From your seat in the theater, you watch as the orchestra tunes up, playing a few notes to establish the sound of the room and set the tone for the evening. And then… that’s it.

These peaks represent that iconic moment of reveal in a body horror film, the instant when we realize how much worse things are than we possibly could have imagined, when our sense of security shatters into a million pieces as we imagine ourselves decimated in such a way.

Abstract hip hop artist PremRock forces us to ask hard questions on his new record Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…?, an album pointed not towards those whose will has been forcibly compromised, but instead towards those who seemingly possess no will at all.

Straining to break free from that suffocating existence, New Orleans sludgy experimentalists Guts Club forge towards collective liberation on their new album Please Come Back To The Farm.

Übers Jahr by Schatterau meditates on the rigid nature of time through a series of tracks which find their backbones in hypnotic tape loops, each of which captures a moment in the seasonal transition.

While experimental rock continues down its trend of increasingly dark, dissonant sounds inspired by no wave, New York noise rock outfit YHWH Nailgun counter with their own brand of chaos, a sound no less experimental yet decidedly unafraid of the light.

Seeking Darkness by Huremic, a separate alias designated for more experimental releases that don’t gel perfectly with the Parannoul brand, takes the most abstract, post-rock-influenced moments of a record like To See the Next Part of the Dream and expands them to the extreme.

However, today’s culture differs in several key ways from that of the last major recession, and the strange, hypnotic hip hop of Bridge of Sand. by Bridge of Sand. exaggerates these changes to the point of absurdity.

The playful, energetic, yet deeply contemplative Americana sound of Disaster Artist shines through on their new record Today, telling a coming-of-age story with a unique perspective.

The new dark ambient record Turnar by Hekla provides the resulting soundtrack, our mind’s attempt at filling the silence with an adequate representation of the vastness of the structure.

Combining free jazz experimentation with indie rock accessibility, Monde UFO’s unique psychedelic sound on Flamingo Tower introduces the absurd from within a trojan horse of aesthetic familiarity.

Continuing the development of their psychedelic, noisy, yet undeniably traditional country sound, Oldstar combines charming, approachable vocals with wildly dynamic instrumentals whose highs feature a massive distorted guitar sound.

Fusing traditional Iranian folk instrumentation with Finnish compositional techniques and aesthetics, experimental duo Gnäw capture the essence of the desert with the temperature of the boreal on Gnäw II.

These guitars enable that coveted soaring feeling, with warm chords and frantic, noisy delivery that flesh out the sound into something majestic, even otherworldly.

Musical influences from post rock and skramz pull the record further into the darkness, with a highly percussive sound whose sparse and unconventional use of melody only intensifies the suffocating atmosphere of stagnant dread.

Chugging acoustic guitar and mumbling vocals get dipped (and sometimes soaked) in reverb to create the dusky, foggy atmosphere, a gothic tone which amplifies the record’s macabre lyrical storytelling.

These motifs, simple melodic lullabies played on pianos or other minimal synths, appear on each track, planting the seed of a mesmerizing memory.

Aesthetically, this record juggles an extreme diversity of styles, smoothing over its angular math rock riffs with traditional folk fiddle, then breaking into staccato post punk segments that devolve into aggressive, difficult post rock anti-harmonies.

We may see the body as existing entirely outside, or potentially in opposition to, spirituality, but for Maud the Moth on The Distaff, the body serves as the source, purpose, and pilot of spirituality.

Highlighting the queer struggle and those who paved the way for future liberation, the record honors these figures without sanitizing them, giving them a full-color afterlife to mirror their time on earth.