New vinyl reissue of this classic recording: Six Organs Of Admittance - the five senses and the soul according to Buddhist mythos - is one Ben Chasny, a west coast American whose droning acoustic psychedelia feels like some kind of missing link between early hippy jams like Tyrannosaurus Rex or The Third Ear Band and the steel-string splendour of guitarists Roy Harper and Robbie Basho. Chasny was previously a member of Plague Lounge whose Wicker Image album, released in 1996, was a fine approximation of the sort of thick air generated by Japan's Fushitsusha but Six Organs Of Admittance work on a more intimate level. The opening “Spirits Abandoned” is glorious, a dramatic slow march led by buzzing, fingerpicked guitar and Chasny's ominously deep vocal. Although the later instrumental stuff feels lighter and more communal, at points giving the nod to Tokyo's Ghost or the fluffier side of Faust, the album's overall atmosphere is lost and elegiac, a bleak postcard from the other side of nowhere. Recommended.

New full-length album from this group that have morphed from an avant rock unit into a uniquely ferocious free metal/thug/biker/prog project featuring Adam Kriney (Owl Xounds) on drums, keyboard and flute, Evan Sobel on electric bass, guitar and harmonium and Ninni Morgia. This is their most self-consciously ‘epic’ outing thus far, with King Crimson (Red-era) styled breakdowns, bass riffs and tempo shreds, almost Slayer-esque bombast and doubled electric guitar leads that come straight out of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. If you like yr prog with a black Vertigo label, a ton of wail and nods to the daffiest metal then get on board. Comes with free MP3 download.

Vinyl upgrade for what was originally a self-released Europe-only CD-R from James Ferraro of The Skaters/Lamborghini Crystal et al. Discovery is packaged as a companion volume to Clear and feels like an extension of the modes first extrapolated there, with hypnotic rhythms driving crystal-complex keyboard patterns through endlessly reflective hall-of-mirrors style sonic environs. The album becomes progressively denser as we approach the second half, with what could almost be a backwards re-staging of Faust’s “Krautrock” fed slowly into the nearest wormhole. Another monster. Comes with a free MP3 download. Highly recommended.