43 minutes

Phragments
Homo Homini Lvpvs

Not to be confused with Les Chasseurs de la Nuit's Homo Homini Lupus, although both are Latin for "Man is a wolf to man." And like Les Chassuers, Phragments creates, appropriately enough given the title of the album, downer martial-ambient compositions: We are a violent species, and here's our theme music. There's an increasing amount of this kind of music being made, mostly in Europe, and it begs the question of how large an audience there is for it.

On the one hand, artists are businesspeople too. They wouldn't keep making it if there wasn't enough interest. On the other hand, I always crack a bit of a smile when I see artists advertise their new releases as "Limited to 1,000 copies!" I mean, really. Are there 1,000 people in the world interested in your obscure, difficult music?

I'm being unkind. And I really don't know what I'm talking about. For all I know, this is a smart business decision designed to inject scarcity into the market and create a name for your musical project. Not unlike art photographers who issue only six prints of a given work.

But somehow I have to believe that Phragments, Les Chasseurs, or any other band working in this way-below-the-radar genre would love to sell as many copies of their CDs as they possibly can, and then print thousands more and sell those too. Why else are they on MySpace?

Also today:

42:56 Harold Budd & Brian Eno, The Pearl
42:55 Cataclyst, Monuments of a Rubicund Age
42:55 Death in June, The Wall of Sacrifice
42:54 Jóhann Jóhannsson, IBM 1401, a User's Manual
42:53 End of Orgy, Still Life
42:49 Advanced Art, Product
42:48 Cocteau Twins, Milk & Kisses
42:48 The Triple Tree, The Turning Wheel
42:47 Photophob, About the Living Things
42:44 Dead Man's Hill, Esoterica Orde de Dagon
42:43 Seven Trees, Embracing the Unknown
42:42 Amduscia, Dead or Alive
42:42 Intermix, Intermix