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Matmos
The Marriage of True Minds
Thrill Jockey

Baltimore electronic duo Matmos’s album The Marriage of True Minds is both a playful and heady affair. Channeling Kraftwerk, Coil, and Throbbing Gristle, members Drew Daniel and Martin Schmidt employ an impressive array of timbre. If a bit scattered, The True Marriage of Minds proves to be sonically rich and rewarding. At its heart the album is extremely conceptual: Daniel and Schmidt attempted to telepathically transmit the concept of the songs to sensory deprived subjects in another room. Recording the reactions and the mental activity of the subjects onto table and charts, the duo used the results as a form of graphic notation. Daniel and Schmidt avoid being too cerebral by infusing their music with absurdity and humor. Interest in the Occult and theosophy is nothing new amongst the industrial crowd, and The Marriage of True Minds asserts itself, both thematically and stylistically, as part of this rich tradition. – Alec Livaditis


Dan Friel
Total Folklore
Thrill Jockey

Dan Friel’s  Total Folklore pierces the air with its jagged sound waves.  The album opens with the all-instrumental “Ulysses,” a highly experimental piece with a siren-like drone and an array of effects (some of which sound like gunshots blasting away).  After the nearly 13 minute first track, the album proceeds with Dan Friel’s sharp and quick hitting electric musings.  The album is defined by a reverb-laden sound that detonates in polyphonic bursts. “Landslide” pulses with a steady drumbeat, while static-packed effects echo the keyboard melody.  The album also contains three intermission tracks that set up each following section.  The calm “Intermission #3” with its distant alarm sounding prefaces the pounding “Swarm” and the steady-driving “Badlands” that close out the record. – Gabe Cavallaro

Lusine
The Waiting Room
Ghostly International

Lusine sounds like a mix of Purity Ring and Aer. The instrumentation is pretty futuristic, but it has a pretty old school electronic vibe. The beats, riffs and vocals are laid back and the girl’s voice sounds like a mix of Beach House and, again, Purity Ring, but a bit more poppy. The album has hints of reverb, echo and an overall spacey style. The songs are consistently sick the whole way through. – Matthew Rodder
Reviews curated & edited by: JJ Posway