Public Image Ltd
Alive 
(AWayWithMedia)                                   
★★★★★

PIL emerged from the end of the Sex Pistols in 1978, with singer John Lydon seeking a new emotional depth guided by Keith Levene’s inventive guitar work and an original dub bass approach by Jah Wobble. Their 1979 Metal Box album remains a milestone in Avant-Garde music. Lydon still records and tours PIL with a new and longstanding line up, and last year’s UK tour dates make up the recording here.

First up is the sonic onslaught of Home. Clattering slow tempo rhythms, bursting vocal intent, 80s synth work and chainsaw guitars to the fore. Poptones from Metal Box, a powerhouse drama.

Flowers of Romance, a modern tribal classic that has more than stood the test of time. Likewise, first single Public Image is all about space and driving melodic guitar lines, here captured in pristine detail.

With a new studio album in the pipeline PIL remain a force to be reckoned with.

William Basinski 
The Disintegration Loops 
(Temporary Residence) 
★★★★★

WILLIAM BASINSKI is one of America’s most revered Ambient composers. His seminal experimental work is The Disintegration Loops, from 2001.

The process behind the work is key to understanding: essentially it is a recording of a 12-inch piece of analogue tape, made from chance snatches of CBS radio broadcasts at the top of the Empire State Building, then slowed down with the tape degrading in real time, as Basinski working in his Brooklyn loft, attempted to transfer the tape to CD.

The work took on greater significance when he used it to soundtrack his single take video footage of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre.

Opening track dip 1.1 is a brooding frozen distant fog low brass dream landscapes. Sublime and drifting slowly, dip 2 dark and cavernous, further deepens the extraordinary range of atmospheres, all based on the medium becoming message.

This four-hour remastered version includes notes written by Laurie Anderson.

John Luther Adams 
Horizon
(Cold Blue Music)
★★★★★

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS’S work explores responses to the natural world. His latest album set over two movements, each 20 minutes, performed by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, takes on concepts around horizons.

The composer says. “In our experience of the world there are two horizons. The visible horizon. And the true horizon.” The compositions use orchestral textures focused on violin, viola, cello and double bass, led by the ACO’s artistic director and principle violinist Richard Tognetti.

The first movement Visible Horizon builds around slow moving low drones then shimmering wave pulses and glistening melodic lines while the second True Horizon introduces more intense high frequency tone drama while retaining a sense of inner reflection, into crescendo then distant horizon fade.

The recording and mixes provide immersive, detailed sympathetic production values. Adams provokes both himself and the listener into an area of the experience of standing alone, immersed in vast, beautiful, sometimes frightening atmospheres.