Faitiche Germany Vinyl & CDs

Review: .Rhetorical Islands was originally pieced together from Giuseppe Ielasi's work for l'Audible Festival in Paris. An event dedicated to pushing forward thinking, mind-expanding, experimental and just plain strange sounds, his efforts certainly fit in with all of those terms. Presented here as ten standalone tracks, all without name and many without the usual elements we expect from a 'track', this first vinyl pressing of the work is really an extension of the original idea, rather than a time capsule of it. "Isolated sound worlds" is the phrase Ielasi used to describe what's happening here, and it's certainly true that the individual parts stand alone and can each be heard as autonomous. But together they also make a strange kind of sense, complementing, almost feeding into each other, even at the most stark juxtaposition. Ultimately, then, it's about interpretation, making what we choose from the ingredients.

Review: Jan Jelinek is never one to present music without an idea behind it. On SEASCAPE - polyptych, he collaborated with Canadian visual artist Clive Holden to create an audio-visual software which, on the surface, feels like the disorientation of being immersed in or moved about by a sizeable body of water. It's subtle and shimmering, threaded with the cosy hum and micro sonic style which Jelinek has made his own, but it of course develops a new resonance when you learn all the sound has been triggered by converting ranting speeches from Captain Ahab in John Huston's 1956 adaptation of Moby Dick. Just very occasionally actual speech noises sneak through, but primarily this is a fragmented, subliminal experience which will satisfy the expectations of Jelinek's fanbase - and indeed anyone who appreciates elegant, minimalist experimentation.

Review: In 2005, Jan Jelinek "pitched" his electronica/kosmische vision to the potent collective fan by way of ten ecosystemically-informed, prepared ambient numbers. Spanning Bibio-esque reversy guitar and sloshing exotica, this one existed for an inordinate period as a digital download, in which much time elapsed until now, its 20th anniversary - at which point we hear it available again, arriving for the first time on vinyl. Modelled on the sonic prototypes of his German rock forbears, this early electronica work from Jelinek amounts to a fearsomely intricate revue, expanding on krautrock's organic textures and unremittingly restless feel.

Review: Jonathan Scherk's new album Toon! explores 12 different and equally complex sound worlds, all with the same brief - that no piece must be more than two minutes long. It makes for an album that moves quickly from one mystery world and eerie mood to the next as the worlds of pluderphonics and sampledelica merge. It is an intriguing listen with smeared synths, lo-fi drones and barely there vocal sounds all coming and going like clouds passing by an airplane window. You'd be hard pushed to hear a more adventurous album than this one this week.

Review: Canadian media artist and musician Mark Templeton appreciates the longer route. His tunes are usually constructed from reel-to-reel tape loops and samples of cassette recordings. He usually accompanies these with published phonebooks, including his own 35mm pictures and images he has found. More often than not, the subject is intangible - the blurred lines between fantasy and reality, for example - and performances incorporate similarly hands-on technologies such as VHS and Super 8 film. On Two Verses, this penchant for what some might term "doing things properly" is heightened. The record is focused on A-B song structures, meaning tracks begin at a point - let's say A, for argument's sake - and wind up at another. For example, B. This juxtaposition creates fascinating opportunities, but what's most interesting is how seamlessly the two sides flow in each instance, combining musique concrete, field recordings, abstract sounds, lo fi acoustic, electronica, and more in a way that feels natural.