By Jesse Cataldo

Ḍlek РAbandoned Language РIpecac

Spare but weighty, Dalek’s Abandoned Language is less the sound of the streets than that of the factory behind them, with slow-spun verses spooling out over a dull industrial drone.

Apart from sounding miles away from the flashiness of mainstream rap, Dalek has made a habit of distancing themselves even from the underground, enveloping their sound in layers of gauzy atmospherics that would hardly be expected to befit a hip-hop group. Abandoned Language is just as unusual, starting off with a ten-minute opener that never raises its voice or its tempo. “Bricks Crumble,” beginning with an ominous synth swell and a crawling drum beat, is reminiscient of Liquid Sword,s GZA Genius’ classic 1995 debut, and in fact most of the album skillfully recalls its fog-swathed atmosphere.

This proves to be a mixed blessing, however, as the production wallows in this kind of drone for too long, giving the impression that there’s nothing hiding behind the cloaking mist. “Starved for the Truth” proves otherwise, parting the waters with a hustling electronic beat and wildly bending strings, but overall it’s too little too late. Biting and smart, Abandoned Language is quickly buried by the weight of its own murk…3 STRARS

Rio En Medio – Bride of Dynamite – Gnomonsong Records

Bride of Dynamite, Rio en Medio’s debut, works hard at stretching its ingredients, which unfortunately is less a sign of lean musical economy than a lack of ingredients.

Simply put, the album rests most of its weight on a few basic elements. There’s the voice of Danielle Stech-Homsy, the mind behind most of this, which is angelic, simple and bewitching, sort of a Vashti Bunyan without the bucolic influence. There’s the dream-folk backing, partially the work of Gnomonsong label-head Devendra Banhart, which sends each song tumbling along on lulling waves of astral reverie. Then there’s the lyrics, rustic and beautiful, but in the first case of a problem, also profoundly undercooked. They draw from many sources, from a William Blake poem on “Europe a Prophecy” to a travelogue by Freya Stark on “The Baghdad Merchant’s Son.”

This seems promising, but the actual words prove too few, and the repetition and circularity of their delivery entrench Bride of Dynamite too firmly in the fabric of a dream. The canvas here is too broad, and with too little to latch on to, the album presents itself as a merry-go-round moving too fast to get onto…3 STARS

Marissa Nadler – Bird on the Water – Peacefrog

Placed side by side with Bride of Dynamite, Bird on the Water seems a work of stunning maturity and grace, coherent and condensed in a way the former album never approaches. Nadler’s voice is equally ethereal and unusual, the compositions are spare and unobtrusive, and rather than standing as a crutch, dreaminess only peeks its head in every so often, like sunlight slowly collecting on a carpet. The results are beautiful, marvelously fragile songs that drift slowly along like wayward clouds, massing together to form one of the best albums of the year so far…4.5 STARS