Tim Arndt is back with another album on n5MD. L'Eixample is immediately a more mature, focused, and detail-oriented design. The title (Catalan for "extension") refers to a Spanish district in Barcelona, and indeed draws on impressions and inspirations on Arndt's latest travels to Spain. The production employs a composition of subdued tones and light beats that moves even further into the realm of melodic, atmospheric, and ambient IDM. Arndt lays down the foundation of swirling, reversed and reverberated pads, adding micro programmed rhythms sprinkled with gentle, glitchy, and fuzzy digital errors, all wrapped with an emotional theme of warm melodies, and an occasional eavesdropped conversation in the background. This is Arndt's third full length, following 2007's Of Soft Construction. Arndt's past experience includes playing guitar and piano for several bands, most notable among them is the Urban Needle project with Steve Mehlman (Pere Ubu) and Mark Gamiere (The Wake). I would say that L'Eixample has more texture then Arndt's previous work, improving on creativity, atmospherics and the overall listening experience. L'Eixample is a further extension of Near The Parenthesis unique style and production techniques that have been perfected once again. Excellent music for those tranquil lazy mornings.

It's not enough for Bryan Konietzko to be large. To be enormous. Ginormous suits him better. Extremely digital and artificial in all its glory, the sound of sharp saw waves and crisp percussion cuts right through the trippy hip-hop beats. Listening to At Night, Under Artificial Light, I feel like I am crawling through a neon illuminated passageways under a futuristic city. Beneath the surface of a metal casing, I hear a granular and twisted meow. The animal unfolds itself from underground conduit and hastily escapes on its mechanic legs. Cling, cling. Yet I remain, impeccably, still human. The melodies are dark and harmony is morbid. With every track I swallow prickly copper balls. And as they make their way into my stomach, the ancient medicine for pain begins to work. The beats of Konietzki's third full length on Hymen are punchy and assured (the 2006 double CD on Hymen is actually two albums). Besides producing artificial beats in his studio, Konietzko is also a co-creator and executive producer for Avatar: The Last Airbender, an Emmy award-winning animated television series that lasted three seasons on Nickelodeon!! There's more on Bryan on Wikipedia or IMDB (many will be delighted to learn that he worked as a character designer for Family Guy). It's tough to classify this album. But if I was pressed, I'd file it along my dark, and experimental IDM collection.

Pretty Dark Things is Cyne's second album of the year and companion piece to the recently reviewed Starship Utopia. Cyne's lyrics are certainly heavy on the social commentary here, but it's always done in an intelligent and never a juvenile way. It's not that what Cyne have to say is necessaily new in the rap game, but as other reviewers have said, their earnestness combined with the production make you want to listen to what they have to say. And the production which has always been top notch, is just taken to another level here, incorporating natural instruments into the mix for a blend of vocals and production I don't really think has been done before outside of mixtapes. Cyne's productions have always been top notch, but the instrumental vibe they're exploring here is really quite extraordinary, and I hope more hip-hop producers aren't afraid to explore this sound more. Overall I think this is actually better than Starship Utopia, which I already thought was very good, so that should give you an idea how impressive this album is. A must-have for hip-hop fans, and certainly something I'd recommend everyone give at least a try.

Following the excellent collab album by Prosumer & Murat Tepeli, Ostgut delivers its second showstopping long-player of the year with Shedding the Past, an album that toes the line between Techno and House, with hidden squelchy acid lines, dubby rhythms, and other ingredients to further confound genre distinctions. With all the talk about the resurgences of Move D and Rod Modell over the past year, I'm going to say right now that this album trumps all of that recent work. Shed's obviously synthesized a lot of the history of electronic music here and marries it with some of the trends enveloping dance floors around the globe today to create a surprisingly bright future. 90s ambient techno, acid, and detroit techno mix with 00s minimal and dubstep in an dance floor episode of "will it blend?" I have a feeling this album is a defining statement for techno in 2008, and will be remembered not only as one of the best albums of the year, but as one of the key techno records of this decade.

Blackdown is Martin Clark, famed dubstep blogger for the original Hyperdub.com (now with his own) and contributor of the "The Month in Grime/Dubstep" articles for Pitchfork Media. Dusk is Dan Frampton, his frequent collaborator and DJ partner for Rinse.fm. This is actually the debut album for both, though no two could be considered more veteran of the dubstep scene. Blackdown's music has always had a very transparent Asian influence, and that continues on here, expanding into India with "Kuri Patacka" and "Rolling Raj Deep", the former being the most unique Eastern themed dubstep track since Geiom's "Pheli Nazir". Margins Music, while very varied in its sound, is loosely themed around the melting pot that is London, and Dusk and Blackdown allow vocalists the opportunity to almost steal the show to sell this idea. But the production is just too crisp to ignore. "Con/Fusion" is the epitome of the Asian-themed dubstep Blackdown's explored for years, and the ever-changing beat of "The Bits" flexes so much production muscle, it's almost begging for an instrumental version that isn't clouded by Trim's interesting, if somewhat juvenile, rhymes. With all the variation, there are some missteps (the Durrty Goodz collab is kind of a throwaway), but overall this is an incredibly solid statement from two dubstep stalwarts finally synchronizing their experience for the album format.

Jack Dangers is back! And on Planet Mu out of all the labels (for European distribution; Metropolis picked up the US release). What a perfect fit, seeming that Planet Mu is one of the established labels spearing the evolution of experimental and intelligent flavors of dubstep. Right off the bet, what's amazing is that unlike other classic electronic acts (ok, I'll say Orb and Orbital), Meat Beat Manifesto is _not_ locked into the past. Dangers is fresh with the times, embracing and re-inventing dubstep, as well as excelling in every aspect of the genre! He puts pretenders to shame! Dangers lays it on thick, heavy on the bass, exquisite on the intricate beats, bringing back familiar samples, with production skills of a seasoned master. Autoimmune is MBM's tenth studio album, whose discography spans over two decades of releases on a huge roster of labels, such as Wax Trax!, Elektra, Mute, Nothing, Run Recordings, and Play It Again Sam. For a full profile, history and discography you can reference the lengthy Wikipedia entry. The newcomers should be impressed by a true veteran of electronica. And the longtime fans will not be disappointed.

Exploring the rhythm beyond its regular structure is the main objective in this abstract and experimental album by Kamran Sadeghi, titled Through Thickness. Like little insects beating their wings against an aquarium where rabid fish circle the dying microphone, the sharp frequencies in the swirling noise of clicks is just one image floating to the surface in this harmonically deprived composition. Sadeghi "draws from [the sound's] potential palate of sonic mass, color, and points in space in order to create compositions of aural depth perception and sculptural form." Through Thickness is a first album in Sadeghi's Kha series. Sadeghi explains on his site: "'kha' is an ancient Hindu [Sanskrit] word meaning "emptiness" which was used in early numerical systems to imply space in tabular arrangements, 'zero'". In the digital twist and decomposition of rhythm, that emptiness breathes on its own. The electronic circuitry of sound pulses and twitches in a final dance of death. Sadeghi's curriculum vitae of audio and visual live performances and installations include OkOk Gallery, The Henry Art Gallery and the Decibel Festival. This is my first taste of material from Dragon's Eye Recordings, an independent label out of Seattle, focusing on experimental, textural, ambient, drone and minimalist recordings from an interesting roster of artists, releasing limited edition albums. In that sense, I place it somewhere around Touch, 12k, Sähkö and Raster-Noton. Definitely a label to keep your eye on. For a more musical side of Sadeghi, check out his side project, Son of Rose, with multiple releases on Dragon's Eye.

Slap! What an album... I'm really out of words. Let me attempt. Track one - Valse En Décomposition - baroque organ chords with a low-fi trip-hop beat followed by a bee buzzing turning into glitchy classical piece. Track two - Oesophage De Tourterelle - light piano arpeggios, tremolos and octave scaling progressions turning into insane breakcore. Track three - Putrefiunt - solo monk voice over a flamenco guitar exploding into hardcore death metal cookie-monster mayhem. Or how about 40's gramophone swing laced with gabber? And then there are eight more tracks! I haven't heard such a collection of molded styles before, and it's working... it's working really well! Gautier "Igorrr" Tighten, is a French (unsigned!) producer skillfully experimenting with samples, beats, breaks, and genres. Tighten is also the founder of a speedcore death electro metal/nica project WHOURKR with a single album Naät (self, 2007). Look, I absolutely love Venetian Snares and any crazy juxtaposition of hard styles, but when I happen to venture outside of the leading names, I encounter mostly noise and thoughtless production. Igorrr changes all that. He brings the fun back into breakcore and intelligence into design. Igorrr is a sonic painter who throws nails into aged strawberry jam, lets the slime dribble over your favorite toy, and serves it on a silver plated toilet seat. With a goat shake on the side. Eat it. Moisissure is so fun, you'll be back for more.

One Little Plane is the project of singer/songwriter Kathryn Bint. Her gentle voice covers subdued guitar and gentle percussion, giving you no hint that drum enthusiast Kieran Hebden AKA Four Tet is behind the production. While Kieran adds subtle touches that no doubt add value to this record, what causes this record to be successful is its charm. Kathryn has a vocal delivery that is careless, yet involving, and each songs sounds like a time-honored classic on first listen. I definitely get a 90s feel from the record because of the vocals, even though I can't tie it to a particular influence. Somehow, Until has flown mostly under the radar even with the notable producer and props from Radiohead. Perhaps that's part of the appeal. everything about this record screams hidden gem, yet I could see just about everyone falling in love with it.

Pórhallur Gunnarsson hosts a popular Icelandic talk show, Kastljós. The show is broadcast six nights a week on a national television network. Almost a hundred thousand viewers tune in each night. That's about one-third of the population of Iceland. My hands are cupped around a hot coffee mug; I'm halfway across the globe, sitting in my pajamas, waking up to the latest post on YouTube. In the clip that I'm watching, Gunnarsson opens up with an introduction in Icelandic, a language I don't understand. No matter. The music that follows requires no words. The show cuts to a boy sitting behind a grand piano. He is skinny and wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. Next to him is a string quartet. The camera zooms in on his hands. The boy plays a single melody composed of exactly six notes. In the background there is an echo of digital hiss. After an introduction of four repetitions, the quartet joins in. The accompanying harmony and chord progression is indisputably classical. But at about two minutes, the bass kicks in. The boy in a white T-shirt and jeans is a twenty-one year old Ólafur Arnalds. Born in a suburban Icelandic town, Mosfellsbær, he composes melancholic, emotionally fueled, and undeniably beautiful music. Ólafur studied piano when he was very young. After about a year of lessons, he decided to switch to drums instead. He kept his studies in drums up until two years ago, when he switched over again, this time adding classical theory and composition. Influenced by electronic, post-rock, and modern classical music alike, Arnalds incorporates various stylistic elements into his work. He seamlessly embraces contemporary symphonic composition and instruments but also makes use of electronic instrumentation. After I listened to Arnalds's 2007 debut, Eulogy for Evolution, I wanted to express my feelings and thoughts about it. Majestic, graceful, gorgeous and sublime are words that popped into my mind. But they are meager words when compared to the emotion in that music.