Demdike Stare and Andy Votel.

Scott Walker’s interpretations of the nine Jacques Brel songs from his Scott, Scott 2 and Scott 3 albums, followed by Brel’s original French-language recordings.

Rapturous, turbulent, frank settings of the poet Gunvor Hofmo, and themes of human longing, loss and wonderment before evil and beauty. With pals from Supersilent, Motorpsycho, Madrugada, Deathprod.

‘Investigations of the secret dialogue between the trickling of pond waters and the faint percussive reverberation of stalactites and stalactites. Rocky sediment played as tubular organs, glockenspiels, xylophones, stone marimbas. Crystalline timbral variations and subtle microtonal passages recall the chimes of Tibetan gongs and bells, the scales of Java and Bali. Amidst muffled pauses and silences, trills and rings, echoes and tremolos, hisses and pops of vibration, Maioli — often responding directly to polyrhythms created by dripping and falling water — builds his most imaginative sound-world.’

Says Maioli: ‘Beginning in 1986, my daughter Luce and I started experimenting with sounds in the spectacular caves of Toirano. We lived in this Ligurian town for three years at the beginning of the 1990s. A total immersion in prehistory. There are traces in the Upper Paleolithic of repeated percussion on stalactites and stalagmites. Not all stalactites and stalagmites make sounds when struck, but some reveal truly extraordinary and incredible sounds, from powerful low gongs to subtle, crystalline sounds. We also recorded (exceptionally) these fantastic sounds in the caves of Borgio Verezzi by hitting the stones directly with our hands or with special clappers so as not to damage them, with the supervision of the speleological guides.’

Walter Maioli from Aktuala and Futuro Antico, and Agostino Nirodh Fortini, lifelong specialist in the application of sound and image to therapy and meditation, starting out with the breath of a stem, slowed down and filtered, in this musical expression of the psychoacoustic qualities of plants — ‘the organic symbiosis, real and mysterious at the same time, between the pharmacological properties of the plant and the sounds it emits… a vibration permeating the whole Universe.’

Trunk’s new soundtrack label kicks off with Adrian Corker’s reflective music for Tim Plester’s doc: an evocative mixture of subtle ambience with inventive modern composition, and spoken word and field recordings.

A trippy, littoral compilation of blissed-out folk-funk, Balearic, AOR, and softly fizzing electronica, from long-forgotten early 70s cassettes, right up to date.

Rare 45s by these standard-bearers of the funky, counter-cultural heavy rock-scene in mid-seventies Rhodesia. Watch Out was its anthem.

Electrifying extracts from a Sunday service in the last snake-handling church in the Appalachians: the trance-like rhythms of a demented kind of rockabilly punk, with duelling guitars, concussive trap drums, and possessed, howling vocals.

“I’d sworn to stay far away from the snakes at the service,” recalls the recording engineer, “but instead they were waved in my face as they coiled in the preachers’ hands, and I crouched down at the foot of the altar tending to the equipment. The pastor soon was bitten and blood splattered, pooling on the floor. The female parishioners hurriedly came to wipe up the mess, and it instantly became clear just what the rolls of paper towels stacked on the pulpit had been for. You can actually hear this moment transpire towards the end of the track ‘Don’t Worry It’s Just a Snakebite (What Has Happened to This Generation?)’. The congregation leapt to its feet and a mini mosh-pit formed. The tag-team preachers huffed handkerchiefs soaked in strychnine, as they circled like aggro frontmen and an elderly worshipper held the flame of a candle to her throat, closing her eyes and swaying. The church PA blew out from the screams as a bonnet-wearing senior whacked away at a trap kit that dwarfed her. It was the most metal thing I’d ever seen, rendering Slayer mere kids play.”

Deep-fried rural psychedelia, primitive drum-machine grooves and woozy country-funk — including unlikely covers of The Blackbyrds, Michael Hurley and Jimmy Cliff — by Matt Valentine (MV) and Pat Gubler (PG Six), locked down in Vermont with pals S. Freyer Esq, Jim Bliss, Coot Moon and Carson ‘Smokehound’ Arnold.