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At its core, "Exhaling Ammonia" is droning, introspective and organic, tapping into unseen places and caressing sensitive areas previously unknown. And at critical moments, Figure is unafraid to overload the sonic space with static and rhythmic wreckage that lends even more strength to the music. Upon repeated listenings, the album remains simultaneously beautiful and grainy, like an old and sentimental photograph.

A primarily instrumental work, moody, dark and layered. Noisy guitar textures interwoven with gritty (and beautiful) synth pads create smooth shifting backgrounds, sometimes growing into dissident clusters or disintegrating into intricate layers of noise. Percussion drags shambling beats along, stumbling, falling over themselves and becoming part of the layered texture. Occassional vocal lines hide and emerge in effective and deceptive ways as part of the overall fabric of the album.

In the end, some pieces on the album distinguish themselves as stronger than others, but overall the engaging sonic elements of "Exhaling Ammonia" achieve a rich and compelling work.

Standing out from the masses of electro-ambient artists is Heath Yonaites. Where many are satisfied pushing mundane sounds through thickened effects into bland and droning backdrops, Yonaites instead carefully molds and sculpts a collection of short wave radios, environmental recordings and odd instruments to achieve shifting sonic textures with beautifully choreographed movement and unique character.

Rim of the Sun never just sits, is never satisfied . . . it is always drawing the listener deeper into it's patient yet ever-changing story. Story is a key word here, as the work moves on a timeline and evokes the feeling of cinema. The sound elements develop their own personalities, speak lines, evolve, appear and disappear amongst mutating colors and atmosphere.

Each sound within Rim of the Sun is meaningful and significant; electronic blips, chatter and rhythms crescendo into space-changing moments, distant voices and mumblings emerge in alien languages, staticky noise pulsates and hurtles the tempos forward only to evaporate suddenly and reveal a hidden layer and a new inner beauty. The gestures are poignant and shape the music convincingly.

Engaging and mind-expanding; highly recommended.

A brilliant and disturbing experience with a split personality of dark electronic ambience and hardcore noise, Night of Deliverance achieves some of the most engaging performances in both genres while remaining somehow cohesive and symbiotic.

AXONe delivers a slow and deliberate dark ambient introspection that is shaped and convincing. Electronic hums and drones patiently sweep across a quiet and desolate expanse, slowly shifting pitch, bending space and gaining momentum. Pulsating sine waves emerge and fade away, leaving crackling trace echoes of new contemplative and claustrophobic environments.

Amplified steel plates, quietly stroked and pounded in slow motion calm and focus collective spiritual energies. An accompanying voice track on "Solution" seems out of place, but the surrounding music remains rich and enveloping. Hi-fidelity listening in a quiet environment is recommended to appreciate AXONe's deep and dark journey.

In contrast, kNOw is the louder and more agitated half. Noisy, broken voice, television and orchestral samples abused and transposed, murmuring, building or attacking in full distorted onslaught. And as with the better works in the hardcore noise genre, kNOw drives you to aurally hallucinate, until voices may or may not really be there, embedded within the varied textures . . . confused, calling, pleading.

kNOw does not provide easy listening, but remains fulfilling to that disturbed side in each of us, the part of our mind that can't help but fixate on gruesome and violent events, whether real or imaginary.

Overall, a work that challenges two distinct portions of our nature, and shows a strange and elemental connection between the two.

Freeze Etch steps forward with their release Helios to volunteer fresh and intelligent beat-oriented noise electronica. Gritty and precise, rich and texured, Helios is the beauty of being blindfolded, running your aural senses across thousands of tiny impressions and grooves on some vast, intricate and electrically charged-circuit board.

Driving off-beat rhythms push across wandering synth atmospheres. The patterns are nicely formed, organic, unusual, engaging far beyond the 4/4 monotony thrown across most glitzy and popular club floors. Synthetic sounds thrust up front in your face, and balance well with distant and floating melodic and ambient backdrops.

Freeze Etch makes full use of the stereo field, with intricate panning and shaping effects. Well-designed and nicely crafted placement of sound and sculpted movement from speaker to speaker that adds a deeper dimension and dynamic. At the same time, there is something playful and unpretentious about Helios. Wonderful noisy, staticky sounds and pulses assembling themselves, flashing across spacey synths, sometimes overloading each other and saturating the aural space.

One grey spot on the album is the less involving and more monotone track "The Armory", but even this still has it's points of interest and some great trashy, overblown and fragmented rhythms.

A strong disc, and at just 31 minutes, it's over all too soon . . . one can't help but want a little more.