While I don’t actually have the lovely white CD in my hands, I thought I’d talk a bit about World’s amazing and influential music in celebration of their revamped discography compilation out on Dotsmark today. World was a vicious noise-grind trio from the endlessly fruitful creative hub of Osaka, Japan, who recorded and performed with their unique lineup of dual vocalists Hiroshi Zen and Akira Kawabata and drummer Aono Tadahiko. Restricted to a pair of 7″ EPs, splits with YesMeansYes and C*****e Bastards, and some tracks for a few various artist compilations, World’s output is mainly characterized by relentless stop/start blast beats, squalling feedback and crushing distortion, and agonized wordless shrieks. They fills a special place between the semi-improvised amateur chaos of noisecore or “shitcore” music and the compact, composed songs of grindcore, embodying the best elements of both and giving your bones a good rattle while they’re at it. The Dotsmark release, simply titled World, includes everything previously released on Ormolycka’s 2014 Discography release as well as a 1995 demo and two more series of tracks from V/A comps.

Field recorder Jeremy Hegge’s albums are reverent auditory documents of places in nature. Acting as a passive observer, Hegge presents high-fidelity recordings of the harmonies of nature, from cacophonous clusters of animal calls to the soft sounds of moving wind or water. Six Days in Townsville is a collection of eight short pieces collected in and near the eponymous city of Townsville in Queensland, Australia, and explores a wide variety of sounds throughout these areas. As always, Hegge’s recording and mastering is of the highest quality, and the keeping of each element’s original orientation in the stereo range ensures absolute immersion and faithful reconstruction of the space. In addition to his usual interest in the noises made by birds and frogs and the like, Hegge also captures less familiar, more abstract textures, like the syrupy rumbles of “Parched earth, wet” and the low buzz of “Humming dusk, red clouds.” For me, these recordings uncannily portray that tense, electric feeling often present in the warm, dry twilight, like something big is about to happen. Ultimately though, just like physically being in nature, everyone’s relationship with these sounds will be different, and at the very least you can enjoy the vivid sonic environments on a purely superficial level; they’re pretty therapeutic.

Ambient music serves different purposes for different people. Some fall asleep to it, others use it as background music for reading or studying, etc. For me, it fills many needs, and the mark of a great ambient album in my mind is its versatility. Blush, the new tape by Belgian artist | RG |, conceals a myriad of valuable elements within its unassuming, calm atmosphere. It’s certainly music you can drift away to, and makes sure to stay out of your way if some intense thinking is on the docket, but | RG | has ensured that these soft sounds have substance. There’s a distinct tangibility to many of the reverb-drenched drones, implying a musique concrète methodology, and especially in tracks like “Sink Shots” close attention will reveal very physical constructions beneath the clouds of fuzzy ambiance. This long piece is the tape’s strongest, delving the deepest into the harmonies between the corporeal and treated sounds used. Stretches like the middle section make me wish this was explored more in the rest of the album, but it also shows that | RG | is drawing from a very deep pool of material with admirable restraint. This restraint is what makes Blush a much more universally appreciable album, and allows it to complement both distracted activity and focused listening.

I expect a lot from the artists I love, so much so that I am often way too critical of their new creative efforts. And as the lead-up to the release of Ariana Grande’s fourth studio album, Sweetener, began, I went a bit overboard. Despite liking the first single, “No Tears Left to Cry,” a veritable blizzard of complaints would inevitably be uttered whenever Grande was brought up. But I was being ridiculous. Did I think that “The Light Is Coming” was a bad song with bizarre production choices and annoying repetition, and that “God Is a Woman” was overindulgent and had one of the trashiest music videos I’d ever seen? Yes. Was I annoyed that there was to be a song on the new album named after Grande’s latest beau? Yes. Was I completely lying to myself and being melodramatic when I swore to never listen to Sweetener? Absolutely, and I’m glad I was. This record is ambitious, sprawling, and imperfect, but it’s also fantastic. All of my doubts were soothed by the surprisingly well-ordered track list and flow, and I’ve even come around on both of the aforementioned singles. “R.E.M.” and “Sweetener” are new favorites, both instances of the perfect production evolution from the bombastic dance instrumentals of Dangerous Woman to this record’s increased use of electronic music and trap flavors. In my opinion, Sweetener sort of falls apart at the end, with the unneeded “Pete Davidson” and the lengthy closer “Get Well Soon,” but hey, I’ve flip-flopped on basically everything else so who knows how I’ll feel about it in a week. Sweetener is no Dangerous Woman, but I was way too hard on an artist I love and respect when I should have put more faith in her. Thank you Ariana, as always.

Sound experimenters Karl Fousek, Devon Hansen, and Robert Tellier-Craig come together in this trio to create lush electronic soundscapes. After releases on Dinzu Artefacts and Spring Break Tapes over the past two years, their new tape on Never Anything, No Way of Knowing, is a short C30 filled with spacious electroacoustic constructions, the two pieces (it’s uncertain whether the music is composed or improvised) floating and swelling through different combinations of textures. It’s difficult to tell who contributed which sounds, but it’s not difficult to discern that these musicians really understand how to play well with each other; each element enters at the perfect time to complement and be complemented by the others already present. I’ve noticed at least three unifying categories of timbres used: the synthetic and mechanical, the airy and ethereal, and the organic and tactile. This latter group of sounds is probably the most unique characteristic of No Way of Knowing, and includes things resembling anything from footsteps in puddles to the rustling of dewy leaves; an obvious (but gorgeous) contrast to the tape’s more artificial facets.

While solo improvisational albums can be, and often are, great, the true potential of freely played and electroacoustic music is realized when two or more artists work together, exploring the way each individual’s contributions interact and coexist. No label supports this argument better than Erstwhile, whose extensive roster of duo records spans a staggering range of creative combinations. My Trust in You, a new disc from reductionist composer Lucio Capece and tape improviser Marc Baron, employs an ambitious arsenal of textures and elements, making use of everything from environmental recordings to noise-encrusted tape loops to disarming passages without any sound at all. Opening track “Believe in Brutus” begins the record in a disorienting fashion; it is here that Capece’s and Baron’s interplay is at its most whimsical and kinetic, with crackling chunks of sound quickly rising, falling, and fighting against interjections of bird chirps and complete silence. In contrast, “Black soils- museums without statues” begins a movement toward more patient, droning structures. It’s a trend that continues throughout the remainder of the tracks, culminating with centerpiece “Kneel for your psychoacoustic rights,” whose cathartic beauty is an unexpected treat after a roiling start. My Trust in You initially seems to be among the more immediate of Erstwhile’s releases, but soon reveals that many more layers are in need of uncovering.

On Расстояние, Finnish artist Dmitri Zherbin’s new CDr out on Magma Tones, otherworldly collages draw their contents from a vast pool of sound sources. Zherbin harnesses collections of field recordings, tape loops, feedback, acoustic guitar, and what sounds like some circuit bending too. The whole thing doesn’t even reach 21 minutes, but it’s paced well, evolving through varying moods and atmospheres. “Часть 1” begins with a pleasant clip of people talking over a semi-buried melody, a nice natural mix of sounds that stands well on its own. Before long, Zherbin brings rumbling, mechanical electronics into the mix, keeping them mostly in the background and subtly unseating the feeling of comfort that had crept in. Electric wails and clunks conclude the piece, descending into uneasy, tense territory, before “Часть 2” begins and the beauty is back. This is probably the best part of Расстояние, as flitting stereo-spread guitar meanders around a droning circuit tone; really gorgeous stuff. The latter part of this piece and “Часть 3” largely retread territory already explored, which is disappointing considering the release’s short length; but Zherbin also proves they know how to work with and shape these abstract sonic elements.

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.