On & on

Suddenly, Steven Hess's wondrous 'percussive fog' is all around. Pan American re-issue? Check (& LMYE coverage on its way. No, really...). Cleared debut? Released last week (& with a Digitalis cassette to follow, allegedly). Return of On? One of the 50 albums that particularly mattered to us in 2010. Covering Can? Yup. Turn-of-the-century greenhouse installation? Why, yes, since you ask - that too.

& that's just to scratch this serial collaborator's surface. His forthcoming slate also features new Locrian & Ural Umbo LPs. Haptic probably won't stay quiet either. Fessenden may be gone, but there's been nothing from WORK for a while, nor further encounters with either Greg Davis or Miles Tilmann. & lately Hess has been prone to fill any gaps with solo releases.

'Fog' is Longbox's apt characterisation of Hess's dense ethereality. That's a trick he conjures through a notable, luxuriating spaciousness around his cymbal clatter - heard to compelling effect throughout the rich selection below, but most especially on the mesmerising Tilmann & On pieces.

cleared > cleared (album preview)

Annie Feldmeier Adams with Steven Hess > Requiem

Steven Hess/Miles Tilmann > Cascade

On > A Tardy Admission That The Crisis Is Serious [re-up]

Hauf / Hess/ Jackson / Unterpertinger > Outer Ear Excerpt (via Experimental Sound Studio)

Male > Jungle Boys

WORK > holding / ideal form (from id EP, CONV)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

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...

Marconi microsound

Although it's gone a bit quiet lately, there's an exceptional set of dense, subtle microsound mixes by or involving the fine Marconi Union (MySpace/Wikipedia) & fellow dubby ambientronica Dotca label mates like b:dum b:dum.

One of the best of these is the most recent (though hardly super-fresh, since it dates from last May), Prospector's 7.0 [NB: file is 31MB].

Includes such LMYE favourites as Pan-American, Stars of the Lid & Frank Bretschneider, plus Eno (with Robert Fripp). Also MU themselves & Cliff Martinez (minor drummer legend reinvented as a film composer, responsible for the mesmerising soundtrack to the 2002 remake of Solaris).

[NB: Boomkat claim that Eno asked MU to supervise the remastering of something of his, which is quite a compliment if true... There's certainly some connection since All Saints released the second MU album, Distance.]

7.0 is here for your convenience. 3.0 & 4.0 are also both outstanding. All the Dotca mixes are downloadable here; some tracklistings are given too.

Here's some full-length versions from artists/tracks in 7.0.

Pan American - Wing (from Quiet City)

Stars of the Lid (MySpace) - Broken Harbors, Part 1 (from The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid)

Frank Bretschneider & Taylor Deupree - Interlock (from Balance)

Fripp & Eno (Fripp MySpace) - Meissa (from The Equatorial Stars)

Cliff Martinez (MySpace) - Don't Blow It (from Solaris S/T).

MU - The Contact (from Under Wires and Searchlights)

More Martinez in this wonderful Solaris clip: