A few issues ago I reviewed some records on Priapus, all good noisepop, with the occasional bit of spaceyness. Hopewell's Stranger 7" in particular was excellent. Since then Priapus have released a few more things.

Hopewell have a split one-sided 12" with Planetarium, which includes a track from each band. Hopewell's track is a remix of Anthema from their Purple Balloon CD, which has added gospel singing on it. Good gospel-tinged noisepop, that degenerates into experimental noise at the end. Not sure about the noise bit but the song itself is worth a listen. Planetarium's track is a cover of The Church's Lullaby; I don't know the original but I'm sure it didn't sound like this - this is an atmospheric drone-based piece.

Both Hopewell and Planetarium also have recentish albums out on Priapus. Hopewell's is The Curved Glass, and it's great - spacey, atmospheric noisepop with a modern psychedelic feel. Mercury Rev fans take note - Hopewell includes Jason and Justin Russo from said band. Planetarium's is Age of Anxiety. I'm not so keen on this - it's all a bit tuneless for me. It's drone-noise, atmospheric but without a great deal of melody, and Hell For You is improvisational piano-plinking. A rather tedious listen I'm afraid.

Much more tuneful is the Teriyakis' album Haunted Hungarian Sauna. It's often pretty noisy, but song-based. There's 16 tracks here, noisepop and lo-fi indiepop that varies from the slightly off-centre to the wacky. Titles like Darth Waiter, Peter Lorre's Big Red Munster and Leon's Yawn suggest that these songs aren't going to be straigtforward commercial pop, and they aren't!

Staying in song-based territory is the Whip album Song Song. This is lo-fi acoustic music with folkish elements, that's sometimes reminiscent of Ring, but without the psychedelic bits. There are also some experimental and slightly spacey parts in the first and final tracks.

The idea behind Pieces of a Utopian Puzzle is a good one, it's a triple 12" including six bands. Accelera Deck do underground electronica that's both melodic and strange, and only rarely ventures into irritating experimental noise territory. Hopewell appear here with some spacey tracks, the first is mostly instrumental but with some 'ah ah ah's in it, the second is an instrumental, and the third has some hushed, atmospheric vocals. Then there's a long silence, then you get some squeaking noises and something that sounds like a building being demolished.

Meisha have one long track, an instrumental that includes a sound effect that sometimes sounds like someone bouncing a ball and other times sounds like fireworks! Also has twinkly, chimey sounds and an overall spacey/droney atmosphere. It's not a very melodic track but is atmospheric enough to be an interesting listen, to start with at least. As it's such a long track (nearly 17 mins) there's a fair bit of repetition and those that usually like melodic music may find it drags on a bit. I'd prefer this track if they'd have made it about 5 minutes long. Planetarium also have a nearly 17 minute track. This contains droning sound effects, improvised flute playing and very little else. I don't really 'get' this band, unfortunately.

Spaceheads' music includes elements of jazz, funk, electronica and experimentation. Sometimes they leave out the tunes, but when there's melodies, they're good. The final band on here is Your Team Ring, who have nine shorter tracks which range from experimental instrumentals to shoegazer stuff to lo-fi pop.

So, to sum up, Priapus do sometimes release music that's not tuneful enough for my taste, but look out for their more melodic releases, particularly those by Hopewell. Info from priapus@priapus.com

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