DiS gets sent an awful lot of mail and, try as we may, we can't find the words to write at length about everything. So, each week (or thereabouts) from now until someone doesn't deliver their copy on time, we'll attempt to rush you through a heap of things we've been sent or been listening to.

To kick things off, Alexander Tudor listens to a wobbly stack of things.

Andrew Broder, Experts, Specialists / Suture / Unqualified (self-released)

A few years back, as Fog, Andrew Broder was a peripheral figure in the Anticon / Big Dada scene – comprised of over-educated white rappers, and lo-fi musicians influenced by hiphop. Collaborating with Yoni Wolf (AKA Why?) on Hymie’s Basement, he showed himself more than capable of churning out tunes, and Why?’s own second album (Alopecia) was one of last year’s best. In the spirit of NIN’s instrumental deluge, Ghosts, Broder’s now released 6 albums of noise, to download for free. Having trawled through three of them, you’d be well advised to save your disk-space… but keep listening to his kosher releases. (3 / 10)

Elfin Saddle, Ringing for the Begin Again (Constellation)

Those magic words, "Recorded and mixed by Efrim Menuck at Thee Mighty Hotel2Tango" may not guarantee the once-in-a-generation greatness that they used to, when GYBE! put out their first two-and-a-half albums, but they’ve become a reliable shorthand for some kind of punk chamber-orchestra, rather like ‘Recorded in Cold Storage’ did, back in the early-80s. Here, vocal duties are split between Emi Honda (uke, drums, accordion, singing saw), and Jordan McKenzie (guitar, accordion, drums, banjo xylophone). The net effect is everything you hope it would be: kids with toy instruments playing at being Godspeed! in their treehouse. The best tracks (‘The Bringer’, ‘Sakura’) hint at the same tension GYBE! did, although it’s not the world that’s going to collapse, it’s parents hammering on the door for you to stop that racket. (7 / 10)

Kadman, Sing to me Slower

Full dislosure: these chaps flattered me by sending this along, right in the middle of Slowcore Week, describing themselves as "Slowcore-influenced". (FYI: flattery gets you a listen, but not necessarily a review - that would be quality.) Indeed, Kadman sound somewhat like Codeine and the Kadane Brothers (i.e. Bedhead / New Years); reference "math", "gasoline", "misery", and "fear"; a song's called 'New Year's Day'; the artwork's vintage 4AD / Red House Painters. Admittedly, the music doesn't depart much from country-tinged slowcore, and for all the worldweariness of the vocals, lacks the emotional equivalent of a strong counter-melody (in Bedhead: absurdist humour; in RHP, weird bursts of falsetto). Add it all up, and you get Willard Grant Conspiracy, without the same depth of (soul-wrenching) pain and the AA-stripes. Still, the whole point of Slowcore Week (which can be found here) was to celebrate bands that developed slowly, in the shadows of grunge. Kadman are aiming high with their influences, and the best of their crescendoes ('Diesel', 'Raise the Curtain'). Best of luck, y'all... (7 / 10)

Kap Bambino, Blacklist (Because)

Wow… a Crystal Castles tribute band already! As part of Shoegaze Week (which can be found here), I spent some time asking guitarists what the formula is for the genuinely inventive bands, and those with f/x pedals built a few years after the fact. A similar exercise could apply here: reverse-engineering aside, Crystal Castles are a psychical mess; a Suicide for the Noughties, right down to the self-mutilation and living in squats. Kap Bambino (pictured above), on the other hand, are the sum of their pre-sets. (6 / 10)

Lay Low, Farewell Good Night’s Sleep (Nettwerk)

How many Scandinavian bluegrass singers are there going to be?! Alongside Ane Brun and Hanne Haukkelberg, this is starting to look like a movement. Guess it must be something to do with the long nights drawing you to “the music of pain”, and the long vowels making accents an irrelevance. Whereas Ane’s records transcend the genre with some solid string arrangements, and stunning harmonies, Lay Low lacks a hook as yet, beyond the basic one (that she’s an Icelandic Bluegrass singer). Worth a listen, though. (6 / 10)

Led Bib, Sensible Shoes (Cuneiform)

SKRONK. SKRONK. SKRONKETY-SKRONK-SKRONK. You like? Live, this kind of raw jazz can be great fun, but on record, you need a wailing hoodoo man of a vocalist (like James Chance), or a new hook (see, for instance, the savage avant-metal of Zu) to cross over to those of us grown up with prog and post-punk. This, then, stays in the musical ghetto. (5 / 10)

Leo Abrahams, The Unrest Cure (Canderblinks)

Ghastly sub-Jools Holland music from jack-of-all-trades session guitarist – if your feelings for KT Tunstall (who guests here) previously ran to indifference, this could push you to full-on contempt. (2 / 10)

Leo Abrahams, December Songs (Canderblinks)

More soft-rock instrumentals from session guitarist with sterling CV… but not a memorable lick of his own. (3 / 10)

Loren Connors, The Curse of Midnight Mary (Family Vineyard)

This record comes with a story more titillating than the entire Jandek back catalogue: young Loren recorded these rickety blues improvisations in a graveyard, at midnight, by a grave (photographed on the sleeve) that held a ghoul that should have killed him. He then mislaid the tapes for 30 years. Good, eh? Problem is, whilst Loren’s made some gorgeous free music that more than justifies his place in the canon (see, for instance, Sails, which sounds a lot like the OST for Boys Don’t Cry), it would be far more fun to make your own version of this (up in Highgate Cemetery, say) than to actually listen to it. Points for guessing which one’s ‘Amazing Grace’. (4 / 10)

Moondog, More Moondog (Honest Jon’s Records)

The legend of Moondog has been told many times – blinded in childhood; built his own instruments in adulthood; dressed like a Viking; appeared in Dylan’s Don’t Look Back film; namechecked by every obscurist who ever tried to trump you “Yes, but have you heard this…?” To recreate this record, walk along Southbank from the RFH to the Tate, listening out for the flautist who balances on one leg, the milkbottle, bucket, and jar percussionists, as well as the general rhythmic clatter of the city. If you’ve already got Songs in the Key of Z, the musical companion to Irwin Chusid’s excellent book about Outsider Music, then you’ve already got this record’s best moment: where Moondog intones his Odin-like wisdom; that we are all one, and equally beautiful to a blind man. (6 / 10)

Mt St Helens Vietnam Band, Mt St Helens Vietnam Band (Dead Oceans)

MSHVB are widdley-twiddley psych-pop (Shins, Elf Power, Olivia Tremor Control) with a dash of Walkmen thrown into the mix, especially on ‘Masquerade’, where the guitars sound furiously garagey and the vocals very Hamilton Leithauser between handclaps and barbershop harmonies. This is bit of a problem, because OTC and Jonathan Fire*Eater remain two of my favourite lost bands, and any similarities draw attention to lyrical shortcomings. This is promising – if they rein in the guitar-noodling, and tighten up the rhythm section, they could make something pretty – for now, it’s too incoherent to fulfil its ambitions. (6 / 10)

Slumberwood, Yawling Night Songs (A Silent Place)

Now for an Italian noise-collective, citing Nurse with Wound, Coil, Big Star, and This Heat. You know what? All of those show, even Big Star (tracks like ‘Holocaust’ and ‘Kangaroo’, from Sister-Lovers). Mysterious, though, that they didn’t namecheck The Faust Tapes, because the processed warbling, and semi-random axe-work on ‘Galline’ and ‘Il Verme Solitario’ (tracks 2 & 4) is similarly excruciating. Elsewhere, the lo-fi combination of noise and sweet melodies comes close to early Mercury Rev and early Mogwai EPs (tracks 3 & 5). Having been listening to the semi-lost debut from Sigur Ros (Von) it’s easy to feel optimistic about the collective focusing their ambitions. (6 / 10)

The Spolkestra, Open Arms (Transgressive North)

Remember Architecture in Helsinki? When you hear “15-piece Scottish art-pop collective” the Aussie 8-some are bound to be one of the first bands to spring to mind, alongside I’m From Barcelona, Polyphonic Spree. When you’ve got 15 people, chances are there’s going to be a horn-section, a string-section, male/female vocals, lots of ideas about weird alleys for the songs to go down, and a certain amount of psychedelic cacophony. It goes with the territory, right? As it happens, AIH are a good reference point for the best moments, here. Problem is, the only time I ever heard AIH (after buying it on Plan B’s recommendation) was in Hennes’ children’s section, and rather than The Beatles’ Pepperland, or OTC’s Cubist Castle… that’s where it takes me back. (5 / 10)

Thomas Truax, Songs from the Films of David Lynch (Psycho Teddy)

Great premise... for a compilation, or a Spotify playlist (God knows how much Lynch soundtracks are changing hands for these days). For all his Lynchian tendencies – building instruments with names like The Hornicator – the question is whether Truax can get inside these songs? Surprisingly, Truax comes closest on ‘Blue Velvet’ (given that it’s a delicate, crooning number), but doesn’t have the range to get inside many of the others that depend on stunning vocal performances – he avoids the signature falsetto on the chorus of ‘Wicked Game’ and lacks the pouting sexuality of Beck on 'Black Tambourine'. Nonetheless, ‘I’m Deranged’ works without Eno-isms, and it’s the one song that you might return to in its own right. As you’d expect from a Harry Partsch style instrument-builder, Truax generally aims at a budget Tom Waits and often suffers from the comparison. All in all – nice idea – but may I suggest that Truax finds himself a female vocalist for a sister album, that would bring together the Julee Cruise songs? (6 / 10)

Wildcatting, How to Survive a Sneak Attack (Loco Gnosis)

Apparently King Crimson are alive and well in Michigan. Track after track, Wildcatting strive to recreate the majesty of ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’, seemingly unaware that Slint put a 90s spin on their jazz-inflected hard-rock. (5 / 10)

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