Track Listing: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX. (There are no names...just nine numbered tracks... ha ha ha... go Trent!)

Former president Richard Nixon once commented “Modern art is beyond me”... so, if you are of the same bent as Tricky Dick, better avoid this collection completely.

Trent Reznor and NIN compadres get together for ten weeks with a diverse cast of players ranging from revolutionary guitarist Adrian Belew to drummer Brian Viglione (of Dresden Dolls) to... well, you get the idea. The result is Ghosts I-IV, a collection of 36 instrumental tracks with all manner of accompanying artwork. To further amplify his ongoing spanking of the commercial music industry, Reznor, who is sans label nowdays, offered the first album of the work via bit torrent download; he even uploaded it himself. Radiohead did this earlier, but NIN’s offering can be had in lossless FLAC format as well as MP3 and is legally licensed. There are, of course, commercial versions for sale which include a Blu-ray disk and a lot of artwork, and there are also Ogg Vorbis downloads made from the FLACs, though these were done after the fact.

All this amounts to the best two-finger fuck you! to industry weaseldom and the “three-minute song” mandate since the early days of hardcore punk, but what really makes it for me is that this stuff works as art. From sparse acoustic piano over minimalist electronica to beat heavy technoid industrial/rock tracks, we find wispy traces of Nine Inch Nails’s familiar angsty anger and visionary dreaming, as well as many, many oblique musical angles that are provocative and just downright... well... interesting

For more info visit the artist’s website or their MySpace page.

Track Listing: November, New Vision, Memorial Day, Heaven, Too Late, Time Machine, 5ppm, The Ballad of John, The Ramp, Temporary, Playground Day, Eurowest, Spark, Daydream #4.

A high quality goth band from eastern Pennsylvania, formerly known as National Razor (not to be confused with the Baltimore punk band of that name). If you take your funereal melancholia seriously, you will be hard pressed to find better theme music for it than this group. Though it is difficult to find information about them online other than sites that sell the CD, they are well worth a listen.

Bleak, metal-tinged soundscapes with lugubrious baritone male vocals will trance you right into sweet oblivion and beyond. Hypnotic, somber, eerie, mournful, deadly... you know what I mean. And you can dance to it.

For more info visit the band’s website or here.

Track Listing: Prognosis, Remember Tomorrow, Kaleidoscope, Something Trivial, Introspective, Broadcast, Ephemeral, 9 to 5, Genotype, Low.Life.Complex, Lotus, Your Traces.

A male duo from Leipzig, Germany, that weaves complex electronica into danceable club-mix techno with, sometimes digitally altered, vocals. Very strong, with many deft ambient touches. Pointedly evasive, fractured, tricky lyrics that seem, for the most part, an attempt to elucidate the miasma of human interaction while maintaining the integrity of the individual. More deliberate song structure than the typical trance/techno band. From the sheer volume of internet data, I would guess they are quite popular in Europe.

For more info visit the band’s website (advance note: it's all in German).

Track Listing: Voyage (Quest For The Shore Of Afrodite), The Drowning And Re-Emergence Of Lovelorn Heart, See Love Icy Love, The Girl In The Mirror, Phantasm Of Reality, Life Elusive Death Intrusive, Goddess, Awe And Woe.

This Swedish new age composer might seem, at first, like scads of other film music-inspired synth artists, who typically make overtures to darkness without really going there and degenerate into pseudo-romantic twaddle and pretense. But there is something bizarre about this one that separates him from the pack to a degree. Not that he lacks the usual self-promotion, it just doesn’t seem like the same naive ego trip. Plus he seems better at actually evoking and commenting on the subject matter. Perhaps he has a true dark side, or is simply much more worldly than typical.

For more info visit the artist’s website.

Track Listing: The Sting Of Haste, Before We Came To This Religion, Larslovesnicks Farm, Burnt Seer, Cassettes Of Berlin, Splendid Goose, She Vang Moon, One Hundred Years Of Infamy, The Three Twins.

Like Monty Python produces The Incredible String Band, with electronic mutilations. Outre, over the top, often hilarious in that wry, British manner... then in the midst of it all, you find yourself moved by poignancy and sweetness. Unlike anything you have ever heard before really. This improvisational group, whose actual players vary from gig to gig, have a well deserved cult following among fans of outrageous intellegence. I can’t explicate further, you just have to check them out for yourself.

For more info visit the band’s website, their MySpace page or their Wikipedia entry.