The Low Drone of Earth

by Jay Tholen

(2013, Swan City Sounds)

Over the last few years, Jay Tholen has carved out a niche as one of the more intriguing musicians operating on Christendom’s fringes. Like Danielson and Soul-Junk, Tholen’s music is likely to be overlooked and dismissed by many. Which is a shame, because like those aforementioned artists, Tholen’s music is both fascinating in its sheer bizarre-ness and deeply, unashamedly spiritual. Indeed, I daresay the two are intertwined, that Tholen’s musical oddity imbues his songs’ spirituality with added dimension and unique perspective. And if nothing else, it’s often a lot of fun to listen to.

“Fun”, however, is not a word I’d use to describe The Low Drone of Earth, which might be the darkest release in Tholen’s discography to date.

Espers

by 12 Followers/Meteo Xavier

(2012, Dope Records)

Buy It: Bandcamp

Some might be intrigued by Espers because Meteo Xavier lists Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and Steve Hackett among his influences. I, however, was more intrigued that he listed video game and anime composers like Nobuo Uematsu (the Final Fantasy series) and Yuki Kaijura (Sword Art Online, .hack//Sign). There’s certainly something very soundtrack-ish to Espers, which skirts the lines of techno, electronica, and ambient over the course of its eight long tracks. One can easily imagine these songs playing in the background during boss battles, cut scenes, or while exploring the World Map — and I don’t mean that in a bad way at all.

Struck EP

by Rainer Veil

(2013, Modern Love)

Initially, Rainer Veil’s take on downbeat electronic music seems familiar: the 5 songs on this, their Modern Love debut, foray into the same moody, ominous dubstep territory that Burial has mapped out so successfully. (Just listen for the ghostly vocal snippets on “Bala” and “Wade In” to hear what I mean.) However, there’s a spaciousness in Liam Morley and Dan Valentine’s music that allows a few dim rays of light to pierce the clouds and give some color to the EP’s 25 minutes.

I Am The Night

by Perturbator

(2012, Aphasia Records)

Buy It: Bandcamp

Last year, Perturbator — aka James Kent — released Terror 404, an album of delightfully retro synthesizer pop that sounded like the soundtrack to the best ‘80s sci-fi/horror film you never saw… or the very best round of Cyberpunk 2020 that you played back in high school. The album had one of my favorite songs of 2012 (“Savage Streets”). But in my rush to compile my year-end list, though, I completely missed that Perturbator had released an entirely new album, titled I Am The Night.

Life Has Not Finished With Me Yet

by Piano Magic

(2012, Saint Marie Records)

Buy It: Bandcamp

At this point in time, I think I’ve become more excited by the idea of a Piano Magic album than the actual album itself. Glen Johnson et al. have spent the last sixteen years building a career out of maudlin and morose music, but while their despair was once captivating and even invigorating, now it just feels like they’re taking the piss out of folks.

When Ominous Red Sailing Stones Sleep Beneath Fire Rainbows

by Jay Tholen

(2012, Self-Released)

Buy It: Bandcamp

2011’s Vainglory EP was going to be Jay Tholen’s last musical release for awhile so that he could shift his focus to video game development. One of his planned games is The Trembling Bridge, which Tholen postponed until 2014 in order to focus on his primary game project, Dropsy. The Trembling Bridge will be redone entirely, along with its soundtrack, which brings us to When Ominous Red Sailing Stones Sleep Beneath Fire Rainbows.

Soft Wounds

by Songs Of Green Pheasant

(2012, Rusted Rail)

Buy It: Rusted Rail

After 2007’s Gyllyng Street, Songs Of Green Pheasant (aka Duncan Sumpner) disappeared. Which, in hindsight, didn’t seem all that surprising: Sumpner’s dreamy, psych-y folk-pop was so ephemeral that it seemed kind of fitting for him to fade away. But, five years later, Sumpner has returned with a new collection of songs titled Soft Wounds, and it’s as if the intermediate years never happened. Chalk it up to his music’s “unstuck in time” quality.

Flight Takes Thought EP

by Sleep Experiments

(2010, Self-Released)

Buy It: Bandcamp

Lincoln has experienced an incredibly hot summer this year. People often talk of “cabin fever” like it’s a winter-only phenomena, but for those of us who find any temperature over 85 stifling, it’s possible to go batty from being cooped up inside too much while the mercury consistently reaches triple digits. As such, listening to Sleep Experiments’ Flight Takes Thought EP has been a blessing and a curse. The trio consistently conjures up autumn’s chillier climes with their delicate take on ambient dreampop and slowcore (think Low, Ida, Au Revoir Borealis, and especially the late, great Velour 100), and every time I give it a listen, I can barely contain my excitement at the thought of jacket weather in the Star City.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

by Brother Sun, Sister Moon

(2012, Cooper Cult Records)

Buy It: Bandcamp

One of the supreme mysteries and delights of music is how mere sounds can inspire psychological and even physiological reactions. A guitar riff can get our heartbeat racing, a raucous beat can (sub-consciously) set our feet a-tapping, a melodic fragment can bring forth a laugh or two, some tears, and/or a poignant memory. This can be some pretty heady stuff to consider, and no doubt, artists, philosophers, and scientists will likely discuss and debate it ‘til the end of time.

I bring this all up because in the case of Brother Sun, Sister Moon — the duo of Birds of Passage’s Alicia Merz and Roof Light’s Gareth Munday — their hazy aesthetic is an instant nostalgia trigger. It’s difficult for me to listen to these songs and not imagine that I’m listening to music culled, in some fashion, directly from the duo’s long-lost childhood memories.

I don’t want to read too much into their songs, if only because it’s difficult to make out what, exactly, Merz is singing, and yet… the drenching of Merz’s voice and Munday’s arrangements in reverb, echo, and vinyl hiss has the effect of tapping into a deep well of memory, one that comes pouring forth in their songs. Paradoxically, the more distant-sounding, removed, and amorphous the duo makes their music, the more affecting, haunting, and immediate it becomes.

Fin de Siècle

by Northern Valentine

(2012, Silber Records)

Buy It: Silber Records

I’ll be honest: drone music all too often seems like an easy way out for musicians who think they’re creating evocative and entrancing soundscapes with minimal effort. (I call it the “hold the same note for 15 minutes” syndrome.) But when a drone artist gets it right, as Northern Valentine does with Fin de Siècle, such criticisms quickly fall by the wayside as you find yourself drawn further into the vast territories conjured up by their expansive sounds.