Rene Hell

In recent years, there has been no shortage of musicians attempting to reshape the electronic music landscape with heady doses of noise, drone and retro-minded synth exploration. It's become a saturated scene, for sure, but if there ever was an artist deserving to rise above the cosmic clutter, it's Jeff Witscher. As Rene Hell, he's taken the ethos of decades-old kosmische experimentation and blasted it far into the future, as proved by the project's sophomore full-length, The Terminal Symphony. Instead of your basement variety drone-a-thons, the album favours shorter, compact compositions, overflowing with modern takes on everything from '80s industrialism to BBC Radiophonic blip-bleeps and beautifully swelling, Vangelis-like bliss-outs, with Witscher all the while attempting to reinterpret a love for classical minimalism. It's a lot to wrap your head around, but it never becomes overwhelming, with tracks having clear beginnings, middles and ends. As a whole, the same can be said of The Terminal Symphony, which filters just the right amount of melodic payoff into left field, often challenging structures. While The Terminal Symphony is a hard one to absorb, it's also one of the most dense, forward-thinking and unique releases of 2011 thus far.