New releases last four weeks: Post Rock/Experimental

Review: Nearly a decade since the Swedish trio's last full-length Casino (2014), brothers Andreas and Johan Berthling, along with Tomas Hallonsten, ease back into the fold with Preludes, a five-track collection that reaffirms their mastery of delicate, genre-blurring soundscapes. Following the promising 'Refrains' 10" in 2023, this new release is a comforting reminder that Tape's signature blend of acoustic instrumentation and electronic processing remains as singular and stirring as ever, as they continue to weave hypnotic textures that feel both ethereal and earthy. 'Opener Lights Out' is a tender folk threnody where repeating guitar patterns create a meditative haze. 'Naukluft Plateau' drifts with ruminative piano over cascading tones, while the brief 'Golden Gain' mixes huffing harmonium and subtle electronic scrums. 'Tangential Thoughts' is quintessential Tape, a dreamy two-chord motif, rustling organ and delicate percussion all evoking wistful reveries. The closing track, 'On The Accordion Bus', sways with glitch-like textures and gentle rhythms, blurring the line between transit and reflection. There's a unique warmth to their balance of melody and abstraction here, reminiscent of Aphex Twin's ambient pop or Susumu Yokota's textural elegance. Praise indeed, but sometimes the quietest returns make the deepest impact.

Review: British conspiracy thriller Utopia follows a group of young adults who, after discovering a mysterious comic book - The Utopia Experiments - embark on a manic quest for corporate restitution and prophetic fulfilment. As a shadowy government organisation detects their plans and resolves to track their every move, we watch an empathic but deadly game of cat-and-mouse; and Cristobal Tapia de Veer's acclaimed score only heightens the tension. This new 2xLP edition includes such instantly recognisable motifs as 'Brainwave Playground', 'Satan's Waltz' and 'The Monarch's Pyramid', capturing the series' eerie and intense atmosphere. The score continues to resonate to this day, following Tapia de Veer's success with The White Lotus and Babygirl.

Review: Brighton-based Australian vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappes shares her fifth album, requiescing ten captive ambient soundscapes, all of which share the aim of integrating dreamsand nightmares, grief and personal empowerment. Through the use of carnal, transcendent cello drones, Trappes explores historical and generational traumas in a chilling piece of gothic experimentalism. In a residential prelude, Trappes trapped herself in Scotland, eking remote studio solitude as a cranny in which to unleash personal demons, exploring and transmuting familial chaos and history. Raw and spiritually charged, the album offers a powerful meditation on loss; its threat, its meaning, and the process of coming to terms with it.

Review: Brighton-based Australian vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Penelope Trappes drops her fifth full length album and invites us on a bare bones, spiritual journey. Making herself incredibly vulnerable in the process, these are the kind of tracks that induce meditative and psychedelic trains of thought, haunting and beautiful, blissful and tense. Cello drones, gothic aesthetics, a king of futurist folk, at least some of the inspiration for which has come from time spent in isolated corners of Scotland. You can almost feel the wind blowing through the room as A Requiem lures and entices, breaks and mends hearts. Ambient, neo-classical, trance inducing works of wonder. This is the kind of record that can help make you see the world for what it is, and realise just how lucky we are to be here at the same time.

Review: London-based Australian vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappe has always made immersive, enveloping and deeply atmospheric that sidesteps convention. It was that uniquely haunting and emotive approach to ambient and electronica that earned her deals with Optimo Music and Houndstooth, amongst others. Now signed to One Little Independent, Trappes has pushed the boat out further on Requiem, a mournful and bittersweet musical meditation in which her distinctively sweet-but-drowsy vocals rise above manipulated cello textures, hushed field recordings, ambient textures and intriguing electronic sounds aplenty. It's bold, beautiful and at times breathtakingly brilliant, once again marking Trappes out as an artist with a genuinely unique musical vision.

Review: Based in New York City, YHWH Nailgun (pronounced "Yahweh") are a newfound experimental noise-rock four-piece who have varied acceptance on what can be deemed "noise". Built around the ludicrous percussive ability of drummer Sam Pickard whose use of rototoms conjures an organic yet mechanistic pulse, warped and compressed guitars collide with an array of synths and electronic elements all infused with the suffocated, ranting, rambling, unhinged shrieking of vocalist Zack Borzone. Their debut full-length 45 Pounds bubbles with a similar art-noise sass-punk quality to very early HEALTH (before they rebooted as the industrial-metal trio they're known as today) yet attempting to still fit in with the likes of The Jesus Lizard or Chat Pile. They don't whatsoever, and they're all the better for it, as these unhinged 21 minutes condense saccharine, bubblegum machinery into some of the most frenetic compositions recorded all year. Just because it can only be described as "noise-rock" doesn't mean it necessarily sounds like noise-rock.

Review: Louisville post-hardcore/noise rock trio Young Widows release their first album in 11 years. This follow-up to 2014's Easy Pain has them land on such mesmerising pummeling form that all is forgiven and forgotten for the long wait for a new album. This dark, heavy, and powerful affair has an industrial, motorik intensity to it on single 'Call Bullshit' and the lyrics don't hold back: "I'm gonna call your bullshit/When it's close to me/I'm gonna call your bullshit/Even when it leaves." Elsewhere, 'The Holy Net' nails it in terms of the bleakest atmosphere you can imagine whilst subtly layering in a haunting vocal hook that stays with you long after you've pressed stop.