Download links and video after the jump:

http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/download-beko-la-station-radar.html

After releasing a massive witch housey/distorto-pop double disc with AmDiscs at the end of 2010, French digital singles label Beko have teamed up with La Station Radar to bring you an eleven track psychedelic folk/drone compilation to start the year off. The line-up on this is as incredible as the AmDiscs split, featuring names like Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier and his luminous reverie; Terror Bird's lush plucked folk; the angelic hypnotic trance of Gremlynz; the hypnagogic neon fog of Holy Strays; yowling skiffle/skuffle shuffle of Dirty Beaches;…

My top 50 albums of the year list is still work in progress, not the positions, they're all dusted, it's the writing up that is taking the time and it should see the light of day sometime soon – before March this year hopefully! Until then, here's some raw stats to whet your appetite and keep you guessing.

01. Sing and Sign – 615
02. Washed Out - 566
03. Wild Nothing - 548
04. Oneohtrix Point Never - 507
05. Best Coast - 402
06. Twin Shadow - 356
07. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - 329
08. Dream Boat…

Vortex Rikers
Wake Up And Smell The Ashes
AMDISCS

One of the most interesting groups to have emerged from the movement of desolate electronics, Vortex Rikers drop their third release and it's a great one. AMDISCS have offered up another arresting take on a haunting yet mechanically visceral sound, similar to Dream Boat in the bands abilities to really convey a sense of tense atmosphere and cinematic narrative over short spaces of time. ………………..

More words and download links after the jump:

http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/download-vortex-rikers-wake-up-and.html

Hear Hums is an experimental audio-visual group from West Palm Beach, Florida. Following quick on the heels of their debut Notions Shift at Tryptamine Bay they've released another cacophanous swathe of deeply trippy heavily Animal Collective influenced rhythm and noise tracks on their new album, Psyche Cycles, to be released on December 21st through Crash Symbols - the cassette label of Get Off The Coast, Mediafire, or the label's Bandcamp. blog. Generously, they've offered it up for free at both.

More words, DOWNLOAD links and video after the jump:

http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/download-hear-hums-psyche-cycles.html

Stream and download links in the link:

http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/negative-pegasus-for-life-pseudo-nippon.html

Here's two versions of the same song for you, both pretty great in their own ways, and each way being in the opposite direction. Fittingly for a band called Negative Pegasus, the guitars give great whinney, pulled back hard with the bit in their teeth, rearing up kicking out. Heroically poised. They're a two piece from Brighton with four tracks over on their Bandcamp page, each one is a furiously pent up little slice of edgy psych rock that you should check out immediately. Yes it's Christmas Eve, even more reason…

It's not still boxing day, but that's what the thread is called. weekly stats; here y'go.

http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/boxing-day-lastfm-thread.html

On my own in the office the last few days of this week, felt really decadent, gave me loads of time to listen to music and it mostly turned out to be Bedroom Databanks 1-4. Tried to bit of bit of xmas spirit into the mix but I can't do it all day. It is next to IMPOSSIBLE to find good versions of songs unless I'm looking in all the wrong places. Got the Phil Spector album, obvs and Low's Christmas is just…

Download and streaming after the jump:

http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/true-womanhood-grey-man.html

The last song True Womanhood released was called Nite Prowlers and it did just that, slinking along under cover of darkness it flowed along a similar earthen or subterranean track; deviant rhythms twisted and bent off course just as they begin to settle into themselves; a skewed pop sensibility similar to bands like Blank Dogs, Ghost Animal and others proponents of this years evolution in no-fi skuzz and noize…..

Guess this means these are my Christmas number ones; so here's to Hear Hums! Standard Sunday procedure, Last.fm/DiS stats cross pollination:

sixteen shades of last.fm

01. Hear Hums - 66
02. Autre Ne Veut - 49
03. Visionair - 40
04. Golau Glau - 38
05. Kohwi - 36
06. Fujiya & Miyagi - 33
07. Agalloch - 29
08. The Besnard Lakes - 26
09. Braids - 25
10. Mark McGuire - 24
10. Winter Drones – 24

1 – Frenzied percussive out-of-bodying and ambient noise like Here Comes the Indian AC. Free download or cassette in the new…

I am doing a UK Black Metal Week special on my blog, looking at the Britishness of the music being currently produced, and whether there are any unifed themes or scenes going on underneath the favoured media one of Ye Olde Englishe Heathenism. (A: Obvs, yes, and it's here in many forms)

All week I'll be introducing new and critical bands each day, then one more classic from someone who should really need no introduction. I've got interviews with some of the most interesting bands around at the moment, including Cäina, Ghast, Sleeping Peonies, Hateful Abandon, A Forest of Stars,…

Repost from the blog, links & video clip inside the link:

http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/review-isvolt-disaro-compilation.html

ISVOLT - A DISARO Compilation
Robot Elephant Records
ORDER

This is the long-awaited DISARO artists compilation, released on London's Robot Elephant (run by the God Don't Like It guys), and if anyone approaches this thinking it will explain Witch House to them in one sitting, or offer them an easy in to the genre they're going to come out the other side even more confused or worse, more mentally compromised, than when they went in. This is a prism to fracture their preconceptions into seven shades of black…