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Hauntingly dreamlike guitar atmospherics from Loren Connors – his appropriately-titled Departing Of Dream – which is really some of his work ever! Loren combines electric, acoustic and bass guitar into this singular, beautiful wavy sound in a way that's garnered him plenty of comparisons to the upper echelon of minimalist composers – which is reasonable – but there's a passionate vibe and emotional resonance at play here that goes beyond minimalism. That really comes into play on the closing suite "For 9/11/01:The Silence" and "For 9/11/01: The Sorrow" – which is as stirring now as it was when first released in 2002. This first time vinyl edition features an extended version of that suite, plus the bonus track "Pretty As Ever".

Cheekily-titled, totally invigoring live material from Japan's great avant jazz sax player Akira Sakata, never-predictable soundscape crafter Jim O'Rourke (on guitar, harmonica and electronics here) and the Chikamorachi duo of drummer Chris Corsano and bassist & percussionist Darin Gray – recorded during a 2008 tour of Japan! Disc One features 2 nearly half hour long pieces titled for the city being visited: "Kyoto" and "Hanamaki". Sakata's sax is a thing of grace and beauty in solo moments, and he digs in with the tense, noisy dynamic of the more heated passages with O'Rourke, Corsano and Gray in real heated way. Disc Two features "Nagoya 1" (a 22 minute tumult), "Nagoya 2" (slow-building with an intense Sakata solo) and "Nagoya 3" (another ascending, increasingly dynamic effort that runs north of 15 minutes).