Ever wanted to temporarily turn your bedroom into an art gallery? Well if so, then this is the album you need to purchase to furnish your new 'tour de force' of meaning and feeling with the requisite audio touches. Antitrade is a compilation of mouth frothing minimalism and interminable distortion. One minute you're sitting inside an electrical generator, next minute you're a fairy on top of an electricity pylon in the middle of nowhere, next minute you've tuned in to some random frequency to see if you can decipher messages from space within the imperceptible fuzz. Definitely music for mass murderers and for that reason it's not the kind of thing you want playing the moment a couple of friends step inside your room, because after listening for around three seconds, they're likely to look at you in a rather queer manner, step back outside pretty quickly and feel glad that they're still alive. One noticeable track is S.E.T.I.'s Aurora which as the title suggests glides and dips in an icy cold and indeterminate manner while what sounds like a huge metal monster struggles for it's last breath of life. Music like this is so often written off mainly because music journalists and others have not as yet created a common language for which such music can be compared, contrasted and valued. Music like this is so often not listened to because the feelings that it conjures up are complex and perhaps ineffable and for that reason downright scary. Get to know yourself a bit better if you dare!

Mike Williams