The more impatient among you, members of a generation too used to being able to get what they want when they want it (I blame Thatcher, as always) have been asking about the end of year list: it will come, most likely in another week or so. It seems a bit previous to be publishing such a list at the start of December – glancing at the pile of unreviewed records at the side of the stereo, I can see I’m not quite done with this year yet. I’ll tick a couple off now in this Kranky-themed twofer – the new ones from Windy and Carl and Benoît Pioulard.

Listening to the lovely new album from Windy and Carl, Songs For The Broken Hearted, it is like the last 15 years haven’t happened. If you were to draw a line between the first ever release on the label, Labradford’s Prazision LP, and this one, well let’s just say it wouldn’t be a very long line. Songs For The Broken Hearted is all swirling windswept drones and submerged vocals, with songs blackened from wallowing in the embers of shoegaze. The mood of epic (the album stretches out – until it is nearly diaphonous – over a 70 minute running time) languor is punctuated by the queasy-sounding heavily-processed keyboards of “Rhodes”, the billowing feedback of “When We Were” and the twinkling optimism of “Snow Covers Everything“. However, there is nothing that diverts this from being a quintessential Kranky release. Honestly, it makes me feel 18 years old again.

Benoît Pioulard is one of Kranky’s young breed, probably too young to remember the label’s birth. However, his last release for the label, 2006’s Precis, showed that his folkish take on shoegaze was a good match for the label’s aesthetic. The folk dial has been kranked up a bit for his new release Temper, with a large proportion of the 16 tracks being centred around some fingerpicking. Opening track “Ragged Tint” is a case in point, featuring nimble guitar work before a shuffly rhythm emerges alongside diffuse vocals and a twinkly bell-like section. Elsewhere there are interludes of electronic drone – sweet and shimmering on “Sweep Generator“, abstract and abrasive on “Cycle Disparaissant”. For the most part though, he finds it hard to stop writing these short but perfectly-formed songs, with melodies fighting to escape through the layers of feedback and sonic effects that are smeared over the surface.

As M.Pioulard himself would no doubt say: plus ça change. But when you are capable of such sustained high quality output – as both he and Kranky are – why should you change? Both releases are available now from the Kranky website.