Electricwest graces EED and the rest of the world with his stunningly beautiful debut record, Together We Fade. Clean-cut production with just a little bit of textural grit, Together We Fade is a beautiful guided walk through lush liquid guitar work, warm basses and synths, hushed field recordings and organic drums that sound like wiry vines climbing around your stereo field

Benn Jordan's work as The Flashbulb hits like a power surge, driving electricity in fits and spikes into a bulb. His latest release, Kirlian Selections, offers 28 tracks in just over an hour -- a dizzying diversity of ideas and styles that emerges as a cohesive whole from the chaotic stutter of the wild electrons. Kirlian photography (discovered in 1939 by Semyon Kirlian) captures the "aura" surrounding objects that have been subjected to a strong electric pulse and, like the sensational possibilities of such photography (purported to be capturing the soul or astral body of the object), Jordan's Kirlian Selections captures a sparking and dancing current around ambient, classical and cinematic pieces. "Passage D," ostensibly a piano concertina, is transformed by a staggered and arcing breakbeat rhythm that shivers and drives the piano melody. The piano song in "Mellann" is obscured by squelchy beats that turn the piano recital into an Aphex Twin show while "Lifeless Indoors" is rendered melancholic by the whispered presence of field recordings ghosting in the distance. "Dishevel" is a Venetian Snares train ride into the switching yard, all blowers on. And then "My Life of Loving Ghosts" is a haunted stroll through the old graveyard behind the rotting church where the spectral bells from a century ago still ring and there is a hint of wind chimes remaining in the air. While it is easy to name-check Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares (as well as Squarepusher for that matter), there is equal reason to talk about Erik Satie and his Gymnopédies, since Jordan blissfully merges both into the same space and finds ways to wrap spastic breakbeats around the delicate piano arrangements. "Lawn Wake IX" eschews the piano for an electric guitar and gyrates like a Steve Vai collaboration with Boards of Canada while "Kirlian Isles I" plies a solo violin against an orchestra and a field recording of babbling human voices. "Kirlian Isles II" remixes the melodic idea of "Kirlian Isles I" into synthesized rendition, squelches of DSP churning under an orchestral rendering of the solo violin melody, and "Kirlian Isles III" places the violinist under a fruit tree with an acoustic guitarist and an appreciative audience of small song birds. I'm telling you: you can't begin to keep up with Jordan. He's got too many places to go and ideas to throw at you to be tied down by the numbing repetition of verse and chorus. The Flashbulb is all about blinking on and off -- always changing, always in a state of flux. But it is how he achieves this amalgamation of chaotic beats and orchestral melodies that lends a delicate gravitas to epileptic beat-mashing while the cacophonic polyrhythms enhance the dry recital-hall feeling of the symphonic material. It's the very spontaneity of his approach that makes him so compellingly fascinating. Kirlian Selections is an impressive and highly recommended record.