Childhood’s End, by the Croydon, UK producer Kissinger, is the first of a two-part space opera, soundtracking the loss of innocence for a planet, a society, and an individual. It shares its title with a famous sci-fi novel by Arthur C. Clarke, where humanity meets its doom at the hands of an extraterrestrial race that look like the Biblical devil. Kissinger’s record, however, isn’t as bleak or as dystopian as Clarke’s novel, reminding us that growing up needn’t be all bad.

The genre formerly known as post-rock has had a long, convoluted, and troubled history. It was originally used in print by the rock critic Simon Reynolds to describe bands like Talk Talk and Bark Psychosis, who were bringing in elements of less whitebread music – disco, African rhythms, jazz, krautrock, and Jamaican dub — and extending their structures to more widescreen classical formats, and blending them with the primal fury of rock ‘n roll. Post-rock may have also been the last and greatest victim of co-option and conformity (or can at least share that honor with dubstep), before finally succumbing to postmodern dissolution for good. What became of post-rock? Oh-so-serious dudes in black clothes with long band names, mindlessly aping…

A lot has been made of the importance of narrative to any kind of instrumental, or wordless, music. This may hold doubly true for electronic music, which speaks in its own vocabulary and operates in its own paradigm, with its own taboos every full electronic album needs to be some grand, convoluted concept album, like a journey through a body or a soundtrack for a race of amphibious extraterrestrials. Though fascinating, one might argue that this overlooks a producer’s personal journey, as a compelling narrative.  

In a universe consisting of four percent matter and ninety-six percent negative space, absence is the dominant substance. With the right frame of mind, a void can be an endless possibility. Disappears’ fifth album pounds that clay into a sonic metaphor. Gloom is one thing, but seeing darkness — an actual lack of light — in sound seems like a kind of mild strain of synesthesia. Not preposterous, but surely left to the individual perspective, at least. Regardless, listening to Irreal, it’s hard to shake the mental image of all the lights being off in the studio when recording was in process.   At various moments throughout the record, Disappears’ lack of regard for conventional rock structures can sometimes produce…

Modern Surf Classics, by Swami & The Blind Shake, is both authentic and imaginative in its approach while capturing the spirit of the original music and successfully recasting it for the 21st century. The combination of the propulsive and bombastic energy of Minneapolis’ own psych punk combo, The Blind Shake, along with John Reis’ instrumental brilliance, has produced an album that carries the listener forward on a groundswell of pure and brilliant energy.

“Every memory is just a loop. Returning again to places I once was, before, things are never as I remember them. Every home is also a burning house. Loop… and if one could draw this loop differently, then what? Different lengths? Four different lengths? Changes history’s courses – places, people, and events; all of them never were. Could they be made anew with this loop? I doubt it. Is this really happening?” - Dylan Carson, as written by Marcus Popp, Intro to Miscontinuum