops, and loops some more. This is pretty much as dynamic and exciting as noise can get, and a breathtaking return to form for one of the greatest to ever do it.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Tragedy as Catharsis (No Funeral, Nov 5)

Classic emoviolence is undergoing somewhat of a revival recently. For many bands, though, simply retreading the glory days of canon skramz is not the goal; instead it’s to build upon them, incorporating outside influences and novel creativity to go beyond just paying homage. Vancouver’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead pulls off this tall order on their first LP with more success than most could hope to on their third; the metalcore leanings imbue the anxious songwriting and spiraling riffs with a crushing heaviness that culminates in pit favorite “Ritual Symmetry.”

Action/Discipline – Out of Stasis (self-released, Oct 11)

I was originally going to include this one on the f, but it both presents previously unheard material and—despite being a thrown-together special event release—stands on its own as a cohesive tape. Separated by roughly 700 miles of coast, Stefan Aune and Brad Griggs convene only sparingly to record or perform as Action/Discipline, yet every single time they do something magical happens. Studio tracks “Power-Driven Stimuli” and “Prefrontal Injectors” are packed so dense they burst at the seams, screeching high frequencies piercing through roiling masses of in-the-red harsh; the live cuts are hard-panned duo attack bliss.

Sachiko M – Sine Wave Solo at Ftarri 2022 (Hitorri, Oct 27)

Listening to Sachiko M is always a deeply personal experience. It somehow becomes even more so on this live recording from a concert series a few years ago at Ftarri. Now there’s intimacy not just in the crystalline beauty of the basic sounds she makes her own, but also in the air between the speakers and the audience. It helps that this set, beyond being the first extended solo material she’s released since 2009, is also some of Matsubara’s most whimsical and personal improvising ever. Her radically minimal toolkit has never been merely a concept to explore—it’s also an instrument, one she plays to achieve a familiar goal: making beautiful music.

FLO – ACCESS ALL AREAS (Island, Nov 15)

Cynthia Erivo’s spoken introduction to ACCESS ALL AREAS is not coy about the group’s influences. The London trio of Jorja Douglas, Renée Downer, and Stella Quaresma openly celebrate their girl group lineage and provide a crucial dose of “bad bitch replenishment” with their wonderful debut LP. Everything about it is a step up from their EPs, from the clever songwriting to the overall level of confidence. But what makes this record an instant classic is that these three talented women are clearly having so much fun, an infectious energy that elevates already excellent pop songs like “Walk Like This” and “Nocturnal” to new heights. And if you aren’t watching the music videos and live performances, get on it. The choreography will take you right back to 2001.

Granite City Recordings (Gathering Wool, Dec 15)

The self-titled C92 from this new “collaborative sound project” is a sublime example of assemblage as artistic expression. Compiler Jaci Peterson presents two side-long programs consisting of scavenged snippets, YouTube clips, field recordings, and tape experiments that never fail to captivate. Peterson’s unpredictable yet deliberate arrangements sit somewhere between Sensitivity Training and Cody Brant’s Found Cassettes series with regard to how much unifying meaning one is inclined to find; various thematic threads emerge, but the most universal concern is with the joy of making our presence known, whether through music or storytelling or simply making noise, any possibility of failure be damned.

Melt-Banana – 3+5 (A-Zap, Aug 23)

Seeing Melt-Banana live was one of the highlights of my year. Being there with so many fellow fans also reminded me of the immense impact their three decades of innovation has made in the underground community. 3+5 isn’t their best record, but it might be their prettiest, and that’s what I needed this year. Fusing the disparate punk and pop dispositions that made Zero a thrilling but rocky ride, sugar-dusted anthems like opener “Code” and “Scar” are adrenaline shots straight into the vein. And it’s hard to imagine a more fitting closer than the glitched-out fairy ring that is “Seeds.”

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The Rest

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Outdoor Horse Shrine / Heat Signature C30 (self-released, July)

There are a modest handful of reasons why I’m proud to be from southwest Ohio, and one of the biggest is its noise history. These two projects both originated in the Cincinnati/Dayton area and represent some of the best that contemporary US harsh noise has to offer. Heat Signature need no introduction; their half of this summer tour cassette captures the gestural, white-hot speed of their live sets, a chain-fed onslaught of (un)controlled combustion. The real surprise here is Outdoor Horse Shrine, whose churning transmission surges forth with minimal effects but maximal intensity (a high standard continued on the spectacular Water Course). Listen here

Wolf Creek / Casa di Caccia C38 (Second Sleep, May 9)

At this point I will buy absolutely anything that contains new Wolf Creek material. The Tokyo duo consists of two young musicians who synthesize what we all love most about four glorious decades of eardrum-splitting Japanoise. “Glock Burst Cock” is easily my favorite thing they’ve recorded, and its screeching feedback abuse and vocal mangling sounds like magic on this well-produced tape. It’s one of two Second Sleep splits this year that feature Casa di Caccia (label honcho Matteo Castro’s project with Gianluca Herbertson), and their contribution is a worthy comedown from the violence of the A side, almost pensive in its improvisational agility.

Brain Tourniquet / Deliriant Nerve 7″ (Iron Lung, Jun 28)

Two titans of the D.C. hardcore scene (both anchored by the breakneck drumming of Aidan Angelo) face off on this skull-denting 7″, which sees each band even further embracing their no-frills, classic sound. This is definitely the best Brain Tourniquet has ever sounded; they kick both the speed and heaviness into higher gear, ripping through ten miniatures of brutal knuckle-dragging powerviolence. It’s tough to follow, but Deliriant Nerve brings their A-game as well, delivering their tightest and most satisfying songs yet. Sometimes it’s better to smash the wheel than to reinvent it.

Dressing / Standard Grey C50 (Buried in slag and debris., Dec 20)

A lot of the material on Buried in slag and debris. lives up to the label’s name in some way, but perhaps none so much as this transcontinental split from kindred reel-wranglers Dressing (Dublin) and Standard Grey (Nara). Both artists’ sides deal in sublime detritus of all kinds and could easily be standalone releases in their own right. Dressing balances swirling shard-storms of tape noise with haunted, uneasy harmony, while Grey glides through a focused suite of carefully reworked field recordings. The mud piled up to the doorjamb, the loam under your fingernails that you can’t bring yourself to wash out.

RHYTHMICSHIT / CIRCUITERROR – B.O.N.K. (Karma Detonation, Oct 14)

A C10 is always refreshing, especially a split, which gives each artist an imperative to compress their best ideas and execution into five minutes (or fewer). RHYTHMICSHIT, the Shanghai duo of Junky (Torturing Nurse) and Huang Lei, does this by default; the live set they contribute is just over four minutes and I honestly can’t imagine it being any longer. Another newer project, CIRCUITERROR, ditches the drums but not the aggression with a clusterfuck of crunchy cracked electronics. I love a good contrast between sides, and that plus the brevity makes this one compulsively replayable.

Gemengung / Barrera C60 (Marbre Negre, Sep 15)

Gemengung has always flirted with static structures since the project began, with releases like Forced Collapse and Root Bound favoring thick, layered distortion and subtle development over fast-paced dynamics. But “Devoured by the Understory” is arguably his first straight-up wall track, and it’s glorious. Listen through speakers if you can. Meanwhile, Barrera delivers a characteristically subversive half-hour of no-input stutter. It’s overshadowed a bit by the monster of an A side, but it holds its own well enough. My favorite of the three lovely Gemengung splits we were treated to this year.

Red Boiling Springs / Snail Male C22 (Crooked Branch, Mar 22)

Crooked Branch Collections never disappoints, and their modest two releases this year are no exception. This cassette marks Snail Male’s second split appearance on the label and the first recordings by Red Boiling Springs, a project that was on my radar before I even started publishing reviews, in almost four years. The two artists bring very different but strangely complementary ideas to the table. RBS offers up some interesting “noise by other means,” none of the individual elements overtly abrasive but kicking up quite a racket in combined form. Snail Male’s tracks aim to capture the vulnerable horror of alien abductions, hallucinatory bump and thump that reminds me of Free Magic Show.

Diskord / Atvm – Bipolarities (Transcending Obscurity, Jul 12)

This was a last-minute addition recommended by a friend, and as a chronic DM skeptic I honestly expected to hate it… but something about the general absurdity of Bipolarities just works for me. Diskord is a band that’s been doing this art-damaged tech death sound for more than two decades, and that longevity comes through in how fluid their tracks sound. I enjoy how it almost sounds closer to improvisation than careful composition. Atvm have only been around for a few years, but they’re already evolving; they really embrace the silliness here, from the deranged cowbell groove that kicks off “Cancer” to the dance-circle jam midway through “Morphine.” It’s depressing to be confronted with the state of extreme metal consumerism—in case you were wondering, you can purchase gym shorts, a tote bag, or a coffee mug branded with the album artwork—but at least I have this ridiculous music to distract me.

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Charles Gayle, Milford Graves & William Parker – WEBO (Black Editions, Jun 21)

The last installment in Black Editions’ Milford Graves archival series, Children of the Forest with Arthur Doyle and Hugh Glover, was a shoo-in for inclusion on this list last year. But WEBO is truly on another level, a three-LP box that immortalizes some of the best free music ever performed (and accompanied by an interpretive live-painted cover by Jeff Schlanger). Echoing the incendiary brilliance of Gayle’s titanic Knitting Factory quartet material and the psychic interplay of Parker’s legendary In Order to Survive band, these recordings capture the three wizards at the height of their powers, complete with wholesome stage banter and an appropriately enthusiastic crowd. One of my most-played albums this year.

MC Money & Gangsta Gold – Da Hard ov Frayser remastered LP (Now-Again, Oct 15)

With all of the nostalgic Memphis reissues and unearthings in recent years from Snubnoze, Trill Hill, L.A. Club Resource, and others, it was probably only a matter of time before my favorite tape got the modern recognition it deserves. But that didn’t make it any less of a surprise when I saw the news that MC Money and Gangsta Gold’s eternal Da “Hard” on Frayser, produced and now licensed by the one and only DJ Sound, was getting a remastered vinyl treatment. Though it doesn’t include the fantastic bonus tracks from the 2006 CD-R release, this LP pressing comes with a booklet and photos that honor some of the most formidable artists of this legendary scene (RIP).

Tobe Hooper & Wayne Bell – The Texas Chain Saw Massacre score (Waxwork, Dec 13)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is an important movie to me for many reasons, but perhaps in largest part because the iconic score was what led me to discover the existence of a curious little thing called noise music. After decades of bootlegs being circulated, the original master tapes finally emerged last year, then lovingly transferred, remixed, and remastered by Wayne Bell himself, just in time for the classic Southern slasher’s fiftieth birthday. It’s almost surreal to hear the creeping industrial soundscapes without dialogue still enmeshed in the recordings. What a time to be alive a walking pile of meat.

Ezio Piermattei – Gran trotto remastered LP (Holidays, Dec 20)

I love everything Piermattei puts out, but Gran trotto surpassed his already high standard and steadily settled into masterpiece status. First released as a humble limited CD-R on Chocolate Monk, these naturalistic audio-diary entries and their easygoing openness were perhaps always meant to find their fullest life on wax. The sounds and the way they amble through spaces both defined and surreal are timeless (even beyond, as Ed Pinsent notes, the fact that no “modern” noises are present); a reissue three decades on would feel just as welcome.

OVMN – Hard Driven Resonance pro CS reissue (Advaita, Jul 27)

No one can understate the importance of mainline Macro to the noise genre, but for me personally it’s always been the various auxiliary mutations that have gotten the most play time. OVMN (Optimum Volume Maximum Noise) was/is the side project that blurs the lines the most; the personnel for Hard Driven Resonance—first released in an aluminum-wrapped, extremely limited promo edition in 1996—simply consists of core members Roemer and Stella, but for whatever reason this bloated, loose-strung, sweat-soaked, fiercely unserious slab of harsh scratches an itch that Crack or Grind don’t. Kudos to Advaita for some great work recently.

OsamaSon (as Lil O) – Leaks Tape vols. 1 & 2 (self-released, Dec 13)

Part of the double-edged sword of musical success is the risk of losing control, whether legal or creative, of your own art. Even with seemingly nonstop leaks and label fuckery (as well as a brutal dox), OsamaSon always manages to come out on top. Despite the rollout of his highly anticipated upcoming record Jumpout being delayed as a result of these dramas, 2024 was a great year for the young MC, culminating with the surprise drop of these two leaked track roundups. The first volume is better than most official full-length albums by other rappers (“My Bad” and “Hope” are standouts), and the second features the entirety of the fantastic Christian Boultan EP he released under an alias back in May.

Sawako – Sounds (12k, Apr 26)

I know of the late Sawako Kato thanks to both her beloved album Hum (also on 12k) and her spellbinding 2012 live improvisations with hofli, Kazuya Matsumoto, and Yui Onodera. As friend and collaborator Kenneth Kirschner highlights in the poignant eulogy that comprises the release notes for Sounds, a collection of recordings she sent to him in 2003, Kato was enamored with the small, delicate, near-silent whispers that glimmer at the jagged edges of the noise of life. These colorful miniatures express appreciation for both the former and the latter, as well as the elusive connections between them. A fitting swan song for a force gone too soon.

Hingst – Ska vi älska så ska vi älska till Wall Riders (AAD, Apr 9)

Hingst, the Swedish super-duo of Johan Strömvall Hammarstedt and Edvin Norling, have become one of the most reliable sources of satisfying analog crunch-harsh in the mere handful of years they’ve existed. This handsome catchall digipak collects their first three self-released tapes—a self-titled C20, Hingst På Dude Ranch, and Årets Album— for a wider audience. Though their debut CD that also dropped this year was great (see my review), Ska vi älska så ska vi älska till Wall Riders was really what cemented this project as a clear new favorite.

Smell & Quim + Expose Your Eyes – Quasi-modo Cacandi CD reissue (ODMOWA, Jan 13)

The latest in a string of excellent re-releases from these reclusive “exotic audio purveyors,” this collaboration first saw life as a cassette from Stinky Horse Fuck in 1996 and is now available as a six-panel digipak. Originally performed by infamous perverts Smell & Quim, the source recordings underwent merciless “split-stereo abuse” by Expose Your Eyes, who also assisted ODMOWA operator M. Wrzosek in the remastering process. Satisfyingly sleazy and encrusted with grime, it retains its diseased rawness even when imprisoned within the most sterile format.

Teignmouth Electron – You Are Not Alone (adhuman, Apr 26)

I loved this back in the spring when it came out, but the moody paranormal atmosphere only became more fitting as the days shortened and darkness fell. Another meta factor that works in You Are Not Alone’s favor is its archival origin; acts of exhumation occur on multiple levels, from the snaring of errant frequencies from the great beyond to the disinterment of the 25-year-old material itself. Only listen if you have a free shoulder to look over. Original review

I always used to say that if a year seems to be lacking in terms of good new music, I’m just not looking hard enough. But then 2024 happened. I know I’m not the only one who feels like those first five months were slow as hell (with some scattered gems in the rough, of course). Thankfully, things started to pick up in a big way recently—you’ll probably notice that the lion’s share of the releases on this list dropped in June. Let’s hope that trend continues, because I could use the win.

As always, if I’m missing anything, please let me know.

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Kazumoto Endo – At the Controls (Dada Drumming, Jun 10)

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I was a bit skeptical about a new CD from Kazumoto Endo after I didn’t really connect with 2018’s Keiyo. The three fifteen-minute rippers that comprise At the Controls took that skepticism and shredded it to ribbons, reassembled it anew, then pulverized it again. According to his own liner notes, Endo went “back to the basics” to record each masterful slab of piercing harsh, experimenting with variations on a stripped-down methodology: no samples throughout the whole thing, the title track has no loops, “Out of the Controls” has “the most loops ever.” This is the kind of album that reminds you why it’s all worth it.

Fatboi Sharif & Roper Williams – Something About Shirley (POW, Feb 14)

Fatboi Sharif is one of the most captivating underground MCs at the moment. With Decay it felt like he finally distilled his MO into something truly unique, and this year Something About Shirley proved it beyond doubt. This is the third (and best) of Sharif’s collaborations with Roper Williams, a short suite with an atmosphere more terrifying than any I’ve heard in hip-hop. I hesitate to label this “horrorcore” because it feels so far abstracted from the genre’s roots; here the concrete threats of torture and murder are overshadowed by crushing existential dread, with instrumentals so dark and psychedelic they feel like they’re coming from the depths of your own mind.

OsamaSon – Still Slime (self-released, Mar 12)

Charleston’s OsamaSon has been making waves recently with a blown-out rage sound that’s both menacing and melodic. But over the course of his short career he’s tried his hand at countless other styles, and the softer side that he finetuned with Osama Season is my favorite at the moment. Here he teams up with producer boolymon once again for a sequel to last year’s excellent 2 Slime EP, and the outcome is some of the best work either artist has put out. The whole album is infinitely replayable, but “No Smoke” is already a shoe-in for my most-played track this year—and probably the best plugg song I’ve heard.

Bloated Data – The Aesthetic of Death (Minimal Impact, Mar 25)

Though it’s far from the only harsh release with an aesthetic focus on motorsports (for another 2024 example, see Peking Crash Team’s Horns Below Helmet on Pube Provisional Society), The Aesthetic of Death stands out due to its balance of exhilarating noise and thematic sampling. “Engine sounds, commentary and interviews” comprise Bloated Data’s source palette for this tape, and the resulting collages avoid the common trappings of such an approach, gassing up the textural idiosyncrasies with analog nitro. Torque and tragedy, seventh-gear surge, pedals to the metal. Copies are also available in the US from Malevolent Relics.

Stalwart – Blessed (FIM, Jan 25)

Caleb Duval and Luke Rovinsky’s FIM initiative is an exciting development in a burgeoning new improvised music tradition. Though the concert series began over two years ago, the production imprint arm kicked off this past January, and the incendiary irreverence of Blessed acts as a sort of mission statement. Ben Eidson (sax) and James Paul Nadien (drums) join Duval and Rovinsky as Stalwart, and the raucous quartet’s first recorded hour is a feast of clashing timbre, desecrated tonality, and interplay that’s as considered as it is inconsiderate. Original review

Elyanna – WOLEDTO (SALXCO UAM, Apr 12)

Now this is a debut. There’s not a single track on WOLEDTO that fails to get the head bobbing and the feet stepping—especially “Al Sham,” which features a slinky trip hop ayoub beat with a bass line that will make your body move whether you like it or not. Elyanna’s melodies are gleeful and invigorating even as they haunt with taut chromatic tension, and her songwriting matches that energy with stories of heartbreak laced with joy. “Sad in Pali,” unsurprisingly, is a harrowing closer, a poignant meditation on distance, memory, and olive trees.

Global Thermonuclear War – Total Demonstration (Symphony of Destruction, Jun 6)

A vinyl expansion of the band’s first demo with three bonus tracks on the B side, Total Demonstration is Global Thermonuclear War’s official declaration of existence. This is fast and brutal thrashviolence, but one only needs to know that the LP closes with a cover of Aus-Rotten’s “Factory” to tell where the influences lie; a grimy layer of crust and even twinges of classic stenchcore coat the propulsive blasts and churning breakdowns like soot in the furnace. The demo cuts are still killer, but it’s “(Bloodlet) The Aristocrat,” specifically its gloriously filthy midtempo chug bridge, that ends up stealing the show.

Stefan Maier & Michelle Lou – Live at UCSD (Dinzu Artefacts, Jun 7)

These two dedicated practitioners of contemporary computer music (who are also both members of the Party Perfect!!! roster, and apparently good friends) joined forces for a residency at UCSD last year, a fruitful meeting of the minds that yielded this extended improvised session. Though both Maier and Lou are known for their compositional leanings, the instantaneity here is fresh and exciting. The collaborative soundscape grows slowly, the rapport developed during the preparation period allowing for an agile exchange of ideas. Precise crescendos and satisfying catharsis.

Joshua Virtue – Black Box: Joshua Is Dead (Why?, Jun 10)

Alex Singleton’s final album as Joshua Virtue might also be his best. Centered around the ubiquitous but often ignored concepts of death and loss, Black Box directs Singleton’s cutting yet compassionate political lens both inward and outward. From the mercurial overture piece “Box” through incisive sample interludes, intricate lyrics, and some truly great features (including a chilling verse by another MC on this list), it couldn’t be a more fitting sendoff for the project. Thanks for all the music, Joshua.

Nursing Death (Post-Inventor, Apr 5)

With his second(?) self-titled release on Post-Inventor, Nursing Death presents five cuts of his most intense material so far. Not quite pure harsh, not quite pure wall, these tracks combine static hypnosis and dynamic variation in a way that hearkens back to the days when the boundary between the two traditions wasn’t as clearly defined. The caustic masses of “Prednisolone” and “Renal Failure” blasts in shivering waves, its dense weave of distortion cracking and faltering before rushing forth again, as if hands are scrambling at buttons and knobs to keep it afloat. Manual, direct-action wall.

Happy New Year. Thanks so much to anyone who reads, follows, likes, comments, submits, chats, et cetera et cetera. I love you all and wish you the best of the best. I am so much busier now than I once was, but I always make as much time for Noise Not Music as I can because it brings me, and hopefully you, some modicum of happiness, which is so crucial these days. Please keep listening, reading, and learning with me in 2024.

Note: No honorable mentions this time, sorry. Trying to get those formatted correctly has disastrous consequences for my mental health. If you want to see what else I dug this year, check out my Rate Your Music.

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Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS (Geffen, Sep 8)

To many of you this will come as no surprise. But at first, much like SOUR before it, GUTS didn’t make the most significant impression on me the first few times through. The best part about Rodrigo’s music is that the more you listen to it, the better it gets. Now, deep in the winter months, every single song on this impeccably crafted LP hits like a truck as new layers are revealed, new emotions are piqued. There’s a much better flow to the tracklist than its predecessor had, the slow numbers timed just right amidst the generally high energy level, and in fact the best moments of all are when Rodrigo combines her predilections for aughts-indebted electric teen rock and delicate balladry: “Making the Bed”, “Pretty Isn’t Pretty.” Lyrically it’s messy and melodramatic but in a way that pop is sorely missing these days; Rodrigo continues to dig deep into her insecurities and, for better or worse, sings from what she feels rather than what she knows to be true (which makes “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” one of the most unforgettable songs).

Jeromes Dream – The Gray in Between (Iodine, May 5)

It topped my mid-year list and my opinion has not changed since then. The Gray in Between is hands down my favorite thing Jeromes Dream has done in all 25+ years of existence and one of the most compulsively replayable albums of the year. It has a distinct, committed sound that it’s impossible to get enough of: “Conversations: In Time, on Mute” and the razor-edge catharsis of its powerful bridge section begs to be looped; the crushing, faintly major-key 3/4 drive of “The Future of Memory” works its way into your bones; the creeping hints of resolution that tantalize throughout “The Last Water Pearl” taper off into an uncertain end. The tone and production choices are deliberate (and good) enough that the stylistic homogeneity never wears; I have little doubt I’ll still be playing this five years on.

Gemengung – Ruins of Convenience (Mechanical Presence, Aug 20)

I wrote in the previous list about the misconception that good noise, especially good harsh noise, is easy to make. I’ll admit that, at least for a while, it was an I-know-it-when-I-hear-it thing, and that’s why I’m grateful for examples like Ruins of Convenience: of such high quality that when blasted at max volume any ears can appreciate the creativity and talent at work (even if those ears are being covered as their owner begs for mercy). Gemengung has consistently captivated with excellent tapes such as The Indifference of Nature and Forced Collapse, but this cardboard-sleeved CD-R released by Jersey’s Mechanical Presence Records is arguably his first album, a perfectly paced set of nine tracks that are both more active and more focused than anything before, fusing scrap-metal agility with a burning undercurrent of heavy electronics. “Trill” is one of the best things I’ve ever heard; one particular moment is a borderline religious experience.

Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden… (Constellation, Sep 29)

The Coin Coin series has already proven to be an incredible work of art, even though it hasn’t even reached the halfway point of its promised twelve installments. Each entry expands upon that which came before, bringing in new elements and delving into different histories, spreading new ink across Roberts’ sprawling sonic map. Their virtuosic storytelling anchors In the Garden…, the emotional heights and depths channeled into transcendent free sections unified by some of their most evocative sax playing yet (incendiary in “Predestined Confessions”, pensive in “A Caged Dance”) while insight into the central character is set against backdrops as diverse as propulsive jazz-rock, uneasy electronics, and choral hymns. As usual, Roberts executes effortlessly their dual role as bandleader and worldbuilder.

Guido Gamboa – Left-Handed Club (XYZ Editions, Dec 10)

Originating from a broadcast commissioned by the Viennese radio program KUNSTRADIO (which comprises the first of the CD’s two tracks), veteran sound artist Guido Gamboa’s Left-Handed Club is an ambitious and enthralling suite that blurs compendium and collage, interview and interpretation into “a new collective voice.” Featuring the words—transformed by varying levels of digital interference/deconstruction—of left-handed artists across all genres, media, and time periods, both “Left-Handed Club” and its “Addendum” capitalize on the processing methodology Gamboa has been honing over the years in both research-based explorations (Music for Tape and Spectral/Granular Processes) and more thematic assimilations (2018, A Droll). It doesn’t take long for the abstraction to start making sense, for connections to form, ideas to recur…

Éric La Casa & Seijiro Murayama – Supersédure 2 (Swarming, Nov 21)

I’ve been happy to see many others finding the same joy in Supersédure 2 that I do (and also because it definitely deserves the acclaim). It’s one of those rare albums that reminds you why you fell in love with this stuff in the first place, that difficult, inauspicious beauty is often the best kind. La Casa and Marayama each have extensive and impressive discographies, but this specific duo with its compelling symbiotic approach is easily my favorite project of either artist. Supersédure 2 is such a good sequel to the original release because it doesn’t actually concern itself much with being a sequel, instead simply charting new territory in this mostly familiar, occasionally uncanny dimension where observation, improvisation, and composition meet. Original review

HWWAUOCH – Under the Gaze of Dissolution (Amor Fati, Nov 27)

What a silly thought—that a lighter, more gentle production approach would make a HWWAUOCH record any less terrifying. In “Thou Shalt Not Exist,” the first track on the enigmatic entity’s fourth full-length Under the Gaze of Dissolution, warmer guitar work and clearer drums evoke a kind of sickly ecstasy as the vocals wail what could either be nonsense or the primordial truth of the dark, meaningless cosmos in typically disturbing fashion. This current of deranged joy runs through all 38 harrowing minutes, anchored by agile, Lake-esque bass runs (which are also more audible than ever) and a relentless plodding pace. Highlights include double-tracked tritone leads dueling with tortured shrieks on “Anthrophobia”, corrupted opera moans dissolving into ravaged yelps atop furious blasting on “Echoes from a Thousand Dying Worlds”, etc.

Rhino Diaries – Dear Visitors (Ghost City Collective, Jul 3)

I haven’t been able to find much information about Rhino Diaries beyond the basics: Pordenone-based, duo project of Accotica and Zinaida James. But when the music is this good I can weather a little mystery, especially when the songs seem to belong to the shadows of ambiguity anyway. Dear Visitors draws its infectious atmosphere from both heavy, well-mastered instrumentals (full of crushing post-industrial downbeats and halting, dissonant earworms) and the effects-laden vocals, which range from soft croons to dying robot gasps, never breaking out of a deadened apathy that makes this short sophomore release sound utterly apocalyptic, even in its tenderest moments.

Tinashe – BB/ANG3L (Nice Life, Sep 8)

Even though “Treason” is probably the best opener I’ve heard this year, it took a while for BB/ANG3L to grow on me as much as it has, which I think is my fault; for how light and breezy these songs are, their full essences demand a lot more attention than a few cursory listens provide. The production drives the momentum while Tinashe’s voice lulls it, either tempering busy garage trills and trembles (“Talk to Me Nice”, “Tightrope”) or clinging to the very back of the beat to give a more straightforward instrumental double the snap (“Needs”, “Uh Huh”). Though thoroughly nocturnal, the twenty-minute album is good at any time of day, with tunes like “Gravity” opening up a portal to neon-bathed night.

Shitstorm – Only in Dade (ALT MIA / Malokul, Jun 1)

From what I understand they’ve been around since 2006, and yet Miami-based four-piece Shitstorm are just now releasing their debut studio album in 2023. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely—Only in Dade delivers a much-needed adrenaline shot to contemporary grind, ripping through 27 tracks in less than ten minutes in a bass-heavy register that makes each one feel like a jackhammer held flush against your skull. These are no improvised shitcore cuts either; each is tautly composed and carefully sequenced in the track order for maximum punishment. Not even clearing twenty seconds, “Slumlord” and “Bloodclot” are more rewarding and memorable than many songs I’ve heard that are three times that length. The album cover is great, but an alternate choice could’ve been a photo of the drummer’s snare after the recording session—would be just as violent and chaotic.