Immense non-cyclicality

No doubt basking in the proud glow of having powered into LMYE's highlights of 2008 (well, possibly...), iTAL tEK is emanating love to the world. Not content with sharing a mix of forthcoming tracks via MySpace last month, he's now flipped out a titanic unreleased track. 

Immense & relentless yet floatingly ethereal, Double [zShare] was intended to be part of Cyclical (Planet Mu), "but I decided it didn't quite fit at the last moment". 

A new 'tEK EP to follow this spring, apparently. 

Muffled progress

Contrasting versions of Pan•American's compelling muffled delicacy: Skylight (from Quiet City) & How Much Progress One Makes (from White Bird Music - or White Bird Release, possibly - but due next month in any case...) - both on Kranky

Bonus: a 100-minute Kranky retrospective. 

Tracklisting
1. Labradford "Disremembering" From Prazision
2. Jessamine "Cellophane" From Jessamine
3. Bowery Electric "Long Way Down" From Bowery Electric
4. Magnog "Lost Landing" From Magnog
5. Stars of the Lid "Fucked Up (3:57 AM)" From The Ballasted Orchestra
6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor "The Dead Flag Blues" From F# A# (Infinity)
7. Low "Two-Step" From Secret Name
8. Pan American "K. Luminate" From 360 Business/360 Bypass
9. Windy & Carl "Resolution" From Consciousness
10. Out Hud "Hair Dude, You're Stepping On My Mystique" From S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D.
11. Growing "Pavement Rich in Gold" From The Sky's Run Into the Sea
12. loscil "Lucy Dub" From First Narrows
13. Nudge "Classic Mode" From Cached
14. Tim Hecker "Dungeoneering" From Harmony in Ultraviolet
15. Deerhunter "Like New" From Flourescent Grey
16. Valet "Kehaar" From Naked Acid

Plus: interview. 

Final crank: listen to Jonas Reinhardt's recent debut here - especially the impeccable kraut-out of Worm Preach the Struggling Fire...

Ah, is this not happiness?

The murky, scratchy, hard-hewn beauty of Jan Jelinek's Discrete Machine & Nobukazu Takemura's Der Riss teil zwei (both from The Best of JUNK JET - also hosted at Last.FM, thankfully...). 

Reminded of The Idler feature 'Ah, Is This Not Happiness': I stagger stretched into an unwelcome new day & stumble upon a pair of richly dense, squiggly tracks by two favourite artists, neither previously train-spotted & both free to share. Ah, is this not happiness?

Bonus: a far simpler, but still appealingly subterreanean piece (let's leave the toy dog out of it for now...) from the same source - Kid Fellow's junkset

NB: first photo from Takemura's blog. 

Fish fry

As threatened, more from the sometimes Mushy & often fine Fisk Industries: this lovely, sombre thing (Moieties Part 2, from the EP 77 & Rising), for starters. Also, this almost equally lovely one (Can't Breathe, from The Isle of Wight EP).

Mat Fisk is a mainstay (designer, output fiend) of the part-netlabel Highpoint Lowlife. From his five web releases: a refreshingly clanking kitchen sink Brassica remix of Blood (from Magnetic Fisk Remixes); a subtle, long-unfurling Yard dub of Crowley (ditto); & the sweetly, crisply swirling Shadow (from Triptych).

He's also the spectral Orientalist sort of-dubstepper Kwaidan, or was once: Masaki [excerpt] (from Kwaidan digital 12").

More in this vein, though live & under the FI banner (& without the Japanese mystics), here.

Plaintively monstrous

Plaintive voice (the impolite would say weedy, but that misses out something touching & defiant...) times delectable electro prettiness times a monstrous bass equals Line (also here & here): exemplified by Half-smile from Chinese Room on Uncharted Audio. 

Room also includes a snappy ballad (yes, really) & two muscular remixes from the album it precedes - Hearts, out next month. 

Also in Uncharted territory, tracks from Hard as Snails by Octavcat (MySpace) like Winkle, Apoogiator, Jhumblecloud (the first half, at least) & Little Friends round out their playfulness with - thankfully -  more substance & inventiveness than those jaunty cartoons & the pun-laden*, blue vinyl pressing might suggest.  

* I know. But I'd like to think mine isn't so painful...