The Leaf Lab

Beautiful Seizure is the debut album from Chicago trio volcano!, and it's an intense, exhilarating and immensely rewarding ride. What may at first sound chaotic and unplanned reveals itself on repeated listening as meticulously structured: rhythms gather, flicker, melt (down) and emerge as something different; splenetic episodes give way to passages of hymnal calm which in turn are shattered as language breaks down into strobe-like stuttering and is tugged back into line by Sam Scranton's insistent drumming; silvery shards of controlled static ride high above everything. Melodies are stretched to and beyond breaking point, Aaron With's guitar shifts between a ragged, feverish dissonance and bright spaciousness. There are no boundaries and no indulgences, nothing here that's hackneyed or extraneous.

Nancy Elizabeth's third album, Dancing, emerged incrementally. Seeking to repair and retreat after an intense period of travel and personal flux, Nancy created a bower in her tiny Manchester flat, with a piano at the centre, guitars hung on the wall, and her unique palette of instruments within easy reach. Flat broke and stuck at home, and using a computer to help her make music for the first time, she began to develop a new sound in her isolation. Slowly, surely, she nurtured these twelve handsome songs, playing and recording almost everything herself. Remarkably, the resulting album is her most cohesive and most uplifting yet.

Craven Faults: Sidings [CD]

Holy Spring is the second solo album by Australian percussionist, drummer and composer Laurence Pike - an article of faith, expressing the sense that the ritual of performance can transcend the confines of style, structure and concept to connect with something universal. The name of the album is beautifully ambiguous, evoking a wellspring, but also rebirth, and more besides. It sounds constantly, effervescently fresh, just as it should when its creation was a series of surprises to its own creator. The listener, just like the musician, are privy to what Pike describes as the music simply playing itself.Improvisation has played a role throughout Pikes long and diverse career in music. Whether as part ofPVT, Triosk or Szun Waves, or collaborating with Liars, legendary jazz pianist Mike Nock, DD Dumbo orthe mighty Bill Callahan, he has long been a responsive musician for whom sensitive listening leads tospontaneous invention.

Warmduscher: Tainted Lunch [CD]

Snapped Ankles: Hard Times Furious Dancing [CD]

Nightports W/ Betamax: Nightports W/ Betamax [CD]