Three years back, Hendrik Weber’s sophomore outing as Pantha Du Prince garnered widespread critical acclaim in many circles for its wealth of gorgeous mood shifts and hypnotic atmospherics. In its precise sound detail and chilly sonic terrain, Black Noise follows the well-loved This Bliss with emotionally bountiful chord changes and a familiar emphasis on bell tones. Read the rest of my review at BLURT, and download album track “The Splendour” from XLR8R now.

The Sub:Stance mix on Ostgut Ton, the label run by Berghain’s owners, is a mindblower — as anyone who’s ever downloaded a mix from Scuba before might have guessed. For a guy who’s never collaborated with another musician (outside of issuing other people’s records on his Hotflush label), Paul Rose is a consistently skilled sound aggregator as a DJ, blending divergent productions with a scientific sense of cohesion. Read the rest of my review at PopMatters. Get Scuba’s “Influences” mix from the fine people at Allez Allez.

Knowing that I might feel a bit down when I exited, a friend and I checked out a panel last week hosted by The Nation magazine on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. A few great reporters and writers discussed and argued a bit about the distressing condition that we now find America’s newsrooms to be in (see “The Death & Life of Great American Newspapers,” March 18, 2009). I left thinking about the confusing digital landscape, the towns that will someday soon be without a daily newspaper, and the idea that a lot more work and dialogue is going to have to be put into an area that is wrought with problems, that is not just in shambles because of the Web. This was ironically enough to steer me away from my weekly magazine indulgence and to update this bloody thing. Subscribe via email on your right, and check out what’s been scoring my commutes of late — downloads and details below.

D.C.-based Diamond District founder, MC, producer, and photographer Oddisee prepped his new Odd Winter mixtape for FREE download last week on Bandcamp. Soul & vintage funk loop-driven beats, fitted with extreme channel-panning snare cracks and frenzied sample edits — I’m really liking this. The classy instrumental joints are my favorite, and the tracks featuring UK emcee Tranqill aren’t too shabby, either. Downloads and more below.

Before he swapped sound files with dubstep heavyweight Burial for their early 2009 Wolf/Moth Club single, London’s Kieran Hebden had been a member of revered post-rock project Fridge, he’d collaborated on a number of occasions with jazz drummer Steve Reid, remixed everyone from Madvillain to Black Sabbath, issued a monstrous DJ Kicks contribution, and took on an opener slot for a Radiohead tour. Not unlike his rapidly accelerating eleven-year career, Hebden’s output as Four Tet has splintered across the horizon in a dizzying multitude of musical directions. Read the rest of my review at BLURT.

Tape Deck Mountain balance loads of searing guitar solos and 70s rock drum blasts with odd loops and field noises on Ghost. They look to My Bloody Valentine and the Byrds (is that a chiming 12-stringer on “80/20″?) as often as The Brian Jonestown Massacre does, and main man Travis Trevisan mainly adheres to a talky, monotone vocal style. While there is plenty to like about the full-length debut from the California noise/psyche-rock outfit, it just isn’t as compelling overall as the backstory, band name, and album title suggest. Read the rest of my review at BLURT.

Trust is more of the same from Kaito (born Hiroshi Watanabe). The third LP from Berklee College of Music graduate and one of the most well-liked Japanese purveyors of mild and agreeable trance is lush and rolling; its technicolor palette is built of clean synths and soaring string sections, and peaks are frequent. Of this year’s LP releases from the Kompakt camp (Gui Boratto, Matias Aguyao, Gus Gus, etc.), Trust is by far the least challenging I’ve heard. Read the rest of my review at PopMatters.