Febuary Releases

These are a few records released this month that I have not heard yet, but am excited to get my hands on.


L'ocelle Mare is the newest project of avant guitarist Thomas Bonvalet, formerly one half of France's excellent Cheval De Frise. After the tray time Frenetic Record's Fresques Sur les Parois Secrètes du Cråne received, it would be a sin not to pick up Thomas's solo record. But if that alone wasn't enough, the tracks provided on his website point towards a braver, more complex, fascinating direction for the classically trained guitar man. I've had tracks "9" and "2" in my head for weeks now, trying to decode the narratives hidden within them. You have to wonder about the writing process that led to these songs, because they seem to grow naturally, as if improvised, but retain a flawlessness and a precision that suggests design. Very impressive.

CD available at Sickroom Records. Plays Chicago on Mar. 1st in store at Permanent Records.



My Disco also releases their second record this month, and based on the tracks provided here, it seems likely to be even stronger than their first. I'm basing this mostly from the tracks "You Came to Me Like A" and "Paradise" which boast an impressive understanding of restraint and minimalism in structure which I thought was long dead. If the rest of the album meets the standard reached in these two tracks, then we're in the runnings for the best of year. My Disco hail from Australia and it doesn't look like they have any immediate plans to visit Chicago or the States which is too bad for us, and too bad for the dying genre.

The new record, Paradise, is available at Stomp Entertainment.