Enough of the calm records! If I keep listening to those I’ll never get anything done, I’ll just lie around in my underpants thinking about starting to plan to do stuff. Which doesn’t always go down so well in an open plan office (”gross misconduct”, so I hear, and believe me I take that “gross” personally). If I listen to more noise then my workload will no doubt increase prodigiously, although it will no doubt be accompanied by me running around red-eyed and screaming, kicking over desks and stripping to, erm, my underpants. But as I said, I’ll be doing more, so hopefully they’ll turn a blind eye. To assist me with this new productivity upscaling technique I’ll turn to one of the doyens of the genre, Lasse Marhaug. A couple of new records here, one which features Marhaug and Paal Nilssen-Love - with a little Hild Sofie-Tafjord - and is released on Nilssen-Love’s label, and one which features Hild Sofie Tafjord but not Marhaug, although it is released on Marhaug’s label. You with me? OK, tie your tie round your head, shout unintelligibly about workflows and spreadsheets, and lets begin.

Marhaug and Nilssen-Love’s Stalk is a most interesting proposition. For large parts of the album Marhaug has to contend himself with making textures that Nilssen-Love can interact with with some improvised percussion; a sea of choppy collage is interrupted with occasional flurries of clatter. So far, so deft. However twice - once on opening track “Paranoia Agent” and once on “Tenebrae”, Marhaug works himself up into a fury, spewing bilious feedback in the percussionist’s direction. The latter of those two tracks is one of the most exciting things I’ve heard this year, with bells and muffly drumming becoming gradually sucked in by a howling undertow, Nilssen-Love making a decent fist of swimming against the inevitable before succumbing to a maelstrom.

Hild Sofie Tafjord may be better known to you from her role in Fe-Mail or SPUNK. Or maybe not, no matter. Kama is constructed (relatively) with more thought than impulse. Over the course of its first ten minutes alone it builds from ominous pulsating drone and desert snake rattle through a clutter of rumble to a plateau of metallic noise made by….what exactly is that? The sleevenotes say mainly French horn, and I suppose there are are a couple of breathy moments…but what about the rest of it? It sounds like someone has carelessly left the door to hell ajar (if they are anything like me they were probably too busy struggling with a mountain of shopping). What an astonishing and thrilling racket. You can hear a sample for yourself here. If I don’t wear myself out in a blurry buzz of hyperactivity, I have a feeling we’ll be returning to Marhaug’s Pica Disk label before long.

Both of these are available now from Pica Disk.