Music » Experimental Music

Always up for messing with the formal expectations of rock, Bowie teamed up with Brian Eno for three frustrating but compelling albums, starting with Low. Treated instruments are claustrophobically crowded together, and Bowie's voice leaps in and out of the mix seemingly at will. Where it seems like it might show up, it's replaced by wailing synths or nothing at all, and it vanishes altogether from most of the second half-- a series of long, menacing, barely mobile synth explorations. To prove that they could make pop out of these herky-jerky mix tricks, they pull off "Sound And Vision" in the middle of the disc, but the essence of Low is that the "star" is either absent or alarmingly in your face. --Douglas Wolk

Broken Social Scene materialized in 1999 when K.C. Accidental's Kevin Drew & Brendan Canning, formerly of By Divine Right, bonded their friendship into a band. During the next few years, Broken Social Scene created an atmospheric rock sound. Feel Good Lost marked their debut album in 2001 & introduced a revolving cast of Canadian indie musicians. Drew's fellow mate from Do Make Say Think was added to the band, as well as Evan Cranley (Stars), James Shaw, & Emily Haines (Metric). You Forgot It in People showcased Broken Social Scene's expansive musical design in October 2002. Digipak. Copy Controlled. Arts & Crafts.

Their first full-fledged rock 'n' roll album, 'The Complex', features guest appearances from Dan The Automator, Tracy Bonham, Esthero, Dave Matthews, & others. 14 tracks including the single, 'The Current', featuring Gavin Rossdale. Lava. 2003.

Release Date: 1994-10-11, Audio CD, Geffen Records

Limited Edition Japanese pressing of this album comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 2007.

Release Date: 1999-06-22, Audio CD, Warner Bros / Wea

1998 Japanese reissue on Geffen of their 1992 album with 'Stalker' added as a hidden bonus track. 16 tracks total, also featuring the singles '100%', 'Youth Against Fascism' and 'Sugar Kane'.

Japanese only SHM-CD (Super High Material CD - playable on all CD players) pressing includes four bonus tracks. Universal. 2008.

The band's final album, originally released in 1991 on Polydor. It was promptly deleted three months after it's release due to wrangling with the record company. Now available on the band's own label Pond Life. Standard jewel case.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Stephan Micus is a unique explorer of sonorities, wandering the world to study instruments from a host of heritages. His work is marked by a simultaneous interest in the instruments' distinctive properties and original uses and his own vision. For the nine-part Garden of Mirrors, Micus has added to his instrumental palette with bolombatto and sinding, two lower-register West African harps with attached tin rattles. These are used here to accompany vocals or are joined in various configurations with a complement of ethnic flutes--including Japanese shakuhachi, Balinese suling, Egyptian nay, and an Irish tin whistle--as well as steel drums, and Micus's voice is overdubbed to a 20-member chorale on three tracks. The results are often hypnotic, combining hyper-resonant instruments with static five-tone scales and chanted micro-melodies. On "Passing Cloud," the shakuhachi wafts over a slowly pulsing field of four steel drums and two sinding, while "Gates of Fire" uses bowed sinding to add introductory menace to a stately processional orchestra of percussion, steel drums, and a dozen overdubs of the various flutes. On "Flowers in Chaos," a single high-pitched suling expands to 22, arriving like a flock of exotic birds. It's not just the cross-cultural content of these instruments that makes the music distinctive. Their sounds are close to nature, whether evoking birds or rivers, wind or rain. Micus's wordless singing never mimics a single culture; the pieces are as apt to suggest Native American music as the South African townships or India. In Micus's meditations, technology can turn the one voice into many, or merge diverse elements into a united dreamscape. --Stuart Broomer