Sun Ark Records

A mysterious bandolier of wrongfoot jungle ingots from Estonia’s most cloaked producer, Ratkiller! Tacky Whack is 5 slugs of over-heated breakbeat explorers, crawling with strange determination, leaving blistered and bewildering rhythmic sludge in their wake: the more you lean in, the more it leans back! Take the helm, steer over the edge, plunge, and get lost in strange alloys; half-melted exotic tungsten fumes will threaten your hull, but fear not! The scrub is burning, the asphalt is scorched, but Ratkiller’s aim is true, and you will find yourself only slightly singed. Unmissable 2019 vibes!

Profound bell-tones from Japan’s Akhira Sano, sparkling with tiny electricity, this is one of the most delicate and detailed ambient albums ever received in the Sun Ark dock. These 11 sonic investigations continually expand and contract in scale, revealing endless (sometimes deeply alienating) dripping, hypnotic, crystalline structures hidden in the grains of soft pulses growing rounder and rounder. This one is a real treasure of contemporary ambient, giving more to the listener with each spin, creating shocking depth-of-field against a softening bacterial landscape that blurs as you approach.

Kansas City’s Barbara B. arrives with 9 sizzlers, white-hot sheets of noise spreading and buckling into surprising and inventive textures. Opening with supple flutters (Fruit) and ending with something like the smelting of raw lead (Games), Sports provides an expansive, doom-laden, and emotionally engaging listening experience of real depth, suited for those looking for the deletion of the horizon. Buckling fountains of metallic resonance, hot-stinging synth spray, groaning magnetic fields vying for negative dominance. Strong stuff!