CHORA

Ruined Parabola

(Chironex) LP $20.00

A huge seventeen-minute blast kicks off side one with Gamelan-inspired percussion and metallic drones. The rich and expansive sound feels like the scouts of a storm have amassed with invisible bodies among the bones of a weathered shipyard. Warm tones ebb in cycles, while the percussion thins and a strangled horn blasts a Fire-styled cry. Vocals holler at a ghostly distance. Chimes and cymbals are met with thudding, hard wooden knocks. The end draws near with elongated guitar tones that add a sense of arid landscape to what originally feels like a nautical storm. Violent, caustic, organic noise and improvised calamity. Instruments twist and arch in suffocating formations.

LE DRAPEAU NOIR

Le Drapeau Noir

(Chironex) LP $20.00

This dream project of European improvised music -– an octet comprised of members of Hunter Gracchus, Chora, and Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides -- should get Euro-sceptics lathered. Rambling cacophony erupts in big-band formations, with the sound sitting somewhere between various Jooklo projects and the sprawling insanity of The A Band. Multicultural folk influences are strong; East / West primitivism escapes the vacuum of the trivial object, forging live and simmering performances.

SHIGGAJON

Asconema

(Chironex - CR05) LP $23.00

The recordings on this the debut vinyl by the Danish modern free music collective revolving around Nikolai Brix Vartenberg and Mikkel Reher-Langberg were made at the final show of the group's 2009 UK tour. The sound of this nine-man edition of Shiggajon goes in an acoustic and dynamic direction, moving from quiet solo pieces to intense bacchanalia in a matter of moments. The mostly dense and complex music is formally more "traditional" than psychedelic, almost stripped of added effects. The flow of interplay and melody shines through. Edition of 250.