Jason Lescalleet is best known for collaborations with nmperign (Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey) and Thomas Ankersmit. Both of these excellent, vinyl-only releases deal with dense, abstract noise in something of a collage-like structure, although they differ in overall feel. Electronic Music finds Lescalleet working in his "standard" environment, running short loops of tape between several ancient recorders, working up a fairly dense sound matrix and then augmenting those sounds electronically on the fly. "Morphology" begins with isolated scratches that eventually become engulfed in deep rumbles, sounding like a thunderstorm raining pellets of static. "Litmus Tape" is more of a midrange roar, as though one is hearing passing jets through ten feet of concrete. Like much of Lescalleet's best work, it has a density that allows the listener to return time and time again with the surety of hearing new elements on each occasion. "Accidental-Oriental" begins innocently and softly before suddenly leaping into a kind of metallic wash, another sort of roar that brings to mind ball bearings rolling in steel basins, but muted to remove the treble. It builds to a speaker-endangering climax right at the end that leads directly into yet another inferno, the concluding "Beautiful Whore." The tone shifts to something darker here, the taped burblings taking on the character of threatening noises emerging from fissures in the walls of a lightless path. It finally explodes into shards of its constituent elements, closing the album with an unsettling entropic feel.

Due Process is Lescalleet and Ron Lessard, although here the former has taken recordings of their performances and drastically reworked them in the studio, making it considerably more ofa solo effort than would otherwise be the case. Combines XIX-XX is made up of two side-long pieces housed in individually hand-painted covers. The music within is somewhat akin to Electronic Music, though with far more input from prerecorded sound sources and a bit more of a rock sensitivity. The general atmosphere remains dark, even claustrophobic, with deep static washes and an array of howls and screeches. Filtered throughout the first track, however, are samples possessing a relatively strong rhythmic feel. Although rarely consistent and never very overt, they give the pieces an aura that would not sound all that foreign to fans of the more extreme fringes of industrial rock or even, perhaps, Diamanda Galas (sans vocals). These rhythmic fragments impart a dramatic sense of forward motion which, in combination with the ever fascinating level of sonic detail, keeps the listener's intent very focused on the unfolding "story line". There's a wonderful section near the middle of "Combine XIX" where the clangor recedes into the aural distance as though placed into an adjacent, unreachable world. "Combine XX" plumbs deeper areas, remaining somber and mysterious, billowing rumbles of sound allowing the rare, piercing gleam of sharply pitched noise before seeming to evaporate, only to cast one final, defiant yawp.

Both recordings are as raw and exciting as anything being produced on the US, avant-improv scene and, assuming you still possess a turntable, are highly recommended.