Undulating acid bass thaws the permafrost of Brusque Twins’ latest EP. The icy hot duo last washed up on these shores with the standout banger of Visage Musique’s Vol. 1 comp, cropping up again here with four new hyperborean ballads. The operatic vocals of Hollie Hensman are the tell-tale heartbeat of this closet goth club, thumping away to the rhythm of the night.

Loneliness, despite its title, is an album with a warm heart of wires and at its core is the long-term musical friendship between Don Stagg and Eric Simpson. The duo formely recorded epic home-baked prog under the name VIIth Temple, releasing one hideously rare burnt-orange LP release soaked in gentle Moog, Mellotron and Giant. On Loneliness the pair traded in their plumes, velvet and epic jam band for thin ties and a cheap drum-machine. The LP still carries a whiff of patchouli, but the sound stings of solder and electricity, and inhabits a nascent zone somewhere between krautrock and new-wave. The vocals are all clustered on the a-side, starting with an ode to the inefficiency of the T.T.C. (some things never change!). The dystopian sci-fi themes are par for the League, a highlight is love ballad “Anna King” that sounds like it could be an outtake from Trans. The instrumentals on the b-side feel decidedly more Teutonic, and have a certain CBC charm that sounds like JP Decerf recording for Parry Music. The side even opens with a slinky stoned Pink Panther. About the loneliest thing about this album is the incredible cover photo. Don Stagg told me that he climbed up on a rooftop in St. James Town to take a photo for the sleeve when he came across a young man doing crack. The man was surprisingly obliging and Don snapped this evocative photo as night fell over the cold city. Take hold of this preserved slice of Ontario sprawl if ever you get the chance, it’ll probably surprise you to know how little has changed in all these years.

Police Des Moeurs may be Alphaville’s greatest export since Lemmy Caution and Anna Karina. The duo intuitively know when to let sequencers speak for themselves, when to chime in, and when to command their drum machines to play another remorseless fill. Best experienced while observing Brutalist architecture, a worn existential paperback in your pocket. [Note: Certain copies of the 7" may come packaged with a page from Georg Orwell's 1984.]

First things first, indulge in some post-modern sociological complexities. But I guess all you really have to remember is that Chevalier Avant Garde deliver the utmost serious retro-futurist pop, edgy for reminding us we’re constantly nearing the advent of robot lust and digital mal de vivre. They’ve cloned themselves into a refined synthesis, like a fascinating concentrated soul pouring out of your speakers. No doubt, this would have definitely made the final cut had I made a best of 2011 list

A familiar scene: a young dreamer alone in his parent’s basement makes music to escape loneliness and boredom. Now, the unusual thing about this scene is that this basement is filled with state-of-the-art (for 1984) home-recording equipment and synthesizers and is located in rural Alberta surrounded by endless potato fields, miles from anything remotely metropolitan. For the young Tona Walt Ohama, the major portals to the world-at-large from his isolated farm were through television, radio and records. A well-rounded diet of classical, rock, prog and most importantly New Wavers like Gary Numan & John Foxx gave Ohama the vocabulary he needed to beam beautiful analog messages from his farm to the greater world. I Fear What I Might Hear, Ohama’s first album proper, is a masterpiece of modern folk-form, perfectly capturing the Canadian cultural climate of the early eighties and its effect on a sensitive young mind. I Fear is at once as introspective and pastoral as Nick Drake, but rather than evoking acoustic images of Camus and moody English moors it speaks of McLuhan and a plugged-in landscape that is equal parts muddy toil and media spoil. The LP works effectively as a cohesive document partly because the existential themes of isolation, identity and cultural decay are explored as lyrical subject-matter throughout, but also because the songs are all stitched together using a concrete pastiche of sounds that ranges from idyllic & rustic (animals & water) to industrial & urban (engines & TV). Truly, this is a prescient letter of distress and dislocation revealing the disappearance of a dichotomy, where it doesn’t matter where you live, Google will find you. Don’t be afraid though, it’s a great comfort to know that Ohama’s clear and visionary voice is out there in the Great Wide Aether.

For further insight into the great mind of Ohama, check out my extensive dialogue with Tona via Polyphasic Recordings.

Admittedly, Postcards’ demise was a little pinch to the heart, but this self-released lathe-cut single celebrates their rebirth into contemporary grounds of retro minimalism. The A side’s About It sets the tone, spotlighting the cold and bare thumping stabs of sequenced bass synth. The flipside picks up the pace, yet the vocals and atmosphere remain as cool and removed as can be. Ditching the rock band realm, Chevalier Avant Garde expectantly manage to distill their past displays of mysterious, expressive – and excellent – songwriting into the squarer shape of YouTube-revived European minimal synth singles of the ’80s.

From the womb to the tomb, brothers Simon and Josh Frank are united by bonds both synthetic and familial. Fused together as electro-creep two-piece Hot & Cold, they shudder and scuttle like goth insects under strobelight. This six-song c20 from Beijing’s Rose Mansion Analog re-wires Martin Rev fuzztones with pulsating electronics, classic Hooky basslines and abrasive echo vox. Another essential release from this clan.

NMR found a bold pairing between the bristled pulses and maniacal low-end of N.213 and Reflektionss. Their combined dualic forces swerve between harrowing drum-machine hermetics and fist-fulls of gothic concoctions frothing with digital spume. While N.213 jacks your hybrid with scorching no limit dialogues, Reflektionss pipet their basemental minimalism straight through your nervous system. Both foster a millennial convolution of arresting fear and 21st century mellow, so grip fast before their divergent crests wash you into nihilism. [Pressing note: pictured above is the test-pressing gripped from the Isolated Now Waves merch table. The actual release differs significantly.]