Ondulation

Clearly, Moebius is a legend & Lifetime Achievement Award-winner - for his work in Cluster & Harmonium, his collaborations with Eno & an epic solo career that's still going strong (he & Roedelius were touring as Cluster just this autumn, I'm mortified to discover from his site...).

Anyway, see a good overview of the great man's output at All Music Guide & check out the satisfyingly throbbing, echoey, spacey Ondulation from 1999's Blotch (buy here).

Not classical

Tim Hecker has been one of my key discoveries of this year. Baffling that it took me so long, but I now see his stuff as some of the most profound, beautiful, mysterious & moving music I know. It's not classical, but it's beatless & pretty abstract. & completely mesmerising.

Best of all is the 2003 masterpiece Radio Amor (read some smart listener reviews - passing over AMG's observation that "The sonic palette Hecker draws from here is strikingly reminiscent of his previous work", as the rest of their piece is decent - & buy here).

Listen to I'm Transmitting Tonight for a taste. But you need to listen to the whole thing to really experience the massive emotional weight Hecker gets out of his material...

&, of course, check out the other albums, including last year's Harmony in Ultraviolet, this year's Norberg & the older Haunt Me, Mirages & My Love is Rotten to the Core: all well worth your time & money (good jumping off point here).

Spin-off/sister

Usually, I like Tarwater a lot less than their spin-off/sister To Rococo Rot. Their music is often pretty interesting, as might be expected, but the lugubrious, Teutonic-speak vocals really don't do much for me.

A Tarwater instrumental would solve that problem, though. & while they seem pretty rare, one is the wonderfully atmospheric, spidery, twanging Yeah! (which has some chanting by way of a chorus, but none of the post-Nico vocalising).

It comes from the 2005 album The Needle Was Travelling (buy here) on morr music.

Computer Centre

New music from Rechenzentrum is always good news. & last month's Silence is no exception - tracks like Paradox, Free From Care & Expeditition Existenz are up there with the best work by this Berlin duo (think that's what & where they are, anyway...).

To hear how good they can be, despite a name that translates as 'Computer Centre' (according to Babel Fish), check out the chugging, swirling, beautifully textured & paced Vertikal from their John Peel Session (2001).

Clicks, washes, squawks, riffs & twangs

I love Kammerflimmer's assurance, their confidence that what jazzy drum 'n' bass really needs is their highly idiosyncratic mixture of clicks, washes, squawks, riffs & twangs over the top of it.

They're right, of course. For proof, take a listen to Lichterloh from 2005's brilliant Absencen (buy here)...