…Close to a century ago Virginia Woolf captured duration and sensation in flux in her 1928 novel Orlando in a line Sunik Kim quotes in an essay accompanying her new album, Formenverwandler: “An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length; on the other hand, an hour may be accurately represented on the timepiece of the mind by one second”.
As Kim’s essay explains, Formenverwandler seeks to explore perceptions of time and memory. Spread across two CDs and close to two hours, the album sees dazzling irruptions of electronics test the limits of how much information and variation can be stretched across or condensed into units of time. Where long-form compositions…
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Setting aside initial plans for a second chapter of THE HARP, 
Now 20 years since the start of the project, 
After forming the band as teens in 2013 and putting out four albums by the turn of the decade, Boston indie rock trio Vundabar enjoyed a second wind when their six-year-old single “Alien Blues” went viral on social platforms in 2021. With new fans in tow, the group bolstered their engaging mix of surf/garage rock, post-punk, and angular indie rock with more electronics on the next year’s Devil for the Fire LP.
H.R. Giger (1940-2014) was a surrealist artist known most for his design of the xenomorph from the Alien films and a number of album covers and related artwork for Magma, Emerson, Lake, & Palmer, Celtic Frost, and the Dead Kennedys. A Giger insert in the latter’s Frankenchrist album was the subject of a criminal lawsuit, where members of the Kennedys and several other parties were alleged to have contributed to “distribution of harmful matter to minors” due to the sexual nature of the artwork. The trial ended in acquittal, with the judge recognizing that the piece had at least some artistic merit. This publicity probably led to more people (including teenagers) becoming aware of Giger’s psychosexual works.
Concord Music Group reissue 
The Environment series originally began as an archive of previously unreleased recordings but Environment Five features thirteen all new songs recorded in the first half of 2014. It includes appearances from Daniel Pemberton (BAFTA nominated / Ivor Novello winning composer), Raven Bush (Syd Arthur) and Riz Maslen (Neotropic).
Released on handsome red splatter vinyl for its 45th birthday, the 1981 debut by Edinburgh’s finest has lost none of its ferocity with the passing of time and is as divisive now as it was back then. A vital, hardcore-infused re-statement of the uncompromising principles of 1977 or the retrograde acme of cliched and cartoonish punk? Neither point of view is without its merits.
On Spun, their first full-length release since 2021’s 
For 
“Hypnosis Tapes” opens with a vacuum cleaner played in reverse — an inside joke, apparently — before the fuzzy guitars and humming synths layer in, stacking blips and pockets of sound until you realize you’ve stopped paying attention to anything else. Mute Swan named the opening track appropriately. It immediately puts you into a trance.
Quiet Fire is the first 
Saputjiji, the new album from 
…featuring four exclusive bonus songs.