(The) Mudguards
On Guard

"Rhythmic Brutalism" is the title of this release, also available as a double CD set or two separate 12" vinyl LPs; the title is also a very apt description of the music itself. Romania-born Alexandra Atnif is fascinated by the harsh, grey concrete beauty and minimally repetitive force of the brutalist post-war architecture of her homeland, and this fascination has given rise to the music here. Vol. 1 is an EM Records edition, compiled from an earlier self-released double CD featuring recordings from 2014-15. Vol. 2 consists of previously unreleased recordings from 2015 to 2017. Using elemental, inexpensive technology, Atnifs music is heavy and harsh, stripped down to distressed skeletal frameworks, rhythmic noise, rusting metal and weathered concrete, a distorted DIY realization of her beautifully brutal vision. With a background in European modernist/avant-garde music, Atnif has been influenced by early rhythmic industrial music such as Throbbing Gristle, Esplendor Geometrico and Muslimgauze, as well as later practitioners of rhythm and noise including Pan Sonic, Autechre, Winterkälte, Prurient and Scorn. Across the relatively brief span of years contained within these two volumes, we hear the rhythmic structures begin to fracture and fray, and the outlines darken and become more obscure, with Antif's sensibility evident throughout.

EM Records: ...Roland P. Young is back for his fifth release on EM Records, back in the United States, back in San Francisco after sojourns in New York and Israel, back where he resided several decades ago. But despite all this talk of return, he continues to resolutely forge forward, combining his tradition-rooted horn mastery with an ever-expanding electronic palette, fusing wind with electricity, fusing American roots with an outward global vision. Recorded in his home studio, Young's expansive multi-instrumental mastery and studio skills have created a dense yet uplifting set of tunes, very melodic and groovy with a joyful sense of return and renewal. Roland is here, hear it on vinyl or CD.