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THE WIRE'S BEST OF 2014

Eyes down for The Wire's annual selection of the year's best releases

Miseri Lares
*2015 small reprint* On his second solo album and debut full-length for PAN, Valerio Tricoli conjures an atmospheric tension that’s deeply unsettling. The horror and the precision he presents hang in the air, like a piercing scream behind soundpro…
Quixotism
LP edition.Recorded with a multitude of collaborators in Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA, Quixotism presents the fruit of two years of work in the form of a single, LP-length piece in five parts. Oren Ambarchi's work in recent years has evinced…
Primitive And Deadly
Since guitarist Dylan Carlson re-formed Earth in 2003, the one constant has been endless exploration. From the exploded desert-like Americana atmospheres of Hex: Or Printing the Infernal Method right through the Angels of Darkness: Demons of Light se…
Ruins
"Ruins was made in Aljezur, Portugal in 2011 on a residency set up by Galeria Zé dos Bois. I recorded everything there except the last song, which I did at mother's house in 2004. Iʼm still surprised by what I wound up with. It was the first time…
Continuum Unbound
Michael Pisaro's Continuum Unbound is a three CD box set, featuring three individual as well as linked CD-length pieces, each 72 minutes long. 'Kingsnake Grey' is a field recording of sundown in the Congaree National Park in South Carolina. The beaut…
An Air Swept Clean Of All Distance
Stunning!! Davies settles obsessively on tumbling phrases, arpeggios and articulate rhythms, turning them over and over, letting them develop only within strict limits, as though this fine, prolific and adventurous musician is freshly discovering …
Melodies For A Savage Fix
Steve Gunn and Mike Gangloff (Pelt) combine six-and 12-string guitars with gongs, tanpura, singing bowls, shruti box, and banjo fora gorgeous collection of improvised compositions. The two artists took it pretty far off the beaten path for Melodie…
Soused
Restocked. When Sunn O))) first approached Scott Walker about appearing on their 2009 album 'Monoliths and Dimensions', little did they know what it would actually lead to. Four years on, Scott was back with something even more enticing, collabora…
Syro
Massively anticipated new Aphex Twin album (his first studio content in 13 years) triple LP (pre-order) available at the end of the next week In the official press release from the Warp music label, Aphex Twin was described with the following words:…
The Abyss
The Abyss is an epic, dynamic statement that shows the wide range of sound these two esteemed artists are capable of creating. The lengthy list of instruments used, plus the year it took to assemble, gives an indication that there is a grander mod…
Chamber Works 1992 - 2009
Double CD of composer-supervised recordings of 14 chamber pieces by a truly unique and individual voice in contemporary composition. Performed by the UK's leading experimental music ensemble Apartment House, who have championed Crane's music since th…
ma ta ta bi
Akio Suzuki, analapos, stones, wood pieces, nails, hammer, room echo, bottles, etc. Aki Onda, radios, walkmans, amps, tape echo, cymbals, bottles, etc. Initially a 3 hours long performance recorded on June 2013 in an abandoned space, in Brussels. 'So…
Hidden Tapes
Hidden Tapes is composed from old cassette tapes, with addition of some other sources from movies soundtracks and classical or liturgical music extracts which were retrieved in closets. These sound documents were accelerated or slowed down, layered a…
Roadless Travel
LAFMS musician Joseph Hammer creates unparalleled works of tape manipulation. However, as yet there are comparatively few solo albums by this  phenomenal artist. To rectify this situation, Art Into Life has decided to release Roadless Travel, his lat…
Despairs had governed me too long
(Magnus Granberg, Angharad Davies, Toshi Nakamura, Henrik Olsson, Ko Ishikawa, Anna Lindal, John Eriksson, Erik Carlsson, Leo Svensson Sander and Petter Wstberg). Another beautiful extended composition by Magnus Granberg, exquisitely played by an ens…
Place Sub. V.
Active since the mid-1960s, England's AMM have become an icon of the free improvisational movement. In the spring of 2004, due to personal and philosophical disagreements, Keith Rowe suspended his involvement with AMM, an association that went back t…
The Hollow Organ
Luke Younger's Helm returns to PAN with four vital incursions marking his first new material since the sessions that birthed his acclaimed 'Impossible Symmetry' and 'Silencer' releases these last couple of years. Since those releases Younger has b…
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