archived brainwashed reviews
Severed Heads, “City Slab Horror” (Ink (1985)/Nettwerk (1989)/Medical Records (2014))
Much to my delight, Medical Records has recently reissued two of the arguable jewels of the Severed Heads’ discography: 1983’s Since the Accident and this effort from 1985. Both hail […]
Lawrence English, “Wilderness of Mirrors” (Room40, 2014)
I hate to use the phrase “return to form” to describe this album, as I have enjoyed most of Lawrence English’s divergent recent efforts quite a bit, but Wilderness of […]
Brock Van Wey, “Home” (Echospace, 2014)
Five years ago, this San Francisco DJ/producer released quite a massive, remarkable, and distinctive ambient epic called White Clouds Drift On and On, his first album under his own name. […]
Bremen, “Second Launch” (Blackest Ever Black, 2014)
This sprawling double-album is the second release from this Swedish guitar/organ space-rock duo and it absolutely floored me. Built primarily from improvisations, Bremen largely avoids most of the jamminess, heavy-handedness, […]
Kareem, “The Sky Is Gone But You Are Still Here” (Zhark, 2014)
A lot of excellent music has come from the recent spate of noise musicians turning beat-ward, but there are also a number of comparatively underappreciated and overlooked techno artists like […]
William Basinski, “Melancholia” (Temporary Residence, 2014)
Newly released on vinyl for the first time (now with actual cover art!), this aptly titled 2003 album shares a surprising amount of common ground with last year’s Nocturnes. The […]
The Skull Defekts, “Dances in Dreams of the Known Unknown” Thrill Jockey, 2014)
This latest Daniel Higgs-era full-length is in some ways a logical progression from 2011’s memorable Peer Amid, offering up another healthy dose of muscular avant-rock and bizarre shamanic stream-of consciousness […]
Fennesz, “Bécs” (Editions Mego, 2014)
For reasons that are not immediately apparent to me, Bécs is being billed as the conceptual follow-up to 2001’s landmark Endless Summer. To me, it just sounds like another characteristically […]