I was introduced to Bowery Electric's 1996 album when it spent considerable time in rotation at Florida State's student-run radio station, V89. I spent dozens of hours every week delivering pizzas and especially on late shifts or on the way home, tracks from Beat felt like the perfect accompaniment to my directionless malaise.
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As a compilation, this is a somewhat odd proposition: the first half consists of singles dating back to before the release of 
Irish steel-string guitarist Cian Nugent's fantastic full-length for VHF is his first widely available recording. It recalls a timeless vinyl record with its two side-length pieces—cohesive and complementary, deftly played, rooted in tradition with a modern experimental bent.
This album documents a fascinating yet flawed live collaboration that occurred at a church in Toulouse, France in 2007 where Palestine's eerie and unpredictable pipe organ playing was processed in real-time by Montessuis and his laptop.  The result is a memorably bizarre piece that lies somewhere between complex, oscillating drone and a mad scientist blasting out cacophonous chords in his remote lair on a storm-ravaged precipice. At least, it does until Charlemagne makes the unfortunate decision to start singing.
This album marks the promising debut of Students of Decay's subscription series, which also features artists like Danny Paul Grody, Dani from Celer (Chubby Wolf), and Chihei Hatakeyama.  Aquarelle is not currently as well-known as some of the other artists in the series, but this album should go a long way towards remedying that.  Ryan Potts' work shares some common ground with grit-heavy ambient artists like Tim Hecker, but his unusual combination of sculpted hiss, melody, and organic instrumentation is very much his own.
Fans of underground hip-hop have been eagerly awaiting a release like this for a while, as Clams' distinctive productions have been the backdrop for several of the more beloved songs by the utterly inscrutable "BasedGod," Lil B. Although he self-released a "mixtape" a while back (just reissued on Type), this EP is his first ever batch of songs conceived solely as stand-alone pieces.  There are some clear similarities to his other work, like sultry and slowed-down R&B samples, but Rainforest also boasts an appealingly woozy shoegaze/hypnagogic pop sensibility.  I don't think this effort quite deserves the comparisons to Tim Hecker or the "hottest producer on the planet" hyperbole he's been receiving recently, but it's still pretty damn good.
Steve Roach's 1984 opus Structures from Silence has been a staple of my record collection for ages, but it has been about eight years since I last checked out anything new from him. Although he can sometimes be a bit too earthy for my taste, Destination Beyond shows that Steve has not yet abandoned the spacier side that produced The Magnificent Void, nor have his powers begun to ebb at all. I wish I had been paying more attention, as he seems to be in the midst of a rather fruitful creative period. 
Black to Comm's Marc Richter is an artist that perpetually seems to be on the verge of releasing an absolute masterwork, always creeping closer and closer but never quite nailing it. Alphabet 1968 does not quite buck that trend completely, but it is an oft-brilliant and unforgettable album nonetheless. Richter's impressive artistic evolution is showing no sign of slowing.
On his fourth release for the venerable label, Niblock has produced three large scale compositions, based entirely around the use of stringed instruments. In the process, he brings out the most subtle of harmonics and creates an unraveling tapestry of microscopic change in layers of sound. And a slight Band of Susans reunion.
