I have to admit that I’m relatively new to this genre, so my interest in it is fundamentally lacking in any historical context. But I knows what I likes, and this is gripping stuff. In my flirtations with this kind of minimalistic, abstract electronica, I’ve found that it’s difficult to achieve a balance between a commitment to experimentalism and sheer listenability, but I think Ryoji Ikeda succeeds. Though largely formless, save for at most skeletal rhythms, his new album Test Pattern is immediately engaging merely through its monochromatic, microtonal textures. It skitters and pops at a sometimes frantic pace, crackling, buzzing, and ringing in enough varied ways that I’m truly never bored by it. If you’ve been avoiding “amelodic nonsense” like this, here’s an opportunity to have your mind changed. I only hope it’ll lead me to more things that surprise me in the same way.

Songs of Green Pheasant is the recording name of Duncan Sumpner, originally of England, and residing now in California. I’ll be damned if I can remember where I heard about Aerial Days, 2006’s follow-up EP to his debut LP of 2005, but for a while in June it soundtracked my falling asleep at night.

Anyway I just got a hold of his new LP, Gyllyng Street, and it’s pretty beautiful. Accusations of freak-folkdom weren’t totally unfounded before, but I think this release will help to abolish that miscategorization. It’s gauzy, even a little shoegazey, and, admittedly, kind of pastoral. But its chugging momentums and electronic flourishes recall Bibio, Chessie, Caribou at times (due to the vocal quality, I think), and I swear I even hear a little Joy Division. “West Coast Profiling” is particularly great, rattling along gracefully for five minutes before morphing into a bleak, funereal electric guitar line, soaring, unidentifiable pipes, and thumping, tambourine-led percussion. A great soundtrack to the falling temperatures.

I first encountered this album years ago, when somebody mentioned it in a forum thread about favorite album art. The cover is certainly intriguing, with that fat sans (Futura?) and the glowing purple mountain — and like all good album art, it really lends something to the sound it’s representing. The DC band does a kind of chugging, throbbing, ambient dronescape thing, which is typically more formless than the tracks I’m sharing here. Overnight is their third and most recent LP, from 2001.

I’m not sure whether “Chessie” is a reference to “the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway’s former holding company, the Chessie System,” or “a legendary sea monster supposedly living in the Chesapeake Bay,” but it seems to me that both meanings offer a perspective on their sound.

Forgive them for being from Canada, forgive them for having six(ish) members, a violin, a banjo, a xylophone, and who knows what else. Despite all appearances to the contrary, this is not another cloying, forgettable act clamoring for breadcrumbs at Pitchfork’s table. In other words, you’ll enjoy these guys the second time you hear them, too.

Ohbijou’s twilight chamber pop is reminiscent of The Concretes’ softer work, but this probably owes a lot to their female vocals, light orchestral touches, and penchant for 3/4 time signatures. Their debut LP, Swift Feet For Troubling Times, was self-released this year and produced by Leon Taheny of Final Fantasy. It’s the kind of summer album meant not for sunny afternoons, but for nights alone in your bedroom with the window open and the curtains blowing; so hurry up and grab this before autumn hits us for good. My best guess at a way to obtain a copy would be to email them – there are no shopping carts on their site.