The Silent Ballet staff count down their top picks of February.

When it came time to make a commitment, the staff split three ways, with one maverick writer choosing to date the previously unnoticed Zombi. The Big Three all received multiple votes, but Mountains fought off the competition to secure the top spot, providing hope to romantics everywhere: sometimes nice guys do finish first.

1) Mountains ~ Choral

Thrill Jockey
Votes: 7

Mountains. The very name of this ambient duo implies a certain monolithic immensity, and having two out of six tracks on the album soar past the twelve-minute mark only adds to the implication. But for all Choral’s ability to expand beyond what we’re capable of perceiving at any one time, there’s an immaculate human element and attention to detail on display here. It shows up in the title track as subtle percussion elements which drive the song forward; and in “Add Infinity,” the acoustic guitar opposes an unyielding and growing wall of static, fighting courageously, struggling to preserve the human element against the impending nirvanic whitewash. Perhaps we could note that it fails in the end. But until the very last moment before defeat, the human element refuses to quit. This is an album about beauty, about repetition, and about the little struggles we all go through every day. (Tom Butcher)

2) Zu ~ Carboniferous

Ipecac
Votes: 5

Near-legendary practitioners of fringe experimental music Zu have blazed a path of pure throbbing anarchy through the annals of the jazz and noise rock underworld, pulsating like a cancer-beset sewer rat trailing the depths of Rome’s most perverse and sickening corners. Formed back when most of today’s noise staples were still digging on Green Day, Zu is fourteen albums into their career, and Carboniferous might be their strongest effort to date. Raw with energy, Carboniferous is another genre-defying release to add to Ipecac’s already impressive catalogue. Throughout the album, sludgy instrumentals and skull-fucking noise clobber unsuspecting listeners. Imagine a LeVey orgy soundtracked by a jazz combo comprised of The Locust, Big Business, and Bohren’s sax man: unholy sickness with incredible timbre. This is a top notch effort from one of the scene’s stalwarts. (Jack Britton)

3) Kashiwa Daisuke ~ 5 Dec.

Noble
Votes: 2

5 Dec. is a violent push forward, a conscious plunge into the fragmented schizophrenia of IDM-pulsating urban life. The album is packed with excess, from raucous guitar solos to the mystical ambience of asphalt, speeding cars, and processed voices. Standout track “Requiem” crowns the savage futurist king, proclaiming an end to quietude, which is destroyed in a machine-gun bacchanal of darkness and robotic pulses. The digital heartbeat that ensues brings an illusionary computerized peace, represented by the piano-based tranquility of the “Broken Device;” but soon, the electronic violence encompasses the entire world, devouring classical forms in a glitch-mad flow of beautiful brutality. The result is stunning, violently delirious, a real-life tragedy so powerful you’ll be pressing the ‘replay’ button time and again until you become fearful of silence. (David Murrieta)

4) Zombi ~ Spirit Animal

Relapse
Votes: 1

On their previous albums, Zombi walked a line between their obvious inspirations: Goblin, Tangerine Dream, and the scores of John Carpenter. While the results were never less than entertaining (especially live), Spirit Animal ups the ante considerably. Building on the minimalist combination of a rock rhythm section and a wall of synthesizers, Zombi’s third album packs layers of guitars, flutes, and an ever-widening palette of computerized sounds into tightly-constructed space-rock epics that never meander or lose their sense of narrative drive. It all sounds like the soundtrack to a 1982 PBS special investigation into the nature of “awesome,” and if you don’t understand what that means, we feel sorry for you. (Lucas Kane)