Blast First Petite US At Juno Download

Review: With recent releases from the likes of industrial post-punk outfits Factory Floor and HTRK, this new release on Blast First Petite comes as something of a change in pace. A 38 minute album in two parts from Yorkshire-born composer and guitarist Michael Chapman, The Resurrection & The Revenge of The Clayton Peacock consists of layers of echoing pulsations, string manipulation and rhythmic neck-knocking to create fresh sounds and effects. Of course the music is much more than simple experimentation - the stark, slate grey sonics paint a bleak picture somewhere in between the cold, windswept landscape of his native Yorkshire and a dystopian future, creating a distinctly cold, damp British type of guitar-based drone music that sits alongside the drier, scorched music of American artists like Sunn O))) and Earth.

Review: Earlier this year, New York-based synthesizer fetishist John Elliot delivered this first instalment of the Outer Space trilogy, a set of decidedly spacey tracks created almost entirely with modular synths. The second instalment, created alongside friends (and fellow synth-cadets) Andrew Veres, Philip Whiteside, Drew McDowall and Adam Miller, offers a far less intense listening experience. "3332", for example, sounds like classic experimental synthesizer ambience - Tangerine Dream with a touch of the Orb, perhaps - given a modern twist. The same could be said about the gorgeous "Vanishing Act", which bubbles away impressively for 12 minutes. Perhaps most impressive of all, though, is the far-out, intergalactic voyage of "Liquid Systems Functions", 25 minutes of starry, soundscape ambience.