Hey it's been a while since I listed some recommended new CD's so, here's a handful of recent favorites:

1) Aufgehoben - Messidor
The first run out and get right now record of 2007. Finally someone has made a fast-paced, agressive, electro-acoustic improv record. There are points on this thing that get as intense as Lightning Bolt. It's a rusted thicket of barbed wire, rotted wood and you'll love it.




2) Carlos Giffoni - Arrogance
From the first low rumble, Giffoni's improv work on a mono-synthesizer is fierce and unrelenting. It's also full of great sonic detail. It's like Elaine Radigue dropped the spiritual meditation angle, or if Wolf Eyes lost any resemblence to a metal band. It's a killer.

3) Astral Social Club - S/T
Neil Cambell's Astral Social Club is much different beast than his band that he shares membership with Matthew Bower and Richard Youngs, Vibracathedral Orchestra. Though I do enjoy Matthew Bower's various projects (especially Hototogisu) I do think they occasionally lack any kind of surprise. Cambell's Astral Social Club project is completely the opposite, and this release even more so, as it combines and reconoiters many of Astral Social Club's out-of-print CD-R's. It's a drone-fest one one minute, a world music jam another, ambient-electronic and wildly psychedelic another and never feels like a hodge-podge.

4) Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
The slew of reunions over the last three years, across the boards from the avant edge (Throbbing Gristle) to pop (the Police), have predictably had varying degrees of success. There's the top tier, returning with material that stands up to their best quality of work, Mission of Burma, and Wire being a couple examples. The mediocre, such as Big Star and the Stooges (my opinion on the new Stooges album is greatly different from the consensus). The just awful and embarrassing, anyone dig that new New York Dolls? Luckily the new Dinosaur Jr. has them returning to top Bug or You're Living All Over Me form. Their timeless late post punk early grunge mix of Sonic Youth and Husker Du is totally tapped without sounding redundant.

5) Panda Bear - Person Pitch
I got this disc right before I went on a trip and missed all the initial press about it. I expected something along the lines of Panda Bear's Young Prayer. Well, after a few minutes into "Comfy In Nautica" I was totally hooked, and this is just an amazing record. Panda uses every great element of Animal Collective and integrates it with gorgeous Brian Wilson derived pop and delivers a record that has abandoned the normal rock band set-up for much more abstract territory. Highly recommended. This is one of those occasions, where the hype is not only believable, it's accurate.