When I first reviewed Mr. Bitterness’ self-released Epic Flail, I wrote that “listening to Epic Flail is like listening to the bastard child of Joy Division and Henry Cow.” Yeah, I know it’s a little silly, but after his latest album listening to Destined for Dust, I can definitively say that Mr. Bitterness is the really the long-lost love child of Ian Curtis and Ian McCulloch.

As many of you who read this blog know, I really don’t buy music anymore. I subsist on a diet of Creative Commons music which is put out freely by musicians and curators of netlabels. But Randal Helm aka Mr. Bitterness is a musician who I broke this rule for based on his on the success of Epic Flail and the inordinate amount of time it took Helm to make this record.  As a matter of fact, I plopped down $15 bucks for Destined for Dust without previewing one song. Never fear, this is a “Name Your Price” release, so you can either download it for free or give Helm some of your money. Your choice.

Though Destined for Dust borders more on the synth-pop spectrum than Helm’s previous release, I found the hooks to be refreshing and the lyrics to be original —if anyone can incorporate Ikea in a song successfully without making one cringe then kudos to that guy. Though only 6 tracks, Destined for Dust comes in at 36 minutes and none of his songs flounder under their extended length. My  two favorite songs from my repeated listens are “Destined for Dust” and “Talk to Tracey”, both of which  display Helm’s talents at their best: synth-pop songs filled with English pathos and American disillusionment. I’ll be playing Mr. Bitterness’ Destined for Dust many times over 2012 and will probably be mentioning it in my 2012 best of post.

And a few things that really have nothing to do with the music. First, if you don’t follow Mr. Bitterness on Twitter (@mrbitterness), you should. And lastly,  Manuel Sanchez (www.azzusicart.com) created a new cover for Destined for Dust. I’m sharing it here for anyone who might want to download it. Lastly, do we really have to wait another year and a half for a new Mr. Bitterness album?

Michael Trommer’s Outskirts (Impulsive Habitat) listens to the edges of the city, the depths of its boundaries. Based out of Toronto, Trommer is a sound artist who has also released work on some of the best netlabels around: con-v, test tube, Stasisfield, Audio Gourmet and others. Working with a variety of microphones (contact, hydrophone and induction) in Outskirts, Trommer melds the natural and the man-made worlds to create a soundscape the pops up alive even though so many of its sources are mechanical. One of the interesting aspects of Outskirtsm  is the use of  some infrasonic sound — that is sound below 20 Hz which is the low end of human hearing. The artists suggests in the liner notes that listener wear headphones which, as I experienced, allows a certain amount of pressure to build up on the eardrums to simulate the hearing of infrasonic sound. I know I shouldn’t be surprised that the folks at Impulsive Habitat have put out such another good release, but, damn, the quality of each release is astounding and Trommer’s Outskirts is no exception.

A few days ago, I wrote a post at Uncertain Form the lamented over the lack of women in the Creative Commons Music community. In the article I outlined 3 ways that the community can begin to be more inclusive of women:

1. Lis­tener: Seek out women musi­cians, down­load and lis­ten to their work, and, com­ment on their web­site or archive.org that you like their work.
2. Blog­ger: Search out releases by women musi­cians and review them. I will be attempt­ing to review at least one album a week by women for my blog which means at the end of the year, I would have reviewed work by 52 women musi­cians instead of the pal­try dozen in my first 18 months.
3. Net­la­bel: Release work by women. If you don’t have any queued up, go look for them on Sound­cloud, last.fm and other net­la­bels. Be a cura­tor, not just a pub­lisher. If you release an album a month, shoot for 3 maybe 4 albums by women.

Though I got many nods of heads from various Creative Commons Music community, the response has been tepid to say the least. But as my parents raised me and how I raise my son, I really shouldn’t be worrying about what other people are thinking and doing. I should be concerned about myself.

In some ways it is a put up or shut-up moment for me. So at Acts of Silence I am committing myself to write one review a week of a release that is made by a women or a group that a woman is a significant part of.  For instance, a compilation album that only has one woman featured on it would not make the cut so to speak. I’ve also created a blog category, ccWomen, as a way for readers (and myself) to easily see reviews of work by women.

| The pho­to­graph by teotwawiki is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. |

Sometimes releases from Audition Records get lost on my iPod — a half dozen releases come out at the end of the month and I just don’t get to them as quickly as I should. Luckily, I got to Ademen, a project by Yolanda Uriz Elizalde and Ángel Faraldo in a reasonable about of time. Since 2007, Uriz and Faraldo have been collaborating as Ademen a work that the artists use to showcase their “ever changing views on music, improvisation and art.” The twenty-minute piece showcases the beauty of improvised experimental work with Uriz on the heavily processed flute and Faraldo running other computer processes. Ademen is a lovely example of quiet noises.

There are a dozen or so artists who I can recommend their new work without listening to it. Christropher McFall is one of these. But never fear, I have listened to McFall’s The alpha is strong and amplifying beta on the always interesting netlabel Impulsive Habitat. McFall writes in the liner notes that the pieces that make of The alpha is strong and amplifying beta “were composed primarily from field recordings rendered into digital formats and then subsequently transferred to hydrolyzed tape fragments. The tape fragments were then reassembled into loops and overlayed to form a series of looped multi-track alignments.”

Yeah, I don’t know what hydrolyzed tape fragments are and I don’t know what goes into the making of a Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying either one. The tracks from The alpha is strong and amplifying beta are manipulated field recordings layered depth upon depth; sounds nestled among their unnatural kin to provide an architecture of phonography that we finally hear as music. But as I said in the beginning of this review, me recommending a work by McFall is not really that important, the past work of the artist is recommendation enough. This review is really just a gentle reminder to you to download this McFall’s The alpha is strong and amplifying beta if you haven’t done so already.

I started this review with a video, because, not only does Gurdonark let his music be free for you and I to listen to, but he also allows his music to be used by hundreds of people for videos, commercials, etc. Robert Nunnally aka Gurdonark just gets the power of Creative Commons more that most people, probably more than me. As he writes on the masthead of his blog, “shared music for download and re-use”. Music that is free from constraints.

But enough of the preaching, let me write a little something about his latest album, Weights and Measures on Treetrunk Records. Gurdonark calls his music Weirdbient which probably has to be one of the self-classifications of music I’ve ever heard. What is Weirdbent? It’s melodic without melody, it’s sounds that twist delicately in the Texas winds, it’s the unexpected beauty of misplaced ambience. With Weights and Measures, Gurdonark creates miniature musical fables from the reflection of memories. Gorgeous and bent stuff.

I’ll leave you with the last track from Weights and Measures, “Micrometer”, music that I find just utterly beautiful.

Over the last several years, Argentine Federico Barbino has released many experimental albums. His latest No-flash, Música on the Venezualan netlabel biodata is quite an exceptional work. This full length album — 40+ minutes constitutes a full length record, right? — begins with ever so quiet noise, almost imperceivable in “A David Lamelas”. The three tracks that make up No-flash, Música meld drones with various noises and sometimes these noises become drones and while older drones slowly wither away. While wearing headphones, at times the drones feel like they are applying air pressure akin to one flying in a commercial airplane, your ears almost become numb. The second track, “No flash, Música” has high-pitched tones swirling about other noises and statics are brought into the mix which showcases the composition throughout the album. Track by track, No-flash, Música displays the value of the undying hiss or the trashed tones.

Only two of my top ten picks for 2011 were unreviewed, and, now, today I can say that none are.

I first reviewed Le Berger’s work back in July of last year when all his work was self-released on Bandcamp, all of it quite good I might add. Since that time he’s had a release on Feedback Loop netlabel, . . . On Silence, and another, Cheptel éparpillé, on the new notable Dystimbria. The latter is the subject of this release.

Dystimbria was started late in 2010 by C. Reider, whose work I have review several times on this blog. The concept of Reider’s netlabel is to build a catalog of experimental releases that straddle the space between ambient and noise. But another very interesting twist the Dystimbria is Reider’s insistence that each release though original, must also use samples from previous releases by other artists. Samuel Landry aka Le Berger built Cheptel éparpillé up two other works: C. Reider’s A Stange Seed and mysterybear’s Dysrhytmia. Lowery’s work begins by examining the world of distant static as he slowly adds degrading synths and decaying noises. Though Cheptel éparpillé is an ambient work (though that genre seems so unclear these days), there is an intensity to its sounds and tones.

There were only two albums on my top 10 list that I had failed to review. Here is the first review in my quick catch-up.

Philippe Nore aka NP has only been on the netlabel scene for a shot time, but he has had a impact with several strong releases of which Couleur ASCII is one. The album is bookend with dark ambient tracks, but it is the middle chunk of 12 tracks that I found so extraordinary. These glitchy experimental pieces are filled with noise, snippets of field recordings and other manipulated sounds to make a collage of aural candy. But don’t stop at Colour ASCII, pick up Quinze [review] or any of Nore’s other works. You will not be disappointed.

Simply put,  Wind Spirits (Buddhist on Fire) has CDRX performing soundscapes to which Kecap Tuyul then added guitar, flute and voice. But it’s never that simple as that, is it? The beginning on this hour-long opus, the music builds and builds upon itself, guitar, soundscape, guitar, soundscape. Within Wind Spirits, CDRX and Kecap Tuyul are able to successful combine various field recordings and guitar — plus many other ‘noises’ including work from Mystified and Watzatnoiz — to a work that flows through noise, ambient and drones.