na: electronic (duh)

We got a lot of new arrivals in today and many of them come straight from our electronic distributors. Here’s a sampling of some of the best.

Mountains – Mountains / Sewn

We’ve got in much of the Apestaartje catalogue, which means that we’ve got Mountains! This is the project of the two dudes who run the label and it’s one of the most fertile ambient projects going these days. Sewn is the more song-based of the two, so I tend to favor the self-titled album, which is basically composed of guitar, electronics, and field recordings. For fans of Stars of the Lid, Tim Hecker, White Rainbow, and almost anything on 12k.

Valgeir Sigurðsson – Equilibrium

Do you like Bjork? This is the guy basically responsible for the production on Dancer in the Dark, Vespertine, and Medulla. Here, he’s enlisted plenty of his friends to help him out on his debut solo album, most notably Bonnie “Prince” Billy on “Evolution of Water” and “Kin.” My pick: “Kin.”

Tenniscoats - Tan-Tan Therapy

I’m one of those guys who tends to fall in love with a record for ten minutes and then back off considerably, so please remember that I only started listening to this last evening. That being said: this record is awesome! In some ways, the instrumentation reminds me a lot of Bed’s The Newton Plum that record I mentioned earlier this year as being one of the few heirs to late-period Talk Talk. I’m not sure that completely holds up here and not just because the singer is female and Japanese. I think perhaps a better way of describing it is what might happen if avant-garde musicians tried to play smooth jazz. It’s smooth, sure, but there’s a lot in there to chew on anyway because of the errors in translation. Try: “Oetsu To Kanki No Nanoriuta (Given Song By Sob and Joy).” Cheers to Patrick for turning me on to this.

Kenny Gonzalez – The Best Of Dope Wax Records - “The Dope Stuff”

The best of one-half of Masters at Work production for his own label. To call this essential New York dance music is almost underselling it. I could probably listen to “A Touch of Salsa” all day.

Pluramon - The Monstrous Surplus

Nice! eMusic contributor Mark Richardson loves this guy and so do I. We will have an interview conducted by former Wire editor-in-chief Rob Young up very soon now that this release has hit the site – be on the lookout. Oh. What does the music sound like? 21st century shoegaze. If you’re a fan of Asobi Seksu, you might want to give “Drowning in You” a shot. It features Julee Cruise on vocals.

Popnoname - No Doubt

One of my favorite dance tracks from this past year, even if I keep forgetting to put on the various year-end polls that I’ve contributed to. When it launches into that second section, I kinda get a little woozy.

Chica and the Folder - Under the Folder

I was not much of a fan of this group’s first album, but I’ve reading good things about this one. Probably because Ricardo Villalobos remixed a track. (It’s true, kids, if Ricardo is involved in some way, all techno guys fall in line.) Anyway, since I need to listen today, here’s the Boomkat review:

Taking cues from hazy 80s pop much in the same way as the Junior Boys, Schopf and Loderbauer proceed to inject elements of the connecting 25 years of music - dub techno, minimal, psychedelic folk, experimental, noise - across twelve tracks, and in pure veterans style each track is totally unpredictable. Schopf’s bottomless musical knowledge and Loderbauer’s technical know-how makes for some quite stunning collisions of style ‘Sacrificio’ for example, takes a stuttering vocal and chunky overdriven beat and then introduces some folky acoustic guitar, and ‘Souffle’ manages to take shuffling minimal techno to the Middle East (it just has to be heard!). The inventiveness and imagination lavished across this album in fact puts many to shame, and while the experiments aren’t always 100% successful, it has so much conviction and so much creativity you are prepared to forgive it occasional missteps. Those of you who like your pop music to come from the left, check this without delay…

Barbara Morgenstern - Eine Verabredung

Five instrumentals from everyone’s favorite monotone techno pop songstress. I believe this came out just a little bit after Fjorden, her second album, in 2001.